Genesis Lotus had given Fang Yuan four paintings. One of them had already been used after releasing the dollhouse, and the three of them that remained were currently hung up on the wall.

One of them was black, something that Genesis Lotus said would activate once his understanding of the Human Path increased. It had remained unchanged, meaning that Fang Yuan still had some way to go when it came to this painting.

Another was a swirl of colors, which he said would be used after Fang Yuan became an immortal.

The third one, which had been blank, and which Genesis Lotus had said would help him on his journey to become immortal, was no longer blank. Staring back at him was a painting depicting the scene outside, showing the grieving Gu Yue villagers during this mas burial.

Fang Yuan could not ascend to immortality right now.

As it was, he was still Rank 4 Peak Stage, so it seemed odd to him that this painting had filled up already.

In addition, Genesis Lotus had asked Fang Yuan to take this to Shang Clan City. Yet, it had reacted right here in Gu Yue village.

Fang Yuan examined the painting closer. It looked like it somehow displayed a far wider area than would’ve normally been possible. As Fang Yuan moved slightly to the side the perspective seemed to also slightly shift. As he touched its surface, he could not break through it and go inside, however. That meant that this was likely some kind of trick of the light.

There was a limit to this property, of course. It seemed to be just a normal painting that had been painted in a strange kind of technique to give off that sort of effect – an optical illusion of sorts.

He did, however, notice something else was off while examining it. ‘Why is this painting twice as thick as the others?’ Fang Yuan wondered to himself.

He was sure it had not been this way before because he had hung up the paintings himself. He stretched out his hands and found that there was a painting behind this painting.

The painting in front depicted a scene of the Gu Yue villagers mourning the loss of their loved ones, while the one behind it was now blank, much as this painting had been before.

Fang Yuan hung up the new painting alongside the others, noting this development.

‘So, the blank painting replicated itself and then created another blank copy?’

His knowledge of the Painting Path was nearly non-existent. As such, he could not truly understand how this painting worked and could only make an educated guess.

As sad as the situation of the Gu Yue villagers was, the Bai and Xiong clans fared far worse. They had even fewer people and fewer mechanisms for achieving their goals.

Aside from the Gu Masters, of course, there were the mortals whose families had also perished. Far more mortals went unburied as they had no relatives for the same than with the Gu Masters, though their corpses had to be cleaned up regardless, if only to prevent disease and decay from spreading throughout the village.

The few mortals who could performed their rites away from the central area of the village, near its fringes.

‘They may not have been Gu Masters, but they are human, just like everyone else,’ Fang Yuan noted.

Death, in truth, was the great equalizer. Whether one was the lowest mortal or the highest Venerable, they could not escape its clutches. Only by achieving eternal life could one be said to be truly ascendant over this world. That’s why Fang Yuan felt that in this world, eternal life was the only thing worth pursuing. Everything else – family, riches, achievements – would be as dust in the wind sooner or later.

The grim mood around the village did, as a matter of fact, improve the next day. The funeral was a way of marking the last remnants of what had happened to the village, and also a way for them to move on.

That was why Fang Yuan had not objected to anything; even if he felt it was a colossal waste of resources, he knew that the villagers could not be motivated properly if they felt they had not given the appropriate respect for those who had passed away, even if such actions were ultimately futile.

Fang Yuan and Fang Zheng were currently sitting opposite one another.

Fang Zheng had placed his right hand in Fang Yuan’s left hand, and their other hands were resting on either side of Equality Gu. Fang Yuan had visited Bai Ning Bing last night and maximized the amount of dao marks from the Northern Dark Ice Soul Physique he had been able to inscribe upon his body.

This was rather inefficient, even in an ideal scenario, Fang Yuan could only give Fang Zheng about one-fourth of the dao marks, and in reality, that amount was far less – barely scratching about one-tenth – because Fang Yuan had already begun losing these dao marks the moment that he stopped using Equality Gu.

Actually, it was not entirely accurate to say that Fang Yuan had lost them; they had simply once again been inscribed upon Bai Ning Bing’s body as he discovered later on. Equality Gu did not ‘give’ away dao marks so much as it temporarily transferred them.

While it would have been more efficient for Fang Zheng to use this directly with Bai Ning Bing, Equality Gu was a Rank 5 Gu worm. Bai Ning Bing no longer had nearly unlimited primeval essence of an Extreme Physique and was at Rank 3 Peak Stage, so she could not wield the Gu worm properly.

As a matter of fact, even Fang Yuan found it difficult to activate Equality Gu to some extent. Rank 4 peak stage essence was not equivalent to Rank 5 initial stage, after all.

Fang Zheng was focused on his aperture. He had used Cleansing Aperture Gu already, and any damage that had been done to the walls of his aperture from Fang Yuan placing his essence in there had now faded away. The issue was getting him to Rank 3 stage now. As the Northern Dark Ice Soul Physique began manifesting in his aperture, his aptitude began rapidly increasing, going from an initial 46 and climbing rapidly towards 50, and then 55.

At around 62, it seemed to have reached the maximum amount that was possible, and he then began driving this primeval essence at the walls of his aperture. With 62% aptitude, he could be considered to have B-grade talent, or at least the very bottom of B-grade talent.

Reaching Rank 3 was not impossible like this.

However, several issues began popping up the longer their cultivation continued. While Fang Zheng was able to damage the walls of his aperture more than he had been able to before; actually gaining some progress, sweat soon began to coat his brow.

About an hour later, he finally had to ask Fang Yuan to stop. The pain had been too much for him to bare.

“That’s all right. Focus on trying to break through now,” Fang Yuan said, taking Equality Gu away and leaving Fang Zheng to cultivate on his own while he went to deal with some tasks as clan head.

Fang Zheng tried his utmost to break through, knowing that this was one of his best chances to do so. His dark red primeval essence assaulted the crystal walls of his aperture, the cracks gradually deepening and spreading. The walls healed themselves with time, of course, but with his increased aptitude he was able to overcome their rate of healing.

However, with every hour, his aptitude began to decrease, and even though he had used a large number of primeval stones to supplement his effort, he could tell that he was ultimately going to lose this battle.

The next morning, he stumbled into Fang Yuan’s room and shook his head. “I’m sorry, brother. I wasn’t able to break through and my aptitude is now back to normal…”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep