The Immortal-Thief Outsider said doubtfully, "What do you mean, what do I think? Your cultivation clearly..."
At this point, realization struck him. "Fellow Daoist Ye! How long have we been here?"
Seeing that the Immortal-Thief Outsider had caught on, Ye Han looked up at the staircase and said mildly, "We've been here for almost ten years. You were solving the chess puzzle the whole time. I merely gained some insights while cultivating as I waited for you."
As he spoke, Ye Han gave the Immortal-Thief Outsider a searching look. "Didn't you notice anything?"
The Immortal-Thief Outsider said in surprise, "Really? I distinctly remember fighting alongside you for a long time...! Was it all an illusion?"
Now it was Ye Han's turn to be puzzled. He clearly hadn't done anything. Although he had also been studying the chess puzzle, he had divided his attention between other things as well: cultivating, absorbing heaven and earth spiritual energy and the power of the stars, and studying cultivation techniques...
Over these nearly ten years, Ye Han's cultivation had advanced only modestly. He was still far from the first level of the Spirit Transformation Stage.
His refinement of the heaven-connecting spirit treasures and the Heaven-Turning Treasure Pagoda, however, had been quite efficient. This was mainly because the heaven and earth spiritual energy here was so abundant. Even with Ye Han frantically absorbing it to refine these treasures, there was more than enough to spare...
But Ye Han's greatest gain was his breakthrough in the ice-attribute cultivation technique, the Cold Art.
He had been practicing this technique for several hundred years, and his ice spirit root was also the strongest of all his spirit root attributes.
However, the Cold Art's divine abilities were far too profound. In all these years, Ye Han had only managed to