Fang Yuan charged forward at tremendous speed toward the largest piece of True Floating Ice, exactly as Giant Sun Immortal Venerable and Star Constellation Immortal Venerable had expected. They intended to stop him from obtaining the largest fragment of True Floating Ice.
However, Fang Yuan sneered inwardly and did not counterattack. Instead, he endured their assault with his full strength before seizing the massive piece of True Floating Ice.
At that moment, the scene within his dream changed, reverting to the period of the fusion of the Three Worlds.
Fang Yuan immediately moved and began refining Dream Path mortal Gu. It was exceedingly rare to encounter a peaceful scene within a dream realm.
After completing the refinement process, more than twenty Dream Path mortal Gu appeared in the air before taking their places inside Fang Yuan's mind.
"This dream was somewhat difficult… but at least I obtained high-quality Dream Path materials, and refining twenty Dream Path mortal Gu wasn't difficult. This truly saves a great deal of time."
Fang Yuan thought after awakening from the dream realm.
In his previous life, during this same period, he had not yet begun exploring dream realms. Although he possessed some basic knowledge of them, his achievements had been extremely poor.
Back then, he would spend far longer inside dream realms than he did now merely to refine two or three Dream Path mortal Gu.
This was largely because of his abysmally low Dream Path attainment and his Refinement Path attainment, which had only been at quasi-grandmaster level.
The difference compared to his current state was enormous.
His Dream Path attainment had now reached master level, while his Refinement Path attainment had reached supreme grandmaster level, granting him an exceptionally keen intuition when handling Dream Path materials, as well as the optimal methods for refining Dream Path mortal Gu.
After refining the Dream Path mortal Gu, Fang Yuan did not move from his position. Instead, he shifted his attention toward the pile of Guts Gu nearby.
Fairy Li Shan had already delivered the first batch of souls, which had been converted into a massive quantity of Guts Gu.
Because of the immortal formation surrounding Dang Hun Mountain, the efficiency of producing Guts Gu had doubled, allowing Fang Yuan to keep two-thirds of the newly produced Guts Gu for himself while storing the remaining third until Immortal Crane Sect responded.
With such a surplus of Guts Gu, Fang Yuan naturally intended to cultivate his soul.
He had stopped cultivating his soul ever since returning to Northern Plains because the quantity of Guts Gu had become insufficient after reaching a hundred-thousand-man soul.
"I am now a Gu Immortal, cultivating Strength Path and Time Path as my primary and separate paths. With the drawback of conflicting dao marks, I cannot excessively cultivate my soul. At most, I can raise it to a ten-million-man soul."
Guts Gu was a miracle for Soul Path cultivation.
Using it did not accumulate Soul Path dao marks as densely as other methods, making it much easier to cultivate.
Fang Yuan picked up an Airsac Gu and crushed it.
A numb yet comfortable sensation spread throughout his soul.
He did not stop there.
Instead, he grabbed more Guts Gu and crushed them one after another. Every moment, his soul continued growing stronger.
Upon reaching a two-hundred-and-sixty-thousand-man soul, Fang Yuan finally stopped.
He sensed that if he used any more Guts Gu, his soul would burst apart.
He then activated the immortal formation constructed around the Immortal Gu Cleanse Soul, the Immortal Gu Calm Soul, and countless White Lotus Giant Silkworm Gu.
Fang Yuan gritted his teeth through the pain as he endured the soul refinement process.
Twenty minutes later, barely over half of his soul had been refined, causing Fang Yuan to sigh regretfully.
"Luo Po Valley is truly the greatest place for tempering the soul. Dang Hun Mountain is the best for strengthening it, while the Soul Pacifying Lake's soup is unrivaled for calming the soul. These three form the very essence of Soul Path cultivation… Even if I use Cleanse Soul Immortal Gu to refine my soul, its effects are still inferior to the winds and fog of Luo Po Valley… Likewise, Calm Soul Immortal Gu cannot replace the effects of the Soul Pacifying Lake's soup."
Fang Yuan desperately wanted to obtain Luo Po Valley.
However, doing so at this stage was both dangerous and exceedingly difficult.
After all, Luo Po Valley served as Shadow Sect's base in Northern Plains. It was protected by an astonishing number of immortal formations and defensive arrangements, with quite a few Gu Immortals standing guard over it.
As for Soul Pacifying Lake, Fang Yuan had failed to obtain it even in his previous life because it lay within the Door of Life and Death—the domain of Spectral Soul.
Only a fool would willingly go there to die.
"But if I can obtain the Door of Life and Death, then sometime in the future I may invade it and even kill Spectral Soul. At that point, Soul Pacifying Lake, Soul Pacifying Soup, and an isolated domain of heaven and earth belonging to Soul Path will all become mine."
If Fang Yuan truly acquired both Soul Pacifying Lake and Luo Po Valley, he would seriously consider investing much more heavily into Soul Path cultivation.
Although his Soul Path attainment had already reached quasi-great grandmaster level—a remarkably high level—if Soul Path were to become one of his primary paths, he wanted to possess at least great grandmaster attainment.
Fortunately, this problem could be solved through dream realms, True Meaning, or even the Primordial Domain.
Thus, it was not a genuine obstacle for Fang Yuan.
One week later…
Fang Yuan finally emerged from secluded cultivation.
