Testing the Sword

Her current form was completely human. Her skin was like snow, her eyes deep and dark, and she exuded a captivating, otherworldly aura.

Her lips curved slightly in a playful, mysterious smile. She gently stroked Chu Ning's forehead with her fingertips and whispered softly, "Didn't I tell you not to eat the Nine Revolutions Profound Sun Fruit?... Master!" Her voice carried a seductive tremor as her icy fingertips traced Chu Ning's bulging veins.

Chu Ning's heart was in turmoil, his mind a blank slate.

As the last trace of heat was drawn away, Chu Ning could finally see the person before him clearly. The Snow Fox's cloak was half-fallen, revealing her porcelain-white shoulders, and nine ethereal fox tails swayed gracefully behind her. Most captivating were her unique azure and gold eyes; her left eye was like a deep pool reflecting the moon, while her right eye seemed to boil like lava.

However, before he could ask, the woman chuckled, her gaze shifting away from him. As her sleeves fluttered, a faint, sweet fragrance seemed to linger.

She glanced back, her pupils a deep, abyssal blue, the corners of her lips curling upwards.

The Snow Fox's fingertip traced the lightning pattern on Chu Ning's chest, a chill seeping into his skin. "Master, you really are impatient!" Her fox tail swept across Chu Ning's neck, where an ice-blue pattern had quietly appeared.

Chu Ning stood stunned, slowly raising his hand, his fingertips still holding the warmth of her touch.

He looked at the alluring figure, his chest heaving.

"Where's the Little Snow Fox?" Chu Ning asked hoarsely, the lingering fire poison in his throat being drawn away by her lips.

The Azure-Eyed Snow Fox slowly raised her slender white finger and gently pressed it against his lips, her seductive eyes like silk, a smile playing on her lips.

"Shh—don't wake it. It's still sleeping."

The secret chamber door was suddenly knocked upon, and a trembling maid's voice called out, "Young Master Chu, the Young Lady requests your presence at the Sword Testing Platform... The Town Martial Division Commander wishes to test your skills."

The moment Chu Ning pushed open the secret chamber door, a white shadow flashed past, and the Little Snow Fox leaped onto Chu Ning's shoulder.

A dragon-like sword cry echoed from the direction of the Sword Testing Platform. He looked up.

Zhao Tianyu's Mysterious Iron Heavy Halberd was planted in the center of the platform, a severed head of a Wang Family assassin impaled on its blade.

Chu Ning's white hair fluttered in the wind, streaks of purple-gold blade energy dancing at his fingertips like banners.

Morning light pierced through the tribulation clouds, illuminating the frost that had formed on the Sword Testing Platform. Chu Ning's white hair cascaded like a silver waterfall in the cold wind. With every step he took, spiderweb-like ice cracks spread across the bluestone ground.

Xie Mingli stood beneath a corridor pillar, her fingertips unconsciously caressing the Cold Marrow Pendant at her waist. The tribulation lightning from the previous night's villa had split the Marquis Wu's Estate's century-old Mysterious Iron Array by three feet.

"Chu Ning," she suddenly spoke, her voice unusually tight.

The white-haired youth stopped but did not turn around. The Little Snow Fox on his shoulder raised a blood-stained paw and bared its fangs at her. Just then, a voice, charming to the bone, chuckled in Chu Ning's ear, "Master, you are... more bloodthirsty than I imagined."

Yesterday, he still had ink-black hair and restrained sharpness. Today, overnight, his temples were frosted with snow, causing Xie Mingli's pupils to contract, a flicker of unease crossing her heart.

Xie Mingli's gaze swept over Chu Ning's frost-white long hair; the tips were even adorned with fine ice crystals, shattering into stardust with his movements.

Chu Ning turned his head, ice-blue and gold patterns flowing around the edges of his pupils, resembling demonic eyes. "Miss Xie should be concerned about the Sword Testing Platform."

The moment he looked back, the ice-blue and gold patterns around his pupils moved like living creatures, reflecting her pale face. It was as if those were no longer human eyes, but the unique eyes of a demon god descending upon the world.

"You—" Xie Mingli's gaze fell on the Little Snow Fox curled up on his shoulder. The little creature was licking the bloodstains on its paws with its scarlet tongue. "The tribulation lightning from the villa last night, was that you breaking through?"

She had thought Chu Ning was doomed during last night's lightning tribulation, but now, he stood here, his aura unfathomably deep. Xie Mingli tightly clasped the Cold Marrow Pendant at her waist, her heart losing its rhythm. She clearly saw Zhao Tianyu's fighting spirit, and she realized she was actually a little afraid.

