Chapter 373: Freezing to Death the Bandits, Xuangus Mountain Underground Palace

A few days later.

Leaving Fengzhou Prefectural City, Wang Yu's first destination was Mount Xuangu. He should have arrived earlier, but was always delayed by other matters.

This gave him a strange feeling.

It was as if the mysterious underground palace of Mount Xuangu had been forgotten. After he left that year, he never heard of the Liu clan from Gu Poison Peak continuing to explore it.

Development of the area seemed to be limited to the surface of Mount Xuangu.

No matter how he looked at it, it seemed strange.

Furthermore, he recalled that the development rights for the underground palace were granted to the Liu clan, treating it as the ruins of a Core Formation sect. During this process, two juniors, Gu Zhengshun and Situ Hong, profited significantly.

Now, apart from Xuangu Essence and Xuangu Wood, which were considered local specialties, almost no one paid any attention to the place.

Only Wang Yu knew how extraordinary this place was.

The Xuangu underground palace, lacking special Feng Shui formations or array adjustments, could surprisingly give birth to Corpse Fiends, creatures that typically only emerge from ancient ruins like Dongji Jing.

It was truly bizarre.

Moreover, he still hadn't fully unlocked the contents of the Taiyin Nether Pupils legacy jade slip he had obtained from the Corpse Fiend back then.

However, times had changed.

With his increased knowledge, he reviewed the ancient and primordial sects that existed, specifically those with Nascent Soul legacies, especially rare eye techniques.

Only one hegemonic power, which rose after the fall of the ancient Immortal Dynasty,

—the Taiyin Sect!

could possibly possess such a legacy. If the Xuangu underground palace were considered a bridgehead built by the Taiyin Sect in the Endless Ice Plains, then it would all make sense.

After all, the Xuangu underground palace was not large to begin with; it was more refined and compact in structure, making it perfectly suitable as a temporary base.

The main hall was even called the Moon Condensing Hall, making its connection to the Taiyin Sect highly probable. He had left too hastily back then and hadn't explored many areas.

The black stele in the Scripture Repository was even more crucial.

It was inscribed with demonic script that he still couldn't decipher. His primary goal now was that black stele.

Mount Xuangu was already very close to the Endless Ice Plains.

After nearly half a month of travel from Fengzhou Prefectural City, Wang Yu flew stubbornly from east to west, crossing most of Fengzhou, finally spotting the three Mount Xuangu peaks, which resembled circular cylinder buildings.

It was here, back then, that he accumulated his first significant advantage.

He successfully semi-liquefied his spiritual power, and then ceaselessly traveled, snowballing his advantage.

It took him over twenty years to perfect the Qi Condensation stage.

It took him over fifty years to perfect the Foundation Establishment stage.

For the Core Formation stage, he had also spent over fifty years and had already touched a corner of its peak. Overall, his cultivation speed was actually increasing.

Mount Xuangu was desolate for thousands of miles.

Cold currents from the Endless Ice Plains and sea winds from the Chaotic Ancient Sea caused this area to be cold all year round, a damp and frigid cold.

It was utterly unsuitable for mortals, so the prefectural city had no intention of building a settlement here.

In recent years, after being occupied by the Xuangu Bandits, it had gained some life. This group mainly consisted of Qi Condensation and Foundation Establishment cultivators, with four or five Core Formation experts present as well.

With over a thousand members, they were a considerable rogue cultivator gang.

Wang Yu's arrival went unnoticed.

Considering that the underground palace had collapsed before, directly burrowing down would require clearing enough space for activity, and the commotion might attract the attention of these people.

“Better to just kill them all,” he decided.

After a brief thought, Wang Yu made his decision, and his figure instantly vanished from the air as if he had never been there.

The abandoned camp was located between the three Mount Xuangu peaks.

The Xuangu Bandits had converted it into living quarters, mostly using materials found on-site, making it rather crude and desolate.

But rogue cultivators often lived hand to mouth.

Even if a raid was successful, their resources would be quickly squandered, leading them to plot another score, often dying in the process. Such individuals were countless.

That night, the wind howled under a dark sky.

Several Core Formation leaders gathered, discussing their affairs.

“Boss, there's been no news of the Ice Devil Child, who is renowned throughout Fengzhou, recently. Should we go for a raid on Qingyuan City?

“Our brothers have investigated thoroughly; there’s only one early Core Formation cultivator stationed there. If we storm the city and plunder it, we'll certainly have a good time.”

The speaker was a purple-faced ugly man, clearly suffering from a cultivation deviation that had grotesquely disfigured his face. His words immediately drew displeasure.

“Hmph—

“Old Fifth, weren't you hunted by the Joyful Devil Sect back then because you couldn't control your impulses and interfered with a prominent figure's prized cultivation vessel?

“Now the entire Fengzhou is on high alert.

“How can we risk it for such a trivial desire? If that Ice Devil really comes knocking, your foul flesh wouldn't even be enough to burn.”

