"Fang Yuan, hold on! We're here to help!" Jiao San called out with a concerned expression on his face. After shouting this, he strode into the room.
But the next moment, he froze on the spot.
The room was completely empty. Fang Yuan was not here.
The four of them fell silent.
"How can this be? Where is he?" Jiao San broke the silence abruptly, a mix of embarrassment and frustration on his face.
He had been putting on a whole performance at the door for the better part of the day, only to find out it was a one-man show — Fang Yuan hadn't even been in the room.
The three others exchanged glances, none of them having anticipated this outcome.
"This is a bit strange," Kong Jing said cautiously. "If Fang Yuan isn't here, then why did he paste that note on the door?"
"Then go get the landlord here, quick!" Jiao San raised his foot and kicked the door flying.
"You're looking for me? Hmph, I've been looking for you too. The moment you came into my building, you started causing a racket and kicked my door to pieces. Young man, you've got quite the nerve." The landlord was an old man, but his tone was forceful.
Someone who owned spare rooms in Guye Stockade and rented them out was naturally a Gu Master.
A Gu Master's power and status completely eclipsed those of ordinary mortals. Mortals would never dare to run such a business — in fact, they didn't own any property at all.
All the real estate in the stockade belonged to the Guye Clan. The mortals living here were nothing more than kept serfs and servants.
"Senior, we're looking for a young man. He's a member of our team." Facing the landlord, Jiao San restrained his temper.
An old Gu Master like the landlord might have aged and stopped venturing out into the world, but they still had connections and networks. Though they had stepped back from the front lines, their influence was far from negligible.
Without some hidden cards and personal connections, who would dare run a business?
This was no era of peace — it was a world filled with force and plunder.
The landlord shook his head, his tone blunt: "I don't concern myself with where my tenants go. But I do know this — you kicked my door, and you will compensate me for it."
"Heh, this damage was caused by us. Compensation is only right." Jiao San laughed dryly, seething inside but still gritting his teeth and handing over Yuan Stones — even throwing in a little extra.
The landlord's expression immediately improved: "If the young man renting this room is the one you're looking for, then he hasn't been back for a full day. He paid a month's rent in advance, went out yesterday morning to buy a large quantity of supplies, and then asked me where he could buy coal stones cheaply. I told him he didn't need to buy any — there's a valley at the eastern end outside the stockade with an exposed coal seam he could dig from directly. He thanked me and headed out, and after that, he never came back."
"I see." Jiao San surveyed the furnishings in the room.
Indeed, the bedding on the bed was brand new. A square table and chairs were secondhand finds, looking quite sturdy.
The stove sat empty inside — there were indeed no coal stones yet.
Jiao San let out a long breath of turbid air, and immediately felt relieved.
"Looks like Fang Yuan may have gotten delayed digging for coal stones. Never mind, let's come back tomorrow." He was the first to walk out of the room.
But by the third day, Fang Yuan still hadn't appeared.
Jiao San and the other three stood inside the room, growing uneasy.
"Digging coal stones doesn't take nearly this long. If Fang Yuan wanted to seclude himself, maybe he wanted to dig as much as possible in one go. But even so, the time has long passed. Could something have gone wrong during the digging?" Kong Jing speculated.
Jiao San nodded almost imperceptibly, then pointed at the bedding and stove Fang Yuan had purchased: "That kid is stingy. He paid an entire month's worth of Yuan Stones upfront, bought all these supplies, and even pasted a note on the door — clearly he intended to seclude himself here. Unfortunate for him, his luck has run out. With the wolf lairs growing in number recently, wild beast activity around the stockade has been getting worse and worse. He might have run into some kind of beast."
"Great insight, Team Leader!" The two female team members said in unison, delivering their flattery in perfect sync.
Jiao San threw back his head and laughed: "Hahaha, I was just racking my brain for a way to deal with him. There's that mission to capture wild deer, but there's no rush to head out. If we happen to run into that kid out in the wilderness, we can hardly just leave him to die, can we?"
"Heh heh heh." The other three team members couldn't help but laugh as well.
Day four.
Inside the Empty Orifice, wave after wave of dark green tide surged forth ceaselessly, crashing against the crystalline membrane of the orifice wall without end.
The translucent white crystalline membrane was already covered in deep cracks, crisscrossing in every direction.
These were the results of three consecutive days and nights of Fang Yuan's relentless, sleepless effort. At most, when he could endure it no longer, he would quickly wolf down a meal and take care of his bodily functions before getting right back to it.
All this time, Fang Yuan had been deliberately suppressing the surging waves while continuously drawing the natural True Essence contained within Yuan Stones. And so, after all this time, his Bronze Yuan Sea had only dropped about twenty percent from its previous peak of forty-four percent.
Time flowed on. When the surface of the Bronze Yuan Sea had only thirteen percent water level remaining, the crystalline membrane finally could hold on no longer — it had reached its limit.
Crack, crack, crack...
The once thick and sturdy crystalline membrane collapsed and shattered. Countless crystal fragments tumbled down into the Yuan Sea, splashing up one spray after another. Then, in the blink of an eye, they dissolved into luminous white specks and vanished entirely.
In place of the crystalline membrane, a brand-new white Light Film appeared.
This was the Light Film of the Second Transformation. Though it hadn't changed much in appearance and still emitted a white glow, it was far more brilliant than the Light Film of the First Transformation.
At the same time, a thread of pale red True Essence was generated within the Yuan Sea, mixing into the shallow dark green Yuan Sea at the bottom of the Empty Orifice.