Chapter 187: There exists one river of time, and the Spring Autumn Cicada acts as the crossing boat
Translator: Skyfarrow Editor: Skyfarrow
The Water Curtain Skyflower Gu was a Rank four Gu. Once used, it would turn into a giant spherical water shield. The defensive strength of the shield was extremely good and it could even resist attacks from Rank five Gu. However, it had a big weakness; it couldn’t be moved and couldn’t be stopped. The water shield isolated the inside and outside world, so even the owner couldn’t freely enter or exit. Thus, this was used by many forces to protect their territories.
Fang Yuan was not familiar with Spring Autumn Cicada.
In his previous life, he died by the besiegement of the righteous path after just having succeeded in refining the Spring Autumn Cicada; he simply didn’t have the time to experiment with it. Also, Spring Autumn Cicada wasn’t his vital Gu at the time and this characteristic hadn’t revealed itself.
In this life, his cultivation was still low, so he didn’t dare to randomly let out the Spring Autumn Cicada.
Spring Autumn Cicada was classified as one of the most unusual Gu and was extremely mysterious. The records of the insights and experiences of its users had never been spread.
Furthermore, once a Gu reaches Rank six and above, they become the only one of their type in the whole world. If someone wanted to refine them, they would only have a probability of success after the previous Gu died, otherwise it was a hundred percent failure.
Thus, this led to Fang Yuan knowing about this characteristic only now.
"Rebirth isn’t an easy thing, the Spring and Autumn conceals disaster. Spring Autumn Cicada’s recovery speed is increasing more and more, and even the cultivation speed of an A grade aptitude with a sea of resources might not be able to match its speed. Their aperture will sooner or later explode under the pressure of Spring Autumn Cicada!"
Fang Yuan clenched his teeth.
Rebirth was beautiful but possessing Spring Autumn Cicada was equivalent to having half a ten extreme aptitude. It was like being under the execution post where you could be executed at any moment!
"If I can’t let Spring Autumn Cicada out, then does that mean I can only use it to rebirth again?" Fang Yuan’s frowns deepened.
This appeared to be the only way. A rebirth would mean Spring Autumn Cicada would enter a weak state again, and at the same time, Fang Yuan could escape from this dangerous situation.
This situation seemed to be perfect, but it contained many problems and huge dangers.
First of all, there was no guarantee of the rebirth being successful.
Fang Yuan had gone through rebirth once and he was only able to bring back his valuable experience.
He came to an understanding by integrating the Earth’s concept: The world is a three-dimensional space and time is an axis connecting the past and present. Without time, space would be stationary. The movements of every matter was a process, signifying the consumption of time.
There were no parallel dimensions in a world. Using the Spring Autumn Cicada to be reborn was to step across from the latter half of the time axis (future) to some point in the first half (past).
However, Fang Yuan’s aged body in the ‘future’ didn’t exist in the ‘past’.
Due to the restrictions from the great dao of the world, his body couldn’t be brought over to the past, and could only self-detonate. The energy from the self-detonation was a propulsion force and the fragment of the laws of time in Spring Autumn Cicada was like a lone boat which carried Fang Yuan’s consciousness from ‘future’ to be reborn into the ‘past’.
Consciousness wasn’t a physical matter like a body. Strictly speaking, this ‘future’ consciousness too, didn’t exist in the ‘past’.
The ingenuity was contained therein!
‘Future’ consciousness led to the Gu Master changing himself, and thereby influencing his surroundings. This influence would gradually extend to the whole world; this was the butterfly effect.
When the butterfly effect took place, the world would no longer be the same, causing the existence of the ‘future’ consciousness to receive the approval of the great dao of the world.
Someone had said that history was like a long river, and a change in an event in the upstream would completely change the downstream.
This mystical world of Gu was like the water in the long river. Almost everyone could only flow along with the stream and go from upstream to downstream. Fang Yuan’s consciousness, however, went against the stream, going from downstream to upstream by relying on Spring Autumn Cicada.
