Hu Fangyuan

Biodata

Power Progression

Background / History

Hu Fangyuan transmigrated before birth, retaining only fragments of his previous life: modern buildings, vehicles, computers, and the name “Earth.” Born into Lingbi City’s Hu Family, he awakened level-six innate Soul Power at six. His father, family head Hu Heming, initially favored him, but his apparently ineffective furnace Martial Soul gradually cost him both attention and resources 1 3 6.

His mother’s standing rose briefly with his promising awakening, then declined as his combat potential disappointed the family. Her care for him also diminished. Hu Fangyuan understood the pressures behind her resentment, but finding her corpse during the Hu Family massacre still caused him genuine grief 6.

The massacre left him determined to escape not only violent death but mortality itself. He adopted godhood and eternal life as his ultimate goals, reasoning that ordinary strength could not protect him from the passage of time 4 7.

Appearance

Initially described as an ordinary-looking, delicate-featured boy with a thin build, Hu Fangyuan becomes noticeably taller and broader after implanting his four Strength Path Gu 9 54.

• After the four-Gu implantation: broader shoulders and back, with a more defined jawline 54.
• After Four Symbols Iron Body Gu fusion: a thick chest, defined abdominal muscles, and lean, proportionate limbs 71.
• Distinguishing feature: smooth, taut skin with a faint iron-gray sheen following the fusion 71.

Personality

Hu Fangyuan is openly pragmatic about relationships. He tells Gu Yue that mutual interest is friendship’s strongest bond and approaches her because he believes both of them have exceptional prospects. He is also wary of accepting unnecessary gifts, considering debts of gratitude difficult to repay 33 34 57.

His behavior changes readily when his interests change. After condemning Eastsea Academy’s inadequate resources and preparing to withdraw, he becomes effusively flattering when Wu Changkong offers financial support. Gu Yue and Wu Changkong both come to regard him as a “pure egoist” 16 17 46.

He combines caution with considerable self-confidence. He conceals the true source of his bodily improvements, recognizes the danger of exposing Blood Skull Gu, and avoids probing Gu Yue’s powerful backing too openly. Despite dominating other students, he remains conscious that high-ranking Soul Masters could easily kill him 5 26 50 57 69.

His pursuit of strength is disciplined and sometimes ruthless. He endures painful Gu implantation and feeding procedures, maintains a demanding training schedule, and uses his dead relatives as cultivation resources while promising revenge. His brutality is not always calculated: frustration over failed refinements contributes to his excessive treatment of Class Three’s competitors 4 5 35 46 58.

Abilities & Skills

Heaven Refining Furnace

His tool-type Martial Soul bridges the incompatible laws of the Gu world and the Douluo world 3.

• Converts Soul Power into Dao marks needed for Gu refinement, and converts Gu power into forms the local world can accept 3.
• Imprints or activates Dao marks in materials, greatly shortening preparation compared with ordinary Gu-refining methods 13 19.
• Provides precise material control and can automatically maintain portions of the refinement process 13 14 35.
• Contains an internal Gu space suited to nurturing Gu worms 15.
• Can enlarge from a palm-sized furnace into a heavy striking weapon 5.
• Limits: recipes, suitable materials, and refinement methods remain necessary. The furnace does not guarantee success; Hu Fangyuan later fails two of three attempted refinements 13 50.

Water Refining Azure Furnace

His first Soul Skill provides a water-based refinement method as well as versatile combat control 7 13.

• Shapes water into spears, blades, columns, curtains, whips, and binding threads 11 23 42 46.
• Uses water screens and vortices to intercept or redirect attacks 7 42.
• Restricts opponents through layered water coverings and fine water threads 11.
• Supports gentle nourishment and controlled circulation during Gu refinement 13 14.
• Maintains enough control over water spears that Wu Changkong’s initial attempt to freeze them fails to stop their attack 23.

Fire-Refined Scarlet Force

His second Soul Skill supplies flame for purification, material fusion, and combat 13 19 20.

• Burns impurities from Gu materials and permits carefully regulated heating 19 20 52.
• Enhances close-range strikes, including punches used against Guang Long and the Class One fusion skill 42 66.
• Combines with water attacks to produce boiling-water curtains and whips 42 46.
• Eventually operates simultaneously with Water Refining Azure Furnace rather than requiring him to alternate between them 35.

