The Ice Humanoid blurred. One moment it was ten paces off; the next, its fist was a descending hammer aimed at Li Yuan's skull.
He barely wrenched his blade up in time. Steel met ice with a bone-jarring crack that thundered through the hall. The blow hit like a freight train, skidding him back across the polished ice floor.
'Fast.' He thought. 'Though not necessarily faster than me when I'm using Shadow Cloud Steps.'
The construct followed with a sweeping kick. Li Yuan twisted, but the trailing Yin Qi grazed his ribs, the cold numbing them instantly. Ignoring the ache, he retaliated. Sword intent surged from his blade, launching a crescent arc so potent it would have levelled a mountain range outside these walls.
The construct merely tilted its head and stepped forward.
Its arm moved with surgical precision, meeting the crescent head-on. Ice coated fist Qi met his attack and his immense shock... his Sword intent shattered like glass. Li Yuan's pupils shrank. Even Zi Mo had only ever blocked his intent, never destroyed it outright like this.
"Realising the sheer scale of the threat, Li Yuan used the Veil of Borrowed Heaven and vanished. To any ordinary cultivator, his presence would have been erased from existence. The construct's head snapped toward him anyway. Its gaze pierced his stealth as if it were nothing.
How?
An arm shot forward. Li Yuan sensed the killing intent a split-second before impact and threw himself aside. A blade of ice hissed through the air, carving the space where his throat had been an instant earlier. Even so, the trailing Yin Qi slammed into him. The Veil shattered
How is it doing this? The thought flashed, but Li Yuan didn't let it take root. He hit the ground running, Shadow Cloud Steps turning him into a blur of overlapping afterimages.
The construct trailed him like a shadow, matching his pace with a chilling, synchronised movement technique of its own.
An ice spike hissed toward his throat, tracking him despite his frantic evasion. Forced to stop and defend, Li Yuan fell right into the construct's trap as it caught up to him and punched.
He crossed his blade and forearm just as the blow detonated. A thunderous crack rocked the palace, the shockwave jolting through his bones as he was launched backward across the hall.
His body slammed into a colossal pillar before crumpling to the floor. The copper taste of blood filled his mouth, and he instantly ignited his Yang Flame to heal the internal damage. But the construct gave him no time to heal as it was upon him before the healing could even take root.
Steel screamed against ice as they clashed in a blur of violence.
It didn't matter how he pivoted, which techniques he unleashed, or what desperate tricks he used, the construct saw it all and slowly dismantled him. Every exchange ended in a fresh wound, and the cold realisation that he was being methodically defeated.
As the exchange ground on, the truth finally clicked.
The construct wasn't inherently faster than him. And despite the crushing weight of its strikes, it wasn't stronger, either. It was simply channeling its force through a superior technique. Like how Tsunade used her control over Chakra to gain super strength.
Where the construct truly outclassed him was in its sheer, overwhelming battle experience. It was like facing a version of himself from a century in the future; one who had lived through a thousand more wars and had seen every one of his tricks a hundred times over.
Given who was pulling the strings of the puppet, the thought was as chilling as it was likely.
He leapt back, boots skidding across the frost as he spat a mouthful of crimson. As the blood hit the floor, another truth finally clicked into his mind.
The floor. The towering pillars. The vaulted ceiling. To his senses, they weren't just ice—they were all reservoirs of dense Yin Qi. And the construct was carved from that very essence.
The entire palace… His gaze swept the vast, shimmering hall. The whole place is her weapon.
She had condensed three centuries of Yin Qi into a fortress of living ice, a colossal extension of her own will. And the puppet he was fighting was a mere fraction of her true power.
The construct lunged again, unleashing a volley of ice senbon that blurred into silver streaks. Li Yuan snapped his blade up, barely deflecting the first wave, only for three more needles to hiss toward his chest.
He twisted violently. Two needles raked his ribs, carving shallow furrows of red; the third punched clean through his shoulder.
Hot and white agony exploded down his arm. Li Yuan stumbled as his blood painting a jagged arc across the snow-white floor. His heart hammered against his ribs.
That… He stared at the needles embedded in the ice behind him. That was aimed at my heart."
A cold realization seeped into his bones.
When Wu Yuechan had told him to survive, he'd dismissed it as dramatic flair. This last strike proved him wrong. She wasn't testing his skill; she was testing whether he would survive or not.
In the distance, the muffled thunder of Zi Mo's own battle echoed through the palace. A surge of worry tightened his chest. 'Wu Yuechan wouldn't actually kill her own disciple... would she?' He wondered. The silence of the hall was his only answer, and it offered him little reassurance.
The construct lunged, but this time, it met a wall of cold fury as Li Yuan's expression hardened into a mask of stone.
'Fine...'
Qi roared through his meridians like a flooding river. Sword intent erupted from his skin, weaving into the air to form a jagged pseudo-domain as he unleashed the Infinite Micro Slash Domain Art to its absolute limit.
'Let's see who dies first' he growled and with a single, violent step, he launched himself at the puppet. The hall vanished in a blur of clashing elements, every strike ringing out with the deafening force of a mountain collapsing
Every strike felt like facing death. Ice blades shredded his robes, and his own blood slicked the floor as his Qi reserves burned away rapidly.
But he adapted.
The near-death moments stopped being terrors and became teachers. His focus narrowed until the hall vanished, leaving only the rhythm of the battle. And then, in a flash of clarity, he saw it.
A flaw.
As the construct shifted its weight to strike, the flow of Yin Qi in its torso lagged by a fraction of a heartbeat.
Li Yuan's eyes flashed. As the construct lunged, he abandoned the defensive and stepped into the offence.
Its fist screamed toward his skull, but he twisted past it by a hair's breadth, breaching its guard. His sword hissed through the air. It was not a killing blow, but a deceptive feint. The construct pivoted to block, and in that moment, the imbalance reappeared.
Li Yuan moved. His leg whipped upward like a steel spring, channeling the Mountain-Splitting Stillness Sword through his heel. The impact detonated with the roar of a cannon.
The ice construct was blasted backward, its form tearing across the floor before hurtling out the palace entrance and vanishing into the abyss. At last, silence returned to the frozen hall.
Li Yuan stood trembling, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Blood pitter-pattered onto the ice from a dozen jagged cuts, and his Qi was a flickering ember. Yet, a fierce, bloody smile tugged at his lips.
Every retreat and every desperate parry had been a calculation. He had lured the fight toward the palace entrance, betting everything on a single theory: the further the construct strayed from Wu Yuechan's throne, the thinner her tether would become, and the weaker and slower the puppet would become. Like how Nagato had used Yahiko's corpse in his fight against Naruto.
He didn't know if the distance would break the puppet or merely dull its edges, but he was bankrupted of other options. He surged forward, intent on finishing the job, when a thunderous roar shook the stone behind him.
Li Yuan whirled around. And what he saw made his blood run cold.
Zi Mo was slumped against a massive ice pillar, her weight the only thing keeping her upright. Her pristine robes were now tattered and soaked in blood. Her left arm was gone, severed above the elbow. The wound was cauterised by jagged frost that had climbed further, encrusting the entire left side of her face and torso in ice. Dozens of slender ice senbon bristled from her flesh, each one leaking a slow, steady trail of red onto the white floor.
For a moment, Li Yuan simply stared. His mind refused to accept the sight.
'No…'
This wasn't a spar or a test. The Peak Mistress… was actually trying to kill them.
A searing wave of despair and fury crashed through his chest. He gripped his sword so hard his knuckles turned white, the hilt biting into his palm.
If he had known it would come to this... if he had known that their night together would lead to her standing here, mutilated and dying, he would have walked away the moment she first approached him.
If he had known Wu Yuechan's hatred for marriage was so absolute she would butcher her own disciples, he would have barred Rou Lin from his sight forever.
If he had—
Before the thought could finish, a shadow flickered at the edge of his vision. The construct battling Zi Mo had arrived.
Its featureless, crystalline face pivoted toward Zi Mo's broken form. As its arm rose, Yin Qi swirled into a localised gale, condensing into a jagged, six-foot spear of black ice.
Zi Mo tried to lunged aside, but her strength was spent. Her legs gave way, and she slumped to the floor with a sickening thud. Completely defenceless.
The construct stepped forward, and Li Yuan's vision tunnelled.
'No—'
His body moved before the thought could finish. Shadow Cloud Steps detonated. The palace became a blur of white and blue as he forced every remaining drop of Qi through his screaming meridians. Fresh blood sprayed from his opening wounds, painting a crimson streak across the hall as he shot forward like a bolt of lightning.
The construct lunged. But Li Yuan was still too far.
He pushed his body into a suicidal surge. His muscles shredded and his meridians caught fire as he bridged the gap, but the distance was a chasm he couldn't quite cross. In the final heartbeat, as the spear's tip was almost upon Zi Mo... until he threw himself into its path.
The lance intended for her punched through his chest with a sickening, wet thud as it pierced his heart.
For a single moment, the entire world seemed to stop.
A supernova of cold detonated within him as Yin Qi flooded his organs. He knew it then, that he was as good as dead.
A jagged, wet cough tore from his throat, spilling a torrent of crimson over his lips. Behind him, Zi Mo's scream shattered the silence of the hall.
"LI YUAN!"
Her voice sounded distant, a faint echo from the far side of a wide, dark river.
The construct wrenched the spear free with a sickening schlick. Li Yuan's strength vanished, and he slumped to his knees. The edges of his vision darkening.
With a final, agonising effort, he forced his head up.
Zi Mo's face swam before him, a blur of panic and disbelief as she clawed at the ice, trying to reach him with her one remaining arm. He tried to speak, but his throat was already half frozen.
"…Run," he managed, the word barely a ghost of a whisper.
Then the darkness swallowed everything.
—————
Cold. Cold hard floor against his back. That was the first thing he felt as he woke up.
Li Yuan's eyes snapped open. The palace ceiling loomed above him. And for a moment he simply stared. '…What?' He inhaled sharply and sat upright.
Then, two warm arms wrapped around his shoulders, helping him get up. Those were familiar arms that he recognised in an instant. His eyes widened as he turned his head, and saw...
Zi Mo.
She was kneeling beside him, her hands gripping his shoulders as she looked at him with naked worry.
"You're finally awake," she said, sighing in relief.
Li Yuan blinked, the shock of his own death slowly leaving his mind, and filling it with confusion instead.
He scanned her frantically. Both her arms were intact, her face was flawless, and the ice needles were gone. She looked completely unharmed.
Stunned, he checked himself. The hole in his chest and the wound in his shoulder had vanished. Even his exhaustion was gone; his meridians hummed with a full reserve of Qi.
Then it hit him: they were standing in the exact spot where the fight had first begun.
"What… what happened?" he rasped.
For a moment there was only silence.
Then, the mist at the far end vibrated as Wu Yuechan's voice echoed through the palace. "Yin techniques are often associated with ice," she said. "So often that most forget Yin also governs the mind... and the soul."
Understanding dawned on Li Yuan. "You mean..."
"Yes. The battle you just experienced," the mist continued calmly, "was an illusion formed within your consciousness."
Zi Mo stiffened beside him. And a deep frown formed on Li Yuan's face.
"Why?" He asked.
"I wished to determine whether your intentions toward my disciple were sincere," Wu Yuechan's voice drifted from the mist. "Or whether you were merely seeking to take advantage of her physique and the resources of Snow Peak."
Silence followed. Li Yuan stared into the haze for a long moment before his jaw tightened.
"Don't do that," he said, his voice low and firm. "Ever again."
Zi Mo froze, turning toward him with wide eyes. The temperature in the palace plummeted, but Li Yuan didn't care. The terror of watching Zi Mo die and the cold emptiness of his own death would haunt his nightmares for a long time. So he kept his gaze locked on the mist.
"There are lines that shouldn't be crossed," he said, his fists clenching. "What you just did... was one of them."
Zi Mo looked like she wanted to grab his mouth and shut it before he could say anything worse.
Mouthing off to a Nascent Soul cultivator inside her own domain was a good way to disappear from the world. But Li Yuan didn't lower his head. Expert or not, some things were simply unacceptable.
