Divine Emperor City, painting world.
Three yellow leopards charged out of the dense shrubs that resembled a huge forest.
There were two female leopards and one male, they were growling at Ye Fan, while showing their sharp fangs that still had some bloody flesh hanging from them.
Ye Fan was surrounded, his heart shook slightly: “The concealment ability of these three leopards is so strong, I only sensed them when they moved. As for their battle strength, I will know after fighting them.”
Thinking of this, Ye Fan immediately threw out several Gu worms.
Boom boom boom.
White smoke burst and spread, three valiant warriors appeared around Ye Fan.
Human path Gu worm — vagrant warrior Gu.
“Go.” With Ye Fan’s command, the three vagrant warriors immediately split up to deal with one leopard each.
Humans and beasts fought, after ten or so rounds, two of the vagrant warriors won while one lost.
Ye Fan slightly nodded his head as he appraised inwardly: “Vagrant warrior Gu is rank three and is specialized in fighting enemies on the move. These three leopards are also very nimble and have around rank three battle strength.”
Ever since the Refinement Path Convention, Ye Fan had been cultivating inside the painting world. He not only had rank five hero Gu and rank three vagrant warrior Gu, he also had corresponding killer moves as well as relevant cultivation methods, so his progress was great.
Even so, he was frowning slightly at this moment.
“I have just entered the outside periphery of this growling beast painting world and there are already rank three strength enemies, it seems the level of this painting is rather high.”
“I wonder what progress Hong Yi is making over there? It is time, I should return and join with him.”
Ye Fan only came to probe some information. He was in charge of the growling beast painting world while Hong Yi went to inspect the qi howling painting world.
Ye Fan turned around and met Hong Yi along the way.
The two were like heroes who admired each other and had already become sworn brothers. While cultivating in the painting world, the two relied on each other as well as competed, the feeling of brotherhood deepened even more.
After learning of the situation on the other’s side, the two brothers walked while pondering over it.
“There is more to this than meets the eye.”
“Why would two paintings appear all of a sudden? Could it be, the painting world can continue to grow?”
“Genesis Lotus Immortal Venerable’s methods are indeed unfathomable!”
“We cannot completely explore these two new worlds with just us two. The best thing is to borrow the strength of the residents of the painting world.”
“Yes, that makes sense.”
Soldiers guarded the city gates, people continued to move out of the city while a small portion entered from outside the city.
The two newly added paintings brought a huge impact to the painting world. The painting world had limited space, while these two new paintings had vast space which attracted attention from everyone in the city, thus giving rise to a large wave of crazed exploration.
Ye Fan and Hong Yi blended into the crowd and returned inconspicuously to the city. But the two were unaware that the moment they appeared in the city gate, they were noticed by some people.
Shen Shang was sitting on the second floor of a teahouse near the city gate and was watching Ye Fan and Hong Yi, while talking with Fang Di Chang through voice transmission.
“Look at these two, they have made a lot of progress again! Their bodies are emitting dense human qi, extraordinary, they will definitely have outstanding achievements in the future. Brother Fang Di Chang, if you return to your main body one day, you can inquire about these two. You might be able to make great use of them.”
Fang Di Chang was sitting near the entrance of the street in a beggar’s appearance. He replied secretly: “There is not much gap between immortal and mortal in the painting world. They have cultivated for so many days in here and are like fish in water, their strength can be said to be at the top level in here. Their exploration this time was quite short, if I had to deduce their journey, they probably only explored the periphery of the two paintings. From this, it can be deduced that these two painting worlds are very large, even Ye Fan and Hong Yi don’t want to enter the inner parts rashly.”
Shen Shang chuckled: “As expected of Brother Fang, the former wisdom immortal of Fang clan, you are able to see the overall situation from just a few clues. Ye Fan and Hong Yi want to borrow external force, we might as well save our energy for now. Look, the ten children of human path are here.”
In fact, even without Shen Shang’s reminder, there was already commotion at the other side of the street.
With Xiao Qi Xing at the front, Fairy Bi Xia, Sun Yuan Hua, Sun Yao, Ying Sheng Ji, Chen Da Jiang, and the rest appeared together, immediately causing a disturbance.
The passersby glanced at them and praised these ten people.
Fang Di Chang’s gaze concentrated slightly, Xiao Qi Xing’s group was the one that Shen Shang called the ‘ten children of human path’. Shen Shang had already explained this, saying these ten had abundant human qi. Although it was inferior to Hong Yi and Ye Fan, it far exceeded ordinary people and they would have their own unique splendor in the future.
This was only natural.
These ten were selected from Central Continent’s ten great ancient sects, they were Gu Immortal seeds Heavenly Court was cultivating. They were the ones who were specially supported to develop human path Gu Immortals.
Even a pig which obtained the full support of Heavenly Court and Central Continent’s ten great ancient sects would have great accomplishments in the future.
The ten children of human path showed their brilliance during the expedition against Fang Di Chang, their talents were showcased even more over this period of time and their progress was astonishing. They had become famous people in the painting world and were recognized by the city’s higher-ups, almost all the important tasks were entrusted to them.
The painting world was currently in an uproar with the addition of the two large paintings. The ten children of human path received the command to become the main force in exploring them.
“Besides the main culprit, Genesis Lotus’s will, these ten were the ones who forced me to escape with my will, my soul being destroyed. Don’t let me get any opportunity, otherwise I won’t mind cutting down your numbers.” Fang Di Chang snorted coldly.
Although only a will remained of him, his strength had recovered by a lot.
This was all thanks to the mysterious and mystical human path!
