Six months passed after the Refinement Path Convention.
For ordinary Gu Immortals, six months was not long. A single deduction, a single business adjustment, or a single closed-door refinement could consume that much time without leaving much trace.
For Fang Ming, six outside-world months were different.
Inside his apertures, years had passed.
After refining Life Chasing Immortal Gu, Fang Ming did not immediately rush to battle. He sealed himself inside Old Lord Can Yang's blessed land, using the fire-path refinement chambers and the land spirit's assistance to stabilize the new Gu, test its aura, and compare it with the fragments of Life Chasing Fire extracted from Can Yang's soul.
Life Chasing Fire's terror did not come from raw power.
It came from pursuit.
Once the connection was formed, the fire could chase the target's life force, even invading the immortal aperture and burning from within. Old Lord Can Yang had relied on this method to make many enemies feel helpless. Even if they escaped physically, the fire still followed their inner foundation.
Fang Ming did not want to copy it exactly.
He was not Old Lord Can Yang. His path was different, his Gu were different, and his methods had already begun to form their own system.
What Fang Ming wanted was Life Chasing Totem.
With Life Chasing Immortal Gu as the core, his totems were no longer only weapons released outside the body. They could be attached to the connection between enemy body and aperture, then sent directly inside the immortal aperture to destroy from within.
That meant a defensive totem could turn into a hidden nail.
An offensive totem could become a calamity inside the enemy's foundation.
If used well, even a Gu Immortal who blocked the surface attack might still suffer losses in their aperture.
This changed Fang Ming's fighting style.
Until now, his totem system was too narrow. He mainly had Ironclad Totem for defense and Tyrannical Crash Totem for offense. Ironclad could protect, Tyrannical Crash could explode with brutal impact, but two types were not enough to support an entire combat system.
Fang Ming stood before a wall of diagrams.
On the stone wall, countless lines connected Immortal Gu, mortal Gu, killer moves, and formation concepts. Some lines ended in Ironclad. Some ended in Tyrannical Crash. Others were broken halfway, marked with Fang Ming's own notes.
Fire path totem.
Soul defense totem.
Eagle control totem.
Formation disruption totem.
Aperture erosion totem.
Escape-support totem.
Healing-support totem.
Every idea had value, but every idea also had problems. A killer move was not something that could be casually carved into a totem and thrown into battle. The structure had to be stable, the dao mark conflict had to be controlled, and the totem had to remain usable with Life Chasing Immortal Gu.
Fang Ming's fingers stopped on one incomplete diagram.
"If I only rely on Tyrannical Crash, enemies will eventually prepare for it."
Old Lord Can Yang had died because he had not understood Fang Ming's method.
But once a method was exposed, its value dropped.
Against ordinary Gu Immortals, Fang Ming could still crush them with eagles, clones, and tattoos. Against true experts, repeated tricks became dangerous. The next Old Lord Can Yang would not casually ignore eagles. The next rank seven expert would not allow a hundred hidden clones to erupt behind them without guarding against it.
Fang Ming needed more totems.
Not one more.
Many more.
The six months after the Refinement Path Convention were spent on this new combat direction, but Life Chasing Totem was not his only project.
During the convention itself, Fang Ming had not wasted his copy and virtual refinement chances.
Before leaving for Central Continent, he had already optimized the old giant eagle formation. That formation had originally been inspired by heaven will methods and junglefowl incubation concepts. It had been large, crude, and powerful, but its size made it difficult to maintain and expand.
Fang Ming reduced its scale and doubled the output.
Then, after obtaining Heavenly Lord Bai Zu's Eagle Nest inheritance, Fang Ming changed direction again.
Instead of continuing to improve one giant formation, he rebuilt the system from the foundation.
One mother formation.
Many smaller eagle nest formations.
A central Immortal Gu as the core.
Through Virtual Refinement, Fang Ming created Eagle Nest Immortal Gu. This Gu combined two functions that had always troubled beast-raising formations: eagle egg incubation and chick feeding. With it as the core, the Eagle Mother Nest Formation could control dozens of mortal eagle nest formations at once, adjusting heat, feeding, mutation stimulation, and survival conditions.
The old giant eagle formation was like a single huge beast.
The new Eagle Nest Formation v1.0 was like a nest network.
During the six-month Refinement Path Convention, Fang Ming focused heavily on this system. By the time he returned, he had completed twelve Eagle Nest Mother Formations v1.0, each connected to dozens of mortal eagle nest formations.
The output was enormous.
Too enormous.
At first, Fang Ming placed them inside his enslavement aperture. Within months, the number of young eagles began disturbing the local beast groups. Food demand increased. Flight zones became crowded. Several smaller beast territories were torn apart by newly hatched eagle groups before the Gu Masters responsible for monitoring them could react.
