The Stone Men were completely reduced to slaves of the Gu Yue Clan.
The Gu Yue Clan utilized the Stone Man slaves' expertise in mining to construct an underground city within Soul Searching Mountain, and they even relocated Gu Yue Village into the mountain.
Just a few days ago, that Mei Lan Movie, which possessed rank six combat power, suddenly attacked the Gu Yue Village, slaughtering over a thousand people in the blink of an eye. Little Fox Immortal immediately teleported the Mei Lan Movie several kilometers away, allowing the remaining clansmen to escape into Soul Searching Mountain.
Under the pressure of Soul Searching Mountain, the Mei Lan Movie let out earth-shaking screams and slammed its head violently against the mountain. However, it was all in vain, and it could only leave in resentment.
It was precisely because of the Mei Lan Movie's existence that Yuan Fang ordered the Gu Yue Clan to move into the interior of Soul Searching Mountain.
Yuan Fang clearly perceived that the Mei Lan Movie's power was increasing day by day—from initially not daring to approach Soul Searching Mountain to later directly attacking the mountain itself; his situation was becoming increasingly perilous.
Moreover, with every confrontation, countless pink crystal fragments would be knocked off Soul Searching Mountain by the Mei Lan Movie, causing its power to be continuously weakened.
Little Fox Immortal threw herself before Yuan Fang, sobbing as she cried:
"Master! That damned Mei Lan Movie attacked again this morning and knocked down so many, many stones. If this continues, Soul Searching Mountain will be destroyed by the impact!"
Little Fox Immortal remained charmingly pitiful as she gently caressed the cracks on Soul Searching Mountain with her small palms, tears rolling down. Yuan Fang gritted his teeth, his heart aching with distress.
In the original work, the Mei Lan Movie had never attacked Soul Searching Mountain so frequently, but now it was as if it had lost its mind, striking the mountain every few days.
If things continued to develop this way, even before the Mud Swamp Crab attacked, Soul Searching Mountain's power would likely be reduced by a quarter. Yuan Fang stared at the scars on the mountain, his lips pressed tight and his eyes nearly bursting from their sockets.
Too weak, simply too weak; this is the chasm between Immortal and Mortal...
"Little Fox Spirit, open Treasure Yellow Heaven."
Hearing this, Little Fox Immortal wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and activated the heaven connecting gu. Through the channels of Treasure Yellow Heaven, Yuan Fang first sold some Mortal Gu recipes left behind by Fang Yuan, barely managing to exchange them for one immortal essence stone.
He originally wanted to sell some remnant recipes for immortal gu, but the will of Fang Yuan in his mind immediately barked a stern command, nipping the thought in the bud.
Mortal Gu recipes were one thing, but those immortal gu recipes were all obtained by Fang Yuan in his previous life by risking his life. Yuan Fang wanting to sell the remnant recipe for the blood god child was something Fang Yuan could still tolerate, but now that he wanted to touch other Immortal recipes, how could Fang Yuan accept it?
"You beast! You actually planned to sell the complete recipe for the second aperture gu for only sixty immortal essence stones!"
"Don't even think about touching the recipe for the spring autumn cicada!"
In the end, Yuan Fang still sold some remnant immortal gu recipes, and along with the proceeds from the Mortal Gu recipes, he earned a total of five and a half immortal essence stones. Including what he gained from selling the blood god child remnant recipe earlier, he now had thirty-two and a half immortal essence stones on hand.
After earning some immortal essence stones, Yuan Fang again considered selling Fang Yuan's Blood Path cultivation insights and Blood Path Killer Moves, making Fang Yuan so angry that he cursed him as a 'prodigal son' in his mind, jumping in rage.
(The last person to make an Immortal Venerable lose their composure like this was the Gu World's number one educator and number one father—old Mister Tu Shicheng.)
These were the fruits of Fang Yuan's five hundred years of blood, sweat, and accumulation; how could they be sold so easily?
Under Fang Yuan's strenuous obstruction, Yuan Fang ultimately did not touch those insights and Killer Moves. Instead, he spent one immortal essence stone to purchase materials for the star gate gu from Treasure Yellow Heaven, along with a large batch of Mortal Gu and Mortal materials.
The Mortal materials purchased were mainly stardust grass and Bubble Fish.
Among this batch of Mortal Gu were some Relic Gu; relying on these Relic Gu, most of the Rank Four experts like Red Mountain were pushed to the Rank Four Peak.