The mist remained silent. Then, unexpectedly... "...You are correct."
Li Yuan blinked. 'Eh?'
The voice softened slightly. "I apologise for what you suffered, Li Yuan."
Zi Mo looked as if she had witnessed the heavens collapse. And Rou Lin looked no different.
The mist shifted. "You have passed my test," Wu Yuechan continued. "I will keep my word. You two have my blessing to marry."
Zi Mo inhaled sharply, relief flooding her face. "Thank you, Master," She said, bowing deeply.
The mist hummed in acknowledgment. Then, two streaks of light drifted out, floating gently before stopping in front of them.
The first object landed before Li Yuan. It was a suit of armour forged from translucent blue ice, shimmering as it caught the light from every angle.
But Li Yuan could not admire its beauty. As the Qi contained within it was so dense it made his scalp prickle. Whatever this suit of armour was, it was no ordinary item.
The second object drifted toward Zi Mo. A slender incense stick sealed within a jade case. The moment it appeared, Zi Mo's eyes widened in shock.
Li Yuan understood why as he could feel the terrifying power nestled inside that small object. Because despite its size, it easily held ten times the energy contained within the Suit of Armour.
"…Master…" Zi Mo said and then trailed off… overcome by emotions.
The Mist spoke again. "The armour is a Spirit Artefact and can soul bond with its user for life. I found it during my youth within an Inheritance world and have bonded with one such armour myself. Currently, it will protect you from any attack delivered by a Golden Core cultivator, and can withstand three strikes from an early Nascent Soul expert before it is destroyed. But as you grow stronger, you may channel your own Yin Qi into it and strengthen the artefact."
Li Yuan's breath caught slightly. Three strikes… from a Nascent Soul. And complete immunity from those beneath. That was the kind of treasure entire minor sects would wage wars over.
"As for the Soul-Ascending Incense," Wu Yuechan continued, as if she hadn't just given him an Artefact that even 7th Grade families likely didn't possess. "It will improve your chances of breaking through to Nascent Soul by 20%."
His eyes widened at those words and his fists clenched as lost all his grievance against Wu Yuechan. After all, this was not a light gift by any measure. And he decided to repay Elder Wu Yuechan ten times over for this in the future.
The mist shifted as a jade token drifted toward Zi Mo. "One final thing," Wu Yuechan said. "A gift, and an apology for how I treated you. A house atop Crystal Yin Mountain."
Li Yuan frowned, unsure of its value. But Zi Mo's expression had changed entirely; the excitement in her eyes was impossible to miss. Whatever that house represented, it was clearly extraordinary.
"You may leave," the mist spoke gently. "Not you, Rou Lin. You remain."
Li Yuan and Zi Mo bowed respectfully and turned to leave. And he gave Rou Lin one last worried look before they departed from the Ice Palace.
—————
They stepped out of the Ice Palace together.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the oppressive stillness of the palace faded slightly, replaced by the quiet breath of the frozen mountain.
Zi Mo began walking down the steps. Li Yuan didn't. His hand tightened around hers, stopping her as well.
Zi Mo turned slightly, giving him a puzzled look over her shoulder. "Li Yuan—"
The words died halfway, as in one swift motion he pulled her back toward him. Her back met the icy gate behind her with a soft thud as Li Yuan stepped forward and pinned her there.
Before she could ask what he was doing, his lips crashed into hers. The kiss was not gentle and held a raw, almost desperate intensity to it.
For a moment Zi Mo simply froze in shock, her eyes widening as Li Yuan held her tightly against the frozen gate and claimed her lips. His hands gripped her waist like he was afraid she might disappear if he loosened his hold.
The illusion still lingered vividly in Li Yuan's mind. The sight of her arm torn away, her face frozen, her body riddled with ice needles. The sound of her scream when the spear pierced his heart.
The memory still burned in his mind. And the simple warmth of her body now… the steady rise and fall of her breathing, the softness of her lips against his. It felt like proof that reality had returned. That they were both still alive.
Zi Mo recovered after a few tense seconds, and her hands rose slowly, gripping the front of his robes as she kissed him back just as fiercely. The two of them stood there in silence, bodies pressed tightly together, sharing breath in the freezing wind while the world around them seemed to fade away.
