Three months passed.
During this period, Fang Ming did not remain idle. The contracts he had accepted through the Trade Merchant Alliance began moving one after another. Some buyers responded quickly, some requested second inspections, and some delayed until the last moment before confirming. Fang Ming accepted all of this calmly.
Merchants were like this.
When buying, they wanted to appear unhurried.
When selling, they wanted others to feel urgency.
Fang Ming did not care about their small methods. As long as the contracts were valid and the payment terms were clean, he would deliver according to schedule.
The junglefowl regions inside his immortal aperture continued to expand. After another outside month passed and his Copy cooldown reset, Fang Ming spent another five hundred and forty immortal essence stones to create another junglefowl production line.
The cost was heavy, but the result was immediate.
His expected monthly profit rose again, reaching around one hundred and thirty-five immortal essence stones.
This was already an income that could make many Rank 6 Gu Immortals silent.
But Fang Ming did not feel relaxed.
After the expenses, he only had around one thousand eight hundred immortal essence stones left from the previous transaction with Lang Ya land spirit. This number still looked large, but Fang Ming knew how false that comfort was.
His Copy ability consumed money.
Immortal Gu consumed money.
Killer move research consumed money.
Tribulation preparation consumed money.
Even the business that earned him money first demanded more investment before it could grow.
Immortality was not only a matter of lifespan. It was also a matter of how long one's wealth could survive being consumed.
When the next outside month passed and his Copy cooldown reset again, Fang Ming did not copy a fourth junglefowl formation.
It was tempting.
Another formation meant more production, more output, and eventually more profit.
But more production without a market was not wealth. It was pressure.
Thus Fang Ming left Eastern Sea briefly and returned to Lang Ya blessed land.
The new convenience covenant between him and Lang Ya land spirit was not an alliance. It did not provide shelter, military support, or loyalty. But it allowed transactional exchange, and that was enough.
Fang Ming temporarily exchanged Unfathomable Will Immortal Gu for the right to study Lift Mountain Immortal Gu.
Lang Ya land spirit was naturally interested in Unfathomable Will Gu. A defensive Immortal Gu that resisted wisdom path, will attacks, and soul interference had clear research value. Fang Ming, meanwhile, was interested in Lift Mountain Gu because it belonged to strength path and could support his combat system.
The exchange was completed cleanly.
Lang Ya land spirit gained a Gu to study.
Fang Ming gained access.
That was all anyone saw.
No one sensed the faint operation of Copy.
No one sensed the second, weaker imitation forming afterward.
When Fang Ming left Lang Ya blessed land, he had two new Immortal Gu.
Strong Lift Immortal Gu.
Lift Immortal Gu.
The former was a true Copy derived from Lift Mountain Gu. The latter was a Counterfeit Copy, weaker and simpler, but still useful.
The cost was slightly lower than copying another junglefowl production line, but it still drained his funds heavily. By the time Fang Ming returned to Eastern Sea, he had around one thousand three hundred immortal essence stones left.
His wealth had grown.
His pressure had grown faster.
Inside his immortal aperture, Fang Ming sat in a quiet region far away from the junglefowl farms.
Around him, mortal Gu floated in orderly groups. Tyrannical Strength Immortal Gu hovered in front of him, its aura heavy and aggressive. Strong Lift Immortal Gu floated beside it, calmer but no less profound. The two Immortal Gu were different in nature, but both belonged to strength path.
Fang Ming had spent several weeks deducing and testing.
The results were not small.
The first killer move was Tyrannical Smash.
It gathered strength path dao marks into a direct attack, then used Tyrannical Strength Gu to amplify the strike at the moment of impact. With Strong Lift Gu supporting the force structure, the move did not merely hit. It crushed downward with a terrifying suppressive weight.
The second was Tyrannical Lift.
This move was not meant to kill immediately. It seized the target with invisible strength, raising or restraining them through raw force. Against beasts or Gu Immortals with weak movement methods, it could interrupt rhythm and create openings.
The third was Tyrannical Push.
This killer move released force forward in a straight line. It could shove enemies away, break formations, interrupt charging beasts, or crush weaker defenses by turning Fang Ming's strength into an external pressure.
The fourth was Tyrannical Repulse.
