Northern Dragon City.
Snow swirled through the sky like torn cotton, casting the entire wilderness in a dazzling, deathly white.
Tian Meng braved the howling north wind, trudging unevenly through snow that rose above his knees.
Though he looked like a consumptive wreck and trembled as he walked, when it came to resisting the cold, scarcely any Soul Beast on the entire continent could claim to surpass him, aside from the Snow Empress and a select few others.
After all, he was an extraordinary freak who had literally eaten his way to greatness on ten-thousand-year ice marrow.
To him, this wind and snow felt little different from a gentle breeze brushing his face.
He was trembling purely because his origin power was so badly depleted that every movement hurt.
"This doesn't seem right. The ice elements in this godforsaken place are barely active. Could there really be a mineral vein here?"
Tian Meng rubbed his hands together. He might complain, but he did not dare slack off in his work.
After all, this was his pledge of allegiance, the thing that would determine whether he could finally escape his fate as reserve rations.
He planted his feet and took a deep breath. His formerly cloudy eyes abruptly shone with golden light.
Hum-
An immense wave of supremely pure spiritual power surged out from Tian Meng, sweeping in every direction like a tsunami.
This spiritual power was invisible and colorless, yet like hundreds of millions of exquisitely fine, transparent feelers, it passed unhindered through thick ice, frozen earth, and layers of rock, reaching thousands of feet underground.
Tian Meng was no good at fighting; he could not even defeat an ordinary hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast.
But in mastery of the spiritual domain, he unquestionably stood at the very peak of the pyramid.