Li Yuan could feel the heat of her through the thin fabric between them. Alive, and whole. He held her closer.
Eventually the need to breathe forced him to break the kiss. He exhaled heavily and rested his forehead against hers, still unwilling to let her go.
Zi Mo studied his face carefully, and her hand rose and gently cupped his cheek.
"Li Yuan," she said softly. "What did you see in that vision?"
For a long moment he said nothing. Then, his gaze drifted across the Ice Palace behind her before he slowly shook his head.
"…Nothing." He said and then pulled back slightly. "Tell me about this house on Crystal Yin Mountain. What's that about?"
Zi Mo watched him quietly. Her eyes lingered on his face for a long moment, clearly seeing through the attempt to change the subject. But in the end, she let the matter drop and nodded.
"Crystal Yin Mountain," she began slowly, "is one of the most valuable mountains in the Snow Peak. And since Master gifted us a residence there, it means the Mountain also belongs to us."
Li Yuan raised an eyebrow. "Oh? What makes it so valuable."
"It contains a Mid-grade 2nd Tier Spirit Lake." She replied and he almost choked in disbelief.
"A Mid-grade 2nd Tier Spirit lake?" He asked. "How many spirit stones does it produce in a year?"
"Roughly 2.3 million spirit stones every year." Zi Mo replied.
"…2.3 million!?" He asked, hoping he doesn't sound too much like a country bumpkin.
Zi Mo nodded. "Before today, only two disciples of Teacher possessed mountains of their own. Both of them are my senior sisters who're at the peak of Golden Core."
"I see." Li Yuan said as he slowly turned his head toward the distant white mountains surrounding them. And his mind began racing.
The Mid-grade 2nd Tier Spirit Lake alone produced over two million stones a year. But a mountain that could sustain such a lake would inevitably contain others as well. Low-grade 2nd Tier lakes. And multiple 1st Tier lakes. How many spirit stones would all those lakes produce together?
Then Zi Mo calmly shattered his growing fantasy.
"Of course," she continued, "we must pay 33% of all spirit stones to Master as tax."
His smile froze.
"And another 33% to the sect." She added.
Li Yuan stared at her in stunned silence. "…You're joking."
Zi Mo shook her head. "No. That's just how it works. After paying the taxes, we'll be left with 34% of the total spirit stones."
Li Yuan stood there silently for a moment. Then he shrugged.
After all, despite how impressive that amount of spirit stones sounded, the real value of each Spirit Lake lays in the dense Qi energy it releases. Energy that can be used to produce spirit herbs, raise spirit animal, and create natural treasures.
His breathing slowed as imagination ran wild.
He could already picture it. Fields of Yin herbs, Spirit plants cultivated in Formations filled with dense Qi. Heavy Spirit Water condensing naturally in some of them. Yin-aligned Gu forming in secluded valleys to be sold in large batches.
Even without the spirit stones those Spirit lakes produced, the mountain's raw Spiritual energy could be put to use to generate immense wealth.
"…Still a great deal." He said.
By his rough estimate, once he fully utilised the mountain's potential, they could easily produce 5-10 millions of spirit stones worth of resources every year.
Of course, if it was so easy, then everyone else would be doing it. But unlike him, others didn't have 2nd Tier Mastery of Formation Crafting, Spirit Herb Cultivation, and Alchemy. Not to mention the various other skills he might obtain in the future.
He exhaled slowly. He did not even know how long it would take for him to make full use of that mountain. Or what he'd do with all that money. But the prospect of doing it alone filled him with excitement.
Li Yuan turned his gaze back toward Zi Mo. And a slow grin spread across his face.
"Well…" he said. His hands suddenly grabbed her ass before pulled her firmly against his chest "What are you waiting for? Take me to that house already, or do you want me to fuck you here and now. Put a good show for your teacher?"
Yeah. Despite the gift, he was still a bit bitter about the entire encounter.
Zi Mo's cheeks flushed slightly. But the look she gave him in return held just as much heat as she nodded quickly. "…Alright."