When he made changes in the upstream, there would also be changes in the downstream. But the river was still the same river; the world of Gu Masters was still the world of Gu Masters. It was just that history had turned into another corner, bringing another possibility to the equation.
This analogy could be easily understood.
However, Spring Autumn Cicada hadn’t recovered completely. It was like a leaky, worn-out boat right now.
Fang Yuan’s cultivation was also only Rank three initial stage. There would be an unimaginable difference between the propulsion force of his self-detonation now from the self-detonation of his Rank six cultivation in his previous life. With such a minute force, he simply wouldn’t be able to push the Spring Autumn Cicada, let alone flow against the long river of time.
"I probably won’t succeed by trying to rebirth through self-detonation. Who is to say that the broken boat won’t be stranded in the long river? And if that happens, my consciousness and memories will be ruthlessly washed away by time. To raise the probability of success, it would be best to wait until the aperture is pushed to the limits, stall for time as much as possible and let Spring Autumn Cicada recover more, decreasing the holes in the worn-out boat. At the same time, increasing my cultivation will provide higher propulsive force to go against the stream, after self-detonation." Fang Yuan heaved a long sigh.
This change in the Spring Autumn Cicada was beyond his anticipation. But with his ever cautious nature, he had a plan ready.
The blood bat group was nearing. Fang Yuan, however, had his attention in his aperture.
Yellow-green rays of light flooded his aperture. His white silver primeval sea was as still as a mirror under the majestic aura of Spring Autumn Cicada, but there were dangerous cracks in the light membrane of his aperture.
All the other Gu had been suppressed down to the depths of the sea by Spring Autumn Cicada’s aura.
Fang Yuan sent his will and a Gu slowly flew towards the surface of the sea, resisting the pressure.
This Gu appeared like a square dice; it was gray and very firm.
This was one of the Gu that Fang Yuan had plundered from Bai Ning Bing.
It was a one-time use Gu, and would disappear once used. But its effects were extraordinary, and once used it would completely extract all the strength and potential in a Gu Master’s aperture and instantly raise a Gu Master’s cultivation to the peak stage of the same rank.
"Stone Aperture Gu, explode."
Fang Yuan willed it; the Stone Aperture Gu immediately exploded, changing into grey powders just like the smoke from a cigarette, and pervaded the primeval sea.
The aperture’s walls were originally a light membrane, but once this grey powder touched it, the light immediately dimmed down. The powder stuck to the light membrane and the light membrane gradually thickened, experiencing a qualitative change from light to stony.
After several seconds, Fang Yuan’s aperture walls had thickened by several times and changed into a heavy, sturdy stone aperture.
The yellow-green radiance of Spring Autumn Cicada still fluctuated continuously, but the aperture could now support its pressure.
Fang Yuan was at Rank three initial stage with light silver primeval essence, and his primeval sea shone with light silver light. But right now, his cultivation experienced a sudden rise, leaping from Rank three initial stage to Rank three peak stage, possessing snow silver primeval essence!
"Using the Stone Aperture Gu means cutting off one’s advancement route and using up all the potential within the aperture; it will be very difficult to step to Rank four. But, my cultivation has increased and the aperture has turned into stone walls, which is multiple times thicker and firmer than before, and will be able to support the pressure from Spring Autumn Cicada for the time being! Using the Stone Aperture Gu should have been Bai Ning Bing’s response to the limits of Northern Dark Ice Soul Physique. Unfortunately, the Ten Extreme Aptitudes are much more troublesome than the Spring Autumn Cicada. Their potential is endless and even by turning one’s aperture into stone, the aperture walls will quickly recover."
At this second, the bladewing blood bat group pounced in for the kill.
Fang Yuan gave a cold snort, then took out his Chainsaw Golden Centipede and killed as he retreated.
Fortunately, this tunnel was narrow, and with the Sky Canopy Gu’s defense and the Chainsaw Golden Centipede’s wide body, Fang Yuan was able to block the blood bat group and stop them from surrounding him.
