Fang Yuan took Bai Ning Bing’s left hand in his right hand. Their free hands were resting on each of the scales of Equality Gu. The two of them were sitting opposite each other in a meditative posture.

Fang Yuan had thought over Paradise Earth Immortal Venerable’s hint regarding refining the Righteous Virtue Physique. He had found no appropriate gu worm within his aperture before he considered that Paradise Earth might have been talking about his inventory instead.

He had been curious about what Equality Gu did exactly, and by this point, he wasn’t too worried about feeding his own gu worms. The majority of his clansmen were worried about how they would feed theirs, but Fang Yuan knew that he would be taken care of for the moment unless it was some kind of food that was extraordinarily hard to get.

He therefore, had taken out Equality Gu and was able to quickly ascertain its function- it was a Human Path gu worm, after all.

It took the form of an old set of weighing scales. Despite being a Human Path Gu worm, and the basic tenet of the Human Path being to accumulate surpluses and worsen deficits, its effect was that of the Heaven Path: to do the exact opposite.

To refine the Righteous Virtue Physique, Fang Yuan needed a Rank 5 version of one of the seven virtues, which he already had, and one hundred Human Path dao marks, which he also possessed. He also needed to reach Rank 5. These were the basic ingredients. The success rate of refining it could be greatly increased with the Ten Extreme Physiques as per Paradise Earth, as the Righteous Virtue Physique itself was a lesser form of the ten extreme physiques.

As Equality Gu worked and took effect, Fang Yuan felt his aptitude gradually increase, going as high as ninety-five percent, and then going even further beyond. He also felt that in this scenario, if he were to use an ice or snow path Gu worm, its effect would also be amplified.

What Equality Gu was doing was achieving equality between two Gu Masters. Ordinarily, this wasn’t a very significant effect. Theoretically, one with a very high aptitude could use it to nurture someone with a low aptitude. The issue was that the difference was rather underwhelming considered that it was an average of aptitude and not higher ranked primeval essence. It also had some other limitations which would limit its effectiveness.

Not that it was completely useless. One could potentially use this to nurture someone from Rank 1 to Rank 3. However, most people would find its application to be only marginally helpful especially given this one was at Rank 5.

However, when applied to one of the Ten Extreme Physiques, one could easily see that this was a first-rate gu, the kind that clans would fight over.

Bai Ning Bing’s Northern Dark Ice Soul Physique existed in the form of Human Path dao marks upon her body, but Equality Gu let Fang Yuan take some of them and temporarily inscribe them upon himself instead.

One could say that he possessed half of the Northern Dark Ice Soul Physique, so long as the gu worm was active.

At least, it should have been half. It wasn’t actually half when used in practice, potentially because Equality Gu was Rank 5 and Fang Yuan was Rank 4. That, and perhaps there was some other requirement as well – that the two cultivators who used it had to be close and accepting of one another. It wasn’t possible to force someone to participate in this.

Or perhaps, Fang Yuan considered on further contemplation, it was merely an expression of the fact that true equality between humans could never be achieved. Fang Yuan and Fang Zheng – brothers born from the same womb at the same time, who were identical twins could not be equal. What hope did the rest of humanity have?

When applied to one of the Ten Extreme Physiques, not only would it reduce the burden upon the person who had such a physique, thereby greatly delaying their detonation, it also massively benefited the other Gu Master in question.

‘A shame this is only temporary,’ Fang Yuan thought to himself.

However, perhaps there was a way to make this more permanent, or if it could be stacked on top of other effects… or if he could somehow gain a portion of all Ten Extreme Physiques at once. To do that however, would require several Equality Gu and several supplementary gu worms to form a killer move if it was even possible.

Bai Ning Bing’s own aptitude was currently limited by the effect of Yin Rotation Gu.

However, when the dao marks were transferred to Fang Yuan, who was not under the same effect, the Northern Dark Ice Soul Physique began showing its true potential. Fang Yuan began directing some of this primeval essence at the crystal walls of his aperture. Before he could refine the Righteous Virtue Physique, he needed to first reach Rank 5. As it was, he still needed to experiment with Equality Gu further.

Refining gu worms was one thing, but naturally refining one’s body was far more dangerous and not something one could embark on without taking significant precautions.

Outside the room that the two were using, the House Spirit was walking along the hallway before noticing the… odd noises coming from inside.

It sounded like the two of them were groaning in pain.

“Fang Yuan, how much longer do you want me to keep this up?” Bai Ning Bing asked.

“Just another few rounds,” Fang Yuan replied.

“I already feel sore all over,” Bai Ning Bing answered.

“That might be so, but I’m just not done yet,” Fang Yuan said.

The House Spirit immediately came to the wrong assumption about what was going on inside, and then walked away, deciding to leave the two of them to their fun.

This was another drawback of using Equality Gu. The longer that one used it, the more one began to experience pain, much like if they tried to absorb too much strength from the White Boar Gu at once.

Achieving equality is a painful process!

Bai Ning Bing had almost had enough as sweat had begun to coat her forehead, but Fang Yuan naturally still wanted to continue.

“Oh, this is just for your benefit,” Fang Yuan retorted.

“What are you talking about?”

“This is good for you as well.” Fang Yuan said. “It will limit the burden of the Northern Dark Ice Soul Physique; don’t forget that the Yin Rotation Gu was only a temporary measure.”

The two argued, though Fang Yuan did have to leave anyway, simply because he had other things to do as clan leader.

The moment he walked away, the temporary nature of Equality Gu quickly became apparent. His aptitude began declining by about one percent each hour until it was back to his baseline.

‘Equality is only temporary. Soon enough, differences between people show up, even if one tries to force equality,’ Fang Yuan thought to himself as he went about his day after wiping the sweat from his brow and using Doctor Gu to fix his body aches.

That was what the Human Path was about at its core. However, the boost from this was quite significant. He had made a great deal of progress in breaking through to Rank 5 but it would require more dual cultivating session for him to be able to do so. Even moving up a minor realm at Rank 4 was tedious, no wonder the old clan head had been stuck at Rank 4 Middle Stage for nearly his whole term as clan head. The jump from Rank 4 to Rank 5 was more of chasm than anything that came before it, and a single session of 90%-ish primeval essence wasn’t going to do it.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep