The bitter winds of the Far North were like blades that never stopped, cutting through this white wasteland day and night.
Yet for the Shadow Guards of Talent Hall training here, the biting cold was the least significant hardship of all.
The real test came from Lin Yi.
For the three months of training, Lin Yi devised a plan that could only be called cruel.
He divided the fifty Shadow Guards into five groups of ten, sending each group to a different region of the Far North, dozens of miles apart.
Each group had to survive on its own for ten days. During that time, they had to hunt at least one Soul Beast over five thousand years old and follow a designated route to reach the next rendezvous point.
After ten days, Lin Yi would go to the rendezvous point, treat the wounded, replenish supplies, and then divide them up and send them out again.
The cycle repeated until the three months were up.
This form of training placed the Shadow Guards on the very edge of life and death.
The Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts of the Far North were far more ferocious than their counterparts of the same rank in the Star Dou Great Forest, and the environment was much harsher.
Ice caves, avalanches, crevasses, blizzards... The threats of nature were everywhere.
The fifty men were scattered across the vast ice field, unable to contact one another. They could only rely on their own strength to survive.
On the very first day, someone was injured.
The First Squad, led by Feng Xiaotian, encountered a twenty-thousand-year-old Ice Plain Giant Bear.
After a fierce battle, they killed the bear, but three members of the squad were gravely wounded, and one had an arm severed.
Feng Xiaotian used the signal flare he