This greatly reduced their threat.
For a moment, there were only continuous ringing sounds within the tunnel.
The sounds of Chainsaw Golden Centipede's attacks and the sound of bladewing blood bats smashing into the white armor, quickly echoed through the tunnel walls and formed into a medley.
The primeval essence in Fang Yuan’s aperture continued to deplete rapidly.
There were close to a hundred blood bats, but without a Gu Master there to control them, there were a lot of internal frictions between the bats and they couldn’t form a tacit cooperation. Thus, in reality, Fang Yuan only needed to deal with 30-40 blood bats at the same time.
But even this number wasn’t something he could withstand, and he had to retreat while fighting back.
What was even more awkward was that even though he had leaped to Rank three peak stage, his aperture still contained the initial stage light silver primeval essence. Just by relying on his C grade aptitude, the self-production speed of snow silver primeval essence was way too slow. The current situation also didn’t allow Fang Yuan to multitask and take out primeval stones to absorb natural primeval essence.
Consuming primeval stones could quickly recover primeval essence, but this method wasn’t suitable in a real battle.
Distracting oneself in a life and death battle was asking for humiliation; it was an extremely stupid move and was akin to courting death. At the same time, the efficiency in absorbing natural primeval essence at such a situation was also very low.
This way could only be used during normal cultivation, or to exploit short gaps in battles to quickly recover primeval essence.
Luckily, Fang Yuan obtained a grass gu not long ago: Heavenly Essence Treasure Lotus.
Heavenly Essence Treasure Lotus could produce primeval stones; it was very precious and rare. But in fact, this effect was only an expression of its innate ability.
Heavenly Essence Treasure Lotus was also called ‘portable spirit spring’ and its innate ability was to produce natural primeval essence. The primeval essence would then condense together to form primeval stones.
The Heavenly Essence Treasure Lotus that Fang Yuan possessed was lying deep in his primeval sea; it appeared like an extremely small spirit spring.
Heavenly Essence Treasure Lotus’s recipe was created by Immortal Venerable Genesis Lotus.
Only the Gu Masters who have reached Rank nine were respected as venerables. For righteous path, they were called Immortal Venerables; and for demonic path, they were called Demonic Venerables.
Immortal Venerable Genesis Lotus was also known as the the person with the fastest primeval essence recovery speed since the ancient times. In this aspect, he was above other immortal venerables and demonic venerables, and it was all because of the Essence Lotus!
Fang Yuan’s Heavenly Essence Treasure Lotus was only a Rank three and he had just refined it, so it was at its poorest level. But it was already providing a continuous supply of natural primeval essence to Fang Yuan.
The moment this natural primeval essence appeared in Fang Yuan’s aperture, it would be automatically refined and turned into snow silver primeval essence.
Supposedly if Fang Yuan absorbed primeval essence from primeval stones, he would still have to divide a part of his mind. But this Heavenly Essence Treasure Lotus was his Gu, so using it was as simple and easy as moving his fingers!
Fang Yuan retreated while fighting, and with the assistance of Heavenly Essence Treasure Lotus, his primeval essence recovery speed could already be comparable with B grade aptitude Gu Masters.
"Kill!"
He gave a fierce shout before abruptly changing his battle style and charging into the blood bat group.
Chainsaw Golden Centipede exploded forth, and its silver sawtooth crazily rotated around, producing screeching sounds as it cut down on a bladewing blood bat hiding in the rear.
This blood bat appeared rather similar to other blood bats, albeit looking a bit more dominant. This was the sole male bat in this blood bat group, and was refined by the first gen Gu Yue. By controlling it, one could indirectly gain control of the whole blood bat group.
Fang Yuan had been secretly planning this attack after careful observation, and made this attack appear unintentional. With the Gu Yue first head not present on the scene, this attack was very effective.
The male bat died on the spot, twisting into a bloody pulp.
The remaining female bats immediately scattered!
Translator's Thoughts
Skyfarrow Skyfarrow
Second chapter up... third one later.