Fang Ming immediately split the formations.
Four mother nest formations remained in his enslavement aperture.
Four were moved into his strength path aperture.
The last four were placed inside Old Lord Can Yang's blessed land, where the fire-path environment could guide fire and armor mutations.
Even after this distribution, the pressure remained obvious. His Gu Masters had to expand feeding routes, repair damaged beast fences, and adjust patrol schedules. Fang Ming did not mind. Disorder from growth was still growth. As long as the system could be controlled before collapse, it was acceptable.
More importantly, the formations had already produced results.
Two desolate eagles had been born from the new nest system.
This was only the beginning.
According to Fang Ming's estimates, when the twelve mother nest formations fully matured, they could produce dozens of desolate eagles every year. The quality would vary, and the cost of raising them would not be small, but compared to purchasing or capturing desolate beasts outside, this was still an astonishing foundation.
At the same time, Hei Lou Lan and several Eagle Sect Gu Immortals had returned from their desolate beast capture expedition.
They brought back nine desolate beasts.
Seven were desolate eagles.
Fang Ming kept all seven.
The remaining two were tiger-type desolate beasts. After checking their injuries, Fang Ming healed them slightly, listed them in treasure yellow heaven, and sold them for around 140 immortal essence stones each.
The Eagle Sect Gu Immortals who saw this felt their expressions stiffen.
They had spent weeks tracking, trapping, exhausting, and capturing those beasts. Fang Ming had remained in Eastern Sea, lent out capture Gu and tools, then bought the tigers from them at 100 immortal essence stones each because the purchase agreement had been set beforehand.
Now, after a light treatment, he resold them and earned nearly the same profit they had gained through weeks of work.
No one dared accuse him openly.
The capture tools were Fang Ming's.
The original agreement was Fang Ming's.
The guaranteed purchase was also Fang Ming's.
If they had tried to sell the beasts themselves, they might have spent months looking for buyers, paid treasure yellow heaven fees, dealt with bargaining, and risked keeping injured desolate beasts alive the whole time.
They understood the logic.
But understanding did not remove unwillingness.
Hei Lou Lan watched the scene with folded arms and a cold smile. Compared to Fang Yuan and Fang Ming, this level of business unfairness no longer moved her much. At most, she felt that Eagle Sect's Gu Immortals still lacked experience.
Fang Ming only glanced at them once.
"If you think the price is unfair, next time you can find buyers yourselves."
The Gu Immortals fell silent.
Fang Ming did not bother persuading them. His need for outside-captured desolate beasts had already decreased. With one giant eagle formation, twelve Eagle Nest Mother Formations v1.0, seven newly captured desolate eagles, and two newly born desolate eagles, he now had nine desolate eagles under his control.
For most rank six Gu Immortals, this alone was terrifying.
Even if Fang Ming exhausted his tattoo killer moves, even if his mortal killer moves were restricted, even if his clones were temporarily suppressed, nine desolate eagles could still tear apart ordinary enemies.
But Fang Ming was not relaxed.
His enemies were no longer ordinary.
Inside a quiet hall, Fang Ming reviewed his strength again.
Close combat was no longer his weakness. After absorbing and improving strength path inheritance, his body was comparable to a desolate beast. With Steel Body and armor-coat style killer moves, ordinary attacks could not easily break him.
Long-range battle was even more natural to him. Unlike most strength path Gu Immortals, he was not forced to rush into melee. Tyrannical Push, Tyrannical Crash, clones, eagles, and tattoos allowed him to attack across distance.
His defenses were also broad. He had methods against soul path, wisdom path, and many direct physical attacks. He could fight alone, fight through beasts, fight through clones, or fight through prepared tattoo eruptions.
Among rank six Gu Immortals, Fang Ming had already reached a frightening level.
No ordinary rank six could defeat him.
But that did not mean he was invincible.
His dao marks were still rank six dao marks. His foundation had not truly entered rank seven. His body might be comparable to a desolate beast, but a desolate beast was still only a desolate beast. Against top rank seven experts, this foundation was not enough.
Chu Du.
Shi Lei.
Feng Jiu Ge.
These names were not ordinary rank sevens.
If Fang Ming reached rank seven with his current fighting style, he would become a true expert immediately. If his key Gu and killer moves also rose to rank seven, he might even have the qualifications to contend with someone like Feng Jiu Ge for a time, and perhaps withstand a rank eight attack long enough to escape.
But that was the future.
Right now, he was still rank six.
Even Old Lord Can Yang was a warning.
Fang Ming had killed him through preparation, hidden clones, surprise, and an enormous expenditure of one-time-use tattoo killer moves. If Old Lord Can Yang had known Fang Ming's ambush style in advance, the battle would not have ended so cleanly. Fang Ming might still defeat him or force him back, but killing him would require a bitter fight with losses far beyond acceptable limits.
