"Come and see! Newly woven straw shoes! All sizes available! Custom orders accepted in advance! Forget half a primeval stone, it's only a tiny half! A tiny half primeval stone for a pair, half a stone for a whole basket!"
The bustling market was crowded with people and carriages, a cacophony of shouting and bargaining filling the air.
A young man in coarse hemp clothing spread a straw mat on the roadside. Neatly arranged on the mat were straw shoes of all shapes and sizes, with a basket of pre-made stock beside him, as he hawked his wares energetically.
The youth was covered in dust, his clothes old and worn. His hands, constantly chafed by straw rope, were covered in thick callouses.
He nimbly wove new shoes while shouting at the top of his lungs, hoping to attract passersby.
But after shouting for a long time, most pedestrians only gave a fleeting glance and kept walking; no one was willing to stop and look.
The youth's eyes flickered, an idea forming in his mind. He immediately changed his pitch, his voice becoming even louder:
"Put on these straw shoes and run like the wind!"
"No slipping on mountains or in water, no wet feet on rainy days! Most practical for long journeys!"
Even with such shouting, there were still no buyers.
The sun gradually dipped toward the west, dyeing the horizon a deep red. The late glow spilled onto the street, making it seem even more desolate.
Seeing only three pairs of shoes left on the mat, the youth frowned slightly and sighed heavily. He slowly rolled up the mat and packed it, along with the shoes, into his bamboo basket.
Today, he had only sold three pairs. The primeval stones earned were pitifully few, not even enough to cover his basic rent.
To save some primeval stones for rent, he could only endure his hunger and drag his exhausted body toward his lodging.
Just then, a scene at the street corner made his eyes light up.
Three or four wild dogs were gathered by the roadside, fighting frantically over some salt-baked chicken feet discarded by a passerby.
Barking filled the air as the wild dogs bared their teeth, biting and pouncing on each other. Fur, mud, and filth were muddled together in a messy display.
"If I can snatch those salt-baked chicken feet, I'll have a bite of meat for dinner tonight."
A thought stirred in the youth's mind, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes as his footsteps instinctively faltered.
But just as he took half a step forward, he saw many pedestrians still passing by and had to stop himself.
To fight with wild dogs for food under the watchful eyes of the public—he truly couldn't lower himself to do it; his dignity wouldn't allow it.
Fortunately, after watching the spectacle for a moment, the passersby hurried on, and the corner gradually grew quiet.
The youth felt a surge of joy. Seizing the moment while the dogs were preoccupied with their fight, he lunged forward.
He was much larger than the dogs. With a few shoves, he forced them back and tightly gripped the salt-baked chicken feet in his hand.
In truth, if this were the past, he would have killed a wild dog for food to survive; he would never have fallen so low as to compete with them for scraps.
But ever since a new high official who loved canines took office in the city, everything had changed.
A new official's first three fires—and the first fire had burned right through the youth's livelihood.
He had publicly decreed that no one was allowed to capture or kill the city's wild dogs, with severe punishments for violators.
But this high-and-mighty, dog-loving official only thought about whether the dogs would be killed or cooked. He never considered that when no one dared to kill the dogs, their numbers would swell and they would fight more fiercely for food. He never thought about whether the desperate, starving commoners would be forced to compete with dogs for food.
In his eyes, humans were naturally noble; how could they possibly fall to the level of fighting dogs for scraps?
He couldn't see the refugees dying of cold and hunger on the streets because his subordinates had long since hidden those miserable sights, showing him only the surface-level prosperity and stability of the city.
He couldn't hear the wails of the hungry commoners; those around him only offered sycophantic praise, speaking lies of national peace and prosperity, lulling him into a daze where he knew nothing of human suffering.
As a Gu Master, he required a large amount of primeval stones to maintain his cultivation. His thoughts were nothing more than how to legally embezzle and be corrupt, how to amass wealth, and how to use his power to line his own pockets.
His mind was already filled with those flattering words, filled with power and interests.
