Chapter 169: Path to Immortality!

"Good! Good lad!" Gu Cangsheng nodded satisfactorily: "As expected of my grandson, Gu Cangsheng, I knew I hadn't misjudged you."

Although I had already guessed that since Gu Yuan could open it once, he would surely be able to open it a second time.

Now that it's confirmed, naturally I am very satisfied.

"Cough."

Gu Lin Tian cleared his throat, waiting for everyone's gaze to turn to him.

Only then did he point to the one hundred and eight clusters of floating Great Emperor Source and speak in a deep voice:

"Father, everyone, the matter of conquering the Sanqian Zhou still needs careful deliberation. You eat a meal bite by bite, you walk a road step by step. What's most urgent now is how to turn these spoils of war into real combat strength for our Gu Family."

His words were like a bucket of cold water, extinguishing the fervor in everyone's hearts, yet also quickly calming them down, prompting them to consider the immediate practical problem.

Indeed, no matter how grand the blueprint, one still needs sufficient strength to realize it.

"The Family Head is right!"

Gu Zhan rubbed his big hands like palm-leaf fans, his bull eyes fixed intently on those origin light clusters, drool almost dripping from his mouth,

"I think this stuff should be used first by us fighters! Family Head, take a look... give me ten or eight clusters first, let me taste how it is."

"Taste how it is? You think this is a feast?"

Gu Lin Tian gave him an annoyed look: "One hundred and eight clusters of source may seem many, but they are to be used on the blades."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the myriad Supreme Sovereign experts within the family, and his tone turned solemn:

"My plan is to prioritize supplying these one hundred and eight clusters of source to the early and middle Supreme Sovereign experts in the family, letting them break through to the peak of the Supreme Sovereign Realm and the Half-Step Heavenly Emperor Realm in the shortest time; the remainder, we will seek out the twenty to fifty cultivators at the peak of the seventeenth realm with the greatest potential to break through, and swiftly help them reach the Supreme Sovereign Realm!"

"Let our Gu Family produce several dozen more eighteenth-realm Supreme Sovereigns!"

"As for the lacking portion of immortal substance... we'll make up for it later."

Several dozen Supreme Sovereigns!

When this number was announced, even someone as steady as Gu Linjiang couldn't help but suck in a breath of cold air.

A longevity clan that can have ten or more Supreme Sovereigns in command is enough to dominate a celestial domain.

The Gu Family's foundation is deep, and the current number of Supreme Sovereigns is only twenty or thirty.

Now, as soon as Gu Lin Tian speaks, he intends to directly double this number and then some!

This is no longer merely expanding the army; this is forging a Supreme Sovereign legion capable of sweeping across the heavens!

Gu Cangsheng stood with his hands behind his back, neither approving nor objecting, obviously acquiescing to his son's allocation plan.

Everyone nodded in unison, their eyes shining with anticipation.

Those who are able to come are all Supreme Sovereign Realm cultivators.

In other words, each of them can receive a substantial share.

Thereby they can further advance.

However, just as the atmosphere heated up again, Gu Lin Tian threw out an even deeper problem.

"Father, mass-producing Supreme Sovereigns is doable with our current resources, but... what about above Supreme Sovereign? The Heavenly Emperor Realm, the True Immortal Realm—how do we achieve those?"

Upon these words, the temperature in the hall seemed to drop a few degrees.

If one says that from Ultimate Sage to Supreme Sovereign, one can rely on the Great Emperor Source, piling up vast resources and external force to stack upward.

But from the eighteenth realm to the twentieth realm True Immortal, it is a true heavenly chasm, a qualitative transformation.

That requires a cultivator, amidst the myriad paths, to walk out a path uniquely their own.

It requires an extraordinary, transcendent comprehension of the laws, to sever all external causality, and to condense a dao heart of sole supremacy.

This is no longer a problem that resources can solve.

"The Heavenly Emperor is difficult, the True Immortal... even more so than ascending to the azure heavens."

Gu Cangsheng, who had remained silent all along, now spoke slowly.

His voice was not loud, yet it carried a sense of vicissitudes that pierces through the ages.

