The Blood God Son was merely one of Fang Yuan's long-term plans.
Fang Zheng was the second component of that plan.
The first component was refining the Blood God Son Immortal Gu. This was an Immortal Gu that Fang Yuan had wanted to create even during his life five hundred years ago. To obtain its incomplete recipe, he had even deliberately provoked Fierce Thunder Malice.
Only after the Blood God Son Immortal Gu was refined could he kill blood relatives and turn them into individual Blood God Sons.
However, the Blood God Son Immortal Gu recipe in Fang Yuan's possession was only seventy percent complete. During his time as an Immortal Zombie, he had lacked both the resources and the energy to finish it. Now that Fang Yuan had been reborn, he could no longer leech off the Wisdom Halo through the Zhi Hui Gu.
"Even without freeloading on the Wisdom Halo, my mastery of both the Blood Dao and the Wisdom Dao at the grandmaster level should be enough to deduce and complete the Blood God Son Immortal Gu recipe. It would simply cost far more time and effort—nothing like the efficiency of the Wisdom Halo."
"Even if I finish the recipe, killing Fang Zheng and refining him into a Blood God Son will require proper training. At the very least, I need to make sure he no longer hates me. A Blood God Son refined from someone consumed by hatred will backlash against its master—like a double-edged sword that wounds others but can easily cut the wielder in return."
In truth, when it came to influencing one person's perception or feelings toward another, the world of Gu Masters offered countless methods. The Wisdom Dao alone contained innumerable techniques, and the Emotion Dao was even more specialized in that domain.
Fang Yuan had already mastered quite a few of these. If he wished, employing just one would be enough to make Fang Zheng bow before him in absolute, unwavering loyalty.
But in that case, Fang Zheng would merely be swayed by an external force, his true nature and genuine feelings obscured. When the time came to kill him and refine him into a Blood God Son, all the Wisdom Dao marks imprinted on him through such techniques would be erased and wiped clean, leaving behind only the most pristine Blood Dao marks.
In that event, Fang Zheng's original nature and true feelings would resurface.
Fang Yuan had no choice but to take his time, slowly training Fang Zheng, thoroughly reshaping his heart and mind before he could produce a Blood God Son that met his standards.
Obviously, training Fang Zheng would be a lengthy process. The completion of the Blood God Son Immortal Gu recipe was equally far off—at the very least, Fang Yuan had no time to spare for it at present. Never mind that even once the recipe was finished, he would still need to gather immortal materials and actually refine the Blood God Son. Though that last point was considerably easier than with other paths: Blood Dao Gu Insects had a notable advantage in that their refinement cost was remarkably low.
These factors together meant that the creation of a Blood God Son could only remain a distant goal for the time being.
But no matter how far away the objective, as long as one drew closer step by step without giving up, maintaining perseverance through it all, the day of completion would eventually arrive.
What Fang Yuan was doing now, amid his overwhelming schedule, was carving out time to train Fang Zheng, inching closer to that goal one small step at a time.
Without accumulating small steps, one cannot reach a thousand miles; without gathering drops of water, one cannot form a river.
Having considered Fang Zheng's situation, Fang Yuan once again activated his Gu Insects, producing a strand of false intent that drifted away from his side.
This strand of false intent would fly into Fang Zheng's mind, replenishing the wear and depletion it had suffered over the past period.
A few more days passed. Fang Yuan's handling of the Inner Scenery Rain reached a level of absolute mastery, and Langya Earth Spirit handed him another batch of immortal materials to familiarize himself with, honing his Gu refinement technique.
Fang Yuan directed his primary energy into this work, preparing for the refinement of the Transformation Immortal Gu.
During his leisure hours, he turned his attention to the Supreme Immortal Orifice, examining its developments and managing its affairs.
During the Gu Master cultivation stage, one had to nurture the Empty Orifice, which produced True Essence used to activate Gu Insects. But whether it was Gu Insects, Gu materials, or Yuan Stones, all of a Gu Master's cultivation resources depended on the outside world.
Once one advanced to the Gu Immortal cultivation stage, however, the Immortal Orifice could not only produce Immortal Essence but also manufacture countless resources in abundance—and did so with remarkable safety and reliability. Unlike resources from the outside world, which required Gu Immortals to stand constant guard against theft and seizure by others.
The Immortal Orifice was the safest production base a Gu Immortal could have. If managed well, it provided enormous help to a Gu Immortal—serving as their great rear base. Because the Dao Marks were aligned, it could produce resources perfectly suited to a Gu Immortal's cultivation, helping them feed Immortal Gu. External trade could bring in even more Immortal Yuan Stones. It could even give birth to entirely new wild Immortal Gu within the Immortal Orifice!
Fang Yuan inspected his own Immortal Orifice.
His Immortal Orifice was divided into ten layers, containing the layout of Five Regions and Nine Heavens.
Whether this layout had been deliberately crafted by Demon Venerable Spectre, or had formed naturally through some ineffable mechanism, Fang Yuan had no way of knowing. After all, he had not been the one to forge the Supreme Immortal Fetus Gu—he was merely the lucky one who had seized the final result.
