"Bai Gu mountain, I am finally here." Fang Yuan sighed as he stared at the white mountain from a slope.
Bai Gu mountain was still a wild mountain now, without any human inhabitants. But this situation will change soon.
A large size village will move their base here and develop.
In the future, with Bai Gu mountain as their center, they would become the overlord of the surrounding thousand miles of land.
In his previous life, he asked for 3 Million primeval stones from them for extortion, but only got 1.5 Million primeval stones and as for the rest, he never returned here to ask for them, nor did he care.
Now, he looked at Bai Gu Mountain with a fresh gleam in his eyes.
In his previous life, he and Bai Ning Bing had worn down Chen Cui Hua through a war of attrition, eventually killing her. At that time, Fang Yuan had found a smashed bookworm amid the remnants of her brain. He'd suspected then that she had acquired some form of inheritance, but the bookworm had been destroyed, leaving him with no chance to investigate further.
In this life, however, things were different. After killing Chen Cui Hua last month, he followed the clue from the bookworm to Lei Ci Mountain. There, he was stunned to discover an inheritance he had never known existed—left behind by a Time Path Gu Master, and of Rank 5 no less.
From what he could tell, Chen Cui Hua had only completed two of the trials and taken the Gu worms from those segments. But Fang Yuan had forcefully broken through the inheritance grounds, acquiring the Gu worms from all three trials, along with various refinement materials and recipes.
Now, after a month of travel, he had finally arrived at Bai Gu Mountain.
"It must have been Heaven's will interfering in my previous life," he muttered, frowning. "But why hasn't Heaven's will acted against me in this life?"
"Is it because I'm still a mortal?"
"Or… has it already set something in motion behind the scenes? Then why haven't I encountered any real danger yet? Even the Gu worms I refined—ones that shouldn't exist—each and every one succeeded. There was not a single failure. That shouldn't be possible."
He narrowed his eyes, thoughts churning. "Just what is going on?"
But he soon brushed the thoughts aside. Once he stepped into the realm of Gu Immortals, uncovering the truth would simply be a matter of time. After all, his attainments were unmatched.
Quasi-Supreme Grandmaster in heaven path, refinement path, theft path, and wisdom path.
Great Grandmaster in food path, qi path, and time path.
Grandmaster in blade path, dark path, enslavement path, formation path, human path, ice and snow path, information path, light path, luck path, metal path, painting path, phantom path, pill path, poison path, rule path, soul path, sound path, space path, star path, strength path, sword path, transformation path, water path, wind path, and wood path.
The portion of his soul that had been destroyed once held his Quasi-Supreme Grandmaster attainments in the eternal path and transformation path. As a result, his current attainments in transformation path—and several others—had regressed to only the Grandmaster level.
This was exactly why Fang Yuan had no fear of anyone deducing his secrets. Unless they possessed an even higher level of attainment than him, they wouldn't be able to easily see through him.
....
Fang Yuan arrived at the familiar cave from his previous life—the place where the Grey Bone Scholar's inheritance was hidden.
It was the Spiral Bone Cave, a sinister and ancient cavern. This cave served as the gateway to the legacy left behind by the Grey Bone Scholar.
He took a step forward before stretching his hand towards a rather conspicuous large bone spike.
Next, he twisted it lightly.
Creak…
There was a loud sound and the bone spikes began to contract; a secret door opened from the side, revealing a squarish cave opening.
Fang Yuan quickly walked into the cave.
This secret path was well lit, shining with a pure white light. It was just that there were bone spikes everywhere, stabbed into the walls like sharp spears..
These bone spears were densely packed, sealing the whole tunnel.
Creak...
With another sound of some mechanisms being activated, the cave behind him sealed itself while the bone spears in the tunnel contracted back into the walls.
Suddenly, the path ahead was smooth and unobstructed.
The secret tunnel was not long; after walking for a while, Fang Yuan arrived at a huge hall.
The pure white hall was made out of bones. In the center was a huge vat.
The vat was filled with milk like white liquid that was giving off a fragrant smell.
As Fang Yuan got close to it, his previous life memories resurfaced, but he shook his head.
Fang Yuan activated his defense before putting his hand into the vat.
When he pulled his hand out, his hand was full of Gu worms.
These Gu were as large as a human finger and were completely white. One end was round while the other was sharp, like a miniature spear.
This was the Bone Spear Gu. Although this Gu is only rank one, the whole vat is almost filled to the brim with it.
After he hauled for a few more times, he finally found a rank two Gu.
This Gu was similar to the Bone Spear Gu, but on the surface of the bone spear, there were spiral markings — Spiral Bone Spear Gu.
This Gu was the evolution of the Bone Spear Gu, its attack power and penetrative force was higher than the Bone Spear Gu.
In the huge vat, the Bone Spear Gu was in the majority, and only a small number were Spiral Bone Spear Gu.
He pulled out Gu worm after Gu worm from the vat, storing each one carefully inside a Tusita Flower. Once he was done, he placed the entire vat of milk into another Tusita Flower for safekeeping.
After confirming that there was a Spring Eye beneath the vat, he cautiously excavated it, then stored it in yet another Tusita Flower.
Slowly, he moved along another secret tunnel, getting to the second white hall.
At the center of the hall, there were three white bone pillars.
At the tip of the pillar, it was carved into a human hand, without skin or flesh, only left with bones.
In the white bone hand, they each held one Gu.
Three pillars, three slumbering Gu worms.
"Ribcage shield Gu, Flying bone shield Gu, Arm bone wings Gu…" Fang Yuan murmured and his gaze was focused on a line —"Three, choose one, satisfied at heart. Bai Gu inheritance, left for future descendants."
