Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh…
In the primeval sea, the waves undulated, the tide rising and falling.
Taking a sweeping glance, a patch of pale red color; it was no longer the original Rank One green copper sea, but a red iron sea.
The four walls of the aperture were a bright thin membrane, exactly the manifestation of Rank Two initial stage.
The entire red iron primeval sea occupied forty-four percent of the aperture. In the mid-air above the sea, the Spring Autumn Cicada revealed its figure.
Through nearly a year of recuperation and slumber, it had shown improvement.
Originally, its body lacked any luster, rough and dull, like decayed firewood. But now, it was somewhat as if it had been touched with a bit of oily gloss.
Originally, its two wings were like withered leaves falling and drifting in the autumn wind, with many tattered edges and corners. But now, they faintly exuded a bit of new green intent, and the edges of the wings seemed to have a black line drawn over them, forming complete arcs without gaps anymore.
"Spring Autumn Cicada, Spring and Autumn… So that's how it is. To recover, it must experience spring and autumn. Since rebirth, the past year is exactly one cycle of spring and autumn, thus there is recovery."
Staring at this Spring Autumn Cicada, Fang Yuan's thoughts could not help but sprout, his understanding towards the Spring Autumn Cicada deepening by another layer.
A Gu Master refines Gu, feeds Gu, uses Gu. Among them, "using" was divided into categories and classes, encompassing myriad variations. Being together with the Spring Autumn Cicada from morning to night, his understanding of the Spring Autumn Cicada continuously deepened through slow accumulation.
"However, the Spring Autumn Cicada is still very weak. It has merely crawled forward a few steps from the cliff edge of imminent death. What can be utilized is its aura, to suppress Gu worms and enhance the effect of single-refining. As for fusion-refining Gu worms, it cannot be of any help."
There were other miraculous Gu worms capable of raising the success rate of fusion-refining. Every profession has its specialization; the Spring Autumn Cicada merely possessed the ability of rebirth.
Aside from the Spring Autumn Cicada, on the surface of the sea, the chubby Liquor worm shrank into a round ball, drifting in the seawater, playing happily without end.
The White Boar Gu, resembling a ladybug, and the emerald-like Jade Skin Gu flew around each other in circles.
Fang Yuan slowly opened his eyes, slowly spreading his right palm. In the center of his palm was an imprint of a crescent moon and two five-pointed morning stars.
It was precisely the two Little Light Gu and the Moonlight Gu, resting and residing there.
Fang Yuan sat cross-legged on the bed, his line of sight shifting onto his bed.
Three money pouches lay on the bed; two were bulging, while the other was mostly flat. Besides these, there was also a snow-white tusk of the Wild Boar King, looking like an elephant tusk, quietly lying on the bedsheet next to Fang Yuan's leg.
After the Sick Snake group exhausted their full strength to kill the Wild Boar King, they encountered the assault of the lightning wolf pack. Most of the Wild Boar King's skin and flesh was gnawed and eaten by the lightning wolves, leaving only the two snow-white tusks as the most valuable war spoils.
According to clan rules, as one of the members who killed the Wild Boar King, Fang Yuan obtained one of the Wild Boar King's snow tusks free of charge.
Looking at these things before him, Fang Yuan's expression carried a slight solemnity: "My primeval stones are already not many, only enough to fund the consumption of one fusion-refining attempt. After this fusion-refining, regardless of success or failure, my economy will collapse. But if I don't fusion-refine in time, in no more than a dozen days, with my primeval stones continuously being consumed, I will even lose the opportunity to fusion-refine."
Fang Yuan fed seven Gu worms, which presented quite a heavy financial burden. Plus, because of his C grade aptitude, to pursue rapid cultivation, he repeatedly utilized the Liquor worm. Thus, his primeval stone consumption was higher than ordinary people.
Recently, he also stopped using primeval stones to rapidly replenish the primeval essence in his aperture. The red iron sea currently inside his body was entirely the result of his self-recovery.
Fang Yuan had long started pinching his primeval stones and calculating his living expenses; primeval stones could not be abused casually.
The current situation was equivalent to him being on the verge of falling off a cliff, relying purely on a clump of weeds grasped in his hand to temporarily keep his body hanging at the edge of the cliff.
But as time passed, this clump of weeds in his hands was also continuously snapping. If he made no risky efforts, it wouldn't take long before he fell off the cliff.
What he needed to do now was take advantage of still having these weeds in his hands, use them, and forcefully climb up the cliff.
If he succeeded, then he would be able to ride the momentum and obtain the family property, stepping onto another level, and everything would take on a new look.
If he failed, then he would fall down, and wanting to climb back to this point again would require expending a massive amount of time and energy all over again.
"No matter what, let's begin." Fang Yuan took a deep breath, his eyes setting with determination.
White Boar Gu, Jade Skin Gu!