Combined Elemental Techniques

Hu Fangyuan favors precision, concealment, and efficient application over large, conspicuous attacks 24 33.

• Water Hammer Piercing: a newly devised attack that pierces Guang Long’s arm through his defense and forces him to concede; it consumes a substantial amount of Soul Power 43.
• Steam propulsion: heats water beneath his feet into high-pressure steam, directing it downward to reach airborne opponents 45.
• Layered water-and-fire attacks: wraps flames around water blades and combines defensive screens with offensive pressure 35.
• Elemental instruction: shares his experimental approach with Gu Yue, encouraging her to rethink elemental applications rather than rely only on basic attacks 31 33.

Gu-Based Cultivation and Recovery

His inherited Gu and personally refined support Gu supply aptitude improvement, energy, and recovery 3 4 20.

• Heavenly Essence Treasure Lotus — rank three: supplies abundant energy; its power enables the emergency use of Steal Life 4.
• Blood Skull Gu — rank four: consumes blood essence to improve cultivation aptitude, with the strongest effect requiring members of the user’s own bloodline. Activating it at his early cultivation level strains both Soul Power and mental strength 3 5.
• Moonlight Pearl Gu — rank one: produces Moonlight Dew and nourishes his spirit. He refines additional specimens to support both personal use and sales 13 28 35.
• Moonlight Dew: restores Spiritual Power, sharpens perception, and aids cultivation. During one meditation session, his cultivation speed rises by at least thirty percent 28 30 34.
• Supply limit: one Moonlight Pearl Gu initially produces only enough dew for his own cultivation, making expanded production necessary for his business 35.

Strength Path Body Refinement

Hu Fangyuan develops body refinement after recognizing that close combat against Tang Wulin exposes his weak physique 18.

• Copper Bone Gu: strengthens and hardens his bones 20.
• Silver Tendon Gu: increases tendon resilience and speed 54 66.
• Iron Skin Gu: reinforces his skin’s resistance to blades and other attacks 54.
• Brute Flesh Gu: strengthens flesh and supports strength, recovery, and resilience 52 54 66.
• Four Symbols Iron Body Gu — rank three: unifies these aspects after fusion with his backbone, producing an iron-hardened body whose strength no longer feels dependent on temporary Gu activation and Soul Power reinforcement 71 72.
• Maintenance: implanted Gu require appropriate nourishment; extracting them for feeding involves reopening a deep wound 58.

Distraction Technique and Spiritual Control

Under Wu Changkong’s guidance, Hu Fangyuan trains to divide attention among Soul Power streams, Soul Skills, and Gu worms 29.

• Practices creating identical droplets, holding them motionless, and moving each along a separate path 30.
• Reaches simultaneous control of eighty droplets without collisions 35.
• Uses repeated Spiritual Power depletion and Moonlight Dew recovery to strengthen his mental control 30.
• Limits: complex independent movement rapidly increases Spiritual Power consumption; early practice causes headaches, sweating, and pallor 30.

Steal Life

An inherited will guides Hu Fangyuan through this Immortal Dao Killer Move during the massacre 2 4.

• Drains life, vitality, and Soul Power from the surrounding area and his three pursuers 2.
• Kills the Evil Soul Masters and restores his body, including his severed left arm 2.
• Severe cost: nearly exhausts both his Soul Power and body. He survives because the stolen vitality feeds back into him; independent repeat use is not demonstrated 4.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Azure Cicada: his first Soul Spirit, of hundred-year age. He possesses two hundred-year Soul Rings after becoming a Soul Grandmaster 11 30.
• Storage Soul Tool bracelet: taken from Hu Heming’s corpse; decorated with cloud patterns. Its contents include approximately five million Federation Coins, assorted Soul Tools, fifteen bottles of medicinal pills, and a Soul Bone 8.
• Soul Bone: found inside the bracelet; the provided account does not identify its type or document its absorption 8.
• The True Man’s Biography: an inherited book made from material resembling neither paper nor cloth. Its stories encode Gu recipes and cultivation lessons associated with the Heaven Refining Immortal Venerable 18 21 22.
• Refined-steel dagger: used to open wounds for extracting and implanting Gu 58 69.
• Thousand-year whale rubber: obtained through Gu Yue and delivered by Di Tian. Hu Fangyuan estimates that it raises his Four-Image Combined Refinement success rate by at least twenty percentage points; he also uses it in the fusion bath 68 71.

