Chapter 575

Fang Yuan enters the central control room of Eighty-Eight True Yang Building again. The round secret room’s walls flicker with starlight around a white jade round table at its center. On the table sits an exquisite model of the whole Imperial Court blessed land, its mountains, rivers, sacred palace and even its small towers rendered like a military sand table. In his mind, Mo Yao’s will sighs that she has returned once again. Fang Yuan ignores her and looks toward the round table. ^{ch. 575}

He first used a guest token to enter Eighty-Eight True Yang Building. He then passed a high grade evaluation that admitted him to the treasure room, where he refined the guest halt stele and found the glass owner token inside it. Using that token, he entered the central control room. But the Di Qiu inheritance made him halt his plans there for a time, and he eventually refined the calamity beckoning Gu instead. That Gu is an Immortal Gu whose effect harms its user to benefit others, so the inheritance brought him both benefit and harm. ^{ch. 575}

Mo Yao’s will has sneaked into his mind, and he cannot get rid of it, which puts him under great internal pressure. But her guidance has brought real gains: insight into the refinement path, the six arm heavenly zombie king and ink transformation killer moves, and an improved earth chief zombie Gu recipe. Mo Yao will also help his plans for Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, since she is a refinement path grandmaster who researched the building in depth. She once infiltrated the Imperial Court blessed land. There, she created the loophole that became the Di Qiu inheritance. Fang Yuan holds his previous life’s memories, video of the central continent Gu Immortals’ attack on Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, information from the Lang Ya land spirit, and now Mo Yao’s will as an ally, so he feels fully confident on this trip. ^{ch. 575}

But his gaze suddenly pauses, and he lets out a surprised gasp. He clearly remembers that the sand table’s model of the Di Qiu location had been covered by a whirlpool of sticky black liquid slowly entering a hole there. Now the black liquid is gone and the sand table shows no trace of a hole, the Di Qiu location fully restored. The sight hits his confidence like a heavy blow. As Fang Yuan starts to guess why, Mo Yao’s will already senses his intent and explains that gains come with losses, and since he already took the Di Qiu inheritance, Eighty-Eight True Yang Building was bound to have fixed that flaw. ^{ch. 575}

The cave in Di Qiu inheritance no longer exists, she says, and a small tower should have been reinstated there. Fang Yuan asks how he can refine the glass owner token into a one-edge owner token without the loophole. Mo Yao answers that if there is no loophole, he should simply create a new one. She reminds him that she taught him the ink transformation killer move for exactly this reason: the black liquid he saw on the sand table before was caused by ink transformation. Fang Yuan is surprised at how easily she describes it, since even as a refinement path master he lacks that ability himself. He raises his brows. ^{ch. 575}

Mo Yao warns that the loophole cannot be carelessly created, since doing so risks awakening the dormant will of Giant Sun Immortal Venerable, which would end in tragedy for them both. Fortunately, she says, Eighty-Eight True Yang Building has aged through many changes and is no longer as flawless as before, its long history leaving all kinds of blemishes in it. She recalls choosing the Di Qiu location back then specifically because it held the largest blemish she could find. Fang Yuan nods, inwardly pleased. Mo Yao’s will is limited, like water without a source, and searching for blemishes and loopholes herself would take heavy thought that leaves her greatly exhausted. ^{ch. 575}

Instead, she has Fang Yuan explore the sand table with his own mind, following her directions, while she tells him the secrets of how Eighty-Eight True Yang Building works and helps him find its blemishes. Fang Yuan agrees. He reasons that he can use the chance to learn from her and deepen his understanding of Eighty-Eight True Yang Building. As he enters the sand table with his mind, its marvels feel so extraordinary that he senses himself as a small boat on a limitless ocean, every corner of it a lesson to ponder. He feels like a minute existence and gasps in amazement. ^{ch. 575}

Following Mo Yao’s directions, Fang Yuan finds a total of fifty-four blemishes. Thirteen of them are large enough to form flaws comparable to the former Di Qiu location. Mo Yao sighs that so many years have passed that even Eighty-Eight True Yang Building cannot escape the damage of time. Back then, she recalls, she could only find thirty-eight blemishes, with just six forming into flaws. She then tells Fang Yuan to use the ink transformation killer move to refine these several flaws. ^{ch. 575}

Fang Yuan follows her instructions, and with rapid shifts of his mind, over eight hundred Gu worms fly out of his aperture. They span rank one to rank five across metal, wood, water, earth, rule, soul, blood and other paths, with dark path Gu the most important among them. Although all are mortal Gu, about ten of them are extremely rare, some extinct since the Medieval Antiquity Era and others since the Remote Antiquity Era, gone from all five regions except for a few kept in Gu Immortals’ own collections. Fang Yuan spends at least one and a half immortal essence stones on them. ^{ch. 575}

