The Venerables were the strongest Gu Immortals and the most talented geniuses in history. If all Gu Immortals were brilliant stars shining across the heavens, then the Venerables were ten blazing suns, radiating their boundless brilliance throughout the more than three million years of Gu Immortal history.
Every Venerable was at least a Supreme Grandmaster in two paths. During each of their eras, the Gu Immortal world experienced an unprecedented surge in the dominant cultivation path, leading to the downfall of countless super forces and the rise of even more new ones.
Every action of a Venerable was acknowledged by the world itself, and every casual movement they made was amplified by the corresponding dao marks of their path through the will of the world. This caused every action performed by a Venerable to contain true meaning, and even the simplest gestures carried the true meaning of their respective paths.
Take Reckless Savage Demon Venerable as an example. Fang Yuan did not know the true story behind the creation of Northern Ice Plain, but he could still make a reasonable deduction.
It was possible that Northern Ice Plain had once been the place where Reckless Savage Demon Venerable faced one of his chaotic tribulations, causing the walls of his immortal aperture to shatter and allowing a portion of the chaotic tribulation's power to leak into the world. This transformed Northern Ice Plain into an empty void and a land of death where even rank eight Gu Immortals would perish without the slightest resistance upon entering.
Because of this, Reckless Savage Demon Venerable had been forced to transform into an Ice Phoenix, converting that deadly empty void into a frozen wasteland.
"Reckless Savage Demon Venerable may have expended tremendous effort repairing Northern Ice Plain, but he also exhausted a great deal of Strength Path and Transformation Path true meaning during the process… Theoretically, with my Transformation Path attainment, I can think of several ways to achieve such a result."
Fang Yuan's mind rapidly deduced the method behind the formation of Northern Ice Plain.
Transformation Path contained many profound depths. It began with transforming parts of a Gu Master's body into beast limbs to increase the strength of their strikes, or turning their skin into an indestructible hide. Beyond that level, Gu Masters could create killer moves and completely transform into beasts such as a flying bear or a divine dragon. After that came a deeper realm, one usually reached by Gu Immortals after attaining grandmaster attainment, allowing them to imitate other paths.
At grandmaster attainment in Transformation Path, Gu Immortals generally deduced immortal killer moves related to their transformations. Whether it was to strengthen their bodies or achieve other effects, they accomplished it primarily by imitating other cultivation paths.
Upon reaching great grandmaster attainment, a Gu Immortal's understanding of their own path became complete, opening the door to an entirely new realm of possibilities. Imitating other paths through their own path became far easier. Furthermore, much like Formation Path, great grandmasters could utilize the natural dao marks of the world, whether to establish immortal formations or to gain an advantage over their opponents in battle.
Another example was Old Ancestor Xue Hu, who possessed great grandmaster attainment in Ice and Snow Path. He was able to suppress two rank eight Gu Immortals from Heavenly Court, and even had enough spare strength to deal with two Immortal Gu Houses at the same time.
He had also casually dismantled an immortal battlefield killer move, a perfect example of utilizing natural dao marks.
Most rank eight Gu Immortals possessed great grandmaster attainment in their primary paths. There were also some rank seven Gu Immortals with great grandmaster attainment, such as Fang Di Chang of Fang Clan in Western Desert.
As for Transformation Path, Fang Yuan held a deep impression of the immortal killer move, Assimilation of Countless Beings Transformation. This immortal killer move stood at a level far beyond Old Ancestor Xue Hu's capabilities. It represented the supreme essence of Transformation Path.
By influencing the dao marks within living beings, Assimilation of Countless Beings Transformation could even affect heavenly tribulations and grand tribulations, transforming them into calamities and tribulations in the form of ancient desolate beasts or immemorial desolate beasts.
And if it were used on a Gu Immortal, every dao mark within their body would be transformed into dao marks of a single path!
This meant that if Fang Yuan transformed into a Time Path beast or a Strength Path beast before using this killer move, then all of his dao marks would become either Strength Path dao marks or Time Path dao marks.
At the level of Quasi-Supreme Grandmaster attainment, a Gu Immortal's understanding reached the limits of the world itself. There was almost nothing left within their chosen path that they did not know. But if they wished to advance to Supreme Grandmaster, understanding alone was no longer enough. They had to innovate and take a step ahead of the world itself.
Reckless Savage Demon Venerable was able to repair the damage to Northern Ice Plain while planting his own true meaning within it. He also influenced it so that his true meaning would take form whenever someone underwent an earthly calamity or heavenly tribulation upon Northern Ice Plain.
Usually, the form taken by Reckless Savage Demon Venerable's true meaning was that of some kind of beast.
Without question, Reckless Savage's true meaning contained the supreme profundity of Transformation Path, allowing anything to assume whatever form the Gu Immortal desired.
"If I want to collect Reckless Savage's true meaning, I must first transform that true meaning back into something that can be gathered and transported, whether through Wisdom Path or Transformation Path… My advantage lies in Transformation Path, but wills, such as true meaning, fall under the specialty of Wisdom Path."
"There are dozens of methods with a high chance of success, but either they would create far too great a disturbance, or I currently lack the ability to bear their cost… And without a doubt, collecting Reckless Savage's true meaning in such a conspicuous manner would create an enormous loophole for Heaven's Will to perceive. At that point, it would naturally assume the worst had happened and increase its suppression…"
Fang Yuan had to consider countless factors, not merely the probability of success.
"Refinement Path is my specialty. By treating Reckless Savage's true meaning as a refinement material, I could process it and transform it into another type of material. However, part of the true meaning would inevitably be lost during the process… Which ultimately brings me back to Transformation Path."
"The core of Immortal Gu Change Form is altering the forms of living beings. But if it were incorporated into an immortal killer move to transform the shape of true meaning into something that could be stored…"
Fang Yuan discovered a new thread of thought and immediately followed it. Thousands of new ideas emerged, colliding within his mind like exploding stars and producing new results in his research.
Fang Yuan continued deducing and did not leave Water Pavilion for an entire day. His progress in deriving a method to transform and collect Reckless Savage's true meaning was remarkably smooth.
After a full day of deductions, Fang Yuan left Water Pavilion, leaving Wisdom Gu behind. After resting, he cultivated his soul until it broke through to the level of a million man soul.
Everything was progressing smoothly with the Guts Gu business, and many super forces had contacted Fang Yuan in hopes of securing priority access to Guts Gu. His other businesses, such as the Relic Gu trade, were also generating astonishing profits.
Even after slowing the flow of time within both of his immortal apertures, his stockpile of immortal essence remained enormous and continued to grow steadily.
Overall, everything was proceeding extremely well for Fang Yuan, and there seemed to be no problems waiting for him in the foreseeable future.