An old acquaintance

Night fell completely, and the cave grew utterly quiet. Lu Heng raised his hand and switched on the lamp embedded in the stone wall. Cool white light spread out, bringing the grain of the stone worktop clearly into view. He laid out everything he had obtained from the treasure chest at the bottom of the pool that day, picking up each item in turn to examine it closely.

First, he put the Water-Pattern Necklace around his neck, tapped the bracelet interface with a fingertip, and tested its storage and retrieval functions twice. He transferred all his spare herbs and small scraps of beast hide into the necklace's built-in storage slots, instantly freeing up more than half the bracelet's main storage space.

Next, he picked up the Water Spirit Crystal. It felt slightly cool and heavy in his hand. Water-type crystals would be needed for many aspects of future Shelter expansions; using it to build an ice cellar would be a real waste. Lu Heng set aside a separate storage slot and safely put the crystal away.

Once he had sorted all his supplies, he drew the Bronze Hunting Blade from his waist. Its blade reflected the lamplight with a cold gleam. Lowering his eyes, he silently recited the complete saber formula, then moved to an open area inside the cave and began practicing.

His wrist rose and fell in gentle, flowing arcs as he redirected force and sank his weight, swept the saber sideways, and thrust the straight blade forward, repeating the sequence over and over. He pictured a beast lunging at him, turned sideways to receive the impact, then followed through with his blade. He practiced for a long time, only stopping when his forearms grew sore and heavy. The Ice Cellar Module lay quietly in his storage, but without any ice-type ore, he had no way to begin construction.

Having practiced until his arms were numb and weak, Lu Heng put away his blade and let his hands fall. A breath of white mist slowly drifted from his lips. The cave was softly lit and free of wind, yet whenever he thought of the temperature continuing to drop outside, worry weighed heavily on his heart. He wiped the fine moisture from the blade, returned it to its sheath, and laid out his dry grass bedding. The fatigue accumulated over days of saber practice swept through his entire body, and he soon fell fast asleep after closing his eyes.

The night passed in a flash. Wind and snow rustled ceaselessly outside, and pale daylight seeped through the gaps at the cave entrance, diluting the lingering darkness within. Lu Heng opened his eyes, and the first thing to reach his nose was the crisp scent of snow. He rose, walked to the entrance, and pushed aside the stone slab blocking it. Fine snowflakes immediately settled on his shoulders, cool to the touch.

Last night had merely been dry, cold, and windless, but today brought the first snowfall of the year. The snowflakes were fine and soft, melting almost instantly when they touched his beast-hide coat. Only a thin layer of white had accumulated on the ground. The water in the pool and stream below continued to flow, without the slightest sign of freezing.

He silently watched the snowflakes dancing through the sky, his heart sinking heavily. Back when he had worked in a factory in the south, snow had never presented much trouble. At most, the roads grew slippery; slowing his electric scooter and carefully avoiding slick patches had been enough to travel safely. This wilderness, however, was an entirely different, desperate situation. There was no heating, and food reserves were limited. Once the wind and snow arrived, every part of the surroundings concealed threats to survival.

Lu Heng gently exhaled a wisp of white mist. Stories of surviving in the wilderness by growing potatoes drifted unbidden through his mind. Through the long winter ahead, life would only become harder.

Snow settled over the entire mountain forest, and the surroundings were unnaturally quiet. The birdsong that usually rose and fell morning and evening had vanished completely, leaving only the faint rustle of snow brushing against dead branches.

I can't keep lingering outside. The snow was still shallow, and scattered supplies on the ground remained exposed. Once the snowfall grew heavier, everything would be buried, making subsequent searches several times harder. He pulled his worn leather coat tighter, rested his right hand lightly on the Bronze Hunting Blade at his waist, and walked slowly toward the Cold Pool through the thin layer of snow.

He made his way to the pool and slowly circled its banks, carefully checking the gaps between stones and the crevices in the rock walls one by one. Even after completing a full circuit, he found none of the ice-attribute ore required to build the ice cellar. The falling snow grew denser, and the outlines of distant trees gradually blurred into gray-white shadows. Staying outside too long would make it all too easy to lose his way back. Lu Heng stopped searching, turned around, and followed the river channel back toward the cave.

Layers of dead shrubs intertwined along both sides of the channel. Their crisscrossing branches blocked most of his view, and snow bent the slender twigs. The forest was unsettlingly silent.