A month later, the Gu Yue Clan added six more Rank Five Gu Masters—Red Mountain, Mo Yan, Yao Hong, Ding Hao, Jiao Man, and Ruo Nan. Including the previous Rank Five Gu Masters, the clan's Rank Five combat power had reached fifteen people.
In addition, Yuan Fang also purchased the Rank Five recipe for the strength gu from the Northern Plains' Hei Family in Treasure Yellow Heaven.
He used the purchased Mortal materials to refine the Rank Four strength gu into Rank Five; he also bought Rank Five Steel Tendon Gu, copper skin gu, and Iron Bone Gu to modify his Physical Body.
Combined with the blood he had previously modified with the Rank Five blood firmness gu, ordinary Rank Five offensive methods were already hard-pressed to break through Yuan Fang's physical defense.
Yet even though his Physical Body had been greatly strengthened, Yuan Fang still did not dare to strike without restraint.
The strength he had nurtured before was simply too vast; his current Strength Path power was enough to shatter the defense of a treasure moonlight king gu with a single punch, and any slight carelessness could result in self-injury.
The star gate gu was finally successfully refined after Yuan Fang went through thirty-six failures.
This Gu was similar to the Hole Earth Gu and resembled a teleportation Gu Formation, but the star gate gu could only transport Mortal Gu, Rank Six Gu Immortals, and Mortals. This was a Gu worm that would only be refined in later generations; because its practicality was extremely high, Yuan Fang refined several of them in one go.
Leveraging the convenience of the star gate gu, Yuan Fang sold a large number of Stone Man slaves to the Immortal Crane Sect and the other Ten Great Ancient Sects.
He also mediated among them, using the Fox Immortal Blessed Land as a base and following Qin Bai Sheng's example to sit down and negotiate with the Ten Great Ancient Sects.
The Immortal Crane Sect proposed that Yuan Fang open up trade for courage gu, which Yuan Fang flatly refused. The Immortal Crane Sect originally wanted to unite the other nine sects to pressure him, but they didn't expect that Yuan Fang had already established a connection with Feng Jiu Ge, so this scheme ultimately fell through.
After this incident, Yuan Fang instead traded several Blood Path Gu recipes with the Immortal Crane Sect.
In the memories of the Gu Yue First Generation, the Immortal Crane Sect possessed quite a bit of Blood Path accumulation, and these Gu recipes were of great use to the Immortal Crane Sect, such as the recipes for the blood skull gu and the blood curtain sky flower gu.
Regarding this, although the Immortal Crane Sect was dissatisfied, they felt that Yuan Fang still had utility value, so they did not pursue the matter further. And the reason Yuan Fang was able to connect with Feng Jiu Ge was precisely because of the ancient glory light.
In the original work, it was never mentioned which rank of immortal material the ancient glory light belonged to, but it could be used to refine immortal gu. Regardless of its actual rank, it could be considered an extremely rare immortal material.
Because only two of the ancient Nine Heavens remained, the ancient glory light had become a 'non-renewable resource.' Even a colossus like the Heavenly Court, which possessed countless Rank Eight immortal materials, had very little ancient glory light in its hands.
(It seems there are only three portions.)
Yuan Fang speculated that the ancient glory light was roughly a Rank Eight immortal material, but how could the ancient glory light he refined be only rank six? After all, the great light gu was only Rank Five; unless it were a Great Light immortal gu, it would be impossible to refine a Rank Seven or Eight product.
Yuan Fang used Xiao Mang's great light gu recipe to refine a hundred great light gu, and then borrowed a method for collecting light from the Spring Path Sect. The price was to provide fifty percent of the ancient glory light to the Spring Path Sect for free.
(Yuan Fang originally wanted to hide the ancient glory light, but the Spring Path Sect were no fools and it couldn't be hidden at all. However, the Spring Path Sect did not obtain the great light gu or its recipe, nor did they know of their existence.)
Relying on the great light gu, Yuan Fang began mass-producing ancient glory light. After deducting the fifty percent to be handed over, he could earn a hundred immortal essence stones per month from this item alone.
A hundred immortal essence stones might seem like a considerable amount, but in reality, it was far from matching the value of the ancient glory light. Even if it were only a rank six immortal material, its rarity was not inferior to Rank Seven immortal materials.
Yuan Fang sold the ancient glory light at a low price; earning immortal essence stones was secondary, the true purpose was to use this trade to mediate with the Ten Great Ancient Sects.
