Chapter 579

In the evening, Ma Ying Jie brings Ma Hong Yun to Chang tribe’s banquet. When the banquet ends, Chang Biao asks Ma Ying Jie to stay for a private talk in the study, while Chang Li entertains Ma Hong Yun. Chang Biao steers the conversation to the killer move six arm heavenly zombie king, asking what Ma Ying Jie makes of it. Ma Ying Jie answers frankly that he is an enslavement path master with no strength path affiliation and has not tested the move. He plans to sell it, since he was disappointed to receive it as his reward for clearing the eighty-ninth round. ^{ch. 579}

Chang Biao is stupefied and glances at Pan Ping, since neither expected this answer, though it is actually reasonable. Ma Ying Jie holds a concrete and comprehensive enslavement path inheritance, the same one his master Ma Zun relied on to make a name and become ruler of a region. That inheritance already contains a killer move, and Ma Ying Jie also holds the powerful killer move dragon horse spirit from Snowy Mountain’s Gu Immortal. He has not yet mastered either move, so he has no reason to cultivate a killer move from another path. He has cultivated enslavement path since his youth, and pursuing it properly could make him ruler of a region and revive his tribe. Cultivating a side path would only divide his energy. ^{ch. 579}

Since ancient times, Gu Masters have prioritized one path, and very few cultivate two, since dividing energy and moving back and forth between them tends to achieve nothing on either end. Fang Yuan can dually cultivate paths only because of his previous life’s accumulated experience. Ma Ying Jie also has tribe affairs to manage and no extra energy to cultivate a strength path killer move. ^{ch. 579}

Chang Biao admits that he and Pan Ping have been testing the move and that its might is astonishing and overwhelming, then hesitates before asking Ma Ying Jie to keep it secret. He explains that spreading word of it would let someone else claim the reward for clearing the round. Chang Biao’s evasive manner lets Ma Ying Jie work out the situation at once. Chang Biao was once the Chang tribe’s leader and is now only a great elder, with the tribe leader being his adopted son Chang Ji You and the true decision maker being Wolf King Chang Shan Yin. Ma Ying Jie reasons that Chang Biao wants to keep the killer move secret from Chang Shan Yin, a normal practice among Gu Masters, but that Chang Biao would have to hand it over if Chang Shan Yin found out and demanded it. Watching Pan Ping and Chang Biao’s expressions and tone, Ma Ying Jie concludes six arm heavenly zombie king is an extraordinary killer move. He reflects that humans are selfish and that no one hands over so valuable a treasure for nothing. ^{ch. 579}

Chang Biao assures him he has already spoken with the others and that Ma Ying Jie’s strength will still be needed for the coming round. Ma Ying Jie answers solemnly that Chang Biao overstates his own limited ability, that he is fortunate to cooperate with such experts, and that he accepts the arrangement as Chang Biao describes it. Chang Biao and Pan Ping both smile at his answer. Pan Ping seizes the moment to draw them closer, telling Ma Ying Jie to drop the title and call him by name. Pan and Chang want to pull Ma Ying Jie into their faction, while Ma Ying Jie wants Chang tribe and Hei tribe’s help to grow his own tribe. The three go out of their way to curry favor with each other, addressing each other as brothers. They talk in the study until late at night, and near midnight the three separate after settling Ma Hong Yun and Chang Li’s engagement. ^{ch. 579}

After the door closes, Pan Ping praises the marriage tie as an excellent plan, since it will bind Ma Ying Jie to Chang Biao and force him to help when they move against the Wolf King. Chang Biao shakes his head slightly. He disagrees that it is time to fully recruit Ma Ying Jie, since Ma Ying Jie is not easily fooled, knows when to submit, and decides quickly in a moment of danger. His plan is to stay on good terms, let others know of their close relation, and put resources into supporting Ma Hong Yun to increase their control over Ma tribe. When they later declare war on Chang Shan Yin, if he treats Ma tribe as an enemy, Ma Ying Jie will have no choice but to side with them to protect his tribe. ^{ch. 579}

That night in Imperial Court blessed land, silver light shines over the ground, and Ma Ying Jie and Ma Hong Yun sit facing each other in a carriage. Ma Ying Jie tells him with a smile that Chang Li has taken an interest in him and that he has already agreed with Chang Biao to hold the wedding on the first day of next month. The news catches Ma Hong Yun by surprise, and he cannot react. ^{ch. 579}

