The Far North.
"Tian Meng, just how far north do we have to go?"
Ever since Qian Daoliu had used Angel Divine Power to spy on him, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had been like someone who had been... violated, listless and sleeping all day long.
Even when Lin Qian mentioned his dream goddess, the Ice Empress, he showed little interest, as though his body had been hollowed out.
Only at his master's words did he wake from his sleep. "Just go. Pick your direction and keep heading north. It'll take at least ten days!"
"I'm covering eight hundred li a day now. Wouldn't ten days mean eight thousand li?"
"Mm."
"The Far North is your home. What's special about it? Tell me about it~"
"Oh."
Lin Qian tried hard to find topics, but Tian Meng remained out of sorts, in desperate need of a bottle of Mizone to perk him up.
Whoosh-
Lin Qian suddenly braked and refused to budge. "If you're not eager to see your goddess, there's something wrong with your thinking. I might as well head home!"
Tian Meng instantly woke up. "Hey, hey, hey! Let's talk this out!"
"You don't even want to see your goddess anymore. What's the point of going?"
"Didn't your teacher give you a month? We can make it back if we hurry. Trust me!"
Seeing him actually turn back, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm panicked. His Soul Spirit manifested, his enormous body planted on the ground like a squash.
Lin Qian looked teasingly at him. "Finally willing to get out of bed?"
Tian Meng shook his head and sighed. "What could I do? I was prepared, but I never imagined we'd run into a god so soon. The pressure's like a mountain! I really want to go back to the Far North and see my Little Bingbing~"
"See her for what? To get hunted down, or to get caught by your fellow beasts and sucked dry?"
"Tch. Her chasing me means she has me in her heart. Unlike a certain someone, caught between a mother and daughter with nowhere to turn!"
Tian Meng felt that although he was a simp, his progress was considerably faster than Lin Qian's. Thinking of that terrifying mother and daughter from Spirit Hall, his own Bingbing was gentler after all~
You damned simp. You've actually managed to lick your way to a sense of superiority, huh?
Once we reach the Far North, I'm cuckolding you right away!
Lin Qian made his decision in secret.
The Far North.
An ice cavern.
"Achoo!"
The sleeping Ice Empress suddenly woke with a start.
"How strange. I'm a mighty Far North Heavenly King. How did I catch a cold?"
After muttering for a while, the Ice Empress rolled over and went back to sleep.
They bickered along the way.
In the original story, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had been very impatient with Huo Yuhao, frequently turning the proper order upside down and lecturing him about this and that, but he dared not do so with Lin Qian.
Trading the occasional barb was already his limit. After all, he did not want to lose this extraordinarily talented master with the best chance of becoming a god.
Cultivators had long since freed themselves from the need for food, so eating was optional. At the academy, Lin Qian had only forced himself to eat a few bites with the little fox to win her over. Now, to make haste, he had fully returned to his cultivation routine, neither eating nor drinking.
Because of this, he took only a single day to enter the Far North's territory, reaching the north that Huo Yuhao had needed three days to reach in Douluo II.
The temperature dropped, and the air grew colder.
Even ten thousand years later, few people ventured into the Far North, let alone now. He had not bought a map like Huo Yuhao had; buying one would be useless anyway. Wasn't saving the money to chase girls better?
So he found the nearest city to replenish his supplies and bought a Snowmobile to get around.
The world of Soul Masters really was wonderful. Soul Power perfectly replaced fuel, and as long as it did not run out, he could frolic around however he pleased.
"Whew-"
Early the next morning, Lin Qian entered the Far North's inner circle. Birds had vanished from a thousand mountains, and an endless expanse of white stretched for ten thousand li, without so much as a hair in sight.
With every breath, mist immediately spilled from his mouth and condensed into countless tiny flecks of ice.
After fixing his hair, Lin Qian sank into his Sea of Consciousness. "Tian Meng, we're here."
"Mm. Let's go."
"This is your turf. You should be giving directions!"
"Uh... well..." Tian Meng stared with his large, innocent eyes. "I used to live in the northeast, then drifted south with the seawater, entered the Star Dou Great Forest, and finally got caught... so..."
"So you don't know the way at all, right?"
"Exactly. You really are the roundworm in my belly~"
"..."
Lin Qian smiled without a word and slowly raised an eight-meter-long saber within his Sea of Consciousness.
Tian Meng's survival instincts surged. "Wait! I wasn't finished!"
Lin Qian said, "I'll give you one chance to rephrase that."
Tian Meng said, "I may not know the way, but I have powerful spiritual strength! Follow my directions, and we'll definitely find our target!"
"If we don't, may the Ice Empress ignore you for the rest of your life!"
Tian Meng yielded to his master's tyranny and nodded. "Mm..."
With that firm guarantee, Lin Qian finally felt safe leaving the navigation to him.
He was no unscrupulous capitalist. He simply knew that this bug had as many schemes as legs, especially with his dream goddess, the Ice Empress, here. One careless moment could land him in a ditch. He had to stay on guard!
Tian Meng added, "Little Qianqian, I have a shed skin with me too. It's on you. If you want to stay warm, take off your clothes first~"
In the original story, he had told Huo Yuhao to do exactly that, then slipped the shed skin over him before having him put his clothes back on.
Naturally, Lin Qian could not agree.
He was not someone as weak as Huo Yuhao, who needed a bug's dead skin for protection. Besides, the Far North's two great Heavenly Kings, the Snow Empress and the Ice Empress, were both Soul Beasts hundreds of thousands of years old, with astonishing perception. If they caught him running around naked, how was he supposed to win them over?
So, after a moment's thought, he refused. "No need. I'm a mighty Soul Douluo. I don't need that thing. Get on with the real business!"
His kind intentions rejected, the narcissistic Tian Meng suffered a heavy blow and muttered, "I was only being kind, yet you just threw away a chance for skin-to-skin intimacy..."
"What did you say?"
"I said... as you command, Master!"
Forced to get serious, Tian Meng said, "By a conservative estimate, we'll have to stay here for over ten days. We're on a tight schedule. So from now on, you must follow my instructions. There can't be a single slipup!"
Lin Qian started the Snowmobile. "And then?"
Whoosh!
Tian Meng's Soul Spirit manifested, standing on his shoulder once more. "Let's go! Straight north!"
Rumble!
The Snowmobile roared to life, and Lin Qian sped off at top speed, leaving deep tire tracks along the way.
Almost the very moment they set off, white mist drifted across the snow and gradually took shape.
Had Lin Qian and Tian Meng looked back, they would have discovered a group of humanoid spirits.
"That bug has very strong spiritual fluctuations!"
One of them spoke.
"Yes, I sensed them too. And that bug is a creature from here!"
Another spirit chimed in.
What the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm did not know was that the moment he released his spiritual strength, he had already been marked. Paired with the sound of Lin Qian operating the Snowmobile, the astonishing noise rivaled modern aunties' square dancing.
The Far North was sparsely inhabited to begin with. Never mind humans; there were barely any Soul Beasts. Those capable of leaving had long since left.
Thus, the remaining Soul Beasts either possessed exceptionally powerful talents or were lackeys of some important figure in the Far North, like these Snow Spirits.
They discussed it for a while, all talking over one another, before reaching a unanimous decision-
"Quick, report this to the Queen!"