[Purchased Low-Level Golden Light Shield, points -700]
After spending the points, Ye Fei obtained the training manual for this low-level defensive spell.
He opened the book in his hands, only to be baffled by its complex ancient script.
Fortunately, he could choose to learn it by importing the information directly into his mind.
Thank goodness. Otherwise, I wouldn't even recognize all the characters...
After importing the knowledge, Ye Fei understood every word and had committed it all to memory.
But how to practice it, how to use it, how to control spiritual energy...
He still had no idea. In other words, he had bought it and could learn it, but he would still have to take things slowly.
He could only use it once he had truly mastered it himself.
"Yip?"
Qingxue the Little Fox had been running around playing with Little White Tiger. When Ye Fei still hadn't called for them, she quietly came back to take a look.
They found Ye Fei sitting in the yard, looking somewhat dejected.
"It's nothing. I just feel like there's so much I need to learn."
Ye Fei stroked Little Fox's head, then Little White Tiger's as the cub came over. He settled them both on his shoulders and went back inside to cook.
The entire morning had passed, but his quest was only half finished. He would have to keep going that afternoon.
He stewed a simple pot of meat. Once the man and his two pets had eaten and drunk their fill, they headed out again, choosing another direction to continue searching for any plants that might be out there.
"Yip, yip~"
Little Fox rubbed against Ye Fei's hand, then slipped away with Little White Tiger not long after they left.
Ye Fei walked through the snow. By now, he barely needed to worry about his surroundings being safe. The two Little Dumplings always started near him before ranging farther out in widening circles.
That meant there were no animals near him that they had missed.
Walking and stopping along the way, Ye Fei picked up a white Supply Crate, then spotted a Green-Quality Supply Crate in a tree. He cut the tree down and collected the crate.
Only after walking for half the afternoon did Ye Fei spot his second seedling of the day.
[Cypress Sapling in Critical Condition]
This time, it actually wasn't a pine.
"A cypress?"
Ye Fei thought about it. Pines and cypresses both seemed to be cold-resistant.
That redwood from before seemed to belong to the same group, too...
That was probably right. His knowledge was limited, but they looked very similar.
[Today's Random Quest: Find plant seedlings ×2, quest progress 2/2, quest completion rewards: 20 Survival Points, one level-one planting gift pack]
The 20 points arrived, along with the level-one planting gift pack.
Ye Fei wasn't in a hurry to open the gift pack. His inventory was almost full again.
If asked what he liked most right now, Ye Fei would have chosen Inventory Expansion Tickets. But those were so hard to come by that he could only hope one of his unopened Supply Crates would give him another.
"Qingxue, Feng Bai, time to go home!"
Ye Fei had finished today's Random Quest, and there was only one empty slot left in his inventory. Although it was only a little past four in the afternoon, he ought to head home promptly when it was time.
He didn't just have to search for all the resources out there in the snow now. He also had to cultivate...
Even though he hadn't figured out exactly how to use it, Ye Fei had a vague sense that the Low-Level Golden Light Shield spell required spiritual energy to sustain it.
"Qingxue! Feng Bai!"
Ye Fei called several times, but the two little ones didn't return.
He knew the two Little Dumplings were already familiar with the names he had given them. If they weren't coming back now, they were either too far away or something was holding them up.
He grew anxious, but he didn't know where the two Little Dumplings were, or even which direction they had gone.
[Killed a white crane, Survival Points +6]
"Huh?"
Looking at the points that suddenly appeared, Ye Fei's sorrow over his own weakness abruptly turned into a string of question marks.
A white crane?
Where did a white crane come from?
There were white cranes on Snow Mountain?
Have you two little things already lost interest in wolves, rabbits, and pheasants?
Even a wild bison would be fine. At least it runs on the ground, so you could dig a pit and trap it to death. But a white crane...
What were you thinking? Were land animals no longer enough for you?
"Rawr, awoo~"
Little White Tiger came charging back first, ran up to Ye Fei, then turned and ran back the way the cub had come.
"You're hurt?"
Ye Fei broke into a run in that direction. Seeing Little White Tiger's half-empty health bar and the streaks of blood staining that fluffy white fur, there was no doubt the cub was injured.
But Little White Tiger was busy leading him there. Even if Ye Fei wanted to feed the cub a Blood-Replenishing Pill, he couldn't get close enough.
After running for over ten minutes, Ye Fei had barely any stamina left. At last, beside a cliff, he spotted Little Fox with her head lowered, gnawing on a white crane's carcass.
"Qingxue!"
Seeing that Qingxue the Little Fox had only a sliver of health remaining, Ye Fei rushed over, grabbed a Blood-Replenishing Pill, and stuffed it into her mouth.
After two pills in succession, Little Fox's health bar finally returned to three-quarters full. But blood was still seeping from her body. All he had done was keep her from dying for the moment. If they didn't hurry home for treatment, her health would still run out sooner or later.
"Yip..."
Lying in Ye Fei's hands, Little Fox drooped her head listlessly. Her whole body hurt, but she didn't dare cry.
She had insisted on catching this big winged bird. Feng Bai had warned her not to touch it, but she had been determined to kill it. Her stubbornness had nearly gotten them both killed here...
Since she could no longer drag their prey home, she had no choice but to bite it to death on the spot. While Little White Tiger went back to find Ye Fei, she had gnawed on the crane's flesh and blood to keep her stamina and health from running out...
"It's all right now. Let's go home."
Ye Fei stroked Little Fox's head, then took out two more Blood-Replenishing Pills. Little Fox ate one, and Little White Tiger ate the other.
Then, with Little White Tiger leading the way, he dragged the dead white crane, now little more than a mangled carcass, back toward home.
Although this might have happened because his pets hadn't been wary enough of their target, Ye Fei knew it was all because he had spoiled them.
From now on, he would have to rein them in a little. Even if they couldn't find prey, he couldn't let them run too far away.
But...
Snow Mountain.
Only now did he finally understand why his region was called Snow Mountain, rather than the snowfield where that wealthy big shot lived.
The flat expanse he had seen before, along with those slight slopes, had merely been the plateau atop this snow mountain.
Beyond this enormous plateau, as he could see from the cliff just now, snow mountains of different shapes and heights surrounded him.
The only reason he hadn't seen them all this time was that the summit of his own snow mountain was too high...
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