The purple-faced ugly man glared, his eyes wide with rage.

“You… I was a handsome man back then! If that woman hadn't seduced me, why would I have ended up like this today?”

“Enough!”

The group’s leader, the only Core Formation sixth-layer cultivator present, took out a secret letter and said,

“The higher-ups have given orders for us to bypass the Northern Rupture Mountain Range and take the smuggling route through the Endless Ice Plains to raid territories under the Azure Cloud Sect.”

This immediately sparked a debate.

“Go to Taihu? That's not good, is it? If we get trapped there, who would survive?”

“But Taihu has tens of billions of mortals alone; with such a base, the number of cultivators will only be higher, meaning more targets for us to plunder.”

“Why cling to this bitter cold place?”

“Improper, improper.”

“These are orders from above; we must follow them, whether we like it or not.”

Hearing this, the few fell silent.

In the shadows.

Wang Yu frowned deeply. This conversation signified much. Such orders could not have come from those maintaining the rule of the Rebellious Spirit Blood Sect.

Although the Fengzhou Elders' Council had many useless members,

they were still vested interests under the Holy Sect system. At this critical juncture, sending people to provoke the Taihu Sects would be tantamount to giving them an excuse to start a war.

The righteous path operated this way.

They always needed a justifiable reason for their actions.

If it were a demonic sect, if you were weak, you were guilty and deserved to be bullied, with no pretense whatsoever—otherwise, they wouldn't be called demonic.

From Wang Yu's perspective, it felt like the work of the Yellow Springs Monastery.

“Just a bunch of pawns.”

The north wind howled, and the cold night wind suddenly intensified.

Even Qi Condensation cultivators shivered from the cold. In the dark night sky, stars were hidden, with only a frost-covered moon hanging across the expanse, looking exceptionally beautiful.

“Tonight’s moon looks so close.”

“And it suddenly got colder. So freezing.”

“Don’t even talk about it. I just went to relieve myself and almost froze my dick off. Hey, you… conjure a few fireballs for warmth.”

“I'm talking to you! Are you deaf?!”

The on-duty cultivator immediately felt annoyed, walked over quickly, and pushed the man.

However, the fire-attribute cultivator simply collapsed, his entire body frozen solid. He was dead. The on-duty cultivator realized something was terribly wrong. What kind of evil wind could freeze even a cultivator to death? This wasn't the Endless Ice Plains; such a thing had never happened since they occupied Mount Xuangu.

“Brother Luo, something’s wrong…”

Before he could finish, he found that his companion, who had just been speaking to him, was also frozen solid, life completely dissipating in the blink of an eye.

In terror, he immediately let out a sharp alarm cry.

However, the entire camp, though seemingly lit up, was completely silent. The man stumbled towards the leaders' meeting room.

He pushed open the large door with a bang.

Inside, a young boy stood before five pale white flame furnaces, revealing a chilling smile to him.

“Interesting, you weren’t frozen to death.”

This abandoned camp was practically a natural graveyard.

Nestled precisely in the center of the three Mount Xuangu peaks, if a large-scale attack divine ability were unleashed from above, its power would naturally be exceptionally concentrated.

There was no moon tonight.

That frost-covered moon was Wang Yu's personal divine ability, the "Twelve Phases of Guanghan," which he was testing out.

This was his second time using it in a formal setting.

Its power did not disappoint him. The Guanghan divine ability, nearing the grand accomplishment stage, almost instantly froze to death all Qi Condensation and Foundation Establishment cultivators.

Only these few Core Formation cultivators could still move.

If the divine ability's power were condensed into the Twelve Phases, almost no Core Formation cultivator could withstand the move head-on. It had definitely reached the Nascent Soul level, and he was quite satisfied.

As for this remaining one…

“What exactly are you?”

Reaching out, his magic power transformed into a spectral arm, seizing the man and bringing him close to Wang Yu.

The man trembled all over, his fear reaching an extreme, even temporarily losing the ability to speak. It didn't seem like a pretense.

Surviving in such extreme cold was something even some ice-attribute demonic beasts couldn't do, especially since it involved the power of a divine ability and wasn't comparable to natural low temperatures.

His divine sense invaded the man’s body.

Wang Yu's pupils contracted.

The man’s flesh, meridians, and bones were all normal, but his Qi Sea was an icy blue, and that power was precisely the residual cold qi from the Twelve Phases of Guanghan.

It seemed to have activated some kind of innate talent within him.

“A congenital spiritual body? No… it’s more like a change resulting from the awakening of a demonic clan bloodline.”

He muttered to himself about this sudden development.

It greatly surprised him.

Using the Soul-Gouging Evil Boat Curse, he delved deep into the man’s memories, going back to infancy, finally finding some useful information.

In the memory, the man was born in a world of ice and snow.

He was placed in a wooden basin and floated down an unfrozen river, traveling from the icy land to Fengzhou. Judging by the direction, the source must have been in the Endless Ice Plains.

