Secret Hall

Appearance

A dark eerie tunnel leads to a rock door that ripples and fades to show a small secret room. Tens of rock tables, each half a person’s height, hold white jade plates with Digital Shade Gu. The surrounding walls hold Water Light Gu whose light wavers like water, shifting between light and shadow in layers. ^{ch. 156}

Recipe room under the village

After Fang Yuan reaches rank three, a guide leads him into the underground secret room that holds the Gu Yue clan fusion recipes. That room sits in the basement of Gu Yue Village, in a hidden part of the underground cave whose primeval spring founds the village, and the room would remain even if the village above were eradicated. Fang Yuan’s rank three status lets him browse recipes below rank four and five. Gu Masters at rank one or two must pay primeval stones or merit points to look through them. ^{ch. 156}

Digital Shade Gu color coding

The rock tables hold rank two Digital Shade Gu that store recipes by color: green for rank one, red-black for rank two, white for rank three, orange for rank four, and purple for rank five. The guide states that those Digital Shade Gu all belong to the Secret Hall clan elder, that Fang Yuan may still inject primeval essence to browse within his authority, that the secret room is a clan red zone with every action observed in secret, and that he may stay only fifteen minutes each day. ^{ch. 156}

Access by elder will

The owner of these Digital Shade Gu has always been the generations of each Secret Hall clan elder, while the clan feeds them. The will in the Digital Shade Gu is one with the Secret Hall clan elder. Fang Yuan, as a newly advanced clan elder, is recognized by that elder and can freely use a portion of the worms. The Secret Hall clan elder does not grant him rank four and five recipes, so the yellow and purple Digital Shade Gu give no reaction even when he uses primeval essence. ^{ch. 157}

Moonlight Gu recipe secrecy

Fang Yuan treats the reverse-fusion recipe for Moonlight Gu as more precious than the rank four and five recipes on those tables, because that Gu came from the first generation clan leader and underpins the clan’s unique worm line. The reverse-fusion recipe is normally kept by the clan leader. Beyond the clan leader, only the most loyal clan elder of that generation also knows the secret, and the Moonlight Gu recipe’s Digital Shade Gu is hidden separately. Fang Yuan cannot obtain that recipe from the Secret Hall secret room he is shown. ^{ch. 157}