Chapter 224: Reunion

Gao De's movements were crisp and efficient.

It was just that the sense of déjà vu from this scene was far too strong.

It reminded him of the scenes of himself "walking the dog" in his past life.

As the "lotus" entered his belly, a cool sensation instantly erupted within his body, leaving Gao De with no more heart to complain, turning instead to focus his mind on sensing what this magical plant had brought him.

The cool sensation brought with it a gentle, vast energy.

This energy, after circulating through Gao De's body once, surged upward at extreme speed.

Finally, it all poured toward the position of Gao De's left eye, rapidly merging into the eyeball, the surrounding blood vessels, muscles, and even the orbital bone structure.

The eyes are naturally one of the more sensitive parts of the body.

Suddenly struck by the icy stimulation, Gao De subconsciously covered his left eye.

Fortunately, this process did not last long.

About ten-odd seconds later.

The cool sensation dissipated.

Gao De lifted his head slightly.

At this moment, in the darkness, one could see a circle of deep, ghostly blue fluorescence emerging around the pupil of his left eye.

That appearance was identical to the light previously emitted by the magical plant itself, appearing incomparably miraculous.

Gao De was astonished by the strange sensation coming from his left eye, yet he could not know what specific changes had occurred to him.

He subconsciously looked left and right.

The next moment, Gao De discovered where the change lay.

The field of vision in his eyes had actually become dual!

His right eye still saw the surface-level field of vision.

But within the left eye's field of vision, he could faintly see certain extremely tiny things, as if he possessed macro vision.

For example, with the ability to see in the dark superimposed with the left eye's vision, Gao De discovered some things he hadn't noticed before.

In the corner of the cave, likely the "restaurant" location of the "snow leopard," there were some withered bones.

Gao De had noticed them as soon as he entered the cave, but he hadn't looked closely.

But now, he discovered that among those withered bones, there was actually a pitch-black barley seed.

Under such extreme low temperatures of minus fifty or sixty degrees, an ordinary barley seed should have long since lost its vitality and then dried into dust.

But for some reason, beneath this pitch-black husk, there was still a trace of imperceptible green.

This indicated that its vitality remained, and it still had a chance to sprout and grow.

Subconsciously, Gao De cast Mage Hand to pick up that barley seed and tucked it into his pocket.

There was no reason; he just felt that such a miracle of life was worth taking away to let it be born.

Then, after finishing all this, Gao De reacted belatedly:

Had his left eye's vision really become this exaggerated?

Of course, this had its pros and cons.

Because of the lack of coordination between the left and right fields of vision, after looking for a while, Gao De faintly began to feel dizzy.

He couldn't go on like this forever, could he? Wouldn't he have to learn from pirates and cover one eye?

Gao De did not want to be a one-eyed dragon.

He tried to control that strange sensation coming from his left eye.

Sure enough, it was controllable.

Under his conscious control, that strange sensation immediately dissipated, and the left eye's field of vision returned to normal.

With a thought, the strange sensation surged out again, and the macro vision appeared once more.

After trying two or three times in succession and confirming this was a permanent ability, Gao De couldn't help but feel slightly invigorated.

Macro vision could only be considered a decent ability for others.

But for him, there was one extremely important use: rune manufacturing technology! "Many thanks to Lady Fuluola for the guidance." He expressed his gratitude to Fuluola.

If not for Fuluola's signal, he would never have dared to swallow a magical plant of unknown origin, nor would he have gained this ability that was of immense help for manufacturing rune constructs.

"Lady Fuluola has wisdom."

"That is so," Gao De affirmed.

Who could say she wasn't smart? "However, we must run away now," Gao De added.

One could imagine how angry the "snow leopard" would be when it returned from hunting to see only the roots and stems of its "great treasure" left.

Therefore, the top priority was to run.

Gao De was also very decisive.

Before running, he first threw several small Acid Splash+ acid balls into the cave.

These acid liquids, according to his will, would last for a day.

Of course, this wasn't to set a trap for the returning "snow leopard."

No one would fall for such an ugly trap.

The reason for doing this was because Gao De knew that these predator-type ley line creatures mostly had extremely powerful senses of smell and were highly likely to track him through the faint scent he left in the cave.

And the strong sulfur smell produced by the acid could disperse the scent he left behind.