Therefore, his mind could no longer hold even a bit of the suffering of the common people.
Even if he occasionally heard of their hardships, he would turn a blind eye and never truly do anything to change it.
He ordered the ban on killing wild dogs, publicly claiming it was to prevent the spread of plague and ensure the safety of the people.
But if he truly ordered a ban on humans competing with dogs for food, what high-sounding reason could he give?
Would he admit his own incompetence in governing, that the people were so destitute they had to fight dogs to survive?
That would be like exposing his own flaws and slapping his own face.
As for why he didn't ban the mistreatment of wild dogs, the reason was even simpler—
His direct superior actually favored such behavior. If he were to publicly ban it, he would be openly defying his superior and cutting off his own future.
Thus, under the "protection" of this high official, such an absurd scene appeared in this world:
Humans fighting wild dogs for food was within the rules;
But humans killing dogs to survive became a crime punishable by severe penalties.
The youth tightly gripped the salt-baked chicken feet and hurried back to his simple, dilapidated hut.
He knew very well that the person before him was himself five hundred years ago.
Back then, Fang Yuan had no spring autumn cicada, no five hundred years of Rebirth memories, and certainly not his current cultivation and battle strength. He was merely a pitiful man living a precarious existence, destitute and selling straw shoes, even forced to fight wild dogs for food.
And all these scenes before him were merely a past-life Dream Realm he had entered while trying to collect Dream Path gu materials.
Within the Dream Realm, Fang Yuan could freely obtain Dream Path gu materials. The salt-baked chicken feet he had just snatched would transform into actual Dream Path gu materials once taken out of the dream.
Having obtained the salt-baked chicken feet, Fang Yuan did not linger. He actively channeled his power to leave the Dream Realm and slowly woke up from the dream.
Upon opening his eyes, the images of fighting dogs for food in his past life vividly surfaced in his mind.
In his past life, how could he have cared about the gaze of others? He had immediately pounced forward to fight the dogs.
Unluckily, that dog-loving official was nearby and immediately ordered his men to give him a severe beating.
In the end, the salt-baked chicken feet were snatched back and eaten by the dogs. He took a beating for nothing, didn't even get a taste of the meat, and couldn't bear to spend money on food, so he went hungry all night.
Now, revisiting his past through the Dream Realm and comparing it to his current self, Fang Yuan couldn't help but feel a sense of reflection.
As for that dog-loving official, he was still alive in this world, but Fang Yuan couldn't be bothered to specifically seek him out for revenge.
Such a character was insignificant in his eyes; he felt it beneath him even to bend down and trample him.
After five hundred years of drifting through the world, he had long since seen through the warmth and coldness of human relations and the fickleness of the world, becoming indifferent.
In his heart, there were only two words:
Persistence.
His gaze was fixed only on eternal life.
Fang Yuan had explored Dream Realms like this, which recreated his difficult past years, countless times. He had used them to collect a vast amount of Dream Path gu materials and refine a large number of Dream Path mortal Gu.
It was by relying on these Dream Path mortal Gu that he could gather enough numbers to successfully activate the Unravel Dream Killer Move multiple times.
After the battle of Yi Tian Mountain ended, all the Gu Immortal forces in the Southern Border kept their eyes fixed on this battlefield.
The place where Fang Yuan once seized the Rank Nine Supreme Immortal Fetus Gu was now covered in vast Dream Realms, which were early on occupied and controlled by the Southern Border Righteous Path forces.
After the battle of White Bone Blessed Land, the various Righteous Path forces of the Southern Border truly acknowledged the powerful strength of the Gu Yue Clan for the first time.
Therefore, a share of the super Dream Realm that appeared at Yi Tian Mountain was specifically allocated to the Gu Yue Clan.
The Supreme Grand Elder of the Southern Border's super force Chi Clan, Chi Qu You, who was a formation path Great Grandmaster, took the initiative to propose to the Southern Border Righteous Path to build a giant super Gu Formation around the periphery of the Yi Tian Mountain super Dream Realm.
