It was as though he could hear the Fire Forgemaster's inner voice. Fang Yuan continued to mock him, even turning up the pressure: "Yes, that's the look. That's the emotion. Rage, seethe — only then will you bring your full strength to bear against me. Only then will an opponent like this be the slightest bit interesting to me. Remember, you must bring everything you have, or you'll be a disgrace to the Ten Thousand Dragon Dock! Hahaha."
Seeing Fang Yuan point directly at the Fire Forgemaster and deliver such insolent words...
For a moment, every Gu Master on and off the field was speechless.
Wasn't this going too far?!
The members of the Ten Thousand Dragon Dock ground their teeth. They were arrogant, but Fang Yuan was even more so.
The Fire Forgemaster was trembling with rage, his eyes fixed on Fang Yuan, practically shooting fire.
Contrary to what outsiders might have imagined — Fang Yuan's bold, heroic exterior was, in truth, a mask concealing extreme wariness and vigilance within.
"Contrary to the rumors going around, this Fire Forgemaster didn't actually cultivate primarily along the Refinement Path. He switched to the Fire Path. In his early years at the Ten Thousand Dragon Dock, he was a Refinement Path Gu Master. He was indeed expelled from the sect at one point, but an encounter with fate led him to inherit the legacy of a Fire Path Gu Immortal. After that stroke of luck, he managed to become a Fire Path Gu Immortal himself, and then he came crawling back to the Ten Thousand Dragon Dock. The Dock naturally wouldn't let a Gu Immortal war asset slip away — they'd secretly taken him back into the fold long ago. But since the Gu Refinement Assembly was happening and they saw that he'd reached Grandmaster level in Gu Refinement, they hurriedly sent him to participate. The goal was to seize a top spot and wrest more benefits for the sect!"
"The Fire Forgemaster's Refinement Path mastery far exceeds mine. In my previous life, he took second place in this very assembly. His Grandmaster-level refinement skill is not to be underestimated. In the tenth round — the combat stage — he single-handedly suppressed three Quasi-Grandmasters refining alongside him in one sweep. His reputation for ferocity was well-earned. This kind of enemy must be struck down early. If I let this opportunity pass, according to my previous life's memories, he would be virtually unstoppable."
Though the Fire Forgemaster was already a Gu Immortal, he hadn't made it public. He had concealed his identity from the mortals.
His Gu Immortal cultivation couldn't truly be hidden from other Gu Immortals, of course, but everyone tacitly understood the situation, and no one called him out on it.
Maintaining an air of mystery helped Gu Immortals preserve their authority over the masses.
There was another reason as well: if he somehow lost to a mortal during the Gu Refinement Assembly, it would be utterly humiliating.
But why would a Gu Immortal lose to a mortal?
Instances of mortals defeating Gu Immortals were actually quite common across past Gu Refinement Assemblies.
Because Gu Refinement wasn't about fighting — it was a technical skill. The most important factor was that Immortal Gu were unique, and they were impossibly, incomparably difficult to refine successfully.
Without Immortal Gu as the benchmark, Gu Immortals competing against mortals had nothing to rely on except the refinement of Mortal Gu.
Everyone could refine Mortal Gu. To a large extent, this levelled the playing field between immortals and mortals.
So as a rule, when Gu Immortals participated in the Gu Refinement Assembly, they kept their true identities hidden.
"Let's begin," Fang Yuan urged the Evil-Warding Sect Elder.
"Start it already!" the Fire Forgemaster bellowed. He couldn't wait to crush this insolent Fang Yuan under his heel.
The Evil-Warding Sect Elder endured the pressure from both of them and gritted his teeth: "According to the rules, the time hasn't arrived. We cannot begin yet. Three more breaths... Three, two, one. Good! Activate the Isolation Gu Formation, close the arena entrance. Reveal the challenge!"
The first seven rounds of the Gu Refinement Assembly, because there were simply far too many participants, had required competitors to take turns on the field.
Now, in the eighth round, the number had been drastically reduced. Each venue hosted only a single round, and any Gu Master who missed this window was considered to have forfeited.
The Gu Insect carrying the challenge was something special. This fifth-transformation Faith Path Mortal Gu was a creation of the Heavenly Court. It possessed extraordinary security capabilities.
The test inside wasn't stored in advance. Instead, the Heavenly Court controlled it in real time from their end, transmitting the actual challenge only when the round was about to begin.
The moment the challenge appeared, the entire arena — inside and out — fell into absolute silence. Everyone held their breath and stared at the test, so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.
The eighth round's challenge: refine a Silence Gu, Fifth Transformation Sound Path. The competitor who refined it successfully in the shortest time would be the winner and advance to the next round. All other Gu Masters would be eliminated.
Materials provided: Immortal Soul Grass, Oblivion Stone, one fourth-transformation Indifference Gu, six third-transformation Three Seals of Silence Gu, two fourth-transformation Submersion Gu... No personally brought materials were permitted.
Gu Recipes provided: six different Silence Gu Recipes, three Indifference Gu Recipes of varying content, and one Linking Gu Recipe.
Everyone frowned deeply.
The difficulty of this challenge had skyrocketed nearly tenfold compared to the seventh round!
Not only were they given ten different Gu Recipes — which required the Gu Masters to have sharp judgment in selecting the ones suited to them — but the materials provided were restricted, and no outside materials were allowed. Yet none of the provided materials fulfilled the requirements of any single Gu Recipe.
In other words, the Gu Masters would have to reverse-refine the Indifference Gu, the Three Seals of Silence Gu, or the Submersion Gu to obtain additional refinement materials. Only then could they process those materials further and ultimately refine a Fifth Transformation Sound Path Silence Gu.
Alternatively, a participating Gu Master could employ Wisdom Path techniques to synthesize all the Gu Recipes together and improve them in a unified approach, using the provided materials as a foundation to deduce a Gu Recipe that met all the requirements. That would also work.
Of these two methods, the first was obviously the more practical and effective choice. The second required an extraordinary level of Wisdom Path mastery, and among the Gu Masters who had fought their way to this stage, those who also possessed such deep Wisdom Path expertise were exceedingly rare.
What made it even more critical was the time constraint.
The first competitor to successfully refine the Gu would win. Everyone else would be eliminated.
This placed enormous psychological pressure on the participants. Especially in the final moments, some Gu Masters would likely crack under the strain and make mistakes.
When the Fire Forgemaster saw the challenge, he nearly coughed up a mouthful of blood.
What kind of hellish question was this?!
The Fire Forgemaster practically wanted to scream curses!