"Daddy! There's a huge cave here!"
"Careful! Get back here, now!"
A man in fitted martial attire bounded forward and pulled a little girl wrapped in furs behind him...
"Don't be reckless! This is Two-World Mountain! What are you shouting for? Look at what the immortals and demons have done to the valleys around here! Watch out for wounded demons lying low. They could spring out and hurt you..."
The little girl stuck out her tongue mischievously, still craning her neck to inspect the half-collapsed ice cave farther up the cliff.
Two young men approached cautiously. The taller one in front cupped his hands toward the man. "Master, the Immortal Sect's army swept through here three months ago. It should be safe now, shouldn't it?"
The man shook his head. "Careful sailing keeps a boat afloat for ten thousand years... You three head down first. I'll go test the waters. If there's any danger, protect Zhong Duo'er and get out of here. Ask the cultivators stationed here by the Immortal Sect for help!"
"I won't, Daddy..."
"Quiet! Get down there!"
The two young men tugged the girl away. The middle-aged man took a deep breath, dense martial warrior gang qi circulating around his body, then quietly climbed the steep cliff toward the ice cave.
Whoosh... clack! Crouching at the entrance, the man tossed a stone inside. A long while passed... but there was still no sound.
"Whew..." Somewhat reassured, the man crept into the ice cave.
Most of the ice cave had collapsed, leaving enormous chunks of white ice scattered across the floor. Only after a lengthy, cautious inspection did the man relax. He reached behind his back, drew a Hundred-Forged Steel Saber, and pushed aside the ice blocking his path as he headed deeper inside.
"This is... bloody hell, this is ice soul stone! You can trade it for pills! Hahaha... After the darkest depths, fortune finally turns! Wonderful..."
The man scrambled over to an ice wall and carefully used his saber tip to pry out a piece of ore glimmering with a faint blue light...
"It really is! The escort agency is saved! Hahaha..."
He searched around, dug out several more pieces of ore, then tucked them into his clothes and hurried outside...
"Duo'er... Feng Hu, Liu Zhi! Come on up! There's no danger inside. There's good stuff instead! Hehehe..."
The three peeking up from below the cliff lit up at his words and hastily scrambled up on hands and feet.
All four-the father, daughter, and two disciples-were martial warriors. The middle-aged man had profound cultivation and had already reached the sixth realm, Marrow Radiance. Of his two disciples, one was in the fourth realm and the other in the third realm, while the girl, Zhong Duo'er, was only in the second realm.
"Oh! What is this? It's so pretty..."
The girl accepted a piece of ore from her smiling father and fiddled with it curiously... "It's cold, so cold!"
The tall young man leaned closer to examine it, then exclaimed in delight, "Wonderful! This is wonderful... Could this ice cave be an ice soul ore mine? Master, is there much ice soul stone left inside?"
"Yes, there should be some! Nothing very big, though. They're all about fist-sized! Someone must have mined it before..."
"Two-World Mountain may be dangerous, but it really is full of treasures! Master, I'm afraid we won't be able to hold on to this mine... Should we hand it over to the Taihua Sect?"
The little girl puffed up her cheeks angrily. "We have to hand everything over to them! Isn't all their plundering throughout the year enough?"
The middle-aged man rubbed her head. "Don't be silly! Immortal Sect, Immortal Sect... it means serving under immortals! This whole mortal world belongs to the immortals, so of course it belongs to these Immortal Sects! Don't begrudge them. Even if we only get to keep a tenth, it'll be enough to pay off our taxes and buy some immortal pills to treat your mother! With what's left... we'll buy you all pills to strengthen your bodies and foundations, then get two third-grade weapons for the escort agency!"
His eldest disciple, Feng Hu, nodded beside him. "Exactly. Be content, and happiness will follow! It's a big haul regardless. Since we're the first to discover the mine, we can take half of what we find. Gathering more ice soul stone is our best bet!"
The other young man, Liu Zhi, shook his head. "Those Immortal Sect people sealing off the mountain are greedy! I doubt they'll let us take much away. Our share afterward will be next to nothing, too..."
The middle-aged man sighed, but Liu Zhi lowered his head and said, "How about... how about we use thirty percent of our haul to bribe those Immortal Sect people? They'll probably let us take a little more..."
The girl rolled her eyes at Liu Zhi, while the middle-aged man reached out and patted his rather crafty disciple... "All right! We'll do as you say. I'll handle the talking when the time comes..."
"Let me do it, Master! There's no need to trouble you with such sordid business..."
They discussed it for a while, then, while daylight remained, picked up their weapons and entered the ice cave, leaving only Liu Zhi outside to keep watch.
The clanging of blows against the ice walls drifted out amid delighted cries. It seemed the escort agency's martial warriors, who cultivated down below the mountain, were making a decent haul...
Zhong Duo'er held an axe, her little face flushed red. Who knew why a girl like her had chosen such a weapon?
Excitement on her face, she smashed an enormous chunk of ice, then happily picked up a fist-sized piece of deep-blue ore...
"Huh? What a huge chunk of ice! It's really hard, too..."
The ice cave seemed to have reached its end. Disappointed but unwilling to give up, the girl swung her axe at an enormous mass of ice in its deepest recess!
"Open up for me!"
Bang, bang, bang...
"Spit out a great big ice soul stone for me!"
Bang, bang, bang! Bang, bang, bang...
