Fang Yuan took out the Earth Eating Eel Gu. He had had it swallow a hill's worth of earth and dirt on Qing Mao Mountain before coming here. One would not guess it looking from its appearance, which still looked so flat as to almost be two-dimensional. However it was much like the River Swallowing Toad in that regard. It was activated and suddenly swelled up and then released a massive torrent of dirt, just spewing out in front of where the spirit spring was.
Fang Yuan then took it inside, near the primeval spring, and watched as it began expanding its size. It could spit out dirt, but that was not the ideal method of using it. Instead, it swelled up near the spirit spring, and its scales turned dark brown as it began rising almost like a loaf of bread being baked.
The soil, which was on its back, although shallow, was extremely nutritious towards plants and only needed to be watered regularly to be active. Its demand for primeval essence was rather low once it was activated, and could, much like the Moon Star Support Vine Gu, be maintained by several ordinary Gu Masters rather than requiring Fang Yuan's constant support.
Once this was done, the Gu Masters began sprinkling several Moon Orchid seeds upon the back of the Earth-Eating Eel, thereby creating a field from which the moon orchids could hopefully grow. The Moon Star Support Vine Gu was also added to this, completing the arrangement. Now, they would need to wait a few days to make sure that there were no issues with the growing Moon Orchids.
Next came the issue of the gu worms that Fang Yuan had kept there.
He had promised many of them to Jia Fu, and as it was, they could not maintain so many of them.
The Gu Masters began collecting the Gu worms to be transported down the mountain, as well as storing the milk in a massive vat. The milk spring was massive. The more that they removed, the more it began to fill, almost like an endless well of milk. It turned out there was more than enough to feed their Bone Path Gu worms, themselves, and still have much to sell to the merchant caravan waiting for them.
Once these issues were resolved, now came the problem of setting up a perimeter. A wall was hastily constructed, blocking the entrance to the spirit spring.
Around this, the Gu Yue clansmen began setting up tents, which they would later build houses upon. The foundation of the mountain was solid in most areas and would serve as good ground in order to build houses. Already, the Gu Yue clansmen were setting up bamboo rods and arranging them to make shelters.
It would still take at least twenty years before the village would actually flourish in this new location and for everything to be rebuilt. But so long as they had a new home, there was hope of the clan surviving.
Fang Yuan would have to stay with them for this initial period in order to ensure that no mishaps were happening. He headed out to kill more bone beasts. Even if Fang Yuan could completely rid the mountain of them; doing so would be a mistake because some of the bone beasts could be used for refinement materials, and were also a deterrent to the Bei Clan beneath.
Instead, he needed to make it clear to these creatures that it was not safe to come around the village. He had to leave the Crimsonhoof Deer back in Gu Yue Village, along with Fang Zheng, in order to protect the village. Otherwise, he would have brought it here. As long as they had a Mutant Beast like the Crimsonhoof Deer, other weaker animals would not wander nearby as it marked its own territory.
Fang Yuan collected the storage gu worms and went down to Jia Fu, whose eyes nearly popped out of his head as he saw all that Fang Yuan had brought for him in the storage gu worms.
For one, there were many Bone Path gu worms, so much so that the merchant caravan could not actually buy all of them, even at the slightly discounted price that Fang Yuan was giving them. Secondly, there was a large amount of milk in order to feed these gu worms as well as the merchant caravan itself. These were things that the Gu Yue Village was offering the merchant caravan.
However, they had also taken advantage of this opportunity and did business with the Bei Clan.
Although a different merchant caravan had already come near the village, who did not need supplies?
There were many things which were in high demand at all times, but which could not be readily bought simply because of market conditions and because of the underdeveloped and isolated economies that most of this world resided in.
The Bei Clan could offer many things to them, most importantly, being food, which did not involve milk.
The eyes of the merchant caravan's members were shining as they looked at their new haul. Their trip here had been rather easy, and they were actually making a profit.
"If only every single trip could be as profitable and easy as this..."
"Heaven clearly saw how much we had suffered and thought that we deserved a break..."
The only point regarding which the members of the merchant caravan had to complain was with the Rank 3 Gu Masters who said that Bone Spike Gu was not very suitable for them as they damaged the user as well and so would also be hard to sell. Most of them had lost their healing gu worms along the journey and could not make use of it without potentially killing themselves. However, this was only a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things.
There were a few other clans near Bei Gu Mountain who they could also visit, potentially increasing their profits even more.
Jia Fu did not know whether this would be reasonable or not, because some of them might be opposed to the Bei Clan, in which case they might need to be skipped. But at least he had something to show for all of his effort.
Of course, there was something else stirring in his mind now.
Fang Yuan had managed to find so many gu worms, and it appeared like he had found another primeval spring on the mountain. It seemed that he had actually found some kind of inheritance. If the inheritance had been claimed already, it could not be sold, but there were other things that could be.
All the gu worms that he were selling belonged to the Bone Path and seemed to be of one series. If he could get the refinement recipe involved, it would allow him to create these new worms in perpetuity. The Shang or Tie Clans would pay a heavy amount for something like this. He might not have been able to get his hands on the Gu Yue clan's signature Moonlight Gu recipes, but this was a relatively new field the clan was venturing into and it might be something that Fang Yuan could be persuaded to part with.
Unfortunately, he had already sold off most of his assets, and he did not have anything that Fang Yuan would want, except perhaps for some Rank 4 gu worms, which he could not give away. 'If only we hadn't run into so much trouble coming here,' he thought to himself.
Otherwise, he could have bought the gu worm recipes and greatly improved his standing in his father's eyes. As it was, while this profit was moderate, and certainly better than nothing, it was insignificant when compared to their losses. However, that was just how life went sometimes.