"No wonder!"
Understanding dawned on Fang Hong, though inwardly he wondered how Su Yao knew so much. Her knowledge was far broader than that of the body's original owner, a "Golden Core cultivator's son."
Su Yao's bright eyes looked about like those of a newborn wild deer. "How did you find this place?" she asked curiously.
"Just good luck," Fang Hong said casually. "I was searching for ice-soul mystic crystals, and eventually I found my way here."
"Such good luck..."
She muttered, turned to leave, then suddenly stopped again. "These three spirit fruits are extremely precious. After eating all three, you'll develop an innate divine ability without needing to cultivate, and it can continue evolving all the way to the third tier. Be careful not to let anyone steal them."
Fang Hong snorted, a keen light flashing in his eyes. "I'd like to see who dares come here."
Su Yao's gaze shifted, a rare trace of amusement appearing in her eyes. "If someone else steals them, I'll take them back. But let me say this first: those three spirit fruits will belong to me then."
Without waiting for Fang Hong to reply, she drifted away.
Fang Hong watched her tall figure disappear into the wind and snow, then turned and sat beneath the treasure tree.
He had already gathered the hundred ice-soul mystic crystals he needed. Now he only had to wait for the spirit fruits to ripen.
He began cultivating at leisure.
Though the cold within this secret realm was astonishing, its spiritual energy was also exceptionally dense, surpassing even the Fang Household's ancestral grounds on Yunchuan Island.
Though his seventh-grade spiritual meridians allowed him to refine only thirty percent of all the spiritual energy he absorbed from heaven and earth, he knew well that he could not squander time on the path of cultivation. Any increase in magical power was worth pursuing.
Su Yao brought her flight light down on a hill not far from the peak where the treasure tree stood.
Facing the Ice-Soul Treasure Tree, she sat cross-legged on a rock covered in solid ice, closed her eyes, and entered meditation.
Within her sea of consciousness was a dignified, beautiful woman dressed in rainbow robes and feathered garments, her bearing graceful and noble.
She sat cross-legged within an azure lotus, her figure voluptuous and her manner elegant in every way. The same three-petaled plum blossom mark adorned her forehead.
The sea of consciousness in the Niwan Palace was formed from a cultivator's divine sense and true spirit. It held the soul, and every thought in the mind manifested there.
The sea of consciousness was also a cultivator's most private place. Like the dantian's sea of qi, it was a foundation for cultivating the Great Dao.
Yet within Su Yao's sea of consciousness resided a soul that was not her own.
At that moment, a gleam of spiritual light flew out within the sea of consciousness and took Su Yao's form. Gathering her robes, she bowed to the beautiful woman and said apologetically, "Master, your disciple arrived a step too late. I wasted the spiritual essence you expended to locate that treasure tree."
The beautiful woman smiled faintly. "It doesn't matter. It's merely an Ice-Soul Mystic Light divine ability. Our Flower God Palace has many divine abilities, with no fewer than ten surpassing this one. You can cultivate them once you reach Foundation Establishment."
Su Yao lowered her head and assented, looking obedient.
The beautiful woman spoke earnestly. "Your most pressing concern now is to think carefully about your way forward. The Yin-Yang Sect is unlike the Shangqing Sect. The demonic sects have always followed cold, cruel rules that sift out the strong and discard the weak. Once you pass this trial, the real tests will still lie ahead."
"Your disciple understands." Su Yao pressed her lips together, a glint of resolve flashing in her eyes.
Everyone in the Fang Household of Yunchuan knew that her elder sister, Su Wan, possessed astonishing talent and had encountered extraordinary opportunities. Yet none knew that her own fortuitous encounters and immortal opportunities surpassed even her sister's.
But now that she had fallen into a demonic sect, even the beautiful woman before her, a manifestation of a remnant Nascent Soul, was powerless against the Yin-Yang Blood Curse.
The Yin-Yang Blood Curse had been created by a Nascent Soul cultivator of the Yin-Yang Sect and implanted in her body by a Golden Core cultivator. Only when the beautiful woman's cultivation was at its peak could she break it.
This thing was like a virulent poison: easy to implant, difficult to dispel!
