Within his room, Fang Yuan took a look at Steal Virtue Gu. Shang Xin Ci engaged in various acts of charity, which had only intensified over the time since becoming a Young Master. She regularly fed the beggars who could be found around Shang Clan City as well as other acts of generosity. He had seen her Accumulate Virtue Gu advance over time.
'Perhaps this is enough for me to try again,' Fang Yuan thought.
It was a bit hard to convince Bai Ning Bing that he needed to use Equality Gu to gain more of her Northern Dark Ice Soul Physique dao marks, given that Bing Bing kept saying that she had already contributed to him during the fight, and that now they should only use Bone Flesh Unity Gu so that Fang Yuan could accelerate her own cultivation.
However, she had finally relented, and it was time for him to try once more.
Shang Xin Ci had managed to earn well through the sales of Audio-Visual Gu, and had offered some of the excess profits to Fang Yuan. "I can still become a Young Master even if you take this amount, Teacher, please, let it ease your troubles for now." The refinement of the Righteous Virtue Gu did not take a large amount of primeval stones when accounting for the fact that it was technically a Rank 5 refinement, but it still cost several thousand.
Fang Yuan took a deep breath.
The dao marks of the Northern Dark Ice Soul Physique resonated with his ordinary Human Path dao marks, as his body began burning. Charity Gu began glowing within his aperture as he tossed primeval stones in, and then focusing on merging the dao marks on his body along with the virtue taken by Steal Virtue Gu and Charity Gu.
The result was him coughing up a mouth full of blood.
The refinement had failed, though his luck was not all bad as both Charity Gu and Steal Virtue Gu had survived.
'Hmm, have I not stolen enough virtue yet? Is that the problem?' Fang Yuan thought to himself, 'or was I unlucky and I just need to try again?' He had already tried several times before, but it could be said, based on what Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable had told him, that his attempts prior to this one had been futile. He did not have the proper ingredients, so one could not even count them as being failed refinement attempts.
'I shouldn't be having such difficulties refining this, so long as I could borrow the help of one of the Extreme Physiques, if what Paradise Earth said is true. Or perhaps it is too much to assume that I could succeed on my first try,' Fang Yuan thought.
The backlash from the refinement had damaged his body, which could be fixed using Doctor Gu, but had also hurt his soul. For that, the best thing was simply to rest and to try again, allowing both his soul and his gu worms to recover.
As it was, it was time to put the next part of his plan into motion. He gazed at some of the paintings kept on the wall within his room.
There was a new one there, one which depicted the battle between Fang Yuan and Liu Nan when both of them had been riding their mounts. Fang Yuan's back could be seen near the frame in this painting, as he rode atop the White Form Immortal Snake, while Liu Nan was merely a speck atop the back of the Poison Perspiring Mountain Monarch Moth.
'So much time, and yet only one extra painting filled,' Fang Yuan thought to himself. It wasn't that there weren't things going around in Shang Clan City, it was that one person could not travel to all such places in order to fill them. 'Maybe... could it be that I will only succeed in refining the Righteous Virtue Physique when the paintings are filled? Or are they a completely unrelated matter?'
He would need Shang Xin Ci for that, but putting that matter aside, came the issue of the gu worm that Liu Nan had left for him.
He had verified through two different information-path experts that this was an ordinary gu worm and did not have any identifiable traps in it. As it was, with it being only Rank 2, the odds of their being a trap that no one could find was nearly impossible.
Fang Yuan released the Spring Autumn Cicada's aura, refining it instantly as the knowledge within flowed into his mind.
"This is...!" he said, almost standing up immediately. He had not expected it to contain this kind of information.
Contained within was an advanced Blood Path cultivation technique. Where would a supposedly righteous cultivator like Liu Nan obtain something like this?
It was eerie in the fact that this seemed to be the same technique that first gen Gu Yue had used in order to manifest the Ancient Moon Desolate Yin Physique within his lineage. Fang Yuan had not been able to discern it before this, but all it took were a few clues for the puzzle pieces to fall into place in his mind.
The basic concept was simple but slightly counterintuitive. The Extreme Physiques, as per this information, where resonant of human nature with the Dao. The Northern Dark Ice Soul Physique, for example, was the resonant of Ice and Water Path with human nature.
If the information contained here were true, one could reverse-engineer the Extreme Physiques.
For example, if one had a Water Path gu worm, they could combine it with a Blood Path technique in order to manifest that aspect of the Dao within their lineage, which would eventually lead to the manifestation of the Northern Dark Ice Soul Physique within their descendants.
Unfortunately, this method had several drawbacks as far as Fang Yuan could tell. Putting aside the demonic nature of the Blood Path which would get most people in trouble if they were caught using it, it needed a large fragment of the Dao to serve as the base of the technique combined with complicated Blood Path methods.
