Fang Yuan took a moment to skim the superficial resources on all three continents - the Paradise Earth, Genesis Lotus, and Fang Yuan continents - claiming them as his own much like someone would skim the cream from the top of a vat of milk.
He nabbed a massive amount of resource. Most were Human Path gu worms of which the most notable were Relic Gu of varying ranks, but there were also other gu worms and some refinement resources as well. They could either be sold, or handed out to his clan in order to strengthen their foundation.
While paying little attention to the surface dwellers, he noticed a young boy about seventeen years old. There was something about this boy which caught Fang Yuan's eye.
He was part of a group that spurned Gu Masters and cultivation, yet Fang Yuan could tell he had opened his aperture and was cultivating in secret.
Currently, the boy was cultivating in secret in a grove that had formed behind a waterfall. It seemed that he had found this spot by chance one day and made it his cultivation area - away from the members of his tribe who might've kicked him out for doing so.
"Oh, what kind of gu is this?" the boy said as a gu worm flew toward him through the waterfall. It had a Rank 5 aura, which made the boy scared initially. Upon seeing that it did not attack him he approached it to try and take it before Fang Yuan refined it and removed it from his hands.
"Ah - looks like it flew away," the boy said before returning to his cultivation.
The gu worm in question was Man Triumphing Over Heaven Gu.
Glancing at this boy, Fang Yuan felt it was odd for a Rank 5 gu worm to appear before a rank one Gu Master without anything inducing it. Could it be that this boy was born with a large amount of luck?
Fang Yuan made a note to keep an eye on him. At the very least, this boy seemed to want to cultivate even if the rest of his group did not.
Fang Yuan could think of multiple ways to improve this boy's growth - he was only at Rank 1 after all, but then stopped himself.
Hadn't he already seen what interfering did? He had tried such with the Shellfish Tribe and the Deep Dwellers only for his interventions to backfire horribly and end badly for those involved.
So what though?
What were a few failures so long as he learned from them?
And he had learned that trying to help those whom he thought had promise tended to do the opposite.
He would only watch this boy's growth for now.
Fang Yuan then glanced at the gu worm he had just refined.
Man Triumphing Over Heaven Gu was not an easy gu worm to obtain. It appeared only in large populations much like Relic Gu, but was rarer than even Purple Crystal Relic Gu to obtain.
In the grander scheme of things, it was rather mediocre; it could help a non-cultivator be able to cultivate, but unless that person was a relative of an Immortal or an influential mortal, no one would waste that kind of resource on them. Given its high price, the fact that all it could do was make a C-grade Gu Master was a massive waste of resources. A clan would naturally prefer to buy multiple Relic Gu instead to nurture those who were actually born with talent.
Fang Yuan had used it previously to help Shang Xin Ci and had received a Purple Crystal Relic Gu in return from her father. That Purple Crystal Relic Gu was easier to obtain, but it could increase a Rank 5 Gu Master's cultivation - from that point of view it was worth far more than Man Triumphing Over Heaven Gu even if it was more common.
If one considered the needs of a clan, Man Triumphing Over Heaven Gu was nearly worthless. But for the individual, like Shang Xin Ci, it was a heavensent opportunity.
This memory was just a passing thought, but it awoke something within Fang Yuan regarding the Human Path.
Fang Yuan, from his insight into the path by this point, had come to the conclusion that the Human Path was simultaneously the easiest and the most difficult path to cultivate.
It was easy in the sense that nearly every single human within the gu world was cultivating the Human Path to some extent by simply living. Moreover, the greatest Human Path inheritance was left to everyone to read - The Legends of Ren Zu.
However, it was difficult in many ways as well. For one, Heaven itself suppressed its development so that anyone who developed it too much would meet with their end.
Moreover, the greater difficulty was that it was one thing to be told one thing and another to really understand it. The Legends of Ren Zu were an easy example. Nearly everyone read it, but how many people truly comprehended it, and of those how many could use the wisdom within for their cultivation? In the same vein, everyone lived in the sense that they were breathing - but how many people comprehended what it meant to be alive?
Humans had a limited lifespan, limiting how much they could explore as well.
It was only thanks to the Integration Formation and several dream realms that Fang Yuan's attainment in the Human Path had advanced so fast.
With his newfound insight that he had obtained recently, Fang Yuan looked through his memories with a new depth of comprehension.
'Man Triumphing Over Heaven Gu... isn't it just another form of Ambition Gu, simply at a lower level? Ambition Gu allows one to defy Fate by breaking through the solid crystal walls of one's aperture. Man Triumphing Over Heaven Gu similarly allowed one to go against Fate by allowing anyone to be able to cultivate. The root desire at the heart of both Gu is quite similar...' Fang Yuan mused.
He had been stuck at Rank 2 for over a century, founding it nearly hopeless to advance to Rank 3. In the same way, a mortal who could not cultivate was similarly hopeless. Both of their problems could be solved via Man Triumphing Over Heaven Gu and Ambition Gu.
Fang Yuan examined Man Triumphing Over Heaven Gu a bit more using some Refinement Path methods when he stumbled upon a revelation. Several gu worm recipes began emerging in his mind.
With a wave of his hand multiple Human Path gu worms approached him as he began refining and testing out several recipes.
Three hours later, he had finished and held a newly-refined Man Triumphing Over Heaven Gu within his hands. It had taken a few Rank 5 Ambition Gu and Relic Gu in order to refine this, but the fact that he had been able to think of a new recipe in and of itself was worth of praise.
Man Triumphing Over Heaven Gu was not worth that much in Yellow Treasure Heaven as one would expect - especially given how many Ambition Gu Fang Yuan had to use to make it in the first place.
However, it was not necessarily the gu worm in itself that Fang Yuan was interested in.
No, the refinement process itself had made him stumble upon a piece of wisdom.
Refining gu and making killer moves - were they not quite similar?
Killer moves used lower-ranking gu worms to obtain the effect of a higher-ranking one. He was trying to replicate Familial Emotion Gu using a killer move, after all.
In the same way, refining gu increased their prowess as well.
This understanding was only at a rudimentary level, but he was sure that if he could advance his Refinement Path understanding, he would be able to elaborate on it further.
What this did tell him though was something regarding how Man Triumphing Over Heaven Gu was refined - was there a way to build a killer move off of this?
Fang Yuan contemplated such and had the feeling that he was on the precipice of a large discovery, one that would take a long time to finalize, but one that could also shake the foundation of Heaven and Earth were it to be successful!