Chapter 690

Fang Yuan lies healing in the quiet room at Snowy Mountain’s third peak, while Tai Bai Yun Sheng tends him with black light. Fairy Li Shan brews tea nearby, watching Hei Lou Lan meditate. ^{ch. 690}

Hei Lou Lan has already completed the first two of the three steps of immortal ascension, shattering the aperture and receiving qi, and now works alone on the third, releasing Gu. The others stand ready to help if her tribulation turns dangerous. ^{ch. 690}

Hei Lou Lan opens her eyes: success. Fairy Li Shan, moved to tears, tells her that with the Great Strength True Martial Physique she now holds a super grade blessed land and extraordinary potential. An ordinary Gu Master’s blessed land is graded high, middle or low, but a ten extreme physique risks everything for a super grade one instead. That grade exceeds 6700 square kilometers and yields more than fifty beads of immortal essence, and barring accidents it can create at least two Immortal Gu. ^{ch. 690}

Hei Lou Lan answers flatly: she has advanced to Gu Immortal but has not yet killed Hei Cheng. Tai Bai Yun Sheng warns the four together have little chance of killing him. Fang Yuan agrees defeating a Gu Immortal is easy, killing one is not. His phantom army led the attack but could not trap Hei Cheng or Xue Song Zi before they fled, so he judges the battle a draw, and did not object when Hei Lou Lan called the retreat. ^{ch. 690}

Hei Lou Lan thanks Fang Yuan for the strength that won her the tribulation. He answers that allies help each other, expecting the same when Immortal Crane Sect later attacks Hu Immortal blessed land. Fairy Li Shan hands over the small family qi Gu recipe as agreed, asking only half of the thirty stones he borrowed back. The battle cost him over sixty beads of essence, so repaying the rest will take time, but she says there is no hurry, and no interest. ^{ch. 690}

Fairy Li Shan then offers a lead on wisdom path inheritances. Northern plains’ number one wisdom path Gu Immortal, Dong Fang Chang Fan, died months ago, leaving an intact inheritance to his mortal successor Dong Fang Yu Liang. He hid it so well that even his own tribe’s Gu Immortals do not know where it is; only Yu Liang holds the clue. His non-aggression pact before death covered the Huang Jin tribes and other super forces but never demonic path, and demonic cultivators and his own tribe covet the inheritance. ^{ch. 690}

Fang Yuan privately weighs it. He already holds the wisdom path Immortal Gu Delight in Water and Mountain, but uses it crudely, and a complete inheritance would let him deduce more with less effort. But the Dong Fang tribe remains a colossus, and he has just spent most of his essence against Hei Cheng. ^{ch. 690}

Fairy Li Shan explains that demonic path Gu Immortals have already allied in secret for the inheritance, since Chang Fan schemed against both sides in life and his successor is said equally talented. She was asked months ago to join a temporary alliance against the Dong Fang tribe but refused, bound by her own pact with Chang Fan, and now offers to broker Fang Yuan into it instead. He neither refuses nor agrees, asking for time to think. ^{ch. 690}

Hei Lou Lan says there is no hurry. Northern plains is consumed instead by Qin Bai Sheng’s capture of Ma Hong Yun and Zhao Lian Yun, holders of the luck path true inheritance’s essence. Rank eight old monsters are reported to have left seclusion over it. She ranks him a rank seven Gu Immortal, somewhat stronger than Hei Cheng, but says nearly every Gu Immortal in northern plains means to move against him over it. ^{ch. 690}

Fang Yuan reflects coldly: his group survived the wind veil of assimilation, and Ma Hong Yun and Zhao Lian Yun were in it as well, though they escaped early. The two know of his group and block its free movement in northern plains. Since Imperial Court blessed land fell and Eighty-Eight True Yang Building collapsed, scattered Immortal Gu had spread chaos, only recently calmed. Qin Bai Sheng’s capture now stirs those undercurrents into a storm that will engulf northern plains, one Fang Yuan has more reason than most to enter and too little strength to face yet. He leaves alone for Hu Immortal blessed land, while Tai Bai Yun Sheng stays to heal Hei Lou Lan’s ruined immortal aperture. ^{ch. 690}