An unfrozen river…

Wang Yu’s lips curved upward; he had more or less figured out the reason.

The Endless Ice Plains harbored a large number of ice-attribute demonic beasts and also intelligent demonic tribes, which were considered one of the indigenous forces.

Besides these, there was also a type of creature formed from ice crystals.

They had humanoid, beast, and avian forms, and a few among them would awaken sentience, thus being called—the Ice Clan!

Their cultivation system was similar to that of humans, but the Ice Clan seemed unable to leave the Endless Ice Plains throughout their lives for unknown reasons. Once an Ice Clan being died,

a massive ice and snow storm would form.

Legend had it that the natural disasters on the Endless Ice Plains were accumulated over time this way, eventually forming a chasm that even Nascent Soul cultivators could not cross.

This top-secret information was something Wang Yu only learned from the secret archives after becoming the Seventh Elder of Cold Blood Peak. Successive Cold Blood Mountain Masters had always maintained good relations with the Ice Clan beings.

The Frozen Demon Seal was also guarded by these beings.

As for the fortunate individual before him, he was most likely a product of interbreeding between the Ice Clan and humans. Wang Yu's cold qi had helped activate this latent talent in his bloodline.

What caught Wang Yu's attention the most was this person's horrifying resistance to extreme cold, practically the bane of ice-path cultivators.

He had encountered one so easily.

This suggested that the Ice Clan, trapped in the Endless Ice Plains, must have long begun attempting to use human bloodlines to escape the mysterious imprisonment of the Endless Ice Plains.

“Strange, too strange!”

Fengzhou's situation was already chaotic, riddled with problems, and now this discovery. Wang Yu could only sigh and lament, finding himself with no real solution.

He casually flicked out an ice sword, killing the man.

He sealed and preserved the body in an ice coffin for future study.

After this minor interlude,

he gathered all the spoils. The corpses of low-level cultivators were of no great use to him, so he only collected the Foundation Establishment corpses, storing them all in the Corpse Nourishing Coffin.

They would serve as food for his two Corpse Fiends.

They were frozen solid, so preservation wouldn't be an issue.

He refined the bodies of the bandit leaders into pills for restoring magic power using the Golden Core Art. After swiftly dealing with everything, he headed towards the underground palace beneath Mount Xuangu.

With the Purple Dragon Earth-Traveling Art, he moved through rocks and earth unimpeded.

The Ferocious Bone Lions and Corrosive Poison Bee Swarms living underground posed no threat to him. After finding the collapsed area, it took him considerable effort to clear a corner of the underground palace.

The collapse underground was more severe than he had anticipated.

Almost the entire underground palace was buried.

This didn't match the situation described by Liu JinXian after she emerged years ago. According to her, at most, some passages and parts of the palace were buried, far from a complete collapse.

After he descended, if not for his divine sense probing,

he might have even mistaken this area for solid ground. Clearing it out would be a huge undertaking. He patted the 'Human Seed Bag', and Snow Jade poked her head out, looking bewildered.

Ever since she broke through to the third rank, her old spirit beast bag was no longer sufficient.

The 'Human Seed Bag' was a top-grade third-tier magic treasure capable of storing living beings.

Not only could it capture and bind people, but it also allowed Snow Jade to cultivate inside. Natural spiritual energy was out of the question; Wang Yu provided all the spirit stones and pills.

This luxurious practice wasn't common and had only started recently. Previously, Wang Yu kept his little fox by his side, but now he was the Ice Devil Child.

The methods were similar, but as long as he didn't expose his Yellow Springs divine ability or Killing Path divine ability, the probability of people making a connection was low, especially given the significant difference in appearance.

Existing divine abilities and spells only allowed for disguising aura and appearance.

While there were secrets to growing from small to large, there had never been any secret methods for shrinking from large to small. One rumor about the Ice Devil Child claimed he achieved reverse growth by cultivating a special technique.

This particular rumor was deliberately spread by Wang Yu to create as much dissimilarity from his true form as possible.

Regarding her shrunken master,

Snow Jade was initially very excited, but after being reprimanded with head rubs, and losing her freedom and her master's embrace, she immediately became dispirited, and her interest naturally vanished.

Now, having come out, she cast him a bewildered look.

“Ahem… Snow Jade, remember your Snow Fox Robe, your innate demonic treasure, primarily grants shape-shifting abilities. I'm entrusting you with the task of clearing this section of the underground palace.”

The little fox widened her eyes and protested,

“My five shape-shifting magical treasures are only sword, silk, mirror, orb, and lamp; there's no shovel.”

Wang Yu’s expression was stern.

“Just do as you’re told. Look at you, all fat and lazy; you have no foxy charm whatsoever. It’s about time you got some exercise.”

With that said,

he pulled out several more storage rings from his robes, stringing them into a necklace and hanging it around the little fox's neck. He had the most of these items on him.

“Put the excavated soil into the rings first, and remember to reinforce the structure here with ice crystals.”

Snow Jade sighed, “…Oh, fine.”