332 RI

Fang Yuan said while unsealing more immemorial soul beasts.

Spectral Soul Demon Venerable moved rapidly, grabbing these immemorial soul beasts and devouring them into his stomach.

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable's eyelids were twitching while Giant Sun Immortal Venerable's expression turned dark.

Earlier, Fang Yuan emphasized on the words 'Central Continent, Northern Plains', he was clearly using these regions to threaten them.

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable suggested that they should kill Spectral Soul Demon Venerable, regardless of her motive, this suggestion itself was a good one.

But because of Fang Yuan's actions, he was clearly disrupting the two venerables and using it as a threat to extort something from them to make up for his losses this time.

The two venerables smiled coldly to themselves, they understood why he would do this.

If they placed themselves in Fang Yuan's perspective, they would do the same thing.

After all, Fang Yuan was a new venerable, he did not have a deep foundation like the other two, he lacked immortal essence as well, these reasons caused him to lag behind the two venerables. If they fought against Spectral Soul Demon Venerable, he would face the greatest risk.

Even if Spectral Soul Demon Venerable was killed, in terms of snatching battle spoils, because Fang Yuan lacked immortal essence and would not be able to last longer in combat, it was likely that he could not outdo these two venerables. In fact, after they kill Spectral Soul Demon Venerable, if he runs out of immortal essence, the two of them would attack him immediately!

Fighting in this situation was very disadvantageous to Fang Yuan.

As for the two venerables?

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable secretly transmitted: "Giant Sun, Heaven Refining Demon Venerable spent a lot of immortal essence to guard heaven form, he is currently at his weakest. You know that he is a greater threat than Spectral Soul Demon Venerable! Why don't we..."

Before Star Constellation Immortal Venerable finished, Giant Sun Immortal Venerable interrupted: "Star Constellation, you can make a move first, I will support you!"

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable snorted: "Giant Sun, your words lack sincerity."

Whoever attacked Fang Yuan first would face his retaliation first.

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable said that nicely, but if Star Constellation Immortal Venerable attacked, would he still help? What was in his best interests was to watch Star Constellation Immortal Venerable and Heaven Refining Demon Venerable fight it out.

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable wanted to work with Giant Sun Immortal Venerable to fight against Fang Yuan. The truth was, she felt more wary against Fang Yuan!

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable also wanted to see Fang Yuan's death.

They all knew that Fang Yuan had the least amount of immortal essence among them.

But how low was low?

They had to make sure of this quantity first.

According to their investigative methods, Fang Yuan still had a portion of his immortal essence reserves.

If either of the two venerables wanted to kill Fang Yuan, they would need to pay a terrifying price. And in this situation with three venerables, they simply could not take the risk.

The two venerables working together was the best choice for them.

But Giant Sun Immortal Venerable and Star Constellation Immortal Venerable did not trust each other at all!

They were also worried that if they forced Fang Yuan's hand, he might attack Central Continent and Northern Plains!

Normally speaking, Gu Immortals had their own unspoken rules, they would not attack mortals or Gu Masters. This was something very disgraceful, especially for a venerable, their pride would not allow them to make such actions.

"But with Fang Yuan's principles and bottom line, he would not hesitate to do so." Both venerables agreed on this point with no uncertainty.

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable was the most protective of his descendants, how could he allow Fang Yuan to slaughter them openly?

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable was the second Immortal King of Heavenly Court, how could she watch as Central Continent's ten great ancient sects get destroyed by Fang Yuan? She would become a great sinner of Heavenly Court!

Thus, both venerables did not dare to act excessively.

"Sigh, now it seems that we cannot kill Fang Yuan or Spectral Soul Demon Venerable this time." Star Constellation Immortal Venerable sighed to herself: "In that case, what's the point of wasting time here?"

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable wanted to retreat now, Giant Sun Immortal Venerable was thinking of the same thing.

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable still felt some grudge towards Star Constellation Immortal Venerable, he transmitted to her secretly: "I have to say, Star Constellation, if you really want to use Spectral Soul Demon Venerable to deal a blow to Fang Yuan, you should have stalled for more time so that he would waste more immortal essence on heaven form!"

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable snorted coldly: "The fusion of the two heavens was short and intense, now is the most unstable moment, it is extremely hard to sustain heaven form. Fang Yuan is a refinement path venerable, with his ability, he should have been able to protect the killer move while resisting Spectral Soul Demon Venerable."

"Who could have thought that he would resolutely sacrifice the white heavenly spirit and give up on this rank nine killer move!" Star Constellation Immortal Venerable showed an expression of pity.

She did not know the truth.

Fang Yuan had done his best at that time, the refinement of a rank nine Immortal Gu took too much of his attention, he had no choice but to give up on heaven form.

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable sighed as well: "Star Constellation, don't you understand? Even though Fang Yuan is a demon, he is extremely cautious. He seems to be taking huge risks at times, but he is extremely vigilant inside. Although many of his actions seemed rash and risky, he had done so because of Spring Autumn Cicada, he was greatly assured!"

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable snorted coldly, she did not want to talk with Giant Sun Immortal Venerable secretly anymore, she spoke out loud: "In that case, forget about it. We'll meet again, everyone!"

Saying so, she turned around to leave.

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable smiled at Fang Yuan and left just as quickly as her.

Fang Yuan purposely moved slightly slower than them, he was stunned before retreating, but Spectral Soul Demon Venerable pursued him.

Fang Yuan transmitted to the two venerables: "You two left so abruptly, you still want to talk about sincerity?! Spectral Soul Demon Venerable has lost his sanity, are you going to let him slaughter the innocent lives in the world? You two are so cruel, you are vicious people, how can you call yourselves Immortal Venerables?"

After Star Constellation Immortal Venerable and Giant Sun Immortal Venerable heard his words, they could not help but think of his 'mistakes' earlier which helped to heal Spectral Soul Demon Venerable.

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable kept quiet and did not reply.

While Giant Sun Immortal Venerable smiled and said: "Fang Yuan, we underestimated you in Crazed Demon Cave which resulted in your success. But now, you have to work harder, there is no need to say such things in the future. How can simple words affect the battle between venerables? Powerless excuses will only sound like the expression of the weak."

"Good, good, good." Fang Yuan gritted his teeth and said these words forcefully before he went silent.

Spectral Soul Demon Venerable bore deep hatred towards Fang Yuan, even though the two venerables left, he still chased Fang Yuan relentlessly.

After Fang Yuan toyed around with him for some time, he used the same trick to activate a battlefield killer move and conceal himself again.

After Spectral Soul Demon Venerable lost his target, he remained at the area and growled angrily, refusing to leave for a long time.

"Good, while Fang Yuan is trapped, I can use this chance to refine Heavenly Court's wisdom path dao marks." Star Constellation Immortal Venerable returned to Heavenly Court and said in satisfaction as she saw this.

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable was still on the way back to Northern Plains, he thought: "In this contest of three venerables, Fang Yuan suffered the greatest losses. Not only did he lose the rank nine killer move heaven form and several Immortal Gu, he also expended some immortal essence. If he was not crafty enough to help Spectral Soul Demon Venerable, he will be in a worse state."

"Star Constellation Immortal Venerable..."

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable's eyes shined with bright light.

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable had refined many Northern Plains wisdom path dao marks, the size surpassed the luck path dao marks that Giant Sun Immortal Venerable refined in Central Continent.

The reason was because Giant Sun Immortal Venerable's emphasis was on Fang Yuan's Eastern Sea, although he refined some Central Continent luck path dao marks, the total quantity was only half of Star Constellation Immortal Venerable.

But Giant Sun Immortal Venerable was not assured, after returning to Longevity Heaven, he used luck path investigative methods.

With some buzzing sound, Giant Sun Immortal Venerable first checked Star Constellation Immortal Venerable's luck, it had gotten slightly stronger.

He looked at Fang Yuan's luck, it was still the same broken furnace as earlier.

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable then inspected his own luck and frowned lightly.

"Even though my luck grew stronger, the external threat has grown significantly. What is going on? Where is this threat coming from?"

There were too few things that could threaten a venerable.

"Fang Yuan? No way." Giant Sun Immortal Venerable shook his head.

"The other venerables? Like the possible revival of Reckless Savage Demon Venerable or others?"

"The most likely ones are from Heavenly Court! Star Constellation Immortal Venerable gained a lot this time, while Heavenly Court's two other Immortal Venerables have yet to revive!"

"It seems that my greatest enemy is still Heavenly Court. In comparison, although Fang Yuan is a venerable, his foundation is too thin. In the contest of venerables, one step behind will cause him to lag by many steps later. In the future... if we maintain our advantage, we can just guard against his possible retaliation."

Currently, in terms of venerable battle strength, Spectral Soul Demon Venerable was the least threatening.

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable was the strongest, especially in Longevity Heaven, using his previous life's dao marks, he could forcefully inspect the luck of the other venerables. This was something that Star Constellation Immortal Venerable could not do.

But in the outside world, without Longevity Heaven's luck path dao marks, even if Giant Sun Immortal Venerable used similar methods, he could not reach such an effect.

"Maybe I can try to attack Heavenly Court?" Giant Sun Immortal Venerable suddenly had such a thought.

