During the refinement process, he actually suffered a backlash from the Gu worm!
The Wine Worm Gu carried Flower Wine Wanderer's powerful will. At this moment, it invaded the Aperture and brazenly struck back at Fang Yuan.
This powerful force of will crashed down from above, savagely striking toward the Bronze Primeval Sea at the bottom of the Aperture.
The Bronze Primeval Sea also churned with rolling waves, surging in crest after crest. Under Fang Yuan's will, great swathes of True Essence rose against the heavens, converging into a towering tidal wave that fiercely met the Wine Worm Gu's will head-on.
Just as the two sides were about to collide viciously in the center of the Aperture, a faint phantom of a Gu worm appeared in the empty space between them.
It was a cicada.
This cicada was not large. If the Moonlight Gu was a curved blue crystal like the moon, then this cicada resembled an exquisite craftwork made by a master artisan from brown wood and leaves.
Its head and abdomen were both brownish yellow, their surfaces marked with patterns like the growth rings of trees, as though they had witnessed the passage of time.
Its pair of wings were broad and translucent, like two overlapping leaves. Both wings bore similar patterns. They resembled the typical netted veins of a leaf, with a thick central stem from which web-like veins radiated to either side.
Spring Autumn Cicada!
It had been disturbed.
It was like a giant beast that had lain hidden, asleep within a cave, only to suddenly be awakened and discover that its territory had been invaded.
Who dared run wild on my territory!
As though its dignity had been offended, the Spring Autumn Cicada grew angry and released an aura.
This aura was weak, yet incomparably powerful. It was like the surging River of Heaven, rolling ever onward in vast, mighty waves, ready to sweep across ten thousand miles of green mountains and drown the boundless desert beneath the sky!
Compared to this aura, the Wine Worm Gu's will was like an ant before an elephant!
The aura swept outward in all directions, like an invisible, world-ending tsunami. The invading will of the Wine Worm Gu encountered this tsunami and had no power to resist. It was swallowed completely, without leaving a trace.
Fang Yuan felt a heaviness in his chest.
He desperately urged the Bronze True Essence surging upward against the current, but when it struck that aura, it was like a wave crashing into the Heavenly Mountain. The concentrated True Essence instantly fell apart, scattering like rain and pouring back down into the sea of True Essence.
Crash, crash.
The waves on the sea of True Essence rose and fell one after another, as though a torrential rain had descended, making the turmoil even greater.
But after several breaths, the Spring Autumn Cicada's aura spread downward and pressed upon the Primeval Sea.
Fang Yuan seemed to hear a hum. In an instant, the churning Primeval Sea froze still.
The Spring Autumn Cicada's aura firmly suppressed the entire Primeval Sea, like an invisible mountain bearing down upon it. Not a single ripple could rise upon the surface, which lay as calm as a mirror.
It was also like a sheet of paper once filled with wrinkles, suddenly covered and smoothed flat by the boundless hand of a giant formed from that aura.
This was simply unparalleled power!
Fang Yuan felt as though an invisible mountain had been placed upon his heart. Like the Monkey King trapped beneath Five Elements Mountain, he could not mobilize even a thread of True Essence.
Yet though he was shocked, he was not afraid. Instead, an intense joy welled up within him.
"I never expected the Spring Autumn Cicada to have been reborn alongside me! So it is not a one-time consumable Gu, but something that can be used repeatedly."
The Spring Autumn Cicada was as high-ranked as a Rank 6 Gu. It had been the first Rank 6 Gu worm Fang Yuan possessed in his previous life, and also the last. In order to refine it, Fang Yuan had exhausted every method and resource at his disposal, spent the strength of nine oxen and two tigers, and prepared for a full thirty years before succeeding by sheer luck.
But not long after his success, before he could even warm the Spring Autumn Cicada in his hands, the heroes of the righteous path sensed Fang Yuan's threat and joined forces to attack him, killing him.
After being reborn, Fang Yuan had not discovered the Spring Autumn Cicada and had assumed it had been annihilated. But in fact, it had remained within his body, sunk in slumber.
Reversing time by five hundred years in one stroke had greatly damaged its vitality. It was simply too weak—so weak that even Fang Yuan, its master, could not sense it.
Though the Spring Autumn Cicada had now appeared, its situation was still far from good.
Ever since his rebirth, it had been recuperating in slumber. It had only appeared now because it sensed the Aperture's crisis and had been awakened by the Wine Worm Gu's will.
