What Fang Yuan was busy with needed no explanation.
Having captured the immortals of the Southern Border, Fang Yuan had firmly seized the initiative, holding an overwhelmingly dominant position.
With hostages of such immeasurable value in hand, his extortion could only be described as brazen and unrestrained, carried out however he pleased.
Yet Fang Yuan was, by nature, cautious. He did not go on a spending spree all at once. His first wave of extortion targeted only three families.
The Xia family was, without question, the first priority. Supreme Elder Xia Cha was the only Eighth Transformation Gu Immortal of the Xia family — the very root of their clan, far too important to lose. The Xia family simply could not afford to be without him; should they lose him, the family's influence would shrink by seventy to eighty percent!
The Yi family came second.
The Gu Immortal of the Yi family that Fang Yuan had captured this time was none other than Yi Yang.
This Gu Immortal was the strongest among the Yi family's Seventh Transformation cultivators, specializing in the Path of Space, and was regarded by everyone as having the potential to reach the Eighth Transformation. More importantly, he was the direct bloodline descendant of the Yi family's Supreme Elder — the successor the Supreme Elder had deliberately cultivated.
In Fang Yuan's previous life five hundred years ago, during the chaotic wars across the Five Regions, the Southern Border had been rife with internal strife. Yi Yang had been framed and captured by the Merchant family, and the Yi family's Supreme Elder had not hesitated to spend a massive fortune to buy Yi Yang back from the Merchant family.
So Fang Yuan had very high expectations for the Yi family's ransom as well.
The third and final family was the Chi family.
The Chi family Gu Immortal in Fang Yuan's possession was the family's Second Supreme Elder — a figure of high rank and great authority. On top of that, Chi Quyou had already traded with Fang Yuan before, having obtained Path of Dreams results. With such a precedent of cooperation, the Chi family's willingness to compromise was only natural.
Fang Yuan understood human nature well. The targets he selected for his first round of extortion deliberately avoided the Wu family, which harbored the deepest grudges, and the Tie family, which hated the Demonic Path above all else.
As long as these three families capitulated, extorting the other Righteous Path forces of the Southern Border afterward would become far easier.
After all, with such a precedent set, the Righteous Path's pride would no longer stand so tall.
Supreme Immortal Orifice.
Little Green Heaven. The Great Immortal Formation.
Immortal Killer Move — Great Thief Ghost Hand!
The ghost hand plunged into Yi Yang's immortal orifice, then returned moments later, clutching a Seventh Transformation Immortal Gu in its grasp.
Ying Wuxie and the Formation Spirit watched silently from the side, their expressions utterly blank.
They had long since grown numb to this.
Over this period, the number of Immortal Gu Fang Yuan had plundered was staggering! And he had previously stolen the two Eighth Transformation Time-path Immortal Gu — Spring and Summer — from Xia Cha. After such a shocking display, everything that followed seemed rather anticlimactic.
To refine these Immortal Gu, Fang Yuan had specially constructed a separate immortal formation.
This formation was a completely new version, built upon the foundation of his former Wisdom Refinement Gu Formation, enhanced with numerous Wisdom-path Immortal Gu.
The Wisdom Refinement Gu Formation was the method Fang Yuan used with the Wisdom Halo to assist Woman's Heart and Puzzle Breaker in refining other people's Immortal Gu. The presence of another's will only improved its effectiveness. Fang Yuan had previously used Mo Yao's pretense to help him refine a whole series of Immortal Gu obtained from the Immortal Zombie Bo Qing — among them the Soul-Swapping Immortal Gu, the most crucial piece in the Battle of Yitian Mountain.
Now, though Fang Yuan had lost Woman's Heart, the全新的 Wisdom Refinement Immortal Formation, still centered on the Wisdom Halo, was even more formidable.
The Wisdom Gu alone was at the Ninth Transformation, making the suppression of these Seventh Transformation Immortal Gu a trivial matter.
On top of that, Fang Yuan's attainment in the Path of Formation and his Wisdom-path techniques had both made tremendous progress, resulting in the Wisdom Refinement Gu Formation performing brilliantly.
In just a short while, Fang Yuan had refined the newly stolen Immortal Gu.
It was a Space-path Immortal Gu that resembled a deep blue jade sphere, bearing a pair of snow-white feathered wings.
Fang Yuan recognized this Gu — it was called Space Traveler, and it possessed the excellent ability to teleport and shift position. The Shadow Sect's true inheritances documented relevant information about it, noting that it had originally been captured from a Pseudo-divine Beast–level Heavenly Horse.