Chapter 249

Two minutes later.

Gao De opened his eyes and stopped triggering the Forbidden Magic Ice Needle.

It was not that his willpower could no longer withstand the pain brought by the Enduring Zhenbing.

It was mainly because after triggering the Forbidden Magic Ice Needle, the chill released by the Enduring Zhenbing, in addition to bringing extreme cold, would also directly cause damage to his body.

The body has a recovery ability; some minor injuries are not a hindrance and can even promote 【Adaptation】 to improve the body's recovery ability.

However, there is a threshold to this. Once this critical line is exceeded, the body's load capacity will be overloaded, and at that point, it will no longer be just a matter of minor injuries.

Too much is as bad as too little.

Gao De must wait until the accumulated frostbite has recovered sufficiently before he can begin the next adaptation.

This process of recovering from injuries is also the golden period for 【Adaptation】 to improve the body's recovery ability; it is not just pure waiting.

After resting for a while and recovering some mental energy, Gao De also began to rest.

A night without dreams.

Perhaps because of mental exhaustion, Gao De slept exceptionally soundly, until he was woken up by Luo Er the next morning.

"You're quite bold, sleeping so soundly." After waking Gao De up, Luo Er couldn't help but tease him.

Gao De gave a "shy" smile. The information appearing in his consciousness showed that the value of his body's injury recovery ability had reached 7.1% after one night.

Before reaching the bottleneck, the progress of adaptation always increases very quickly.

And the stronger the body's injury recovery ability, the shorter the time Gao De needs for his body to self-heal.

The shorter the interval, the higher the frequency at which he can perform adaptations.

Repeating this continuously, it can be foreseen that in a few days, the efficiency of his adaptation ability improvement will reach an extremely exaggerated level.

After a simple breakfast, Luo Er and Jie Li Ka once again summoned two spiritual mounts through 【Summon Mount】, and then took Gao De to change course toward the old site of the Sinuofu Clan.

As for that Seven-Night Owl, it leaned on Jie Li Ka's shoulder, like a wooden carving, entering a motionless state of hibernation.

As a typical nocturnal bird, even an owl with supernatural abilities still maintains the habit of being active at night and sleeping during the day.

However, the reason the Seven-Night Owl is called by this name is that when necessary, it can go seven days and seven nights without sleep or rest without any discomfort.

Of course, this ability also consumes a great deal of energy.

Therefore, unless it is a special situation for executing a mission, Jie Li Ka generally lets the Seven-Night Owl maintain a normal routine.

With the existence of mounts, the speed of travel is much faster than Gao De's own, and traveling a hundred kilometers a day is simply not a problem.

If the weather is good and the mana is sufficient, traveling two hundred kilometers is also not an issue.

This is also one of the reasons why the two were able to quickly track Gao De on the vast snowfield.

How can two legs outrun four legs?

Therefore, within four or five days, the three of them should be able to return to the old site of the Sinuofu Clan.

It's just that the further they walked toward the Sinuofu Clan, the more helpless Gao De felt, calculating that he had been on the road for half a month, and was about to retreat back to the starting point.

Why are there so many twists and turns in wanting to plant a tree? But it is still better than being taken directly back to the Snowfield Guardian headquarters.

Therefore, although Gao De was helpless, his mood was still quite pleasant.

In addition, although he had once again become a "prisoner," the two treated Gao De quite well.

Whatever they ate, Gao De ate; he didn't even have to do the chores of tidying up the camp, as the two of them took care of everything.

It's just that Gao De had never been able to see the face under Jie Li Ka's mask.

It seemed there was some hidden reason; even when eating, Jie Li Ka would turn her back before taking off her mask.

They traveled the whole day.

When the sky was about to turn dark, Jie Li Ka gently patted the Seven-Night Owl that had been sleeping on her shoulder all day. It immediately woke up from its deep sleep, then flapped its wings and broke through the air.

"The Seven-Night Owl has excellent visual and auditory capabilities and can help us find prey; it's equivalent to us having two extra flying eyes," Luo Er explained to Gao De.

Not long after, the Seven-Night Owl that had flown away flapped its wings and flew back, but this time it did not stop on Jie Li Ka's shoulder, but skimmed at a low altitude, leading the way in front.

Luo Er and Jie Li Ka followed the Seven-Night Owl without hesitation.

Under its guidance, after only ten minutes of galloping, a first-circle Ice Snow Wolf, whose body size was a full circle larger than an ordinary snow wolf, appeared in the three's field of vision. It was wandering on the snowfield, not knowing why it had become separated from its pack.

Jie Li Ka immediately rushed toward the first-circle Ice Snow Wolf.

The Ice Snow Wolf also reacted very nimbly; the moment it saw Jie Li Ka rushing over, it bared its fangs and entered a combat stance.

