Chapter 2: Rebirth

Fang Yuan stood together with two other Gu immortals in silence. They quietly watched as blood red flower stalks rained down from the sky. The stalks pierced the ground, rapidly blossoming blood red petals that spread across the vast flat grasslands. Once they grew and multipled, the petals withered, turning into bright corrosive blood that sunk into the earth.

"I'd forgotten how annoying this blood calamity was." Fang Yuan only said this casually, reminiscing on this time period of his life, but both Tai Bai Yun Sheng and Hei Luo Lan took this in the literal sense.

"Oh? I don't think I've ever heard of this type of calamity before. Would you care to enlighten me?"

Fang Yuan nodded. In this life, he had the full intention of building his super force early. Fang Yuan figured that Tai Bai Yun Sheng, Hei Lou Lan and her aunt were great potential members.

"This is the Blood Poison Kerria, a blood earth calamity. It can only be prevented with wood path methods. Master once showed me footage of when he experienced this calamity firsthand. I never thought I would experience it myself."

Fang Yuan breathed out a heavy sigh, but inwardly he was very relieved. If Fang Yuan had arrived just a few minutes earlier, Heaven's Will would have sensed his revival through the calamity and realized that he had turned back time. But the calamity had already finished, the last remaining will that Heaven left behind was isolated in Hu Immortal blessed land. It couldn't communicate with the outside world.

The same logic applied to the will in Fang Yuan's head. If he had been in one of the five continents than he would have immediately been exposed and hunted down by whatever desolate beasts were in the area. Due to Fang Yuan's luck, he had managed to barely hold the upper hand against Heaven's Will.

"Wait! What are we going to do about the contaminated soil? What about the foxes and the wolves?" The Hu Immortal blessed land spirit that Fang Yuan had long since forgotten began to cry while tearing at his legs. "Please help master!"

Fang Yuan patiently patted the little fox girl's head and reassured her. "Don't worry, all of my valuables were kept safe in Tai Bai Yun Sheng's aperture. Besides, I've recently come up with a few ways to expand our revenue. But first I need to remove the top level of soil and remove the contaminated water before it spoils the whole lake."

Fang Yuan rose to the sky while inspecting his immortal aperture. Unfortunately, this aperture was very lackluster, it was dead and had very little dao marks. What was even worse was that these dao marks were strength path dao marks. In the future, Fang Yuan almost completely abandoned this path due to it's lackluster diversity. Strength path was very limited. While it had strong combat power it was weak in every other cultivation aspect.

Disregarding the very obvious downsides of strength path, Fang Yuan still decided that this was the path best suited to him at the moment. Fang Yuan had four immortal strength path Gu. Self Strength Gu, which was the first core of his killer move Myriad Self. Pulling Mountain Gu, which was the second core of his killer move. Pulling Water Gu, which had yet to incorporate into his killer move at this time. And lastly, Eat Strength Gu, which he scarcely used since it's ability was rather unique.

In terms of an all around set, these Gu were very weak. Self Strength was purely meant for combat while Moving Mountain Gu and Moving Water Gu were suited for moving resources, they weren't really meant to be the core of any type of strength path killer move but earth and water path killer moves. This made Fang Yuan's situation very awkward. Although the combination of these three immortal Gu could form a combat killer move reaching the peak of rank seven, they weren't useful for anything outside of that.

But Fang Yuan did have another strength path immortal Gu. Eat Strength Gu wasn't just a strength path immortal Gu, it was also connected to food path. Eat Strength Gu's ability was to add strength dao marks to Fang Yuan's body by eating strength path materials. Basically, it could transfer strength path dao marks between two things. This wasn't just connected to food path but theft path as well.

The ability to transfer dao marks could serve many more purposes than Self Strength Gu ever could. Eat Strength could shift dao marks to Fang Yuan's legs or wings, forming a movement killer move. It could shift dao marks to a certain spot of the body to protect it, forming a defensive killer move. Fang Yuan even had the idea of using Eat Strength Gu in reverse so he could expel foreign dao marks to eliminate injuries, this could be classified as a strength path healing killer move.