After doing this, Gao De left the cave.

He did not choose to return the way he came.

The "snow leopard" had gone down the mountain to hunt; if he returned the same way, he was very likely to run into it.

Gao De chose to cast Cat's Claw, first crossing this cliff, and then at the very top of the cliff, he cast Create Water.

Clear, pure water flowed out, and under the extreme low temperature, it quickly froze, covering and burying the ice-crack traces he had created on the cliff.

After confirming no traces were left, Gao De cast Ice Skating to move away from the cave's location at high speed.

Under the effect of Ice Skating, his movements would no longer leave obvious footprints on the ground.

And under the cold wind of Mount Dandong, those faint footprints would soon be buried and vanish.

The duration of Ice Skating was a full hour.

Gao De did not dare to stop his steps for a single moment.

This snow peak, which was difficult terrain for him, was not exactly flat ground for the "snow leopard," but it wasn't too difficult either.

This meant its activity area and reconnaissance area would be extremely vast.

With the "snow leopard's" cave as the center, only by pulling the radius large enough would the possibility of being found by the "snow leopard" be reduced to a minimum.

The boldness when stealing the home did not affect Gao De's caution after stealing it.

He didn't even care about the dangers of traveling at night.

As soon as the duration of Ice Skating ended, Gao De reapplied Ice Skating to himself.

After two consecutive hours, Gao De finally stopped, panting.

Traveling in such a harsh environment while carrying a not-insignificant weight burden, even with the support of Ice Skating and Endure Elements+, the physical exertion was immense.

By now, the physical exertion was approaching Gao De's limit.

"If I were a second-circle magic user, after mastering Enhance Ability, the weight burden problem wouldn't be so thorny," Gao De couldn't help but think.

One of the spell effects of Enhance Ability was to greatly increase a person's weight-bearing capacity.

It was just that Enhance Ability was a second-circle spell, and among first-circle spells, there were no spells that could enhance weight-bearing capacity.

Having not slept all night and traveling in a rush, no matter what, Gao De needed to rest now.

Finding a small depression, he first ate some of the beef jerky he carried with him.

To be honest, at this temperature, the beef jerky could no longer be called beef jerky; its texture was no different from an ice cube.

But he couldn't find fuel for the moment and couldn't start a fire, so Gao De had to bite the bullet and stuff it into his mouth.

After stuffing two mouthfuls and finding it truly impossible to bite, he gave up on this attempt.

By this time, the various inconveniences brought by the extreme low temperature finally began to manifest.

First was the food problem. Even the water source created by Create Water would freeze instantly, making it impossible to drink.

It had to be heated to obtain drinkable water.

Food went without saying; if not boiled, it was no different from an ice cube.

Starting a fire became the top priority.

Fortunately, Spark could solve the problem of lighting a fire.

Even in low-temperature weather above minus sixty degrees, Spark could still ensure the fuel was successfully ignited.

But Gao De had no spells to solve the fuel problem for the time being.

Therefore, he could only search for and collect withered branches scattered on the road as fuel.

The problem was that at this altitude, vegetation had become almost invisible.

Without trees, there were no withered branches to collect.

At this time, Gao De could only use the charcoal he had purchased in advance in Ailahaimu before setting off as fuel.

It was just that the amount of charcoal was not much.

Because he couldn't carry much more, he used a little less each time, and Gao De generally couldn't bear to use it.

Besides this, there was the rest problem.

After crossing the halfway mark of Mount Dandong, not only were suitable resting spots harder to find, but because the temperature was getting lower, falling asleep was becoming increasingly difficult.

Fortunately, the latter problem was already solved in the face of Adaptation.

Similarly, as the altitude increased, the altitude sickness caused by the sharp decrease in oxygen content in the air also ceased to exist under the dual effect of Endure Elements+ and Adaptation.

Otherwise, let alone strenuous exercise like climbing a mountain, even lying still would be tough.

After taking out the sleeping bag and unfolding it, Gao De crawled into it, preparing to take a short nap.

To be honest, at this temperature, the sleeping bag's effect was better than nothing.

But it could at least block the wind and provide some psychological comfort, so Gao De didn't discard it.

"Lady Fuluola."

"Hmm?"

"I have to trouble you again."

"Mm."

Fuluola flapped her small wings and flew up.

