People often said that life drew strength from death.
Nature was the same.
The overwhelming heavy snow had buried the entire world, and heaven and earth seemed to have fallen into silence. Yet within that brief stillness, beneath the thick, blanket-like cover of snow, abundant life force was gathering strength, ready to burst forth amid thunder at any moment.
Zheng Qing could not sense the life force contained within the snow.
But he could sense the greedy, yearning gazes hidden behind the oppressive quiet of the Silent Forest. He was especially sensitive to such looks.
Four days passed in the blink of an eye. It seemed that after only a moment, the young publicly funded student was standing in First University's winter hunting grounds for the second time.
Rumors were rumors because they often concealed a little truth amid their falsehoods.
Just as the rumors claimed, this winter hunt would take place amid wind and snow—because since Monday, the heavy snow had fallen on and off without pause, leaving everything inside and outside the school draped in silver. In a daze, Zheng Qing had nearly forgotten how flourishing and dazzling this world had been in summer.
But unlike the terror painted by the rumors, the school had not truly driven White Dragons or Storm Giants into the young wizards' hunting grounds. In the SOP manual the You Zui Hunting Team captain received from the Hunting Committee, traditional assessment targets like snowmen, Demon Ghosts, Fire Ash Snakes, Huodou, Gudiao, Fish-head Men, Xing Xing, Shan Xiaos, and the like still made up the majority. The only unexpected factor was probably some mutated Human-faced Rats affected by Rat Immortal's advancement. According to the school, those big rats with human faces were wicked and depraved, utterly lacking the intelligence of ordinary Magical Creatures. Upon