"Back in my day, I too was stuck at the peak of the Supreme Sovereign Realm for a full hundred thousand years, endured nine life-and-death tribulations, witnessed the birth and death of the star seas, and only then managed to catch a glimpse of a chance at True Immortality, stepping forward to achieve the fruition I possess today."

He looked at his son Gu Lin Tian: "Lin Tian, your talent is not inferior to mine, and you possess the wondrous art Three Lives Metamorphosis Dao Body, but how long did it take you to achieve True Immortality? Without the various opportunities brought back by Yuan'er, you'd probably still be stuck turning in the Heavenly Emperor Realm."

Gu Lin Tian nodded silently, deeply agreeing.

Achieving True Immortality is no longer something that can be described by mere effort and talent.

It requires heaven-defying fortune, to become the brightest star in an epoch, gaining the acknowledgment of heaven and earth's will, before one can take that final step.

An epoch that can give birth to a True Immortal is already a great age.

The Gu Family's plan is to forge a Supreme Sovereign legion.

But if the upper limit of this legion is locked, unable to give birth to a new Heavenly Emperor, let alone a True Immortal, then its deterrent power will be greatly diminished.

After all, in the eyes of true top-tier powerhouses, a hundred Supreme Sovereigns cannot even match a single finger of a True Immortal.

The atmosphere once again shifted from fervor to solemn stillness.

They seemed to see a broad, smooth road leading to splendor, yet at the end of that road they beheld two towering, insurmountable walls reaching into the clouds.

One wall is named Heavenly Emperor, the other True Immortal.

Seeing everyone's furrowed brows, Gu Yuan finally found an opportunity.

He cleared his throat, and that clear voice sounded especially abrupt in this dull space.

"Grandfather, Father, Elders."

Everyone's gaze instantly focused on him.

"Father, the difficult problem you just mentioned, I feel, boils down to a problem of the path."

"The path?"

Gu Linjiang blinked in surprise, instinctively repeating the phrase.

"That's right."

Gu Yuan snapped his fingers,

"From the Supreme Sage to the Supreme, and then to the Heavenly Emperor, the reason we can use the Great Emperor's origin to fill it is because this path, although difficult to walk, ultimately has traces to follow."

"Our predecessors have walked this path, leaving footprints. What we need to do is use resources to fill in all the potholes and depressions on the road, so that our people can walk past smoothly."

"From the Heavenly Emperor to the True Immortal, this road cannot be solved by merely filling in pits."

Gu Yuan spread his hands,

"Because this path is fundamentally broken. Everyone must become their own pathfinder, hacking through thorns and brambles, from among myriad laws, painstakingly carving out a path that belongs solely to oneself. This difficulty is naturally incomparable."

Upon hearing this, everyone present nodded silently.

This principle, everyone present being outstanding talents, naturally understands it.

Understanding it is one thing, but if it doesn't solve the problem, it's all for naught.

Gu Zhan, being impatient, hearing this was all foggy and confusing, couldn't help but scratch his head and ask in a muffled voice:

"Young Master, stop beating around the bush; my brain's all tied up in knots. What exactly do you want to say?"

Gu Yuan looked at him, grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth,

"What I want to say is…… since forging our own path is so difficult, then…… if there were a ready-made, gold-paved grand highway laid out directly before us, would we just need to lift our feet and walk onto it?"

A ready-made road?

As soon as these words were spoken, everyone was stunned.

What kind of metaphor is this?

Gu Lin Tian's brows furrowed even deeper.

He vaguely guessed what it was, but that thought was too wild, too unimaginable, so much so that he himself dared not believe it.

Only Gu Cangsheng, in his eyes that could see through the ages, suddenly shot out a strand of terrifyingly sharp light!

He fixed his gaze firmly on his own grandson, his breath pausing for an instant.

"Yuan'er, you……"

Before Gu Cangsheng could finish his words, Gu Yuan had already answered with his actions.

He said no more, merely moving his divine sense.

Hum——!

A radiance indescribable in words flew from his brow and instantly hovered before everyone.

That is not a magic treasure, nor is it a divine ability.

That is a path.

A path, shrunk tens of thousands of times, only a few zhang long, yet seemingly encompassing the profound mysteries of the entire universe… the Path of Light!