"The amount of the Human Path Dao marks upon this..." Fang Yuan noted while examining Rank 5 Ambition Gu.
Although he had not yet realized the full extent of what it could be used for, he was beginning to gain an inkling of its potential.
He had numerous Rank 1 Ambition Gu from his various uses of Immortal Ambition Gu, and chose to experiment with them first. Rank 1 Ambition Gu weren't as useful, neither were Rank 2 from an Immortal's perspective, which is why he didn't sell them on Yellow Treasure Heaven. He could think of certain sects and clans which might want Rank 2 Ambition Gu (it was more useful than Man-Beast Life Burial Gu without much of its drawbacks) but even with the larger numbers it was worth less.
'Ah, if only I had access to these mortal variations during my first life - I wouldn't have struggled so much to advance,' he mused. But just because he, a mortal, would've valued them greatly, didn't mean the Immortals would as well.
Rank 1 Ambition Gu also contained Human Path dao marks - just a far smaller amount.
Refinement was, from one perspective, merely the rearrangement of dao marks into different kinds of dao marks. Fang Yuan was a Refinement Path Master from his experiences in his past life.
Drawing upon his experiences in the Refinement Path, as well as his foundation in the Human Path, he gathered two Rank 1 Ambition Gu and began tossing primeval stones into the mixture while fusing them.
His first attempt was a failure, but since this was only a Rank 1 Gu worm he was attempting to refine, the damage was minimal. Fang Yuan was using investigative methods to monitor the refinement to get better insight into what was going on during the refinement, splitting his attention into multiple parts.
As an Immortal though, this was not an issue for him. He had access to multiple gu worms that could let him focus on various tasks at once.
'Two of them are not enough,' he thought to himself. 'Perhaps it is three of them which have to come together.'
He took three Rank 1 Ambition Gu and attempted to merge them together, tossing in primeval stones before he once again failed. 'This time, I met the opposite problem,' he thought. 'There are too many dao marks. Using two Ambition Gu was too few Dao marks, and using three Ambition Gu was too many for the refinement.'
In such a case, how was he supposed to find a balance between the two?
After pondering this problem for a few minutes, he came upon a solution. It was not necessarily a good solution, but it was one that could potentially work.
This time, he attempted to use one Ambition Gu along with one Green Copper Relic Gu.
Relic Gu were somewhat plentiful in his aperture, owing to the number of humans he had. Yellow Gold Relic Gu and Purple Crystal Relic Gu were still uncommon enough that he couldn't really make a business out of selling them, but for the Rank 1 to Rank 3 variants, he had no issues in obtaining them.
Fang Yuan fused Rank 1 Ambition Gu along with a Rank 1 Green Copper Relic Gu.
This time, as he tossed in the primeval stones, he noted that the refinement mixture stabilized. A Rank 2 Red Steel Relic Gu dropped to the floor. 'So it is indeed possible to refine Relic Gu,' he thought to himself.
He had already received a hint regarding this matter when he had been able to advance once thanks to the system's help, but to see it with his own eyes was something completely different.
'But this just won't do...'
This would likely be the limit of his progress. The reason being was that refinement became ever more complicated as one advanced, and the main drawback of this method was that it required a Relic Gu to advance in the first place.
He had been hoping to use Ambition Gu in order to find value without needing any kind of Relic base, but so long as it needed a Green Copper Relic Gu, it would continue to remain niche as the chance of succeeding and the gu worms in question dying increased the higher the rank of the refinement.
At some point, it would be simple to sell his Ambition Gu on Yellow Treasure Heaven rather than trying this roundabout way of generating money. But he had wanted to succeed with this as it had three benefits - one, it would be a backup in case selling Ambition Gu did not work, two, it would mean he did not need to buy Relic Gu himself, and three, it could further his understanding of the Human Path if he succeeded potentially resulting in other Human Path gu worm recipes.
Part of the problem was that his foundation within the Refinement Path was not enough. It was at a Master level. However, in order to make something completely new and to venture into the unknown without it eating up unacceptable periods of time would require him to advance it to at least the quasi-Grandmaster level, which he was not at currently.
He could try and rely on others to figure this out for him.
But, he did not want the recipe necessarily leaking out. Since he controlled the supply of Ambition Gu - a crucial ingredient - it would not be easy for other people to replicate his success.
However, there usually were multiple recipes for a single gu worm and countless advancement paths. If they realized that there was a recipe where they could use Ambition Gu, they'd likely be able to deduce some other kind of recipe as well substituting other gu worms for Ambition Gu.
He could purchase a number of hairy men from Treasure Yellow Heaven and have them work on refinement methods and research for this rather than doing so himself. In this way, he would be placing the burden of research upon them rather than himself, much like he was doing with the Pill Path and the mushroommen back in the Mushroomman Blessed Land.
It was a fact that people working in large numbers could exceed the innovation and mind of a single person given enough time, particularly when his attainment level was only at the Master and quasi-Master level in the Refinement and Pill paths, respectively.
Of course, if he were at the Grandmaster level or beyond, even a thousand ordinary men could not come up with what he intended to create.
But it was here that he would end up running into several problems.
The first was that he did not want to introduce variant humans into his aperture. Both Paradise Earth and Genesis Lotus had advised him against this, and both of them had their own reasons for doing so.
Paradise Earth would not want him to go around enslaving variant humans as he thought that all lives were equal - that was his reason.
As for Genesis Lotus, he wanted the aperture to be an entirely pure human area; and had said that filthy variant humans would "contaminate" it.
It could be said that Paradise Earth wanted variant human slaves to be free, while Genesis Lotus wanted variant human slaves to be free - they were not the same!
Both of them, however, agreed on one point: the introduction of variant humans would hamper the Integration Formation in the sky. It would no longer be capturing the pure human experience and it may also disrupt the refinement of the Rank 9 gu worm occurring in Fang Yuan's right orbit.
That was why he had also not bought human slaves or placed the members of the Gu Yue Clan within his immortal aperture... yet. Their experiences cannot be said to be purely from the aperture, and they would, without a doubt, bring their own memories and knowledge, potentially messing things up.
Fang Yuan did want to pursue this route of exploration, but it wasn't worth tentatively compromising the refinement of a Rank 9 Gu worm.
The biggest problem however, was the use of slaves for this process. Slaves were not known for their innovation - because they had no incentive to do so. It was when people were free that they could innovate new ideas to the fullest. He did not want these hairy men to simply follow instructions, he needed them to build on his own ideas. They would have to be talented and also willing to use this talent for his own gain.
Fang Yuan would need to free the slaves in question if he wanted them to research into this for himself, and so, finding a place to keep and manage them would be a headache. He couldn't place a large number of them in the Mushroomman Blessed Land without altering its ecosystem or on Bei Gu Mountain without it causing problems.