At the heart of the far north, snow and ice had accumulated for countless ages. Everywhere the eye could see was pure white, cold and nearly lifeless. The white freezing fog that blanketed the land could greatly weaken spiritual perception, filling the place with unknowns. Too many places remained unexplored, and dangers lurked everywhere, impossible to describe.
Behind a crystal-clear ice peak lay a calm lake, blue as a gemstone. Though the air was almost frozen solid, the water remained liquid—a strange, heavy blue fluid that rippled gently as blizzards swept over it, beautiful as a dream.
But anyone who thought that unfrozen lake water could not be too cold and reached out to touch it would likely begin freezing at the fingertips. The ice would spread to the soles of their feet, creep into their organs, and turn them into a true block of ice, which would then crumble into countless ice chips in the wind.
Directly above the lake, a blizzard howled and swirled without end. Blades of ice filled its heart, and icebergs spun like millstones.
Once they had located the lake, they had to fly straight into the blizzard and keep climbing without stopping or looking back. Then they would reach a place wrapped in hazy mist, where everything they saw twisted and shifted, flickering in and out of existence. At the heart of the mist floated a strange palace, built entirely of ice and snow. It held many bizarre and wondrous places, full of fortuitous encounters, yet no one had ever truly ventured deep inside. People could only wander the outer palace, which the sects of the far north called the "Ice Snow Immortal Palace."
Chen Zhao wore a fur cap and a long robe of silver ice scales. He stood in a square room