Four Flavors Liquor Worm
While the three clans on Qing Mao Mountain were having a secret meeting, Fang Yuan was in the second secret room, four wine jars were in front of Fang Yuan.
Sour, sweet, bitter and spicy, four flavors of wine. Sweet belonged to golden honey wine; spicy was white grains liquid; sour came from redberry wine; bitter was from bitter shell wine.
Fang Yuan sat cross-legged on the ground. He then willed the two Liquor worms to fly out of his aperture.
The fusion process of Four Flavours Liquor worm was slightly different from normal fusion.
The two Liquor worms followed Fang Yuan's will and entered the redberry wine jar.
They started the fusion within the redberry wine. A white ball of light formed in the wine jar, its majestic light pierced out of the wine jar and shone on the wall.
Fang Yuan threw primeval stones in the wine jar; one piece, ten pieces, fifty pieces.....
When it reached the hundredth piece, the light ball shrunk to a fist's size and floated in the wine jar.
The redberry wine was completely used up. Fang Yuan picked the second wine jar—golden honey wine—and poured it into the jar.
The white ball of light was immersed in the honey wine, suddenly swelling up to its original size.
Fang Yuan's head was soaked with sweat; he was constantly maintaining the fusion of the two Liquor worms' consciousness, and such multitasking was extremely taxing on the mind.
He continued to throw primeval stones towards the wine jar.
Every piece of primeval stones caused the ball of light to shrink by a bit, until it condensed to a fist's size again, reaching its limit.
Fang Yuan followed the pattern and successively poured the bitter shell wine, then the white grains liquid.
When the four types of wine were completely used up, the light in the wine jar suddenly flourished before disappearing completely.
"Success." Fang Yuan knew he had succeeded without even looking in the wine jar.
He willed and a Gu shakingly flew out of the wine jar.
It was the Four Flavours Liquor worm.
Comparing it with the Liquor worm, there wasn't much change in its external form, except that it was slightly bigger.
It also resembled a silkworm and had a tiny pair of shiny black eyes.
The difference was that the Liquor worm's body was completely white, but this Four Flavours Liquor worm's body continuously flickered with four colors; red representing spicy, blue representing bitter, green representing sour and yellow representing sweet. Fang Yuan couldn't help but associate it with the neon lights on Earth.
"Huff..." Fang Yuan let out a big sigh of relief. His luck was good this time and didn't encounter failure, succeeding the first time.
If it failed, the Liquor worms could suffer serious damage and one of them could even die, or the bitter shell wine might be used up. Either of these outcomes would be troublesome.
Fortunately, this situation didn't occur.
A Gu Master needs to use, nurture and refine Gu; none of them were easy. And in the aspect of fusing Gu worms, many Gu Masters would go through a lot to look for recipes and collect materials.
There were various recipes and they might not necessarily be suitable. As for collecting materials, Gu Masters might even spend over ten years of efforts on it. Even if they find the recipe and collect all the materials, if the fusion failed, the materials would be used up, and all their previous efforts and preparations would go down the drain.
"Gu Master's cultivation is difficult....." Fang Yuan sighed.
Fusing Gu worms were easy at the beginning stage of the cultivation. But the success rate for Rank four and Rank five fusion would often not reach even one in ten times.
Rank six fusion success rate was even as low as one percent. Every failure when fusing high rank Gu worms meant a loss of a great sum of resources.
However, once succeeded, the benefits would be extremely high.
Taking Fang Yuan's newly refined Four Flavours Liquor worm into account, it could refine Rank two primeval essence and increase it by a small realm.
Fang Yuan used a red steel Relic Gu to advance to middle stage. Now, with the Four Flavours Liquor worm, he would have upper stage primeval essence.
His fighting strength was now doubled. At the same time, the Four Flavours Liquor worm would nourish his aperture which meant faster cultivation speed.
However, with advantages comes disadvantages.