Every super force involved needed to contribute immortal gu to jointly construct this grand formation.
To secure a place, the Gu Yue Clan invested six rank six immortal gu and three Rank Seven immortal gu into this super Gu Formation.
The number of immortal gu contributed by other Southern Border Righteous Path super forces was roughly equivalent.
In addition to the immortal gu, each Family had to dispatch their own Gu Immortals to personally station and maintain the operation of the Gu Formation.
The Gu Yue Clan dispatched Rank Seven Gu Immortal Scarless White, along with two Rank Six Gu Immortals—Clan Leader and Gu Yue Yao Le.
The Southern Border Righteous Path Gu Immortals relied on the super Gu Formation to firmly control the Yi Tian Mountain super Dream Realm.
At the same time, they also dispatched Gu Immortals from their clans to explore deep within, hoping to seize the initiative and prepare for the prophecy of the 'Three Venerables.'
Legend has it that a magnificent Great Era is coming, which will be the Great Era of Dream Path's flourishing development. Old forces will be continuously eliminated, new powers will rise one after another, and the landscape will be completely rewritten.
But the Southern Border Righteous Path Gu Immortals, although they all knew that Dream Path would be crucial in the future and were all coveting this super Dream Realm...
...most of them only had a superficial understanding of how to explore dreams and couldn't grasp the key.
They spent a great deal of time and energy, but after much effort, they had almost no substantial or significant gains.
However, in the process of continuously exploring the Dream Realm, they also gradually realized the importance of soul foundation for dream exploration.
AI Model: gemini-3.1-flash-lite
When it comes to improving one's soul foundation, the best paths are the courage gu from Soul Searching Mountain, as well as the luo po wind and bewitching fog from Luo Po Valley.
It just so happens that the Gu Yue Clan holds both the Soul Path Secret Realm of Luo Po Valley and Soul Searching Mountain.
Relying on these two Secret Realms, the Gu Immortals in the clan can rapidly strengthen their soul prowess.
The existence of the super dream Realm has also indirectly caused the clan's resources and income to increase significantly.
As a person who had undergone Rebirth, Fang Yuan carried five hundred years of complete memories and possessed deep knowledge of countless Dream Path common sense and secrets from the future.
He mastered an Immortal Path Killer Move called "Dream Unraveling," which allowed Gu Immortals to explore dream Realms with greater ease; this was a massive advantage that no other faction possessed.
However, activating the "Dream Unraveling" Killer Move required consuming a vast quantity of Dream Path mortal Gu, and refining these mortal Gu required a massive amount of Dream Path gu materials as a foundation.
This explains the scene at the beginning of this chapter where Fang Yuan repeatedly entered the dream Realm of his past life to collect salt-baked chicken claws in exchange for gu materials.
To this day, Fang Yuan had already accumulated a sufficient number of Dream Path Gu insects, and with the help of the courage gu produced by Soul Searching Mountain, he had raised his soul foundation to the level of thirty million man-souls.
With everything prepared, he stepped directly into the super Gu Formation and officially began exploring the super dream Realm within.
The first dream Realm Fang Yuan explored within the super dream Realm was one left behind by a Wisdom Path Gu Immortal.
In this dream Realm, he experienced everything firsthand as the original owner of the dream—
This original owner was originally a Wisdom Path Gu Immortal who lived freely and sought vengeance; years ago, he fought a life-and-death battle with his enemy, slaughtering the entire Family, but in a moment of soft-heartedness, he failed to cut off the roots and left behind only the enemy's young child.
If he had simply abandoned the child at that time and let him fend for himself, it would have been fine.
But this Gu Immortal happened to be soft-hearted for a moment, taking him in, raising him to adulthood, and even meticulously teaching him the cultivation methods of Gu Masters and Gu Immortals.
Unfortunately, good intentions do not always lead to good rewards; the Disciple he raised was not one who knew how to repay kindness, but an ungrateful wolf with white eyes.
After this child grew up, he encountered constant Opportunities and received the true teachings of a Gu Immortal, his cultivation deepening day by day.
