Fang Yuan examined his Immortal Aperture.
His divine sense swept through the vast interior space, where enormous tracts of barren land stretched in every direction.
"Still too few Earth Path dao marks. The soil in these wastelands lacks nourishment — most crops simply won't take root here. To improve things fundamentally, I need to add more Earth Path dao marks. Everything else would only treat the symptoms, not the root cause," Fang Yuan mused inwardly.
The Supreme Immortal Aperture's interior was staggeringly vast, far beyond what should have been possible.
Even with Fang Yuan's divine sense, completely surveying it would take a considerable stretch of time.
However, when examining his aperture, Fang Yuan had a clear focus and purpose — he wasn't flailing blindly — which greatly improved his efficiency.
Several streams of divine sense shot outward in different directions.
Gradually, images of resource nodes that Fang Yuan had carefully cultivated appeared one after another in his mind.
In the Western Desert, the land was mostly sandy and arid.
A massive crater sat with scorching temperatures, the sand and soil at its bottom scorched black.
Inside, an enormous number of Dark Fire Dragon Pythons intertwined with one another, breeding and multiplying.
This was the original crater.
Normally, Dark Fire Dragon Pythons lived in family units of two or three. But Fang Yuan had employed a unique rearing method from the Dong Fang family of the Northern Plains — concentrating many Dark Fire Dragon Pythons together to stimulate them into producing far more offspring.
This batch of Dark Fire Dragon Pythons had originally come from the Dong Fang family's blessed domain stronghold.
And the rearing method itself had been extracted directly from the soul of Dong Fang Changfan — a hundred-percent authentic copy, not just the basics, but every minute detail and even various supplementary theories, all laid out in perfect clarity.
The combination of the two had caused the Dark Fire Dragon Pythons to breed with remarkable vigor.
A few li away from this original crater, three additional pits had been established.
Each pit held no fewer Dark Fire Dragon Pythons than the original first pit!
"Less than one month has passed in the Five Regions, but time here flows sixty times faster. The Dark Fire Dragon Python population has quadrupled," Fang Yuan nodded to himself.
Sixty times — that kind of time acceleration ratio was truly terrifying.
The Dark Fire Dragon Pythons had been previously housed in the Fox Immortal's blessed domain for a fairly long stretch, but growth had been sluggish. The breeding results couldn't compare at all with what he saw before him now.
This was because the Fox Immortal's blessed domain sat in the outside world of the Five Regions, where the time acceleration ratio dropped drastically, leading to poor resource yields.
The Dark Fire Dragon Python flocks were like this, and so too were the dragon fish flocks, the Long Hate spider colonies, the arrow bamboo forests, the star dust grass, and the rest — each had expanded to varying degrees.
However, in terms of growth vitality, the arrow bamboo forests and star dust grass, among others, could no longer match the thriving energy they had displayed back in the Star Phenomenon blessed domain.
This was because the Star Path dao marks inside the Supreme Immortal Aperture were far fewer than those in the Star Phenomenon blessed domain.
A Gu Immortal needed to regularly inspect every corner of their aperture to guard against oversights.
This was especially critical when an aperture's interior was small and various resources were packed tightly together, making them prone to mutual interference and errors.
Fang Yuan's situation was rather favorable.
Because the Supreme Immortal Aperture was so spacious, each resource essentially occupied its own isolated environment, separated by vast distances. The probability of problems was very low.
"When the Treasure Yellow Heaven reopens, I'll sell off these resources. The returns will be quite satisfying." After completing his survey, Fang Yuan was well pleased.
The closure of Treasure Yellow Heaven had impacted him significantly.
He wanted to invest more effort in developing and building up his aperture, but without Treasure Yellow Heaven, many things were simply unavailable for purchase. The Langya Sect's stores were rich enough, but they consisted mostly of immortal-grade refining materials. For Fang Yuan, they weren't of much use.
He dismissed the superfluous streams of divine sense, keeping only the most important one, and directed it toward the Mini Northern Plains.
This time, the Mini Northern Plains was where Fang Yuan's focus lay.
Roar, roar, roar…
Across the Mini Northern Plains, vast numbers of snow monsters wandered ceaselessly.
The further north one went, the colder the weather became. Faint flurries of snow drifted through the air, and the ground was covered by a thin layer of ice and frost.
Fang Yuan observed carefully. The range covered by ice and snow had expanded considerably since his last inspection.
These were the gains from the last Earth Calamity.
During the first Earth Calamity, Fang Yuan had undergone his tribulation on the ice plains. The calamity had been ferociously intense, which in turn yielded him tremendous rewards — a massive number of Ice and Snow Path dao marks.
It was precisely because of these dao marks that the Mini Northern Plains now experienced its gentle snowfall.
This environment was undeniably more suited for snow monsters to thrive in.
In the current Mini Northern Plains, ordinary snow monsters were beyond counting. Large numbers of desolate-beast-grade snow monsters roamed freely, and a select few ancient snow monsters ruled as overlords.
Before the deal with the Shadow Sect, Fang Yuan had intended to keep these snow monsters around as a resource to be cultivated within his aperture.
But after learning about Heavenly Will through the transaction, he had decided to eradicate every last snow monster!
The reason was simple — all of these snow monsters were filled to the brim with Heavenly Will.
Fang Yuan arrived with killing intent already sharp. Now he activated his divine sense, and an Immortal Zombie of the Strength Path took flight, carrying large quantities of Immortal Essence. Swarms of Gu insects circled and danced around it.
Sword Path Immortal Move — Triple Sword Wave!
The Gu insects were activated one after another, flooded with Immortal Essence, and in an instant, a surging tidal wave burst forth.
Crash, crash, crash…
A silver-white sword wave rolled and crashed forward, each crest of foam radiating a killing chill colder than ice and snow.
The ordinary snow monsters put up no resistance at all — they were simply swallowed by the raging sword wave, then shredded into fragments. The fragments were ground into dust, and the dust was washed away clean, leaving absolutely nothing behind.
The desolate-beast-grade snow monsters, however, had some power to resist.
But they could only endure a few breaths before being scoured away by the sword wave.
The Sword Path — its offensive might was formidable. It was recognized by the current Gu Immortal world as one of the five great offensive paths.