Chapter 566

By this point, Fang Yuan is overwhelmed with awe. He recognizes the mysterious Gu Immortal who created the Di Qiu inheritance as a grandmaster of refinement, whose innovative and daring method draws on Eighty-Eight True Yang Building’s own heavenly power. Fang Yuan is only the executor; his true role is an assistant’s. Refining Gu is hard; refining an Immortal Gu is harder than ascending to heaven. ^{ch. 566}

The cave forms into a black water spiral, spinning with a weird noise. Soon the tower’s tip appears, followed by its body and base, and a brand new small tower emerges from the spiral, seemingly holding countless Gu worms inside. Fang Yuan praises the result: no loophole is left uncovered. Anyone drawn here by the earlier commotion will find nothing to see. But though the tower has formed, the Immortal Gu has not yet appeared. ^{ch. 566}

Fang Yuan’s gaze focuses on a strong flickering light inside the small tower, and he feels a weak connection to it in his heart. He instantly understands this is the early stage Immortal Gu. He is about to use the connection to lure it out when the strong light suddenly escapes like an intangible shadow, fleeing toward the southeast. Fang Yuan is shocked: all four steps are already complete, in order light in the soil, shining up to a hundred thousand feet high, swimming in the sky for a hundred li, and praising plum fragrant snow. He does not know what caused this sudden change. ^{ch. 566}

Fang Yuan muses that Hei Lou Lan has made a huge move by opening Eighty-Eight True Yang Building fully now that it has reformed, and that logically he should go challenge it, as a normal person would. The early stage Immortal Gu has already flown far away. He looks toward the sacred palace hesitantly, though even while outside he has made preparations: Chang tribe and Ge tribe are both sending him real time information. The longer he stays away from the sacred palace, the more suspicion he will attract, and if the others there are stuck and need Wolf King’s power, someone might come looking for him. But it takes time for information to travel. ^{ch. 566}

Fang Yuan has no idea that his enemy Chang Biao has indirectly helped him. At this moment, Tang Miao Ming takes a great risk and passes the round, setting off a huge wave of cheering inside the building. The Immortal Gu still matters most to him. Fang Yuan hesitates only a moment, then spreads his wings to give chase. ^{ch. 566}

The strong light travels along the ground at an absurd speed like a cocoon, hidden from sight by the trees and bushes, so no one notices it. Fang Yuan chases it through the air, hiding his own traces, abandoning his wolves and traveling stealthily. As time passes, the light grows dimmer but its speed rises. Though he is rank five peak stage, his speed is not at the mortal realm’s peak, so the chase is very tough, but he does not lose sight of it. ^{ch. 566}

This is because the early stage Immortal Gu was not created solely by Fang Yuan, unlike when he refined divine travel Gu. This time he was only an assistant, since Eighty-Eight True Yang Building’s own heavenly power did most of the work through its backflow. As a mortal, gaining the connection was already a huge achievement. ^{ch. 566}

The strong light enters a valley and flies into a waterfall, vanishing from sight. But using the connection, Fang Yuan can sense that the early stage Immortal Gu is still there. He penetrates the waterfall but collides with the smooth wet mountain rock, and rocks crumble as water splashes everywhere. Fang Yuan is confused. The connection tells him the light is inside the water, but even after diverting the flow and destroying the waterfall he cannot find a trace of the Immortal Gu. ^{ch. 566}

He wonders whether his effort was in vain, but suspects a huge trick is at work instead. He flies up to observe the terrain: the small waterfall has become an ordinary pool inside a nameless, unremarkable valley. Fang Yuan fixes his sights on this pool. The connection tells him the early stage Immortal Gu is inside, but going through the waterfall or controlling the water flow still finds nothing. ^{ch. 566}

This is where a Gu Master’s investigative Gu worms are put to the test. Fang Yuan, unresigned, tries many investigative methods, and though he does not excel at investigation, his control of Hu Immortal blessed land gives him access to treasure yellow heaven, so he does not lack rank five mortal Gu. Only on his fifty-seventh method does he find anything. It costs him a considerable expense in immortal essence stones, but in the pool he sees the silhouette of a pavilion, like the moon’s reflection in water. He enters the water but does not enter the pavilion, and after several failed tries, Fang Yuan gasps as a flash of inspiration finally lets him recognize it: the long lost Immortal Gu house, Water Pavilion. ^{ch. 566}

Immortal Gu are unique, and so are Immortal Gu houses. The novel names it a rank seven Gu house of great reputation, inferior only to Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, and identifies it as the signature method of the Gu Immortal Shui Ni. Shui Ni, a rank eight Gu Immortal, created the water path and founded Spirit Affinity House, one of the top ten sects in central continent. Unlike Eighty-Eight True Yang Building’s grandness, Water Pavilion can hide inside the water and become like an illusion, moving with currents, hiding in mist and fog while flying through the sky, or even hiding inside a corner of an iceberg, undetectable. Without the entry token, it can even repel rank eight Gu Immortals. But right now the pavilion is ownerless and its doors stand open, and now that Fang Yuan has learned the truth, he has a way inside. ^{ch. 566}

