“The refinement hall elder spent all his effort to nurture the three of them, they are at the upper level even in Central Continent, they are truly prized students of a brilliant master.” An elder praised.
“Hehehe, I am flattered, I am flattered. These three children have talent, but it was mostly because of Lord Principal’s support, otherwise, they would not have become so familiar with the refinement steps.” The refinement hall elder was very modest.
The academy principal did not speak.
The refinement hall elder shifted the topic as he spoke about Hong Yi: “Speaking of which, your son, Hong Yi has such talent as well, he is in the finals now. Most notably, he is not a disciple of the refinement hall, it is very impressive that he managed to attain such results despite having little practice.”
All of the elders looked at each other, they were secretly despising the refinement hall elder for boot-licking the principal so smoothly, but they all voiced out their agreement with him.
“Indeed, indeed.”
“With Lord Principal’s bloodline in him, how can he be weak?”
“When he first entered the academy, he was still inconspicuous. But now, Hong Yi is already the leader of the disciples, in the future, he is sure to be a leader somewhere.”
The principal snorted: “You are praising him because he is my son, do you think I cannot tell? He could get into the finals because of his dogshit luck. He tries out everything without putting hard work into any of them. By learning everything, he is also being unskilled at every aspect, after this competition, send him into seven days of seclusion, so that he can reflect on himself.”
The elders were silent.
Lord Principal had several sons, Hong Yi was the most capable one, but he was the son of a concubine and did not have a good relationship with his father, he had a rebellious nature and was thus often suppressed by the principal.
This time, Hong Yi signed up for the refinement path competition behind his father’s back.
At the moment, Hong Yi’s forehead was covered in sweat as he looked at the lump of fire in his hands.
In the fire, the Gu worm was gradually taking form.
“I am finally at the last step, it is a pity that I wasted too much time!” Hong Yi observed the others while in the midst of his refinement.
He saw that Cao Yu, Xie Lan and Lu Wen’s flames had shrunken to the size of wicks, Hong Yi knew that he had no hope of winning.
In truth, he had refinement path talent greater than Cao Yu and the other two. But he practiced very little, one reason was because this was not his main path, he could not divert too much attention to it as he lacked in the time he could invest. Secondly, he had no financial support, even though he had some fortuitous encounters, his father did not support him, he could only cultivate his main path.
“Damn it! Father has already noticed my intention, I want my mother’s memorial tablet to be placed in the ancestral hall, but father follows the ancestral rules strictly, why would he allow it? He wants me to be like my other siblings, obeying him without question, and not challenging his prestige. But Hong clan had been really unfair to my mother, this is injustice! If I do not seek justice for my mother, I am not a filial son!”
“Forget it, at this point, I can only take a risk and make a shot in the dark. The refinement of this red face Gu is usually completed in an instant in a refinement path master’s hands. But the fire is hard to control, thus the others are slowing down at this step. I cannot complete it instantly, of course, but if I can surpass their speed, I will have a chance of winning.”
Hong Yi made up his mind, he immediately acted on it.
Be it the disciples around him or the elders on the stage, they quickly noticed Hong Yi’s actions.
Everyone shook their heads.
“He is so naive.”
“Hong Yi is taking a risk, but how can he turn this around? Unless he is a refinement path master!”
“He is obviously not a refinement path master, he is seeking his own doom, look, his fire has gone out of control already.”
“Oh no!” Hong Yi cried out in dismay, the flame in his hands was flickering, it was making cracking sounds as it burned, it was going to explode.
The force of the explosion would not be scary, after all this was a test from the academy, they were concerned about the disciples’ safety.
“I failed!!” Hong Yi’s heart sank, the flame in his hand had completely lost control, it even flew away from his hand.
At once, Hong Yi felt extremely bitter.
“I still failed in the end… achoo!”
He had been practicing Gu refinement for the last few nights, he had been putting in last minute effort but had gotten a cold in the process, because he relaxed himself now, and his body was full of sweat, he could not help but sneeze.
His sneeze blew at the fire and the flames extinguished at once.
A refined red face Gu fell onto the concrete floor of the stage with a loud sound.
“I… I refined it successfully?!” Hong Yi was stunned.
Everyone stopped their movements on the spot.
“Guh!” An elder who was drinking tea spat out all of the tea in his mouth.
Even the academy principal, Hong Yi’s father, stood up subconsciously, he had a strange expression, he was stunned: “This, this sneeze actually worked like the method of a refinement path master, causing the refinement’s final step to be completed in an instant, creating the red face Gu! Hong Yi, this lad… just what kind of dogshit luck is this…”
Hu Immortal blessed land.
Fang Yuan, Tai Bai Yun Sheng, Hu Immortal land spirit and Hei Lou Lan were floating in the air, awaiting the start of the earthly calamity.
“What earthly calamity would it be this time?” Little Hu Immortal looked at her master.
Fang Yuan touched her little head: “Don’t worry, this time, the situation is different from last time. We have three Gu Immortals here, and Dang Hun mountain along with lots of our resources were moved out, the blessed land’s foundation is greatly depleted. Furthermore, I raised my own luck, I have an eighty percent confidence of getting through this calamity.”
The way of heaven was to take away surpluses while replenishing deficits, it emphasized on balance.