These were just hypothetical killer moves, but Fang Yuan was already deducing these while eight large strength path hands descended onto the earth. Fang Yuan didn't use the old version of Myriad Self, but the greatly improved version that he improvised in his last life. At once four immortal escense beads were used as Fang Yuan activated all of his strength path immortal Gu and tens of thousands of mortal Gu.

With one pull, Fang Yuan lifted 5 meters of dirt from every inch of the blessed land. Both Tai Bai Yun Sheng and Hei Lou Lan watched in complete shock as an enormous layer of dirt was lifted up into the sky and absorbed into Fang Yuan's immortal aperture. Fang Yuan floated there unfazed as he moved the strength path hands again and lifted the entire lake. Separating the contaminated water from the clean water and also storing it in his aperture.

Once he was done, he floated back down to the ground and saw Tai Bai Yun Sheng's amazement and Hei Lou Lan's deep weariness.

She was the one who spoke first. "If you were that strong why didn't you help us get Miniscule Mountain when we asked you to? With your strength we could have easily killed the Gu immortal guarding it."

She sounded a bit angry, and that was understandable. To get Minuscule Mountain by themselves both Hei Lou Lan and Fairy Li Shan, her aunt, were gravely injured. They used dozens of immortal escense beads and risked their lives for no immediate profit. Now they were both backed into a corner from which they couldn't get out of. From Hei Lou Lan's perspective, it looked like Fang Yuan intentionally didn't help them because he wanted to screw them over and gain an advantage over them.

"Myriad Self was created by me. It's not part of an inheritance given to me like Tai Bai Yun Sheng or you have. I've constantly been improving it. I didn't have this updated version until just now. At the time of the incident involving Miniscule Mountain I didn't have this level of strength."

Fang Yuan was mindful of what he said. In his past life, Fang Yuan and Hei Lou Lan weren't master and subordinate but equal partners. That needed to change. If he wanted to take Hei Luo Lan and Fairy Li Shan under his wing than he needed to treat them better while making the difference between them clear. Fang Yuan remembered that at this time Li Shan was being pressured by Old Ancestor Xue Hu. Hei Lou Lan didn't have any support from her aunt and she herself didn't have anyway to make money, this was a great opportunity.

"Hei Lou Lan, I have no intention to suppress your growth. On the contrary I think it's beneficial that we work together. You don't have any revenue and I need to recuperate my immortal essence after every battle. We both are reliant on the Guts Gu business so we should both invest into it. If you help me fund the project you can have a higher split in the profits."

Hei Lou Lan's face turned sour quickly. It was true that Hei Lou Lan didn't have any income and she relied almost entirely on the Guts Gu business for money, but she would never invest further into it. Hei Lou Lan wanted to use the money she made from working with Fang Yuan to start up her own business. If she helped Fang Yuan now than she wouldn't be able to fund her own interests.

"Fang Yuan my aunt already told you that she isn't interested in this offer. I won't help you purchase information on how to raise hairy men."

Fang Yuan expected this response so he wasn't disappointed. It wasn't as if Fang Yuan actually needed Hei Lou Lan's help. Fang Yuan was the owner of Lang Ya blessed land in his previous life. If anyone knew how to raise hairy men it was him. No other person in the world was as adept to raising hairy men as him besides the Lang Ya blessed land spirit.

What Fang Yuan wanted to do was force Hei Lou Lan's hand. As of right now, Fang Yuan's Guts Gu business was very primitive. He didn't have a formation making use of Dang Hun mountain and he wasn't producing as much Guts Gu as he could. Fang Yuan planned to make a simple immortal formation with Cleanse Soul Gu as it's core. Once he made this change Hei Lou Lan would come running back begging him to let her invest.

"Fine, since you're so adamant on refusing I won't force you." He turned to Tai Bai Yun Sheng and smiled. "Elder brother, you don't happen to have fifty spare immortal essence stones to give to your poor brother by any chance?"

Tai Bai Yun Sheng's face turned pale and Hei Lou Lan flew off laughing.