Once Star Constellation Immortal Venerable refines Heavenly Court's wisdom path dao marks, she would receive a greater amplification than Giant Sun Immortal Venerable!

This was because not only had Star Constellation Immortal Venerable contributed her own immortal aperture into it, all of the previous generation wisdom path Gu Immortals had also done the same, becoming part of Heavenly Court's foundation.

But Giant Sun Immortal Venerable soon shook his head, rejecting this idea.

Firstly, he did not have heaven form, the luck path method he used to invade Heavenly Court earlier had been dismantled, he could not get in easily anymore.

Secondly, fighting against Heavenly Court's Star Constellation Immortal Venerable now would expend his immortal essence, it would allow Fang Yuan to catch up.

"In the contest of three venerables, neither can make a move easily. We need more situations like today's to truly claim victory." Giant Sun Immortal Venerable sighed, he did not stay in Longevity Heaven for long, he went back to Northern Plains to refine the luck path dao marks.

Fang Yuan was still 'trapped' in the battlefield killer move, Spectral Soul Demon Venerable had not left yet.

But Fang Yuan was not anxious.

"I'll show weakness for a while longer to relax the two venerables' guard."

"But undoubtedly, this obscured heavenly secret killer move is so useful!" This was not the first time Fang Yuan praised this move.

Right now, obscured heavenly secret's temporary heaven path dao marks were extremely dense, they were like a huge fishing net that wrapped around his entire body.

Within the sovereign immortal aperture, after the first blooming of Heavenly Essence Treasure Imperial Lotus, Fang Yuan gained ninety-nine yellow apricot immortal essence beads!

A flash of light sparked in Fang Yuan's eyes as yellow apricot immortal essence was rapidly expended, soon, he activated a heaven path method.

Using this heaven path killer move, he started to unseal the truthful floating ice that he obtained from Crazed Demon Cave.

-x-X-x-

Inside the sovereign immortal aperture.

The blue-white truthful floating ice was shrinking inch by inch.

In the battle in Crazed Demon Cave, Fang Yuan obtained several pieces of truthful floating ice, among them, one was quite large.

As yellow apricot immortal essence got rapidly expended, his heaven path dao marks also grew in numbers rapidly!

Fang Yuan's heaven path dao marks had reached two hundred and forty thousand already, after unsealing the truthful floating ice for six hours, his heaven path dao marks grew by sixty thousand. Ten thousand dao marks per hour, it was quite a good gain.

But this was not his own gain.

Fang Yuan's rule path, wisdom path, transformation path, strength path, earth path, wood path, and others were rising.

"These paths correspond to Limitless Demon Venerable, Star Constellation Immortal Venerable, Reckless Savage Demon Venerable, Paradise Earth Immortal Venerable, Genesis Lotus Immortal Venerable... These venerables all went into the eighth layer of Crazed Demon Cave, they had their respective investments."

"No, that's not all." After unsealing the truthful floating ice for sixteen hours, Fang Yuan found that his other paths' attainment levels were rising too.

But the growth in the other paths was much smaller and almost unobservable. Only after a long time and with sufficient accumulation could there be any significant changes.

Among all the paths, the attainment level that rose the most was heaven path!

Fang Yuan's foundation in heaven path was actually very weak.

He had only cultivated it for a short time after all. All of his foundation were obtained from predecessors, for example, Star Constellation Immortal Venerable's human executing heaven's work, or Limitless Demon Venerable's unrestrained heavenly mark killer move.

Several days later in sovereign immortal aperture, his heaven path dao marks grew to a million and two hundred thousand. His heaven path attainment level went all the way from ordinary to master level!

Fang Yuan stopped for now.

He had expended over a hundred yellow apricot immortal essence beads.

If Heavenly Essence Treasure Imperial Lotus had not bloomed once more during this period, Fang Yuan would not be able to keep up the expenditure.

"I need to save some immortal essence in case of a venerable battle."

Fang Yuan carefully assessed his gains.

The heaven path master attainment level gave him a comprehensive growth!

Regarding his heaven path Gu recipes, killer moves, and the understanding of the Heavenly Dao, he had renewed insight and even deeper comprehension.

The most crucial thing was the conflict of dao marks!

His earlier intuition was not wrong, after becoming a heaven path master, he would be able to create a conflict dao mark method to completely solve the sovereign immortal aperture's problem.

The sovereign immortal aperture had many different phenomena occurring, the origin was because of the non-conflicting dao marks, they had fused too easily.

Once conflict arose, sovereign immortal aperture would be elevated to a new level, it would regain peace.

Fang Yuan immediately used wisdom path methods to fully deduce the relevant killer move.

Several days passed.

Fang Yuan stored the battlefield killer move and left the immemorial two heavens.

Spectral Soul Demon Venerable stayed for a long time but eventually gave up. Now, he was rampaging in the immemorial two heavens while eating soul beast armies and also fighting against the sun.

Fang Yuan had no heaven form killer move left, he could not sense Spectral Soul Demon Venerable who was far away.

But Fang Yuan got back to Eastern Sea successfully.

He landed deep in Eastern Sea and started to refine the natural refinement path dao marks of Eastern Sea.

At once, profound light surged as rank nine aura spread like a tornado to the surroundings, the countless lifeforms nearby fled in fear.

Song clan's Gu Immortals were the first ones alerted, after seeing this, they understood: Great Love Immortal Venerable was refining the natural refinement path dao marks.

Song clan's first supreme elder quickly gathered the Gu Immortals to discuss the matter, they wanted to meet Fang Yuan and offer him a gift.

After all, Fang Yuan was currently in Song clan's territory.

However, they were soon informed by Wu Shuai that the members of the Heaven and Earth Great Love Alliance were not allowed to disturb Great Love Immortal Venerable now.

Song clan's members signed in relief but they also felt disappointed.

While Fang Yuan refined the natural dao marks, he also continued deducing his heaven path killer moves.

Not long after, he gained some results.

But Fang Yuan was not satisfied yet.

This newly deduced heaven path killer move was not much different from Paradise Earth's heavenly summary earthly norm.

Heavenly summary earthly norm was able to arrange heaven path dao marks to allow the target to recover to their normal condition, it was the counter to battlefield killer moves.

Fang Yuan's deductions allowed heavenly summary earthly norm to go one step further.

When used in the sovereign immortal aperture, it could allow the environment of the immortal aperture to change into the environment of the five regions and two heavens.

The natural dao marks of the five regions and two heavens were definitely conflicting. Thus, after converting them, the sovereign immortal aperture's dao marks would also conflict.

"If I use this killer move hundreds or thousands of times, my sovereign immortal aperture will become like the five regions and two heavens, it will no longer have any strange phenomena."

"But in that case, I will lose my advantage of non-conflicting dao marks, the losses will be too severe and I cannot cultivate all paths again."

That was a cost Fang Yuan could not accept.

Looking at the sovereign immortal aperture's advantage and its abnormal phenomena, the former was naturally more important.

"Can't the conflict appear and disappear according to my will? Segregating the locations of conflicting dao marks like the time path zones?"

Fang Yuan sighed internally.

He had no idea on how to start realizing this concept.

Maybe when his heaven path attainment level reaches great grandmaster or higher, he might be able to achieve this?

This time, Fang Yuan did not have any intuition regarding this, he could not be certain.

"Speaking of which, sovereign immortal fetus Gu is a human path rank nine Immortal Gu. To resolve my current problem, maybe I should target human path instead?" Fang Yuan had a flash of inspiration, he saw a new direction to move towards.

He had found the solution in terms of heaven path, but the price to pay was something that Fang Yuan could not accept.

Would human path work?

Back then, to refine sovereign immortal fetus Gu, Spectral Soul Demon Venerable sacrificed the ten extreme physiques.

Speaking of human path research results, Fang Yuan thought of his clone who was trapped in Divine Emperor City.

After Shen Shang broke out of Divine Emperor City, he only brought back news of the clone who was still lurking inside Divine Emperor City.

"In the current world, Shen Shang is definitely one of the top human path experts, if I want to get his human path research results, what sort of price should I pay?"

Heavenly Court.

"Oh? Fang Yuan left the two heavens and went back to Eastern Sea, he has started refining natural dao marks." Star Constellation Immortal Venerable soon heard of Fang Yuan's actions.

"Even though he has the least immortal essence, he became venerable through refinement path. In terms of refining dao marks, it should be his expertise." Star Constellation Immortal Venerable was very concerned with Fang Yuan's speed of refining dao marks.

If Fang Yuan's efficiency was too high, she would join up with Giant Sun Immortal Venerable to deal with Fang Yuan together.

Otherwise, if he surpassed them in this aspect, it would be a huge problem for Star Constellation Immortal Venerable and Giant Sun Immortal Venerable!

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable did not want to think about Spectral Soul Demon Venerable now.

The contest of three venerables had reached a new stage.

Whichever venerable refined the most natural dao marks would have the greatest advantage.

"When refining the dao marks, I can multitask by modifying killer moves and changing my combat system. This will grant me an advantage in the future fight between the venerables."

"Star Eyes, Star Thought, Permanence..."