By chance, he learned that his Master was the very enemy who had wiped out his entire clan years ago; he immediately turned hostile and heartless, putting on a righteous facade, and killed the Master who had raised him.
After Fang Yuan understood the cause and effect, he had already made a decision in his heart: he wanted to cut off the roots while the child was still young to eliminate future troubles.
However, the dream Realm had its own rules and constraints, and he could not arbitrarily force changes to key nodes, so he could not take action directly for the time being.
After a moment of thought, a plan emerged in Fang Yuan's mind; looking at the still-young child before him, he thought to himself:
"Education must start from childhood; dealing with such an ungrateful wolf who would betray his Master in the future naturally requires laying out plans from a young age."
One day, this future wicked Disciple was, as usual, calmly nourishing his aperture, mobilizing the primeval sea within his aperture to constantly impact the aperture walls, attempting to Breakthrough his cultivation Realm.
With Fang Yuan sparing no resources to fully support him, his cultivation progressed extremely quickly; at this rate, it wouldn't be long before he could successfully undergo Undergoing Tribulation and ascend to become a Gu Immortal.
"Disciple, you are up so early again to nourish your aperture; you are truly diligent and hardworking, and this Master is very pleased."
Fang Yuan wore a gentle and kind smile on his face, his tone intimate, as he walked up slowly and gently patted the other party's shoulder.
"Master, Disciple is now at Rank Five cultivation and will be able to achieve Immortal Ascension before long; once Disciple becomes a Gu Immortal and possesses sufficient strength, I will be able to protect Master well!"
The child opened his clear eyes, his smile innocent and filial, as if he completely did not know that the Master who treated him so kindly before him was the very person he would kill in the future.
"Hahaha, good, good, my Disciple has finally grown up and knows to care for and protect his Master."
Fang Yuan laughed out loud, his expression kind, like an Elder watching his junior grow up and enjoying Family happiness.
"Master raised me, and taught me all the Great Dao of cultivation; for such great kindness, Disciple will naturally repay it with all his heart." The child looked serious, his eyes appearing incomparably sincere.
"Disciple, you have truly grown up..."
Fang Yuan gently wiped the corner of his eye, seemingly moved by these words, then forcibly steadied his emotions and took a bookworm out from his aperture, handing it to the child:
"Disciple, seeing that you are about to step onto the Immortal Path, it is time to teach you some true Immortal Path Killer Move."
"Inside this bookworm is recorded an Immortal Path Killer Move that can be used all the way to the Rank Eight Realm, called 'Eight Eight Eighty-Eight'; it will be of great use for your future cultivation and combat!"
"Thank you, Master! Master's great kindness and virtue, Disciple will definitely keep in mind for this life and dare not forget!"
The child's eyes were filled with tears, his face full of gratitude, as he respectfully received the bookworm with both hands, his gaze toward Fang Yuan filled with admiration and reverence.
It was a scene of a harmonious Master and Disciple with deep affection; if an uninformed person saw it, they would certainly be moved by this bond.
Time flowed on, and many years passed in a flash.
Under Fang Yuan's deliberate cultivation, the wicked Disciple's strength grew rapidly, he encountered constant Opportunities, and his cultivation Realm soon surpassed his former Master.
Later on, he realized that his Master no longer had any Advanced things to teach him and had almost no utility value to him anymore.
By chance, he learned the truth that he was an orphan because the Master before him had wiped out his entire clan years ago; he instantly became ferocious, turned completely hostile, and came straight to Fang Yuan to seek revenge.
"Master, years ago, you killed my entire clan; even though you have the kindness of raising and teaching me, you also have a blood feud with me that cannot coexist..."
The wicked Disciple stood before Fang Yuan, speaking eloquently, his mouth full of righteous and vengeful reasoning.
But Fang Yuan couldn't be bothered to listen to a single word of his nonsense; he directly retorted and simultaneously activated his Gu insects, launching a fierce attack first.
