Chapter 2253: Internal Worry, External Threat “Rank nine advance refinement Gu...” Fang Yuan inspected carefully and found that the appearance was not much different from its previous rank eight version. However, it had already undergone a qualitative change! This was Fang Yuan’s second rank nine Immortal Gu, it would provide a huge help to Fang Yuan. Four Elements Square Regret Blood Refinement Pool would also rise to become a rank nine Immortal Gu House because of this. A rank nine Immortal Gu House! Such Immortal Gu Houses were few even in the whole history of humanity. Heavenly Court’s Heaven Overseeing Tower was the most famous Gu House. Unfortunately, with the destruction of rank nine fate Gu, it could not be constructed again. “Once I finish with the modifications, rank nine advance refinement Gu can be placed in Four Elements Square Regret Blood Refinement Pool once again, thereby allowing this Immortal Gu House to also experience a qualitative change. If there was a ranking list for Immortal Gu Houses, it would be at first place for sure.” Fang Yuan evaluated in his mind. If it was before, Four Elements Square Regret Blood Refinement Pool might be at the same ranking as Divine Emperor City, but as long as it became a true rank nine, it would suppress Divine Emperor City stably. After all, Divine Emperor City did not have a rank nine Immortal Gu. Naturally, Fang Yuan needed to modify the previous Four Elements Square Regret Blood Refinement Pool, to make it suitable for rank nine advance refinement Immortal Gu. Fang Yuan was a refinement path venerable, a supreme grandmaster in refinement path, it was not hard for him to modify this. Fang Yuan placed advance refinement Immortal Gu aside and inspected himself. Just like he expected, because of the second rank nine Immortal Gu, the fishing net-like heaven path dao marks left on him by the killer move obscured heavenly secret were being expended at almost double the speed of before! This showed that rank nine advance refinement Gu would provide an enormous help to Fang Yuan. It had a huge significance as it could influence many subsequent matters. It would be much easier for Fang Yuan to raise the rank of other rank eight Immortal Gu from now on. “Fortunately, Star Constellation Immortal Venerable and Giant Sun Immortal Venerable have expended a lot of immortal essence, they also need to use their remaining immortal essence to refine natural dao marks. They will not inspect frequently like before, this will greatly reduce the pressure on obscured heavenly secret.” Fang Yuan was aware that obscured heavenly secret was already reaching its limits at this stage. If Fang Yuan wanted to refine a third rank nine Immortal Gu, obscured heavenly secret might help him conceal it during the early stage, but it would not be able to keep on concealing it at the mid-late stage. The effect of the killer move would dissipate completely. “So, should I refine or not? If I am to refine the third rank nine Immortal Gu, which should I refine?” Fang Yuan calmed down and analyzed the situation. He was now facing problems both internally and externally! The internal problem was the instability of the sovereign immortal aperture. Because of non-conflicting dao marks, abnormal situations kept on occurring, causing the whole immortal aperture’s ecology to be unstable. Because of the severe loss of subordinates in the battle in Crazed Demon Cave, there were few Gu Immortals in the sovereign immortal aperture, and they were barely able to stabilize the situation. Secondly were calamities and tribulations. Even venerables needed to undergo tribulation. Among the three venerables, it was extremely difficult for Giant Sun Immortal Venerable and Star Constellation Immortal Venerable to change the time flow of their immortal aperture using time path methods because of conflicting dao marks. Fang Yuan, however, sped his time flow twice when raising the rank of Heavenly Essence Treasure Imperial Lotus. For this, his time path clone, He Chun Qiu’s time path foundation was almost entirely used up. For some time, Fang Yuan would not be able to change the sovereign immortal aperture’s rate of time. If he did it again, it would lead to a series of changes, abnormal situations would erupt frequently and form into a terrifying tribulation that would cover the whole of the sovereign immortal aperture. This was because a time path killer move that could transform the whole sovereign immortal aperture had to be of an extremely high rank. To be effective, many time path dao marks had to be engraved or modified. The sudden change in these time path dao marks would create a chain reaction in the sovereign immortal aperture, leading to unpredictable changes and ultimately causing severe losses. If a loss occurred, it would have an enormous impact on him. Previously, Fang Yuan used Landscape as Before along with the year essence pools as recovery methods, but they could not be used now. Because the water of the River of Time in the year essence pools had poured in just recently. The essence of this method were still the time path dao marks. The abnormal situations that erupted because of the disorderly time path dao marks would make the usage of any time path dao marks aggravate the situation. “To reduce the danger of this, I need to construct a time path dao vein at least!” The third internal problem was the sovereign immortal body’s food. Fang Yuan’s sovereign immortal body was created from sovereign immortal fetus Gu, it needed to feed on similarly ranked immortal apertures every set interval of time. Fang Yuan’s cultivation was rank nine now, so he needed to devour rank nine immortal apertures! Looking at it from this point, Giant Sun Immortal Venerable and Star Constellation Immortal Venerable were Fang Yuan’s food. But the difficulty in this was enormous. Naturally, Fang Yuan was prepared. He schemed against the revived Paradise Earth in Crazed Demon Cave. Before Paradise Earth died, he was only a slight distance away from rank nine, his corpse still had a rank eight immortal aperture. This rank eight immortal aperture was at quasi-rank nine level. Moreover, because Paradise Earth cultivated heaven path, this immortal aperture displayed a unique style, it could actually form into an independent entity that was extremely stable. Normally speaking, when a Gu Immortal died, their immortal aperture would be unstable and fall on the world, opening their immortal aperture entrance to absorb