Fang Yuan's guess had been incorrect, the Xiong Clan did not cough up their secret the next morning.
Instead, given the oppressive offer, they first tried to reach out to the Bai Clan to see if they could strike some alliance with them. Given how powerful the Gu Yue clan was, their only hope of even offering a token resistance is if they worked together.
No matter how bad a second option was, it was, at the very least, an option when it came to negotiating so that one could not be extorted for that first option. If they had even the semblance of something else that they could do, Fang Yuan would not be able to bully them so.
They delayed negotiations, but Fang Yuan had an answer for this as well.
"What do you make of this?" one of the Bai Clan elders asked.
"Hmph!" Bai Ning Bing said during their meeting.
"Lady Ling Ding Ching, you don't think that this is worth considering?"
"Why would we? It's clear that they are desperate and this is a death rattle of a dying clan," Bai Ning Bing said. Her eyes flashed ruthlessly. "If anything - we should go ahead and use this to our advantage!"
Even though 'Bai Ning Bing' had only been an elder for a while, she had already dominated the Bai clan's political system. She was the strongest Rank 3 Gu Master there, at Rank 3 Peak Stage, her Rank 5 gu worm notwithstanding. If she managed to reach Rank 4, there would be no doubt that she could become their clan head immediately despite being an 'outsider.'
Faced with this kind of domineering personality, the remaining Bai clan elders felt a spark of fear - which was somewhat uncannily familiar in a way. It was as if Lord Bai Ning Bing had returned to them, only slightly mellower.
The Xiong clan elders nearly coughed up blood when they saw the response from the Bai clan.
'You're demanding our Bear Strength Gu recipes for free and 20,000 primeval stones upfront in exchange for our help?!'
This was even more outrageous than Fang Yuan's demands.
'Oi! What are you thinking? Can't you see how strong the Gu Yue clan is? Is this really the time to extort us? Can you not see Mt. Tai? Once they are done with us they'll come for you next!' - that was what the Xiong Clan elders felt.
When seeing someone bullying someone else, rather than siding with the victim, you chose to help the bully instead!?
"No wait..." one of the elders said. "What if... the Bai Clan and the Gu Yue Clan are already in cahoots?" It explained everything going on.
"You don't mean..."
"If the Bai Clan has agreed to assist them in tormenting us, what can we do?"
Both of them cursed their fates, but soon realized that there was nothing to do.
Two days later, Fang Yuan was standing near the mouth of a deep cave near Xiong Clan village.
It would've ordinarily been covered with ice, however, the Xiong Clan had taken great pains to clear this area.
"So this is where your Rank 5 secret is kept?" Fang Yuan asked.
Both of the elders nodded.
Fang Yuan approached the entrance of the cave, noting the bear bones that littered it. Whatever gu this was, it was bear-themed, fitting in with the history of the Xiong Clan.
Fang Yuan walked in cautiously, on guard for traps. Although he was strong, he did not have full Rank 5 strength yet for the lack of gu worms. His investigative methods told him there was something buried deep within the cave, only what that was was unclear.
It was only when he went in some distance that he saw it.
"This is our Rank 5 secret at the hear of our clan," one of the Xiong clan elders said.
Fang Yuan took a look at a gu worm that took the form a giant bear's mouth that had seemingly embedded itself into the cave.
Rank 5 Bear Stomach Hibernation Gu!
Although it was called 'Bear Stomach', and the inside of the gu worm very much felt like that, it did not have any digestive liquids within it. Instead, it emulated the way that bears hibernated. It opened up into a space where people could hide out and weather any passing storm. Once it closed its mouth, it would fuse with the cave and be nearly indistinguishable. It was an inferior way of hiding in a Blessed Land, mildly put.
Fang Yuan had thought that their method had to be some kind of stealth-type gu worm, but this was, as a matter of fact, a storage-type gu worm being used in a way that
It came in a Rank 3 and Rank 4 variety as well.
Fang Yuan: ...
"I see, thank you for showing me this," Fang Yuan said.
The two elders were speechless.
Didn't he want to take this gu worm from them? That was what they had initially thought his intentions were.
However, Fang Yuan quickly realized the impracticality of this gu worm.
It had one major weakness - it took far too long to set up; several hours as a matter of fact. That had been fine for the Xiong Clan when they needed to hide as they planned it from beforehand. Not only that, it could not be moved casually and needed very specific gu worms to do so. The Xiong Clan ancestor did not intend for it to be moved anyway, only for his clan to use it.
For Fang Yuan's purposes though, it simply would not do.
It was not like taking it was entirely a win for Fang Yuan. He would need to feed it, and also there was the aspect of refining it in the first place. He no longer had an 'auto-win' button in the form of the Spring Autumn Cicada - it could make refining this gu worm somewhat easier but it would still take copious amounts of time and effort that were not worth it.
It really would be easier just to refine a Rank 5 gu worm himself!
'All of that scheming for nothing...' Fang Yuan thought.
But it couldn't be helped.
In his previous life he had once fought off two other Gu Masters for an inheritance only to finally realized that it had already been taken by the time he got to the end of the inheritance.
Extortion was not always successful - he had 'failed' in this endeavor because he had not know the true nature of the Xiong Clan's secret. If he did, he wouldn't have bothered with this in the first place!
It was like breaking into a 'bank' back on Earth, only to later realize far too late that it was actually a sperm bank. What were you going to do even if you had the cashier at gunpoint?
This was still useful to the clan, but he could let the Xiong Clan keep it for now. If he ever had need of it in the future, it was a simple matter to extort them for it.
With that done, they finalized the deal between their two clans. It would still take some time, but the Xiong Clan would start to become integrated with the Gu Yue clan. They sent a trickle of people first - only about twenty, and would increase it as time went on. One of their elders accompanied them and sat at the elder's meeting of Gu Yue village as an external elder.
Even if his extortion had somewhat failed, he had still succeeded in his original mission.