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable stared at these three Immortal Gu in her immortal aperture as her gaze became focused.

After obtaining them from Fang Yuan, she had already inspected them a hundred times but found no problems.

Yet, Star Constellation Immortal Venerable was still a little suspicious.

She was not a refinement path venerable after all, although she had some achievements in refinement path, she could not compare to Fang Yuan at all, this was undeniable.

It was like asking Fang Yuan to compare with Star Constellation Immortal Venerable in wisdom path, they were not on the same level.

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable had spent a hundred years of time to refine rank nine wisdom Gu in her previous life.

"Even if I find no issues with them, this does not mean that Fang Yuan did not tamper with them. But this possibility is quite small... I also have to use these Immortal Gu no matter what."

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable decided to take a risk.

She cultivated wisdom path primarily with star path secondarily, her combat system revolved around these two paths. But currently, her main method, the stardust killer move, was countered by Fang Yuan.

If Star Constellation Immortal Venerable wanted to gain an advantage in their future fight, she would need to modify it greatly.

In her modification plan, star thought Gu, star eyes Gu, and permanence Gu had a huge role to play. Otherwise, why would Star Constellation Immortal Venerable request for Fang Yuan to make them?

Longevity Heaven.

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable retracted his gaze from Eastern Sea.

"Now, I need to pay attention to Fang Yuan's refinement progress." Giant Sun Immortal Venerable reminded himself while checking his own immortal essence reserves.

He only had over five hundred yellow apricot immortal essence beads left.

The refinement of natural dao marks expended a lot of immortal essence.

Longevity Heaven could not produce immortal essence, Giant Sun Immortal Venerable was relying on his own rank nine immortal aperture, the production speed was similar to Star Constellation Immortal Venerable.

Be it Longevity Heaven or Heavenly Court, the revived two venerables were on the same level as Fang Yuan, they had not gone through the first chaotic disaster.

"Fang Yuan's sovereign immortal aperture has immense foundation far surpassing me and Star Constellation. Thus, using the same amount of time, he can produce more immortal essence than us."

"Also, he has a large number of blood path Immortal Gu!"

Thinking of this, Giant Sun Immortal Venerable's expression turned a little dark.

He cultivated luck path mainly with blood path on the side, he naturally needed a lot of blood path Immortal Gu.

But Fang Yuan had refined many of them already, although they were kept at rank six, Immortal Gu were unique.

This ruined many of Giant Sun Immortal Venerable's wonderful plans.

Earlier, when guarding heaven form, Fang Yuan negotiated with Giant Sun Immortal Venerable, he used these blood path Immortal Gu as the bargaining chip to haggle with Giant Sun Immortal Venerable.

Star Constellation Immortal Venerable managed to get three Immortal Gu from Fang Yuan, but Giant Sun Immortal Venerable got none.

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable was brooding over this.

"Star Constellation Immortal Venerable knows that Fang Yuan has the sovereign immortal aperture, as long as the latter's refinement speed is fast, I will contact her."

"It is unlikely that she will reject my offer to work together!"

"By then, I will work with Star Constellation Immortal Venerable to fight against Fang Yuan again. While expending his immortal essence, I can also extort those blood path Immortal Gu from him."

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable made various plans.

He did not know that Fang Yuan was in possession of Heavenly Essence Treasure Imperial Lotus, thus, he was more wary of Heavenly Court now.

But now, there was no opportunity for him to attack Heavenly Court or Star Constellation Immortal Venerable.

Fang Yuan's possession of those blood path Immortal Gu also greatly hindered his own blood path cultivation.

-x-X-x-

With the fusion of both heavens, the surface of the sea became light and dark at alternate times.

The sun and moon appeared together, all living beings were sent into chaos, in addition to the reign of three venerables, this was an unprecedented situation.

As tides ebbed and flowed, winds blew gently as Fang Yuan sat on a cloud, he slowly opened his eyes.

He had already spent some time refining Eastern Sea's refinement path dao marks, he had some insight now.

Currently, he had already refined over half of Song clan's territory in terms of refinement path dao marks, the range had spread to poetic emotion sea area in the northwest, and also Ascending Heaven Plain in the southeast.

All the refinement path dao marks in this area belonged to Fang Yuan.

Currently, even without shutting his eyes, Fang Yuan could sense many things related to refinement path.

He had an extremely clear understanding of the quantity and distribution of refinement path dao marks in this area.

All sorts of refinement path Gu materials deep under the sea, the fish and shrimps that contained refinement path dao marks, even the location of aquatic plants and others could be sensed by him.

Currently, Fang Yuan had many thoughts in his mind, he needed to test them.

He willed and stopped the refinement of dao marks, instead, he used an investigative killer move.

At the next moment, his gaze pierced through the sea and went thousands of li deep, seeing a huge fish.

This fish was as large as a building with five to six storeys of height. The fish had a sharp front and back, with a thick middle section, it was like a shuttle. The scales were grey-black and did not shine, they had a rough texture that felt like gravel.

This was a sunken fish, it contained rule path and refinement path dao marks.

The sunken fish was at least an ancient desolate beast, there were also immemorial desolate beasts among them.

Fang Yuan was looking at an immemorial desolate beast sunken fish.

The sunken fish had a special trait, every few years, it would move its tail and come to the surface to breathe fresh air, that would cause it to be swept by the currents. And because it was heavy, it would continuously sink to the bottom while the currents moved it away.

Whenever it moved its tail and exerted force to reach the surface, the scales of the sunken fish would fall off its body in the process, after it breathed enough fresh air, scales would grow on it again and it would become motionless, floating with the currents while sinking downwards.

These scales that fell off its body seemed heavy but they were light and delicate, most would float to the surface of the sea. After a long time, these scales would be swept ashore, Gu Masters would pick them up and treat them as treasure.

The sunken fish scales were crucial Gu materials to refine beauty Gu, they had high value.

On this point, they were like the feathers of the falling goose.

"But to refine beauty Immortal Gu, I will need to use both immortal materials, sunken fish scales and falling goose feathers." While looking at this sunken fish, Fang Yuan's lips curled into a faint smile.

He had the same sensation as earlier when he refined dao marks.

"If I refine the refinement path dao marks in the sunken fish's body, what would happen?"

Fang Yuan had refined the dao marks of the natural world earlier, it did not include the dao marks of lifeforms like the sunken fish.

Fang Yuan tried it out immediately, he chose a refinement path killer move and modified it a little to allow him to forcefully refine this sunken fish from a far distance!

The forceful refinement had just started when the lazy sunken fish jolted like it was shocked by lightning, it moved its tail quickly and tried to swim far away.

It erupted with speed that did not match its huge size, a huge current was formed in the sea because of the force generated.

"Where are you going?"

Fang Yuan snorted coldly, he activated another method.

The sunken fish immediately stopped moving while Fang Yuan forcefully refined all of its refinement path dao marks.

After the refinement, Fang Yuan's sensation of the sunken fish became several times clearer!

Fang Yuan let go of the restraint as the sunken fish regained freedom, but its emotions were very negative, there were fear, anger, numbness, sadness, and others, it was as if the fish was undergoing a turmoil and could not continue living its life.

"What happened?"

Fang Yuan slowly observed the sunken fish, he saw that it had stopped eating food.

The food of the sunken fish was not seaweed or fish, it was underwater sea soil.

Every few years, the scales on the fish would turn into ordinary Gu materials or fall off on their own, they could not ensure its safety. Thus, it would sink to the bottom and eat a large amount of soil.

This sunken fish that Fang Yuan tortured had lost most of its scales. Normally speaking, it should sink to the bottom of the sea and eat soil now.

"Did it lose the will to live after I brutally did that?" Fang Yuan shook his head, he quickly used a wisdom path method.

After some deductions, he understood the reason.

The sunken fish ate sea soil to fill its stomach, but also to produce more scales.

The source that produced its scales were the refinement path dao marks on its body.

Because of these refinement path dao marks, it could digest the sea soil and draw nutrients from them, converting them into thick immortal material scales.

But now, all of its refinement path dao marks were refined by Fang Yuan, it lost this ability.

Thus, even though it lacked scales, it did not attempt to eat sea soil.

In order to test his findings, Fang Yuan used a food path killer move on this immemorial sunken fish.

Soon, the sunken fish got hungry.

This time, it chose to eat the sea soil.

But good times did not last, soil soon accumulated in its stomach but could not be digested quickly. If Fang Yuan did not dispel the food path killer move in time, the immemorial sunken fish would have died from stuffing itself with sea soil without being able to digest it.

Fang Yuan used just a few methods to completely cripple an immemorial desolate beast.

"What if I return the dao marks to it?" Fang Yuan started to deduce again, he soon made a refinement path killer move that had an accompanying wisdom path killer move.

Fang Yuan first used the wisdom path killer move to raise the mood of the sunken fish and started to guide it.

Next, he used a refinement path method to teach the sunken fish to refine all of its refinement path dao marks.

Not long after, the sunken fish regained its refinement path dao marks, light returned to its eyes as its life became less bleak, the negative emotions also left it.

It quickly refined the sea soil in its body and turned them into immortal material fish scales.

Fang Yuan nodded, this result was in line with his guess.

