Chapter 894

After half a month of secret planning, Fang Yuan reaches a small, human inhabited island among Eastern Sea’s countless islands. Most are uninhabited, but this one holds three fishing villages. Its strongest cultivator is only rank three, and the villagers are mostly ordinary mortals, with an occasional rank one or two Gu Master very well respected among them. His current methods are much stronger now than during his time in Southern Border. Moving unseen through one village, he confirms from his previous life’s memories that it will later be renamed Li clan village, after Li Xiao Yao, a Gu Immortal not yet born who appears in about two hundred years. He then goes to a nearby cliff guarded by territorial birds, recalling from the Biography of Li Xiao Yao that the young, often bullied Li Xiao Yao once hid here and found a secret cave. Searching the cliff’s many holes, Fang Yuan finds that same cave by midday; it is too small even for his shrunken Xing Xiang Zi body, so he uses change form Immortal Gu to squeeze inside. ^{ch. 894}

In a wide chamber deep inside, lit by the day’s last light, Fang Yuan recalls that the young Li Xiao Yao once fell through a hidden hole here into the cliff’s depths and was swept into the sea’s currents. Fang Yuan means to repeat that same fall. After six hours searching the cliff, he finds the true route, breaks through, and falls rapidly past small snakes and a cat sized lizard to its base, where the sea’s undercurrent forms a huge spiraling whirlpool. He marks the spot with Gu worms, then dives in. The current’s formless grip leaves even his incredible strength feeling helpless; he does not struggle, and it carries him at incredible speed through a tunnel that fish and seaweed alike avoid. In Eastern Sea, precious maps chart only these undercurrents, letting some super forces’ underwater caravans cover ten thousand li, or even a hundred thousand, in a short time. After about fifteen minutes he emerges from a second huge spiral into intense heat: an underwater volcano whose base magma kills countless lives, and whose peak holds a natural hot spring, his true destination. ^{ch. 894}

With time still to spare, Fang Yuan explores the volcano’s lower reaches. There, a fire lizard hunts flying insects born in the magma river below. Some insects develop a latent talent under the lizard’s pressure and turn into Gu worms as they are being taken, gaining the speed to evade its tongue, and a few then land on the lizard as its accompanying Gu. Though these are common fire path mortal Gu of little value alone, the volcano itself is a useful long term source of Gu worms. He also studies the magma river’s fish, but decides against entering it, since only a defensive killer move could withstand the heat, and that would waste precious immortal essence. ^{ch. 894}

When the estimated time comes, Fang Yuan climbs toward the peak, now careful to hide every trace of himself. Song Yi Shi, one of the six great beauties among Eastern Sea Gu Immortals, is in a foul mood today after being harassed again by a crowd of pursuing male Gu Immortals. She retreats to her own poetic emotion sea area, source of the rank four wisdom path emotion poetry Gu that is extremely precious to mortal Gu Masters. She descends into her underwater volcano palace to bathe in the hot spring at its peak. She undresses, settles into the water with her eyes shut, and soon begins humming to herself, unaware that Fang Yuan is lurking close by, watching her every movement. Judging the moment right, Fang Yuan deliberately lets a trace of his aura leak out. Song Yi Shi’s expression turns pale, and she demands to know who is there. ^{ch. 894}