It was weak—extremely weak, unimaginably weak.
In Fang Yuan's memories, the original Spring Autumn Cicada had brimmed with vitality. Its body had been like precious flooring, radiating a gentle, lustrous sheen. Its wings had been tender green, like two fresh leaves that had only just sprouted.
But now, a dense aura of slaughter and deathly silence emanated from the cicada's body. Its torso held not a trace of luster, appearing rough and dim like dead wood. Its wings were no longer tender green leaves, but suffused with withered yellow, like dying leaves about to fall in autumn. Even their tips curled slightly and were chipped, like the corners of fallen leaves.
Fang Yuan felt both heartache and relief at this sight.
His heart ached because the Spring Autumn Cicada had suffered such grave damage that it stood only a hair's breadth from annihilation, like a foot already hanging over the edge of a cliff.
He felt relieved because, fortunately, the Spring Autumn Cicada was weak to this extent. Otherwise, he would be in enormous trouble!
One had to know that a Gu Master and a Gu worm had to complement each other. Ideally, they should be of the same rank.
A Rank 1 Gu Master using a Rank 1 Gu worm was the most suitable arrangement.
If the Gu worm's rank was lower than the Gu Master's, using it was like a strong man wielding a little wooden stick—utterly lacking in force.
If the Gu worm's rank was higher than the Gu Master's, using it was like a child carrying a heavy battle-axe: his heart was willing, but his strength fell short.
The Spring Autumn Cicada was a Rank 6 Gu worm, while Fang Yuan was merely a tiny Rank 1 beginner Gu Master. To put it vividly, the Spring Autumn Cicada was a mountain, while Fang Yuan was a squirrel. If one made a squirrel carry a mountain into battle to smash its enemies, the squirrel would be flattened by the mountain at once.
If the Spring Autumn Cicada had been at its peak, Fang Yuan's tiny Rank 1 Gu Master Aperture could never have contained it. He would have been burst apart and killed by its vast aura.
Fortunately, it had weakened to the very limit, allowing Fang Yuan's current Aperture to contain it.
"I abandoned the Moonlight Gu and went through every possible effort to find the Wine Worm Gu, all to refine a Destined Gu. But in truth, I already had a Destined Gu. The Spring Autumn Cicada is my Destined Gu!" Feeling the intimate connection between himself and the Spring Autumn Cicada, Fang Yuan was overwhelmed with emotion.
A Destined Gu was the first Gu worm refined by a Gu Master. It was exceptionally important and, to a great extent, influenced the Gu Master's future development.
The better the chosen Destined Gu, the smoother a Gu Master's development would be. If the Destined Gu was of poor quality, it would hinder cultivation and allow peers to surpass the Gu Master. Most crucially, it would affect matters of life and death such as battle.
Fang Yuan understood this perfectly. Therefore, even after choosing the Moonlight Gu, the Gu worm that guarded Gu Yue village, he had still not been satisfied. He had gone through every possible effort to find the Wine Worm Gu.
In his memories, for a newly initiated Rank 1 Gu Master, the Wine Worm Gu was already a superior choice. The Moonlight Gu could only be considered above average.
But life was captivating precisely because people never knew what awaited them the next moment.
In his previous life, Fang Yuan had refined the Spring Autumn Cicada. After his rebirth, the Spring Autumn Cicada had fallen into slumber, but this refinement bond still remained.
Moreover, perhaps after being tempered by the River of Time, Fang Yuan discovered that his connection with the Spring Autumn Cicada was even more mysterious and closer than in his previous life. Only because the Spring Autumn Cicada was too weak had Fang Yuan failed to notice it.
Therefore, in the truest sense, the Spring Autumn Cicada was the first Gu worm he had refined.
It was simply that the Spring Autumn Cicada had not been refined in this life, but was the fruit of five hundred years of effort from his previous life.
The Spring Autumn Cicada was Fang Yuan's Destined Gu.
A Rank 1 Gu Master possessed a Rank 6 Gu, a Destined Gu!
If this matter were spoken aloud, likely no one would believe it! It had already shattered the limits of worldly understanding!
Yet this had indeed happened.
Facts could not be doubted.
"The Wine Worm Gu is an excellent choice for a Destined Gu, but compared to the Spring Autumn Cicada, it is mere mud beneath the ground! My Destined Gu in this life is actually the Spring Autumn Cicada—hahaha..."
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