Three Months Later, Level Fifteen, and the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well

In the blink of an eye, three months passed, and winter arrived in Nuoding City.

The Blue Silver Grass planted in the yard had long since withered yellow and collapsed, leaving only a patch of dried stalks that reached his ankles and crackled underfoot.

Every morning, the first thing Lan Tian did after getting up was pour a basin of water into the yard, moistening the frozen-solid ground so that stepping on it would not jar the soles of his feet painfully.

But this bit of cold was nothing to him. His physical strength was no longer what it had been, and a thin cotton robe was already enough to keep out the chill.

Over these three months, his days passed steadily and fully.

The appointment letter for chief physician hung in the most conspicuous spot in the clinic, and every few days, the city guards would send over members with light or heavy injuries.

Light ones were fixed with a few uses of Endless Life, while even severe wounds that required surgery and suturing did not take too much effort.

Lan Tian had already gotten used to this rhythm. He could even split off part of his mind to train his precise control over soul power while treating injuries, treating every healing session as a form of tempering.

The medicinal ingredients sent over by the City Lord's Manor also arrived on time. None of the items on his list—hundred-year lingzhi, purple-backed sky sunflower, snow lotus root—were missing.

Combined with the herbs he gathered himself from Soul Hunting Forest, the formula for his medicinal baths had been improved and optimized again and again, and the effect of the medicine seeping into his body was nearly twice as strong as it had been at the start.

On top of that, over these three months, he had also managed to pick up low-age Whale Glue from the black market several times. Though the amount was still not large, the advantage was that it kept coming in, and when used together with the medicinal baths, his cultivation speed was a little faster than expected.

After three months of steady accumulation, his soul power naturally broke through to rank fifteen.

Lan Tian sat cross-legged amid the withered yellow Blue Silver Grass in the backyard, feeling the soul power flowing endlessly through his meridians, a full circle thicker than it had been three months ago, and silently did the math.

One rank in three months.

It had taken three months to go from rank fourteen to rank fifteen. If he could maintain this speed, then from rank fifteen to rank twenty, he still needed five ranks—that would be fifteen months, about one year and two months.

In other words, he could likely reach rank twenty sometime between twenty-six and a half and twenty-seven years old, then go search for his second soul ring and break through to become a Great Soul Master.

Before the age of twenty-five, he had bitterly endured nineteen years in the village before breaking through to rank ten. After twenty-five, relying on a same-origin soul ring, Whale Glue, medicinal baths, the resources supplied to him as chief physician, and day after day of hard cultivation, he could instead rise from rank fifteen to rank twenty in just one year and two months.

The contrast between before and after was so great that even he felt somewhat wistful.

If he had not chosen a same-origin Blue Silver Grass soul ring back then, but had instead done what most people in his previous life would have done and casually found some usable animal soul ring to make up the numbers, perhaps he would still be hovering around rank eleven or twelve, unable to reach even half his current speed.

When the direction was right, twice the result with half the effort was no empty saying.

However, these three months of hard cultivation also made him faintly sense some changes.

The higher one went, the greater the total amount of soul power required for each rank. Though he could still maintain a rhythm of one rank every three months for now, he faintly felt that after reaching rank seventeen or eighteen, this speed would most likely slow somewhat.

So he had to keep accumulating resources and cultivate even harder to stabilize his speed as much as possible.

After his routine nighttime cultivation ended, as Lan Tian lay in bed, a thought he had not considered in a long time suddenly surfaced in his mind.

The Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

In the original work he had read in his previous life, that place was located deep inside Sunset Forest, an extremely rare and wondrous land.

Two springs, one cold and one hot, sat together in the same place. Nourished by them, the surrounding plants grew with abnormal lushness. Even the outer area alone held countless exotic flowers and rare herbs, and among them were several of the most precious immortal herbs, such as Blazing Apricot Delicate, Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass, and Fragrant Silk Immortal Herb. Any one of them, taken out at random, could remold a person completely.

In the original work, that place was later occupied by Dugu Bo as his lair, but this was a hundred years earlier, and Dugu Bo was nowhere to be seen yet.

That area was very likely still unclaimed land, undiscovered by anyone, much less occupied.

If he could find it before anyone else and eat all the immortal herbs, he would completely turn his fate around!

Thinking of this, Lan Tian sat straight up from the bed, draped an outer robe over himself, walked to the table, lit the lamp, and took out paper and brush to start thinking it through.

Sunset Forest.

It was a gathering place for soul beasts far larger than the Soul Hunting Forest he often visited. Ten-thousand-year soul beasts roamed its core region, and the level of danger was on an entirely different scale.

