"What do you mean?!"
Zhou Yi jerked her head up, instantly blazing with fury.
Her gaze was as sharp as a blade.
Her face twitched uncontrollably.
"I deliberately targeted him? He can't even learn the most basic respect for his teachers!"
"The whole of Shrek can't tell right from wrong,"
"and now you're saying the same thing!"
"What's Yan Shaozhe done? What's Xuan Zi done?! What right do they have to meddle in my affairs?!"
She screamed like a madwoman.
Fan Yu could only stop what he was doing.
He looked at Zhou Yi helplessly and sighed inwardly.
"Yes, yes,"
"The whole academy is wrong, but I'm definitely on your side..."
"Let's not talk about that. Yu Hao has always worked incredibly hard, and he's made great progress lately...
Three months passed in the blink of an eye.
The Milk Tea Shop's fame grew by the day.
The tiny five-hundred-square-meter shop was packed every day, and Lu Ran had no choice but to consider opening a second branch.
Just as he'd expected,
Barely five days after the Milk Tea Shop had exploded in popularity, at least ten similar drink shops had opened across Shrek City.
They even sold similar drinks: knockoffs of the Passion Fruit Duet called Mango Octet, knockoffs of the Grape Fruit Tea called Fruit Tea Watermelon...
But first,
These drink shops couldn't match the Milk Tea Shop's flavors. The tea bases were exclusive for now, and then there were those fluffy Cloud Cluster Ground Rats, so charming you fell for them just by breathing them in.
Who could possibly resist them?
Second,
The costs were too high.
Douluo Continent had no shortage of prominent families, and some of them were fruit-growing clans. They might have grown fruit for generations, until their fruit trees went from bearing fruit after a year to bearing fruit after a century.
Even if these drink shops grew and harvested their own ten-year and hundred-year fruits, the costs were still high.
How could they compare with Lu Ran's Soul Beast fruits, which cost him nothing?
Still, they managed to gain a temporary foothold by riding on the Milk Tea Shop's popularity.
Several days later,
The middle reaches of the Far North, on the snowy plains.
A pale-green blur streaked across the sky.
In the distance behind it stood towering snow-capped mountains that had been there for who knew how many thousands of years. Nearby, snow blanketed the plains, stretching endlessly for thousands of miles.
The sunlight reflected off it, dazzling the eyes.
Beneath the deep blue sky, the sun hung high overhead, yet gave off no warmth at all.
It was as if it were releasing an icy chill,
or perhaps absorbing all the warmth around it.
Above the snowy plains,
"Whooosh..."
The wind howled incessantly in his ears. Lu Ran leaned over Jade Green Luan's back, his cheek pressed against its smooth, green feathers, soft as the finest silk.
He slipped his hand into the fluffy feathers at its neck,
feeling their warmth.
There was no helping it.
Even with the Soul Tool he'd borrowed from Xuan Zi to keep out the cold,
he still felt chilly.
He touched the bracelet on his wrist. It was a warm, semi-metallic bangle with the texture of jade.
It was a Level 7 Soul Tool.
Seven days earlier, when he'd gone to see Xuan Zi,
Xuan Zi had lent it to him without a second thought, as easygoing as ever. "If you don't like it, I can take you to steal one... Hahaha, I'm kidding. Of course we'll borrow it. If we steal one, we'll get caught."
"...Old Xuan, are you sure you're borrowing it?"
"What do you mean, 'are you sure'? Have I ever lied to you? And one more thing, don't tell Shao Zhe. He doesn't like Soul Tools. If he finds out I secretly lent one to you,
he'll have a problem with it..."
Lu Ran nodded solemnly. "Don't worry, Old Xuan. I definitely won't tell him!"
But inwardly, he thought:
Don't worry, Old Xuan. Dean Yan is secretly using one too...
For a moment,
Lu Ran realized that everyone was secretly using Soul Tools.
It gave him the strange impression that everyone was a two-faced traitor.