Fang Yuan knew clearly in his heart that this wicked Disciple possessed an Immortal Path Killer Move; as long as he believed he held the moral high ground and was justified, the power of this Killer Move would surge significantly.
At this moment, Fang Yuan attacked aggressively while stripping away his hypocritical facade layer by layer.
The wicked Disciple's state of mind gradually became chaotic, unable to maintain his sense of justification, and the power of his Killer Move was greatly reduced; he immediately felt that something was wrong.
Even though he fell into a disadvantage, the wicked Disciple still gritted his teeth and held on, stubbornly saying:
"Master, I have long since repaid your kindness of raising me; but I cannot fail to take revenge for the blood feud of my clan! From today on, I sever all ties with you, and we have no relationship anymore!"
"Master! You taught me many Killer Moves back then; today, I will use the first Immortal Path Killer Move you taught me to demand repayment of this blood debt!"
"Immortal Path Killer Move—Eight Eight Eighty-Eight!!!"
The wicked Disciple shouted angrily, exerting his full power to activate the Killer Move that Fang Yuan had taught him back then.
Light surged, aura surged, and the power of "Eight Eight Eighty-Eight" erupted instantly, forcibly blocking Fang Yuan's offensive.
But just at this moment, Fang Yuan looked up and laughed, his voice calm and indifferent:
"Disciple, you are too naive; I lied to you; the real Killer Move is Eight Eight Sixty-Six!!!"
As his voice fell, Fang Yuan activated the true hidden power of the Killer Move.
The might of "Eight Eight Sixty-Six" was far from what the fake move activated by the wicked Disciple could compare to; as the blow landed, the wicked Disciple was heavily injured.
The wicked Disciple was covered in blood, his body broken and tattered, his face full of disbelief and confusion, staring fixedly at Fang Yuan, but he could not say a word; his breath ceased, and he died with his eyes wide open.
He would never understand until his death that the so-called "Eight Eight Sixty-Six" was also a false facade.
8 × 8 = 64; what Fang Yuan taught him from the beginning was a completely useless fake Killer Move;
And what he himself activated was not any real powerful means either.
After killing the wicked Disciple and successfully clearing this Wisdom Path dream Realm, Fang Yuan's own Wisdom Path attainment directly broke through from the Quasi-Grandmaster Realm and was steadily raised to the Wisdom Path Great Grandmaster Realm.
After becoming a Wisdom Path Great Grandmaster, Fang Yuan used courage gu to repair the damage to his soul, rested calmly for a day, and after his state was fully restored, he stepped into a dream Realm again.
This time, what he encountered was a dream Realm from a Gu Immortal of the Central Continent's Battle Immortal Sect.
This Battle Immortal Sect Gu Immortal came from three hundred thousand years ago, specialized in Water Path, and lived a life of obscurity and mediocrity.
In the dream Realm, Fang Yuan accompanied him through his entire life, from his youth when he first started cultivating until his final death in battle; he experienced every key stage firsthand.
After thoroughly exploring this Water Path dream Realm, Fang Yuan successfully grasped the essence of Water Path and became a Water Path Quasi-Grandmaster.
Subsequently, he used the "Everyone is Equal" Killer Move to directly push his Water Path attainment to Water Path Grandmaster.
After stabilizing his Water Path Grandmaster Realm, Fang Yuan went into seclusion to cultivate diligently, lingering day and night in Soul Searching Mountain and Luo Po Valley.
Before long, his soul foundation surged significantly again, breaking through to the level of one hundred million man-souls; the thickness of his soul far exceeded that of ordinary Gu Immortals.
After his soul reached the level of one hundred million man-souls, Fang Yuan activated Fixed Immortal Travel, teleporting directly to the Western Desert to enter the Heaven Refining Dream Realm.
Inside the Heaven Refining Dream Realm, he not only obtained the complete Gu recipe for the Sneak Attack Gu but also deepened his understanding of Thievery Path significantly, successfully promoting to a Thievery Path Quasi-Supreme Grandmaster.