Suddenly, the sound of snow tumbling down came from the shrubs on his left, tearing through the silence of the mountain forest. Lu Heng stopped dead. His fingers clamped around the hunting blade at his waist, his back tensed, and he turned sideways into a defensive stance, his gaze fixed on the shaking bushes.

The next instant, a grayish-blue humanoid coated in thin ice lunged out from behind the shrubs. Its limbs no longer moved with stiff, jerky motions. Wrapped in bone-chilling cold, it hurled itself at his waist and abdomen to bite-it was a Cold Stiff.

He steadied himself and focused on it, his heart suddenly tightening. The Cold Stiffs he had seen before had moved slowly, their limbs rigid. This one was the complete opposite: its limbs stretched and moved freely, and its charge was extraordinarily fast, without the slightest trace of sluggish clumsiness.

Something's wrong.

The thought had barely formed when Lu Heng raised his left hand and touched the bracelet. A pale glow silently swept over the monster ahead, and several lines of appraisal text appeared in his vision.

Name: Cold Stiff

Rank: Black iron

Description: A humanoid monster formed through prolonged exposure to the frost and cold earth energy of the mountain forest. It has lost its independent consciousness, retaining only its hunting instincts. Compared with ordinary Cold Stiffs, its bodily stiffness is greatly reduced, its movements approach those of a normal human, and its movement speed is considerably faster. It attacks by biting at close range.

The Cold Stiff paused for half a second, then stepped forward and lunged again, sending bone-piercing cold sweeping toward him. Lu Heng tightened his grip on the Bronze Hunting Blade, rapidly reviewing the Flowing Water Saber Technique he had honed all night. He remembered the patterns of its moves clearly, but coordinating his hands and feet in actual combat was still awkward and unfamiliar.

He slid half a step sideways with the force of its charge, using the terrain to redirect and dissipate most of the attack, then turned his wrist and swept his saber horizontally, following the Flowing Water Saber Technique's principle of softening force. But he had practiced for too little time, and gaps remained between his movements. He failed to deflect the impact completely, and the cold radiating from the monster brushed his shoulder, bringing a chill, stabbing pain. His slash merely grazed its ice-covered shoulder, scraping away a layer of ice fragments and leaving only a shallow flesh wound. It did nothing to interrupt the rhythm of its attack.

The monster's assault did not slacken after the hit. It raised its rigid arm high and clawed straight for his vulnerable neck. Lu Heng hurriedly stepped backward to evade it, but his foot slipped on the thin snow, making him sway slightly. With no time to adjust his saber technique or footwork, he could only instinctively thrust the hunting blade forward with all his strength.

Fortunately, the hunting blade was sharp and sturdy, and it drove straight into a soft spot in the creature's torso. The monster's forward momentum stopped instantly. The cold surrounding its body slowly dispersed into the wind and snow through the wound, and its rigid body crashed heavily onto the snow, never moving again.

Lu Heng steadied himself with a hand on the hilt, then raised his hand and gently rubbed his chilled fingers. His entire forearm was taut and trembling slightly. He had failed completely to link the Flowing Water Saber Technique's moves smoothly. His dodges and slashes had all been hasty responses, nowhere near a practiced execution of the sequence. He had brought the monster down only because his weapon was sharp enough to pierce its body.

He lowered his eyes to the motionless body in the snow, and belated fear welled up within him. His saber technique was only half-mastered. Against a swift-attacking mutated monster, his moves had immediately fallen into disarray. Had he been even half a step slower just now, he would have been the one to suffer. Any survival skill had to be honed to proficiency before he could rely on it. Half-baked ability like this would only put him in danger at a critical moment.

Once his breathing gradually steadied, Lu Heng raised his wrist and touched the bracelet. White light enveloped the corpse on the ground, and its entire body slowly dissolved and broke down. Two black-iron-grade materials fell onto the white snow: a Poison Claw and a Cold Crystal. The Cold Crystal was the energy core condensed within the Cold Stiff's body.

He bent down, picked up both materials, and put them into the bracelet's storage slots. A trace of regret crossed his mind. Killing a black-iron-rank monster had yielded a mere two items.

Lu Heng tightened his grip on the hunting blade again, intending to return to the cave as quickly as possible. He had barely taken one step when a jumble of sounds of snow being disturbed rose from every direction in the forest. They converged on him from several sides, and judging by the volume, there were quite a few of them.

Lu Heng's heart tightened. Not daring to linger, he hurried to a nearby old tree with thick branches and swiftly climbed it using both hands and feet. He hid among the snow-covered branches and leaned down to watch the movement in the forest below.