The deeper the foundation of the blessed land, the stronger the heavenly tribulation or earthly calamity. Thus, Fang Yuan moved Dang Hun mountain and all the other precious resources into Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s immortal aperture.
This way, with less fortune in the blessed land, the heavenly tribulation or earthly calamity would be much weaker.
In Imperial Court blessed land, he learned about the power of luck path. He knew that the stronger his own luck was, the weaker the heavenly tribulation or earthly calamity would be.
One could say that Fang Yuan had done all the preparation possible.
But even so, there was still a twenty percent chance that he would fail in resisting the earthly calamity!
The reason was that there were an immense variety of earthly calamities, it was unknown which one was coming. Earthly calamities have all sorts of strange effects, even those rare and unheard of abilities were possible, even those that had never been seen before could appear, the difficulty of resisting them would be much greater.
As they waited, earth qi started to rumble as the earthly calamity began.
Stalks upon stalks of flowers pierced the ground of Hu Immortal blessed land as they grew rapidly, in a few breaths’ time, bright red stalks of flowers grew all around Hu Immortal blessed land.
“This is…” The immortals hesitated, the flowers were blooming in all directions.
These flowers were huge, they had the size of a person’s face. The petals were soft and delicate like silk, they were layered on top of each other, each flower had at least six layers of petals, and around a hundred petals in total.
“This is the blood poison kerria.” Fang Yuan said in a quiet tone.
He recognized this flower, he felt very helpless.
To think that this earthly calamity was a type of blood calamity. These blood poison kerria flowers only took ten breaths of time from budding to wilting. When they wilt, their petals and roots would turn into a pool of poison. The poisonous blood would pollute the blessed land, causing widespread damage to life, leading to great losses.
Only wood path techniques were specialized at dealing with these blood poison kerria flowers. Other than that, any blood poison kerria that was destroyed would also turn into a pool of poisonous blood.
But in fact, even if Fang Yuan had wood path techniques, it was too late.
There were so many blood poison kerria flowers all over Hu Immortal blessed land, what could he do to stop them?
Thus, even though there were three Gu Immortals on his side, facing the vast sea of blood poison kerria flowers, they were helpless!
The blood poison kerria flowers quickly wilted, as poisonous blood covered the surface of the ground like a layer of water. The water surface was not deep, about the height of a person’s ankles, but it was all over Hu Immortal blessed land.
The lake at the eastern part of the blessed land had been completely polluted. The fox groups and wolf groups at the western part of the blessed land faced countless deaths, corpses were lying in the pool of blood, their blood flowed out and added to the pool of poisonous blood.
The rockman slaves in the southern part were rudely awakened. Many of the rockmen had blood poison kerria flowers growing on their bodies. After the flower wilted, poisonous blood flowed out as the rockmen cried out in pain, but few of them died.
Tai Bai Yun Sheng felt a chill as he looked at the sky, sighing: “Heaven really wouldn’t give us an easy time!”
Fang Yuan smiled bitterly.
Hei Lou Lan consoled him: “Tribulations are hard to endure, the current situation is quite good already. Looking at the poisonous blood all over the blessed land, even though most of the land is polluted and your losses are severe, the earth qi has already settled down, this earthly calamity is over already.”
Little Hu Immortal’s eyes were watery: “Master, we have to clear up the poisonous blood. The soil is polluted, it will not produce anything for the next few years. Our pink flower rabbits, wolf groups, and fox groups suffered great losses in numbers!”
Fang Yuan made a move immediately.
He used pulling water Immortal Gu to siphon the poisonous blood into his own immortal aperture.
His immortal aperture was a dead land, it was full of death energy and had no life, the poisonous blood could not pollute anything.
But the poisonous blood was all over the blessed land, the range was too huge, even if Fang Yuan used pulling water Immortal Gu, the efficiency was too low.
He felt some regret inwardly: “If I knew this, I would not have fused pulling mountain Immortal Gu into the killer move, myriad self, I would have fused pulling water Immortal Gu first. That way, my efficiency would be higher, and my immortal essence expenditure would be lower!”
Man proposes, heaven disposes, this saying fit the current situation.
After spending a day and a night, Fang Yuan finally extracted all of the poisonous blood in this blessed land and moved it into his immortal aperture.
During this period, he worked without a break, he did not rest or sleep. He spent quite a sum of green grape immortal essence during the process.
Removing the pollution of the poisonous blood could not be dragged on. The longer he took, the deeper the pollution, and the greater the aftereffects.
Even though the poisonous blood was removed, the soil on the surface of the blessed land was entirely poisonous, squeezing it with one’s hand would produce some bloody red mush. If it was not settled, in several days, this layer of soil would completely rot, turning into poisonous blood and polluting soil in other areas.
Fang Yuan immediately made up his mind, removing this layer of soil.
Even though Tai Bai Yun Sheng had Landscape as Before to restore the land back to its original state, Fang Yuan did not adopt that method.
Thus, Fang Yuan, Tai Bai Yun Sheng, and Hei Lou Lan worked together, spending several days and finally getting rid of the soil layer. Fang Yuan moved all of the poisonous soil into his immortal aperture, even with his immortal zombie body, he was extremely exhausted.
There was a lot of work to do, looking at it from another perspective, it was a good thing that Fang Yuan removed the north area of the blessed land previously.