It was just that in front of Jie Li Ka, the resistance of an Ice Snow Wolf seemed very meaningless.

A 【Ice Blade】 cast through ring-upgrading killed it precisely without any effort, turning it into a fresh corpse lying on the snow.

This efficiency of farming monsters made Gao De look on with extreme envy.

Naturally, tonight's dinner was roasted wolf meat.

After finishing tonight's dinner in the temporarily set-up camp, the moon was already hanging high.

Today's moon is a full moon, and the moonlight it emits is very bright; even at night, the visibility is still very high.

It's just that Luo Er and Jie Li Ka were clearly not affected by these factors.

They lay down and closed their eyes for only a few minutes before they had already entered a state of sleep.

And that Seven-Night Owl, just like last night, flew to a higher point, staring with bright eyes to monitor the surroundings and Gao De.

Gao De's mood was calm.

During the journey today, he learned to enter a state of rest like the Seven-Night Owl.

Although the journey was bumpy, the experience of practicing meditation allowed Gao De to have long mastered the technique of entering a state of concentration quickly; similarly, falling asleep quickly was about the same, not a difficult task.

And after resting during the day, he was now full of energy.

In this way, Gao De could seize the rest time of Luo Er and Jie Li Ka to perform longer adaptations, instead of starting to rest after one adaptation like last night.

After waiting a little longer for ten minutes, he calmed his mind, circulated the mana in his body, and once again triggered the Forbidden Magic Ice Needle that was inserted into his mana circulation route.

A moment later, sweat drops began to appear on Gao De's forehead, and his face turned pale.

Two and a half minutes later, he opened his eyes again, covered in sweat.

The frostbite in his body was about to reach the threshold his body could withstand again.

Gao De began to wait patiently for his body to self-heal.

Of course, there was no need to wait until it was fully recovered.

After waiting for about an hour, Gao De once again began to circulate the mana in his body.

This time, with his body not yet recovered to its best state, he only lasted for half a minute before stopping.

Just like this, throughout the night, Gao De circulated his mana for half a minute every hour, repeating this process.

By the time the sky was just beginning to brighten, he had already circulated his mana five times like this.

Adding the first time, in this night's time, Gao De had triggered the Forbidden Magic Ice Needle for a full five minutes or more.

Compared to yesterday, it was already more than double the time increase. And after this tossing and turning, his cold resistance had already increased to 112%, his pain tolerance had increased to 74.5%, and even his body's injury recovery ability had reached 14.7% with an extremely exaggerated efficiency.

It seems that because the body's injuries are always on the edge of the threshold, it can maximize the body's self-healing ability?

Just like how fitness requires reaching exhaustion to maximize muscle growth.

And during the body's recovery process during the day, the body's injury recovery ability can continue to improve; although the efficiency will decrease rapidly as the injuries improve, it is better than nothing.

The results of this night made Gao De almost unable to help but laugh after a moment of daze.

If this continues, the Intermediate Ice-Blessed Body seems to be within reach.

And when the cold resistance value reached the 100% limit, he evolved the Primary Ice-Blessed Body.

After the pain tolerance and body injury recovery ability reach the 100% limit, can they also evolve corresponding abilities? Thinking of this possibility, Gao De became full of motivation, and the pain brought by the Enduring Zhenbing became sweet.

After waking up, Luo Er had already started preparing breakfast.

Gao De got up with him, moved his body, and at the same time carefully felt his current physical state.

Because the chill in his body had not yet completely faded, his blood and muscles were still a bit stiff, and even his heart rate had dropped to a very low level, and there were still obvious frostbites inside his body.

But after just a while, Gao De could feel that his physical condition was better than before.

The body recovery ability only looked like it had increased by 14.7%, not an exaggerated number, but the actual change in physical sensation was very obvious.

After breakfast, the three set off again.

And Gao De, who hadn't slept all night, began to meditate and rest on the mount summoned by Luo Er.

Four days later.

Swish! A fragment of ice crystal cut through the air.

The ice crystal fragment instantly crossed a distance of tens of meters, piercing the head of a yellow sheep that was lowering its head to look for moss under the snow layer, bursting a mass of blood plasma on the snow.

Immediately after, three figures appeared.

"Wild goat, we have a treat again today. On the snowfield, wild beasts are far rarer than subterranean creatures," Luo Er sighed.

One reason is that the harsh environment makes it difficult for ordinary wild beasts without supernatural power to survive in the northern realm.

The second is that even if wild beasts without supernatural power resist the harsh environment, they are often hunted and eaten as food by those carnivorous subterranean creatures.

While talking, Luo Er walked up and skillfully butchered the fallen yellow sheep.

Generally, these chores were the responsibility of Luo Er.