Looking at that exquisite face, radiant as jade, the beautiful woman could not help feeling a pang of tenderness. "Once the trial ends, the Yin-Yang Sect's rules will force you to choose a Dao companion for dual cultivation and practice the sect's secret arts. This concerns your future Dao path. Over the next few days, you should keep an eye out and find someone pleasing to your eyes."
Su Yao's expression froze at those words. For some reason, Fang Hong's appearance was the first thing to flash through her mind.
Beneath the Ice-Soul Treasure Tree.
Fang Hong was cultivating when he suddenly sensed the candlelight in the Fate Mirror within his sea of consciousness flickering gently.
His eyes snapped open. Several dark green demonic vines had silently wound toward his neck and arms, their poisonous thorns about to pierce the spiritual light of his protective talisman.
"Heh. Attacking without so much as a greeting?"
Fang Hong remained seated cross-legged. Sword radiance flashed inside his sleeve, and a streak of golden sword light coiled around him like a roaming dragon. Wherever it passed, the dark green demonic vines snapped apart.
He looked around but saw no trace of his enemy. With a cold laugh, he raised his left hand and flung out a lightning pellet.
Boom!
A deafening thunderclap rang across the mountaintop.
Dazzling lightning instantly flooded an area ten zhang around him, its dancing arcs exuding an aura that set hearts trembling.
Bathed in lightning, Fang Hong turned unharmed to look a short distance behind him, where a petite, delicate figure stumbled into view amid the lightning.
Her hair was disheveled and her eyes panicked. Her dress was charred and tattered, exposing broad patches of snow-white skin.
Still badly shaken, she relied entirely on a luminous barrier cast by a precious pearl in her hand to fend off the lightning.
The lightning slowly faded.
Fang Hong watched her coldly, raised a hand, and pointed. His flying sword became a streak of golden light that slashed hard against her protective spiritual light.
Clang!
The sword rang out. It failed to cleave through the spiritual light surrounding the woman, instead sending her flying.
Since it could withstand a supreme-grade first-tier flying sword, the pearl in her hand was unquestionably a treasure of the same grade.
Anyone protected by such a treasure could not have an ordinary background.
"Fellow Daoist, this opportunity is too great. You can't hold on to it."
Seeing that she could do nothing to Fang Hong, the woman simply raised her hand and released a talisman. With a sinister expression, she left that threat behind, then turned and fled.
The talisman shot into the sky. Rather than attacking Fang Hong, it burst in midair in a dazzling bloom of green light, followed by a piercing shriek that reverberated outward.
A vicious glint flashed in Fang Hong's eyes. He swept his broad sleeve, and the Upper Clarity Sword Talisman flashed out, becoming a streak of silver sword radiance as thick as a chopstick. At an inconceivable speed, it caught up with the woman and swept across her waist.
The woman screamed. First her luminous barrier shattered, then her body split in two at the waist, her internal organs spilling through the sky.
Fang Hong watched the dazzling green light bloom in the sky with a calm expression. Yet an inexplicable surge of viciousness rose in his heart, and he regretted letting the woman die so easily.
Before the green light in the sky had faded, a streak of flight light rose from the foot of the mountain.
The newcomer stopped a hundred zhang from the summit and cupped his hands toward Fang Hong beneath the Ice-Soul Treasure Tree. "What a murderous disposition you have, Fellow Daoist Fang!"
Fang Hong looked down. The newcomer was tall and thin, with bright, alert eyes. He was Chai Hongzhou, the Ghost King Sect cultivator Fang Hong had spoken with earlier in the Yin-Yang Sect's great hall.
He had previously examined this man's fate configuration and its auspicious and baleful stars: Six Harmonies, Peach Blossom, Traveling Horse, and Heavenly Shelter had entered his fate.
Someone with this fate configuration was skilled at socializing, well-liked, fond of traveling, and well-informed. There also seemed to be some lingering ancestral blessings.
"Fellow Daoist Chai, have you come to seize these spirit fruits too?"
Fang Hong reached out to retrieve the Upper Clarity Sword Talisman and spoke with unhurried composure.
Chai Hongzhou smiled and shook his head. "Since the treasure already has an owner, I won't invite a rebuff."
He paused, then said sincerely, "I only came to warn you. The female cultivator you just killed was the third granddaughter of an elder of the Xun Household on Black Demon Island. She released a distress talisman. I expect quite a few Xun Household cultivators will arrive soon."
Before you continue