It was clear why first gen Gu Yue had had such problems with the Ancient Moon Desolate Yin Physique. For one, he would not have had access to an Immortal Gu, only mortal ones. While the Blood Path could somewhat compensate for this, he would need a Time Path gu worm alongside this technique. Even if he used a Rank 5 Time Path gu worm for it, the chances of success were still exceedingly low. Then, when one considered the conflict between the Blood Path and Time Path dao marks, the chances were even lower.
Think about how many descendants first gen Gu Yue had had after taking a hundred wives and concubines over the span of a thousand years. Despite that, the Ancient Yin Desolate Moon Physique still had not appeared. That was because the chances were just so astronomically small, forcing him to zombify himself in order to wait out for its eventual appearance.
But Fang Yuan was not first gen Gu Yue.
For one, he had the Spring Autumn Cicada. All gu were fragments of the Dao, but mortal gu were tiny fragments, while Immortal Gu were massive pieces of the Great Dao, and so his chances of success would be exponentially higher simply because of this difference. Not only that, but the technique involved could potentially destroy the core gu worm. First gen Gu Yue may have gone through several Rank 5 Time Path gu worms, which were not easy to obtain in order to perform this. But, because it was a refinement ritual, since the Spring Autumn Cicada was Fang Yuan's vital gu, he did not need to worry about its destruction during the refinement.
Second, Fang Yuan was a Blood Path Grandmaster. Though this technique was 'complete', he could already see several flaws in it as a single glance which he could patch up through some of his own inventions and other advancements that would occur in the Blood Path in the coming 500 years. First gen Gu Yue's attainment in the Blood Path was not nearly as high nor could he benefit from future advancements.
Third, Fang Yuan was also a Human Path quasi-Grandmaster. This knowledge of Human Path methods made it far easier to manifest of the Ten Extreme Physiques. With some trial and error, he was sure that he could leverage the Human Path's property of non-interfering dao marks to maximize success!
With this knowledge, he could manifest the Ancient Moon Desolate Yin Physique in just one or two generations with just a handful of descendants.
He could fly back to Gu Yue village, take a handful of woman, and the likelihood was high that his children would awaken the Ancient Moon Desolate Yin Physique. The only issue was that he lacked Blood Skull Gu in order to extract it from them as it had been taken by Lord Sky Crane.
No, he realized, delving further into the possibilities that were open to him via the Human Path. None of that was necessary. He could directly take on the Ancient Moon Desolate Yin Physique himself!
It would need to involve Equality Gu and a few other of his Human Path gu worms along with some experimentation, but it could work. He also had Bai Ning Bing, who had the basis for an Extreme Physique herself that he could manipulate in order to maximize the chances of this working.
His thoughts went to the Crimsonhoof Deer and the body of the Blood River Python. Sources of Blood Path gu worms as well as a refinement resource rich in Blood Path dao marks at the Rank 5 level - his level!
It was as if the stars had suddenly aligned in the heavens, allowing him to see the truth. It was a lightning stroke of inspiration as the solution came to him nearly all at once. All the tools were readily available to him, he just hadn't realized it!
It was then that he paused.
Why had Liu Nan given him this?
Where had Liu Nan gotten this in the first place? The Blood Sea Ancestor had numerous inheritances scattered throughout the world, it was not out of the question that two of them existed with similar resources and information for both him and first gen Gu Yue to find. But why hand over something that valuable to Fang Yuan?
There was no way that Liu Nan could know that Fang Yuan had all of these tools available to him.
Furthermore, there was no reason for Liu Nan to gift Fang Yuan this.
'Could this be a trap?' Fang Yuan thought, going over the information two or three more times. His Blood Path Grandmaster attainment told him that the information was technically sound. Unless Liu Nan was a Blood Path Great Grandmaster or higher, it would not be possible for him to pull the wool over Fang Yuan's eyes like that.
Then again, even if the information contained were true, it did not mean that there wasn't a trap. The trap could be in another form - namely, exposing Fang Yuan through the Blood Path as a true demon.
Perhaps Liu Nan was waiting for Fang Yuan to take advantage of this technique before rallying the other factions of the righteous path to take him down using it as an excuse?
Killing intent rose in Fang Yuan's heart before it faltered. Liu Nan knew some kind of secret that he didn't, but Fang Yuan could not chase him down now. Liu Nan had left Shang Clan City, and as far as he could tell, disappeared off to wherever he had come from.
For now, he would keep this matter aside as a potential backup. The main issue was that it would take too much time for his descendants to manifest the qualities that he needed if he went that route, and he would still have to experiment to a great extent to make it possible to embody it within himself directly. He had only thought of a theoretical solution, but he would need time to perfect it.
The Spring Autumn Cicada would recover by then.
He detonated the information-type gu worm in question so that no one could accuse him of delving into the Blood Path.