Given that he failed during his last attempt, Fang Yuan had something else in mind this time around.
"Remember, you can trust no one," the Rank 4 Gu Master at the head of the table said.
Fang Yuan turned around towards the Gu Master at his side and whispered to him, "Don't eat the venison, it's been poisoned."
This other Gu Master, by the name of Do Ka, gave him an odd look. Fang Yuan wasn't sure how close the person he was playing and this person were in real life. However, if he were sitting at a dinner table and someone next to him told him that something was poisoned, he wouldn't eat it regardless of who they were. "Is all of the venison poisoned, or just mine?" he whispered back to Fang Yuan.
"I don't know," Fang Yuan said, "just don't eat it."
The battle then continued, as it had before, with the attackers coming during the middle of the banquet. Fang Yuan had to hand it to them. Whoever had done this before, it was the perfect time to strike.
The scene played out much like before. Fang Yuan couldn't tell what Duo Ka's role was supposed to be during this situation. He seemed to be contributing rather little to the fighting. As a matter of fact, about half an hour in, he was found. Even as Fang Yuan continued fighting, the battle's tide was the same as before.
As Fang Yuan was injured, a healing path Gu Master came near him, offering to help him. "Sure, just make it quick," Fang Yuan was about to say before he suddenly felt a sharp pain.
The healing path Gu Master glared at him. "The reason why Do Ka didn't die was because you helped him, didn't you? You're in cahoots with him traitor!" Fang Yuan felt extreme pain as the dream ended. He was ejected from it once again. Thankfully, the damage to his soul was rather minor from exploring this one. He thought as he took out a Guts Gu from his inventory.
So, the solution wasn't to warn everyone, nor was it to save Do Ka secretly. Then what exactly was he supposed to do?
Fang Yuan tried the dream realm once again. This time when the Rank 4 Gu Master finished his speech that they shouldn't trust anyone, Fang Yuan immediately got up and yelled out, "Everyone, don't touch the food! An enemy has poisoned it!"
Everyone backed away from the buffet as one. Fang Yuan had made the declaration, and no one dared to eat anything. As soon as the enemy approached once more, this time, Fang Yuan was struck from the back. When he turned around to see who had attacked him, it was the Rank 4 Gu Master in question.
"But... why?" Fang Yuan asked.
The Rank 4 Gu Master sneered. "I was the one who poisoned the meals there, for a specific purpose, and yet you interfered with my plans. I can see you're already out of primeval essence and can't do anything in the upcoming fight. No need for you to see the next sunrise, traitor."
Fang Yuan was ejected from the dream realm again, repairing his soul with Guts Gu.
'What else am I missing?' he thought to himself. 'If only I had something like Unravel Dream to use here.' The dream started again, and he noted the gu in his aperture. There was something there which could have contradicted poison should he offer it to Do Ka. No, the others thought that he was a traitor, so that would mean that he would be implicated as well if he tried to make that kind of swap in the middle of the banquet.
In such a case, what if...?
An idea occurred to him, one that was kind of tricky, but he thought could work anyway. When Do Ka began digging into his venison, Fang Yuan used Benevolence Gu, transferring some of the poison to himself. He wasn't sure if it could be used in this way. It was certainly an unorthodox way of using it. Fang Yuan felt his body shiver under the effects of the poison. Thɪs chapter is updated by 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵·𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖·𝙣𝙚𝙩
However, his healing type gu activated. It seemed to have the intended effect as Do Ka certainly stopped eating, feeling that there was something off with the venison. "I think that there's something off with the venison," he said to himself, pushing it away and not taking another bite. He hadn't consumed enough to kill him yet, it seemed, and activated a healing-type gu worm of his own.
Fang Yuan for his part felt like he couldn't stand, having taken some of the burden of the poison away from Do Ka. The enemy attacked again, and Fang Yuan couldn't see how he could possibly go ahead and strike out at them, but then the dream realm ended. And this time, his attainment on the human path increased.
"Quasi-Great Grandmaster in the Human Path," he thought to himself. "So that was the solution to it."
By now, this meant that his greatest path, in terms of attainment level, was the human path, even superseding the blood path that he had taken centuries to master back during his previous life. That was the power of dream realms.
'No wonder everyone is after developing the Dream Path during this timeline,' Fang Yuan thought to himself. He had missed the train, so to speak, back during his old life, not being able to explore them back when development was still going on. However, now he could take full advantage of it, raising his attainment level extraordinarily rapidly.
Following this, Fang Yuan got up, noting that quite some time had passed. He returned to his bedroom, glancing at the paintings that Genesis Lotus Immortal Venerable had left for him.
The strange blank painting had developed another image after the Awakening Ceremony, depicting the youngsters and mortals going for their awakening. He had taken this away to see that there was another blank painting beneath it.
That blank one was still blank today, but there was something different about another one of them.
One of them that had been said to work when his understanding of the Human Path had increased...
The painting in question had changed and showed a basin with a young man sitting in the middle. There was lush greenery surrounding him. At the corner of the frame, a shadow seemed to be descending upon the scene, as if there were someone who was going to strike at the person in question from the sky.
'What is the secret to this?' he thought to himself.
Suddenly, the painting changed. It was like before when Genesis Lotus had placed a river of time into a painting, with it moving. Now, Fang Yuan watched as the shadow descending upon the man was more clearly visible.
The shadow, however, did not descend upon the man as Fang Yuan had been expecting. Instead, it revealed itself to be a man, and the man in question turned to stare directly at Fang Yuan before his hand emerged from the painting and latched onto Fang Yuan.
Fang Yuan found himself sucked into the painting!