Next, he refined the refinement path dao marks of the immemorial sunken fish again.

The sunken fish: "..."

It fell into a state of intense and complex emotions like numbness, fear, anger, and shock.

Fang Yuan used brute force to chase it away to the bottom of the sea, which had fewer refinement path dao marks that Fang Yuan had already refined.

As he expected, his sensation of this immemorial sunken fish became much weaker.

But when Fang Yuan placed this immemorial sunken fish to a place with more refinement path dao marks, his connection to the sunken fish became much clearer and stable.

Fang Yuan waved his hand, seawater erupted, the refinement path dao marks within one li were all destroyed by him.

In his sensation, this place became somewhat like a black hole.

After Fang Yuan placed the immemorial sunken fish into this black hole, he could not sense the sunken fish at all.

"This proves that my refinement path sensation is extended through the dao marks. This is like how a spider uses its webs."

Fang Yuan's refinement path sensation was limited to the areas where he had refined dao marks.

These last days, he stayed in the deepest part of Eastern Sea and built his own spider web. If he or his prey left the range of the web, then he would not be able to sense anything.

Fang Yuan felt quite satisfied about this discovery.

Because Giant Sun Immortal Venerable had also refined a portion of Eastern Sea's luck path dao marks.

As long as Giant Sun Immortal Venerable did not personally interact with this area of luck path dao marks, he would not have any luck path sensation, he would not be able to use the dao marks to do anything.

"Of course, I cannot rule out the possibility that Giant Sun Immortal Venerable has immortal killer moves that can allow him to bypass distance and make use of the luck path dao marks he refined in Eastern Sea." Fang Yuan reminded himself.

After confirming many guesses, Fang Yuan had a lot of gains.

He did the same thing again and returned the immemorial sunken fish's dao marks to it.

After that, he stopped torturing the poor fish and let it swim away in fear and panic.

Fang Yuan fell into deep thought.

"Even though refinement path dao marks are present all over the five regions and two heavens, they are not evenly distributed, some areas have more dao marks while others have fewer."

"For me, the more abundant the refinement path dao marks, the better."

"In that case, after I refine these dao marks, my refinement path sensation will get stronger. When fighting or refining Gu in such an environment, the amplification will be huge."

"Huh? What was this situation?"

Fang Yuan's expression changed slightly, he could sense an intense refinement path fluctuation from far away.

"Poetic emotion sea area."

Fang Yuan immediately used his investigative method and saw through the truth, he quickly found the source of the refinement path fluctuation.

It was Song Yi Shi.

Poetic emotion sea area was the territory of Song Yi Shi, she had built a palace in the underwater volcano.

Currently, she was cultivating in her palace, her clothes were all taken off, exposing her snow-white flesh and slender figure.

She was activating a water path killer move, endless steam was produced.

The steam covered her entire body, making her beautiful face even more alluring than normal.

Fang Yuan understood at once: "So that's it."

He immediately deciphered that Song Yi Shi was practicing her water path defensive killer move.

Eastern Sea's Song clan specialized in water path, they had a signature water path inheritance called flowing water. This inheritance had defensive killer moves like noncorroding flowing water, emotionless flowing water, flowering flowing water and others, they guarded against poison path, wisdom path, and wood path respectively. There were also killer moves like flowing water carriage for movement, thin flowing water that reduced immortal essence expenditure, flowing water wine party that mimicked food path effect, or moving cloud flowing water that helped with killer move activation.

"Song Yi Shi is currently using noncorroding flowing water. This is a passive defensive method, the essence is to carve water path defensive killer move on the body. Once a poison path attack lands, it will activate on its own."

"This is a form of Gu refinement in essence, except that the target is the Gu Immortal's physical body."

"No wonder I can sense it."

Fang Yuan realized and took a close look.

He had incredible attainment levels, he was a supreme grandmaster in refinement path and a great grandmaster in water path.

After looking for a while, he deciphered all of the profundities of noncorroding flowing water.

Fang Yuan gained some interest.

It was a great opportunity, he had new ideas to test out.

-x-X-x-

Song Yi Shi cultivated for six hours before stopping her killer move.

She let out a breath of air and opened her eyes, she saw that a lump of steam that was vague and illusory flowed from her arms to her legs, finally stopping at her chest.

Song Yi Shi looked at the steam and felt joyful internally: "At this rate, I can complete my cultivation of this noncorroding flowing water killer move in half a month."

"Strange, why did this cultivation session feel more effective than before? Is it just me?"

Song Yi Shi shook her head slightly.

She inspected her immortal essence.

There was little immortal essence left, she also lacked immortal essence stones now.

"Sigh, Heavenly Court is the source of immortal essence stones, once they stopped distributing those, the entire market's immortal essence stones fell greatly in number. I have grandfather's help in secret, but all other Gu Immortals should be having a tougher time!"

Song Yi Shi sighed to herself.

If she had enough immortal essence stones, she would use them to replenish her immortal essence now to continue cultivating the noncorroding flowing water killer move.

But now, she had to slow down and let her immortal essence produce immortal essence naturally. After it accumulates to a degree, she could resume her cultivation.

"After I complete the noncorroding flowing water killer move, I will move on to emotionless flowing water. My clan's flowing water inheritance is our signature inheritance, it is renowned in Eastern Sea, being quite exceptional even in the five regions. Passive defensive killer moves are rare to begin with, normally speaking, Gu Immortals can only cultivate one of them, they cannot stack many passive defensive killer moves."

"But my clan's flowing water inheritance has a unique concept, it is ingenious. By using the same core, we can stack passive defensive killer moves."

Thinking of this, Song Yi Shi felt a little proud of her background.

But soon, such emotions vanished.

"Sigh, I am still far from success."

"After completing emotionless flowing water, I will undergo tribulation and reach rank seven."

"With the contest of three venerables and the fusion of two heavens, the five regions chaotic war may erupt at any time!"

Song Yi Shi was originally the prized jewel of her clan, she was doted on by her grandfather and received the support of the clan, having no lack of resources. Her incredible appearance also made her one of the six beauties of Eastern Sea.

But her carefree life could no longer return.

The situation was changing too rapidly, Song Yi Shi felt no sense of assurance at all. Currently, all of Eastern Sea's righteous path super forces had joined Fang Yuan's side, this was something unimaginable in the past!

The external pressure forced Song Yi Shi, this prized jewel, to have an intense urge to cultivate.

Especially when Song clan's first supreme elder, Song Qi Yuan, who was also her grandfather, gave Song Yi Shi some exciting news.

In the letter, Song Qi Yuan nagged endlessly before mentioning the orders of the Heaven and Earth Great Love Alliance, they were going to pick a number of merfolk Gu Immortals from the Merman Imperial Court to live in sovereign immortal aperture.

Even though Fang Yuan did not specify the ratio of male to female he wanted, the Merman Imperial Court purposely chose some female immortals with the most beautiful appearances and elegant demeanors.

In addition, Fang Yuan had never been known to have any love interests, he had always faced great external pressure all the way until he became a venerable, now that he could rival Heavenly Court and Longevity Heaven, his pressure fell immensely.

Along this train of thought, Song Qi Yuan mentioned Giant Sun Immortal Venerable.

Back then, after Giant Sun Immortal Venerable became venerable, he took in all the beauties of the world and created five harem palaces.

Afterwards, he mentioned the other venerables.

All the ten venerables had partners in their lives, only the number was different.

Even the unmarried Star Constellation Immortal Venerable had once been in love, it involved a certain variant human Gu Immortal...

Song Qi Yuan vaguely suggested an idea in order to probe the intention of his beloved granddaughter.

"If Great Love Immortal Venerable wants to choose a wife or concubine, will Song clan offer me to him?!" Initially, Song Yi Shi was very angry.

But a few days later, she calmed down and thought about it rationally: "Grandfather will not force me, he is only raising this possibility and wants to see if I am willing to do so."

"However, if Great Love Immortal Venerable orders this personally like Giant Sun Immortal Venerable and wants to collect beauties, how can I escape? How can Song clan protect me?"

Song Yi Shi, who had always been proud as a crane, felt bitter and helpless internally after she realized this.

"If such a situation occurs, I cannot burden this clan which nurtured and raised me. Grandfather loves me so deeply, he funded me and gave me water clothing Immortal Gu secretly, if not for this Immortal Gu, how could I have modified the killer move and successfully cultivated the flowing water inheritance? How can I repay him? How can I let my unwillingness lead to Song clan's extermination?"

"How can I be this selfish?" Song Yi Shi thought of this and felt a deep sense of guilt internally.

Along this thought, she thought of the deeper aspect.

"If Great Love Immortal Venerable has such intentions, for the sake of the clan, I need to offer myself to him. Why should I wait until then? Why can't I go further and take the initiative instead? If I can succeed, by just sacrificing myself, I will ensure the prosperity of Song clan for countless years!"

"Sigh, I'll stop thinking about this..."

Fang Yuan did not know that just one order from him led to such distorted thoughts of his subordinates.

In fact, Fang Yuan did not know that Song Yi Shi was having complex emotions now, he was looking at his recent gains.

When Song Yi Shi cultivated, Fang Yuan had secretly used methods through the refinement path dao marks in poetic emotion sea area to help her out.

