"What one learns on paper is ultimately shallow — to truly understand, one must practice it firsthand." Fang Yuan murmured softly.
Understanding the one principle that governed all things was one matter; putting it into practice was another entirely.
Fang Yuan had thoroughly grasped the essence of kill moves like God Unperceived and Ghost Unperceived, but through the lens of the Refinement Path. Due to the limitations of his attainment in the Theft Path, he could not yet improve upon the Ghost Unperceived kill move.
He had the ability to create Refinement Path kill moves similar to God Unperceived and Ghost Unperceived, but it would be far from easy, and the cost would be steep.
In this era where three Venerables stood in confrontation, having Fang Yuan expend massive amounts of time and energy to deduce such a top-tier Refinement Path kill move would be far too risky.
The timing simply did not permit it.
However, the various Refinement Path resource nodes across the Five Regions and Two Heavens all held tremendous value for reference and study.
After simplifying and extracting their true essence, Fang Yuan could refine them into mature passive kill moves, specifically designed for managing his Immortal Orifice.
As a general rule, these passive measures made up only a tiny proportion of all kill moves, yet held immense value.
The most common type was passive defense measures.
Song Yishi's pride was well-founded.
Even Lord Dragon had only one such move — the Nine-pattern Dragon Body Protection.
As far as Fang Yuan knew, Demon Venerable Stealing Heaven had created fewer than five kill moves similar to God Unperceived and Ghost Unperceived in his entire lifetime.
The creation of kill moves had originally emerged from the accumulated experience of ancient Gu Cultivators who used multiple Gu Insects simultaneously. Later, the ancestors discovered all manner of innate abilities and instincts in the creatures of the Five Regions and Two Heavens, referencing and borrowing from them extensively, ushering kill moves into an era of rapid development.
Even today, Gu Cultivators had already touched the ceiling of this world.
For instance, Lord Dragon had created the Dragonman race, the Lang Ya Earth Spirit had constructed new Heaven and Earth Secret Realms, and Demon Venerable Spectral Soul had modified Soul Beasts, converting various Soul Path kill moves into Dao Marks and inscribing them upon the Soul Beasts, granting these creatures new innate abilities.
In terms of these achievements, Gu Cultivators had already stood shoulder to shoulder with heaven and earth, commanding many of their wondrous powers.
Limitless Demon Venerable had gone even further.
He had laid his plans within the Crazy Demon Cave, boring through the world's fetal wall to create a breach, forging entirely new Heavenly Dao Marks. This surpassed even the entire Gu Cultivator world.
This was Fang Yuan's first time refining the natural Refinement Path Dao Marks of the outside world.
At the Supreme Grandmaster realm, combined with firsthand practice, his gains were tremendous.
In summary —
The Five Regions and Two Heavens were distributed with vast quantities of Refinement Path Dao Marks, but they were not evenly spread — sparse in some places, dense in others. These Refinement Path Dao Marks were stable, rarely undergoing sudden mutations, and their increase or decrease under normal circumstances was exceedingly slow, requiring immense stretches of time.
These Refinement Path Dao Marks could be seen as the foundation of heaven and earth's Refinement Path reserves.
Upon this foundation, a vast array of animals, plants, and non-living Gu materials were nurtured and derived.
All of these animals, plants, and objects were related to the Refinement Path — they were Refinement Path resources.
Under normal circumstances, where Refinement Path Dao Marks were dense, Refinement Path resources would be correspondingly abundant and high-grade. Where the Dao Marks were sparse, the resources would be fewer and lower-grade.
Refinement Path Dao Marks and various Refinement Path resources interacted with one another. For example, the coral colony Fang Yuan had previously inspected was a Refinement Path resource node — its origin lay in the death of a Primordial Sunken Fish thousands of years ago, when the Refinement Path Dao Marks on its body dissipated, with a portion remaining in the natural world.
The Dao Marks Fang Yuan had refined through his Refinement Path were precisely these — the very foundation of the natural world's Refinement Path reserves.
The Refinement Path resources themselves were not included.
The natural Dao Marks Fang Yuan had successfully refined were like a spider's web. As long as he was situated within it, he could sense all Refinement Path-related activity within the web.
This was Refinement Path Sensing.
Fang Yuan had a vague sense of Refinement Path resources, and could also sense the Refinement Path activities of Gu Cultivators.
Where the Refinement Path Dao Marks were dense, his sensing was stronger, more stable, and clearer — for instance, he could discover small-scale, ordinary Refinement Path Gu materials.
Conversely, where the Refinement Path Dao Marks were thinner, his sensing would weaken. In such areas, it was likely that only Refinement Path Immortal Materials would be detectable.
If the web had gaps, or if an Immortal Gu Master was refining Gu within their Immortal Orifice, then Fang Yuan would not be able to sense it.
By utilizing the refined Refinement Path Dao Marks, Fang Yuan could, from the Refinement Path's perspective, exert his own influence upon all living things and the natural environment within his sensing range.
For example, helping Song Yishi cultivate, maintaining and expanding the coral colony and other Refinement Path resource nodes, creating passive top-tier Refinement Path kill moves (similar to Infernal) that would persist in the natural world.
Simply using the Refinement Path Dao Marks to enhance his own methods was only the most basic power.
"From the perspective of the Refinement Path, the entire Gu Cultivator world — the Five Regions and Two Heavens — was an incomprehensibly vast Immortal Material. This Immortal Material embraced all things, encompassing the Dao Marks of every Path."
"Though I have become a Refinement Path Venerable, I can only refine a portion of this enormous Immortal Material. Giant Sun Immortal Venerable, Star Constellation Immortal Venerable, and all past Venerables — none were any different."
"A portion of heaven and earth belonged to them, was used by them — this is a Dao Lord!"
"Other Venerables at most could become the master of a single Path, but I am different — I am special."
Fang Yuan possessed the Supreme Immortal Body — his Dao Marks did not conflict, allowing him to cultivate all Paths. Other Venerables could at most balance one orthodox and one unorthodox Path, achieving Venerable status in their primary Path while using their secondary Path mostly as a weapon for contention.
Theoretically, Fang Yuan could cultivate every single Path to completion, ascending to become a Venerable of all Paths!
This was the very purpose for which Demon Venerable Spectral Soul had exhausted all his efforts to forge the Supreme Immortal Embryo Gu.
Fang Yuan's potential was without equal, and his room for growth was unimaginably vast.
"Other Venerables naturally know this as well. The reason they haven't moved to eliminate me is simply that I displayed formidable combat power within the Crazy Demon Cave, making both Giant Sun Immortal Venerable and Star Constellation Immortal Venerable realize that the price of destroying me was one neither could bear."
Fang Yuan did not continue refining Dao Marks.
He decided to take a breather.
Though within his Supreme Immortal Orifice, the Heavenly Origin Treasure Lotus had bloomed once more, granting him nearly a hundred additional Immortal Essence Stones.
Though he possessed all manner of Refinement Path methods that could multiply his refining efficiency several times over, far surpassing other Venerables.