Back home, his aunt and uncle were already scheming.
"Both of you have taken the first steps on your journey to become Gu Masters," Uncle said. "Here is a gift from us, six primeval stones for each of you. Use them wisely in your cultivation journeys."
"Thank you!" Fang Zheng said, nearly starry-eyed at this complete one-eighty in treatment from them.
Fang Yuan took the stones, though he had a blank expression. He already had a small fortune accumulated, but it was good to have some explanation in case anyone asked him where he was getting the stones from.
Aunt was teary-eyed. "To think that the two of you grew up so quickly... it's almost as if... you were just like our children all along."
"We don't have our own children, so we always treated you like you were our own," Uncle said, lying flawlessly.
Fang Zheng actually seemed to fall for their crocodile tears- though Fang Yuan couldn't entirely blame him. He too, had almost fallen for them in his past life.
"Why pretend though?" Aunt asked suddenly. "We were thinking of adopting the two of you for real?"
"Yes!" Fang Zheng said excitedly. He had always wanted a family, and though he had Fang Yuan- his elder brother could not make up for a parent's love.
Fang Yuan saw through their scheme immediatley.
Right now, the two of them were basically treated as minors until they graduate from the academy. Their parent's 'inheritance' so to speak were being taken care of by their guardians- Aunt and Uncle. If however, they agreed to this adoption before they came of age, then their parent's inheritance would pass on to Aunt and Uncle.
"Allow me to pass," Fang Yuan said with a slight smile.
"Brother-" Fang Zheng said, shocked, though Uncle waved him down.
"I understand," Uncle said, seemingly unmoved by Fang Yuan's decision. "In such a case, it may be better to strike out on your own- take 200 primeval stones and be on your way then. Consider a gift when it comes to starting your own family."
Fang Zheng's eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw the amount, though again, Fang Yuan was unfazed as he shook his head.
"I will take your leave then," Fang Yuan said, cupping his hands before departing to try to refine the Moonlight Gu.
"Right, I won't let you down either!" Fang Zheng said, cheering as he too went to his room.
Once the two were out of sight Aunt and Uncle's faces darkened.
"Fang Yuan is too smart for his own good..." Aunt muttered. "What if he turns against us and tries to snatch the inheritance?"
Uncle stroked his chin. It was indeed a problem, given that Fang Yuan was a B-grade talent. Once he got to Rank 2, he would be able to contest them for the inheritance after graduating. There was nothing they could really do regarding such, after all, being B-grade, he could eventually reach Rank Two with or without resources.
"Simple, we frame him and then kick him out!" Uncle said, plotting out things in his mind. If Fang Yuan wasn't going to play along, they would just find an excuse to get rid of him.
While it was risky to offend a B-grade talent, they had an A-grade one on their side.
While Fang Yuan could not be ignored, he would still be greatly suppressed without access to resources.
Of course, neither of them knew that Fang Yuan only had 46% aptitude right now- nor the fact that he was not lacking in resources.
After having no further luck with obtaining the Liquor Worm, he decided to attempt to refine the Moonlight Gu.
His mind reached into his aperture as he held it in his hand.
In order to refine it, he needed to inject it with his primeval essence, which began to move from his aperture and into the Moonlight Gu.
Naturally, being a living creature, it had a will of its own and began resisting. But this was only to be expected. As the primeval essence entered the Moonlight Gu, he could feel it resisting, though slowly but surely, part of it was subjugated under his will.
Sweat began to coat Fang Yuan's face as his primeval essence was nearly exhausted, though it looked like had only made about 8% in terms of progress.
He now had two choices: one was to use his primeval stones to recover the primeval essence, and the other was to wait for it to recover naturally.
The problem was that with time, the Moonlight Gu would write away some of his progress. In other words, just like with cultivating, one couldn't chip away at it over time. The rate that one could muster was also very important.
That was why he knew that he had no chance of actually winning the competition to be the first one to refine it. Those with talent had a clear advantage here, though if Mo Bei or Chi Lian were liberal with their primeval stone spending they could potentially break past him.
Fang Yuan wasn't even a real B-grade talent, and though he had a large amount of primeval stones, he would end up spending more than twenty to refine this worm.
That wasn't even what his ultimate goal was, which was to get the Liquor Worm. He would rather spend time and resources on that than this.
There was a third option- he could use the Green Copper Relic Gu and advance by a minor realm. That would not increase the amount of primeval essence he had, but with each minor realm, the quality of the primeval essence would double.
In other words, if Fang Yuan used the Green Copper Relic Gu, he would go from Rank 1 initial stage to Rank 1 middle stage. Ranks 1 through 5 were subdivided into four minor realms: initial, middle, upper and peak.
If he became a Rank 1 middle stage Gu Master, the quality of his primeval essence would double that of what it was at the initial stage. Meaning that his 46% primeval essence would functionally act equivalent to what 92% would be at initial stage, surpassing even Fang Zheng!