Chapter 461: Prophecy of Three Venerables
Translator: ChibiGeneral Editor: ChibiGeneral
Several days later.
Carts rumbled and horses neighed.
Ge tribesmen arrived at crescent lake and set up camp around the sparse horseshoe trees.
Ge Guang and the Ge tribe’s higher-ups could finally heave a sigh of relief.
Aquatic plants were plentiful here along with large numbers of beast groups. They could hold a hunting festival and store provisions for their later journey.
“We finally arrived.” Fang Yuan was overwhelmed in his heart.
At night, he used the excuse of leading the wolf group to hunt to leave Ge tribe’s sight.
It was a moonless night, but there were many stars.
The wolf group sprinted against the flow of the night wind as they discovered several small-mid sized beast groups, devouring them one by one.
The wolf group excitedly howled, they had been in a half-starving state these days and now they could eat to their fill.
Even if he had a group of thirty thousand wolves, Fang Yuan still carefully maneuvered the wolf group’s movement. The wolf group might be of a large scale, but crescent lake had many dangers, there was an even larger group of water wolves, a three-horned rhino group and a group of a thousand mutated beasts, and finally, a worm group that had hundreds of thousands and even up to a million insects.
Of course these worm groups and beast groups had their own territory and would not move around everywhere like those on the grassland.
There was plenty of aquatic plants beside crescent lake; they did not need to move around to search for food.
As long as Fang Yuan and Ge tribe did not invade their territory, the beasts and worms would not find any issues with them.
According to his previous life’s memories, Fang Yuan moved along the lakeside towards the east and arrived at a stone forest.
This stone forest was very common; there were stone pillars which were grey, purplish black, greenish-yellow and so on, quietly standing straight with a precise distance between them.
There were many stone forests beside crescent lake, but this particular forest was rather special. If someone looked from high above, they would only see grey-white stone pillars and would discover that the stone pillars vaguely formed into a ‘thief’ 1 character.
This stone forest had a really impressive origin; it was personally created by Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable.
Back then, Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable requested Long Hair Ancestor to refine a Gu for him. Thus, he made a bet with him, he won three rounds out of five; the Long Hair Ancestor had no choice but to accept his loss and agreed to refine the Gu.
Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable wanted to enter the legendary space door all his life, and requested Long Hair Ancestor to refine the Immortal Gu — Space Escape Gu, an Immortal Gu that could allow a Gu Master to enter the space door.
He placed all his effort in researching the recipe for it. Long Hair Ancestor was very excited and felt that the recipe was good and proper, but there were some places that could be improved.
After discussing with Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable, the Demon Venerable became very happy and exclaimed that Long Hair Ancestor’s refinement path attainment far surpassed his.
The two immortals cooperated and spent twenty-one years to successfully refine ‘Space Escape Gu’.
However, although this Gu was refined and Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable could activate it, it was not able to enter the Space Door no matter what he did.
The Demon Venerable felt discouraged and the proud Long Hair Ancestor also suffered a huge setback.
Later, Long Hair Ancestor researched with Giant Sun Immortal Venerable but did not make any progress. The space escape Gu became the only failure in Long Hair Ancestor’s life.
It was said that even at his deathbed, Long Hair Ancestor could not forget this. His good friend Immortal Yi Yan could not endure seeing his old friend pass away like this and expended fifty years of his life to deduce the future.
He predicted that many years later, after three great eras, three venerables would appear, two men and one woman. The first was Spectral Soul Demon Venerable, second was Paradise Earth Immortal Venerable and third was Great Dream Immortal Venerable. As for the problem regarding the space escape Gu, it would be solved by Great Dream Immortal Venerable.
Immortal Yi Yan was a rank eight wisdom path Gu Immortal and was proficient in making predictions, he often made accurate one sentence predictions, and was thus known as Immortal Yi Yan 2 . And this deduced prophecy would later be known as the famous ‘Prophecy of Three Venerables’.
Sure enough, the world went through countless changes and continuously moved forward, after Giant Sun Immortal Venerable, Spectral Soul Demon Venerable appeared. After the Demon Venerable died, a rank nine male Gu Immortal appeared in righteous path and was, as predicted, known as Paradise Earth Immortal Venerable.
Now Paradise Earth Immortal Venerable was already dead, ‘Prophecy of Three Venerables’ was mostly complete, only Great Dream Immortal Venerable who has yet to be born remains.
Speaking of it, Long Hair Ancestor was both happy and sad at this prophecy.
Happy because the problem of space escape Gu could finally be resolved. Sad because he would not be able to see that day.
Long Hair Ancestor died and turned into a land spirit with only one obsession – to see Great Dream Immortal Venerable. As long as she solved the problem of space escape Gu, the whole Lang Ya blessed land would belong to her.
“Back then, when Long Hair Ancestor refined the space escape Gu for Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable, the result was a failure but they could not find the problem with it. Being greatly embarrassed, he promised to refine nine more Gu worms for Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable and he would even provide all the materials required to refine the Gu. Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable later requested Long Hair Ancestor to refine six Immortal Gu. Before Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable mysteriously disappeared, he set up his inheritances in the five regions and made an agreement with Long Hair Ancestor that the remaining three chances for Gu refinement will be left for his inheritor. Long Hair Ancestor agreed and the two made a secret code.”
“After more than a decade from now, one of the Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable’s inheritances would suddenly activate and be known by everyone. The content of the inheritance is a riddle and the riddle points towards Lang Ya blessed land. From then on, a craze of solving riddles in northern plains with countless people trying to solve it started. The rumors spread endlessly, but no one succeeded.”
