Chapter 98

In the main hall, uncle Gu Yue Dong Tu reacts with fury and shock when a middle aged Gu Master of the internal affairs hall tells him Fang Yuan has become a rank two Gu Master and applied for the asset splitting mission, and after Dong Tu presses a bag of primeval stones into his hand the man agrees to stall the collection for three days, calling that his limit. Alone afterward, Dong Tu curses that Jiao San and his team could not even guard against a newcomer, reflects that his earlier scheme of having Jiao San’s group suppress Fang Yuan has instead ended with Jiao San’s whole team killed by the beast horde and Fang Yuan reaching rank two regardless, and decides he must prepare for the worst since Fang Yuan, now working alone, still stands a chance at completing the family asset mission. ^{ch. 98}

The mission Fang Yuan draws is to collect five liang of golden bee honey wine, made only inside large or medium beehives and guarded by fist sized golden bees with a sharp, powerful stinger, a task difficult even for a five person group because it demands a defensive Gu worm to withstand the stings, and Fang Yuan recognizes his uncle’s hand in a mission chosen to exploit his lack of one. He judges that his rank one Jade Skin Gu alone is not enough and that fusing it into the rank two White Jade Gu would let him gather the wine easily; he currently holds seven Gu worms, the Spring Autumn Cicada, Moonlight Gu, Liquor worm, White Boar Gu, Jade Skin Gu, and two Little Light Gu, of which White Boar Gu and Jade Skin Gu can fuse into White Jade Gu while Moonlight Gu and the two Little Light Gu could instead fuse into Moonglow Gu. With his primeval stones, already spent down by his recent breakthrough to rank two, enough for only one fusion, he chooses White Jade Gu for the honey wine mission and for the family inheritance, aware that a failed fusion would leave his finances too weak to recover quickly and stall his growth. ^{ch. 98}

Elsewhere, clan leader Gu Yue Bo teaches Fang Zheng, already rank two but still carrying only rank one Gu worms, that fusing Gu worms into a higher rank is the deeper craft beyond simple refining, and that Fang Zheng’s Jade Skin Gu and Moonlight Gu already satisfy one of the Gu Yue clan’s two rank five Moonlight Gu recipes, whose end point is the rank five Moonlight Treasure King Gu, though Bo sets that far goal aside as too early and teaches him the rank two Moon Raiment fusion first. After three hours of continuous tries, Fang Zheng finally holds the two Gu’s fused consciousness steady and a ball of light forms that swallows a thrown primeval stone whole, but he loses that fused focus before feeding it a second stone, and the light collapses, the fusion failing and leaving cracks on the Moonlight Gu and a weakened Jade Skin Gu, while Gu Yue Bo warns him that failing too many times would destroy both Gu. ^{ch. 98}