The Eternal Saint of Alchemy

Six days after the border battle, Iron Peak Fortress sent a letter to Twin Realms Platform.

The letter contained Leng Tiefeng's name and invited Xiao Fan and the others to meet on the flat ground between Shuangjietai and Tiefengbao.

The letter was worded in a strong tone as always, but it was made very clear that "minor adjustments will be made to the border in accordance with existing agreements between the two sides."

Xiao Fan took the letter and briefly discussed it with Cheng Xiushi and Ning Yao.

In Cheng Xiushi's view, Leng Tiefeng wanted to resolve the conflict. Neither side wanted to escalate the situation, and this meeting was a good opportunity to completely resolve the border issue between the two countries.

On the day they met, Xiao Fan brought Bai Ye and the Earth Core Golden Mane with him.

Leng Tiefeng, accompanied by two attendants, was already waiting on a high ground.

The meeting went very smoothly.

The two compared the map one by one, shared the mining area, and made minor adjustments to the markings at several corners, making the new boundary line clearer.

Leng Tiefeng did not demand more fiefdoms, nor did he apologize for the previous border frictions. He only adjusted the resource management fees in the draft agreement, reducing them from 40% to 30%.

After the meeting, Leng Tiefeng put away the map, then looked at Xiao Fan and said, "This area must be clearly demarcated so that we can better resolve the disputes here."

After saying this, he led his entourage toward Iron Peak Fortress.

Bai Ye and Xiao Fan walked side by side, the Silver Frost Sword leaning against the saddle, gleaming softly in the sunlight.

As she looked at the Shuangjietai city wall gradually becoming clearer, she said, "With this line, Iron Peak Fortress will no longer covet our territory."

Before the arrival of winter, Shuangjietai had already begun preparations for the winter.

The mines in the Rust Rift Valley had ceased operations before winter, and Ning Yao transferred all the idle resources to the base.

Before winter arrived, Qinglu Manor sent a batch of cold-resistant spiritual materials from the northeast of Aurora Plains, and the Chitie Gang also sent semi-finished mineral powder from the Iron Rust Rift Valley in case of emergency.

Before winter arrived, the guard was expanded twice, reaching a total of twenty-five people.

Taking into account the conditions of the snowy plains in winter, Master Cheng adjusted the patrol routes of Shuangjietai and added a patrol team in addition to the original patrol team to patrol the surrounding large area.

After winter set in, the gatekeeper of Black Stone Pass sent a short letter saying that since the beginning of winter, the seal on the north side of Black Stone Pass had emitted light automatically for a period of fifteen minutes.

The letter also included a record of spiritual energy fluctuations.

After reading the letter, Xiao Fan took out the records from the array room and confirmed that the spiritual energy frequency of this luminous phenomenon was exactly the same as that of a Sun-rank spiritual core. It was like a seal that would perform a self-test on the entire underground spiritual energy network every once in a while.

Bai Ye spent three weeks at the Twin Realms Platform and half a day fusing the spiritual energy data of the entire winter stored in the Silver Frost Sword with Xiao Fan's Sun-Rank Spirit Core data.

After the data was merged, a faint halo appeared on the surface of the Silverfrost Sword.

The golden lion from the center of the earth crouched in front of the fireplace, its golden mane shimmering in the warm winter sun.

In the four corners of the city wall, the array flags emitted a faint light, maintaining the operation of the defensive barrier. From a distance, they looked like a point of light wrapped in a semi-transparent light shield in a gray snowfield.

In the second month after winter began, a strange thing happened in the wasteland near Shuangjietai.

The guards on night patrol discovered a huge footprint of a spirit beast. Judging from the footprint and the depth of the indentation, it belonged to an adult snow bear.

These mythical beasts occasionally appear in the northern part of the Aurora Plains. They are usually solitary and rarely approach human settlements.

Upon discovering the third set of footprints, Cheng Xiushi immediately reported to Xiao Fan, who then led the Earth Core Golden Mane Lion to investigate the location of the footprints.

The golden-maned lion from the Earth's core sniffed the footprints on the ground, its mane standing on end, but it made no warning sound, clearly indicating that it had no intention of attacking.

It kept sniffing around on the snow, probably because food was scarce in winter, forcing it to migrate south in search of food.

Xiao Fan crouched down, glanced at the remaining withered grass on the snow, and said, "That's not our target."

The next day, the guards spotted another bear.

Following the pre-arranged guidance plan, Master Cheng and his guards sprinkled a faint light of spiritual energy along the road outside the stronghold, leading the Snow-Patterned Bear to the open wilderness to the west.

Since then, the snow bear's footprints have never been seen again.

After dealing with this matter, Ning Yao marked the Snow-Patterned Bear's migration route on the map as a record of the winter spirit beasts.

In the third month of winter, the far north experienced several days of heavy snowfall.

The snow on the ground was more than two feet thick, but the defensive array on the Twin Realms Platform was completely unaffected.

The road from the Rust Rift Valley to the base was unobstructed, thanks to the windproof barrier that Ning Yao had set up in advance, which played a significant role in minimizing the impact on transportation.

The array chamber operated smoothly amidst the wind and snow, with faint spiritual light shining through the cracks in the door, casting a warm glow on the snow.

Xiao Fan tested the Sun-Rank Spirit Core and the red short staff and found that the resonance between the two was much higher than before winter. Even in the extremely cold environment, the spiritual energy network underground could operate stably.

On the third day after the heavy snow stopped, news came from Black Stone Pass that the seal at the North Pass had once again exhibited the strange phenomenon of spiritual energy automatically emitting light, which lasted for a long time.

The gatekeeper added, "When the anomaly occurred, the temperature of the sealed rock layer was higher than that of the surrounding rocks."

Xiao Fan took out the spiritual energy projection on the bronze disc in the array room and compared it with the time of the sealing light. He found that it matched the time when he was conducting the spiritual energy coupling test in the array room.

Between the two realms, there is a meridian that allows for the simultaneous exchange of spiritual energy.

When Bai Ye first stepped onto the Twin Realms Platform, he left two clear footprints in the snow.

She handed the list of materials needed by the Frost Shadow Sect to Master Cheng, stood at the entrance of the array room for a while, and then, using the warm light filtering through the crack in the door, turned and walked into the vast snowfield.

After the snow melted, the young master of Qinglu Manor arrived at the Twin Realms Platform, his expression extremely solemn.

He took out an ancient book from Qinglu Manor, which recorded that there was a well-preserved ancient defensive tower to the north of Aurora Plain. It had been unguarded for many years, and recently, scattered forces had been frequently appearing there, so Qinglu Manor was worried that it would be robbed.

"This tower is located at the border of Black Stone Pass and Green Deer Manor, seven hundred miles north of Aurora Plains." The young master opened a tattered ancient map and pointed to the marked location on the map, saying, "If we leave it unattended, it will be extremely difficult to take it back once it is occupied by other forces."