Chirp chirp chirp chirp!
A large flock of Blinking Birds chirped and chattered, circling around a seven-colored cloud, fluttering ceaselessly to warn off the intruder.
Fang Yuan's expression was calm, but a hint of a smile showed in his eyes.
The Blinking Birds' warning meant nothing to him, of course.
Although these birds were wild beasts, their combat strength was low—even such a large flock posed no real threat. Their true strength lay in their speed.
Blinking Birds were practically the fastest of all wild beasts. Once they burst into motion, they could vanish beyond a Gu Immortal's line of sight in the blink of an eye, which was how they got their name.
Fang Yuan had suppressed his aura completely, making himself seem no different from an ordinary mortal. But these Blinking Birds did not attack at all. Looking at this harmless-looking human, they instinctively felt a crushing sense of oppression in their hearts.
Suddenly, a wisp of aura leaked from Fang Yuan.
Whoosh!
In the next instant, the Blinking Birds' speed exploded outward, and in a flash they vanished without a trace. The dense flock that had surrounded the seven-colored cloud was gone, leaving only the cloud drifting quietly by itself.
Fang Yuan sighed softly. He had originally intended to capture these Blinking Birds alive. But their senses were far too keen, and concealing the aura of his killer moves was not exactly his forte.
Still, if they were gone, they were gone. Even if he had subdued the Blinking Birds, they would be difficult to raise. Their food was Daylight Dust, something unique to the Primordial Day, which was extremely hard to collect and could absolutely not be produced inside a Gu Immortal's immortal aperture.
Fang Yuan slowly flew closer to the seven-colored cloud.
"I didn't expect to run into a patch of Seven-Colored Cloud Clay," he remarked with admiration.
It looked like a cloud, but it was actually a type of soil—Cloud Clay.
In the Langya Blessed Land, the Langya Earth Spirit had gathered massive amounts of Cloud Clay together, forming a cloud-covered continent that perpetually floated in the upper reaches of the Langya Blessed Land.
The greatest source of Cloud Clay was the Primordial Nine Heavens, though there were also a handful of resource points scattered throughout the Five Regions that produced small quantities.
Single-colored Cloud Clay was the most ordinary Gu material—Yellow Cloud Clay from the Primordial Yellow Heaven, Crimson Cloud Clay from the Primordial Red Heaven, and so on. The most common single-colored Cloud Clay on the market today was White Cloud Clay, the vast majority of which came from the Primordial Day.
Black Cloud Clay from the Primordial Night was actually quite plentiful as well, but far more dangerous, given that the Night was home to numerous soul beasts.
Once multi-colored Cloud Clay reached six colors, it became a Sixth Transformation-level immortal material. The Seven-Colored Cloud Clay before Fang Yuan was a Seventh Transformation immortal material. Such a large expanse of it was extremely valuable.
After examining the patch of Seven-Colored Cloud Clay, Fang Yuan discovered numerous bird nests hidden within the clay. Inside the nests were many eggs.
They were all Blinking Bird eggs!
Fang Yuan was not surprised. Based on the behavior of the flock he had just seen, they had clearly been guarding something. In truth, Blinking Birds were an extremely timid species—even as wild beasts, the slightest disturbance would send them bolting away at maximum speed.
With these eggs, Fang Yuan could hatch his own Blinking Birds. Hatching wild beasts was not easy, but for him it posed little difficulty.
However, Fang Yuan had little interest in hatching them. He would rather use these eggs as immortal materials in his Gu refinement.
Blinking Birds had too narrow a diet and were difficult to raise. If he wanted to cultivate them, he would need to periodically release them into the Primordial Day to forage, which would be far too troublesome.
Fang Yuan was wealthy and powerful enough that he no longer cared for the meager profits a Blinking Bird could bring.
Ever since refining the Heaven Manifestation killer move, Fang Yuan had spent the past month or so operating within the Primordial Day.
He searched for immortal materials in the Primordial Day while simultaneously refining Gu inside his own Supreme Immortal Aperture.
A single month in the outside world translated to far longer within the Supreme Immortal Aperture.
Fang Yuan's Gu refinement had yielded tremendous results!
Man as Before, Kingdom as Before, My Strength, Mountain Pulling, Tide Turning, Dog Shit Luck, Time Luck, and others—all had been elevated to the Seventh Transformation level.
He had slightly altered his original Gu refinement plan, advancing the refinement of certain Fate Path Immortal Gu ahead of schedule. Over these days, his harvests in the Primordial Day had been equally massive, netting him a great deal of immortal materials. These materials had contributed to the advancement of those Seventh Transformation Fate Path Immortal Gu as well.
Beyond the advancement itself, Fang Yuan had also improved his refinement techniques.
He knew a vast number of Gu recipes, was versed in an enormous body of refinement methods, and his refinement realm had reached Quasi-Supreme—but his practical experience in refinement was still lacking.
Especially when it came to refining immortal Gu, he had very little experience at all.
True knowledge comes from practice.
Over this period, he had continuously advanced his immortal Gu in refinement, discovering numerous shortcomings in his technique and correcting every one. At the same time, he found even more methods that suited his personal approach to Gu refinement.
Now, when it came to the craft of refinement, Fang Yuan had gained a great many new ideas and inspirations. His success rate for advancing immortal Gu had risen considerably.
Despite all this, the earth veins across the Five Regions continued to tremble, and Gu Immortals were joyfully scrambling to harvest immortal materials and immortal Gu in a feverish rush. But after careful deliberation, Fang Yuan chose to continue exploring the Primordial Day.
If he competed with the Five Region Gu Immortals for resources in the earth channels, he would inevitably have to reveal himself, and battles would very likely break out.
Every successful advancement of an immortal Gu increased Fang Yuan's strength by a margin. But no matter how much that total increase accumulated, it could not offset the disadvantage of having exposed his trump cards in the River of Time during his last venture.
He needed time—time to quietly digest this period's harvest.