Life Chasing Totem gave Fang Ming more ways to attack.
It allowed sneak attacks.
It allowed aperture damage.
It allowed his totems to become more dangerous after contact.
But it did not erase the gap between rank six and the true monsters above him.
Fang Ming had considered other methods.
An immortal battlefield killer move would help. It could isolate enemies, prevent escape, and block information path messages. Unfortunately, good immortal battlefield killer moves were rare. Fang Ming knew some would appear later, but not in his hands, and not now.
Immortal Gu Houses were even stronger.
But that road was worse.
Immortal Gu Houses were not toys that lone cultivators could casually use. Even powerful rank eight Gu Immortals would not activate them carelessly. Most of the time, only super forces could truly maintain, operate, and afford them.
Fang Ming looked wealthy from the outside.
Food beasts, tattoo killer moves, Jade Pool resources, Can Yang's blessed land, Free Market, eagle businesses, strength-material cycles — his income was enough to make ordinary rank six Gu Immortals feel despair.
But wealth entering his hands did not stay still.
Virtual Refinement consumed wealth.
Copying consumed wealth.
Optimizing Gu consumed wealth.
Turning killer moves into totems or formations consumed wealth.
Dream realm experiments consumed wealth.
Eagle nest formations consumed wealth.
Aperture development consumed wealth.
Most months, Fang Ming's reserves hovered around ten thousand immortal essence stones. Then a new month came, thousands more entered, and thousands more flowed out just as quickly. His wealth was not piling up into an endless mountain. It was being burned into methods, formations, beasts, Gu, experiments, and future chances.
If he forced himself to use Virtual Refinement every month, even his current income could collapse.
This was why he kept investing in eagle nests.
Quantity was not quality.
But when quality reached a temporary ceiling, quantity became one of the few remaining roads.
Still, Fang Ming knew that eagles alone would not be enough.
Because Yi Tian Mountain was approaching.
Whenever Fang Ming thought of that battle, even his expression became still.
That was not a battlefield where rank six or rank seven Gu Immortals decided the result. Rank eights would enter. Rank eights would fight. Rank eights would die. People who could crush Fang Ming with one serious chase would fall there like slaughtered livestock.
And in the center of it all was Sovereign Immortal Fetus Gu.
An incomplete rank nine Gu.
Incomplete did not mean ordinary.
Many venerables had never possessed a rank nine Immortal Gu. Some rank nine Gu were not even refined by venerables personally, but formed by heaven and earth before being obtained. Sovereign Immortal Fetus Gu might be incomplete, but it still touched rank nine. In some sense, it resembled Fang Ming's Counterfeit Copy concept: flawed, incomplete, unable to perfectly match the original height, yet still standing at a level lower-ranked existences could barely imagine.
Fang Ming understood Fang Yuan better than almost anyone in the world.
Once Fang Yuan obtained Sovereign Immortal Fetus Gu, his rise would become absurdly fast. He would devour apertures, skip time, absorb foundations, and climb toward peak rank eight, then rank nine.
Fang Ming could not do that through ordinary cultivation.
His aperture needed calamities and tribulations. Even with fast time flow, even with strong development, he still had to walk step by step. Hei Lou Lan was proof. She was talented, ruthless, and willing to chase strength even at the edge of death, yet in the future, when Fang Yuan reached venerable level, she was still only rank seven.
Fang Ming's aperture was technically similar to hers.
That meant if nothing changed, he might still be rank seven when Fang Yuan reached rank nine.
And once the venerables destroyed true meaning and blocked later cultivators from reaching the same level, the road above him might close forever.
Yi Tian Mountain was dangerous.
With plot knowledge, Fang Ming estimated his survival chance at only around ten percent.
Without plot knowledge, entering that battlefield with his current strength would be certain death.
But ten percent was not zero.
And the reward was too great to ignore.
Fang Ming did not fear death the way ordinary people feared it.
To him, death was only another stage of life. When it came, it came. Hiding forever, lowering one's head, and waiting for death to arrive was not survival. It was merely wasting the time before the end.
He did not chase eternal life like Fang Yuan.
Fang Yuan wanted eternity because anything less was failure.
Fang Ming was different.
He wanted to live fully.
Scheme when needed. Hide when needed. Fight when needed. Risk life when the moment was worth it. He did not admire meaningless sacrifice, but he also despised cowardly waiting. If eternal life truly existed, he might chase it, but not because he feared death. He would chase it because reaching what no one had reached before was thrilling.
To surpass.
To climb.
To see how far he could go before the end.
That was enough.
While Fang Ming's thoughts moved through these matters, an information path Gu arrived from Lang Ya blessed land.
