Advance to six-edge, difficulty finding a Gu tester
Fang Yuan is a vigilant person who trusts no one but himself, so he studies the six arm heavenly zombie king killer move the moment he obtains it. Mo Yao built the move on his original foundation, and days of her guidance have deepened his refinement path attainment and widened his perspective. He now grasps the concept clearly, and looking at the finished move without testing it he judges it close to perfection. Mo Yao reduced the supplementary Gu from the original base, kept the core and the six zombie Gu unchanged, and added several new supplementary Gu. Fang Yuan praises the ingenuity of this at length. ch. 581
In his mind, Mo Yao’s will credits the intention Gu carried by Pan and Chang for letting her refine the move to this extreme, since their experience and insight made the extra precision possible. She states that as long as activation never exceeds thirty minutes, no matter how many times he triggers the move it will not accumulate zombie energy in his body or grow zombie speckles. Fang Yuan nods, certain her words are true. ch. 581
The move is refined to its limit, and by this line of thinking it has already reached its strongest possible form unless he adds an Immortal Gu or changes the core Gu. Adding an Immortal Gu would break the original coordination and force him to reassemble the whole move, changing it completely. Changing the core Gu would follow an entirely different line of thought, producing a move different enough that it would deserve a new name rather than six arm heavenly zombie king. Core Gu, zombie Gu and supplementary Gu are all used to their fullest potential. There is no way to refine the move further. ch. 581
Using the move still carries a backlash, since exceeding thirty minutes lets the zombie energy badly damage the Gu Master’s body, and staying transformed too long can turn the Gu Master into a zombie. The chapter attributes this danger to misuse rather than to the move itself, since repeated activation within a period never accumulates zombie speckles and can sustain the transformation for a long duration. Even so, Fang Yuan is not satisfied with this result. ch. 581
Mo Yao laughs eerily, inviting him to share any other refining ideas. Fang Yuan answers that six arm heavenly zombie king is at its limit with nothing left to improve, but that he remains dissatisfied with the move’s backlash specifically. Mo Yao lectures him that the improved move has doubled in power and now lasts thirty minutes, which she calls enough for anything in the mortal realm. She adds that every killer move is a combination of Gu worms and therefore carries an unavoidable backlash that differs only in severity, and she ranks this strength path move among the top five killer moves in her memory. She tells him not to be too greedy, and he only snorts. ch. 581
His true potential enemies are Gu Immortals, beings who surpass mortals. Even abandoning his enslavement path, six arm heavenly zombie king would let him dominate the mortal realm, but it falls far short of what he would need against a Gu Immortal. Fighting an immortal as a mortal is too arrogant a goal for anyone to believe, so Fang Yuan keeps this reasoning from Mo Yao. ch. 581
Instead he tells her that preparedness ensures success and unpreparedness spells failure, and asks what would happen if a peculiar situation someday forced him to overuse the move and become a zombie. He adds that although the killer move itself cannot be improved further, his present goal is to resolve this one weakness. Mo Yao understands his intention and falls silent. She had not expected such caution in someone this young and arrogant, and she now looks at him differently. In her own thoughts she judges that this lad has talent, resources and opportunities, great perseverance, and the ability to lower his head when needed. She sees him advancing bravely while staying cautious and vigilant on every side, and concludes that he will one day shake the world. ch. 581
After a short silence, Mo Yao says that resolving the backlash is very troublesome, because six arm heavenly zombie king carries an unusually thick zombie energy that leaves a transformed Gu Master unable to even use yin-yang rotation Gu. Fang Yuan taunts her, doubting that a refinement grandmaster can truly do nothing, but she does not rise to it and answers calmly. She needs a rank five Gu Master to fully transform into six arm heavenly zombie king so she can experiment on their body, with full cooperation and full control over their body, mind and personal experience. Rather than work the problem out herself, she again plans to use a person as experimental fodder to stand in for her thinking through the most crucial steps. Fang Yuan frowns and asks whether she needs a rank five Gu Master who is also fully cooperative. She confirms it, adding that the subject should ideally be willing, because controlling them with slavery Gu would distort their emotions and ruin the experience and feelings of turning into a zombie that she needs to observe. Fang Yuan finds the whole requirement troublesome. ch. 581