Fang Yuan gave it a simple try, the effort was as mild as breathing, but Song Yi Shi's cultivation gains rose by at least ten percent.

"If I use my full effort, Song Yi Shi's cultivation efficiency will rise by tens of times!"

"She is undergoing water path cultivation, because it is a passive defensive method, it has something to do with refinement path. If this were a genuine Gu refinement attempt, my influence would be even greater."

"This means that I can use refinement path to help others refine Gu. At the same time, I can also ruin their attempts. Or at least, without my permission, nobody can refine an Immortal Gu in my refinement path dao mark domain!"

This was terrifying.

The power of a venerable was displayed at its fullest.

Fang Yuan was overjoyed but he also had a heavy mood.

If his refinement path could have such an influence, it meant that Giant Sun Immortal Venerable and Star Constellation Immortal Venerable would have the same influence in luck path and wisdom path.

"If I refine all the refinement path dao marks in the five regions and two heavens, while invigilating the world at all times, if any Gu Immortal tries to refine Immortal Gu, I will be able to ruin the attempt. In that case, can I make it such that only my faction can refine Immortal Gu?"

Fang Yuan thought of this problem.

But soon, he shook his head.

If Gu Immortals refined Gu in their own immortal apertures, Fang Yuan could not influence them.

Because immortal apertures were isolated worlds of their own.

But if a Gu Immortal refined Gu outside, Fang Yuan would be able to sense and influence it.

Putting aside the issue of Song Yi Shi, Fang Yuan placed his attention on a certain coral group deep in the sea.

These corals contained abundant refinement path Gu materials, they were a natural refinement path resource point of heaven and earth, they had very high value but had not been discovered by anyone.

Fang Yuan pondered and searched meticulously.

He used time path killer moves to observe the formation of this coral group.

Why did such a refinement path resource point form?

Thousands of years ago, there was nothing here.

But a sunken fish died here.

The refinement path and rule path dao marks of the sunken fish spread out and influenced the surroundings.

After a few hundred years, the sunken fish's corpse decomposed entirely, while the environment also stabilized.

Initially, all sorts of fish and shrimps came here in groups. Afterwards, middle sized and large sized beasts also moved here.

The sea currents were turbulent, causing seeds and corals to be swept over.

After thousands of years of development and natural selection, due to lucky opportunities and evolution, this resource point was created now.

Fang Yuan's focus was on the refinement path dao marks of the coral group.

For thousands of years, the refinement path dao marks here had been increasing and decreasing, being extremely unstable. Eventually, the group grew to this size.

"As long as I replicate the development of this refinement path resource point, with enough time, I can create such a refinement path resource point anywhere in the sovereign immortal aperture!"

Of course, there was an easier method, which was to directly create a refinement path formation and consume immortal materials to create an environment that was similar to this coral resource point.

But this method needed the formation to have some Immortal Gu, it also expended immortal essence.

Meanwhile, creating a refinement path resource point through a naturally developed dao mark distribution would not expend immortal essence or require Immortal Gu.

In truth, Fang Yuan had always been using the latter method for his development of the sovereign immortal aperture, by setting up immortal formations everywhere, he instantly created resource points. For example, the earth vein nodes and water vein nodes were all formations that he created.

These formations not only used Immortal Gu, there were also formations that used immortal resources as the core.

This was a quick method that needed very little time, but the cost was very high.

While natural development had low costs (no Immortal Gu was needed, while immortal materials were slowly accumulated naturally), but the time needed was too long.

"No matter which method it is, they have the same origin, they are all just killer moves."

Immortal formations were killer moves, while naturally derived dao mark distribution was also a type of passive killer move. It was just that this killer move was not defensive but was used to develop an environment.

"Wait." Fang Yuan thought of the killer moves divine concealment, ghostly concealment, and spaceless tunnel.

Divine concealment and ghostly concealment both created thick and dense clothing of dao marks on the soul, they were like tightly weaved silk clothing. They did not expend immortal essence and were passive defensive killer moves.

Additionally, spaceless tunnel was created by Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable as well, it was used in various places of the five regions and two heavens, shortening travel distance. This killer move from three hundred thousand years ago was still active now, but with the fusion of two heavens, it should have already been mostly destroyed.

"The essence of these killer moves has no difference from the coral resource point."

Fang Yuan thought of fortune rivalling heaven Immortal Gu.

This Immortal Gu was a consumable Gu that could give the Gu Immortal immense luck to rival the heavens after use, no longer consuming immortal essence anymore.

What was the difference in essence between it and the coral resource point?

Fang Yuan then thought of the incomplete Refinement Sea.

This was the refinement path secluded domain of heaven and earth that Lang Ya land spirit wanted to create with all his effort!

"What is a secluded domain of heaven and earth? It is merely an agglomeration of dao marks of a specific path to form a certain special effect. Dang Hun Mountain produces guts Gu, while Qian Kun Crystal Wall can reflect everything that happens in this world."

"Secluded domains of heaven and earth are the extreme form of resource points, they are also the other aspect of Gu worms and killer moves."

"Thus, everything has the same point of origin?"

-x-X-x-

"Knowledge obtained from theory always feels shallow, one needs practice to understand it completely." Fang Yuan muttered to himself.

Understanding that all things had the same point of origin was one matter, putting it into practice was another.

Fang Yuan completely comprehended the essence of killer moves like divine concealment and ghostly concealment, but he had done so through refinement path. Because of the limitation of theft path attainment level, he could not modify ghostly concealment yet.

He had the ability to create refinement path killer moves similar to divine concealment and ghostly concealment, although it would be a difficult process and the price to pay would be great.

During this period where the three venerables contested, if Fang Yuan invested a lot of his time and energy into creating a top tier refinement path killer move, it would be too risky.

The timing and opportunity did not allow Fang Yuan to do so.

However, the refinement path resource points of the five regions and two heavens had a lot of value to him as references.

After Fang Yuan simplified them and took out the true core, he would be able to modify them into mature passive killer moves that could be used to develop the immortal aperture.

Basically, these passive killer moves were very rare among killer moves, they had great value.

The most common ones were defensive methods.

Song Yi Shi's pride came from this reason.

Duke Long only had one of such a move too, it was called nine dragons protection.

As far as Fang Yuan knew, Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable created no more than five of such killer moves like divine concealment and ghostly concealment in his life.

The creation of a killer move starts with the use of multiple Gu worms by a predecessor to gain experience gradually. The Gu cultivation predecessors took reference to the innate abilities of the living beings in the five regions and two heavens to rapidly establish the foundation of killer moves.

Until today, the Gu cultivators had already hit the limit of this world.

For example, Duke Long created the dragonman race, Lang Ya land spirit created an artificial secluded domain, Spectral Soul Demon Venerable created soul beasts, he turned all sorts of soul path killer moves into dao marks that were carved onto soul beasts to grant them innate abilities.

All of these accomplishments showed that Gu cultivators had already rivaled the natural world, they were able to grasp the profundity of heaven and earth.

And Limitless Demon Venerable went one step further.

He made an arrangement in Crazed Demon Cave, breaking the world boundary to create a hole and even making brand new heaven path dao marks. He had surpassed the entire Gu cultivator world singlehandedly.

This was the first time Fang Yuan was refining the refinement path dao marks of the outside world.

With his supreme grandmaster attainment level and manual practice, Fang Yuan gained a lot of insight.

To conclude —

The five regions and two heavens had a vast number of refinement path dao marks, but they were not evenly distributed, some places were dense while others were sparse. These refinement path dao marks were very stable and hard to change, normally speaking, their growth was extremely slow and needed a lot of time to accumulate.

These refinement path dao marks could be seen as the basis of the entire world's refinement path foundation.

On this foundation, a large number of beasts, plants, and lifeless Gu materials were produced and nurtured.

These beasts and plants were related to refinement path, they were refinement path resources.

Normally speaking, in places with dense refinement path dao marks, the relevant resources would also be more abundant and high quality. In places with sparse refinement path dao marks, there would be fewer refinement path resources and of lower quality.

The refinement path dao marks and resources had a deep influence on each other. For example, the coral group that Fang Yuan saw earlier was a refinement path resource point, the source was an immemorial sunken fish that died thousands of years ago, its refinement path dao marks scattered in the surroundings and a portion was left behind in that location.

The dao marks that Fang Yuan refined here were the refinement path foundation of the world.

Refinement path resources were not included in this.

The natural dao marks that Fang Yuan refined were like a huge spider web. As long as Fang Yuan was in range, he would be able to sense all refinement path activities within the web.

This was the so-called refinement path sensation.

Fang Yuan had a vague sensation of the refinement path resources, he could also sense the refinement path activities of Gu cultivators.

In places with dense refinement path dao marks, the sensation would be more intense, stable, and clearer. For example, he would be able to find small-scale ordinary refinement path Gu materials.

Conversely, if the refinement path dao marks were sparse, the refinement path sensation would be weaker. In those regions, Fang Yuan would only be able to sense refinement path immortal materials.

If there was a hole in the spider web, or if a Gu Immortal refined Gu in their immortal aperture, Fang Yuan would not sense anything.

Using the refinement path dao marks that he refined, Fang Yuan could influence everything in that range, he could interfere with the living beings as well as the natural environment.

For example, he could help Song Yi Shi cultivate, strengthen refinement path resource points like the coral group, or even create a top tier refinement path passive killer move (like spaceless tunnel) that could exist indefinitely.

Simply using refinement path dao marks to amplify his own strength was only the most basic use.

"From the angle of refinement path, in the entire Gu cultivation world, the five regions and two heavens are just a giant immortal material. This immortal material comprises everything, it has dao marks of all paths."

"Even though I became a refinement path venerable, I can only refine a portion of this huge immortal material. This is true for Giant Sun Immortal Venerable, Star Constellation Immortal Venerable, and all other venerables."

"Owning a portion of heaven and earth, this is what a Dao Lord entails!"

"The other venerables are only able to become the Lord of one Dao, but I am different."

Fang Yuan's sovereign immortal body had non-conflicting dao marks, he cultivated all paths. The other venerables could do one main path and one specialty path at best, their main path would become their venerable path, while their specialty path would be used to fight and compete.

In theory, Fang Yuan could cultivate all the paths and become a venerable of all paths!

This was the intention of Spectral Soul Demon Venerable when he spent all his effort to refine sovereign immortal fetus Gu.

Fang Yuan had incomparable potential, the limit of his growth was unimaginable.

"The other venerables also know this, the only reason why they did not kill me is because I displayed incredible battle strength in Crazed Demon Cave, Giant Sun Immortal Venerable and Star Constellation Immortal Venerable knew that the price to kill me was too great, they could not take the backlash."

Fang Yuan did not continue to refine dao marks.

He decided to stop for now.

Even though Heavenly Essence Treasure Imperial Lotus had bloomed again in the sovereign immortal aperture and gave him nearly a hundred immortal essence beads again.

Even though he had all sorts of refinement path methods to raise his refinement efficiency by many times, far surpassing the venerables.

This was obvious.

Refinement path most excelled in this aspect.

In terms of refinement path, he far surpassed the other two venerables, this was the advantage of refinement path to begin with.

"However, I cannot display my advantage now, it will overly agitate those venerables." Fang Yuan thought to himself.

Once he used his advantage, the two venerables would move.

Although they felt that they had some advantage, if they saw that Fang Yuan's dao mark refinement speed was so fast, they would not sit still, they would have to come and stop him.

Fang Yuan was not afraid of getting attacked by them.

After all, he had enough immortal essence reserves now, although the quantity was not high, the two venerables could not kill him in a short time, as they fought, Heavenly Essence Treasure Imperial Lotus would gradually accumulate an advantage for Fang Yuan.

But there was no point in going this far!

Most importantly, it would cause Fang Yuan's secret to be exposed, the existence of obscured heavenly secret, the loss was not worth the gain.

Blindly using one's advantage was the biggest trap in life.

Fang Yuan knew deeply that assessing the situation was most important.

"Next, I need to refine dao marks with a slower speed, my efficiency should be around the same level as the two venerables, but I need to stop multiple times to pretend that I am out of immortal essence. Of course, I cannot be overly weak, otherwise, they will want to work together to get rid of me."

Fang Yuan had a good grasp of this situation, he knew what to do.

He had abundant life experience after all.

Especially in the five hundred years of his previous life, all sorts of failure, pain, and losses became the valuable foundation that supported him.

"Keeping a low profile while profiting greatly! By the time I expose this secret, I am sure the two venerables will not be able to keep their cool."

Fang Yuan activated Cooking Luck Pot to inspect his luck again.

His luck still resembled a furnace.

Fang Yuan had inspected this many times already, he had some guesses about it.

This was caused by his status as a refinement path venerable, his luck's appearance was stabilized and would not change for a period of time.

The furnace was still quite crude, it had cracks remaining.

But from the vast number of cracks, two or three of them had mended.

This was because the sovereign immortal aperture had already completed the first earth vein, the second one was on the way. It had also completed the first water vein.

These were all helping to stabilize his foundation.

And compared to the past, there was a huge change on the surface of the furnace, there was a lotus flower pattern.

The lotus flower pattern was clearly referring to rank nine Heavenly Essence Treasure Imperial Lotus. It showed how significant this Immortal Gu was to Fang Yuan!

The lotus flower pattern went one round around the outer layer of the furnace, it extended to the bottom and turned into several lotus roots.

These lotus roots went deep into the bottom of the furnace and burned together with the firewood that represented immortal essence.

Compared to the weak fire earlier, the furnace was fully lit now, the flames expanded by several times, showing great growth.

There was no lid on the furnace, the scene inside could be seen.

The immortal crane cloud that symbolized heaven form and the green lotus cloud that was Heavenly Essence Treasure Imperial Lotus were both gone now.

Instead, there was a piece of blue-white ice, symbolizing the truthful floating ice. The blue-white ice was heated in the furnace, slowly melting and generating a beautiful halo.

At the top of the furnace, there was a large amount of reddish brown sand dust, floating like a cloud.

The reddish brown sand dust condensed into one lump and slowly went into the furnace.

It was easily melted and infused into the furnace, fixing the cracks and slowly making the furnace smoother from its crude state.

"This should be referencing my action of refining natural dao marks. If I go all out on this, the sand dust will pour down rapidly and block my opening of my furnace, it can even put out the fire at the bottom. Excessive progress is not good, this shows the terrible outcome of facing two venerables' suppression at the same time."

Fang Yuan had used luck inspection many times, he was able to reference the phenomena he saw to actual events that were happening more easily.

Even though rank eight Cooking Luck Pot was too low in rank and did not suit the current Fang Yuan, it still displayed the profundity of luck path, reminding Fang Yuan that the most important variables to him now were refining dao marks and also heaven path development!

"The refinement of dao marks can progress slowly, but I also need to unseal the truthful floating ice in secret. Right now, immortal essence is not my burden, it is my advantage instead. I need to use all my immortal essence and convert my resources into foundation and strength."

Venerables all had one main and one specialty path.

Fang Yuan had planned from long ago to use refinement path as his main, and heaven path as his specialty.

Refinement path was his main cultivation, but refinement path itself was weak in the fighting aspect.

This was a publicly known fact.

In this situation, Fang Yuan needed another path to support his battle strength. This path should have few cultivators, for example, painting path. That would allow him to catch enemies off-guard and prevent them from having precaution against him.

Even though there were many paths in existence, Fang Yuan did not have many choices, looking at his situation, heaven path was the best choice!

There were almost no heaven path cultivators, the criteria was too hard to achieve.

Heaven path itself was very special and had extraordinary potential, its might was also unrivaled.

Refinement path as main, heaven path as specialty.

This was Fang Yuan's current cultivation plan.

The Heaven Refining Demon Venerable title that Giant Sun Immortal Venerable and Star Constellation Immortal Venerable gave to Fang Yuan was truly appropriate.

-x-X-x-

"We pay respects to Lord Alliance Leader." A group of mermaid Gu Immortals showed a respectful attitude as they bowed before Fang Yuan's feet.

Fang Yuan looked around and was a little surprised.

He found that all these merman Gu Immortals were female, they were either seductive, innocent, or cold. The two strongest ones had rank seven cultivation level, the other four were rank six.

"All female immortals..." Fang Yuan thought.

This was not good.

He let these mermen enter the sovereign immortal aperture in order to procreate and develop in numbers. Without male merman Gu Immortals and a total of six female immortals, they could not grow properly.

However, Fang Yuan recalled that in merman society, females had higher status than males. They would elect a saintess but not a saint.

In addition, the Merman Imperial Court sent these female immortals without any males as a form of reverence towards Fang Yuan as well.

"You are all members of the Heaven and Earth Great Love Alliance, after entering the sovereign immortal aperture, we will be one big family. Remember the rules and abide by them, you will be informed of the details later."

Saying this, Fang Yuan opened his immortal aperture's entrance.

"We will obey alliance leader's teachings!" The female immortals quickly responded before entering obediently.

At the next moment, their vision changed completely, they found that they were in the vast sky, below them was cloud soil and a city was far away, it resembled a huge sea snail that radiated with starlight specks.

"Did you raise your head earlier?"

"No, I've never been so close to Lord Alliance Leader, I lowered my head the entire time."

"I mustered my courage and took a peek at him before entering the immortal aperture, oh goodness, Lord Alliance Leader is simply... too beautiful!"

"Lord Alliance Leader has venerable cultivation level, he also takes care of us variant humans, and most strikingly, he is so beautiful. I've never seen such a beautiful and gentle higher-up before."

These two rank six mermaid Gu Immortals were quite close, they spoke with excitement and expressed their reverence and adoration towards Fang Yuan.

As for the other two rank six female immortals, they had solemn expressions and did not speak.

"Silence." One of the two mermaid leaders said unhappily: "Is Lord Alliance Leader someone you can talk about so casually? We are inside the sovereign immortal aperture now!"

The female immortals lowered their heads and stopped speaking, but they communicated with their expressions, unable to conceal their excitement.

The other leader, Lian Ke Xin, stretched out her hand and grasped Yu Zi's hand, consoling her.

