Inside the small cabin, it was as if surging waves crashed on every side.
Dark red light surged outward like rolling tide after tide, radiating from Fang Yuan's position and rising and falling all around him.
Fang Yuan was refining a Gu Insect.
His ten fingers were spread wide, both palms cradling a dark sphere.
The sphere was as large as a washbasin, its surface flowing with a slow, viscous movement — this was the essence Fang Yuan had extracted from the black oil.
The refinement had already reached its middle-to-late stages, the most critical moment.
With a flick of his will, a sliver of a crack opened at the gateway of his immortal aperture, and from within he withdrew a brilliant golden scale.
The scale shot into the black oil sphere, and at once a faint explosion erupted. In Fang Yuan's field of vision, the black oil sphere swelled violently for an instant at the moment of the blast. At the same time, a golden radiance shimmered within the dark sphere before rapidly condensing into a single golden point.
Fang Yuan's ten fingers began to tremble ever so slightly. The black oil sphere gradually rose into the air above him and started spinning rapidly of its own accord.
During the rotation, the golden radiance shimmered continuously.
A foul, fishy stench began to spread rapidly. This was the impurities being expelled by Fang Yuan.
Just as the smell was about to seep out of the hut, the projection of an immortal formation flickered into existence, resembling a translucent blue pot lid. It tightly contained the stench, preventing even a wisp from escaping.
This foul odor was itself an immortal material, containing Path of Eating marks, and was far more terrifying than the black oil. If any ordinary Gu Master were to be tainted by it, they would surely perish.
This refinement performed by Fang Yuan had already entered the realm of an Immortal Gu Master, as it involved two types of immortal materials. One was the black oil, and the other was the golden fish scale he had just used, plucked from the desolate beast, the Golden Dragon Fish.
After a series of calculations, Fang Yuan discovered that the Golden Dragon Fish and the black oil possessed an exceptionally high degree of compatibility.
A single Golden Dragon Fish scale was insufficient. Following this, Fang Yuan successively added more golden scales into the mix.
The black oil sphere gradually transformed into a black-gold color, and the nascent forms of many Gu Insects began to faintly manifest within the sphere.
What Fang Yuan was refining was the Oil-Gathering Gu.
It was specially crafted for the Gu Masters of the small fishing village. The entire Gu recipe had been innovated by Fang Yuan himself, naturally drawing upon relevant content from the Shadow Sect true inheritance and the Langya true inheritance.
Fang Yuan genuinely wanted to help the oil-harvesting Gu Masters of the small fishing village.
Why?
At the end of the day, it all came back to the tasks on the Merit Stele.
What was merit?
This was a question Fang Yuan had been pondering from the very start.
Were the tasks on the Merit Stele really so simple on the surface? The more Fang Yuan mulled it over, the more he felt that certain intentions of Immortal Venerable Le Tu were hidden within.
Therefore, helping the Gu Masters of the small fishing village served two purposes — on one hand, completing the task; on the other, and more importantly, verifying certain conjectures in Fang Yuan's mind.
When Fang Yuan did evil, he bore no psychological burden whatsoever. Likewise, when he did good, his heart remained perfectly calm and undisturbed.
In truth, for him, there was no such thing as good deeds or bad deeds, nor was there good or evil — he had long since grown indifferent to such notions. In this world, there were only things that benefited him and things that did not.
Now, with the Le Tu True Inheritance before him, Fang Yuan was quite willing to do some good deeds, if it helped him reap greater benefits.
Xia Lin slowly opened her eyelids. She had awakened.
"I... didn't die?" For a long while she drifted in a daze before finally reacting, her expression blank and slack, while a light gradually kindled in her eyes.
"You mermaid are quite lucky to be alive. If we had found you any later, you truly would have perished — completely corroded and transformed into fresh black oil." The middle-aged Gu Master noticed the mermaid's awakening and walked into the room.
"My name is Xia Lin. Was it you who saved me?" The mermaid girl struggled to sit up.
"Not me — it was Master Chu. You really ought to thank him properly. The injuries on your body were also healed by his hand," the middle-aged Gu Master said with a smile.
The mermaid girl, prompted by his words, hurriedly inspected herself. The next moment she cried out in astonishment one after another.
"Incredible!"
"I was ravaged by black oil corrosion, my injuries so severe that even the finest healing Gu Masters of my clan were helpless. And now I've made a complete recovery."
The middle-aged Gu Master smiled with pride. "Of course! Just think about who it was that saved you — that was Master Chu!"
At these words, the scene of Fang Yuan stepping in to rescue the girl replayed in the middle-aged Gu Master's mind. The Gu Masters of that small fishing village had been utterly dumbfounded on the spot, unable to collect themselves for quite some time.
"Master Chu saved my life and healed my injuries—how can I not repay such kindness?" The mermaid girl pressed her lips together, a determined look on her face. "Please, sir, arrange an audience. Even if it costs me my life, I must repay even a fraction of his kindness."
"Very well. Follow me." The middle-aged Gu Master thought for a moment, then opened the door and stepped outside.