“Later, Ma Hong Yun was forced to flee after being defeated on the battlefield and came running to crescent lake. At the lakeside, he encountered a premeditated ambush. Panicked and left with no choice, he ran over to this stone forest and accidentally discovered a passage in the stone forest. Going through this secret passage, he entered Lang Ya blessed land and met the land spirit. After getting the secret code right, Lang Ya land spirit refined three Gu worms for him as per the agreement.”
“Ma Hong Yun obtained these three rank five Gu and after recovering from his injuries, he returned to the stone forest and turned the tide with great might; starting all over again and finally, he obtained the throne of the imperial court for the second time.”
Fang Yuan recalled while slowly moving forward.
Then, his eyes brightened and he stopped before a purple stone pillar.
This stone pillar was also common, but a stone that was flat like a stool was near the bottom of the pillar.
During that time, after Ma Hong Yun was defeated, he was chased by the enemy troops and was already on the verge of death. He fled to this place and had nowhere to run with his injuries reaching a critical state.
He sat on this stone stool and gazed up at the sky while leaning on the stone pillar.
Suddenly, he felt that this stone pillar looked like his dear wife.
His consciousness was on the verge of collapsing, he used his blood-stained hand to gently caress the stone pillar and said with deep love: “Lian Yun, oh Lian Yun… I really regret not listening to your advice. I want to see you, I want to tell you personally: I love you, I was wrong…”
At this time, the enemies had already arrived and were raising their sabres high.
But at the next moment!
Ma Hong Yun suddenly disappeared; he had entered Lang Ya blessed land.
Fang Yuan sat at this stone stool, leaning on the pillar and gazing up.
But he could not see a woman’s appearance anywhere on the stone pillar.
Fang Yuan laughed uncontrollably: “It seems this Ma Hong Yun was just thinking of his wife when he stared at the stone pillar. His longing was so deep that he could see Zhao Lian Yun on anything.”
This Zhao Lian Yun was also a weird woman, in the future she became a wisdom path Gu Immortal and was a good wife to Ma Hong Yun, helping him strategise. But currently, she was only a little girl.
Fang Yuan took out a dagger and cut his flesh, letting the fresh blood smear this purple stone pillar.
Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable had put a mysterious Gu worm on this purple stone pillar. Blood was only the first criteria for its activation, there was still the second criteria, that was to say ‘I want’.
When Fang Yuan said these two words, his body instantly disappeared and his vision suddenly changed.
When he regained his senses, he was in a room.
In the room, the smell of an alchemy furnace wafted in the air. There were dragon pillars, golden curtains, crane lanterns and vermillion windows.
A sagely old man was sitting cross legged on a bed of cloud, his eyes closed as if he was meditating.
He was thin with white hair, having a beard that reached his chest and a ruddy face like that of a baby’s. He was wearing a wide robe and the two sleeves were fluttering in the air.
“Demon Venerable’s inheritor Chang Shan Yin has come to pay respects.” Fang Yuan touched his chest with his right hand and slightly bowed.
“You are Chang Shan Yin?” The old man slightly opened his eyes, his eyes flashed with bright light as he looked at Fang Yuan with a gaze that seemed to materialized, “This outer skin of yours is quite interesting. Hm… you used human skin along with shame plum, autumn voice grass. Hmm, there is also pill fire Gu, medicine strength Gu, and some…”
The land spirit frowned deeply and caressed his beard, a hesitant expression on his face.
He could actually see through Fang Yuan’s disguise and even roughly deduce human skin Gu’s recipe by just observing.
“Lad, do you want to exchange this Gu worm’s recipe? I will use a similar grade Gu worm to exchange for it. Or you can choose a similar grade Gu worm recipe. Ah, right! Secret code, the secret code!” After speaking for a while, the land spirit suddenly remembered the secret code and smacked his head.
Fang Yuan shrugged his shoulders: “The secret code that you created with the Demon Venerable back then? Ha, there is no secret code. As for the human skin Gu recipe, I cannot exchange it yet.”
“You don’t want to exchange? Why!” The land spirit was furious, a heavy pressure pressed down on Fang Yuan; he could not budge, his whole skeleton emitted creaking noises under the suppression.
But he sneered with no concern: “I have my reasons for not doing the exchange. You do not need to know about it!”
The land spirit laughed sinisterly: “Hehe, you don’t want to exchange, then I shall imprison you here and peel off your skin. After studying it few times, I can reverse engineer the recipe of this human skin Gu.”
“No, you can’t make a move on me.” Fang Yuan was confident, “I am Demon Venerable’s inheritor, you can’t do anything to me before the agreement of the three Gu is completed.”
According to Earth’s understanding, the land spirit was equivalent to an artificial intelligence.
Except that, this land spirit birthed from Long Hair Ancestor had quite a high intelligence and was good at scaring others. In his past life, Ma Hong Yun had been scared by the land spirit and lost the precious opportunity to refine Immortal Gu, refining only three rank five Gu. After that incident, Ma Hong Yun regretted it endlessly. After becoming a Gu Immortal, whenever he thought of this matter, he would wring his hands and sigh.
“You!” The land spirit blew its beard and opened its eyes which seemed to puff out fire; a posture that seemed ready to kill.
But Fang Yuan remained unmoved.
The land spirit kept on staring for a long while before suddenly turning exhausted like a ball that was leaking air.
He then scowled miserably and got off the bed of clouds, walking towards Fang Yuan and softly pleaded while pulling his sleeves: “Young lad, please do a good deed and exchange this recipe with me, please?!”
Fang Yuan was speechless!
This… what was this situation? His attitude change was way too fast!