By the seasons, the Northern Lands should have been in spring, the most temperate time of year. Yet dark clouds hung low all year round, blotting out the sky and sun, and each year grew colder than the last. In Ring Belt Lake, the southernmost of the Three Northern Lakes, some places had not even thawed. At night, the water was black as ink; to the touch, it was icy cold, piercing to the marrow.
Legend had it that in ancient times, Ring Belt Lake had actually been a towering mountain range. Later, the terrain shifted, turning it into an inland lake hundreds of thousands of li across from east to west. Yet it retained certain features of those mountains: the lakebed's wildly varying depths, and several jagged central-lake peaks jutting above the water.
Ancient earth veins coiled beneath it, and waters weathered through a hundred calamities soaked it through. Ring Belt Lake's unique environment gave rise to many wondrous natural treasures. Many cultivators gladly carved out cave dwellings amid the "lakebed mountain range," forging artifacts and refining pills in pursuit of immortality.
Especially since the Great Tribulation of Heaven and Earth, the deep-water resources in Ring Belt Lake—resources that scarcely relied on sunlight and formed a self-sustaining system—had drawn cultivators from every direction to settle here.
The first few years had been fine. But as their numbers grew, no matter how vast or fertile Ring Belt Lake was, the situation of too many monks and too little gruel became inevitable. Medicinal herbs and treasures in the shallows, which were easier to gather, were harvested and excavated with destructive excess, leaving matters difficult to sustain.
Under such circumstances, some left in dejection; some risked venturing into deeper waters to test their luck; others simply took up lawless trades, stirring the