It was only with her guarding that Gao De could sleep so peacefully.

It was just hard on Fuluola.

And how did things turn out like this? Fuluola thought for a moment; it seemed everything originated from that day she first discovered that "bad person." When he woke up again, the daylight was already bright.

Gao De's stomach was rumbling.

In fact, he was awakened by the feeling of hunger.

He urgently needed to obtain heat and energy through food.

No longer caring about "saving," Gao De immediately took some more from the remaining charcoal, ignited it, set up a small pot, and boiled himself a bowl of "beef soup" with beef jerky added.

With a mouthful of hot soup in his belly, his whole body felt comfortable, and his state and spirit recovered quite a bit.

Only then did Gao De manage to take the map out of his pocket, carefully compare his position, and confirm the direction through North-Pointing, letting out a long sigh.

"Magic user, you seem very troubled."

"Yes."

"What's wrong?"

"I was in a rush to run away last night and didn't manage to confirm my position, so now I have no way of knowing exactly where I am."

Gao De looked into the distance; the white snow was endless and looked the same everywhere. He pointed forward, "I can only confirm I'm walking in this direction, but if I'm unlucky, I might have to take a long detour and waste a lot of time."

"Don't understand."

"I'm lost."

"Don't you have a map?"

"You have to know your position for the map to be useful."

"You aren't smart."

"Lady Fuluola is smart, so Lady Fuluola tell me how to walk."

"Lady Fuluola is not an old horse."

"Neither am I."

An old horse knows the way, but one person and one Fuluola were neither old horses.

So neither of them knew the way.

Fortunately, with the assistance of North-Pointing, at least the general direction could be guaranteed not to be wrong.

After the two struggled forward in the set direction for several more hours, Gao De's eyes suddenly lit up.

At the intersection formed by two huge ice blocks ahead, Gao De saw some sparse traces of human activity: obviously man-made fire pits and some slightly black snow dust.

Seeing those traces, Gao De was immediately overjoyed.

He had never thought he would one day become so happy because of discovering traces of human activity.

The slightly black snowflakes had not yet been buried.

This meant that not long ago, someone had stayed here.

As for who it was... it was highly likely to be Du Wei, who was a step ahead.

Even if it wasn't, it didn't matter.

Since he could see traces of human activity, it indicated that his "rushing blindly" last night hadn't made him deviate too far from the northern climbing route, and now he was back on track.

The unknown was the most terrifying thing.

Since he could basically confirm he was back on the correct route, Gao De's tense mind immediately relaxed.

The snow dust still remained, meaning the other party hadn't left for long... His heart stirred, and he decided to make a one-time effort to catch up with Du Wei.

Thinking of the other party's tone and confidence when proposing the climbing competition, Gao De really wanted to see if Du Wei could still maintain his habitual "cool" expression when he discovered he had caught up.

After another half a day, Gao De, as expected, saw Du Wei starting a bonfire in a small cave formed by ice layers.

The cookware had already been set up, and meat soup was bubbling in the pot, with some spices even floating on the surface of the soup.

Such "extravagant" behavior made Gao De feel a burst of envy.

With spells to help, Du Wei didn't need to consider the fuel problem.

Therefore, he didn't need to carry charcoal and could allocate more weight to food and other necessities.

And Du Wei, who was preparing food, also discovered Gao De arriving slowly at the same time.

His originally calm face changed slightly, but it quickly returned to normal under his control.

Du Wei forcibly suppressed the shock in his heart, looked at Gao De, and commented "calmly": "You move quite fast; you actually managed to barely keep up with me."

How did this guy manage it?!

He clearly hadn't even mastered Ice Skating at the beginning, yet in the matter of climbing Mount Dandong, he could be on par with him, who was fully prepared? Du Wei still felt he couldn't accept this fact.

Gao De was about to say something.

Awooo!

Amidst the howling cold wind, a fierce and brutal beast roar came extremely abruptly.

Gao De was startled and looked back in the direction the sound came from.

The accumulated snow not far away collapsed with a boom.

A vigorous figure was pouncing toward their direction.

Flawlessly white fur, a slender physique, and movement speed like lightning.

It was exactly that "snow leopard."

At this moment, Gao De and his only two "acquaintances" on Mount Dandong were reunited! (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 225 =====