If he wants to resolve the weakness he needs a rank five Gu Master who will cooperate with him and risk their life for the experiment. He has no idea where he could find such a person. ch. 581
Three days later, in the central control room, the owner token rises from the ink whirlpool and flies into Fang Yuan’s hands. He activates the refinement path killer move ink transformation once again, and the five-edge owner token becomes a six-edge owner token. Fang Yuan feels both happy and worried. ch. 581
He is happy because once Hei Lou Lan’s own token becomes a four-edge token, Fang Yuan can snatch it and combine the two into a ten-edge owner token. A ten-edge owner token would let him claim one of Giant Sun Immortal Venerable’s true inheritances. An Immortal Venerable’s inheritance attracts almost anyone. ch. 581
He has spent almost all his resources completing this sixth ink transformation. To raise funds he sold his Immortal Gu remnant recipes again, leaving them worthless. He also sold large numbers of rockmen, fox groups, wolf groups, Gu worms, hairy men and air bubble fish. He sold rank four emotion poetry Gu, golden dragon Gu and golden breeze Gu, and rank five spring egg Gu, vajra stare Gu, turn gold Gu, soft bones Gu, pitch black Gu and hints and clues Gu. ch. 581
What remains in his aperture is limited to enslavement and strength path Gu. In Hu Immortal blessed land he still holds Blood Sea Ancestor’s true inheritance, rank four blood skull Gu, rank three bone flesh unity Gu, and the yang Gu left over from the yin-yang rotation Gu after he used its yin half. He also keeps stargate Gu, hole earth Gu, connecting heaven Gu, divine sense Gu, burial soul toad and some supplementary Gu, since these remain necessary for the future. ch. 581
Hu Immortal blessed land has been nearly squeezed dry and needs time to recover, but the six-edge owner token now lets him control six floors of Eighty-Eight True Yang Building as he wishes. He could take every reward in those six floors, and doing so would grow his wealth by at least sixty times his current foundation. He has plans for these rewards, but he cannot touch them yet. Hei Lou Lan has gathered experts and reached the final round of the fifth floor, and is soon to obtain a one-edge owner token that can check any floor’s round rewards. If Fang Yuan claimed the rewards now, he would expose himself, so he plans to take them only once Imperial Court blessed land is about to close and everyone is sent out, when no one would know. ch. 581
Elsewhere, a giant bear paw slams the earth and sends rocks flying like shrapnel. The paw is the size of five to six horse carriages. As the smoke clears it reveals a huge crater, with a rank four Gu Master unlucky enough to be struck by the paw reduced to mushy flesh mixed with bone shards and brain matter. The watching Gu Masters call it too fast to react to, and say the final round is harder than ascending to heaven. Others note that this is only the phantom image of a flying bear at half the true body’s strength, and that the real desolate beast flying bear would leave them unable even to escape. ch. 581
This is the phantom image of the desolate beast flying bear that guards the fifth floor’s hundredth round. It has a body the size of a mountain, white snowy fur, and a full set of elite Gu worms, and despite its bulk it is as agile as it is fierce, darting like lightning. After only thirty minutes of fighting, the Gu Masters have already suffered huge losses. ch. 581
Sun Shi Han advises Hei Lou Lan to retreat, since their goal was only to probe the flying bear and they have already learned most of its Gu worms. Hei Lou Lan frowns, studying a battlefield low on morale. He calls this flying bear phantom the strongest opponent he has met since he began challenging Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, and judges their strength insufficient without more helpers. He orders a retreat. Sun Shi Han and the other Gu Masters are relieved, since they had already wanted to retreat but none dared suggest it, deterred by Hei Lou Lan’s reputation as the Black Tyrant. ch. 581