To enter Water Pavilion, Fang Yuan must become water. There is a killer move called water spirit transformation which, together with a few Gu, can turn a cultivator into a water spirit, surging his battle strength and granting terrain advantage. Fang Yuan searches his memory and finds this method, but in the end Hu Immortal land spirit buys him a rank five current charge Gu in treasure yellow heaven instead. This Gu lets a Gu Master turn into a water current temporarily and charge a distance, though it is already outdated, since a Gu Master who transforms risks heavy injury or death if hit by a fire path Gu worm. Fang Yuan is not using this Gu to battle. It only gets him into Water Pavilion, an easier route than the killer move that would turn him into a water spirit. He rushes toward Water Pavilion as a current, with a swoosh. ^{ch. 566}

The pavilion is neither big nor small, with three layers, a rustic flair, and ancient materials, furniture and drawings. Once inside, Fang Yuan keeps the current charge Gu active and climbs to the third floor, and behind a door he pushes open sits the early stage Immortal Gu. It is a thumb sized cocoon inside a large red bowl. The bowl is larger than a water tank, its edges uneven like a shark’s teeth, and inside it some blue liquid oozes with coldness. Fang Yuan realizes at once what has happened. The four steps allowed him to refine the early stage of the Immortal Gu, but it is still not complete and needs to further nurture and grow. Placing Water Pavilion here was the mysterious Gu Immortal’s way of giving the early stage Immortal Gu somewhere good to grow. ^{ch. 566}

Words are written on the large red bowl, and even with his own knowledge Fang Yuan can decipher only a portion of them. He identifies them as inkman characters. Legend holds that the world’s first written characters came from splashes of literature water striking Book Mountain within Qian Kun Crystal Wall. These characters were lost long ago, and once inkmen were driven out of Book Mountain, even they retained barely any knowledge of them. Fang Yuan reasons that the Gu Immortals in treasure yellow heaven must hold research materials on the inkman language. Book Mountain draws the interest of many Gu Immortals, who search for the grey-white stone slab that might let them recreate Qian Kun Crystal Wall. ^{ch. 566}

A thought strikes Fang Yuan, and he at once reaches out to little Hu Immortal. Hu Immortal blessed land proves its worth again, letting a mortal like Fang Yuan mobilize Gu Immortals through this precious resource. The price is hefty, but after exchanging for information on the inkman language, Fang Yuan deciphers the words on the bowl on the spot. Fang Yuan is shocked and excited by what the words reveal. This inheritance, he realizes, was created by Mo Yao. ^{ch. 566}

Mo Yao is a brilliant figure, the thirty-sixth generation fairy of Spirit Affinity House, with the special identity of an inkman. She eventually breaks her race’s limits and becomes a rank seven Gu Immortal. She makes tremendous contributions to the righteous path, using her love to reform a huge demonic figure ten thousand years earlier, Sword Demon Bo Qing. ^{ch. 566}

Bo Qing rose from a lowly start as a lone cultivator, but his talent was superb, and he built sword path Gu worms on his own before roaming the five regions unmatched and unopposed. Among rank eight peak stage experts in history he ranked among the most brilliant, his battle strength shaking the heavens, his sword path Gu worms both innovative and powerful. The novel names him the pseudo-Immortal Venerable who split the five regions with his sword, and states that it was fortunate for the world that love changed him. It meant that he had great battle strength, inferior only to the Immortal and Demon Venerables of each era, and that love fortunately changed him from demonic to righteous for the good of all life in the world. Back then, Bo Qing was even a hot favorite to advance to rank nine. But he failed and turned to ashes, and as his wife, Mo Yao resisted with her life and died alongside him. ^{ch. 566}

Fang Yuan reflects that Mo Yao was a true refinement grandmaster in history. He reasons that this explains why, when Giant Sun Immortal Venerable once recruited concubines, the ten central continent sects offered beautiful female Gu Masters and Spirit Affinity House sent numerous female Gu Immortals to the palace as an offering. A few of the concubines who won Giant Sun Immortal Venerable’s favor came from Spirit Affinity House. Being an insider left her grasp of the sacred palace and of Eighty-Eight True Yang Building far beyond what an ordinary person could know. Mo Yao, as Spirit Affinity House’s thirty-sixth generation fairy, was fully nurtured by the sect, which made it easy for her to investigate the building’s hidden secrets. This explains the origin of Water Pavilion here. ^{ch. 566}

In inkman words, this Immortal Gu’s information is finally written down on the bowl. It names the Gu calamity beckoning Gu. ^{ch. 566}