The reason it was necessary for one to use those two gu worms was that if one used an excess of strength-type gu worms beyond one's capability without strengthening one's body first, it would cause their body to burn up from an excess of strength unless they were an Immortal. Fang Zheng already had the strength of one boar. If he used too many Strength Path Gu worms without preparing for them, he would end up exploding. The Xiong Clan already had its Bear Strength Gu, so Fang Yuan had not needed to fetch that for him or a similar equivalent.
He had, however, found a few others, such as Crocodile Strength Gu, Green Bull Labor Gu, Galloping Horse Strength Gu, and Stone Turtle Strength Gu. Fang Zheng could only use one of them before he would need to modify his body, and that would take time as well. Each of the gu worms in question raised one's strength but had to be used in moderation over a period of time, else it would cause enormous pain to one's body.
All in all, Fang Yuan considered it would likely take Fang Zheng about a year and a half in order to use all of these Gu worms properly, perhaps even two years, depending on how diligent Fang Zheng was and how burdensome his duties as Clan Head were.
That was alright. The reason Fang Yuan was investing so many resources was that he would need a pawn in the future.
The Three Kings Inheritance was still two years away, and if the rumors he had heard in his past life were correct, there was a secret treasure there that was quite valuable that could only be found by a Strength Path expert. Currently, Fang Yuan predicted that he could ascend to an Immortal before that time came, which is why he was not bothering to take such gu worms for himself. Once he became an Immortal, he would much rather contest for the Hu Immortal Blessed Land in the Central Continent, rather than settling for the Three Kings Inheritance, which by comparison was just a bunch of loose scraps.
With that said, would Fang Yuan neglect the Three Kings Inheritance? Of course not! That was just his nature; he would obviously want as much as he could get. Competition for resources was constant, after all.
And what better pawn did he have right now for that purpose than Fang Zheng?
Of course, once he became an Immortal, it might be possible for him to break into the Three Kings Inheritance forcefully. However, he had not competed for it during his past life, and it was highly likely that there were Gu Immortals to some extent watching the area.
If he made a move, then they too also might move. More likely than not, big clans like the Wu and the Shang Clans had sent mortal Gu Masters to compete for it while watching from the sidelines. That was the way of the Gu Immortal world; oftentimes for inheritances, they would use mortal pawns in order to reduce the amount of damage dealt as well as the resources they had to expend. If that were the case, then Fang Yuan would need his own tool, and that was why he was getting him ready.
There was of course, the alternative where the Immortals had not been interested simply because the prize had not been large enough. The blessed land in question, the Ba Gui was dying and would soon collapse once the mortal inheritances had been cleaned up.
With that said, if even the barest whisper of there being an Immortal Gu within there were to leak out, something akin to a war would break out - with the Immortals sending their pawns.
That said, Fang Yuan did not now the extent to which the Immortals were involved in the Three King's Inheritance. As for the rewards contained within, while they were enticing for a Rank 5 Gu Master, they may not have been worth much depending on how things turned out.
That said, the time to repair one's roof was while it was sunny out, not when it rained, and Fang Yuan wanted his tools at the ready to act howsoever he needed.
"Thank you. I'll continue working as hard as I can," Fang Zheng said.
"Good," Fang Yuan said. "I'll be back later with more gu worms that you can use. There are a few special gu in Shang Clan City that could be quite useful for a Strength Path Gu Master."
Even with these tools, though, Fang Zheng should have been able to handle mostly anything that the world could throw his way.
With that settled, Fang Yuan, in the middle of the night, took out the Hundred Li Earth Wolf Spider and first went to go give Bai Ning Bing a visit.
"Senior brother, senior brother, you're finally back. Why did you leave me alone for so long?" the House Spirit asked. She seemed very unhappy that he was gone for so long. Bai Ning Bing shook her head - indicating that she behaved the same way when Bai Ning Bing arrived.
"Did you find any solution?" If they found the secret behind the Dollhouse's inheritance, it could dwarf both the Hu Immortal Blessed Land as well as the Three Kings Inheritance.
"No dice," it turned out, as Bai Ning Bing shook her head.
"Well, in that case," Fang Yuan said, "let's go collect some resources."
Fang Yuan was limited in how much Primeval Stones he could extract from his own clan's primeval spring- that was just the nature of the righteous path, after all. However, there was no rule against what he could do with the other primeval spring. Technically, that belonged to the Bei Clan. He had agreed to give it to them, but they had yet to reach it, and they couldn't miss what they didn't know.
Primeval Springs generated primeval stones in a set amount until they were saturated. Once the stones were removed, they would then begin generating more, but this meant that at a certain point, they would stop generating primeval stones. 'In a way,' Fang Yuan thought, 'I'm doing them a favor by taking them out.'
He had no difficulty removing far more than what would normally be considered prudent. However, what could the Bei Clan say to him? And for that matter, the Goody Two-Shoes System didn't respond either. He was forced to share this haul with Bai Ning Bing because of their Poison Vow Agreement. While he intended to get out of that agreement soon enough, he wanted to hold on to the illusion that they were working together for now, so he had to play along regardless even if he had escaped its constraints.
The two of them collected 400,000 Primeval Stones and split them before returning to the village.
Fang Yuan did a few other things, such as talking to some of the other elders and inspecting the village on a superficial level. It was good for its stability that he showed himself, as well as going down to speak with the Bei Clansmen just so they knew that he was keeping an eye on the area. He found no major issues with how Fang Zheng was running the place; after all, the genuine welfare of the place didn't matter to him much.
He first used one of the pre-refined Purple Crystal Relic Gu to take himself to Rank 5 Middle Stage. He then focused on gu refinement of a particular gu worm that he was interested in - the Rank 5 Moon Raiment.
It was a specialty of their clan, and he ended up trying over eight times over the course of his stay before he finally succeeded. 'To have been successful on the ninth attempt, my luck isn't bad,' he thought to himself.