Eight days later.
Nanqiu Garden.
The small square was paved with star stone tiles, offering a crystal-clear view under a dazzling canopy of starlight.
Fang Yuan stood at one end of the square, hands clasped behind his back, feet slightly apart, eyes closed, his breathing deep, slow, and drawn out.
Before him stood over a dozen stone pillars.
Each pillar was two zhang in diameter, pitch-black, hard as iron. They were arranged with intervals between them, nearly filling the entire small square.
Hoo……
Fang Yuan exhaled a long breath of turbid air and suddenly snapped his eyes open.
In that instant, it was as if a bolt of lightning had flashed across the void!
Charge!
He surged forward, taking several enormous strides. In just a few steps, he arrived before one of the stone pillars.
His feet stopped abruptly. His waist and torso twisted, and his arm whipped outward in a wild arc, fist sweeping across the pillar's surface.
Thud.
A muffled boom. The stone pillar trembled as a spherical pit was punched into it, stone chips flying in every direction.
Again.
Fang Yuan held his breath, attacking with fists and palms in alternating volleys. At the same time, he threw kicks, stomps, elbow strikes, knee jabs, shoulder checks…… every part of his body was transformed into a sharp weapon of offense.
Thud thud thud……
The muffled impacts rang out without cease. The stone pillars shuddered continuously, chips of stone scattering in all directions.
Fang Yuan attacked without pause, his assault relentless as a torrential storm, unending.
In the span of a few moments, one pillar had been reduced to half its original volume, swaying like a small tree caught in a tempest.
Crack.
Fang Yuan whipped his leg around in a devastating horizontal strike. With a sharp crack, the pillar — already on the verge of collapse — finally could not endure the onslaught and snapped clean in two, crashing to the ground.
Fang Yuan slowly lowered his leg, his breathing slightly hurried, a thin layer of fine beads of sweat seeping from his forehead.
He swept his gaze across the ground.
The two broken pillars were unrecognizable, their surfaces riddled with pockmarks — every crater a testament to the pounding of Fang Yuan's fists and feet.
"This is without using the Wholeheartedly Gu. Ordinary attacks truly struggle to unleash the Beast Force Phantom."
Tah.
He gave a sharp shout, took two massive strides in rapid succession, and lunged toward the nearest stone pillar.
His right hand shifted into an open palm and slammed heavily against the pillar's surface.
ROAR!
A phantom brown bear materialized in the air behind Fang Yuan. It was massive and barrel-chested, jaws gaping wide to reveal gleaming white fangs. It raised its right paw and struck downward in a motion that perfectly mirrored Fang Yuan's own.
In that single instant, Fang Yuan felt a tremendous surge of power flood into his right palm!
BOOM.
Fang Yuan's palm connected with the pillar. A thunderous boom erupted.
The thick pillar — so wide that even two people linking arms couldn't encircle it — was shattered on impact, crashing down with a deafening rumble. It smashed into the ground, punching a shallow crater into the tiles.
A wave of rebounding force surged back through Fang Yuan's arm, numbing his right palm from fingers to wrist.
After purchasing the Brown Bear Original Strength Gu, Fang Yuan had been using it constantly. Now the process was complete — he had gained the strength of a bear.
"Before, I had to strike that pillar dozens of times just to destroy it. After activating the Wholeheartedly Gu, a single blow was enough to snap it clean through……"
Fang Yuan could feel the vast difference between the two.
The Wholeheartedly Gu was not an offensive Gu — it was an auxiliary Gu. Yet the moment it was deployed, it produced an almost miraculous transformation.
The gap between Fang Yuan's combat power before and after was like heaven and earth.
Using an auxiliary Gu as the core of one's set was relatively uncommon. For most Gu Masters, auxiliary Gu served merely as supplementary pillars alongside the main ones.
Take someone nearby as an example.
Wei Yang used the Light Rainbow Gu — a movement Gu — as her core, with the Blade Light Gu as her primary offensive pillar, and the Light Source Gu as her secondary pillar. The Light Source Gu drastically reduced the True Essence consumption of light-type Gu.
The Wholeheartedly Gu, despite being an auxiliary Gu, could serve as the core. That alone spoke volumes about its value.
"However…… the defense provided by the Canopy Gu is considerable, but it lacks rigidity. If I were to switch to the Vajra Gu, the effect would be even better." Fang Yuan mused.
Throughout the entire attack sequence, he had been channeling the Canopy Gu. Without it, his hands and feet would have been destroyed.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Though Fang Yuan's bones were as hard as tempered steel, his flesh, skin, tendons, and blood were still those of a mortal. That single palm strike — without the Canopy Gu's protection — would have left his bones intact but his flesh a mangled mess.
Unfortunately, the Vajra Gu was not yet available.
And Fang Yuan was out of money.
Initially, he had possessed over nine hundred thousand Yuan Stone. But Bai Ningbing had taken half of them.
Then, pursuing the Wholeheartedly Gu, he had spent a fortune at the Gambling Stone Hall.
On top of that, there were the ongoing expenses of daily living in the Shang Family's Third Inner City — food, lodging, and feeding his Gu Insects. The costs had been enormous.
Afterward came the great overhaul, which had required a massive infusion of Yuan Stone. Eight days ago, at the martial arena, he had publicly handed over the last eighty thousand or so Yuan Stone to Li Ran.
Now, Fang Yuan was not only empty-handed but also in debt.
By the terms of the毒誓, he still owed Li Ran another one hundred and twenty thousand Yuan Stone.
Fang Yuan knew this was a necessary investment.
Reputation was secondary — the key was to stabilize Li Ran and demonstrate a stance of genuine cooperation. Although, in truth, Fang Yuan had already used the Wordless Gu days ago to purge the毒誓 Gu from his body.
Li Ran was an unexpected asset. Killing him would leave evidence and invite suspicion from the Shang Family — an absolute blunder. So Fang Yuan chose not to act.
To Fang Yuan, Li Ran was a chess piece — difficult to wield, but extremely useful. In the future, Fang Yuan might even leverage Li Ran to extract the recipe for a Fifth Transformation Wholeheartedly Gu from the Wu Family.
For now, the priority was using Li Ran to keep the Wu Family at ease.
Three days ago, Li Ran had already contacted the Wu Family's operative through an emergency communication channel. He had conveyed that Fang Yuan was someone who could be used. With that, the likelihood of retaliation from the Wu Family had diminished significantly.