Given this, Fang Yuan instead chose to suck up the milk using his gu worms.
After draining the spring dry, he took these storage-type gu worms and sent them into the depths of the mountain where the Deep Dwellers lived.
Fang Yuan then squirted this white warm liquid all throughout the deep, damp cave.
There was so much that he had basically made an underground lake of the stuff, even larger than the village that the Deep Dwellers lived in.
With that, he had made a milk spring deep within the mountain meaning that they would be available to the Deep Dwellers once they found it.
This would last them for a while and would deal with the issue of them having little sunlight. Hopefully their bones would become stronger through this.
This was a temporary measure, however, as the milk would eventually run out.
However, that was fine with Fang Yuan as he could just use another milk spring. With the Bei Clan barely getting a foothold on the mountain, there was more than enough for him to take.
Fang Yuan continued to watch the Deep Dwellers. A few hours later, some of their number had managed to happen upon the milk spring and were curious as to what the white liquid was.
They seemed to have immediately assumed it was poisonous, however, which Fang Yuan didn't think was that much of a strange conclusion to get to.
However, one of the braver ones dipped their fingers in and took a sip of the liquid.
"Oh! Look! This thing is edible!"
With that, the Deep Dwellers began taking small sips of the liquid, until they were filling in their stomachs.
With this, they had managed to find another food source.
Over time, some Bone Path gu worms of Rank 1 would also grow withing the liquid.
Fang Yuan was sure that over the coming years, their population would swell.
Hopefully that would mean that they would start building some form of civilization that would actually be worth valuing.
Even if they were close to the size of the former Gu Yue Village, so what?
Gu Yue Village had been constrained in its size because of the repeated wolf tides and the ravages of nature.
These people had no such thing limiting them.
Much like humans back on Earth, they were free to build a large civilization - but they hadn't.
They had been handed something more valuable than gold - in the form of gu worms and the chance to cultivate, and yet had spat this away. At least most of them had.
The thought itself annoyed him, but he didn't act upon it.
He instead went up towards the two Heavens in his aperture, but didn't go back to the formation around the Emotion Lilies. Although he would've liked to spend some time fine-tuning it, he had something more promising to work on.
He brought a large number of Emotion Path gu worms and began arranging them along with some of the Human Path gu worms.
His first three attempts to create a mortal killer move failed, resulting in some minor backlash.
His fourth attempt worked, but the result was far beneath what he had anticipated. It fizzled out before he could get the proper result.
He continued to do so over and over until the sun began rising upon Bei Gu Mountain.
He was now about 50% done with the mortal killer move in question. But, he had not actually tested it in practice and wouldn't know if it had some kind of flaws until he had used it in an actual scenario.
He flew down towards the clan head's pavilion where Fang Zheng had gotten up bright and early in anticipation for this day.
It wasn't just Fang Zheng who was up and early. The entire village was excited after the new of their clan prodigy returning as an Immortal.
"Big Brother, did you have a good night's sleep?" Fang Zheng asked.
"I got quite a bit done," Fang Yuan said. "But let's put that aside for now. Time to meet with the elders, isn't it?"
"Yes," Fang Zheng said.
***
The elders were sitting in deference in front of their Supreme Leader. No new elders had arisen in the time frame that Fang Yuan had left. Gu Yue Ye Lao was at least a few months away from Rank 3 if reports were to be believed.
Fang Yuan had methods which could hasten this process, but there was no incentive for him to do so.
"It is so good to see that Lord Fang Yuan has returned!"
"Ah, without Lord Fang Yuan, the village seemed empty. As if the morning sky was without the sun, or the night sky was without the stars."
"Indeed, we are truly blessed to have a talent like Lord Fang Yuan among us!"
Fang Yuan waved his hand in a polite gesture so that they would keep quiet. He then had a small introductory speech which went over a few things before the room fell into silence.
It stretched for minutes. Fang Yuan's imposing aura seemed to weigh upon them like a sack of rocks. None of them wanted to speak first - even Fang Zheng felt like he was suddenly suffocating under the pressure.
And then Fang Yuan released it, allowing them to relax, and smiling lightly.
Elation leapt in their hearts, and the elders finally opened up.
"Ah, Lord Fang Yuan, there have been some of us wondering..."
"...what is the world of Immortals like?"
"Yes, what does it mean to be an Immortal?"
The Gu Yue Clan had never had someone at Rank 6. If one went into the clan hall records and tried to see how it was to try and ascend to Rank 6, they would find no information.
The first gen Gu Yue likely knew how to, only he had not found it to be within his benefit to actually tell anyone about it. After all, for him, the Gu Yue Village was just a means to an end of extracting the Ancient Yin Desolate Moon Physique.
"Gladly, allow me to tell you what it is like," Fang Yuan said. He gave them an extremely basic overview of what it meant to ascend to Rank 6. It was not exactly well-guarded knowledge if one was from a big clan, though to the elders, this was the fruit of forbidden wisdom! Most mortals could not dream of ascending unless they had found an Immortal inheritance, yet they had a living Immortal before them! What could be better than that?
"...your aperture is then replaced with a world inside, called a 'Blessed Land' after ascension..."
"...Immortal Essence is worth infinitely more than primeval essence..."
"...mortal gu are easy for Immortals to obtain and primeval stones are nearly worthless at this level..."
"...and you must endure calamities and tribulations in order to advance as time moves faster in your aperture than the outside wall..."
The elders hung on to each word as if they were made of literal gold. Some of them couldn't believe the things that Fang Yuan was telling them as they seemed too fantastical - but what else could they do but take him at his word? The world of Immortals seemed to be so beyond that of mortals that it was unimaginable. They knew that Immortals were strong, but to truly appreciate just how strong was something else entirely. If what Fang Yuan was saying was true, the difference between Rank 5 (which was already unimaginably strong to them) and Rank 6 was more than the difference between Rank 1 and Rank 5. "...and that is what the world of Immortals is like. Of course, while I am the first Gu Immortal of the Gu Yue Clan, I doubt I will be the last. We will continue to nourish the talent of our village and raise them to become Gu Masters. If more Gu Immortal seeds spring forth, I will help them reach Rank 6. Like that, in a few decades I'm sure that our clan will become one of the great clans of the Southern Border!"