Shattered ice chunks lay scattered across the ground.
"Cough, cough, cough." Fang Yuan clutched his chest and forcefully coughed out clots of blood from his heart and lungs.
These blood clots had congealed into small lumps, emanating a piercing cold.
Fang Yuan's complexion was far from normal — his face was tinged blue-green, bearing severe injuries.
The Gu refinement had failed. Just moments ago, the massive iceberg had exploded and shattered, and Fang Yuan had shouldered the entire backlash himself.
The Gu — As Before!
Fang Yuan immediately activated the immortal Gu. In the next instant, he reverted to the state he had been in before the accident.
The blue-green hue on his face vanished at once, and his injuries had nearly disappeared. However, a vast amount of frigid energy still remained condensed within his body, causing him considerable discomfort.
This cold energy was not caused by the failed Gu refinement — it had accumulated throughout the entire refinement process as he was continuously corroded by the icy aura.
Because the duration had been so long, even activating the As Before Gu did little to remedy it.
"Come to think of it, my primary healing method depends on the As Before Gu. This Sixth Transformation immortal Gu is extremely practical. Within the Shadow Sect's legacy, there are numerous killer moves built around it as their core."
"If given enough time, once I successfully construct those killer moves and temper them to perfection, my healing ability will surely surge dramatically!"
Fang Yuan's thoughts wandered, and suddenly a flash of inspiration struck his mind.
"Wait. Since there's an As Before Gu, why isn't there a Gu-As-Before Gu?"
A Gu that heals other Gu!
That could exist.
"If there were an immortal Gu like Gu-As-Before, could I use it as the core to design an immortal killer move that aids my Gu refinement?"
"If such a killer move existed and I had used it just now, I could have immediately salvaged the loss and returned to that last, most critical step."
A sharp gleam flickered in Fang Yuan's eyes as he began searching through the Shadow Sect's true transmissions stored in his mind.
The contents of the Shadow Sect's true transmissions were as vast as an ocean. After browsing through them, Fang Yuan actually discovered that his idea had already been conceived by predecessors long ago.
And there were quite a few Gu Immortals who had explored this line of thinking.
Most were refinement-path Gu Immortals, though there were also those of the Time Path.
Within many of the legacy materials, there were also the predecessors' theoretical results regarding the Gu-As-Before immortal Gu.
All of them were incomplete immortal Gu recipes — not a single one had been successfully derived.
It was extremely difficult to achieve.
For most Gu Immortals, the range of application for the As Before Gu was not particularly broad. A Sixth Transformation As Before Gu showed very little efficacy for Seventh Transformation Gu Immortals — activations frequently failed. A Seventh Transformation As Before Gu was also not very effective for most Seventh Transformation Gu Immortals.
Unless the target was itself a Time Path Gu Immortal, whose body contained Time Path Dao Marks that would not restrict the As Before Gu but rather amplify its power.
If the As Before Gu was already like this, then the Gu-As-Before was even more difficult.
Using a Gu-As-Before Gu to restore ordinary mortal Gu — this held little significance for Gu Immortals. At the level of Gu Immortals, they no longer lacked mortal Gu. Mortal Gu were merely a matter of quantity for Gu Immortals.
Of course, Lifespan Gu were the exception.
But using a Gu-As-Before Gu to restore immortal Gu was even more difficult than healing the Gu Immortal themselves. Every immortal Gu was a fragment of a great Dao belonging to its respective Path.
The mutual repulsion between immortal Gu of different Paths was extremely severe.
Immortal Gu could cooperate with one another, but applying them to other immortal Gu was an entirely different matter.
Unless there was an advantage in transformation level. For instance, using a Seventh Transformation Gu-As-Before Gu to restore a Sixth Transformation Gu was still possible. But between Gu of the same Seventh Transformation — failure was guaranteed.
The concept of Gu-As-Before was excellent, but its implementation was far too difficult.
There were many Gu Immortals who had this inspiration, including grandmasters of the Refinement Path and the Time Path among them. Unfortunately, all had tried, and none had truly succeeded.
The path of Gu-As-Before was a dead end, but Fang Yuan still had other methods.
For instance, certain immortal-grade Gu formations of the Refinement Path.
These immortal-grade Gu formations possessed a brief effect of reverting time. If any step went wrong, the Gu Immortal could activate the formation and start over.
In the Shadow Sect's legacy, there were more than a dozen such Time-reverting immortal Gu formations.
But each one carried its own drawbacks. Some consumed an enormous amount of immortal essence, some had a limited number of time reversals, and others could only be used for refining Sixth Transformation immortal Gu.