The Blood Mushroom Grove had already spread and grown, expanding imperceptibly to a range of about fifty mu.
In the center of the Blood Mushroom Grove, the dark red blood light emanating from the mushrooms had now been pushed aside by the brilliant and multifaceted halo of wisdom.
At this moment, Fang Yuan was bathing in the halo of wisdom, sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed.
His expression was calm, like a sculpture, but in his mind, thoughts clashed and surged like lightning and fire, countless notions colliding in a storm as fierce as a meteor shower or a volcanic eruption.
A low grunt.
Fang Yuan's body trembled slightly, and he slowly opened his eyes.
The storm composed entirely of thoughts in his mind came to an abrupt halt.
He frowned, falling into silent contemplation.
Two trails of blood slowly flowed down from his nostrils.
An immortal zombie's blood was a ghastly green color, without the slightest warmth, and utterly cold.
Fang Yuan wiped away the two nosebleeds without a care, evaluating internally: "It seems my newly created Gu formation still has quite a few flaws."
Ever since he became a grandmaster of the Wisdom Path, he had gained countless inspirations. He had also developed many entirely new ideas on how to utilize the Wisdom Gu.
This Gu formation was his recent solo creation.
Previously, his Wisdom Path attainment was insufficient, allowing him only to directly utilize the halo of wisdom. Now, with this Gu formation, he could intensify the process of thought collision within his mind.
Although it couldn't improve the effect of deduction and thought, it did save a considerable amount of time.
The Wisdom Gu was a Ninth Transformation Gu, and Fang Yuan, merely a Sixth Transformation immortal zombie, was already straining to barely utilize its halo of wisdom. This Gu formation could be considered a valuable breakthrough.
Moreover, this Gu formation was not the initial version; it had undergone several revisions and deletions.
In previous iterations, it had displayed various flaws. Once, the Gu formation even exploded directly within Fang Yuan's body.
This time, using it, Fang Yuan suffered a backlash from the formation and sustained a minor injury.
"The Gu formation still needs modification... but that's not the crux. The current difficulty lies in refining the recipe for the Star Thought Immortal Gu."
Fang Yuan's frown deepened.
Many days ago, the Burning Sky Demoness conscripted Fang Yuan. Fang Yuan had seized this golden opportunity to request the refinement of the Star Thought Immortal Gu.
The two parties reached an agreement. The Burning Sky Demoness generously supported Fang Yuan, being exceptionally open-handed. She personally sought out and sent over, via Bu Dan, all the various materials needed to refine the Star Thought Immortal Gu.
These immortal materials were exceedingly rare. Not only were they immensely costly, but if Fang Yuan had to gather them himself, it would have consumed an enormous amount of time.
Only the Burning Sky Demoness, relying on her Eighth Transformation cultivation, her status within the headquarters of the Zombie Alliance, and her profound reserves, could assist Fang Yuan in gathering a full three sets of materials in such a short time.
With everything prepared, Fang Yuan naturally began the refinement.
However, he attempted it three times consecutively and failed each time.
Fang Yuan was mentally prepared for failure.
After all, this time, he did not have the successful Dao Marks won from a Gu Refinement Assembly to assist him. He could only rely on his own strength and gamble on luck.
Why "gamble on luck" when "relying on strength" should suffice?
Take the Star Thought Immortal Gu, for example. During its refinement process, there was a step that required two immortal materials: one was the Pale Flame White Bone, and the other was the Green Mayfly Water Lotus.
The former was a Flame Path immortal material, and the latter was a Water Path immortal material.
At this step, these two materials needed to be processed simultaneously. Fire and water would blend, transforming into a clear, transparent base liquid.
But this step was extremely difficult.
The Pale Flame White Bone had Flame Path Dao Marks, while the Green Mayfly Water Lotus had Water Path Dao Marks. To process them successfully and form a clear, transparent base liquid, the number of Flame Path Dao Marks and Water Path Dao Marks had to be perfectly balanced. Even if not perfectly equal, the difference had to be minimal. Only then could fire and water cancel each other out. If one side's quantity significantly exceeded the other, beyond the tolerable limit, the resulting base liquid would be murky and unusable.
Such murky liquid could not be used.
The problem was that the base liquid could not be preserved for long and needed to be prepared on the spot. Fang Yuan lacked a Time Path Immortal Gu to stabilize the liquid's state over time. This meant he had to process the immortal materials and synthesize the base liquid in real-time during the Gu refinement process.
The differences between the Dao Marks were far too subtle. Despite exhausting his thoughts and methods, Fang Yuan could not perceive everything, only estimating a rough approximation.
Fang Yuan was not an Immortal Gu Master of the Flame Path or Water Path; he had already pushed his investigative capabilities to their absolute limit.
Precisely because of this, the Immortal Gu recipe strictly specified the age of the Green Mayfly Water Lotus and the quantity of the Pale Flame White Bone.
But even so, Green Mayfly Water Lotuses of the same age could have varying quantities of Water Path Dao Marks due to differences in their growing environments. If the Pale Flame White Bone was damaged, it could also lead to the fading of its Dao Marks.
All the Gu refinement materials had been meticulously inspected by Fang Yuan and met the standards set in the Immortal Gu recipe.
However, when actually putting it into practice, failure was inevitable.
To refine a clear, transparent base liquid inevitably required an element of luck.
And in the entire process of refining the Immortal Gu, examples like this fire-and-water fusion were ubiquitous.
Getting it right once, succeeding twice, wasn't difficult. What was difficult was succeeding in every single instance of these examples.