Although both were hunters, it was clear that Jie Li Ka's status and position were a notch higher than Luo Er's.

And it was more than a notch, because Gao De always felt vaguely that Luo Er was like Jie Li Ka's "servant" in many ways? Of course, this had nothing to do with him, so he didn't pay much attention to it, and he wouldn't ask questions.

While Luo Er was butchering the yellow sheep meat, Jie Li Ka took out the map of the northern realm drawn by the Snowfield Guardians that she carried with her from her bosom and began to look at it seriously.

"We should arrive tomorrow night." After looking for a while, Jie Li Ka said faintly, both to Luo Er and to Gao De.

"After so long, can we still find anything?" Gao De frowned slightly and asked another question.

This was his worry.

Snow and time will bury many things.

"The abilities and means of the Snowfield Guardian hunters are beyond your imagination." Jie Li Ka's eyes, hidden in the mask, glanced at Gao De sideways.

Gao De spread his hands, truly hoping in his heart that Jie Li Ka's ability was as reliable as she said.

Beside the campfire.

Gao De flipped the lamb chops in his hand, letting them heat evenly over the fire, while chatting with Luo Er.

"By the way, can you tell me how you hunters and guardians are divided? The difference between the two seems quite large."

Having traveled together for four or five days, he and the two were quite familiar with each other. Even though Jie Li Ka was taciturn most of the time and not as talkative as Luo Er, Gao De could clearly feel that the other party's attitude toward him had softened a lot.

This made him become more natural, and he would even occasionally take the initiative to ask about things inside the Snowfield Guardians.

And as long as it didn't involve secrets, Luo Er would generally answer.

"Speaking of which, it's actually very simple. Most hunters and guardians are orphans taken in by the sect. Children among them who have Ice-born bloodlines or talent will be taken away by people sent by the headquarters."

"Then they receive training and teaching, and finally divide into two factions based on the principle of voluntary choice."

"Those who are willing to dedicate themselves and wander on the snowfield, and have little desire for power, generally choose to become guardians, and the rest are hunters."

"Of course, some people change their minds after choosing, such as those who have been guardians for a period of time, feel it's too hard, and want to switch to hunters."

"Or those who have been hunters for a period of time, feel that they are not free enough because they have to constantly accept and complete tasks assigned by the sect, and are tired of running around, so they want to switch to guardians."

"Both exist, and the sect generally allows it."

"The Snowfield Guardians respect everyone's choice very much."

"So that's how it is." Gao De nodded, and at the same time glanced at Jie Li Ka, who was silent on the side.

Although most of the Snowfield Guardians were orphans, there were also a small number of people with extraordinary backgrounds.

Clearly, Jie Li Ka was one of this small number.

Because her temperament didn't look like that of an orphan.

After finishing tonight's dinner, Luo Er and Jie Li Ka began their practice of the cultivation method.

Gao De took the opportunity to sleep for a while first.

Although he could make up for sleep during the day, the quality of sleep was ultimately somewhat unsatisfactory, and besides, he shouldn't overdo it.

After all, if a person can sleep all day, it must mean that he is not sleeping well at night.

After the two finished their practice and lay down to rest, Fu Luo La followed Gao De's instructions and quietly woke Gao De up.

Once awake, Gao De didn't say a word, immediately diverted his mana, and fiercely circulated it toward the five Forbidden Magic Ice Needles in his body.

After four days of adaptation, he was now able to persist for a full ten minutes at a time under the chill of the Enduring Zhenbing.

The subsequent interval time was also shortened to half an hour, and the persistence time was extended to two minutes. Until the sky was slightly bright, Gao De stopped completely and ended today's adaptation:

【Enduring the cold of the Enduring Zhenbing, your cold resistance has increased by 157%】

【Enduring the pain of extreme cold, your pain tolerance has increased by 86.2%】

【Currently suffering from extreme cold injuries, your body's injury recovery ability has increased by 39.3%】.

The increase in cold resistance was still rising at a steady speed.

Because in front of the chill of the Enduring Zhenbing, even the high cold resistance Gao De currently possessed was still unbearable and far from reaching the bottleneck.

It was just that the rate of increase in pain tolerance had slowed down a lot.

It seemed that it was only 13.8% away from the 100% critical line, but Gao De knew that the actual gap between them was very large, which could not be reflected by simple numerical size.

Fortunately, the ability to recover from body injuries was still improving at a fast rate because it was in the "newbie welfare period."

And by comparison, Gao De was also more looking forward to the ability that could be evolved after the body injury recovery ability reached the critical value.

After all, according to conventional thinking, the former evolved physique is only related to enduring pain, and its effect is limited.

The latter has infinite possibilities; not to mention being able to regrow severed limbs, but perhaps it could really become an "undying cockroach"? (End of this chapter)