Immortal essence stones are extremely valuable: they directly replenish a Gu Immortal’s immortal essence and cultivation, and they also serve as a currency among Gu Immortals. Even at his previous life’s peak, Fang Yuan had only ever collected just over sixty of them. In this life, profiting from risk since he obtained Hu Immortal blessed land, his highest savings reached twelve immortal essence stones. Now he has only two left. Too many things require immortal essence stones, among them purchasing wolf groups, gathering intelligence on the wisdom path, and buying Gu worms. ^{ch. 575}

Close to a thousand Gu worms flutter in the air like a light drizzle as Fang Yuan gathers his concentration to command them. When the moment is ripe, he shouts, “Ink transformation!” The Gu worms turn into a dark cloud, and rain falls from it, striking the sand table and turning into drops of inky liquid that slowly cover the whole table. Fang Yuan directs his concentration toward one specific flaw, urging the inky liquid to flow into it. The primeval essence of his rank five peak stage aperture rapidly drains, and the inky liquid, more than half of it exhausted, breaks through a layer of indistinct obstruction and forms a whirlpool pouring slowly into the hole. ^{ch. 575}

At Mo Yao’s instruction, Fang Yuan throws his glass owner token into the whirlpool. The token sinks into the inky whirlpool without a trace, and the liquid is consumed even faster afterward. After about an hour the dark cloud dissipates, and after four hours the inky liquid disappears completely, leaving a wholly new owner token to fly slowly out of the hole. Fang Yuan grabs the changed token and finds a sharp protrusion like a horn on its edge. He calls it a one-edge owner token. ^{ch. 575}

Mo Yao explains that in Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, once a descendant of Giant Sun Immortal Venerable clears a floor, the owner token advances to a one-edge owner token and grants control of that floor. She adds that it also lets the descendant enter the treasure room and take a treasure without exchange. A descendant who clears ten floors, she says, advances the token again, into a ten-edges owner token that allows a Giant Sun inheritance to be retrieved from the treasure room. Fang Yuan’s heart thumps in excitement at the words “Giant Sun inheritance.” Mo Yao continues that Giant Sun Immortal Venerable set the rules of the Imperial Court contest, built Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, and left eighty-eight inheritances hidden inside it. She tells him that historically, very few Imperial Court winners have ever passed ten floors. When Mo Yao was alive, she says, fifty-three of the eighty-eight inheritances still remained, and she does not know how many are left now. ^{ch. 575}

Mo Yao says she is envious of his luck. The thirteen flaws they found together, she notes, could advance the token by thirteen edges if he refines every one, enough on its own to claim a Giant Sun inheritance. In her own day, she adds, there were only six such flaws to work with. Fang Yuan’s excitement cools when he admits he has only two immortal essence stones left, enough to support just one more ink transformation. ^{ch. 575}

While Fang Yuan probes her, Mo Yao quietly probes him in turn. Immortal essence stones are one of the standards Gu Immortals use to judge each other, and though Fang Yuan is still a mortal, his Hu Immortal blessed land makes Mo Yao treat him as half an immortal already. Privately, she judges his claim is probably true, reasoning that a refinement path master like him would know refining more flaws raises his token’s grade and helps his plans for the building. She also reasons that her will, hidden inside his mind, means he cannot refine more flaws in secret. She decides instead to wait and see him seek help from the forces behind him, expecting that request to reveal his hidden background. ^{ch. 575}

With a pleasant, benign expression, Mo Yao tells Fang Yuan not to rush. Owner tokens, she says, can mutually annex each other. She suggests that if he annexes the current alliance leader Hei Lou Lan’s owner token, he might gather ten edges that way. The narration credits her with living up to the name Mo Yao, knowing so many behind-the-scenes details. ^{ch. 575}

Fang Yuan’s gaze turns sharp, and he deliberately raises his voice to ask whether she wants him to go against Hei Lou Lan and push him toward death. He notes that the Hei tribe behind Hei Lou Lan is a super-level force with many Gu Immortals. Mo Yao calls him audacious for daring to infiltrate the Imperial Court in disguise while fearing Hei Lou Lan, and clarifies that she never said to kill him, only to take the token from his hands. Fang Yuan answers that Hei Lou Lan cannot be killed, since doing so would be like poking a hornet’s nest that the Hei tribe is not yet something he can provoke. He calls the token dear to Hei Lou Lan as life itself. He asks Mo Yao what he should do. ^{ch. 575}

Privately, Mo Yao notices that Fang Yuan called Hei Lou Lan someone he “currently” cannot provoke, and reads real ambition into the word. She decides not to think too hard about his actual problem. Instead, she tells him that how he takes the token from Hei Lou Lan is his own problem to solve. ^{ch. 575}