Everyone used them and thought they were great, yet because of factionalism, tradition, resources... and all sorts of other reasons, they couldn't praise them openly or even use them in public.
Shrek wasn't as decayed as he'd imagined,
but when it came to this sort of thing, it really was... well... thought-provoking.
Lu Ran looked out over the landscape. He'd been in the Far North for two days, yet all he could see was the same endless white.
The vast, boundless whiteness of the world was breathtaking at first glance, especially when soaring through the sky and looking out ahead and below. There was nothing but boundless snowy plains and icy peaks.
It was nothing like the surging green life of the Star Dou Great Forest.
It made one feel an instinctive reverence for the entire world,
and made one all the more aware of how small one was.
After half an hour of flight,
the terrain below grew increasingly treacherous. He could even see enormous ice fissures a hundred meters long, their depths impossible to fathom.
He couldn't help but marvel,
Thank goodness he could fly. If he lost his footing, he'd never make it back up.
"Hmm?"
Lu Ran suddenly sensed something was off.
He turned around.
In the air behind him was a giant eagle with a wingspan of at least ten meters. Its body was snow-white, save for its talons and beak, which were a dusky gold.
Its gaze was as sharp as a blade.
It was diving toward him at full speed, white currents of air swirling faintly around its wings as its sharp talons thrust forward.
It looked as if they could easily pierce Lu Ran's skull.
"..."
Lu Ran's hair whipped wildly in the wind,
but his expression remained calm.
The next second,
the man and bird vanished without a trace.
The snow-white giant eagle pursuing him paused in midair, then surged forward—
only to find itself swiping at empty air. There was nothing there.
"Caw?!"
Where'd my prey go?!
Inside the Small World,
moist, warm air instantly enveloped them, a stark contrast to the icy, dry cold outside. It felt as if he'd come back to life.
The cold-resistant Soul Tool bracelet stopped supplying Soul Power, too.
Jade Green Luan landed lightly and folded its wings.
It let out a soft chirp.
"Coo~"
That scared me to death. Good thing I'm used to it~
Lu Ran jumped down,
landing on the soft grass.
"I've used up half my Soul Power. Let's recover before we head back out."
He said, patting Jade Green Luan's wing.
"Coo!"
He had to admit,
the Small World was incredibly convenient.
They'd used it to evade Soul Beast hunts eleven times along the way, and he could even come inside to recover his Soul Power.
After all, it was a Level 7 Defensive Soul Tool.
It was only natural that the frigid outside would take some Soul Power.
He slept in the Small World at night, too. It was warm and completely safe.
Especially compared with the bitterly cold ice plains, it was even more perfect.
After making a brief adjustment,
and waiting until his Soul Power had fully recovered,
they continued onward.
The green figure reappeared above the snowy plains, while the Snow Eagle had long since left.
In the blink of an eye,
the green streak cut across the sky.
A day later,
Lu Ran calculated the speed and distance before descending onto a stretch of ice plain.
The terrain here suddenly became level,
but the cold was just as terrifying.
Even with a Defensive Soul Tool and Soul Power to keep warm, he couldn't help shivering.
He drew a deep breath.
The inside of his nose stung from the cold, and his lungs felt icy and raw.
He sent Jade Green Luan into the Small World.
A column-shaped object the length of his forearm suddenly appeared a meter in front of him.
It was snow-white and translucent, and not solid inside. A milky-white substance flowed within it, as though alive. The instant it appeared, the whole world seemed to grow even colder.
Formed over millions of years from extreme cold and the energy of heaven and earth, it was an icy treasure that every Ice Attribute Soul Beast dreamed of obtaining.
The Ten Thousand Year Profound Ice Marrow.
"..."
After waiting a while,
nothing seemed to change.
The wind howled, and the world was silent.
There wasn't even any snow.
But when Lu Ran pulled out the other item, the indicator at the tip of the feather-shaped Soul Tool he'd borrowed from Xuan Zi was flashing a dangerous red like crazy.
It glowed as red as blood,
warning him again and again: Leave at once!
Before you continue