Chapter Sixty-Two: The Gu Clan

Liu Pan was deeply perplexed.

To others, the surname Gu might not seem particularly special, but as the author, Liu Pan knew all too well what it signified.

In the history of the Tianfeng Continent, the Gu family name had always been exceedingly rare. Ten thousand years ago, it was even one of the imperial surnames in the truest sense—because this name represented the "pinnacle of ice."

In the world of cultivation, every cultivator's innate constitution and spiritual root fell into one of eight elemental categories: metal, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, thunder, and ice.

Some cultivators might possess multiple spiritual roots, but for each additional element cultivated, the time and resources required multiplied exponentially.

Thus, even those with multi-elemental roots would ultimately choose to focus on a single element. Only a handful would pursue dual cultivation, and as for mastering three or more elements, that was virtually unheard of.

Because the vast majority cultivated only one spiritual root, the cultivation world was broadly divided into eight distinct factions, each aligned with one element.

Even within each faction, the quality of spiritual roots varied among individuals, giving rise to the "strongest" within every element; such figures were revered as the ultimate peak of their respective elements.

The surname Gu, ten thousand years ago, was the very embodiment of the "pinnacle of ice."

Conversely, the Liu clan, in that same distant era, was renowned as the "pinnacle of fire."

Yet it was precisely because the Gu family once represented the ultimate in ice that Liu Pan now found himself so confused. For in his narrative, just after the decline of the Liu family—the fire pinnacle—the Gu family, the ice pinnacle, also fell from grace for various reasons.

Indeed, in his story, the protagonist Liu Kuang had even visited the now-fallen Gu family later on. Although their situation was somewhat better than the Liu clan's, it was nothing to boast of.

To put it bluntly, the Liu clan had declined to huddle in a nondescript little town on the southern border, while the Gu family had retreated to a desolate city in the far north, equally unremarkable.

A small town, a deserted city—the difference was marginal. In the grand scheme of the Tianfeng Continent, both were utterly insignificant.

Because he had designed the story himself, Liu Pan was acutely aware of the Gu family’s circumstances, thus his bewilderment. How could the Gu family, having fallen so low, possibly appear here, in this godforsaken corner of the southern border?

Frowning, Liu Pan found it nearly impossible to believe. Yet when his spiritual sense had probed beneath the earthen mound, he had noticed a small, unremarkable trinket among the burial goods, inscribed with a subtle, almost hidden motif.

This tiny pattern, together with certain peculiarities that had surfaced in his own body, allowed Liu Pan to immediately deduce that his mother, Gu Suqing, must be a member of the Gu family!

Once he realized his mother was of the Gu lineage, Liu Pan was able to unravel one of the mysteries of his own body—why, as a descendant of the fire pinnacle, he possessed an extreme ice constitution.

He had always doubted Yan’s assertion that he had a water-based constitution; after all, someone with a water affinity would still feel discomfort in cold environments, whereas he did not.

This had led Liu Pan to choose the ice-based cultivation method, the Mysterious Ice Technique.

Yet he could understand Yan’s mistake. Ice and water share the same origin, and Yan, as the spirit of a fire-elemental divine weapon, would naturally be less knowledgeable about the other elements.

Although this explained his extreme ice constitution, Liu Pan remained troubled, even vexed. He had hoped that returning to the Liu clan would answer some of his questions, but aside from understanding the source of his ice spiritual root, nothing else had been resolved. In fact, he now had even more questions regarding the Gu family.

Even knowing the origin of his ice spiritual root, Liu Pan still couldn't comprehend why he possessed only a single attribute—an extreme ice spiritual root.

In his predecessor’s memories, he clearly had a fire affinity and had even practiced basic fire techniques.

If transmigration had altered his spiritual roots, it still didn’t make sense. Even if a spiritual root mutated, it could only become stronger or weaker, not disappear entirely.

This meant that, even with a mutation, he should at least possess both ice and fire spiritual roots, yet now he had only the single ice attribute.

What was the meaning of this?

Despite his confusion on this matter, Liu Pan quickly set it aside, for his greater concern was the Gu family.

He knew from his own design that the Gu family had withdrawn to a forsaken city in the far north, making their presence in the southern border virtually impossible.

Could it be that there was a hidden plot in his own novel, one even the author did not foresee? That shouldn’t be possible—the plotlines were all logical and consistent. If there was any uncertainty, it would lie in the grand finale, whose upload status was unknown, but certainly not in the fate of the already fallen Gu family.

Unless the ending hadn’t uploaded successfully, leaving the outcome unresolved, and somehow, at the climax, the Gu family would suddenly reemerge?

But what could a broken, declining clan possibly stir up? Could they truly accomplish anything earth-shattering?

Liu Pan’s brows drew together, strange light flickering in his eyes. All of this was utterly bewildering. Yet, if his mother Gu Suqing’s presence on the southern border wasn’t mere coincidence, then what lay concealed behind it was truly intriguing.

He even vaguely envisioned a world entirely different from what he had written—a notion that left him both uneasy and inexplicably excited.

He had already planned to travel to the Gu family in the far north, since the only ice-elemental divine weapon, the Sky Azure Sword, resided there, and the ancient legacy technique he most coveted, the Heaven-Wasting Cold Technique, was known only to the sword spirit.

But now, upon discovering that his mother was of the Gu family, Liu Pan suddenly sensed that this former "pinnacle of ice" was not as simple as he had depicted.

In his work, since Liu Kuang was a fire cultivator, his encounter with the Gu family had been incidental, and thus he’d never delved deeply into their mysteries.

Thinking it over from every angle, Liu Pan concluded that if the Gu family did harbor some hidden secret, it was because Liu Kuang in the story had never investigated them thoroughly.

If there was indeed a secret, then the spirit of the Wild Desolation Blade, Yan, ought to know it. If there was something amiss with the Gu family, Yan should have noticed, though for some reason, Yan had remained silent. Of course, in the novel, Yan had only frowned in that desolate city but had not pursued the matter.

From the possibility of a Gu family secret, Liu Pan deduced that Yan too must have a secret. This realization left him speechless, for it seemed that this one small secret had unraveled an infinity of possibilities, as if another world had been torn open from the pages of his own novel.

"The Gu family," Liu Pan murmured to himself. At that moment, he felt it was time to journey north, to that most unremarkable city, and uncover the truth.