The path of Gu refinement was always a lone journey through a thousand mountains, facing ten thousand perils alone.

Hu Fangyuan opened his eyes.

There was little ripple in his gaze.

He took a sharp dagger from his Storage Soul Tool.

The dagger was forged from refined steel, its gleaming edge sharp enough to sever a hair blown against it.

He raised the dagger before his eyes.

Its cold gleam reflected in his eyes.

He needed to cut a wound deep enough to expose the bone in his arm to draw out the four Gu worms.

Pain was inevitable.

Hu Fangyuan frowned slightly.

Anyone without something wrong with their mind would instinctively recoil from harming themselves.

But the next moment, he suddenly recalled the account at the beginning of The True Man's Biography.

For humanity's survival, Great God Pangu had crossed mountains and rivers, climbed peaks and traversed ridges, endured endless darkness, evaded primordial Ferocious Beasts, rejoined broken bones, and regrown gouged flesh. What suffering had he not endured?

Compared with all that.

What did this little pain of the flesh amount to?

To gain power, he had to learn to pay the price.

Hu Fangyuan's gaze sharpened.

He hesitated no longer.

He rolled up his left sleeve, exposing his forearm.

His right hand tightened around the dagger.

He aimed at the inside of his right arm.

His wrist sank.

"Shhk-"

The dagger's sharp edge sliced straight through skin and flesh.

Deep.

Deep enough to expose bone.

Even a little of the stark white bone showed.

Blood instantly welled up, streamed down his arm, and pattered onto the ground, spreading into blossoms of blood.

Agonizing pain exploded in an instant.

Like a red-hot knife gouging savagely into his flesh.

The muscles in Hu Fangyuan's face twitched.

Cold sweat sprang from his forehead at once and streamed down his cheeks.

He clenched his teeth so hard they nearly shattered.

He