Beast Taming Immortal Clan

Chapter 358 The Jade Bead Displays its Power [Please Subscribe]

Thanks to the reminder from the female cultivator of Snow Soul Palace, Zhou Chun managed to run to a nearby market directly under Snow Soul Palace and exchange it for a Foundation Establishment Pill from a Purple Mansion stage cultivator of Snow Soul Palace.

Although Snow Soul Palace sent many people to buy Snow Crystal Insects in various parts of the snowfield, in reality, those people did not have Foundation Establishment Pills at all. They were just buying Snow Crystal Insects with spirit coins or other treasures.

To obtain a strategic treasure like the Foundation Establishment Pill, one must gather three Snow Crystal Insects at once and exchange them at the market.

In fact, Zhou Chun also knew that the conflict between the Snow Soul Palace female cultivator and the Ice Armor Bear in the Snow Valley must be because there was some kind of extraordinary treasure in the Snow Valley.

But right now, he's only thinking about catching the Snow Crystal Insect King to exchange for the Snow Soul Pill, and he doesn't want to cause any more trouble.

This snowfield is, after all, the territory of the Snow Soul Palace. It's obvious that the female cultivator from the Snow Soul Palace has a powerful background. Zhou Chun doesn't want to cause trouble for himself by being penny-wise and pound-foolish.

After exchanging for the Foundation Establishment Pill, he immediately left the market and headed to the snowfield to find an ice cave.

Within a few days, news of the cancellation of the bounty for exchanging Snow Crystal Insects for Foundation Establishment Pills spread throughout the snowfields.

Many cultivators who came for this opportunity were so angry upon hearing the news that they stomped their feet and sighed repeatedly. Many others cursed the Snow Soul Palace for deliberately playing tricks on them.

In fact, Xuepo Palace's actions did have an element of deliberately playing tricks on people.

They deliberately used Foundation Establishment Pills to lure a large number of cultivators to help them capture Snow Crystal Insects, and then, once they had acquired enough, they unilaterally canceled the bounty, like crossing a river and burning a bridge.

But what can be done about it?

The Snow Soul Palace wields immense power, giving them the leverage to manipulate others in this way.

As for the curses of the lowly cultivators, who cares?

After a few decades, all these low-level rogue cultivators will have grown old and died. How many of the later rogue cultivators will still know about this?

Humans are all forgetful!

So despite their complaints, once they realized they couldn't change the Snow Soul Palace's decision, more than 80% of the cultivators who had come to capture the Snow Crystal Insects on the snowfield quickly left.

Only a few cultivators who still wanted to capture Snow Crystal Insects to exchange for Spirit Coins, or like Zhou Chun who wanted to capture the Snow Crystal Insect King, were still exploring ice caves and peaks on the snowfield, continuing their journey toward their goals.

Without the interference of cultivators searching for snow crystal insects, Zhou Chun's cave exploration efficiency improved.

And through his repeated descents into the cave, he gained some experience and insights.

Based on his observations, it is highly unlikely that snow crystal worms could exist in such unstable ice caves, as they could collapse and disappear at any time.

However, snow crystal insects may be found in some semi-permanent ice caves.

Following this approach, his cave exploration efficiency increased again.

In the following four months, following his own experience, Zhou Chun discovered four more snow crystal worms in the ice cave and caught two of them.

This result greatly encouraged him, and he knew that he had found the right target.

Therefore, he became even more determined to use this method to find the Snow Crystal Insect King.

On this day, while exploring an ice cave, Zhou Chun encountered another collapse.

But unlike many of the collapses he had encountered before, this time the ice beneath his feet collapsed first, causing a chain reaction of collapses.

During the collapse, Zhou Chun was forced to fall with the ground, and it is unknown how deep he fell before being buried by countless solid ice crystals.

In fact, the risk of ice surface collapse is not as great as that of mountain collapse.

Because ice is very hard, and the older the ice, the harder it is.

In the process of collapse, cultivators like Zhou Chun, with their powerful spiritual sense and agile movements, could find some hiding places to take shelter, just like those survivors of earthquakes and landslides.

Foundation Establishment cultivators can already abstain from grains, and they often keep pills like the Grain Abstinence Pill in their storage bags. Even if they are buried under a bottomless glacier, they don't have to worry about dying from hunger.

Zhou Chun had survived many ice cave collapses in the past in this way.

