Then again, they were only not selling Cranium Mushrooms because the price was not high enough. Fang Yuan was certain that he could buy them so long as he offered something equally valuable in return.
The issue was not trying to buy them necessarily though; it was trying to raise them after he had bought them. He was already trying to raise a field of Emotion Lilies, a project that was taking more time to be profitable than he had initially thought. He didn't have excess time to start raising another resource, especially as Cranium Mushrooms were harder to raise.
He could simply plant the Emotion Lilies in one of his Heavens and they basically grew without much input - a formation was needed to stimulate their growth further but push come to shove Fang Yuan could simply do nothing and they would grow well enough.
Cranium Mushroom required rich soil, however. He would have to put them somewhere on the continents in a field large enough to be worth using. But that would interfere with the Integration Formation above.
He could try putting them in the Mushroommen Blessed Land Paradise Earth had left him, but he would be taking away from their Pill Path research to do so.
Fang Yuan thought long and hard about finding a substitute.
He had attempted to use Dreams of Love and Happiness Gu as a core for the killer move, but those methods had almost always led to failure. He was not at the point where he could create a Rank 6 killer move yet, not without taking months and months of effort, especially given the fact that he had no real foundation to work upon.
Fang Yuan happened to find a buyer within Treasure Yellow Heaven who was willing to sell him some Depression Millipedes.
Given that Wisdom Path cultivators were not common, this person could basically ask for whatever price they wanted with little room to bargain. Fang Yuan handed the person 4 Immortal Essence Stones for ten thousand Depression Millipedes.
While he had managed to find a supply that could last for a few weeks, there were no more sellers on Treasure Yellow Heaven right now. Much like with his own Ambition Gu, demand far outstripped supply.
Fang Yuan kept the Depression Millipedes in Black Heaven, so that they could feed off the depressed thoughts of those in his aperture. He had enough people that it was more than enough to feed them for now.
However, this was not a long-term solution and he was essentially just kicking the can down the road. He might not find another seller for months on end - what would he do then?
With a high enough attainment, he could have the Emotion Path mimic the effects of other paths. He could also do the same in reverse - try to find gu worms from other paths that could mimic the usage of the Depression Millipedes.
After thinking about it, he did come to a solution.
It wasn't a very good one.
There was an alternative to using the Depression Millipede - one which was much easier to grow and more readily available.
Unfortunately, this resource was a Blood Path gu worm.
Trying to raise it was resource-intensive because Fang Yuan would need to construct a Blood Waterfall.
Blood Waterfalls were created from large amounts of blood drawn from high-ranking blood path beasts. The fact of the blood cascading downwards created a foam that was very nourishing, more so than the blood itself. The ingenuity of the design was that there would be two waterfalls feeding into a pool - one that flowed downwards and the other whose direction was reversed using Blood Path methods and fed back into the source creating the first waterfall.
This would create a closed system where the blood flowed into a pond and then reversed uphill back to the reservoir. This encouraged the growth of Blood Path gu worms at the base far more than normal because of the foam.
Fang Yuan had learned this technique from the inheritance of the Blood Sea Ancestor during his past life when he had been a Blood Path cultivator. He had constructed three of such waterfalls in his aperture at the time to great effect.
The issue was that he could not easily make something like this in his current life.
He wasn't exactly sure how the Demon Judgment Board found blood path cultivators, but he knew it was capable of doing so and needed to avoid delving too much into the Blood Path. He could not make it within his own aperture regardless. He could not make it within the Mushroomman Blessed Land either, not unless he intended to kill all the mushroommen there just to create the waterfall, which was a waste in his eyes.
Fang Yuan contemplated this problem but still did not find a good solution.
He could only try to actually use the move and see if it would give him new insight from practical experience.
Fang Yuan turned his attention down toward the Fang Yuan Continent, wondering how it was developing. His mind went to the cavern where the Deep Dwellers were living, as he had high hopes for them.
However, what he saw greatly disappointed him.
The pond of milk he had created to nourish them was now tinted red with blood.
When the Deep Dwellers had happened upon this milk spring and realized its benefits - that had been the beginning of the end for them. It was an excellent resource, but several Gu Masters had taken it over entirely once they realized its value, claiming it was now exclusively theirs to use. This generated an artificial constraint on the milk spring - there was more than enough milk to go around, but now the people in charge of it simply didn't want to share.
Paradoxically, the Deep Dwellers had shared far more with each other when there was little to go around. Now that they had been blessed with this sudden infusion of wealth, it exacerbated the inequality amongst them and had led to this kind of result.
Much like the mushroommen in The Legends of Ren Zu they had been overcome by envy and had destroyed each other and also the foundation of their own dwelling.
What had been a public resource for everyone was now privatized by a few. This led to discontent and eventually a fight between Gu Masters and mortals, leading to the deaths of many.
Rather than their population spiking as Fang Yuan had intended, it had instead dwindled.
Inbreeding was going to rapidly become a problem with a population this small, and since they had no desire to go to the surface - and the surface dwellers had no desire to go down - they would remain a closed community, likely dying off quickly once several genetic diseases made themselves apparent with successive generations.
Those who had 'won' the rights to the milk spring had won a Pyrrhic Victory. They would continue to endure, but their victory was hollow as they wandered around an area that was suddenly empty of their fellow people. Their descendants would wither away rather than flourish signifying the end of their bloodlines. It was the classic scenario of winning the battle but losing the war.
The survivors now had so much milk that not all of them could drink it in their lifetimes even if they tried - but no one to share it with.
With fewer people, there would be fewer Gu Masters. And with that, fewer Gu Masters would could make anything of themselves and fewer still to guide the next generation.
Fang Yuan sighed as his well went upwards to the surface.
He felt he could simply ignore the Deep Dwellers now; they had been given a chance and wasted it. Nothing of promise would come from them now. Much like with the Shellfish Tribe, they had spurned their opportunity.