His current strength was only rank fifteen. Recklessly entering the depths of Sunset Forest would be no different from throwing his life away. But if he only investigated the outer region of the forest and searched for terrain that matched the characteristics of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, there was still a certain degree of feasibility.

He tried hard to recall the details from his memories of his previous life.

The Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well was in some area of Sunset Forest, and there should be a special distribution of vegetation nearby.

Because of the alternating influence of the cold and hot springs, the surrounding plants would display obvious polarization. Heat-loving plants and cold-loving plants would grow right next to each other, something almost impossible in a normal natural environment.

This could serve as an extremely important search marker.

In addition, the two springs themselves had distinguishing traits. One steamed with heat, the other was shrouded in cold mist, and within a certain radius, abnormal temperatures would definitely be perceptible.

As long as he entered Sunset Forest and investigated along areas where the differences in vegetation were obvious and the temperature changes were abnormal, slowly narrowing the range, it was not impossible to find it.

Of course, the prerequisite was that he could safely enter Sunset Forest and come back alive.

He knew very well that with his current strength, he could at most move around the very outermost area of Sunset Forest.

If he went any deeper, running into a thousand-year soul beast would be more than enough to give him a hard time, let alone a ten-thousand-year soul beast.

So even if he did go, he had to make thorough preparations. Equipment, supplies, route planning, emergency plans—not a single thing could be missing.

And he could not go now.

At the very least, he had to wait until he broke through to rank twenty, became a Great Soul Master, and gained his second soul ring before he would have the confidence to probe deeper into Sunset Forest.

He briefly wrote these thoughts down on the paper, blew out the lamp, and lay back down on the bed.

Once the thought of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well surfaced, it could no longer be suppressed, but he also knew he could not rush.

That place was not going to grow legs and run away. Whether he went early or late, it would still be waiting there. Setting out after raising his own strength was the safest choice.

Outside the window, the north wind blew low past the eaves, making a soft, whining sound.

He rolled over, pulled the blanket tighter around himself, closed his eyes, and slowly sank into sleep.

At the first gray light of dawn the next morning, he woke up, got up as usual to wash and cook, then opened the door to receive patients.

He saw a few patients with colds that morning. None of them were serious. After noon, he closed the clinic, put on his gear, and went to Soul Hunting Forest as usual.

Soul Hunting Forest in winter looked completely different from how it had in autumn.

The trees were bare, and fallen leaves covered the ground in a thick layer. Stepping on them felt like walking over a quilt.

The cold wind passed through the branches with a sharp howl. The entire forest was unbelievably quiet. Even ten-year soul beasts had grown much rarer; most had hidden away in caves to get through the winter.

Lan Tian, on the other hand, felt even more at ease in this kind of environment.

His view was wide open, and he did not have to worry about something suddenly pouncing out from dense leaves. Footsteps were clearly audible on the frozen ground, and every rustle of wind through grass around him could be seen at a glance.

He followed the route he had taken before deeper into the middle region. At the roots of several old trees, he found a few winter-growing medicinal herbs, and beneath a sheltered stone wall, he gathered some rare Frost Condensation Grass.

He had only ever seen these herbs in books before. He had not expected them to be easier to find in winter.

After gathering them, he did not continue deeper in. Instead, he withdrew along the original route.

As he passed the edge of that dense forest on the way back, he stopped.

Several months ago, he had killed someone here for the first time.

Those two bandits who had blocked the road had been killed by him in retaliation, their bodies thrown beneath the soil in the shrubbery.

Over the past few months, every time he passed this stretch of road, he would subconsciously glance in that direction. The weeds and bushes had grown even denser now, and nothing unusual could be seen at all.

He watched for a few breaths, withdrew his gaze, and continued on his way.

When he returned to the clinic, the sky had not yet darkened. He carefully processed the Frost Condensation Grass he had gathered, sorted it by category into porcelain jars, then sat down at the table and took out the simple map he had drawn the previous night.

Sunset Forest was roughly three hundred li north of Nuoding City. With his current pace, plus time to rest on the road, a one-way trip would take about three to four days.

Including the round trip and the time spent searching in the forest, he would need to set aside at least half a month for a single outing.

Scheduling was not a problem. The clinic could be closed for a few days, and he just had to let the city guard know in advance.

The problem was equipment and strength.

He stared for a long time at the four characters "Sunset Forest" marked on the map. In the end, he put the paper away and placed it deep inside the drawer.

Now was not the time yet.

But one day, he would go there.