This was the most defensive of the four. It used strength path dao marks to form a brief repelling field around Fang Ming. Attacks, enemies, and even certain physical killer moves could be pushed back if their force did not exceed the limit.
Together, these four moves gave Fang Ming a rough combat system.
Attack.
Control.
Interruption.
Defense.
The power was better than he expected.
Tyrannical Strength Immortal Gu was not simple. Its amplification was not a plain addition. When paired with Strong Lift Gu, the result was not one plus one. In some tests, the output exceeded twice the expected power.
But Fang Ming was not pleased for long.
Success revealed a problem.
The killer moves were powerful, but not smooth.
Using two Immortal Gu as cores and many mortal Gu as support created a tiny delay between activation stages. The gap was extremely short. Against mortal Gu Masters, it would not matter. Against ordinary desolate beasts, it would barely matter.
But Gu Immortals were different.
An experienced Gu Immortal with a fast attacking method could exploit even a breath's worth of delay. A sword path, lightning path, or wind path immortal might not wait for the killer move to fully form. They could strike during the activation gap and break the structure before the power erupted.
Fang Ming opened his eyes.
The mortal Gu around him slowly stopped.
"The power is enough, but the process is rough."
This was not surprising, but it was troublesome.
There were two solutions.
The first was to continue researching, remove unnecessary Gu worm steps, adjust the order of activation, and reduce the gap from the structure itself.
The second was training.
If he practiced until the activation became instinctive, the delay would shrink naturally. Even if it could not be eliminated, he could hide it through movement, feints, and timing.
The best answer was to do both.
But both required time.
And time was exactly what Fang Ming was beginning to lack.
A message arrived through his merchant token not long after.
Fang Ming glanced through it and remained silent for a while.
The Eastern Sea junglefowl market had begun reacting.
His first batches had been delivered smoothly, and the quality was high. The buyers were satisfied. Some even asked whether future supply could be increased.
That was good news.
The bad news was that other food beast merchants had noticed him.
Fang Ming had accepted many requests priced five to ten percent lower than treasure yellow heaven's common market price. To him, this was acceptable. His cost was low, and his priority was building trade history.
But to the existing food beast merchants, his action was provocative.
Among junglefowl traders in Eastern Sea, there was an unspoken rule. Requests priced too low were usually ignored unless there were special reasons. If everyone accepted such prices, buyers would begin treating them as normal.
Fang Ming had broken this quiet understanding.
Now, around twenty food beast merchants were moving against him.
They began taking other available junglefowl and food beast requests aggressively. Some even accepted prices that gave them almost no profit. A few were clearly operating at a loss.
Their intention was obvious.
Squeeze him out.
Each of them only needed to bear a small loss. Fang Ming, as the newcomer, would have to bear pressure alone. In their view, he had no deep reserve, no established buyer network, and no old market position. A short price war would frighten him away.
Unfortunately, part of their judgment was correct.
Fang Ming had reserves, but not enough to casually waste.
He had production, but not enough to replace the entire Eastern Sea junglefowl market.
He had low costs, but his current liquidity was limited.
He entered Eastern Sea to sell goods and make profit, not to immediately fight twenty merchants in a price-cutting war.
Fang Ming stood up and walked toward the junglefowl regions.
The third production line had already begun operating. The formations moved steadily, pushing the production cycle forward. His treasure yellow heaven identity had also made progress. Some lone immortals and urgent buyers had begun recognizing his goods.
That side could absorb some production.
Perhaps the third formation's output could gradually be sent there.
But the first and second formations could not simply retreat from Eastern Sea.
Treasure yellow heaven was broad, but unstable. The buyers there came and went. Some bought once and disappeared. Some negotiated endlessly over small amounts. Some only appeared when their own feeding stock was in crisis.
Eastern Sea remained necessary.
Fang Ming calculated quietly.
He had already accepted enough orders to last seven months. Three months had passed. There were still four months of delivery obligations before he would truly need to face the open pressure of the market.
This gave him room.
Not much, but enough to adjust.
If he fought directly, he could lower prices further. His costs were low enough that even if monthly profit from the first two formations fell from ninety immortal essence stones to around forty, he would still earn.
The other merchants would suffer more.