Using the Four Flavours Liquor worm to refine his primeval essence would definitely lead to an increased consumption of primeval stones. Just by relying on the income from selling vitality leaves was already not enough to maintain his cultivation expenditure.
"Next, I need to fuse the Stealth Rock Gu into Stealth Scales Gu. This will add on to another expenditure."
Fusion, whether success or failure, used up primeval stones every time. Fang Yuan had used up over four hundred primeval stones earlier for refining the Four Flavours Liquor worm.
The clan had awarded him with five hundred primeval stones for chasing away the River Swallowing Toad. Five hundred primeval stones was enough for other Gu Masters to spend for a long while, but Fang Yuan had almost used it completely.
Fortunately, from the reselling of the assets, after using up most of it to purchase the red steel Relic Gu, some of it still remained. There was no need to worry for a short period of time.
But it was necessary to refine the Scales Stealth Gu.
Fang Yuan had obtained the Stealth Rock Gu after he killed the stone monkey king. However, it had no practical use.
It could only conceal the body. That meant, once Fang Yuan used it, his body would be concealed and be invisible to people.
But the clothes on his body—his wrist guards, leg wrappings and bamboo shoes would still be visible to the naked eyes.
The stone monkey king had no worries about this; it was a wild beast and didn't need clothes.
But Fang Yuan would be in an awkward situation. To use the Stealth Rock Gu to the best of its ability and be invisible, he would need to take of all the clothes on his body. Otherwise, even if he concealed his body, others would see a set of 'walking' Rank two Gu Master's uniform.
Stealth Rock Gu was a Rank one Gu worm. Once it advanced to Rank two Stealth Scales Gu, this problem would be resolved.
Stealth Scales Gu could conceal even the clothes. If the stone monkey king had Stealth Scales Gu, then even if Fang Yuan's shirt covered its body, the shirt would also become invisible.
Supposing that the stone monkey king had Stealth Scales Gu, then the matter of whether Fang Yuan could defeat it was rather suspenseful.
Refining a Stealth Scales Gu naturally required other materials other than the Stealth Rock Gu. These materials were quite common and Fang Yuan had already requested Jiang Ya's help to gather them.
"If I could refine Stealth Scales Gu, it will become very convenient for me to enter the secret cave. Moreover, during the wolf tide, I could easily attack and retreat with this method," Fang Yuan pondered.
It was getting late, he retrieved the Four Flavours Liquor worm into his aperture and exited the cave, walking towards the village.
He had instantly attracted a lot of attention after successfully chasing away the River Swallowing Toad. It was not easy moving about these days, so he was slightly worried that if he stayed for long in the secret cave, people would harbor suspicions.
In the coming months, Fang Yuan kept clearing the stone forest
Time passed quickly, autumn went and winter arrived.
Early winter, the first snowfall had come.
The sky was grey, snowflakes floated and fell on Qing Mao mountain.
Fang Yuan was moving alone through the snow. He had just come out from the secret cave in the stone crack and was hurrying towards the village.
"Over two months have passed, but my progress in clearing the stone pillars has not been good." Fang Yuan's countenance carried a dark scowl.
It was not because he hadn't put in effort, but rather the prelude to the wolf tide had already shown its signs.
Food was scarce during the winter; the growing wolf packs started to increase their hunting scale to gather enough foods to eat their fill.
Houuuuu...
A deep beastly howl suddenly spread through the wind and snow.
Fang Yuan swiftly stopped and looked around, alert.
A small scale wolf pack with about twenty or more lightning wolves quickly appeared in range of his sight.
"Here we go again....." Fang Yuan muttered, this was already the eighth beast group he had encountered this month.
However, this time was somewhat different.
"The wolf packs are starting to make their moves so near to the village. Next, the clan's Gu Masters will make their moves more often. The stone crack's secret cave is not far away; looks like I can't go there for some time." Fang Yuan's heart sank upon this thought.