A glint of contemplation flickered through Fang Yuan's eyes.
Miao Mingshen had actually clashed with Ren Xiuping, starting the exploration of the Azure Blue Dragon Whale ahead of schedule. This was somewhat unexpected for Fang Yuan.
In his five-hundred-year memories of his past life, this had happened much earlier.
"Perhaps the various ripples of my rebirth continue to spread, causing the conflict between Miao Mingshen and Ren Xiuping to occur earlier than before."
"Or perhaps my five-hundred-year past-life memories themselves are flawed. After all, the Spring Autumn Cicada was previously seeded with Heavenly Will's interference — tampering with the memories would have been trivially easy."
"Then there's a third possibility: the Heavenly Court engineered this. They calculated my connection to Miao Mingshen through divination and now wish to seize this opportunity to scheme against me once more."
At this thought, Fang Yuan calmed himself, slowly closed his eyes, and began to calculate.
A long while later, he opened his eyes and reached a conclusion: "Based on all available clues, the probability that the Heavenly Court has set a trap for me is not high. It seems I'll have to make a trip to the Eastern Sea."
Of the Five Domains, the Central Continent and Northern Plains were both death traps for Fang Yuan, owing to the Heavenly Court and Eternal Life. Of the remaining three — the Eastern Sea, Western Desert, and Southern Border — the Southern Border was naturally the one Fang Yuan knew best. He had spent time infiltrating the Wu Family, and recently he had captured numerous Southern Border powerhouses, giving him considerable insight into the workings of various major families.
There was another layer to his reasoning: the Shadow Sect's headquarters were established in the Southern Border. The Shadow Sect had invested the most heavily in the region, and in the shadows lay numerous natural Immortal Formations and other hidden assets, none of which had been exposed.
All these factors led Fang Yuan to choose the Southern Border as his base.
Even Hei Loulan and the others underwent their tribulations here in the Southern Border.
It was true that the Heavenly Earth energies differed across the Five Domains, and forcing a tribulation in an unfamiliar land would damage one's Immortal Aperture. But Fang Yuan actually had no desire for them to develop their Immortal Apertures too well. By shouldering their cultivation resources, he maintained a firm grip of control over them.
Over this period, Fang Yuan had fully refined all the Immortal Gu within the Qi Sea Cave Heaven, bringing them completely under his control.
The resources within both the Qi Sea Cave Heaven and the Five Phase Public Blessed Land had been largely digested.
The one holdout was the Ninth Transformation Immortal Dao killer move Tianxiang, which stubbornly resisted Fang Yuan's refinement. Still, progress had been made — given time, it would certainly serve him.
What truly vexed Fang Yuan was that all of his trade operations in the Treasure Yellow Heaven were being jointly suppressed by the Central Continent's Heavenly Court and the Southern Border's Righteous Path Alliance. They had mounted precise interdictions, forming an enormous economic blockade.
Fang Yuan had tried numerous strategies, matching wits and strength against them, but none had yielded satisfactory results.
Whether it was the Central Continent's Heavenly Court or the Southern Border's Righteous Path Alliance, both were flush with resources and commanded deep reserves of capital. Fang Yuan's assets simply could not compare to these two colossal powers.
The most direct solution would be monopolistic enterprises like the Courage Gu trade. But that demanded vast quantities of Courage Gu, and Fang Yuan was short on Soul Cores. Although Dang Hun Mountain had been repaired, its output remained insufficient.
His previous plan involving the Green Ghost Desert had already fallen through. Had it succeeded, Fang Yuan would have faced little difficulty against the combined blockade of the Central Continent and Southern Border.
Qing Chou's whereabouts remained unknown, and the Fang Family of the Western Desert was being deliberately obstructed by the tacit cooperation of that region's superpowers. The Fang Family's ambitions to elevate their status would not be easy to achieve.
Fang Yuan had considered leveraging the Fang Family, but he harbored reservations. His former identity as Suan Bu Jin had already been penetrated by the Heavenly Court.
Looking back, his decision to go to the Green Ghost Desert had been correct in principle. The pity was that reality rarely cooperated — so many things in life ran contrary to one's plans.
As a result, Fang Yuan's income continued to shrink. What pained him even more was that the Heavenly Court had intensified its hoarding of Time Dao Immortal Materials from the Treasure Yellow Heaven.
As long as something was a Time Dao Immortal Material, the Heavenly Court would pay whatever the seller wanted. Consequently, prices for Time Dao materials in the Treasure Yellow Heaven had surged to unprecedented heights.
This was agonizing for Fang Yuan.
His revenue had already been slashed, and he had wanted to refine Time Dao Immortal Gu to bolster his strength in this aspect — so he could descend into the River of Time once more. Instead, the Heavenly Court had bulldozed him aside with sheer dominance.
The Heavenly Court had stood since the primordial era. Through countless eons of accumulated wealth, how could Fang Yuan possibly measure up?
Fang Yuan had made negligible progress in the Time Dao, while the Heavenly Court had amassed enormous quantities of Time Dao Immortal Materials. They might well be on track to forge a fifth Immortal Gu House.
As their power grew and his dwindled, Fang Yuan's hope of finding the Red Lotus True Inheritance grew ever more faint.
"I need vast quantities of Time Dao Immortal Materials to refine Time Dao Immortal Gu. But Le Tu Immortal Venerable achieved Venerable status through the Earth Dao — the Le Tu True Inheritance inside the Azure Blue Dragon Whale probably contains very little in the way of Time Dao materials. Even so, I have to go!"
No one could say with certainty what the uncertain future would yield.
Even if it wasn't Time Dao materials, whatever lay within the Le Tu True Inheritance would undoubtedly be valuable.