Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Cave

"Are we just going to watch? Or... should I find a way to take some with me?"

Xue Chen scratched his head, feeling somewhat unwilling to give up.

But he immediately realized that he had no suitable container on his person to hold such an intensely cold substance.

Just as he stood there, caught in a dilemma and staring blankly at the Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow, a flash of inspiration suddenly struck his mind!

I can't use it... but... Mother, Aunt Ice, and Xiao Bai, they can!

The Snow Emperor, Lord of the Far North, the Ice Sky Snow Maiden, was born as the master of ultimate ice!

The Ice Emperor, a four-hundred-thousand-year-old Ice Jade Empress Scorpion, also reigned supreme through ice! Xiao Bai, the Titan Snow Demon Bear, was likewise a top-tier ice-type soul beast of the Far North!

This Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow was a supreme treasure for any ice-attribute soul master or soul beast; it was a heavenly material capable of allowing them to be reborn and their cultivation to skyrocket!

Especially Mother Snow Emperor... Xue Chen recalled how she had mentioned that there was still time before her next great tribulation.

He thought of how, in the original story, to break through the seven-hundred-thousand-year bottleneck, the Snow Emperor had not hesitated to seal her own origin, only to be captured by humans while in the form of a soul beast embryo.

Xue Chen realized that if... if she had this Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow, absorbing the pure, extreme cold origin within it would certainly strengthen her foundation and power significantly!

Perhaps having this Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow might help Mother survive her seventh lightning tribulation.

Xue Chen's eyes grew brighter and brighter, the disappointment in his heart instantly replaced by a strong sense of anticipation and joy.

Although he couldn't use it himself, being able to help his closest family members improve their strength and increase their chances of surviving the tribulation made him feel incredibly excited.

"I must take it! I have to find a way to take it!"

Xue Chen clenched his fists, his gaze becoming incomparably firm.

He carefully observed the ice cavern and the Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow once more, his brain racing as he pondered how to safely harvest and carry away these frigid treasures.

Xue Chen thought for a long while but couldn't come up with any good method.

He tried using his Dragon Claw to gouge at it, but even with all his strength, he could barely scrape off a few tiny ice shavings;

Moreover, once those shavings left the main body, the extreme cold contained within them seemed to dissipate rapidly, rendering them far less effective.

"No, brute force is too inefficient, and I can't carry much at all."

Xue Chen shook his Dragon Claw, helplessly abandoning the idea.

He changed his line of thinking, and his eyes lit up again:

"If I can't handle it myself, I can just call for backup!

Once I get out and find Mother, with her strength, wouldn't collecting this Profound Ice Marrow be as easy as reaching for something in her pocket?

By then, all the Profound Ice Marrow here will be theirs, and it will surely help her strength increase tremendously!"

Thinking of this, the gloom in Xue Chen's heart was swept away, replaced by excitement for the Snow Emperor.

The most urgent task now was to find a way out of this ice cavern.

He no longer lingered on the treasures that didn't belong to him yet and began to explore the massive natural ice cavern carefully.

He walked slowly along the ice walls, and the more he observed, the greater his astonishment grew.

This ice cavern was far more vast and profound than what he had seen from the entrance; countless massive clusters of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow stood together like a forest of blue crystals, extending from all directions into the dark depths.

The faint blue light connected into a single expanse, illuminating the entire underground space like a dreamscape, yet it also radiated a vast amount of energy.

"My god... there's so much. Could it be that all the Profound Ice Marrow nurtured in the Far North over countless millennia is piled up in this one place?"

The more Xue Chen looked, the more shocked he became; the sheer quantity was simply hair-raising.

If word of this got out, I'm afraid every ice-attribute soul master and soul beast on the entire continent would go crazy for it.

He carefully navigated through the cavern of Profound Ice Marrow, needing to both resist the omnipresent cold and remain vigilant against potential unknown dangers.

He walked for about the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, but aside from ice and more ice, he found no obvious exit.

Just as he was feeling a bit discouraged and preparing to change direction to continue his search, a sound—extremely faint yet unusually abrupt—drifted vaguely into his ears.

"Hm?"

Xue Chen immediately stopped in his tracks, held his breath, and tilted his head to listen.

The sound was intermittent and very faint, mixed in with the occasional cracking of ice from the cavern itself, making it almost impossible to distinguish.

But Xue Chen was certain he hadn't misheard; it seemed to be some kind of... low, rhythmic, strange noise?

"What the hell, what kind of sound is that?"

Xue Chen muttered to himself:

"In this godforsaken place, besides me and these blocks of ice, could there be something else?"

A chill crawled up his spine; this time, it didn't come from the environment, but from his wariness of the unknown.

Any creature capable of surviving in such an environment of extreme cold was, as anyone could guess, certainly not simple.

He took a deep breath, suppressing the slight unease in his heart, and his gaze turned sharp.

With a thought, his left hand transformed once again into a claw covered in blue dragon scales, ready for battle at any moment.

He followed the faint, strange sound, lightened his footsteps, and crept forward silently.

The source of the sound seemed to be just ahead, at the entrance of a slightly smaller ice cave partially obscured by a few thick pillars of Profound Ice Marrow.

That ice cave also emitted a faint, eerie blue glow.

Xue Chen approached cautiously; the closer he got, the clearer that strange noise became.

When he finally reached the entrance and peered inside, the sound became unmistakable—

"Hoo... ru... hoo... ru..."

A low, rhythmic series of... snores?

Xue Chen: "???"

The vigilance on his face was instantly replaced by sheer bewilderment.

There was a living creature inside??? And... it was sleeping and snoring?!

Deep within this frigid, desolate land filled with Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow, there was actually a living thing, and it sounded like it was sleeping quite soundly?!

The contrast was so jarring that Xue Chen's mind couldn't quite process it for a moment.

He gripped his Dragon Claw tightly, his curiosity clawing at him like a cat, impossible to suppress.

He tiptoed, peering even more carefully into the depths of the ice cave, wanting to see exactly what kind of divine existence could sleep so peacefully right next to the Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow.

Xue Chen held his breath, suppressed his aura, and slipped silently into the smaller ice cave.

The sight inside made him gasp once more;

The ground here was also scattered with quite a bit of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow, and while not as abundant as the main ice cavern outside, the quantity was still staggering.

His gaze was quickly drawn to the depths of the cave.

There, a natural ice platform had formed.

Atop the ice platform was a small mountain of piled-up Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow, its concentration and purity seemingly even more astonishing than what was outside!

And that low, rhythmic snoring was coming from right behind this small mountain of ice marrow.

Xue Chen's heartbeat quickened involuntarily; he gripped his Dragon Claw and approached slowly, step by step.

The moment he finally rounded the pile of dazzling blue crystals and saw the scene on the ice platform, he was struck as if by lightning, freezing completely in place with his eyes wide as saucers and his mouth agape, wide enough to fit an egg.

Instead of some hideous, terrifying beast of the extreme cold coiled upon that smooth, icy platform, there was... a worm lying there?

A giant, white, chubby, round, and fleshy worm!