Ma Ying Jie says he has seen Ma Hong Yun’s loyalty and rewards him with three red steel relic Gu taken from his own aperture. Astonished, Ma Hong Yun receives them in a daze. Ma Ying Jie explains that marrying Chang Li requires power and status, or it would weaken Ma tribe’s name, and that the three Gu can raise him to rank two peak stage and, given his aptitude, likely to rank three. He appoints Ma Hong Yun deputy elder to handle the tribe’s miscellaneous affairs. ^{ch. 579}

Putting on a solemn look, Ma Ying Jie asks why he is not already kneeling to give thanks. Ma Hong Yun’s mind is in turmoil, but his body kneels on the ground and thanks his lord for the promotion. Ma Ying Jie encourages him to work well. His own thoughts turn elsewhere, wondering whether he should try six arm heavenly zombie king himself, since Pan and Chang regard it so highly and it requires little strength path attainment. ^{ch. 579}

In the central control room of Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, Fang Yuan calls out ink transformation and presses down his hands, and Gu worms sprinkle down like rain, mixing together as they fall. They land on the sand table already turned to drops of ink, which spread across the table and then gather into a whirlpool. Mo Yao’s will praises him for mastering the refinement technique she calls shower, which speeds Gu refinement by at least thirty percent and raises its quality by twenty percent. She says there is nothing more she can teach him about this method. Its essence lies in speed, but it demands full concentration throughout, so it cannot be used too often, and overuse causes dizziness and failed refinement in a minor case, or soul injury, memory loss, and dementia in a serious one. ^{ch. 579}

Gu refinement carries dangers no smaller than an intense battle, and Fang Yuan, already aware of this, listens to Mo Yao’s guidance while methodically feeding the owner token into the ink whirlpool. The owner token now carries five edges, meaning five uses of ink transformation. This puzzles Fang Yuan, since he was scarce on immortal essence stones and should have had material for only one more use, not three extra beyond that. ^{ch. 579}

Once Fang Yuan obtained a one-edge owner token, it raised his authority enough to let him learn the reward for every round of a single floor of the building, and he chose the seventh floor at once. A one-edge owner token lets its holder control one floor. The seventh floor had already been pushed to its eighty-ninth round by the combined efforts of many Gu Masters. Fang Yuan picked this floor over the others because its eighty-ninth round rewarded five immortal essence stones. ^{ch. 579}

Fang Yuan secretly used the owner token to take control of the floor. When Chang Biao, Pan Ping, Ma Ying Jie and others passed the round, he quietly kept the five immortal essence stones for himself and sent everyone a downgraded six arm heavenly zombie king as the substitute reward. The genuine killer move uses borrow strength Gu as its core and the six great flying zombie Gu as its backbone, with other Gu worms in support. Through Fang Yuan and Mo Yao’s modification, the downgraded version instead uses overlord Gu as its core, which greatly reduces its strength. The other flying zombie Gu are unchanged, but the old earth chief zombie Gu replaces Mo Yao’s own modified Gu. The support Gu worms are also altered, with additions such as intention Gu meant to secretly gather information on how Chang Biao, Pan Ping and the others use the move. This gives no one reason to suspect the reward was tampered with, and it makes them test the killer move in Fang Yuan’s place, exposing its weak points for him. ^{ch. 579}

Half a month after the reward is given out, Fang Yuan judges it time to close the trap and asks Mo Yao’s opinion. Mo Yao answers that the interval has been neither too long nor too short, and suggests taking away two sets first to see the results. Using the five-edge owner token, Fang Yuan focuses his mind and locates two familiar figures in the ninetieth round of the seventh floor. They are Chang Biao and Pan Ping, currently running at speed. ^{ch. 579}

As they run, Pan Ping calls out to Chang Biao that it has been seven days since they entered. He notes that even though time flows faster here than in Imperial Court blessed land, they should have covered an immeasurable distance at their speed, yet have seen nothing but walls. Chang Biao answers that in this place they can neither fly to the sky nor dig underground, only move along the passageways, which spread in every direction. They have travelled far without meeting a single monster, which tells him this round tests a Gu Master’s scouting and movement ability, and that it must be an extremely large maze. Their guess proves correct: round ninety is precisely a maze testing scouting and movement. But Fang Yuan now controls this floor, and having found the two of them, everything is about to change. ^{ch. 579}