The message was urgent.
Lang Ya land spirit was asking for reinforcements.
Fang Ming held the Gu worm and smiled.
The opportunity had finally arrived.
He had been waiting for this.
Lang Ya blessed land was too valuable. Long Hair Ancestor's inheritance, refinement methods, Immortal Gu, recipes, hidden foundations, blessed land defenses, and the land spirit's enormous stores were all things Fang Ming had wanted for a long time. But ordinary trade could only reach the surface.
Lang Ya land spirit was stubborn.
If the blessed land remained peaceful, he would never easily release truly valuable things.
But danger changed people.
It changed land spirits too.
Fang Ming knew Lang Ya blessed land would be invaded. He also knew the invaders would not be weak. If Lang Ya was forced into real danger, if the land spirit's attitude changed, or if that other obsession closer to Long Hair Ancestor's second nature emerged, then more methods and deeper exchanges might become possible.
Fang Ming did not believe Lang Ya alone could make him threaten rank eight experts.
But if Lang Ya increased his survival chance at Yi Tian Mountain by even one percent, it was already worth fighting for.
A moment later, another message arrived.
Fang Yuan had also been contacted.
Fang Ming was not surprised.
Both of them had traded with Lang Ya land spirit before. Both knew the other had connections there. Fang Yuan's relationship with Lang Ya was deep, while Fang Ming had also borrowed methods, traded resources, and gained benefits from Lang Ya more than once.
Lang Ya asking both of them for help was natural.
Fang Ming prepared quickly.
He did not bring all his forces. Lang Ya blessed land was already filled with formations, fog, and hidden defenses. Bringing too many people might create confusion instead of help. He selected what he needed, adjusted several totems, stored a group of eagles, and prepared his defensive tattoos.
Then he activated the route to Lang Ya blessed land.
The world shifted.
When Fang Ming arrived, the familiar cloud soil was gone from sight.
Thick fog filled everything.
It was so dense that even vision-enhancing mortal Gu could not pierce far. The sky could not be seen. The ground seemed to vanish after a few dozen steps. The entire blessed land had turned into a maze of white mist.
Lang Ya land spirit appeared before him, his expression ugly but still controlled.
"You finaly came."
Fang Ming looked into the fog. "Tell me the situation."
Lang Ya land spirit waved his sleeve, and several mirror images appeared in the air.
"This is the formation I activated after the invasion began. The twelve cloud buildings are its cores. Several have already fallen. If too many are destroyed, the formation will weaken further, and those invaders will be able to move much more freely."
Fang Ming's gaze moved across the mirrors.
Fang Ming saw Qin Bai Sheng.
Jiang Yu.
Hei Cheng.
Xue Song Zi.
He Lang Zi.
There were others too, including a green-robed wind path Gu Immortal and a black-robed masked figure whose aura was difficult to read.
Fang Yuan was also present in another cloud building area, clearly assigned his own defensive position. Tai Bai Yun Sheng had been contacted as well, though he had not yet fully arrived at his place.
Lang Ya land spirit pointed at one mirror.
"You guard this cloud building. The others are already assigned. Do not let them destroy it."
Fang Ming studied the invaders silently.
Qin Bai Sheng alone was troublesome.
Hei Cheng was not weak.
He Lang Zi had transformation path battle strength.
Jiang Yu and the masked figure were even more suspicious.
This was not a battlefield where he could casually expose everything. The enemies here were tied to Shadow Sect. Their methods were strange, their foundations deep, and their knowledge far beyond what ordinary Northern Plains Gu Immortals should have.
Fang Ming stepped onto the cloud building assigned to him.
The fog shifted around him like living water.
His eagle network would be heavily restricted here. The fog and formation interfered with ordinary scouting, and releasing too many eagles might reveal his methods without giving enough benefit. Clones could help, but if he used them too early, he might alert Qin Bai Sheng's side.
He placed one hand on the railing of the cloud building.
The structure beneath his palm trembled faintly.
Mortal Gu House.
Formation core.
Defensive anchor.
If it fell, Lang Ya's formation would weaken further.
Fang Ming closed his eyes briefly.
This battle was not about killing everyone.
At least, not yet.
His first goal was to protect the cloud building. His second goal was to observe the invaders. His third goal was to see how much pressure Lang Ya land spirit could endure before becoming more willing to trade.
If a chance appeared, he could test Life Chasing Totem.
Not the full method.
Not enough to expose everything.
Just enough to see how it performed against a real Gu Immortal under battlefield pressure.
But he had to be careful.
Qin Bai Sheng was a split soul of Spectral Soul. He was the next enemy Fang Ming was preparing to face at Yi Tian Mountain. The more methods he revealed now, the fewer trump cards he would have on the most important battlefield.