Only a week had passed in the outside world, yet over a month had passed inside Hu Immortal Blessed Land.
The foundation of Fang Yuan's soul had increased dramatically, reaching a four-hundred-thousand-man soul.
He had also refined a considerable number of Dream Path mortal Gu for future use.
Now that he had accumulated enough immortal essence to activate his killer move and slow the flow of time within his immortal apertures, it was finally time to proceed.
Fang Yuan first inspected his Time Path immortal aperture.
It had developed considerably.
The slippery soil had been spread throughout the entire immortal aperture, giving vegetation a much greater opportunity to flourish.
However, Fang Yuan did not want random plants growing everywhere.
Instead, he planted Summer Token Flowers and Winter Token Flowers.
These were blue and yellow flowers standing roughly half a meter tall.
Summer Token Flowers and Winter Token Flowers naturally grew as paired flowers and were Time Path mortal materials.
Although relatively common, they were extremely beneficial to surrounding vegetation, as they were not territorial plants that suppressed the growth of other species.
This made them ideal for cultivation.
Other plants had also been scattered throughout the immortal aperture.
There were Season Crystal Trees, Autumn Chestnut Trees, Milk Tea Flowers, Floating Ball Trees, and Sun Month Pines.
The vegetation had already become remarkably abundant.
It would not take long before forests and flowers spread throughout the blessed land.
By comparison, there were very few beasts inside Spring Autumn Blessed Land, as Fang Yuan had not yet begun focusing on that aspect.
Instead, his attention had been directed elsewhere.
A restricted region covering nearly three thousand square kilometers had been established.
This alone occupied almost one-third of the entire blessed land, representing an enormous investment even for Fang Yuan.
Using Heaven Path dao marks to rearrange the dao marks within the blessed land, a miniature River of Time had gradually been created.
Time Path dao marks and Water Path dao marks conflicted while simultaneously entering a strange harmony, allowing an extremely tiny River of Time to form.
Over time, however, this miniature River of Time continued growing larger.
Fang Yuan had devoted considerable attention to nurturing it.
He had constructed a Rank Six Year Essence Pool and connected it directly to the river.
Doing so had consumed an enormous amount of his wealth.
Nevertheless, the investment had begun paying off.
As time passed, Time Path Gu worms such as Day Gu, Month Gu, and Year Gu began appearing in increasing numbers.
This prompted Fang Yuan to purchase large quantities of Year Beasts, Month Beasts, and Day Beasts.
This miniature River of Time resembled a naturally formed Year Essence Pool, though not exactly.
As the Time Path and Water Path dao marks within the immortal aperture increased, the miniature River of Time likewise continued expanding.
This greatly simplified the development of the immortal aperture.
His Strength Path immortal aperture was far livelier.
Large groups of Robber Monkeys—a remarkable Strength Path beast—had been introduced.
The land had also been excavated to construct artificial mountains containing varying quantities of magma.
Through pressure and heat, ore veins would gradually form in larger quantities.
Although the current output still fell short of Fang Yuan's expectations, it possessed tremendous potential for future growth.
Unlike Spring Autumn Blessed Land, there were no particularly beautiful plants.
The only notable vegetation consisted of Young Flesh Trees.
They resembled the Flesh Trees described in The Legends of Ren Zu, though they were merely mortal plants.
There were also various smaller plants and lifeforms, but none were significant enough to mention individually.
At present, Fang Yuan was only in the first stage of developing his immortal apertures.
"Everything appears to be progressing smoothly. It's unfortunate that I have to slow the flow of time within my immortal apertures. Resource production will inevitably slow, and developing them will require much more time."
Fang Yuan sighed regretfully before activating the killer move he had spent hours preparing inside his Time Path immortal aperture.
Immortal Killer Move—Days Flow Like Years!
The killer move's effects rapidly spread throughout Fang Yuan's immortal aperture, consuming the accumulated green grape immortal essence within it at an astonishing rate.
Fang Yuan's immortal aperture was enormous.
It was nearly twice the size of an ordinary high-grade immortal aperture.
Even so, compared to the Sovereign Immortal Aperture, it remained incomparably smaller.
Its total size amounted to no more than five percent of the Sovereign Immortal Aperture.
Roughly an hour later, the effects of the immortal killer move gradually stabilized.
The tributary of the River of Time within the immortal aperture continuously shrank, becoming smaller and smaller.
Along with it, the flow of time steadily slowed until it perfectly matched the speed of the Five Regions.
When the killer move finally concluded, Fang Yuan felt mentally exhausted.
Maintaining the killer move had consumed an enormous number of thoughts, leaving his mind almost completely drained.
"Days Flow Like Years is truly an extraordinary killer move. Unfortunately, because I lack its core Immortal Gu, I was forced to modify it by replacing them with a large number of mortal Gu, making the killer move many times more difficult to execute."
The core Immortal Gu of Days Flow Like Years were Year Immortal Gu and Years Flow Like Water Immortal Gu.
However, in his current situation, it was impossible for Fang Yuan to enter Hei Fan Grotto-Heaven and obtain Hei Fan's inheritance along with those Immortal Gu.
Therefore, he could only make do with mortal Gu for the time being.
After resting for some time, Fang Yuan once again activated the killer move.This time upon his Strength Path immortal aperture.
The process continued for many long hours before finally coming to an end.