The Little Snow Fox suddenly raised its head, a sneer flashing in its azure eyes. Chu Ning raised his hand and gently stroked its tail, purple-gold blade energy coiling around his fingers. "Miss Xie might as well verify it herself?"

Before he finished speaking, Zhao Tianyu's Mysterious Iron Heavy Halberd had already shattered a stone pillar at the edge of the Sword Testing Platform. "If you want to represent the Marquis Wu's Estate, why aren't you coming up for the trial?"

Zhao Tianyu's Mysterious Iron Heavy Halberd was planted in the center of the platform, the eyes of the impaled head wide open. Blood flowed down the shaft, but upon touching Chu Ning's feet, it bizarrely solidified into ice crystals.

Zhao Tianyu flicked his halberd blade, and the head flew towards Chu Ning. The bloodstains, before even hitting the ground, condensed into ice cones, but they inexplicably stopped three feet away from the white-haired youth.

"Town Martial Division trial rules," Zhao Tianyu slammed his heavy halberd onto the ice. "If you can survive three of my halberd strikes, you will be qualified to ascend the Azure Cloud Arena."

"My heavens... Commander Zhao is actually going to personally test Young Master Chu?"

"How is that possible? He's only at the Tenth Rank Lower Grade realm, how can he possibly block Commander Zhao!"

"This is madness! What kind of trouble has this guy gotten into?"

Discussions erupted one after another, but the two figures on the Sword Testing Platform had already plunged the entire training ground into a suffocating silence.

The butler, Qin Henian, narrowed his eyes. "Zhao Tianyu's 'Nine Nether Underworld Cold' has reached the peak of the Eighth Rank. Young Master Chu is likely..."

Chu Ning slowly walked onto the platform, holding his saber, his white hair brushing past the ice-fire patterns on his neck. "What if I take thirty strikes?"

The crowd fell silent. Xie Mingli crushed the blood jade in her palm, and the Marquis Wu's Estate's hidden guards quietly sealed off the area around the Sword Testing Platform.

"Arrogant!" Zhao Tianyu swept his heavy halberd horizontally, and the Nine Nether Underworld Cold condensed into an ice dragon lunging forward. "First strike, Army Breaker!"

"This is bad!" The observing martial artists retreated three steps. "Young Master Chu hasn't even activated his protective True Qi..."

Amidst the dragon's roar, the Sword Testing Platform instantly turned into an ice cave. Weaker cultivators among the observers were frozen in place by the cold.

The exclamations abruptly ceased.

The heavy halberd swept horizontally, and the Nine Nether Underworld Cold condensed into a hundred-zhang ice dragon. The trajectory of the halberd blade froze the air, the ice dragon's scales formed from mysterious ice, and its eyes were embedded with fragments of the Meteorite Armor. Where the ice dragon passed, frost flowers bloomed on the ground, and the white mist exhaled by the observers instantly condensed into ice shards that fell.

"Crack—"

Chu Ning advanced instead of retreating, his purple-gold blade energy, cloaked in the illusion of fox tails, slashing towards the dragon's head. Where the blade energy passed, the ice dragon's body disintegrated into a sky full of ice shards, each reflecting Chu Ning's nine-tailed illusion. The illusion's claws grasped lightning, melting the ice shards into purple-gold fiery rain, which enveloped Zhao Tianyu in return.

"Commander Zhao's cold energy," Chu Ning's breath turned to frost, "isn't cold enough."

Zhao Tianyu's pupils constricted, and he forcefully plunged his heavy halberd into the ice. "Second strike, Mysterious Ice Prison!"

The Sword Testing Platform shook violently, and nine giant pillars of mysterious ice erupted from the ground. Cold mist churned between the ice pillars, condensing into countless ice blades that rained down like a torrential downpour.

"Mysterious Ice Prison!" Xie Mingli's eyes widened, her heart trembling. Her voice held a trace of disbelief. "Back then, Zhao Tianyu used this move to completely freeze an Eighth Rank demonic beast!"

As the Mysterious Ice Prison unfurled, the air filled with the pungent, acrid scent of the northern frozen wastes. Amidst the sharp shrieks of ice blades tearing through the air, the chattering of onlookers' teeth could be heard.

Within the ice blade storm, Chu Ning's figure was instantly engulfed. Xie Mingli's fingertips dug into her palm, and before the blood drops could fall, they froze into ice crystals—she hadn't even realized she'd stepped to the edge of the ice prison.

"Is he dead?" someone murmured.

The instant the ice blade downpour struck, Chu Ning's senses stretched. He "saw" the trajectory of every single ice blade, his fox tail phantom sweeping thirty-six thousand times within a thousandth of a breath, though in reality, only an instant had passed.