Following his mental command, the two Gu worms drilled out from his aperture, hovering in front of Fang Yuan.
"Fuse!" Fang Yuan shouted secretly in his heart. The White Boar Gu and Jade Skin Gu abruptly burst forth with a blinding white light, crashing straight into each other.
This collision was completely silent, yet it smashed out a cluster of light.
The white light was even more dazzling than before.
This indicated that Fang Yuan's two streams of consciousness were currently merging with each other.
On one hand, Fang Yuan maintained the white cluster of light with his own consciousness, and on the other, he took primeval stones out from the pouches, tossing them into the cluster of light piece by piece.
The cluster of light swallowed the primeval stones, leaving only puffs of stone powder that sprinkled onto the bed. With every piece swallowed, the edge of the cluster of light expanded a bit of distance.
Absorbing the natural primeval essence, the cluster of light grew larger and larger.
Gradually, it changed from its original washbasin size to the size of a stone mill.
"About time." Fang Yuan narrowed his eyes, grabbing that snow tusk of the Wild Boar King in his hand, and then decisively cast it into the cluster of light.
If the people of the world witnessed this scene, they would probably all start screaming in shock. Because the secret recipe to fusion-refine the White Jade Gu by pairing the White Boar Gu and the Jade Skin Gu was already common knowledge, having been passed down for over a millennium; but no one had ever heard that adding a Wild Boar King's snow tusk was required.
However, just because it wasn't there in the past didn't mean it wouldn't be there in the future.
One hundred and fifty years after this, a Gu Master improved this secret recipe. He discovered that as long as a wild boar tusk was added, the success rate of the fusion-refining could be greatly increased.
Reborn five hundred years into the past, Fang Yuan naturally knew of this trick.
As soon as the snow tusk was thrown into the cluster of light, a miraculous change instantly occurred.
The originally blinding white light instantly softened. Previously it merely shot its oppressive rays blindly in all directions, but now it possessed a natural, wondrous charm of flowing ripples and shifting brightness and darkness.
Under Fang Yuan's watchful gaze, the cluster of light slowly shrank, ultimately thoroughly dissipating into the air.
The Jade Skin Gu and the White Boar Gu had both vanished. A brand new Gu worm quietly hovered in front of Fang Yuan.
It looked just like an oval-shaped cobblestone. Its entire body was entirely white, but this white was not the paleness of rice paper, nor was it the milky white of milk, but rather a moist white, exuding the luster of jade.
This was exactly—the Rank Two White Jade Gu!
Only at this point did Fang Yuan lightly let out a breath of turbid air, the stone in his heart falling to the ground.
Do not look at this process and think it was seemingly very simple. Actually, it was not.
First, to merge consciousnesses, one had to achieve multitasking.
An ordinary person drawing a circle with one hand and a square with the other, this was dual-tasking. Many people found this hard to achieve, let alone the even higher difficulty of multitasking?
It required uncountable accumulations, arduous cultivation, enduring countless failures and setbacks, and also possessing a certain degree of innate talent to be able to achieve multitasking.
That Fang Yuan could do this smoothly with practiced ease was entirely due to five hundred years of heavy accumulation; not a single trace of it could be faked.
Second, was the understanding and cognition towards Gu worms.
The deeper a Gu Master's understanding of Gu worms, the greater the chance of success in fusion-refining.
This point would also become a widely acknowledged profound insight in the future, about three hundred years later.
Therefore, more often than not, the longer a Gu worm was used, the higher the success rate when fusion-refining it.
Third, was a correct and uniquely original secret recipe.
Just like this time, the addition of the snow tusk acted like painting the eyes on a dragon, abruptly raising the success rate by twenty percent. The effect was truly extraordinary.
Some secret recipes were widely spread throughout this world, but there were also many secret recipes that were treasured by people and not passed down.
For example, the Gu Yue mountain village's Moonlight Gu; the secret recipe to refine it was strictly grasped in the hands of only a few elders and successive generations of clan heads.
Especially those secret recipes capable of Rank Five, or above Rank Five, all were like this. They were secreted away by Gu Masters, cherished as dearly as their lives. Until the moment of impending death, many Gu Masters would absolutely never impart them.
But even possessing these three points, one could not achieve absolute success. Even a character like Fang Yuan, possessing five hundred years of past life memories, experiences rich to the extreme, deep understanding of Gu worms, capable of multitasking, and knowing many secret recipes. Even his fusion-refining of Gu worms still carried the possibility of failure.
It could only be said that his failure rate was relatively low, that was all.
Fusion-refining Gu worms could be said to be a sublimation of life, a type of creation. It condensed time to the absolute limit, allowing the long process of evolution to blossom and yield fruit in an instant.
On Earth, only gods could achieve this.
Without a doubt, this was a miracle of life. For a Gu Master, a mortal, to display divine miracles, how could they succeed every single time?
If they succeeded every time, then they wouldn't be a man, but a god.