Although this collapse was also unexpected, he survived unharmed until it ended after taking the correct measures.

After the collapse was over, Zhou Chun, as usual, used all his divine sense to scan the surroundings.

Even when the ice layer collapses, there will still be many gaps, which will allow his divine sense to scan and detect at greater depths.

He can also use this scanning detection to find suitable digging points and excavate a passage leading to the surface.

But after Zhou Chun released his divine sense to scan him, his expression changed slightly, and he let out a surprised "Eh."

It turned out that Zhou Chun had discovered the presence of the stone during his scanning and detection.

"Was it caused by a series of collapses that plunged it into the valley?"

Zhou Chun thought to himself, feeling somewhat pleased.

For him, digging a tunnel through the mud and rock was obviously easier than digging a tunnel through the hard but fragile collapsed ice.

So he immediately unleashed his magical weapon and attacked forward, quickly clearing a path for himself.

Soon after, Zhou Chun appeared in an underground ice cave passage.

Yes, a brand new underground ice cave passage.

He had intended to dig an escape route through the muddy ground, but unexpectedly discovered that the muddy ground was actually a deep abyss cliff, and not far from the collapse site, there was a natural ice cave passage.

This discovery made Zhou Chun immediately abandon the idea of ​​escaping and instead begin exploring this brand-new underground ice cave.

This underground ice cave passage was likely formed by the impact of melting ice water. Below it is frozen soil that has solidified with mud and rocks, and above it is hard blue ice. The heights of the upper and lower parts are not the same, but the difference is not too great.

The temperature here is also very low, but because no new moisture comes in, no more ice can condense here to block the passage.

Zhou Chun walked along the passage for about two or three hours before the road suddenly ended.

At this moment, he was on the edge of a cliff, with an unknown depth of thick ice in front of him.

If the underground ice cave passage was created by the impact of melting ice water, then that stream of ice water must have flowed down the cliff when it reached this point, and then frozen into ice.

This result disappointed Zhou Chun, who had thought he might find a natural, permanent ice cave on the ground beneath his feet.

"But it should be easier to dig an escape tunnel if we dig upwards from here!"

Zhou Chun looked up at the solid ice above her head and thought with a sense of comfort.

Once the ice has solidified into a block, the excavated tunnel is unlikely to collapse, no matter how deep it is.

But when Zhou Chun used his magic weapon to start digging, his expression quickly changed.

It's too hard!

After he dug the passage upwards for about ten feet, the ice surface suddenly became extremely hard, and even the [Sun-Shining Golden Wheel] could not easily cut through the solid ice there.

This discovery immediately weighed heavily on Zhou Chun's mind.

He already had a very bad feeling about it.

If he's not mistaken, the ice layer above his head is probably over a thousand feet thick!

Generally speaking, only with such a deep ice layer could the ice be this hard.

Even across the entire snowfield, places where the ice layer can reach a thickness of a thousand feet are extremely rare.

"Could it be that I'm currently at the bottom of Sunset Lake?"

Zhou Chun recalled the location of the ice cave entrance he had initially explored and discovered that it was indeed not too far from the famous Sunset Lake in the snowfield.

He had already walked for quite some time inside the ice cave, and after it collapsed and he was buried, he walked along the current ice cave for more than two hours.

Based on the route, it is indeed possible that they entered Chenri Lake.

There is a legend about this Sunset Lake.

Legend has it that Chenri Lake was once the largest unfrozen lake on the snowfield, with a depth of thousands of feet. It was home to many fish and shrimp, and its shores were covered with lush vegetation. It was the largest human settlement on the snowfield and a sacred lake in the mouths of the snowfield people.

Standing atop the mountains to the east of Chenri Lake, one could clearly see the sun sinking into the lake at dusk, hence the name "Chenri Lake" (meaning "Sunset Lake").

But later, for some unknown reason, Chenri Lake, which was not frozen, also froze over. From then on, only the legend of "Chenri Lake" existed on the snowfield, and the legendary sacred lake of the snowfield could no longer be seen.

Upon realizing that he might be at the bottom of Sunset Lake, Zhou Chun couldn't help but feel worried.

Undoubtedly, to get from the bottom of the lake to the surface, it would be necessary to carve out a tunnel through the thousands of feet of ice above, which would be an enormous project that would probably take several months to complete.

Going back to the previously collapsed area and digging a tunnel upwards seems like a good idea, but the ice layer in those collapsed areas is unstable, and digging could easily lead to another collapse.