Relationships

• Hu Heming — Father and former Hu Family head. Hu Fangyuan blames him for the massacre, distrusts his affectionate performance, and prepares for betrayal. Hu Heming dies during their confrontation 4 6 7.
• Mother, unnamed — Once a source of warmth, later emotionally distant after his prospects declined. He grieves her death, closes her eyes, and promises revenge 6 8.
• Wu Changkong — Teacher, combat instructor, and sponsor. Offers 100,000 Federation Coins monthly and help purchasing resources, conditional on Hu Fangyuan attempting Shrek Academy within five years and repaying the support if he fails its entrance examination 17.
• Gu Yue — Classmate, elemental discussion partner, friend, and major customer. Their arrangement exchanges three monthly bottles of Moonlight Dew for one million Federation Coins; she also helps him obtain materials and whale rubber. He gives her a silver hairpin in thanks 31 34 57 68.
• Tang Wulin — Classmate whose unusual physical strength motivates Hu Fangyuan’s body refinement. Tang Wulin treats him warmly, but Hu Fangyuan generally keeps his distance unless their interests overlap 11 15 18 33.
• Xie Xie — Classmate frequently angered by his dismissive attitude toward Tang Wulin. Nevertheless, Xie Xie acknowledges his strength and later openly admires his defeat of a Martial Soul Fusion Skill 22 59 66.
• Di Tian — Gu Yue’s powerful intermediary. Delivers whale rubber and warns Hu Fangyuan to continue supplying her without interfering in her affairs or harboring improper intentions 68.
• Holy Spirit Cult — Enemy associated with the destruction of the Hu Family; a target of his revenge oath 4 5.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Hu Family Massacre

• Survives pursuit by three Evil Soul Masters through the lotus Gu’s intervention and Steal Life 2.
• Receives the Heaven Refining inheritance and returns to the ruined estate for resources, intending to leave before authorities discover his blood-path methods 3 4 5.
• Encounters his wounded father and dead mother; the confrontation ends with Hu Heming dead and Hu Fangyuan orphaned 6 7.
• Takes Hu Heming’s stored wealth and leaves the estate with resources for future cultivation 8.

Eastsea Academy and Medicine Business

• Gains access to late enrollment by claiming Innate Full Soul Power; his original awakening value was level six 1 9.
• Joins Class Five and rents a secluded courtyard for 5,000 Federation Coins per month, selecting its half-basement as a private Gu-refining chamber 12.
• Nearly withdraws over inadequate facilities before accepting Wu Changkong’s sponsorship 16 17.
• Establishes a medicine trade with Gu Yue, then increases Moonlight Pearl Gu production to meet her orders 34 35.

Class Promotion Tournament

• Serves as Class Five’s principal early fighter, allowing Wu Changkong to keep the other students’ abilities less exposed 37.
• Defeats Class Four in barely a minute 39.
• Overcomes Class Three’s aerial tactics with steam propulsion and boiling-water whips; Wu Changkong reprimands his excessive violence 45 46.
• Misses the Class Two match while adjusting to his newly implanted Strength Path Gu 54.
• Defeats Zhang Yangzi and Wang Jinxi’s Martial Soul Fusion Skill through reinforced close combat and a fire-enhanced punch 65 66.

Guang Long Conflict and Class Zero

• Defeats Guang Long with Gu Yue’s assistance and Water Hammer Piercing. Rather than pursue him, Hu Fangyuan expects his backers to create an opportunity to observe Wu Changkong’s true strength 42 43.
• Watches Wu Changkong defeat Guang Biao and recognizes the gulf between himself and powerful Soul Masters 50 57.
• Completes his Four Symbols Iron Body Gu fusion, then enters the newly established Class Zero. He interprets the principal’s reprimand and generous support as a carrot-and-stick arrangement and intends to use the academy’s resources 71 72 73.

Notable Quotes

“Mom, go to sleep.” 6

“The strongest bond between friends is mutual interest!” 34

“That’s not arrogance. It’s absolute confidence in myself.” 34