Most of them did not have his production efficiency. Among the twenty merchants suppressing him, only three had production capacity comparable to his current scale. Once he completed the fourth junglefowl formation later, even those three would fall behind.
In the long run, Fang Ming could win.
But winning later was not the same as winning well.
If he forced the price war now, he would be fighting before he could replace the defeated suppliers. Even if some merchants withdrew, he could not fill the market alone. The result would be chaos, not dominance.
That was meaningless.
He needed another market.
The Eastern Sea market could keep one or two formations occupied, but new production had to be diverted elsewhere. If possible, he even wanted to pull one formation's output away from Eastern Sea and let only one remain there.
As long as his presence did not disappear, the other junglefowl traders would eventually have to accept him.
A price war could not last forever.
Losses had weight.
Even Gu Immortals could bleed.
Fang Ming looked at the formations with a cold gaze.
The Trade Merchant Alliance had been created to reduce destructive trade wars.
Yet he had joined it for only a few months and was already being besieged by twenty food merchants.
For a moment, Fang Ming really wanted to curse the alliance.
But blaming the platform was useless.
The alliance could reduce open chaos. It could not erase greed.
Merchants still fought. They simply fought with prices, supply, reputation, clauses, and timing instead of swords.
Fang Ming stored the merchant token and returned to his quiet cultivation area.
The market problem could not be solved in one day. For now, the accepted contracts gave him a buffer. The more urgent matter was combat strength.
He resumed testing Tyrannical Repulse.
This time, he used a puppet formation to launch rapid attacks at himself from different angles. The first few activations succeeded. The repelling field formed and pushed the attacks away.
On the seventh test, one attack slipped through the activation gap and struck his shoulder.
The force was not enough to injure him seriously, but Fang Ming's expression darkened slightly.
If this had been a sword path immortal's attack, the result would not have been so harmless.
He stopped the formation.
"Again."
The puppet formation restarted.
Attack after attack came.
Fang Ming activated Tyrannical Repulse again and again, adjusting the order of mortal Gu, refining the timing between Strong Lift Gu and Tyrannical Strength Gu, and forcing his body to adapt to the activation rhythm.
The first stage was thinking.
The second stage was familiarity.
The third stage had to become instinct.
Only then could the killer move be used in real battle.
Hours passed inside the aperture.
Then days.
Because of the accelerated time flow, Fang Ming could train far more than ordinary Rank 6 Gu Immortals in the same outside time. This was one of his greatest advantages. But even so, he did not relax.
His enemies would not wait for him to become ready.
While he was refining Tyrannical Push's activation sequence, a message arrived.
Not through the merchant token.
Through the treasure yellow heaven contact he had given earlier.
Fang Ming paused.
There were not many people who had this contact.
He opened the message.
Hei Lou Lan.
The content was brief, direct, and carried her usual sharpness.
She had begun preparing for immortal ascension earlier than planned.
She wanted to speak with him.
Fang Ming read the message once.
Then a second time.
His expression did not change.
Hei Lou Lan had contacted him earlier than expected.
This was not necessarily bad. A successful Great Strength True Martial Physique ascension would create a valuable future ally, or at least a valuable future trading partner. He had lent her Steel Body Strength Immortal Gu precisely because he judged the risk worthwhile.
But early movement meant uncertainty.
And uncertainty always carried cost.
Fang Ming sent back a reply after a short pause.
"You contacted me earlier than I expected."
The response came after some time.
"My preparations changed."
Fang Ming looked at the words calmly.
He did not ask whether she was afraid.
He did not ask whether she was confident.
Hei Lou Lan was not someone who needed comfort, and Fang Ming was not someone who gave it freely.
He replied, "If you need help, state the terms."
There was a longer silence this time.
Then Hei Lou Lan's message arrived.
"I need information first."
Fang Ming's eyes narrowed slightly.
Information was cheaper than direct action.
But it was not free.
He looked at Tyrannical Strength Gu and Strong Lift Gu floating before him, then at the distant junglefowl regions producing wealth under pressure.
Business.
Killer moves.
Market war.
Hei Lou Lan's ascension.
All of them had arrived at once.
Fang Ming closed his eyes briefly, then opened them.
This was not chaos yet.
But the pieces were beginning to move.
And as always, the value would belong to the one who could stand outside the center while everyone else stared at it.