"Duo'er! Be careful... Don't shake the mine down! Let Daddy take a look... The deeper you go into an ice mine, the harder the ice gets. If you make too much noise and draw the Immortal Sect's patrolmen here, we'll be in trouble!"
"Oh..."
The man carefully surveyed the space at the end of the cave and sighed. "I'm afraid we can't break through. Look around here for any loose ore, then we'll head out!"
Unwilling to concede, Zhong Duo'er wiped the huge mass of ice in front of her, then pressed her eyes close to its surface and peered inside...
"Daddy, there's something in there! It looks like there's ice soul stone, too!"
"Really? Let Daddy handle it. Stand back!"
The middle-aged martial warrior drew a breath and pressed his left hand against the enormous mass of ice. The long saber in his right hand immediately radiated a brilliant glow!
"Open..."
With a low shout, the middle-aged man thrust his saber into the ice. Saber qi burst forth! With a crack, the ice split apart...
"There's something there! Is it ice soul stone?"
The girl leaned forward excitedly, peering curiously into the dim crack in the ice...
The man seized her collar and shot backward, shouting at the same time, "Hu, fall back!"
Dizzy and disoriented in her father's grasp, the little girl caught only a fleeting glimpse through her panic... The shattered mass of ice collapsed, revealing a figure frozen atop a small platform of ice! Was that a corpse?
Night fell, and a small campfire burned in a little valley beneath the icy peak.
The girl, Zhong Duo'er, sat curiously beside the fire while her Second Senior Brother, Liu Zhi, toasted several pieces of dry rations over the flames...
Not far away, the martial warrior Zhong Huan and his eldest disciple, Feng Hu, stared blankly at the boy they had dug out of the ice...
"You're saying you live in these mountains?"
Lü Bufan wore ragged animal hides. With his disheveled hair and filthy face, he looked like a savage.
"Yes, I live nearby... My master looks after me, in a little village."
"Where is your hometown? Do you have any relatives outside the mountains?"
"No... I've been an orphan since I was little. An old blind man took me in, and I've stayed with him ever since."
The middle-aged man, Zhong Huan, glanced at his eldest disciple, then reached out and pressed a hand against Lü Bufan's shoulder...
"You've cultivated? You're a second-realm martial warrior? Your foundation's a little weak... What's your name? Who's your master? What's his name?"
Lü Bufan looked at the middle-aged man. "My name is Lü Bufan... Everyone calls my master Old Blind Man. The other people in the village all have bad tempers. I just wash my master's clothes and cook for him every day... I don't know anything else."
"How did you end up frozen inside the ice?"
"I don't know. My master brought me here and told me to cultivate in the ice cave... After that, I don't remember anything... Uncle, could you take me back to the village? There's a village a little over a hundred li to the northeast. My master should reward you..."
The middle-aged man and his eldest disciple, Feng Hu, exchanged looks... A little over a hundred li northeast... Wasn't that where the bloody immortals and demons had fought that day? A village? Dozens of ridges and ravines had been flattened by explosions of gang qi and spiritual power! One valley had even been smashed by an immortal's spell into an enormous crater more than a hundred zhang deep...
Looking at the bedraggled, utterly weakened young savage, Zhong Huan told his eldest disciple to watch Lü Bufan, then returned to the campfire to consult his crafty second disciple, Liu Zhi...
"Do you think his story is credible?"
"Master... here in Two-World Mountain, is anything ever simple? We'd better not draw fire onto ourselves! He survived being frozen in an ice cave... There's definitely more to him than meets the eye! At the very least, our lineage doesn't have a Tortoise Breath Technique like that... Why don't we hand him over to the Immortal Sect's patrolmen?"
The middle-aged man pondered for a long time... "If we hand him over to the Immortal Sect, I doubt the boy will survive! From the looks of it, he's a disciple taken in by some cultivators hiding in Two-World Mountain... He probably hasn't received much of their teachings. A second-realm martial warrior couldn't survive in Two-World Mountain."
Zhong Duo'er asked curiously, "Is his master a good person? Otherwise, why would he hide him in that ice cave before the great battle?"
"They don't seem particularly close, but his master probably isn't bad-hearted... Otherwise, he wouldn't have cared whether the boy lived or died."
"Then... why don't we take him in as a junior disciple? A savage from Two-World Mountain! Think how impressive that would sound!"
"Quiet..."
Beside him, his second disciple, Liu Zhi, frowned. "Master, there really are some rogue cultivators and savages around Two-World Mountain. Over the years, plenty of mountain folk have fled here to escape corvée labor and taxes, but... I still feel something's wrong. If we don't hand him over... I'm afraid we'll invite trouble!"
Zhong Duo'er huffed angrily beside them. "What trouble? Isn't he just a little second-realm martial warrior? He grew up in the mountains serving his master, too... Is saving his life really that hard? Why are you such a coward? Are you even a man?"
Wrapped in animal hides, Lü Bufan sat miserably some distance away. Yet he now discovered that his six senses were extraordinarily sharp... He could actually hear every word the three people whispered beside the distant campfire!
Lü Bufan was deeply frustrated. He had cultivated according to Old Skeleton's instructions... How had he inexplicably ended up frozen inside a block of ice? What had that strange dream been about? Why had his cultivation fallen instead of risen... How had he become a second-realm martial warrior? His dantian had turned into something like a block of ice, too... Not a thread of innate true qi remained!
Had he suffered qi deviation and crippled his cultivation...?
Where had these people come from? How did they dare enter Two-World Mountain so casually... What exactly had happened to the village?