Chapter 971

Fang Yuan emerges from the poisonous blood and the turtle shell after his change form Immortal Gu refinement fails, badly injured, the ghost face and red lotus he glimpsed in the river of time still deeply etched in his mind and unsolved. The failure destroys his sole success dao mark. He reasons that a success dao mark chiefly helps the materials’ dao marks fuse and cannot save a deliberately sabotaged refinement, and that his own rebirth, striking mid-refinement, doomed an attempt that succeeded last time. Still, the rebirth’s huge advantages outweigh one lost mark. ^{ch. 971}

He steadies himself and activates Fixed Immortal Travel back to Hu Immortal blessed land. He is no longer anxious, since Central Continent’s breakthrough over Eighty-Eight True Yang Building is still a while off. An impetuous man would absolutely be unable to reach his current stage. An immortal zombie thinks slowly, so he spends half a day in the light of wisdom, his wisdom path attainment at grandmaster level and quickened by a Gu formation of his own design. ^{ch. 971}

Needing neither food nor rest, he uses Fixed Immortal Travel again to slip into Southern Border and approach Yi Tian Mountain, still a nameless peak he knows well from his previous life’s unprecedented gambling contest there. It is what draws him most after his rebirth: buried beneath it lie the Immortal Gu House Graceful Chaotic Duel Stage and the rank eight Great Strength True Martial immortal zombie it still holds suppressed. In his previous life that zombie broke loose from the suppression. Becoming the House’s owner would let him go on suppressing it. ^{ch. 971}

An Immortal Gu House is formation path’s highest achievement. Every major power keeps at least one as a trump card, as Hei tribe does with Dark Prison. After Dark Prison was lost in his previous life, even Hei tribe’s four supreme elders risked chasing down Hei Cheng to reclaim it, though it ranks only rank six. Graceful Chaotic Duel Stage outranks it, and a mysterious Gu Immortal once drew on its power to fight above his own rank and suppress a rank eight expert with the Great Strength True Martial Physique. He expects the house to protect him and intimidate other immortals once the truth is exposed and Central Continent, Northern Plains and others hunt him down. ^{ch. 971}

An Immortal Gu House carries two burdens, feeding and immortal essence, though Fang Yuan takes food path to be part of Graceful Chaotic Duel Stage’s construction, which would let its feeding be disregarded. Activating one still costs a huge amount of immortal essence, and when Shark Demon had to activate Profound Ice House every immortal zombie shared that burden. Fang Yuan staked every asset just to barely gather materials for the failed refinement. Most of those materials were destroyed with it. He is now poor, holding very little green grape immortal essence but large stores of Giant Sun’s yellow apricot immortal essence, a rank nine legacy an Immortal Gu House alone could absorb. Because that legacy cannot be replenished, the thriftier course would be to gather many Gu Immortals to power the House between them. ^{ch. 971}

In his previous life the Southern Border Gu Immortals died too quickly, and Graceful Chaotic Duel Stage went unrefined before the Great Strength True Martial immortal zombie broke free, a huge pity. Graceful Chaotic Duel Stage is no match for Heaven Overseeing Tower, but with the ten extreme immortal zombie lifeless formation having already worn that attack down, Fang Yuan believes he could have resisted the beam of light that nearly killed him. Holding it would let him choose whether to advance or retreat, beside which self strength, all-out effort and star thought Immortal Gu all look unimportant. With it and Giant Sun’s essence, even at rank six bottom tier in an immortal zombie’s body he could force a fight against rank eights. Just thinking of it excites him. After checking no one is near, he drills into the earth. ^{ch. 971}