Eastern Sea.
"That should be about enough for now. I'll stop here." With a flicker of thought, Fang Yuan paused his refinement of Dao marks once more.
Within his Supreme Immortal Aperture, he had accumulated over a hundred Yellow Apricot Immortal Essence Pearls.
But the reason Fang Yuan halted the refinement of natural Dao marks had nothing to do with his Immortal Essence reserves.
In truth, while he was ostensibly refining the Refinement Path Dao marks in the Eastern Sea, his real focus had been dissolving the Fact Ice all along!
The vast majority of his Yellow Apricot Immortal Essence had gone toward dissolving the Fact Ice, with only a small fraction spent on refining the Eastern Sea's Refinement Path Dao marks.
This display had kept both Star Constellation Immortal Venerable and Giant Sun Immortal Venerable comfortably entrenched in their respective strongholds, neither bothering to come after Fang Yuan.
"Oh? Giant Sun Immortal Venerable has stopped refining natural Dao marks." A faint gleam flickered in Fang Yuan's eyes.
This intelligence was impossible to keep hidden. The three Venerables were all closely monitoring one another, so Fang Yuan had learned of it almost immediately.
"Giant Sun's Immortal Essence reserves must be running low. As for Star Constellation, she may be holed up inside the Heavenly Court, but her situation is probably no different."
Fang Yuan let out a quiet breath of relief.
If the two Venerables' Immortal Essence reserves were hitting critical levels, the likelihood of them coming to cause trouble would shrink considerably, and the threat they posed would plummet several times over.
"Thank goodness I succeeded in refining the Ninth Transformation Heavenly Origin Supreme Queen Lotus Gu before. Otherwise, things would be far more uncomfortable right now."
In a three-way standoff between Venerables, once you fell behind, catching up was nearly impossible.
After all, each of them was a peerless genius among geniuses.
"In terms of Immortal Essence reserves, I've now reached parity with the other two Venerables. But in reality, I actually hold significant advantages that surpass them both." Fang Yuan assessed inwardly.
First and foremost was the Ninth Transformation Heavenly Origin Supreme Queen Lotus Gu — its contribution was tremendous!
Second, his Supreme Immortal Aperture had been enhanced with Time Path methods, making its flow of time faster than either of the other two Venerables. By contrast, Giant Sun and Star Constellation were hampered by Dao mark repulsion, leaving virtually no effective Time Path techniques they could apply to their own apertures.
Finally, the foundation of Fang Yuan's Supreme Immortal Aperture far exceeded the two Venerables' newly established apertures. The sheer volume of Yellow Apricot Immortal Essence produced by his aperture's origin was inherently greater than theirs.
Combined, these three factors meant Fang Yuan's Yellow Apricot Immortal Essence output was far higher than either of the other two.
Right now, when refining natural Dao marks, Fang Yuan deliberately put on an act of struggling to keep going, frequently pausing to rest.
Thanks to the Heavenly Secrets Confusion killer move, the two Venerables had no idea he possessed the Ninth Transformation Heavenly Origin Supreme Queen Lotus Gu.
And because both were aware of the Supreme Immortal Aperture's intelligence, they understood the drawback of non-repulsive Dao marks and assumed Fang Yuan would be unlikely to risk accelerating his aperture's time flow.
As for the scale of Immortal Essence produced by an aperture's origin, the two Venerables had underestimated the Supreme Immortal Aperture's true depth — partly because it had recently endured the Calamity of Small Chaos, and partly because of Giant Sun Immortal Venerable's Fortune Hides Within Disaster killer move.
Especially during this period, when Fang Yuan had been publicly refining Gu in Treasure Yellow Heaven, willing to trade away Immortal Gu in a frenzy to acquire all manner of resources, earth veins, and water veins — his intent to build up his aperture was laid bare for all to see.
To the two Venerables' eyes, this all-out effort to develop his aperture only confirmed their suspicion that the Supreme Immortal Aperture had suffered devastating losses during the contest for the Mad Demon Lair.
Fang Yuan speculated on the two Venerables' reasoning: "In their minds, if I wanted to improve my Immortal Essence output, refining a Ninth Transformation Immortal Gu would be far too risky, and accelerating my aperture's time flow would trigger a calamity sooner, exposing a flaw. That leaves only the option of frantically building and developing the aperture to deepen its origin and produce more Yellow Apricot Immortal Essence."
"But if I show even the slightest crack, the two Venerables will grow suspicious. Especially Star Constellation Immortal Venerable — she is the greatest Wisdom Path practitioner in all of history. Concealing things from her is extraordinarily difficult!"
Fang Yuan treaded as carefully as if walking on thin ice, knowing that simply maintaining the status quo was already a hard-won victory.
He absolutely could not afford to show the slightest flaw!
The moment even the smallest imperfection appeared, the two Venerables would magnify it and magnify it again, then immediately launch a full-scale probing attack.
If the truth were exposed — what then?
Fang Yuan would unquestionably face a coordinated assault from both Venerables!
He had no idea how long he could keep this secret. After all, he was facing two of the most brilliant Gu Immortals who had ever lived.
For all he knew, his secret could be discovered at any moment.
If that happened, he would not be the least bit surprised.
Shifting his full attention away from refining the Refinement Path Dao marks, Fang Yuan turned entirely to dissolving the Fact Ice.
His intuition told him that a major breakthrough was imminent.
Sure enough, several days later, his Heavenly Path comprehension rose once more, reaching the Quasi-Master level.
Though he had not attained true Master rank, Fang Yuan now possessed a solid foundation and a surge of powerful confidence —
"If I devote everything to calculation now, I will definitely be able to deduce a Heavenly Path killer move that lets me retrieve the Yuan Realm!"
Fang Yuan's Yuan Realms were still sitting inside Treasure Yellow Heaven.
Goods within Treasure Yellow Heaven could not be used on the spot while still inside it.
This meant that his original plan — sending clones in to absorb the Yuan Realms — had never had any chance of success from the start.
Only by extracting the Yuan Realms from Treasure Yellow Heaven could he absorb them and cause his realms to skyrocket!
"Dissolving the Fact Ice primarily increases Heavenly Path Dao marks, secondarily boosts Heavenly Path comprehension, and only lastly raises comprehension in other paths. That final boost is quite marginal — almost like a bonus gift from the Fact Ice, making up only a tiny proportion."
"Only by relying on the Yuan Realms can I cause my comprehension in the other paths to surge dramatically!"