Lian Ke Xin, Yu Zi, and Xie Ning Si were the three leaders of the Merman Imperial Court, this time, when Fang Yuan decided to move some of them into the sovereign immortal aperture, how could the Merman Imperial Court refuse?

After receiving the orders, the Merman Imperial Court held an emergency meeting for a day and night.

Eventually, the Merman Imperial Court chose two of their leaders and four mermaid immortals with outstanding beauty to offer to Fang Yuan. To do this, they broke up two couples, one of which was already close to getting married.

The Merman Imperial Court did not have any rank eights, their top battle strengths were the three leading first supreme elders with rank seven battle strength, by sending two away at the same time, it showed how resolute they were.

After that, they omitted the males and only chose the most beautiful female immortals, they were trying to get closer to Fang Yuan to curry his favor.

This was not strange.

Humanity was the undisputed overlord of the world, the Merman Imperial Court had already gotten used to such a subservient lifestyle after many years.

Back then, Paradise Earth Immortal Venerable took action to protect the Merman Imperial Court. After his death, his influence dwindled and the Merman Imperial Court started to have alliance marriages with Eastern Sea's righteous path forces, they also liked to take in lone immortals of Eastern Sea through marriage.

The Merman Imperial Court was used to such treatment.

Because of Paradise Earth Immortal Venerable, they were accepted by Eastern Sea's human forces. Now that Fang Yuan was venerable and took control of Eastern Sea, the Merman Imperial Court was unlike other human forces, they could not join Giant Sun Immortal Venerable or Star Constellation Immortal Venerable, they could only choose Great Love Immortal Venerable, who was closer to variant humans.

Thus, even though the two female immortals bore grudges after getting separated from their partners, for the sake of their people, they still chose to sacrifice their own happiness!

But earlier, when they met with Fang Yuan, they suffered a huge blow.

The mermaid immortals knew about Fang Yuan's appearance, be it Heavenly Court or other forces, they had shown videos of him. The female immortals knew about Fang Yuan's beautiful appearance, but after meeting it, they were still shocked by his peerless features!

This was not just external beauty, there was also the fact that he contained abundant dao marks, each of his actions had the aura of the Great Dao, he emitted extraordinary charm from his entire body, his incomparable capacity and aura subdued everyone that he met.

Even Giant Sun Immortal Venerable and Star Constellation Immortal Venerable, despite having many dao marks, would not be as charming to merfolk.

Because mermen were born with water path dao marks, while Fang Yuan had over two million of them, this brought them closer naturally.

Yu Zi was one of the leaders this time, she was the one who most advocated to contribute everything and use beauty to get closer to Fang Yuan.

However, after seeing Fang Yuan, she was deeply shocked, she felt that she was mud when compared to the pure cloud-like Fang Yuan, she felt ashamed of herself.

Lian Ke Xin and Yu Zi were very close, along with her personal experiences, she understood why Yu Zi was feeling this way.

She grabbed Yu Zi's hand and secretly transmitted: "No matter how beautiful Lord Fang Yuan is, he is still a man. As long as this fact remains, we have hope. Think of Giant Sun Immortal Venerable."

Yu Zi nodded and slowly regained her calm.

At this time, a hairy man Gu Immortal flew over.

"I am Twelfth Hair, I have come to receive you." Twelfth Hair spoke.

Yu Zi quickly smiled, after a short conversation with Twelfth Hair, she cast a glance at Tang Qiong.

Tang Qiong was a supreme elder of the Merman Imperial Court, she had yellow scales and was gentle and beautiful, her smile showed dimples that amplified her cuteness. Even though her status was lower than Yu Zi, Lian Ke Xin, and Xie Ning Si, she was only below these three. She was given great authority by the three of them, she spent her time on managing the political affairs, she had outstanding interpersonal skills.

After getting Yu Zi's approval, Tang Qiong went up and handed Twelfth Hair a seashell.

Twelfth Hair saw that this shell was a rare rank seven refinement path immortal material, he took it with a smile and showed a warmer attitude: "Everyone, please come with me. Your first stop will be Star Collection City, this is the central control area of the sovereign immortal aperture."

Star Collection City was not on a huge piece of cloud soil, after flying for some time, they quickly entered it.

Under Twelfth Hair's guide, the mermaid Gu Immortals went into the main hall and greeted the person in charge.

The Gu Immortal in charge of this main hall was a woman who cultivated sound path, her rank eight aura spread throughout the hall.

She was wearing a pink dress, her eye sockets were deeper than normal, her nose had a tall bridge, she also had a pair of seductive and moving eyes, it was Fairy Miao Yin.

The mermaids quickly greeted her.

Fairy Miao Yin sat at the top seat and looked down at these Gu Immortals, she spoke with a solemn expression: "You have just arrived here, you need to learn about the rules of our sovereign immortal aperture and obey them forever. The sovereign immortal aperture does not raise useless people, no matter who you are, you need to work hard to gain anything. The contribution board has a clear list of tasks that you can do, the worst thing you can do is slack off. Do you understand?"

"Yes, we will remember Lady Miao Yin's teachings." The mermaids responded.

Fairy Miao Yin nodded before casting her gaze at Twelfth Hair: "Since you took the mission to lead the mermaid Gu Immortals, you will bring them around and get familiar with Star Collection City's arrangements."

Saying this, Fairy Miao Yin waved her hand, dozens of Gu worms flew out.

Twelfth Hair acknowledged and took these Gu worms, he said to the female immortals: "Follow me."

The mermaid immortals took their leave and followed Twelfth Hair, they all let out a sigh of relief.

"This Fairy Miao Yin was originally a rank seven Gu Immortal in Southern Border, but after following Great Love Immortal Venerable, she became a rank eight."

"She spoke in such a tone, I'm afraid she knows our intention, so she wants to suppress us."

Lian Ke Xin and Yu Zi transmitted to each other.

On the other hand, Tang Qiong carefully asked Twelfth Hair about Fairy Miao Yin's status, was she the Star Collection City Lord?

Before coming, the Merman Imperial Court made ample preparation. They had prepared gifts for Fang Yuan's well known subordinates like Fairy Miao Yin and Lady White Rabbit, but because of the tense atmosphere earlier, Tang Qiong could not offer the gift.

Twelfth Hair shook his head: "Originally, the Star Collection City Lord was the noble Combat Beast King, but he died during the tribulation. Now, Miao Yin, White Rabbit, Wu Shuai, Qi Sea, and the other rank eights are taking turns to station in Star Collection City."

After hearing this, the mermaid Gu Immortals let out sighs of relief again.

This Fairy Miao Yin was not the Star Collection City Lord, she did not have too much authority.

Yu Zi's eyes brightened, she knew that the chance to meet Fang Yuan's main body was too rare, but his clones were inside the sovereign immortal aperture, if she could get close to one of them, the goal would be achieved.

The mermaid immortals followed Twelfth Hair and arrived at Star Collection City's central square.

In the square, there were three huge pillars.

There were countless words moving around the surface of the pillars, they made up three large boards.

Before the mermaid Gu Immortals looked at them closely, Twelfth Hair already handed out Gu worms.

These were the Gu worms that Fairy Miao Yin gave to Twelfth Hair earlier. Each of the mermaid Gu Immortals obtained five of them, they were rank five mortal Gu.

Three of the Gu worms were familiar to the mermaids, they knew that these were used for the contribution board, mission board, and exchange board respectfully.

Fang Yuan listed three boards, they did not just exist in the sovereign immortal aperture, be it the variant human alliance or Righteous Qi Alliance, there were such arrangements. Thus, the mermaid immortals knew them.

Twelfth Hair spoke: "You will live in the sovereign immortal aperture from now on, your lives will be quite different. From now on, unless master gives orders, you will not go outside. You can take a look at these three boards, these are our internal boards, the external boards in the Heaven and Earth Great Love Alliance are quite different from them."

Right now, be it the Righteous Qi Alliance or variant human alliance, they had all joined the Heaven and Earth Great Love Alliance.

These were two conflicting forces, but now, they were one force.

Everyone felt very complex emotions.

But under Fang Yuan's venerable cultivation level, regardless of their willingness, they had to follow him!

-x-X-x-

Star Collection City Square.

Yu Zi and Lian Ke Xin looked at a contribution board at the same time.

This contribution board had a lot of reference material, whoever stood at the top would be the most important subordinates, Fang Yuan's capable generals, they were targets that the mermaid immortals had to befriend.

Looking at the contribution board, they could also roughly see the power levels of the factions of Fang Yuan's subordinates and gain more insight.

Thereafter, they saw the number one name on the contribution board — Sixth Hair!

"A hairy man?"

"This person's contribution points are far above the second person. For the time being, nobody can catch up to him."

Even though Yu Zi and Lian Ke Xin had just arrived, they could see that Sixth Hair's foundation and accumulation were immensely deep.

"Starting from the second place, the difference in points is not huge anymore."

Lian Ke Xin quickly saw some familiar names from the top ten contributors.

Like Fairy Miao Yin, Lady White Rabbit, Mo Tan Sang, Xue Er, Shi Shi Cheng, and others.

What made Yu Zi and Lian Ke Xin take notice was that there was a strange name in the top ten positions.

