A heat flared in his chest.
The Mystic Ice Lotus in his robes suddenly flashed. Then a surge of cold exploded from his palm and raced through his meridians toward all four limbs. Chen Wuya halted and looked down. The deep-blue flower was slowly melting in his hand, like snow meeting warm water, silently seeping into his skin. An icy-blue pattern spread upward from his fingertips, coursing along the meridians in his arm. Wherever it passed, the tearing stiffness in his muscles was replaced by a strange, refreshing chill.
The hand he had braced against the stone pillar trembled slightly—not from pain, but because the circulation path of the Misaligned Force within him was being forcibly rewritten by this power. The channels of true energy, once stagnant as a dried-up well, now seemed to have been carved open into a new waterway. The cold current poured in, driving the remaining Misaligned Force into reverse circulation—from the Yongquan Acupoint in the soles of his feet back into the Governing Vessel Meridian, then across the Shanzhong Acupoint, straight toward Baihui.
This was not a route he had consciously activated. It was more as if his body were automatically adapting to some rule.
[Host has obtained "Mystic Ice Power." Misaligned Force gains the new attribute "Extreme Cold Stagnation." Level has risen to peak eighth rank.]
The system's voice sounded in his mind, calm as though it were reporting some ordinary matter. But Chen Wuya knew exactly what this meant. He raised his hand, spread his fingers, then clenched them. Tiny ice crystals condensed at his fingertips and shattered at the slightest touch. The breath he exhaled was no longer white mist, but an almost invisible current of cold that traced a faint arc through the air.
His stamina had not immediately