Sect's Abandoned Son, Snow Emperor Adopts

The Far North.

A vast expanse of frost, stretching across the sky.

The biting, frigid wind stung the skin like a blade.

Due to the extreme and harsh weather, this place was known to humanity as a forbidden zone of life.

However.

A small, slender figure suddenly appeared, swaying unsteadily upon this flat, ice-covered plain.

The child looked to be no more than eight years old, his face as pale as parchment.

In his small hand, he gripped a short sword of poor quality.

Yu Shuangbai.

A non-lineal disciple of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.

His father was a third-generation common disciple of the clan, who, along with his mother, had died unexpectedly in a clan conflict.

On the day of his martial soul awakening.

Yu Shuangbai had not awakened the inherited martial soul of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon.

Instead, a mutation had occurred.

He awakened a peculiar, ice-attribute lizard-like martial soul.

His Innate Soul Power was barely level three.

The world of soul masters was one where strength was supreme.

The Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan was the very sect that carried this principle to the extreme.

The result of Yu Shuangbai's martial soul awakening left him, already without support, completely relegated to the bottom of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.

The meager resources he had been provided were stripped away entirely.

Furthermore, many in the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan believed he tarnished the sect's prestige, casting him many cold glares.

Even though he had managed to raise his innate level three soul power to level ten through nearly two years of grueling effort.

Hindered by his status in the sect, he could not even petition the elders to help him hunt for his first soul ring.

As for paying mercenaries to assist in hunting for a soul ring.

For a bottom-tier disciple like Yu Shuangbai, who struggled to maintain even his basic daily expenses and had no parents to rely on, this was nothing more than a fantasy.

Such was the disparity of background.

Yu Xiaogang, whose martial soul awakening result was even worse than his—with an Innate Soul Power of barely half a level—was able to enjoy the most generous resources from the family and never had to worry about his own soul rings, all because he had a clan leader for a father.

The Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan had spent countless resources trying to help him break through to level thirty, yet it yielded no results.

Despite all those resources poured into him, he remained nothing more than a "farting pig."

The only difference was the two yellow rings upon his body.

Yet Yu Shuangbai, after offering the final stick of incense to his parents, could only drag his frail eight-year-old body into the Far North to hunt for his own first soul ring.

Sect, clansmen...

What a joke these so-called blood ties were.

In the end, it was nothing more than the supremacy of interests.

Is this the end?

Feeling his vision gradually blurring, his consciousness seemed to begin to fade.

His eyelids drooped uncontrollably.

Yu Shuangbai thought this to himself in the depths of his heart.

He felt a sense of unwillingness.

As a transmigrator, he hadn't even begun his future, hadn't even had the chance to become a true soul master, and now he was to perish here.

But his consciousness could not overcome the weakness of his body's instincts.

"Bang!"

Yu Shuangbai's vision went black, and his body collapsed onto the ice with a thud.

His small body lay upon the endless, white, frozen plain.

And a strange change occurred at this very moment.

A faint blue light suddenly emanated from the body of Yu Shuangbai, who lay unconscious upon the flat ice.

Beneath the endless ice, a glowing blue light surged like veins, drilling into Yu Shuangbai's body.

The wind and snow howled, snowflakes drifted down, wrapping Yu Shuangbai's body like a silkworm cocoon.

The Far North was currently in the season of the polar day.

The sky showed no signs of changing.

Time passed, though it was unclear how much.

"Hm?"

A soft sound of surprise echoed.

Snow-white, jade-like feet stepped lightly onto the frigid ice.

Above her slender, fair calves flowed a pure white gown with wide, fluttering sleeves.

The woman's face was exquisite, as if she were a masterpiece sculpted by the heavens themselves.

Every gesture she made exuded the inherent majesty of a monarch.

The surrounding wind and snow seemed to bow in reverence to her arrival.

The newcomer was none other than the one born of the world's purest essence, the strongest being of the Far North.

The Heavenly Snow Woman, Snow Emperor!

Snow Emperor cast her gaze toward the "cocoon" wrapped in wind and snow not far ahead.

"A strange aura."

"This pure power of ice is actually not inferior to This Seat."

She examined the "cocoon" with great interest, murmuring to herself.

As the Heavenly Snow Woman, Snow Emperor possessed a sensitivity to ice elements far beyond that of ordinary beings.

It was precisely because she had sensed the shift in ice elements from afar that she had followed the disturbance to this place.

Snow Emperor raised a hand.

A throne formed of ice and snow manifested out of thin air behind her.

She sat down, propping her cheek with one hand, and quietly observed the changes in the "cocoon" with growing interest.

About the time it takes for an incense stick to burn later.

The "cocoon" formed of ice and snow finally began to change.

"Crack."

Tiny fissures appeared on the pure white shell.

Then, the cracks spread outward like a spiderweb.

They crawled across the entire exterior.

Until they reached a critical point, and finally, it shattered with a boom.

Only then did Snow Emperor finally see the culprit within the "cocoon" who had caused such a phenomenon.

Yu Shuangbai's eyes were tightly shut, and his original black hair had turned the same white as the ice and snow.

A moon-white crescent pattern flickered faintly on his forehead.

Two mysterious protrusions, resembling dragon horns, had appeared atop his head.

His breathing was steady, and his aura was even more intense than it had been before he fell unconscious.

His skin, previously sallow from malnutrition, was now as white as the snow found everywhere in the Far North.

From head to toe, he looked as exquisite as a perfect porcelain doll.

"A human child?!"

Snow Emperor's usually calm and unruffled voice changed in a rare display of emotion.

Her tone rose involuntarily.

She had assumed this anomaly was the birth of some heaven-sent spirit treasure.

She never imagined that the cause of such a change would be a human child.

How could this be?

Snow Emperor's first reaction was one of disbelief.

How could an ice attribute that even shocked her exist within a human child?

One had to remember that she was the Heavenly Snow Woman.

In terms of the hierarchy of ice attributes, she stood even above the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion.

And...

She even sensed something on this human child...

Dragon Might?

Interesting.

A ripple appeared in Snow Emperor's tranquil, beautiful eyes, as if she had found a new and amusing toy.

"Since This Emperor has encountered you here, it must be fate."

"Why not just come with this Empress."

"If you don't speak, I shall take your silence as consent."

Yu Shuangbai, currently unconscious: ...

Snow Emperor stepped forward and slowly lifted Yu Shuangbai from the icy surface.

The moment he was in her arms, the ice-attribute aura radiating from the little fellow caused Snow Emperor to pause.

A look of pure enjoyment surfaced on her exquisitely beautiful, fair face.

She even felt that the circulation of her own power had become significantly smoother.

A decision solidified in her heart.

She would take this strange little fellow back to serve as a mascot.

Perhaps she might even reach a higher level of cultivation, gaining more certainty in resisting her next heavenly tribulation.