"Wait, if this is the bottom of Sunset Lake, then what's going on in front of us?"

Suddenly, Zhou Chun seemed to have thought of something and couldn't help but look at the ice surface in front of him, where the path was blocked.

After a moment's thought, he unleashed his magical weapon to attack the ice surface.

Sure enough, the ice surface was easily cut by the magical artifact, just as easily as cutting through the ice on the ground in a snowfield.

Seeing this, Zhou Chun immediately began digging forward.

He dug wherever the cave was weak, and when his magic power was depleted, he would meditate to recover. With this tenacity, Zhou Chun managed to dig for three days and three nights before reappearing in another ice cave.

The ice cave beneath our feet was similar to the one before us, both appearing to have been carved out by water.

Zhou Chun walked along the ice cave for about half a day before a narrow opening suddenly appeared in front of him.

He used his magical artifact to bombard the ice surface near the cave entrance, easily shattering all the ice. Then, a stone cave more than ten feet high and several feet wide appeared before him.

This stone cave is the permanent ice cave that Zhou Chun has been searching for!

Looking at the ice cave in front of him, Zhou Chun did not rush to enter, but instead first projected his divine sense into it to explore.

As he expected, the ice cave was very deep and filled with thick frost, but no signs of life were found.

So he rested outside the cave for half a day, adjusting himself to his best condition before stepping into the ice cave to explore.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, Zhou Chun's expression suddenly changed, and a clear look of joy appeared in his eyes.

Then his feet quickly lifted off the ground and he floated up, gliding forward silently.

Not long after, Zhou Chun raised his hand and unleashed a golden light, capturing a snow crystal worm and bringing it before him.

The appearance of this snowflake worm was just the beginning.

In the next short period of less than an hour, Zhou Chun caught three snow crystal worms in the ice cave.

This unprecedented achievement made him very excited.

He felt that what he had been searching for all along might finally be found this time.

Not long after, Zhou Chun discovered another snow crystal worm. He quietly approached the vicinity and prepared to capture it using the same method.

But just as he made his move, a powerful aura suddenly erupted from a few feet away from him. Before he could see what the source of the aura was, a torrent of white, icy air fell on him, instantly freezing him solid.

At that moment, the exceptionally cold air froze Zhou Chun inside, and the cold air went straight to his heart meridian.

If his heart meridian were frozen, even though Zhou Chun was already a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, he would surely die!

But Zhou Chun himself was completely helpless at this point. His magic power was no match for the cold air and he was unable to withstand its attack.

An unprecedented sense of despair welled up in his heart; he thought he was doomed this time.

However, just when he was in despair and ready to die, a powerful suction force suddenly appeared from his dantian, and then the cold energy from all parts of his body was drawn into his dantian as if it had been summoned.

In the blink of an eye, the ice that had formed on Zhou Chun's body shattered, and he instantly regained his mobility.

At this moment, he also discovered what had attacked him. It was a white, salamander-like monster, and the aura emanating from it had reached the third rank, or even possibly a high-grade third-rank monster!

Zhou Chun was truly impressed that such a powerful demon beast would resort to such a sneak attack.

Fortunately, the mysterious jade bead inside him, which he had obtained from the wilderness, suddenly activated and saved his life.

Otherwise, Zhou Chun would really be dead here today, becoming food for monsters.

But the danger was not over yet.

After freezing Zhou Chun, the salamander monster opened its huge mouth full of sharp teeth and lunged at him.

It originally intended to swallow Zhou Chun, who was frozen by its own cold energy, but it did not expect that Zhou Chun would be completely unharmed by the cold energy it exhaled.

So when the frost on Zhou Chun's body shattered, it was very surprised, and even paused slightly before lunging forward with its large mouth.

This pause gave Zhou Chun the opportunity to escape.

He moved swiftly to the side, shifting several feet to avoid the gaping maw's attack, and then tried to raise his hand to pat his storage bag to summon his magical artifact.

But just then, a strange roar suddenly rang out from inside his body.

Upon hearing the roar, both Zhou Chun and the salamander monster paused slightly, their consciousness momentarily dazed and lost.

Just like the Vulcan Jackal and Golden-Winged Tiger when they first heard the strange roar, the salamander monster was instantly terrified and disappeared into the ice cave in a flash before Zhou Chun could react. Its speed was unbelievable.

First update delivered!

(End of this chapter)