Qing Shu rushed into the room despite Fang Zheng's protests, though his gentle smile was replaced by a frown.
"There's no one here!"
Him and his two team members lost their easygoing looks and frantically looked around.
There was not a trace of Fang Yuan there!
"Can you feel anything?" Qing Shu asked Qing Mao.
"I... he must be too far away," Qing Mao said. He had methods to track Gu Masters, but being Rank 2, their range was limited and they could be blocked through various means- gu and non-gu included.
"Where is he?" Qing Shu asked, turning to Fang Zheng.
Fang Zheng, for that matter had a look of shock as well. His brother had told him that he would be cultivating in this room- but from the look of things he had placed a sign on his door and then crawled out of one of the windows to go elsewhere. Had he been expecting something ?
"I... don't know..." Fang Zheng said.
Yao Hong grabbed him by the front of his robe. "Tell us where he is or..."
She was stopped by Qing Shu. "Enough. Fang Zheng, do you know where Fang Yuan is?"
"No, but if I did I wouldn't exactly tell the likes of you! What kind of teammates are you people?"
"Why you-" Qing Mao began before he too was waved aside by Qing Shu.
"We don't have time to waste then," Qing Shu said. "The village is only so big- and Fang Yuan only has a few associates. Let us look around where he could possibly be."
"Perhaps he went to the cave where he found the Flower Wine Monk's inheritance again to cultivate?"
"I heard he has a business partner he sells Vitality Leaves to- let's look there!"
These were all good guesses- but there were only three of them and they didn't all have good investigative abilities. The village and its surrounding areas was large, and despite asking around it seemed that no one had recently seen Fang Yuan- they all pointed them to places like the wine tavern or his apartments when pressured.
Night came and dawn as well, yet they were no closer to locating Fang Yuan when they had first started. They had looked in all the obvious places, even going to Jiang Ya's house and the old apartment
"Someone must've seen him wandering around!"
"What if he has some kind of stealth gu worm? He hasn't revealed it to use, but it doesn't meant that he doesn't have one!"
"Or he could've bought one..."
Fang Yuan, meanwhile, was focused on the dark red primeval essence in his aperture assaulting the crystal walls. The increase to his aptitude after refining the Four Flavors Liquor Worm had allowed him to prepare aptly beforehand, but even then, this breakthrough was going to set him back about two thousand primeval stones.
And while the time taken to break through had been reduced by ten hours thanks to the same, it had still taken him three days of intense focus during which he had not slept or eaten more than a few mouthfuls in between periods of attacking his aperture.
His efforts finally bore fruit as the crystal walls could not take the assault any further and shattered, and white primeval essence began to mix in with the remaining red primeval essence in his aperture.
Rank 3 primeval essence!
The crystal walls had once again been replaced with a light membrane.
In his old life, it had taken him more than a century to reach this level, which had only been possible with a talent-raising gu worm. In this life, without they system's help, he would've needed the 'cooperation' of a female Gu Master and a bear.
Main mission successful!
Details regarding the combined inheritance of Paradise Earth Immortal Venerable and Genesis Lotus Immortal Venerable are being downloaded now...
Fang Yuan let out a gasp of pain- in his current state the shock of having the information injected directly into his brain felt like someone had beat him over the head with a hammer.
'That's... where it is...' he thought to himself.
Coincidentally, the location was located at only eighty li from the village, well within the range of the Hundred Li Earth Wolf Spider. If Fang Yuan so wished, he could disembark on it the very next day to reach this location.
With that said, he could not actually do so. For one, he had nearly exhausted his primeval stone reserves and would need time to gather more resources. The Hundred Li Earth Wolf Spider was a Rank 4 gu worm, though since he was using it for movement not necessarily in a combat sense this wasn't much of an issue though he would need a good number of stones to sustain it with his Rank 3 primeval essence.
The location where it was was still outside of the village confines, and though Rank 3 Gu Masters could usually wander anywhere that was assuming that they had a set of Rank 3 gu worms with them. Fang Yuan had the Rank 4 Hundred Li Earth Wolf Spider to use as a mount but its combat abilities were not very good. The Doctor Gu was rank 3 but was only useful for healing.
At the very minimum, he needed a Rank 3 offensive gu and an investigative one if he wanted to wander outside of the village. He could somewhat make do if his other gu worms were only Rank 2- he didn't need a Rank 3 storage gu necessarily for example, but a Rank 3 defensive gu worm would be helpful even if in a less than ideal circumstance he could make do without one so long as he had a good investigative gu worm.
All of this meant that he would need time to prepare before heading out to reach this inheritance.
As for the inheritance itself, he wasn't overtly worried about what he might encounter. If this were say, Spectral Soul Demonic Venerable's inheritance there would be great cause for concern before going in- but this was a righteous path inheritance. Not only that, but half of it was from Paradise Earth Immortal Venerable, who could be said to be the most harmless Venerable. Fang Yuan was not concerned about being injured while going to explore it.
That, however, would have to wait for some time while he got his business in order.
He exited the room that he was cultivating in.
"You're done?" Yu Sai asked. Fang Yuan had been looking for somewhere nondescript to cultivate, and Yu Sai was living in a roughshod house at the village outskirts. Since he didn't do any missions just like Fang Zheng, he had been kicked out of his family's house. Not that it mattered to him, who had already pretty much given up on getting anywhere in life long ago.
Fang Yuan remembered Yu Sai from that time he had borrowed his Moonlight Gu, and thought that this would be one of the last places that they'd come look for him given he had never been here before. That made tracking him down with investigative gu worms a problem as well.
Yu Sai had been offered five primeval stones to let Fang Yuan stay there and cultivate, but he hadn't expected him to succeed so soon. To get to Rank 3 was a massive jump and he had doubts as to whether or not even a genius like Fang Yuan would be able to reach it in a single attempt.