After they talked things through, Snow Empress and Ice Empress devoted themselves even more wholeheartedly to training you, and you worked harder than ever at your cultivation. Your Soul Power grew at an astonishing pace: you broke through to Soul Ancestor before you were fourteen, reached Soul King before seventeen, and achieved Soul Emperor at twenty.
Moreover, you had more than just Soul Power Levels; you also had plenty of combat experience. Training against all kinds of Soul Beasts in the Far North had sharpened your battle instincts to a razor's edge. Snow Empress and Ice Empress had also poured their hearts into selecting your Soul Rings, carefully choosing Soul Beasts whose cultivation exceeded the usual limit to sacrifice themselves for you.
As a Six-Ring Soul Emperor, your Soul Ring configuration was a terrifying two purple and four black.
You firmly believed you could achieve godhood and help Ice Empress and Snow Empress attain eternal life. But in truth, outstanding talent alone was not enough to become a god. You also needed a Godhood Inheritance.
To find a Godhood Inheritance, you bid farewell to Snow Empress and Ice Empress and set off alone in search of a place where one could be found.
Snow Empress and Ice Empress pretended to be reluctant to part with him, but in truth, as soon as Yu Tianjue left the Far North, Ice Empress took human form and quietly followed behind him.
Snow Empress, meanwhile, also set out on a quest for a Godhood Inheritance, just like Yu Tianjue.
The Soul Beasts of the Far North shared a common faith: the Ice God.
In Snow Empress's eyes, Tian Jue, with his Ice Dragon King Martial Soul, was undoubtedly best suited to inherit the Ice God's godhood. The Soul Beasts of the Far North already worshipped the Ice God. If Tian Jue could attain the Ice God's godhood, he would not only gain a tremendous amount of faith power, but also be able to protect the Soul Beasts of the Far North—a perfect way to kill two birds with one stone.
But Snow Empress was not even sure the Ice God truly existed.
All she could do was search with all her might.
And so, Yu Tianjue and Snow Empress went their separate ways, setting out on their quests to find a Godhood Inheritance.
This was your first time leaving the Far North and entering the human world. But nothing about the human world made you feel at ease. All the sordid things you saw there filled you with profound discomfort.
You saw the extravagant lives of the nobles in the Heaven Dou Empire and Star Luo Empire, the common people being oppressed, and the Spirit Hall spread across the world...
Though you also made some human friends, you always felt you didn't belong among them.
And so, in the end, you searched the continent alone and in silence.
When you found nothing on land, you went searching across the sea. Before long, you actually discovered an island called Sea God Island, and by then, you had broken through to level seventy.
But before you left, Snow Empress had given you countless warnings, so you didn't rush to hunt for a Soul Ring. Instead, you went straight to Sea God Island.
You had thought you might learn something about a Godhood Inheritance, but the Titled Douluo guarding Sea God Island regretfully told you that you had arrived too late.
A group had already begun the trials for the godhood bestowed by the Sea God.
Yu Tianjue had spent a full two years searching for a Godhood Inheritance, yet he had come away empty-handed.
He had finally found Sea God Island and come tantalizingly close to a god's inheritance, only for others to get there first.
Yu Tianjue didn't feel particularly disappointed. After years of asking around and learning what he could, he knew that accepting a Godhood Inheritance wasn't the only way to become a god.
He could create his own godhood.
Though the path was extraordinarily difficult, Yu Tianjue decided to give it a try, thinking of how much Snow Empress and Ice Empress had invested in him.
Throughout those two years, Ice Empress had silently guarded Yu Tianjue from behind.
Yu Tianjue was strong enough to deal with most troubles on his own. But whenever a Titled Douluo lurked in the shadows, or a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast in the sea set its sights on him, Ice Empress would still strike without hesitation, nipping danger in the bud.
After two years of searching, you returned empty-handed. But the journey had not been without its gains. You had broadened your horizons and grown even more certain that you didn't belong in the human world. For someone like you, who had grown up in the Far North, the endless white snow was your true home.
Elsewhere, Snow Empress's search also came to nothing. The Ice God had always lived on in the legends of the Far North, but there were no records of the Ice God anywhere—not in the Far North, nor in the icy sea beyond it. There was no sign of any supposed place of inheritance, either.
Though you told Snow Empress and Ice Empress about creating your own godhood, they knew full well how difficult that path would be.
But seeing how determined you were, Snow Empress and Ice Empress decided to make one final attempt. Snow Empress persuaded a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, whose time was nearly up and who had no chance of survival, to sacrifice itself to you, granting you your first Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Ring.
The commotion caused by that sacrifice triggered an avalanche, bringing down a mountain. Avalanches weren't common in the Far North, but they were hardly unheard of. This time, however, something was different.
After the snow came thundering down, a bottomless cave suddenly appeared before you.
You entered the cave together with Snow Empress and Ice Empress. Only then did you realize that the Godhood Inheritance you had searched so desperately for was right before your eyes.
This cave was, astonishingly, the site of the Ice God's Godhood Inheritance.
The scene inside the ice cavern unfolded before Yu Tianjue's eyes.
Massive icicles hung from the ceiling, gleaming with a crystalline, mysterious light in the glow of a pale blue radiance. At the very center of the cavern stood a statue, perfectly still.
It was a statue of a woman, carved from a single, flawless piece of dark ice. She wore a robe of ice crystals as sheer as gauze, and her hair fell to her waist, every strand rendered in exquisite detail. In her hand she held a scepter made of the same dark ice, and her eyes were both compassionate and commanding.
The instant Yu Tianjue laid eyes on the statue, he knew it was the Ice God.
The ice walls surrounding the statue were covered in dense markings. The moment Yu Tianjue approached, one after another, they suddenly lit up with dazzling light.
The lights intertwined, converging into an even more brilliant beam.
A moment later, the beam suddenly fell upon Yu Tianjue.
After a burst of light appeared, the Ice God's gentle yet commanding voice rang out in your mind.
With your exceptional talent, and as the first to discover this place, you had successfully obtained the Nine Trials of the Ice God.
As long as you completed the Nine Trials of the Ice God, you would smoothly attain the Ice God's godhood, take Snow Empress and Ice Empress with you to ascend to the Divine Realm, and achieve eternal life.
At least, that was what you believed.