Chapter Eight: The Sea of Profound Ice (Part Two)

Qian Duo nodded vigorously and said, “Master, I’ll go contact them right away.”

With that, Qian Duo seemed anxious to act, quickly turning on his heel and striding out of the room.

Though Kuang Chi had a bad temper, he was by no means a fool. He might still possess the impetuousness of youth, but that didn’t mean the craft he’d acquired over the years was merely for show—he could wield it with dexterity.

With motivation, the speed at which things got done indeed changed. The very next morning, as soon as Kuang Chi stepped out of his room, he saw Qian Duo already waiting not far from his door.

At the sight of Kuang Chi, Qian Duo bowed from afar, greeting as he approached, “Master.”

Kuang Chi smiled. “How did things go?”

Qian Duo hesitated a moment before replying, “Master, those fellows said they’d only make a decision after witnessing your true strength.”

Kuang Chi was taken aback. He’d assumed that after showing Qian Duo three ant crystals, which by his recent understanding should be more than enough to win over dozens of people, there would be no problem in winning them to his side.

But unexpectedly, they wanted a demonstration of his strength. After some thought, Kuang Chi asked, “How do they want to witness my strength?”

Qian Duo paused again, and only after Kuang Chi pressed him did he finally answer, “To obtain an ant crystal, you not only need the ability to find and slay the insect ants, but you must also possess a Frost Pearl. Only with a Frost Pearl can the insect ants, which live in magma, be transformed into ant crystals.”

He paused before continuing, “They said that if you have the ability to go to the surface and retrieve ten Frost Pearls on your own, all fifty-three of them would be willing to join the Kuang family.”

Kuang Chi was startled. He had seen Frost Pearls before—those little beads that radiated intense cold, and Old Tor had told him what they were. Yet he had no idea where they came from, how rare they were, or whether there was any danger involved in acquiring them.

Turning these questions over in his mind, Kuang Chi asked, “Where do Frost Pearls come from?”

Without hesitation, Qian Duo replied, “Frost Pearls don’t come from any fixed place. They’re actually brain pearls from a creature called the Frostfish. In many canyons on the surface, you can find them. As long as there’s a Weakwater Pool, there will certainly be Frostfish within.”

“What’s a Weakwater Pool?” Kuang Chi pressed.

“A Weakwater Pool is a body of water formed from icewater that’s several times colder than ancient frost ice that has existed for billions of years. Because the water is so cold yet never fully freezes, we call it Weakwater.”

Kuang Chi pondered a moment and asked directly, “Roughly how cold is it?”

After a long pause, Qian Duo responded, “I’ve never been there, so I can’t say exactly. But I do know this: even an eighteenth-level warrior can only last two hours at the shore. Even someone like Old Tor, a master of the sixteenth level, can endure only a few minutes at the edge, and only after extensive preparation. You also need a special harpoon—one that can pierce the Frostfish’s skin and won’t shatter from the Weakwater’s chill.”

Kuang Chi saw Qian Duo fall silent again and, growing impatient, pressed him, “What else? Tell me everything.”

Qian Duo sighed deeply before continuing, “But those aren’t the real dangers. The most perilous thing is that there are often extremely powerful monsters roaming the shores of Weakwater Pools, or they may have their lairs right beside them.”

He paused, then added, “And above the Weakwater Pool, there are strange air currents far more terrifying than any gale on the surface. Even a sixteenth-level master who retreats too slowly would be frozen solid, never to leave alive.”

At this, Kuang Chi fully grasped just how dangerous obtaining a Frost Pearl would be. He fell silent, lost in thought.

After some time, Qian Duo, seeing Kuang Chi still quiet, spoke again, “Master, actually, you don’t have to go to a Weakwater Pool to get Frost Pearls. Though they’re precious, sometimes you can find them near the nests of powerful surface monsters. After eating Frostfish, most monsters discard the pearls, and people occasionally stumble upon them, so sometimes Frost Pearls show up at city auctions.”

Kuang Chi smiled and said, “What they really want is for me to go to a Weakwater Pool and bring back ten Frost Pearls, isn’t it?”

Qian Duo looked at him for a moment, then slowly and heavily nodded.

Kuang Chi laughed and declared, “Fine, I’ll do as they ask—I’ll make a trip to the Weakwater Pool. Go prepare everything I’ll need, and tell me what preparations I must make. I only hope they won’t disappoint me afterward.”

At these words, Qian Duo hurriedly replied, “Master, going to a Weakwater Pool is far too dangerous. They’re clearly setting you up. They have no intention of joining our family. They don’t want to offend us by rejecting our invitation outright, but they also want you to retreat in the face of difficulty, so they set up this impossible task. Right now, all the Frost Pearls in Homeward City are found near monster lairs. Even sixteenth or seventeenth-level masters refuse to hunt Frostfish at a Weakwater Pool—the shores are just too dangerous.”

Kuang Chi smiled and interrupted, “Enough. Even without their request, I’d have found a chance to visit a Weakwater Pool eventually. It’s only a matter of sooner or later.”

Seeing Kuang Chi’s resolve, Qian Duo, who secretly wished to test whether Kuang Chi was truly capable and worthy of his allegiance, was silent for a while before saying, “Master, if you are determined to go, you should spend some days preparing. Drink a cup of ant blood every day. You could also build a bath, fill it with ant blood. Soaking in ant blood while cultivating will greatly strengthen your resistance to the surface gales, and help alter your constitution as much as possible.”

He paused and added, “I’ll also try to buy you a harpoon. Forging one from scratch is too expensive. Many ancient harpoons made thousands of years ago are now just auctioned off as antiques—much cheaper than making a new one.”

Kuang Chi had no objections. He only had two ant crystals left in his pocket, having given the other to Qian Duo, and no currency from Homeward City. The money for the harpoon would have to come from Qian Duo, so he certainly couldn’t act generous with someone else’s resources.

In the days that followed, apart from returning to Old Tor’s home to rest or accompanying Anna on strolls through Homeward City, Kuang Chi spent all his other time in the bathhouse Qian Duo had designed for him.

The bath, seven meters long, nearly five meters wide, and two meters deep, was filled with a fire-red liquid emitting a strange fragrance.

This liquid was actually a famous liquor in Homeward City, used for soaking ant blood due to its high concentration.

Kuang Chi leaned gently on the edge of the pool, quietly circulating the Dragon’s Fury technique to absorb the strange energy from the ant blood.

It was only after soaking for hundreds of hours in this wine-filled pool that Kuang Chi discovered the peculiar energy contained in the ant blood.

He further found that running the Dragon’s Fury technique accelerated his body’s absorption of this energy. Yet, this energy did nothing to enhance his cultivation, for it did not enter his meridians, but was instead absorbed by his muscles.

Kuang Chi then realized why ant blood was able to stave off the physical decay suffered by humans on the Star of Oblivion. He wondered how many had discovered this hidden energy within ant blood. Had it not been for his cultivation of the Starry Sky technique, which honed his spiritual sense and made him especially sensitive to energy fluctuations, he would never have detected the silk-like threads of unusual energy within the ant blood.