Inside the bookworm, the Bone Herb Devil recounted his past. In his youth, he had merely been a lowly attendant under a Demonic Path Gu Master, destined to be refined into a Human Elixir Gu for longevity. At that time, he had no strength to resist, his fate already decided.
Yet fate shifted. Righteous Path Gu Masters suddenly pursued and killed that Demonic cultivator. Amid the chaos, he narrowly escaped death and even obtained a fragment of that man's inheritance.
From then on, he awakened his aperture and stepped onto the path of cultivation, specializing in the Wood Path. Having once brushed against death, he resolved to punish evil and aid the weak. For a time, he saved many Mortals and low-level Gu Masters, earning himself the title of a healer.
A hundred years passed in the blink of an eye. Through perseverance and opportunity, he cultivated to Rank 4 Peak, but his lifespan was nearing its end.
Between life and death lay the greatest terror. He searched everywhere for a Longevity Gu, yet found nothing. In the end, he recalled the Human Elixir Gu recipe from his youth. Laughing and weeping at once, he picked it up again… and secretly began harming others to refine Gu.
The Bone Herb Devil, once a respected Righteous Path Cultivator, ultimately fell into the Demonic Path. As for his state of mind in his later years, no one knew. Only one thing was certain—he had succeeded, extending his lifespan three times in succession.
To the outside world, he still appeared righteous, his reputation intact. Others were deceived by that image, unaware of the truth beneath. And even if some suspected… they were merely Mortals. Who would dare seek justice against a Rank 4 Gu Master?
After that, he lived another thirty years, only to once again face the end of his life. This time, however, the Human Elixir Gu could no longer save him. Aside from Longevity Gu, all methods of extending life had limits—let alone something only at Rank 3.
He had tasted longevity. How could he willingly let it slip away?
He went mad and focused entirely on Human Elixir Gu, attempting to push it further—to create a higher-ranked longevity method, or even derive a completely new Gu.
To achieve this, the Bone Herb Devil spared no effort. He used every connection he had to gather resources, sold off his own Gu in exchange for primeval stones, and slaughtered numerous Gu Masters to fuel his experiments. In the end, he did manage to achieve some results.
But the Heavenly Dao is never predictable. His actions were eventually exposed. He fled across the desert, hiding among different oases, until he was finally cornered by the Huang Family at Shajing Oasis, suffering grievous wounds that could not be healed.
Unwilling to accept death, he hastily left behind his Legacy before dying at the edge of Han Family Village, not even having the time to set up proper Demonic Path safeguards.
After reading all this, Lin Yan understood. No wonder Mo Han, a mere Rank 2 Gu Master, had been able to obtain the Human Elixir Gu recipe so easily.
But at the same time, his heart sank slightly. In his obsession with longevity, the Bone Herb Devil had consumed vast amounts of resources. After being exposed and hunted, his core Gu were likely destroyed one after another.
Although this was a inheritance left behind by a Rank 4 expert, the actual gains might not be as great as one would expect.
"Lifespan… and Heaven Will…" Lin Yan murmured quietly.
His gaze grew deep. Gu Masters shared a cruel truth—their cultivation did not extend their lifespan. Whether Rank 1 or Rank 9, their natural lifespan was no different from that of an Ordinary person.
Only Lifespan Gu could change that. Some granted a year, others decades, centuries, even thousands of years.
At the Gu Immortal level, their methods reach the heavens, allowing them to gather large amounts of Lifespan Gu and extend their lives. Mortal Gu Masters, however, rarely encounter such opportunities, and most eventually turn to dust within a few hundred years.
In theory, with enough Lifespan Gu, even Mortals could live forever, and Rank 9 Immortal Venerables could exist endlessly. But in reality, that is impossible. Lifespan Gu cannot be refined by humans; they are naturally formed between heaven and earth.
If classified by path, They belong to the rarest path known as Heaven Path. Because of this, Lifespan Gu is also one of the ways Heaven's Will controls the fate of all beings.
If your end has arrived and Heaven's Will has decided your death, then no matter how hard you search, you will never obtain a Lifespan Gu. But if your life is not meant to end yet, even at your lowest point, a Lifespan Gu might appear before you.
Heaven's Will governs all beings—not only one's experiences and rise or fall, but even birth and death itself. None of it is truly in your hands.
"That is why everyone wants to destroy Heavenly Court's Fate Gu."
Lin Yan looked at the sky. The main plot of the original work was very simple: Heaven's Will and the ten Great Venerables, based on their respective positions, some wanted to destroy, some wanted to preserve, and some wanted to interfere without destroying. They entangled and intertwined, forming a vast, unseen game, with Fang Yuan as one of the key pieces.
"I wonder… am I even worth Heaven's Will's attention? Probably not."
He thought to himself that Heaven's Will was not truly hostile toward otherworldly demons. It brought transmigrators into this world to make use of the foreign dao marks on their bodies, gradually completing the Gu World itself. It did not go out of its way to suppress them.
In the original story, many such people lived quite freely. After all, once they entered this world, they were already within it—like meat placed in a pot. Sooner or later, they would age, weaken, and die.
And when that time came… everything would return to Heaven's.
As for why Fang Yuan's life had been so miserable, it was likely due to his uniqueness. The otherworldly dao marks on his body were special, something even the original novel never fully revealed, leaving it as a lingering foreshadowing.
"Moreover, if Heaven's Will were paying attention to me, things wouldn't be this calm. My path would be full of twists and upheavals."
Even so, Lin Yan felt a faint unease. Before heaven and earth, he was like someone stripped bare—aside from his thoughts, everything else could be seen through.
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