Fang Yuan was watching the people at the banquet, looking for the right time to strike. Additionally, he was setting up investigative methods.
This was to observe the effect of his killer move in its entirety, and also to ensure no Immortals caught onto what he was doing.
Two days and nights of feasting later, he found his targets.
There were two youngsters from the He and Ye clans who had a clear problem with each other - a blood feud between their families as they had been killed by the other party during a prior war.
The other clansmen were docile in his presence despite their long-running differences, not wanting to risk offending the Gu Yue Clan. Anyone who caused a ruckus would no doubt be reprimanded and even ostracized by Fang Yuan.
However, Fang Yuan slowly manipulated the emotions of these two youngsters until they were at a fever pitch.
By the late third night, the two got into an altercation after drinking that threatened to become an all-out brawl.
"What on earth are you doing?" their respective elders hissed, trying to separate them.
"Do you want to offend Lord Fang Yuan?"
"Our clan might be annihilated if you don't stop fighting!"
The two looked like they were about to calm down before Fang Yuan struck with his Rank 5 killer move - Familial Emotion.
Fang Yuan had already used Emotion Path methods on those two youngsters, and he amplified their effect now.
Suddenly, the elders - who had been reasonable until now - found their own blood boiling. Their emotions were heightened by the youngsters' rage.
Fang Yuan felt a small degree of backlash from the move; a minor flaw he quickly rectified. Using it once more, he found the success rate much higher and the effect grander than he had anticipated.
Through his investigative methods, Fang Yuan could see that the effect was not limited here. The He and the Ye villages were suddenly filled with people who were very, very, angry.
Fang Yuan shot out a portion of his will at a few people on either side, and they began unleashing attacks.
"Look! They're attacking!"
"Fight back!"
"Good, good, good," Fang Yuan murmured as the elders on both sides sustained grievous injuries.
Humans were emotional creatures, but they were also beings of reason.
When the two sides tried to withdraw, Fang Yuan simply intensified their emotions once more, with it reaching a fever pitch that refused to dissipate.
The Bei and the Xiu clans watched as the chaos escalated. Neither of them were fans of the Ye and the He clan, but they didn't want to be part of anything that might cause Fang Yuan to become angry.
These other clans went to the Ye and the He clans separately to try and sort them out, before Fang Yuan struck again!
He only needed to target a few Xiu and Bei clansmen for the effect to cascade and escalate until all four clans were fighting with each other.
"Brother, shouldn't we do something?" Fang Zheng asked, watching the fighting unfold.
"For now, I think we should just let them sort this out on their own," Fang Yuan said calmly. "They clearly have deep animosity. Although I prefer they not fight on neutral ground, I fear intervening will cause more harm than good. Let them let out a small degree of steam."
If these words had come from anyone else, the Gu Yue Clan would have called them foolish and someone without eyes to see Mt. Tai with. It was clear that things were not going to de-escalate on their own and they would soon have a massive riot on their hands.
But because these words came from a Rank 6 Immortal, they simply watched.
Fang Yuan had successfully tested Familial Emotion. He continued to make tweaks on it, until every single Bei and Xiu villager was also seething in rage by now, only looking for somewhere to fully vent their frustration.
"Lord Fang Yuan... surely we need to intervene at this point?" Qing Shu finally asked, as the blood began to pool on the festive grounds.
"I doubt they will see reason, but let me try," Fang Yuan said, moving forward.
There was a lull in the fighting as his Rank 6 aura made itself known, before someone struck at Fang Yuan!
Fang Yuan's eyes flashed. "You dare!? I invite you to a banquet and you behave like this? Courting death!"
By now the mob was far too gone under his own influence, with them striking each other - oftentimes not caring who they were fighting against.
Some attacks even began to fly out at the Gu Yue clansmen behind Fang Yuan.
Fang Yuan waved his hand as several people's heads burst open, blood spilling onto the ground.
Fang Yuan laughed coldly in his heart even as he told the Gu Yue clansmen to leave. "It is far too dangerous. Allow me to handle things."
"But Big Brother I-" Fang Zheng said.
"I don't want to see you all caught up in this kind of violence," Fang Yuan consoled him. "Now, go, let me see if I can put an end to this."
With Familial Emotion in a near-perfect state, Fang Yuan was able to use it on himself, affecting the Gu Yue clansmen as well. They began to panic slightly but relaxed as he tried to reassure them.
By 'put an end to this' Fang Yuan meant killing every last elder present there.
His heart delighted in the killing as he flew to their villages to 'put an end to the violence' going on there.
In reality, what he did was slaughter every mortal and Gu Master in the surrounding villages, until there was nothing more than pools of blood all around.
Fang Yuan had not done this for no reason. Not even to help the Gu Yue clan prosper by removing their enemies - no, he had no such lofty ambitions.
Why the killing?
He intended to use the human corpses to try and form the artificial secluded domain of Heaven and Earth that would one day be made by the Xia Clan - Human Sea!
Fang Yuan had only heard about it in the future in passing. It was a massive undertaking by the Xia Clan in the Eastern Sea which was not easy to hide from the Immortal world and so details of it began leaking out. It was still incomplete as far as Fang Yuan recalled 500 years in the future.
But something that had been envisioned by one person could easily be replicated by the other.
As Fang Yuan recalled hints from his past life regarding the construction of Human Sea, with his greater foundation in the Human Path, a design had appeared in his mind.
With that said, even when it was done, Human Sea was incomplete. There was another half to this, Human Mountain, that he would also need to finish.
All of this needed time and experimentation - and given that the surrounding clans had lived past their usefulness as he had finished testing his killer move, what better way to make use of them?
Fang Yuan tossed these corpses into a part of his aperture. They were dead, so there was no danger of it affecting the Integration Formation. Fang Yuan removed their brains before tossing them into the waters, as it could be used to feed a variety of Wisdom and Emotion Path gu worms.
The sea had barely changed despite the thousands of corpses that Fang Yuan threw in. It looked like this was far from enough. He would need a large amount of Human Qi. He could gather excess Human Qi from the humans in his aperture, but for it to make a qualitative change would take a long time unless he managed to obtain some Qi Path methods himself.
Still, Fang Yuan was quite pleased with his gains up until this point.
As he was done though, a Will flew out to meet with him.
Paradise Earth Immortal Venerable!