Of course, the premise of all this was that the Ten Great Ancient Sects currently underestimated Yuan Fang. Meanwhile, he possessed the Fox Immortal Blessed Land, which was easy to defend and hard to attack, and had a rank six combatant like Little Fox Immortal stationed there, along with the power of the Gu Yue Clan; his strength was not to be overlooked.
Yuan Fang planted a star gate gu at Soul Searching Mountain in the Fox Immortal Blessed Land, then at the cost of one green grape immortal essence, used Fixed Immortal Travel to teleport to White Bone Mountain.
After arriving at White Bone Mountain, he connected Gu Yue Village and the Fox Immortal Blessed Land through star gate gu, leaving one star gate gu at each location to serve as a hub.
Fixed Immortal Travel was an immortal gu, and the star gate gu could not transport it back to the Fox Immortal Blessed Land. Fortunately, Yuan Fang held the heaven connecting gu; he sold the Fixed Immortal Travel to Little Fox Immortal through Treasure Yellow Heaven, successfully sending this immortal gu back to the Blessed Land.
However, the processing fees of Treasure Yellow Heaven were staggeringly high, costing him a full thirty immortal essence stones.
"Fortunately, I have the trade of ancient glory light, which brings in a hundred immortal essence stones every month. I need to refine a few hundred more great light gu and expand the production scale of the ancient glory light," Yuan Fang calculated inwardly.
He wasn't worried at all that the ancient glory light would go unsold.
The value of this thing was no less than Fang Yuan's courage gu trade in the original work; it was useful to almost all Light Path Gu Immortals.
Furthermore, he was the sole provider; there were no competitors, nor could it be generated naturally.
Unfortunately, not only was the durability of the great light gu extremely low, it could only refine ancient glory light three times a month.
Yuan Fang simply spent a hundred immortal essence stones in Treasure Yellow Heaven to buy a set of cultivation insights from a Light Path Gu Master, raising his own Light Path Realm to the Great Master level, and even deduced a technique that could improve the efficiency of the great light gu.
Although this method increased the monthly usage of the great light gu to ten times, it greatly depleted the Gu worm's durability, causing it to be completely scrapped in just one month.
A hundred great light gu were all destroyed after just one month.
Yuan Fang originally wanted to purchase Hairy People slaves in Treasure Yellow Heaven to have them refine great light gu on an assembly line.
But this Gu worm was extremely difficult to refine; even if a Refinement Path Great Master took action, the success rate was pitifully low. Moreover, the price of Great Master-level Hairy People slaves was exorbitant, and Yuan Fang simply couldn't afford it, not to mention that Hairy People were extremely difficult to raise in the first place.
Because of this, Yuan Fang could only personally refine the Gu, working together with Feng Tianyu and others to study it, yet they could only refine a few dozen in a month.
Only when their luck exploded and the success rate soared would the number have a chance to break into triple digits.
Facing the frequent harassment of the Mei Lan Movie, Yuan Fang was also uncertain. This Mei Lan Movie was like a drama queen, making trouble for Soul Searching Mountain all day long, leaving the crystal-like pink rocks pitted and scarred, and once it even nearly killed Yuan Fang on the spot.
"Damn it, it looks like I must find outside help!"
Yuan Fang's eyes were red with anxiety as he stared at the humanoid lightning darting around the sky, his teeth itching with hatred.
Thus, Yuan Fang once again activated Fixed Immortal Travel to teleport to the Northern Plains. After planting a star gate gu, he sent the Fixed Immortal Travel back to the Fox Immortal Blessed Land.
Subsequently, he went deep into the Corrosive Poison Grassland, finding the Rank Five battle bone wheel at a former ancient battlefield, and also found the Wolf King, Elder of Chang Family, who had been slumbering for twenty years.
With the crisp sound of bones breaking, Yuan Fang twisted the neck of the Elder of Chang Family, peeled off the skin of this former hero to refine into a Human Skin Gu, impersonated the Wolf King, Elder of Chang Family, and also took away his Gu worms.
He first used a Soul Search Gu to extract his soul, then used a Soul Storing Toad to take away the remnant soul.
The Elder of Chang Family was a Servitude Path Great Master with a solid and powerful soul. Yuan Fang thought to himself that sending this soul into Soul Searching Mountain to be crushed would surely produce many courage gu.
In this way, this future Rank Seven Gu Immortal and former Northern Plains Wolf King finally met his end in his place of slumber.