Chapter 616

Little Hu Immortal is waiting at the stargate and jumps to hug Fang Yuan’s leg the moment he appears, and he smiles and strokes her head, telling her she has worked hard. Tai Bai Yun Sheng steps out behind him. Hearing her call Fang Yuan master, Tai Bai Yun Sheng realizes that Fang Yuan, though only a mortal, already possesses a blessed land. The chapter compares that fortune to Giant Sun Immortal Venerable, who inherited Imperial Court blessed land as a mortal and drew great benefit from it in his later cultivation. ^{ch. 616}

Fang Yuan explains he seized this blessed land, Hu Immortal blessed land, by force from several central continent sects on his master’s order. He calls the process dangerous, even now. He says the greater the risk, the greater the profit, since winner takes all. Tai Bai Yun Sheng recognizes that a blessed land with a land spirit is akin to inheriting a fallen Gu Immortal’s own immortal aperture and cultivation resources, and his impression of Fang Yuan’s audacity deepens further. ^{ch. 616}

Little Hu Immortal, sensing Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s Gu Immortal aura, grips Fang Yuan’s leg nervously until he reassures her that this ally is here to help save Dang Hun Mountain. She teleports all three of them there at once. Dang Hun Mountain has been deformed by Gruel Mud’s corrosion down to a small mound, and Dang Hun Palace, which once stood on it, is destroyed. Little Hu Immortal says sorrowfully that any later and Fang Yuan would not have found Dang Hun Mountain at all. ^{ch. 616}

Reading the scene, Tai Bai Yun Sheng takes out landscape as before Gu, a fist-sized, jade green creature shaped like a ladybug, its round shell engraved with rivers and lakes on one half and mountains on the other. He feeds it a bead of green grape immortal essence. Green jade light bursts out, covers the mountain, and halts and then defeats Gruel Mud’s corrosion, and a second bead brightens the light again and starts the mound visibly regrowing, though it dims once more at twenty percent recovered. Tai Bai Yun Sheng made thirty-six beads of green grape immortal essence on his ascension and had already spent one dodging chaotic lightning balls and three more repairing his own immortal aperture. A third bead carries it to forty percent, and a fourth, fifth and sixth are spent before Dang Hun Mountain fully recovers. He is startled that one mountain takes six whole beads. ^{ch. 616}

When Fang Yuan simply says the mountain’s name, Tai Bai Yun Sheng recognizes Dang Hun Mountain from The Legends of Ren Zu and cries out in astonishment, since he had never expected to see it with his own eyes. Spectral Soul Demon Venerable had praised it endlessly. Once fully restored, Dang Hun Mountain is a pink crystal peak giving off a dreamlike radiance that ordinary mountains cannot match, and Little Hu Immortal weeps tears of joy that its sickness has been cured. ^{ch. 616}

With Dang Hun Mountain restored, Fang Yuan judges his goal in coming to northern plains achieved, though restoring it no longer satisfies him now that Giant Sun’s will has been expelled from Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, leaving it effectively ownerless. He has already won Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s trust. That trust means forcibly refining false emotion fake will Gu, using a Gu Immortal’s own will, is no longer impossible. Before leaving, he hands Little Hu Immortal the burial soul toad, a storage Gu holding human and beast souls he has gathered mostly from battlefields, which will become large numbers of guts Gu through Dang Hun Mountain. ^{ch. 616}

Back at Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, the starlight firefly Gu supporting the stargate is more than half spent, leaving fuel for only one more activation. Tai Bai Yun Sheng trusts Fang Yuan even more after the trip. He hands back Fixed Immortal Travel and flying bear phantom Gu, and Fang Yuan accepts the two Immortal Gu so casually that it stirs that trust further. The chapter states that Fang Yuan’s account was almost entirely true except for the lies at its crucial points, which struck Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s deepest secret, one he had never told anyone but Fang Yuan had learned by soul search. The chapter names the true cause of his trust as Fang Yuan grasping his guilt over betraying Gao Yang and Zhu Zai, which had made him deny his own worth. After his ascension he wanted a fresh start and, without realizing it himself, needed an acknowledgment that Fang Yuan’s words supplied. ^{ch. 616}

Fang Yuan uses the glass owner token again to teleport them into another round, a dense forest of treemen, and takes control of it at once so the treemen halt their advance. He then grabs Tai Bai Yun Sheng and teleports again. They appear before Hei Lou Lan and Ma Hong Yun, where Frost Jade Peacock lies half down, sheltering Ma Hong Yun and Zhao Lian Yun under its wings behind a defensive barrier as layers of treemen attack. Hei Lou Lan fights nearby with false emotion fake will Gu resting on his shoulder, striking at the treemen and at Ma Hong Yun and Zhao Lian Yun alike, though the barrier blocks his blows. ^{ch. 616}

With Giant Sun’s will expelled, this round has no controller and runs on its own, treating the land spirit, Ma Hong Yun, and the others as challengers, and Hei Lou Lan means to finish the kill Giant Sun’s will could not. Ma Hong Yun’s readiness to die for Zhao Lian Yun moved her. The chapter states she has begun to feel true love for him in return, and because the two now share genuine feeling, the land spirit has recognized them as its masters on its own and raised the barrier that shields them. Chang Li, by contrast, has already died under the treemen’s attacks. ^{ch. 616}

Watching from a treeman’s crown, Fang Yuan remarks that Ma Hong Yun’s luck got him the land spirit’s recognition. Tai Bai Yun Sheng is astonished that Fang Yuan recognises a rank three initial stage minor character at all. Hei Lou Lan, sensing them, jumps back as if facing a great enemy, since Giant Sun’s will vanished suddenly and the Chang Shan Yin impersonator now stands beside a Gu Immortal who seems closely allied with him. The barrier around Ma Hong Yun is nearly spent. ^{ch. 616}

Fang Yuan tells Tai Bai Yun Sheng they need Frost Jade Peacock’s strength. It is needed to topple True Yang Building. Its power is still mostly sealed even after recognizing its masters, since with Giant Sun’s will absent nobody is manipulating the seals and it is barely surviving. He says he will kill Ma Hong Yun and Zhao Lian Yun himself while Tai Bai Yun Sheng seizes false emotion fake will Gu from Hei Lou Lan. Fang Yuan shoots toward Ma Hong Yun, certain of his death despite his luck, since Ma Hong Yun has blocked his plan to use him later. ^{ch. 616}