บท 32: Chapter 2367
The 4 camps orderly entered the Grotto Heaven.
As soon as the Gu Immortals stepped in, they were transported randomly by the Rules Path Formation the Venerables had laid down.
This was to prevent the groups from just duking it outright from the get-go.
Wu Yong, Shen Shang, and Fang Gong were debriefing the team.
"Remember that each of you has an assigned task to focus on, you will be rewarded in contribution points based on the degree to which you have completed your tasks."
Fang Gong and Wu Yong added an emphasis of caution to their team and to stick to the plan as individually they were nothing compared to the other 3 camps.
After all, despite them taking up nearly 50% of the total participants in terms of firepower they were probably only 3rd or 2nd.
The plan was simple, the Fang clan would focus on raiding resources, and Wu Clan would focus on raiding inheritances and true meanings.
Fang Yuan had devised these plans based on the Strengths of each clan, Fang clan had plenty of experience using guerrilla warfare and looting and thus, would be the most efficient at stealing resource points.
Wu Clan had a long history and thus, they were better suited at grasping Inheritance or seeking out true meaning.
Of course, Fang Yuan had gotten around the rules once again by 'commissioning' the Fang clan to work for him, thus it allowed him to supply them Gu Houses for their 'mission'.
It was in no way meant to aid his side in the competition.
Thus, through this 'exchange' he handed Fang Clan Thieves Den!
This Rank 8 Gu house was once again seeing the light of day.
It had once made Fang Yuan extremely wealthy as he plundered the Crazed Demon Caves Layers.
Now that Fang Yuan had made so many Ranks 9 and 8 Gu, he was beginning to run low on resources.
Though it was by Fang Yuan's definition of 'low'.
He still had enough material to easily attempt 2-3 Rank 9 Gu.
"Well, it can never hurt to be too rich, as they say, money can't buy happiness, but it is more comfortable to cry indoors than in the rain." Fang Yuan thought to himself.
Shen Clan was, however, given a more important task they were to provide back up to the 3 people Fang Yuan had sent.
Zhan Bu Du
Wu Shuai and,
He Chun Qiu (It's the name the Time Path Clone chose check chp: 2137)
Fang Yuan naturally would select his clones to participate as who better to trust than himself?
While most members of Fang Yuan's Variant Human alliance would sacrifice themselves, they only did as they had 2 incentives, one that their families can continue living in the Sovereign Immoral Aperture and secondly, that they could be revived!
But with the clones even if they couldn't be revived, they would toss themselves into the fire headfirst if the benefit outweighed their life!
Fang Yuan had 2 Pseudo-Venerable clones, Qi Sea Ancestor and Zhan Bu Du.
For obvious reasons Qi Sea was no longer an option, not only was Fang Yuan unable to resurrect him but he had no reason to either!
Qi Sea's greatest use was to inflict significant damage onto Heavenly Court while also disrupting Primordial Origin's revival plans.
Though Fang Yuan has now become aware that Paradis Earth had a backup plan in Primordial Treasury but even Exposing Heavenly Secrets did not reveal its location.
"Tch, he really he hid Primordial Treasury well if even Heaven and Star Constellation can't find it." Fang Yuan thought to himself.
Currently, there were 4 Pseudo-Venerables in the known competition, Zhan Bu Du, Ying Guang Xin, Shen Shang, and Lu Wei Yin.
Of the four, three were on Fang Yuan's side.
But one cannot forget that there are at least 2 other Pseudo-Venerables, one from Giant Sun's side and one from Star Constellation.
In addition, the total number of Rank 8s present in this competition is 30, discounting the Soul Beasts, out of 60 total.
All the Rank 7s belonged to Fang Yuan's faction with only eight Rank 8s.
It was hard to say which force would win as they each had their own Gu Houses and trump cards, but it had to be said that this was under the condition that the other 3 Venerables worked together to fight Fang Yuan.
But could they really trust one another? The answer was no!
Especially the wild card Spectral Soul!
And who would trust the world's greatest schemer Star Constellation!
Yet Giant Sun wasn't reliable either!
Thus, their alliance could be formed on paper but to fight against the well-oiled machine that was Fang Yuan would be hard, to say the least.
As the various participants entered the Grotto Heaven changes were happening in the Western Desert as well.
The Chessboard soon began to stretch and morph, the pieces remained the same, but the topography of the Chessboard began to change with some parts converging together to form mountains and some parts diverging apart to form gorges and valleys.
The board was now a 1:400 scale of the entirety of the Myriad Beast Fusion Color Heaven.
"Oh, how interesting," Giant Sun remarked as the changes were taking place.
Giant Sun noticed certain sections remain the same as the original Chessboard.
Noticing Giant Sun's gaze Fang Yuan explained: "The map you see is being rendered and created in real-time based off what the participants see."
Giant Sun snidely asked: "Then how come the map seems to already be about 70% complete I don't believe that the teams are that quick at exploring."
Fang Yuan merely smiled: "Of course, they are based on some of my memories of the landscape, but you already knew that."
Fang Yuan's sinister smile implied to Spectral Soul and Star Constellation that Giant Sun had some more intimate knowledge regarding the Myriad Beast Fusion Color Heaven.
