Chapter 253: Evolution: Intermediate Ice-Blessed Body

Four days passed in a flash.

During these four days, Gao De's mood could be described as very anxious.

Every day, he watched his cold resistance slowly increase at a turtle's pace, approaching the critical point of 200%.

It was clearly only 2% away from the final progress, yet it gave one the feeling of "seeing the mountain but running the horse to death," always failing to reach the "foot of the mountain."

Once or twice, Gao De even wanted to take the initiative and ask Luo Yiqi to stick a few more needles into his body.

But reason stopped him from this absurd thought.

Constant dripping wears away the stone.

Although the progress was slow, it was at least still increasing, so there was no need to be too anxious.

Gao De could only comfort himself this way.

Patience is a virtue.

And he had never lacked patience.

The fifth day.

According to Luo Yiqi, they would definitely reach the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe today, which was not much different from the expected time.

Sitting on the back of the warhorse spirit summoned by Luo Yiqi, Gao De's mood at this moment was incomparably joyful.

First, they were about to reach their destination, and he could finally end this journey for a while and see the most powerful and ancient tribe in the entire Northern Realm; naturally, this would make one feel joyful.

Second, when he woke up in the morning, after a night of effort, Gao De's cold resistance increase value had actually reached 199.9%.

Barring any accidents, he would definitely be able to break through the critical value of 200% today.

And once he broke through, his Ice-Blessed Body should usher in a round of evolution, advancing from primary to intermediate.

Gao De had already personally experienced the power of the Primary Ice-Blessed Body.

So for the higher-level Intermediate Ice-Blessed Body, Gao De was naturally very expectant.

In addition, at that time, he should also be able to completely ignore the shackles of the five Law-Forbidden Ice Needles in his body and no longer be affected by them in the slightest.

Regaining freedom was naturally also a happy event.

Thinking this way, Gao De had already silently triggered the mana in his body to trigger the five Law-Forbidden Ice Needles—after a month of adaptation and his cold resistance increasing to its current level, he was already able to remain expressionless after triggering the Law-Forbidden Ice Needles.

As the chill of the Enduring Zhenbing was released, 【Self-Adaptation】 began to adapt once again.

Of course, the increased value was so small that it couldn't be displayed, but Gao De could clearly feel the improvement, unlike the "Pinduoduo" style where no one knew how many more cuts were needed.

With a bottom line in his heart, he could naturally persist.

I don't know how much time passed, but in an instant that Gao De didn't even notice, the cold resistance value stuck at 199.9% jumped sharply and became 200.1%.

A familiar but more intense experience than the last time suddenly appeared in Gao De's body.

Deep in his body, warm currents surged out continuously, violently washing over his flesh and blood.

The human body is itself a treasure house, possessing infinite possibilities and power.

In the words of Gao De's past life, it had countless powerful genes, only most of them were not expressed or manifested.

And the evolution brought by 【Self-Adaptation】 was to let these genes manifest and become powerful.

This time, the warm current surged for dozens of seconds before it completely ended.

And some inexplicable information had already emerged in Gao De's consciousness:

【Your body has experienced the extreme cold of the world, your cold resistance has increased again, and you have evolved once more. After this evolution, your Primary Ice-Blessed Body has evolved into an Intermediate Ice-Blessed Body】.

【After evolving into an Intermediate Ice-Blessed Body, your ability to withstand ice-elemental damage increases by 27%】.

【You are no longer affected by the negative effects caused by Fourth-Circle and below ice-elemental spells】.

【The ice will bless and protect you; in an ice-elemental environment, your physical strength and energy recovery speed are increased, and at the same time, the power of the ice-elemental spells you cast increases by 9%】.

Feeling this information, even though he had long expected the appearance of the Intermediate Ice-Blessed Body, Gao De couldn't help but feel excited.

The Intermediate Ice-Blessed Body possesses a total of three abilities; there is no need to mention the first two, as they are just some numerical improvements on the basis of the Primary Ice-Blessed Body.

The simple beauty of numbers: a 27% increase in ice-elemental damage tolerance and immunity to negative effects from Fourth-Circle and below ice-elemental spells.

Relying on this "number," Gao De believed that Ice-Born magic users of the same rank would definitely feel extremely desperate when facing him.

As for the newly appeared third ability, it belongs to an increase in mechanism.

The former is to improve his survival ability in an ice-elemental environment, while the latter is the most direct and brutal "attack power increase."

Although limited to ice-elemental spells, the attribute of "attack power increase" is noble and practical, and the higher the magic user's rank, the more practical it is: the power of cantrips generally does not exceed 10 degrees at most; an increase of 9% is, frankly, less than 1 degree, not worth mentioning.

But the power of First-Circle spells has a minimum of 20 degrees, and can even reach 40 degrees.

9% of 40 degrees is close to 4 degrees, equivalent to increasing the power of half a cantrip.

If the spell circle is higher, the improvement it can produce goes without saying.

