Chapter 939

Since its maker never named it, Fang Yuan gives the method a tentative name: the life-and-death immortal aperture revival method. He judges its value absolutely priceless. Leaked to the world, it would shake the cultivation world. Countless Gu Immortals, even secluded rank eights, would research and use it at once, and Gu Immortal numbers across all five regions would grow explosively, in unprecedented fashion. ^{ch. 939}

A life-and-death aperture holds the mysteries of both life and death, and so reduces tribulations and calamities by fully fifty percent. Gu Immortals face two great difficulties: a lifespan cultivation cannot extend, and tribulations that grow harder with every one passed. Most die to these in peacetime. Passing them takes resources: immortal materials, Immortal Gu, Immortal Gu Houses. These are best grown and stored inside an aperture, since its own dao marks suit the owner and its faster time yields more resources more often. ^{ch. 939}

But every tribulation damages the hosting aperture, often destroying stored resources and forcing a rebuild, sometimes from nothing, while tribulations themselves keep growing stronger. Many might not keep pace. Countless Gu Immortals have lost everything and died to this cycle through history. Hu Immortal was one: she passed four calamities, then died at the fifth to a blue charm lightning shadow, her obsession becoming the land spirit of Hu Immortal blessed land that Fang Yuan later obtained. ^{ch. 939}

Moving resources out before a tribulation can soften the loss. Very few Gu Immortals do it, though, since tribulations target by path. A wood path Gu Immortal who moves out all wood resources may instead draw a fire path tribulation, leaving many of them unfit for the changed environment on return. Keeping them in place instead grows the aperture’s own dao marks and betters its environment, despite losses, history’s clearest lesson. Fang Yuan’s own move once drew an unsuited blood path calamity, no great problem only because Hu Immortal blessed land was not compatible with his path. Tai Bai Yun Sheng, facing calamity in his own essential aperture, chose to keep his resources in place despite the risk. ^{ch. 939}

Only with this understood does the new method’s value become clear. It halves tribulations without reducing the dao marks gained, letting strength snowball across cycles instead of collapsing. A purely living aperture leaves tribulations forever outpacing endurance. A purely dead one just crumbles toward a doomed end. Undoubtedly this is an accomplishment beyond the current era, more a method of cultivation than mere revival, an improvement on Limitless Demon Venerable’s concept and superior to anything passed down for countless years. ^{ch. 939}

Other Gu Immortals might find it hard to accept, even sacrilegious, given immortal zombies’ low status. But Fang Yuan’s own soul is from Earth. The authority of traditional Gu cultivation was never deeply ingrained in him. The method’s unnamed inventor stood on Old Immortal Kong Jue’s shoulders, combining Limitless Demon Venerable’s rule path accomplishments with their own talent. Fang Yuan can only scratch its surface in so short a time. Its explanation reads simply, but its principles still elude him, and its contents are complex, subdividing revival by path with different Gu for each. ^{ch. 939}

For his own strength path, he would need exert strength Gu and disappointment Gu, mortal Gu that invert the hope Gu mortals use to awaken their aperture. Disappointment and hope, like life and death, mean nothing without each other. Both Gu are easy to gather, and existing recipes let him finish enough within three months. But the aperture built this way, on just his own mostly disintegrated one, would be somewhat unsatisfactory in size, environment and foundation alike. His original aperture, gained at a forced ascension, was already only medium grade, and reviving now from its shrunken remnant would definitely leave him at low grade, very likely low even among low grades. ^{ch. 939}

One part of the method excites him greatly. Refining other strength path immortal zombies’ corpses as materials during revival would raise the new aperture’s grade, back to medium or, with enough bodies, even to high. When an immortal zombie dies, its aperture dissipates completely and its dao marks stay in the body, making such corpses rich materials, which is why Old Ancestor Xue Hu steals them from the graveyard. Better still, the method records that a Great Strength True Martial Physique immortal zombie’s body would push the new aperture past high grade into a super grade blessed land, and the reviver would gain that physique themselves. Fang Yuan already understands the scale involved, since Hei Lou Lan holds exactly that physique and blessed land. ^{ch. 939}

This makes the method an excellent way to raise aptitude too. The ten extreme physiques carry extremely great power, but even bigger flaws, since their faster inner time draws faster, harsher tribulations. No supreme venerable in history has ever held one, and even among rank eights the physiques stay extremely rare. A holder can be unrivaled within their own rank, even fight above it, but cannot keep growing or survive long. That flaw does not bind Fang Yuan, since a life-and-death aperture already halves tribulations regardless, bringing the risk to an acceptable level. ^{ch. 939}

Gathering ordinary strength path corpses wins him at most a high grade blessed land. A ten extreme physique corpse would win him the physique, a super grade blessed land, and halved tribulations together, with time enough to cultivate for a chance at the rank nine throne held by venerables publicly known as invincible. He wonders whether a venerable who also held an extreme physique, something no one in history has done, would be the strongest ever recorded. If this first revival succeeds, he plans to later use the same method on his first mortal aperture through time path. That would turn it too into a super grade blessed land, giving him the Desolate Ancient Moon Physique alongside the first, and perhaps in time a dual ten extreme physique venerable. ^{ch. 939}

Thinking of this, Fang Yuan is almost moved to tears, finding a path toward eternal life after five hundred years in his previous life and more hardship in this one. It had seemed illusory without the strength to pursue it. Strength path immortal zombies are already scarce, and he cannot target his own Zombie Alliance’s members now that he has joined them. He asks himself where else such a zombie could be found. Hei Lou Lan becomes his one optimal target. Despite their past cooperation escaping Imperial Court blessed land, and every benefit since, Fang Yuan resolves with a faint smile that she must be sacrificed for the ambition he now holds. It is ruthless, and callous. ^{ch. 939}