Chapter 495 - 357: The 3 Silent Years
As Yu Ran’s corpse plummeted from the sky, Fang Qingyuan drew his gaze back from the distant White Mountain.
Whatever was happening on White Mountain, the matter at hand was what was most important.
The White Tiger Star Aspect swooped down, caught Yu Ran’s corpse in its jaws, and then returned to Fang Qingyuan’s side, head swaying and tail swishing.
He dismissed the Black Tortoise Star Aspect, which had cost an immense amount of primordial qi to summon. Every moment the star aspect existed was a massive drain on the Immortal Mansion Primordial Qi.
Fang Qingyuan gazed at Yu Ran’s corpse before him, lost in thought.
He’d been struck by a Godslaying Needle that had been charged for a long time. Normally, with Yu Ran’s level of cultivation, it shouldn’t have been enough to kill him. However, he had been immersed in an inexplicable sense of sorrow at the time, his guard completely down, which was why the single blow proved fatal.
Now, the inside of Yu Ran’s skull was a pulpy mess. The Godslaying Needle had instantly scrambled his brain to bits. Not even a Nascent Soul Cultivator could have survived such an injury; their only recourse would have been for their Nascent Soul to flee. Yu Ran was, without a doubt, deader than dead.
Looking at the white-haired old man who had jumped out to rob him, Fang Qingyuan let out a soft sigh. ’Was it really worth it? All for a single external object.’
’Now his hundreds of years of cultivation were gone in an instant, and I will have to bear the karma of the Yu Family.’
But what was done was done. Fang Qingyuan stopped dwelling on it. ’If the Yu Family has the guts, they can send more people.’
’I’ve already faced a Nascent Soul Cultivator, and what did they manage to do to me?’
’What were one hundred and fifty years of arduous cultivation for, if not for moments like this—to have the confidence to say no?’
Fang Qingyuan reached out and beckoned Yu Ran’s storage bag over. A quick scan with his divine sense revealed it to be a high-grade model with fifty units of space.
At this, Fang Qingyuan raised an eyebrow, a hint of pleasant surprise on his face.
Fifty-unit storage bags were notoriously hard to find; you couldn’t buy one even if you had the Spirit Stones. Fang Qingyuan had wanted one for a long time.
A bag this large likely held the entire fortune Yu Ran, a Late-stage Golden Core Cultivator, had amassed over several hundred years. It made sense. Yu Ran surely never imagined that in coming to deal with a mere Early-stage Golden Core Cultivator, he would meet such an unexpected end and be buried here.
The storage bag had a spiritual restriction left by Yu Ran, but that was no issue. It would only take ten days or so of slowly wearing it down to break it. When it came to spiritual soul, Fang Qingyuan was no weaker than a veteran Golden Core Cultivator like Yu Ran.
After stowing the storage bag, Fang Qingyuan turned his attention to Yu Ran’s body. Generally speaking, the corpse of a Golden Core Cultivator was a rather valuable cultivation resource.
Of course, that was mainly for cultivators who practiced the Corpse Dao or the Demonic Dao. Fang Qingyuan, on the other hand, practiced the orthodox Cultivation Technique of the Beast Taming Sect. He naturally had no intention of keeping the corpse to use for some scheme.
Once you started down certain paths, it was easy to get sucked in. After experiencing the rapid advancement offered by selfish and depraved Cultivation Methods like the Corpse Dao and Demonic Dao, it was nearly impossible to go back to practicing in a conventional, methodical way.
However, Fang Qingyuan wasn’t going to simply burn Yu Ran’s corpse either. In the fight against him, his Immortal Mansion had just expended a great deal of primordial qi. Burying the body in the Immortal Mansion and letting it dissolve back into the world, rather than just incinerating it, seemed to Fang Qingyuan like giving the man a modicum of dignity.
After all, not every Cultivator was willing to grant their enemy a proper burial.
So, there in the sky, Fang Qingyuan drew Yu Ran’s body into the Immortal Mansion. He then ordered the Long-armed Ape to strip the corpse of its robes and various Magical Artifacts before choosing a blessed spot with beautiful mountains and clear streams to bury it.
Naked he came, and naked he went.
The moment Yu Ran’s body was buried in the Immortal Mansion, Fang Qingyuan felt its primordial qi begin to recover rapidly.
The primordial qi concentration in the Immortal Mansion had been at its peak right after Fang Qingyuan’s Core Formation. However, after the confrontation with the Bow-holding Nascent Soul and the energy expended today to kill Yu Ran, the level of primordial qi in the Immortal Mansion had dropped noticeably.
’By my own calculations,’ Fang Qingyuan thought, ’if I consider the Immortal Mansion Primordial Qi right after Core Formation to be at one hundred percent, the battle with the Bow-holding Nascent Soul consumed nearly twenty percent. The Nascent Soul Level Black Tortoise Dharma Aspect I just manifested to secure victory, plus the fully-charged Godslaying Needle, consumed another fifteen percent combined.’
That was a total expenditure of thirty-five percent of his primordial qi—a serious drain on his reserves by any measure. Within the Immortal Mansion, some of the young Spirit Plants were visibly malnourished, their tender green leaves turning a withered yellow.
But now that Yu Ran’s body was buried, the Immortal Mansion’s primordial qi was rapidly replenishing. At this rate, in ten days, the total primordial qi should recover to over eighty percent of its maximum.
This was an incredible rate of recovery. By Fang Qingyuan’s estimates, restoring just ten percent of the primordial qi by slowly cultivating Spirit Plants would normally take five years.
Burying the corpse of a High-tier Cultivator, however, drastically shortened this process. Fang Qingyuan’s mind began to wander. ’If I can bury enough corpses in the Immortal Mansion in the future, can’t I use battle to sustain battle, growing stronger with every fight?’
Thinking of this, Fang Qingyuan chuckled. ’Where would I find so many enemies to kill? I haven’t had nearly enough of my peaceful life yet.’
Yu Ran’s Lifebound Magical Treasure was a sun wheel that had been refined to the tenth level. It resembled an Eight Trigrams Wheel and likely possessed all sorts of marvelous abilities, but Fang Qingyuan wasn’t versed in the eight trigrams and hadn’t studied such things.
’This Magical Artifact will most likely end up on the Black Market to be sold for cash,’ he thought. ’But not now. I’ll have to wait seven or eight years. Best to let this whole affair blow over first.’