After slightly digesting this information, Gao De closed his eyes slightly and carefully felt the changes in his body.

First, and most obviously, he could no longer feel any pain when he triggered the Law-Forbidden Ice Needles.

The chill of the Enduring Zhenbing released by those five Law-Forbidden Ice Needles was not enough to cause damage to his body. In other words, he had now regained his spellcasting ability.

However, there are pros and cons; while regaining spellcasting ability, it also meant that these five Law-Forbidden Ice Needles would no longer be able to trigger his 【Self-Adaptation】.

If he wanted to increase his cold resistance further, he would need more Law-Forbidden Ice Needles, or larger pieces of Enduring Zhenbing, or even Enduring Zhenbing weapons.

In addition, Gao De could clearly feel that his sensitivity to the ice elements in the air had become much sharper.

Just like now, he could faintly feel that the density of ice elements in the air was increasing... if his expectations were correct, this should be a sign of snow, and in a while, there should be snowfall.

This is a very magical intuition, making Gao De feel unusually fresh.

All the changes sounded turbulent, but they were actually happening within Gao De's body.

So even Luo Yiqi, who was sitting on the same warhorse spirit as Gao De, did not notice even the slightest change in Gao De.

Luo Yiqi was moving forward as usual, manipulating the warhorse spirit condensed from magic power.

Only then did he slow down slightly, turn his head, and say to Gao De: "We are almost there."

People are refreshed when happy; Gao De, who had obtained the Intermediate Ice-Blessed Body, took a deep breath of the cold air, looked forward, and his spirit was immediately shaken.

A rugged camp filled with a wild atmosphere came into view.

As the number one tribe in the Northern Realm, the size of the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe's camp simply exceeded Gao De's imagination.

It shouldn't even be called a camp, but rather a city.

Because it had a tall gray city wall, towering majestically, isolating danger from the outside.

In this desolate and primitive land of the Northern Realm, this was the first time Gao De had seen such a "developed" building.

This city had its own name—Phoenix.

The geographical location of Phoenix was unique, built against the mountain.

The steep and straight Mount Weisikaer not only blocked most of the cold wind but also provided the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe with precious mineral resources.

In addition, at the foot of Mount Weisikaer, there was a huge North Ice Lake, providing the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe with abundant fishery resources.

Five minutes later, Luo Yiqi and Catherine brought Gao De to the city wall of Phoenix.

Where there is a city wall, there is naturally a city gate.

Where there is a city gate, there are city guards.

Of course, in the Northern Realm, there is no such term as "guard" for the time being, at most they are sentries.

I saw six extremely burly Northern Realm people standing on both sides of the city gate, wearing simple armor that shone with a faint light in the sun.

Those armors looked very simple to Gao De, but this was relative to the outside world.

In the Northern Realm, a "primitive land" where most people wore animal skin clothes cut to size, armor was already considered extremely sophisticated equipment.

These guards held spears, their eyes like torches, questioning the origin of everyone entering the city.

Luo Yiqi and Catherine did not cut in line with Gao De, but after dispelling the 【Summon Mount】, they lined up very obediently with Gao De.

Those guards only asked about the origins of those entering the city and didn't ask much else.

So the progress of the line was fast, and in a while, it was their turn.

The Northern Realm person who was clearly the leader among the guards swept his eyes over the three of them, and finally, his gaze fell on the floral patterns embroidered on the clothes of Luo Yiqi and Catherine that represented the "Snowfield Guardians," and his brows relaxed. "Are you people from the Snowfield Guardians?"

His figure was very oppressive, but his voice was very gentle.

Clearly, the Snowfield Guardians still had a lot of face in the Northern Realm; even the people of the Enduring Zhenbing Tribe were very polite to them.

Luo Yiqi stepped forward. "We are hunters of the Snowfield Guardians; this trip is to find Elder Grant."

"Then go in." The questioning guard looked at the three of them carefully, then waved his hand, directly skipping the questioning session.

"Let's go." Catherine said, walking into the city.

Luo Yiqi immediately followed with Gao De.

"It's also strange; I've never had this questioning session before when wanting to enter Phoenix," Luo Yiqi muttered casually, but didn't go into detail.

Once entering Phoenix, a style completely different from the Snowfur camp and the Duo'erbian tribe came into Gao De's view.

The buildings here were no longer rough, detachable tents, but stone buildings built with gray stones similar to the city walls.

The main body of these buildings was gray stone.

The gray tone formed a sharp contrast with the white snowflakes, feeling somewhat like a black-and-white world.

The A-shaped roofs were covered with the fur used to build tents, covered with snow.

Gao De noticed that these stone houses were actually of different sizes, and their appearances were not uniform.

And just to the left of a larger stone house near the city gate, a small fence was built with some twigs.

Some snow pheasants and snow rabbits were kept in the fence.

Gao De glanced at them and found that they had a total of twenty-five heads and seventy-four legs.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 254 =====