Jiang Yang picked up the Elixir from the ground and paused briefly to regulate his breathing.
The Spirit Puppets were growing stronger and stronger, and even he was beginning to struggle. After defeating each one, he had to spare a little time to recover.
Fortunately, as he tempered himself step by step, his fighting spirit rose ever higher. He thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of taking on one challenge after another and climbing upward.
More than half a year had passed with Jiang Yang spending his days among drifting snow, with Pine and Cypress for company. He had long since felt stifled; unless he swung his sword and cut something down, he felt out of sorts.
After just an incense stick's worth of time, Jiang Yang rose and, while his sword hand was still hot, stepped straight through the doorway to the thirtieth floor.
The mist rippled like water. Jiang Yang's vision blurred, and the world before him changed.
"Watch out!"
The instant he stepped inside, Bai Tang's warning sounded in his mind.
Jiang Yang started in alarm. Almost without thinking, he abruptly changed direction, his robes billowing as he shot thirty feet backward.
Bang!
Two enormous hands formed from mist clapped together. Only then did the violent sonic boom arrive, sending transparent ripples surging outward.
Jiang Yang extended his spirit sense and finally saw clearly: an enormous Spirit Puppet had condensed within the swirling mist.
He had not noticed it earlier, mistaking it for the fog shrouding the edges. Without Bai Tang's warning, he would have plunged headfirst into its embrace.
Had he recklessly taken that slap, even if he escaped serious injury, he would probably have lost seventy or eighty percent of his fighting strength.
"This Spirit Puppet is no ordinary one. The magic power surrounding it has already