Giant Sun then coughed and changed the topic: "So how do we play with such a map?"
This time Reputation Gu appeared once again to explain: "As you can see the map is a scaled-down 3D Model of the Myriad Beast Fusion Color Heaven."
She then waved her hand and a chess grid appeared across the entire map.
"Your pieces will move as they always had in normal chess, to use your stored moves you have to ensure that your pieces are within 10 squares of your target."
Reputation Gu waved her hands once more revealing the location of every player with an Icon of their faces, name, and Rank.
For example, it showed Fang Gong Rank 8 on top of a mountain.
Star Constellation furrowed her brows and asked: "How are you able to display accurately the information of every player in the game?"
Reputation Gu responded: "Simple, it's my job."
"I have kept a record of every Gu Cultivator in the world and have tabs on all their historic fetes that have stuck out in comparison. This is based on the number of times the event is recalled whether in the past, present or future."
"Simply displaying their location and minor information is nothing for me."
The other 3 Venerables grew warier.
Sensing this Reputation Gu tried to calm their fears: "Ah that doesn't mean I am able to monitor what they are doing. We are only able to see what they see because of the Rule Path Formation you had set up."
The Venerables were slightly appeased, but they could not fully trust the words of someone so close to Fang Yuan.
The Gu Immortals were spread out over a large area and the map was being slowly filled out.
Meanwhile, the Venerables began to plan their moves.
They had to calculate where interactions were going to happen and ways to resolve these interactions to the best of their ability.
For example, if one of the currently stray Rank 7s encounters an enemy Rank 8 Fang Yuan would just abandon him.
It should be noted that unlike the previous qualification tournament death here was real!
Just as before Star Constellation had the first move.
She moved her pawn forward.
It was then Spectral Soul's turn followed by Fang Yuan and then Giant Sun.
The Venerables each took turns setting up arrangements across this mini world.
Fang Yuan finally had a taste of the other side of the Fate wars the preparations!
This was the true mark of his graduation from being a piece to being a player.
What good was being the strongest piece? Or is it the most Valuable piece? Or even the crucial winning piece? When he wasn't the player!
All the benefits of victory would go to the player and his hard work would gain him nothing more than some prestige and money.
None of it mattered to Fang Yuan who pursued eternal life.
He was neither consumed by emotions nor lacking them, never obsessed with strength nor lacking it.
All of these was just tools for him to achieve eternal life.
'Humans only live for a hundred years; it is as unreal as a dream that ends in an instant. What is the point of a person living in this world? No more than just being on a journey, and witnessing interesting things?'
'There is only immortality, only eternal life should be the goal one should pursue! If one cannot live forever, is there any difference between a rank nine Gu Immortal and a pile of shit in the gutter?!'
This was Fang Yuan's conviction towards Eternity! How can one just meander through life looking at all it had to behold thinking that is there is to achieve?
It is all meaningless, a chasing after the wind searching for a drop in the ocean. Only the pursuit of Eternity has any meaning!
On the map, one could see that the various camps had found their respective teams.
Every Venerable gave them a method to find their fellow team members.
Spectral Soul's team assembled the fastest as Ying Guang Xin called the Soul Beasts to him and Fairy Zi Wei just followed along.
Next, was Giant Sun's team as he imparted to them a Blood Path Killer Move that allowed them to trace each other, after all even if they were not a pure-blooded Huang Jin tribe member with how diverse the population had spread in these 300 thousand years unless they were not born in the Northern Plains it would be impossible.
Star Constellation's team soon got together as she had devised a Star Path move that guided them to one another.
Lastly, was Fang Yuan's team but strangely enough none of them had gathered into the giant Great Love Alliance but into their respective clans.
In that respect, they were the fastest and were already hard at work!
The Fang Clan ran around stealing resources while the Wu Clan either talked or subjugated the locals using their Gu Houses!
But if one paid closer attention they would see that the Clan head of the Fang clan, Fang Gong, and the head of the Wu clan, Wu Yong, were not with their clans!
Instead, they were with the Shen Clan who had started occupying an area and began laying down fortifications.
"Genius!" The other Venerables thought in unison.
"Fang Yuan may be a member of a demonic path but his mastery over-allocating manpower has reached a level of near perfection." Star Constellation calculated.
"Any lost in productivity would no longer be due to poor management but unfortunate circumstances such as Natural disasters or Human error."
In fact, Star Constellation felt a trace of Enslavement Path from his arrangement of manpower alone!
She wasn't the only one impressed, Giant Sun had spent 300 thousand years to create an imposing bloodline that had complete reverence to him but even so, he could not dream of covering every aspect as efficiently as Fang Yuan!
"If he can manage outside forces to this extent…then how does his Immortal Aperture look like!" Giant Sun thought to himself.
The only person not impressed was Spectral Soul: "Hmph, my Shadow Sect was the peak of efficiency."
Though it was true it was largely because a lot of members were either controlled directly or Spectral Soul himself!
It wasn't as beautifully crafted as Fang Yuan's
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zulbucks Woo hoo, I can't wait to write more on this arc I always wanted to know what it would be like if Fang Yuan sat at the table with Venerables during the Fate War.
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