"Lang Ya land spirit? Is this Lang Ya blessed land's land spirit?"

"A land spirit can be ranked on the contribution board as well?"

"This shows how magnanimous Lord Fang Yuan is, he treats humans, variant humans, and land spirits equally."

The top ten members of the contribution board were mostly variant human Gu Immortals. This had deep political meaning, the two former rulers of the Merman Imperial Court were very pleased about this, they felt a sense of excitement.

They also saw Twelfth Hair's contribution points soon, he was eighteenth place.

The nineteenth place was the black hound land spirit.

At the next moment, the nineteenth place black hound land spirit took over the position of Twelfth Hair and knocked him down.

Twelfth Hair noticed this too, he coughed in embarrassment and said with a tone of slight envy: "This black hound land spirit is really lucky. Right now, with the fusion of two heavens, remnant heavenly dogs and heaven swallowing hounds are escaping in groups, they have been constantly caught by Gu Immortals and brought into our sovereign immortal aperture. Currently, these hound groups are taken care of by the black hound land spirit, after they are healed and inspected, they will be released into Mini White Heaven. This is why the black hound land spirit is getting so many contribution points."

Lian Ke Xin and Yu Zi nodded repeatedly, while thinking to themselves: "Actually, there is no need to explain this. We don't really care about how a land spirit beat you in contribution."

They were concerned about Fairy Miao Yin, Lady White Rabbit, and the most important person — snowman Gu Immortal Xue Er.

The reason was that Bing Yuan had been bragging in the variant human alliance whenever she could that Xue Er was Fang Yuan's fiancée, this was widely spread news.

As their former enemy, the Righteous Qi Alliance had been collecting such information, they also paid huge attention to this.

Thus, the mermaid immortals learned of this.

However, when they were about to ask for the information of these crucial people, a wave of screams could be heard near them.

Yu Zi frowned and was about to scold them, but she heard the four mermaid immortals say together: "Leaders, look at the exchange board."

Lian Ke Xin and Yu Zi could not help but turn their attention away, immediately, their pupils contracted as they revealed expressions of shock.

The exchange board of the sovereign immortal aperture was truly different from the one in Heaven and Earth Great Love Alliance.

There were too many good things!

Lian Ke Xin and Yu Zi were getting dizzy from browsing the list.

There were all sorts of rewards listed, Gu worms of all paths were available, there were lots of rare and extinct mortal Gu, there were over a thousand Immortal Gu available from rank six to eight. There were countless Immortal Gu recipes, immortal materials, and immortal killer moves. There were hundreds or thousands of Immortal Gu House construction methods, and the immortal inheritances even made Yu Zi and Lian Ke Xin stare with wide eyes.

"This is water path great expert Chang Guan Shui's inheritance, he cultivated water path mainly with information path on the side. He has a killer move called one watery chapter[1], it is extremely famous in history!"

"This is the inheritance of our merfolk expert, Third Princess, she was the most powerful mermaid of the Remote Antiquity Era, she had resisted Primordial Origin Immortal Venerable on many occasions, she created the water path rank eight immortal material, too much water, it has already gone extinct, to think that we would see it here."

Yu Zi's and Lian Ke Xin's hearts palpitated as they read on.

Fang Yuan promoted himself as Great Love Immortal Venerable, he started to do transactions of Gu refinement in treasure yellow heaven, all of the mermaid immortals knew of the prices he set.

Although the prices were fair, they were incomparable to this.

"Using contribution points to exchange for things we want, this is much easier than making transactions in treasure yellow heaven or exchanging with the external board."

"What did I see? We can apply for Lord Fang Yuan to personally help us pass tribulations! He is truly Great Love Immortal Venerable!"

Lian Ke Xin and Yu Zi licked their lips uncontrollably, their desire towards contribution points rose to an unprecedented level.

They cast their heated gazes towards the mission board along with the other four female immortals.

Evidently, if one wanted to get cultivation resources from the exchange board, they would need contribution points, while the source of contribution points were missions.

There were many missions on the mission board.

Within Mini Purple Heaven, a large number of ancient desolate beast mixed heavenly eagles had turned into immemorial desolate beasts for some reason, the mission was to investigate the truth.

Dog shit was falling from the sky in Mini Northern Plains, piling into mountains and polluting the frost dragon's lake, the mission was to investigate the cause of the dog shit and get rid of it.

The dragon scale sea area in Mini Eastern Sea was flowing in reverse, a lot of seawater had entered the mini nine heavens, the mission was to fix the immortal formation and rebuild dragon scale sea area.

Inkman City Lord Mo Tan Sang got pregnant inexplicably, an expert in abortion was needed now.

...

The mermaid immortals looked at the mission board and fell into temporary silence.

The quantity of these missions was out of their expectations.

In normal situations, the immortal apertures of Gu Immortals were calm and peaceful, they only had to rebuild areas after going through tribulations or when they had new resource points added. They were not like the sovereign immortal aperture, which had strange events occurring at every moment.

The mermaid immortals looked for a while, they felt worried but also happy.

The worry was that even though the sovereign immortal aperture was Great Love Immortal Venerable's immortal aperture and was renowned in the world, it was not peaceful at all, there were chaos everywhere, it would not be easy to live in here.

But they were happy because the chaos meant an uncountable number of missions, they had no lack of contribution points to earn.

Twelfth Hair had been observing the mermaid immortals' expressions, he sighed: "I'll speak the truth, the sovereign immortal aperture is currently in a state of peace. You have not seen the situation when master annexed the two heavens' grotto-heavens, when he gained a huge number of dao marks, strange phenomena occurred endlessly. Inside the sovereign immortal aperture, there was not a single idle person at that time."

"Currently, even though there aren't many situations occurring, after the battle in Crazed Demon Cave, we lost many Gu Immortals, although most of them revived, they cannot ascend to immortal yet. You can see for yourselves, there are many many missions now, but some areas need people to guard them. For example, Star Collection City is too important, we cannot lose it. In addition, with many strange situations occurring, we need at least one rank eight Gu Immortal guarding the aperture at all times, because there are too many missions, master brought all of you into the sovereign immortal aperture to help out."

"Earlier in the hall, Fairy Miao Yin spoke bluntly but she was not wrong. If you want to gain the acknowledgement of the existing Gu Immortals, you need to work hard and make achievements, use your actions and contribution points to prove your loyalty to master!"

The mermaid immortals heard his words and nodded.

Lian Ke Xin and Yu Zi looked at each other, they had finally understood Fang Yuan's intention.

Tang Qiong quickly expressed gratitude to Twelfth Hair and handed over a gift again.

The other mermaid immortals asked at this time: "Lord Twelfth Hair, you gave us five Gu worms each, three are used for the boards, what about the last two?"

Twelfth Hair received the gift while smiling and explaining: "One of them is used to connect to treasure yellow heaven. Within the sovereign immortal aperture, all Gu cultivators need to use this Gu worm to access treasure yellow heaven. The other one is used to monitor you, it has to be kept on you at all times. If it is destroyed, you need to report it immediately, we will hand out a replacement in Star Collection City."

After pausing for a while, Twelfth Hair continued: "No need to think too much about it, not just all of you, we have it too. It might be a mortal Gu but it has saved many of our lives already. We face danger when we handle those strange phenomena, it is possible that we will die during the missions."

"For example, look at this mission on the board."

The mermaid immortals looked at where Twelfth Hair pointed and saw the Mo Tan Sang abortion mission.

Twelfth Hair showed a strange smile: "You might not be familiar with Mo Tan Sang, but his status is not low, he is the Gu Immortal leader of Mini Western Desert. He is a male inkman, but while handling a sudden situation, he got mysteriously pregnant. Now, he is offering a huge price to undergo an abortion, many people are interested but were unable to do anything about it. If the abortion fails, he might lose his life after all!"

The mermaid immortals opened their mouths, they were dumbstruck.

"Alright," Twelfth Hair continued: "Follow me, I will bring you to a place. In a way, this place is more important than the three boards!"

The mermaid immortals immediately gained deep interest, they followed Twelfth Hair as they left the square and arrived at a sub-hall of Star Collection City.

They saw that there were many Gu Immortals at the sub-hall.

Many Gu Immortals were holding onto each other, some were bending their backs as they dragged themselves into the sub-hall while looking extremely enervated.

Afterwards, these Gu Immortal walked out of the hall with a revitalized appearance, they looked highly spirited.

Even though there were still deep eye bags on their faces.

These Gu Immortals would nod sincerely when they saw acquaintances, when they went past each other, they would greet each other and talk about their missions or ranking on the contribution board.

When these Gu Immortals saw the mermaid Gu Immortals, they showed expressions of understanding.

A few of them took the initiative to greet the mermaids, they were very welcoming.

"Oh, I've heard that we are bringing in a group of merman Gu Immortals, are they the ones?"

"Great, with them joining us, we can finally take a breather."

"There are more and more missions now, I hope this can reduce our workload."

"Twelfth Hair, you are so lucky to have taken the mission of bringing them in!"

[1] Author is making a joke here. The character's name means adding water, while water is slang for filler in Chinese, therefore a watery chapter is a filler chapter.