Chi Quyou, at his advanced age, managed the Chi Clan's affairs large and small on a daily basis, laboring and worrying himself sick. He exhausted his mind and energy preparing for the arrival of the great era, all while trying to cultivate an unworthy successor.
In all honesty, Chi Quyou had it hard enough already, and these rumors were only making things worse for him!
Chi Quyou held in a stifled fury mingled with grief and indignation, grinding his teeth as he waited for Fang Yuan to show himself again.
As for Fang Yuan, the very culprit behind it all, he had been living these past days in calm, tranquility, and fulfillment.
He was managing his own Immortal Aperture.
The Immortal Aperture was the foundation of any Gu Immortal — no matter how powerful, a Gu Immortal with a poorly managed Immortal Aperture was nothing more than a rootless duckweed.
The Langya Blessed Land had already been fully merged into his Supreme Immortal Aperture. Once the origin seal was undone, Fang Yuan swiftly fused and absorbed it.
Fang Yuan had the Langya Earth Spirit step forward and renegotiate the alliance with all the alien Gu Immortals. The new covenant was rigorous in its content and possessed strong binding force, establishing Fang Yuan's supreme and unassailable authority while reducing the rest of the alien Gu Immortals to vassals and subordinates.
Moreover, it stipulated that all alien Immortal Apertures, upon their owner's death, were to be merged into the Supreme Immortal Aperture.
And so, Fang Yuan's Supreme Blessed Realm had gained many more Blessed Lands. These Blessed Lands all came from the hapless souls who had perished at Chen Yi's hands during the Battle of Langya.
The Hairymen Gu Immortals were astonished by this, but the Langya Earth Spirit held great prestige, and with Mao Liu's cooperation, they were pacified.
The remaining alien Gu Immortals were even more unwilling, of course, but Fang Yuan's strength spoke for itself — they had no choice but to endure in silence.
Of course, when it came to political maneuvering, a cunning and calculating man like Fang Yuan was every bit the equal of Wu Yong.
In the covenant, he had also bound himself: to fully cultivate the alien races in the future without any prejudice. When the covenant took effect, he immediately granted these alien Gu Immortals numerous benefits on the spot.
Furthermore, he secretly took a portion of these alien Gu Immortals to Stone Lotus Island, letting them experience the Future Body killing move and broaden their horizons.
The alien Gu Immortals were utterly dumbfounded — only then did they realize that behind Fang Yuan stood none other than the most mysterious figure in all of history, the Red Lotus Demon Venerable!
Now, they didn't have even the faintest thought of rebellion!
Of course, Fang Yuan did not let Xue'er, Bing Zhuo, and the like enjoy the Future Body. According to the Ink Effect, Fang Yuan had killed them in his previous life — downstream in the River of Time, they simply did not exist. They had no future.
Deceiving them was simple enough — Fang Yuan told them straight that Stone Lotus Island had its limits, and that the Future Body killing move required further accumulation and incubation.
After all, the covenant required them to be sincere toward Fang Yuan, while Fang Yuan himself was permitted to keep his secrets.
This was, of course, terribly unfair.
But under Fang Yuan's carrot-and-stick approach, these alien Gu Immortals had no choice but to submit.
In truth, Fang Yuan genuinely wanted to develop these alien races.
There were three main reasons.
First, the more aliens there were, the more Longevity Gu they could produce. On this front, one could never prepare too early.
Second, Fang Yuan had begun attempting to comprehend the Human Path. Raising more humans and aliens would greatly aid him in this endeavor.
Third, it was related to the heritage of the alien races.
In ancient times, human Immortal Venerables and Demon Venerables had appeared one after another, suppressing and massacring the Ten Great Alien Races until their future seemed utterly bleak and hopeless. The aliens realized the direness of their situation and united to establish their racial heritage, burying the most precious treasures of their entire races to leave for their descendants — and for the present, a sliver of hope.
According to the aliens' understanding: Destiny Gu belonged to the Heavenly Path, which takes from the surplus to supplement the deficit. "Human Path shall prosper" — they accepted that. But it couldn't be "Human Path shall prosper" forever, could it?!
The aliens' reasoning wasn't wrong, of course, but they hadn't anticipated that Star Constellation Immortal Venerable would be so shameless as to merge herself directly with the Dao.
As a result, humanity continued to prosper indefinitely, the aliens were left dumbfounded, and they remained perpetually suppressed.
However, this situation worked very much in Fang Yuan's favor.
According to the intelligence revealed by the Langya Earth Spirit:
When the population and number of Gu Immortals of an alien race reached a certain threshold, the racial heritage would manifest itself, gifting itself directly to the aliens to help them rise and flourish.
Throughout history, the aliens had never had a moment of true rise and growth, so the bulk of these racial heritages should still be preserved intact.
According to the Langya Earth Spirit's speculation, one of the Hairymen's racial heritages was the Undefeated Blessed Land!
The Undefeated Blessed Land was located at Mao Jiao Mountain. However, although the Heavenly Court had discovered it, conquering it proved extraordinarily difficult. Despite the Heavenly Court's vast reserves of resources and its assembly of extraordinary talents, they were at a loss when it came to the Undefeated Blessed Land.
In the end, they relied on Human Path methods, finding an alternative approach to siphon off some of the Undefeated Blessed Land's wealth. But not a single Heavenly Court Gu Immortal was able to truly set foot within this sealed Blessed Land. What truly lay inside the Undefeated Blessed Land, no one knew.
In his previous life, even after Fang Yuan had destroyed Mao Jiao Mountain, the Undefeated Blessed Land had remained completely intact.
All of this spoke to the miraculous mystery of the Undefeated Blessed Land, and from it one could extrapolate just how mystical and extraordinary the racial heritages of the various alien races truly were.
This was also why, despite having obtained Fixed Immortal Travel and improved the relevant killing moves, Fang Yuan still had not gone to Mao Jiao Mountain.
According to his memories from his previous life, at this point in time the Heavenly Court had not yet laid down the Nine-Nine Chain Unbroken Formation at Mao Jiao Mountain.
But even so, launching a surprise attack using the Fixed Immortal Travel killing move would do nothing against the Undefeated Blessed Land.
"The Heavenly Court seems to have found a method to destroy the Undefeated Blessed Land, but I don't have one for now."
"Even if I did, would Fairy Ziwei not be guarding against it? The risk of a surprise attack there is simply too great!"
After careful deliberation, Fang Yuan abandoned the idea of a surprise attack on Mao Jiao Mountain.
The idea was too risky, vastly underestimated the opponent's intelligence, and went against Fang Yuan's character of acting with caution.
Having absorbed the Langya Blessed Land, Fang Yuan had reaped enormous gains.