Chapter 516

Inside the Large Lizard House Gu, Fang Yuan pours a gathered fire cloud into a wine vat of dark blue liquid. Fire and water meet in thick black smoke that fills the room. The vat then draws every trace of it back in within a few breaths. He feeds Gu worm after Gu worm into the settling black mud, which merges into a single mass and rises at his command. It comes up a green sprout, then a sapling, then a crown that closes into a tight fist. He pours in primeval essence and commands it open. Inside sits a finished Gu, dark brown and horned, on four pairs of long legs, its whole body glossy with metallic sheen. ^{ch. 516}

It is the All-out Effort Gu, succeeded on the fourth attempt after three failures. The rank three version carries only three pairs of legs and is suppressed down to rank two in Northern Plains, since it comes from Southern Border. This new rank four Gu is more than twice the size. Refined on Northern Plains soil, it is free of that suppression and gives off a genuine rank four aura. Fang Yuan judges his strength path battle strength largely restored, and resolves to chase the rank five recipe next, hopeful given his blessed land’s link to treasure yellow heaven and his standing connection to Lang Ya Blessed Land. ^{ch. 516}

Eight days have passed since the great battle with Dong Fang alliance army. Hei tribe’s army has spent them cleaning the battlefield, tallying merit and healing its wounded, work heavy enough that Hei Lou Lan’s table has piled with paperwork and Sun Shi Han has gone three days without sleep. Ge Guang has sought Fang Yuan out more than once, hoping he would speak up for Ge tribe. Fang Yuan refuses to see him and keeps to his own cultivation. This world heals faster than Earth does. A severed limb can regrow outright under a Gu worm’s healing, so long as the injury is not unusually troublesome, and Hei tribe’s wounded have already fallen by eighty percent in the eight days, most fit to fight again. ^{ch. 516}

At the crowded supply camp, fifteen tents of at least 3.25 acres each are staffed by over a thousand Gu Masters. An attendant leads Fang Yuan to a private Gu house and hands him a scroll. He is first on the battle merit list, with over a hundred thousand merit. Hei Lou Lan sits second, over eighty thousand, for pinning Dong Fang Yu Liang and killing Wei Xin, Jiang Wan Shan and E Xuan Ming. Merit falls fast below them: tens of thousands for Hao Ji Liu, Pan Ping and the Wang tribe leader, over nine thousand past the top ten, around seven to eight thousand past the top twenty. A hundred and six names sit on the scroll in total, most near three thousand. The full board stands on Swimword Gu across the fifteen tents, updating as Gu Masters spend or add to their totals. ^{ch. 516}

He is also given an East Window Gu, like the one the Lang Ya Land Spirit once gave him for information on Eighty-Eight True Yang Building. He pours it full of the supply camp’s goods: Gu worms of every path, beasts, plants, primeval stones, variant men and recipes, with Hei tribe as alliance leader required to supply no less than half of it all. He finds much worth buying here. Treasure yellow heaven trades in immortal essence stones between great sects, which does not suit his current means, and buying rank five Gu that way risks handing Old Man Yan Shi’s mysterious backers further evidence against him. ^{ch. 516}

The supply camp suits the current Fang Yuan better. Surveying his strength path Gu, only the newly advanced All-out Effort Gu has shed its Southern Border suppression. Strength Qi Gu, Tusita Flower, Primeval Elder Gu, Self-reliance Gu, Bitter Strength Gu, Expend Strength Gu and Charging Crash Gu all still need advancing in Northern Plains to do the same, at a cost he judges too high. Gu refinement carries a probability of failure, and his own close to master level skill does not exempt him from it. His rank four all-out effort Gu failed several times before succeeding, and his nauseous crying baby Gu failed more than ten times without ever succeeding. ^{ch. 516}