a large amount of heaven and earth qi, to form either a blessed land or a grotto-heaven. But Paradise Earth’s quasi-rank nine heaven path immortal aperture was special, it was stable. “If it becomes hopeless in the future, I will split my soul to use Paradise Earth’s body to create a heaven path clone. Then, let this clone undergo tribulation to become a heaven path venerable, then devour its rank nine immortal aperture!” Paradise Earth’s corpse was Fang Yuan’s future food. Naturally, doing this was quite wasteful. If possible, Fang Yuan would prefer having a heaven path venerable clone to assist him! The three main internal problems were: sovereign immortal aperture, calamities and tribulations, and food. Besides these, Fang Yuan also had external problems. The external problems were the venerables. Fang Yuan had quietly refined two rank nine Immortal Gu, this was his greatest advantage now. But other venerables also had their advantages. Giant Sun Immortal Venerable had refined the most dao marks among the three venerables! In his territory, he could fight against two others and even gain an upper hand. The amplification from the outside world’s dao marks was too huge. And although Star Constellation Immortal Venerable was below Giant Sun Immortal Venerable in this aspect, the scale of her refined wisdom path dao marks clearly surpassed Fang Yuan’s. Moreover, Fang Yuan could guess Star Constellation Immortal Venerable was modifying her killer moves. Fang Yuan had almost no foundation in this aspect. He had two newly refined rank nine Immortal Gu, but he had no complementary killer moves to use with them. Fang Yuan’s own skill in deducing killer moves was far below Star Constellation Immortal Venerable’s. Were the three venerables to fight now, Fang Yuan’s two rank nine Immortal Gu could not provide direct help. There was another point of the two venerables that Fang Yuan envied. Giant Sun Immortal Venerable had Longevity Heaven, while Star Constellation Immortal Venerable had Heavenly Court. The two venerables had their own headquarters, as long as they hid inside, they would receive a huge amplification and show the might of a Dao Lord! Even if the other two venerables allied sincerely, they would be without options. This gave them each an impenetrable fortress! Even if the situation were to crumble apart, as long as they had their headquarters, they would have a foothold and hope to counterattack. Fang Yuan, however, did not have it. The sovereign immortal aperture was unstable, how could he dare to use it as a battlefield? He really could not compare to the other two venerables in this aspect. After all, the two venerables had the accumulation of their past lives, while Fang Yuan was not even a rank eight Gu Immortal in the five hundred years of his previous life. The main reason was because in Fang Yuan’s previous five hundred years, fate Gu still existed. Heaven’s will made arrangements for him, and venerables had their own arrangements, Fang Yuan had no ability to go against them. So, once Fang Yuan lost, he would not have a place to take shelter. Fang Yuan thought for a long while, but could not come to a decision. There was a tough decision in front of him. He could choose to refine or not, both would have a great impact on his following actions. For instance, if he refined a rank nine Immortal Gu that could be used directly in a fight, Fang Yuan might make a move to suppress the other venerables, consume their immortal essence and enlarge his immortal essence advantage. If he did not refine it, obscured heavenly secret could still hold on for some time. Using this chance, Fang Yuan could secretly accumulate even more advantages. It depended on Fang Yuan’s choice. “I don’t have enough information...” Fang Yuan heaved a deep sigh. Unlike the concluded battle in Crazed Demon Cave, venerables had the time to develop now. Their trump cards and methods had already changed. With the situation being unclear, it was not easy to make a decision! Another advantage of choosing a direct confrontation was that information could be forcefully obtained. But Fang Yuan felt the plan of suppressing two venerables at the same time was somewhat unreliable. They had their own territories, and if the two venerables were forced to join hands, could Fang Yuan handle it? As the contest of three venerables prolonged, the importance of information became even more prominent. Fang Yuan, however, was not specialized in this aspect. Information path was most specialized in gathering information, and Fang Yuan never had a notable accomplishment in information path. This did not mean he did not have any progress in information path. Although Li Xiao Bai had been entrusted with the hope of information path back then, he was just an idle chess piece now. Fang Yuan’s current foundation was still effective in gathering information on ordinary Gu Immortals or super forces. But his attainment in information path had never caught up with his development. Now that he was dealing with two venerables, this aspect appeared quite weak. Giant Sun Immortal Venerable inspected him, Star Constellation Immortal Venerable deduced him, but Fang Yuan had no way to make any counterattacks. Just as Fang Yuan was pondering deeply, the situation in Western Desert was changing rapidly. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮 Wan Xiao, Wan Zi Hong, Sun Wang, as well as Wan Zi Hong, Zhou Xiong Xin and the rest arrived in Xiao clan’s headquarters blessed land. “I already know of your purpose in coming. Fang clan has gone mad and fallen into the demonic path, they are the shame of Western Desert’s righteous path. My Xiao clan is willing to help Wan clan to recover your lost territory!” Xiao Ye Hu expressed the stance of Xiao clan clearly. Wan clan’s group formed an alliance with Xiao clan smoothly. After a round of discussion, Wan clan was willing to cede resource points like visualization oasis, perfume flying island, and black-yellow earth pool. Xiao clan would dispatch Xiao Ye Hu and several other Xiao clan experts. At the same time, Heavenly Court supported them with immortal essence stones. Moreover, Heavenly Court guaranteed that if Heaven Refining Demon Venerable made a move, Star Constellation Immortal Venerable would definitely appear to obstruct him and protect Western Desert’s righteous path forces. With Zhou Xiong Xin’s and Wan Zi Hong’s active participation, a righteous path alliance against Fang clan was forming rapidly!