Fang Yuan couldn't be bothered to name each section individually. He simply imitated the naming convention of Five Regions and Nine Heavens, adding a "small" prefix to each. Small Northern Plains, Small Eastern Sea, and so on.
After observing the Immortal Orifice multiple times, Fang Yuan gradually discovered some of the little secrets within his Supreme Immortal Orifice.
He found that the Five Regions and Nine Heavens inside the Supreme Immortal Orifice not only shared a similar layout with the outside world, but their environments also closely matched.
For example, the Small Northern Plains consisted of flat, open grassland terrain, where Wind Path Dao Marks within the Immortal Orifice had gathered more densely.
The Small Western Desert, on the other hand, held the majority of Fire Path Dao Marks. The Small Southern Border had more Earth Path Dao Marks, along with a concentration of Poison Path Dao Marks.
Once he discovered this, Fang Yuan distributed all the cultivation resources he had previously accumulated into their respective regions.
He placed the Dark Fire Dragon Serpent swarm in the Small Western Desert.
He arranged the Dragon Fish swarm in the Small Eastern Sea.
The Eternal Regret Spider swarm was placed in the Small Southern Border.
Arrow Bamboo Forests, Star Fragment Grass, and similar resources were all relocated into the Small Blue Sky.
As for the Small Northern Plains, it held large populations of Snow Monsters—remnants left over from the first Earth Calamity. These included numerous Desolate Beast-level Snow Monsters, and even some at the Ancient Desolate Beast tier.
Fang Yuan could not spare the energy to deal with these Snow Monsters for now, so he set them aside. The Small Northern Plains was mostly empty anyway, with no other valuable resources present. He would let the Snow Monsters roam freely for the time being. The region was vast, and unlike the Void Bats, the Snow Monsters could not bore through the orifice walls.
As for the Bubble Fish, Sharkfin Wolves, Prose Carp, Desolate Beast Giant Horn Sheep, Heaven and Earth Sand Gull dead eggs, small amounts of Oil Water, some Stone People, a small patch of Blood Mushroom Forest, a small grove of Mirror Willows—all of these had been properly arranged as well.
While refining his Gu refinement skills, Fang Yuan also devoted a portion of his attention to tending these resources.
Although the Arrow Bamboo Forests and Star Fragment Grass had been moved into the Small Blue Sky, the production of Gu Insects had plummeted dramatically. The Dark Fire Dragon Serpents and Dragon Fish swarms had also seen slight declines. Only the Eternal Regret Spiders maintained an average daily output on par with previous figures.
There was nothing to be done about it. Though the Supreme Immortal Orifice had vast prospects and limitless potential, it had currently survived only a single Earth Calamity.
The Dao Marks it contained, while encompassing all major Paths, numbered only about a hundred for the vast majority of them.
The cultivation of the Eternal Regret Spider swarm relied on Wisdom Path Dao Marks, the Dragon Fish swarm on Food Path and Water Path Dao Marks, and the Dark Fire Dragon Serpents on the abundance of Fire Path Dao Marks in their environment. The production of mortal Star Path Gu from the Arrow Bamboo Forests and Star Fragment Grass fields depended entirely on Star Path Dao Marks.
Previously, all these resources had been housed within the Fox Immortal's Blessed Land and the Stellar Blessed Land.
The former had weathered five or six Earth Calamities and possessed a great many Dao Marks—far more Fire Path and Water Path Dao Marks than the current Supreme Immortal Orifice. The Stellar Blessed Land was inherently centered on the Star Path, something the Supreme Immortal Orifice could not hope to match at all.
However, not all Paths within the Supreme Immortal Orifice contained only around a hundred Dao Marks.
His Qi Path Dao Marks were a cut above the rest. This was because Fang Yuan had previously slain the Qi Path Gu Immortal Qi Zai deep within the Five Boundaries Mountain Range in the Southern Border, claiming the accumulated Qi Path Dao Marks that the latter had gathered over his entire lifetime.
But Qi Path Dao Marks were not the most numerous. The greatest number belonged to Ice and Snow Path Dao Marks.
Not long ago, Fang Yuan had narrowly survived his first Earth Calamity — calling it an "Earth Calamity" was highly inaccurate. In any case, its power was utterly terrifying, putting all ten great calamaties to shame by a wide margin.
Calamities and tribulations had always operated on the principle that greater danger brought greater fortune. The more powerful the calamity, the more benefits a Gu Immortal could reap upon surviving it.
The "benefits" referred to here meant Dao Marks.
From his first Earth Calamity, Fang Yuan had obtained a vast quantity of Dao Marks.
Among them, Ice and Snow Path Dao Marks were the most plentiful, followed by Strength Path and Transformation Path Dao Marks. Those two categories fell short of the Qi Path Dao Marks — after all, the Qi Path Dao Marks represented the lifetime accumulation of a Seventh Transformation Gu Immortal, whereas the Strength Path and Transformation Path Dao Marks were merely what Fang Yuan had gained from his first Earth Calamity.