When Fang Di Chang was cultivating silently, he gained a much deeper understanding of human path. The most striking characteristic of human path was having a Gu worm transform into a human.
For example, Hong Yi’s scholar Gu could transform into a scholar. Ye Fan’s hero Gu could transform into a hero.
After transforming into humans, these scholar and hero Gu worms would have a common man’s wisdom. Their disposition, thoughts, and way of doing things would become different depending on their types as well.
The most important thing was, when these Gu worms transformed into humans, they could use other Gu worms! Moreover their proficiency in using them originated from the Gu cultivator.
This was a terrifying thing.
Transforming the Gu worm into a human and giving them a group of Gu worms could instantly produce a Gu cultivator. Mortal level Gu worms that transformed into humans and could use other Gu worms were essentially regarded as Gu Masters. Immortal Gu transformed into humans were considered Gu Immortals!
Fang Di Chang could not help but think of his main body’s sovereign immortal fetus Gu.
Sovereign immortal fetus Gu’s effect and abilities were naturally not on the same level as these human path Gu worms, but they had a lot of similarities.
People crowded around the ten children of human path and moved out of the city gate.
This was the largest exploration scale.
After quietly looking at this scene, Fang Di Chang returned to the deserted alley and silently waved his hand: “Men.”
Immediately, several beggars hurried towards him from their respective corners and greeted him with incomparable respect: “Sect leader, what instructions do you have for us?”
“Send some brothers to follow the crowd. They only have to probe for information.” Fang Di Chang instructed.
Although the current him was formed from a beggar Gu, he was already a rank five five bags beggar[1].
This was not all, he borrowed Shen Shang’s help to purchase large amounts of beggar Gu, and used a sect token Gu to form a killer move, establishing this Beggar Sect.
At present, most of the beggars in the whole city were already under his command!
…
Immortal killer move — Myriad Thought Sword Waterfall!
Rumble!
With a loud sound, a grand waterfall appeared. The silver waterfall was majestic and vast, it fell from the sky onto a hill.
Each drop of water in this waterfall was a thought, it had the appearance of a sword.
Within a few breaths of time, the hill was flattened.
Fang Yuan stopped the killer move. The hill was completely gone and a shallow pool appeared in its place. The gurgling water was made of flowing sword thoughts.
“Indeed, the killer move’s power has been increased by several times and it activates even more smoothly!” Fang Yuan meticulously observed the effects of the heaven path dao marks.
After resolving the myriad tribulation, Fang Yuan was not in a hurry to meet Lu Wei Yin and instead searched for a place to rest and reorganize.
The reason he used myriad thought sword waterfall was because this was not an ordinary killer move.
Most killer moves were based on a single path and Gu worms of other paths could only be supplementary even if they were mixed in. For example, rule path’s five restriction profound light qi and time path’s time cutting edge.
And there were some exceptional killer moves. They were compound killer moves which used two or more paths primarily. For instance, this myriad thought sword waterfall which was formed from the combination of wisdom path and sword path.
Fang Yuan had a lot of such killer moves; myriad dragon, yama, great thief ghost hand, myriad ghost sword dragon, jade flow pearl, and so on. To go into details, myriad dragon was a compound killer move formed from enslavement path and transformation path, great thief ghost hand was formed from soul path and theft path, jade flow pearl was formed from refinement path and space path. Myriad ghost sword dragon was even more complex, it was formed from the merging of ancient sword dragon transformation, myriad self, yama child, emperor yama, and familiar face. Every usage of myriad ghost sword dragon expended four thousand soul path dao marks from Fang Yuan’s body.
These compound killer moves were much more powerful than single path based killer moves. Enemies had to consider two or more paths to think of a countermeasure, so they were much more difficult to resist as well.
These compound killer moves were normally used by Gu Immortals who cultivated multiple paths. For instance, Qin Bai Sheng cultivated soul path and metal path, he had a killer move called burning soul supreme gold which was a compound killer move formed from soul path and metal path. Every Gu Immortal who cultivated two paths had such killer moves; Heavenly Court’s Thunder Ghost True Monarch had them because she cultivated lightning path and soul path, Duke Long naturally had them as well.
Because of conflicting dao marks, Gu Immortals who successfully cultivated multiple paths were very rare, so compound killer moves were also very rare in Gu Immortal world.
Fang Yuan was able to cultivate many paths because of the sovereign immortal body, so he accumulated many compound killer moves.
But even so, these compound killer moves could hardly be used at the top level.
This was because although Fang Yuan’s sovereign immortal body did not have conflicting dao marks, the compound killer moves themselves would have a large internal friction because of their own conflicting dao marks, resulting in wastage of power.
“But heaven path dao marks have greatly improved this situation.” Fang Yuan was able to sense this acutely and even verified his guess.
Right now, when he used compound killer moves like myriad thought sword waterfall, because of the reduced internal friction, the power had increased by several times!
“According to my deduction, if I use myriad ghost sword dragon now, the previous consumption of four thousand soul path dao marks would be reduced by a lot. Because of the reduced internal friction, I don’t need to expend so many soul path dao marks to balance the strength of various paths.”
“Over three thousand heaven path dao marks still cannot remove this kind of internal friction completely, but what if the number increased even further?”
“In the future, can I use the help of heaven path dao marks to create a killer move that contains every path?”
At this point, besides the exception of certain unique methods, Fang Yuan no longer had interest in single path killer moves.
He had discovered a new and vast world ahead of him!
[1] The Beggar Sect in Jinyong novels uses the setting where each member carries at least one pouch-like bag and the number of bags he/she carries indicates his/her rank in the sect.