The meaning was obvious, they can only choose one Gu, and leave the others to future inheritors.
This is a righteous faction inheritance, this area tested the self control of the inheritor, if they cannot control their greed and desires, taking all three Gu, then the future tunnels would change drastically, although there would not be devious traps, their rewards would be much lower.
But Fang Yuan snorted as he smashed all three bone pillars and stored these Gu in Tusita Flower.
In this world, only power holds sway—there is no absolute righteousness or pure evil. So why was the Ba Gui blessed land—once thought impenetrable—destroyed? Because countless Gu Masters, especially those of Rank 4 and Rank 5, attacked and breached its entrance.
If those combined forces could topple a Rank 6 Gu Immortal's domain, why can't Fang Yuan, a Rank 5 Gu Master, similarly obliterate this Rank 4 inheritance ground and claim it entirely for himself?
....
Slowly, he moved along the third hall.
There was no more tunnels now after the hall, only one human skeleton in the cave in a sitting position.
Before the human skeleton, there was a huge book.
This book was made with bones, as long as an arm, wide as half an arm, and as thick as eight inches.
Fang Yuan retrieved the book and carefully stowed it away.
With a deliberate slash, he caused a section of the bone wall on his right to recede, unveiling a hidden tunnel beyond.
He stepped foot on the Grey Bone Scholar's remains, before hurling them away and he soon found a guy inside it and he stored it before moving inside the new tunnel.
A downward flight of stairs was spread inside the door. This flight of stairs was long, at least about thousand meters.
The surrounding lights gradually dimmed when he reached the latter half of the stairs, and the stairs were also getting narrower.
By the time Fang Yuan reached the end of the stairs, the light had almost completely disappeared. In front of him was a tightly closed door.
There were four words carved on the door — Flesh Sac Secret Chamber.
The door was not locked at all and easily opened.
Behind the door was a hidden room which was not that big, but was very grotesque.
The walls in the hidden room were all made of flesh. When Fang Yuan walked inside, he felt like he had walked into the stomach of some monster.
The flesh walls were warm and slightly throbbed rhythmically as if there was a heart inside them.
As if sensing someone's presence, the flesh walls suddenly opened up a small crack and revealed white teeth all over it.
There seemed to be countless opened large mouths in the flesh walls.
The mouths opened up with jaws clenched, revealing a set of even teeth. The phrase 'baring one's fangs' seemed to match this scene perfectly.
Heeheehee… hahaha… hehehe…
These mouths let out all kinds of laughing sounds. The laughs mixed together and echoed in this narrow secret chamber; anyone that heard it would feel their hearts palpitate!
"Flesh laughter Gu," Fang Yuan murmured. These Gu are specifically used to store Gu worms.
Suddenly the teeth completely fell off from an open mouth and a scarlet tongue extended from the mouth.
The tongue was very long, about over a meter, and the front part was curled up.
When the tongue fully extended, the tip of the tongue started straightening and revealed a book on it.
This was a bone book too, except it was many times smaller than the Grey-Bone Huge Book; pocket-sized, about half of an adult's palm.
Fang Yuan took it and stored it inside, he already knew the contents inside.
This chamber featured a peculiar mechanism: rows of mouths, each containing ten pairs of teeth. If one's luck held, knocking out certain teeth would reveal a Gu worm hidden within.
But there isn't one thing mentioned in the book, there would be another tunnel which would open once he knocked the certain teeth in an order.
There were ten pairs of teeth in a mouth, and one needed to at least knock five teeth in correct order for the teeth to fall off.
Fang Yuan clenched his fist and started to knock the teeth in order which he already remembered.
Soon, one by one he got Gu Worms as he continuously stored them.
After fifteen minutes, seeing there is only the last mouth here, he clenched his fist harder, knocked open the teeth in it.
Crack..
The mouth gradually opened wide, changing into a new secret tunnel.
After walking through this secret tunnel, he came upon a secret hall.
This was the widest bone hall in the entire inheritance.
Just from the area alone, it was over 2 km . In the center of the hall was a bone pyramid; the peak was flattened into a platform with two flights of stairs leading to it.
He walked on the platform onto the peak of the pyramid.
There was a sculpture of a skull of a giant ferocious beast on the platform; it was taller than half a man and looked like a lion or a tiger, with tightly closed fangs.
"Found it," Fang Yuan said with a smile.
He studied the sculpture's red, gem-like pupils for a moment before slashing open its mouth.
Inside the hollow sculpture, he discovered various materials and Gu Worms, along with a book resting in the fallen jaw that he had just severed.
After thoroughly exploring the inheritance ground and uncovering two more secret passages, he collected the remaining Gu Worms and exited the cave.
Though Fang Yuan wasn't lacking Primeval stones, he was short on rare materials and rare Gu Worms—resources only inheritance grounds like this could provide for his next Gu refinement.
"I can sell these Gu Worms and the liquid at the Shang Clan," he mused. "And I still need to meet that person."
"But before heading to Shang Clan, there are still a few places I need to visit."
...
Half a month later.
Two children playing on Bai Gu Mountain suddenly stumbled upon the Grey Bone Scholar's rock cave.
"Look!" Bai Sheng exclaimed, pointing toward a large, unusually prominent bone spike.
He reached out and gave it a gentle tug.
Creak…
With a loud sound, the bone spikes began to retract, revealing a hidden door on the side that opened to a square cave entrance.
"Oh!" Bai Hua gasped in astonishment. "Elder! Elder, we found a secret tunnel!"