On the blue-green ice, a cottony pattern spread rapidly across the surface. Suddenly, with a crack, a shallow fissure split the ice.
The fissure continued to widen at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"The West Pole Spirit Spring—the West Pole Spirit Spring is about to reveal its true form! Heavens, what fortune, what heavenly fate!"
"We are all people destined to be here. Otherwise, how could we have encountered such a rare opportunity?"
"The spirit spring is vast; there's enough for everyone. We've all been old friends for years, so please, at this critical moment, don't entertain any improper thoughts."
"..."
For a time, the voices rose in a boiling cacophony.
Xu Yi had heard of the West Pole Spirit Spring.
According to legend, a spirit spring lay hidden beneath the West Pole Ice Layer, wondrous and mysterious beyond compare.
But in Xu Yi's view, the story was probably just a story, and not a reliable one.
The reasoning was simple: another legend, told alongside it, claimed that the West Pole Ice Layer was so extraordinary that nothing could break it.
Countless powerful cultivators had tried to obtain a piece of West Pole ice to forge a magical treasure, but none had succeeded.
Clearly, the two claims formed a paradox.
If the ice could not be broken, how could anyone know that a spirit spring lay beneath it? And how could they know that the spring possessed all those wondrous properties?
Of the two claims, the latter—that the ice was so hard it could scarcely be broken—had been borne out by years of experience and seemed as solid as iron.
Given the paradox, the former claim—that the spirit spring was so wondrous—could most likely only be a rumor.
At the same time, Xu Yi absolutely did not believe