Chapter 195: Snow Monster City

"Taking advantage of the fact that things haven't fully fermented yet, I can go to some larger Snow Monster gathering places to try..." A thought became incomparably clear in his heart.

The reason he came here this time was to verify his conjecture about the Qi of Red Dust, although the previous small camp had basically confirmed it.

And he himself also felt that even if he changed to a larger gathering place, the probability of not being able to collect the Qi of Red Dust was still high.

But for the sake of rigor, Jie Ming still hoped to experiment a few more times.

After all, as a researcher, if he didn't verify it a few more times, he would always feel uncomfortable in his heart, and his thoughts would not be able to reach a state of clarity.

And now, it was the best experimental opportunity!

Those Snow Monster "cities" with empty defenses and larger scales were the best places for him to conduct this experiment!

More importantly, besides the experiment, he could now completely go to large cities he once dared not approach to search.

If he was lucky, he might be able to obtain war loot from inside that he couldn't get before.

After making up his mind, he immediately indicated his intention to Edgar.

"Lord Edgar, I want to continue to venture deep to conduct reconnaissance on several larger Snow Monster gathering places." Jie Ming casually found a relatively plausible reason. "Since the high-tier combat power has already withdrawn, the current reconnaissance risk is the lowest, and perhaps more valuable intelligence can be obtained."

Edgar was not surprised by this, and even somewhat appreciative.

In his view, Jie Ming was a junior with extremely strong execution and a spirit of exploration.

"This is a good idea, but you must be careful." Edgar reminded, "I have intelligence here on several large Snow Monster 'cities' that have been explored and are located within our outpost's area of responsibility; you can refer to them."

He transmitted a 3D map marked with several red dots to Jie Ming.

It detailed the coordinates, approximate scale, and some previously explored defensive deployments of several large Snow Monster gathering points.

Jie Ming paid the corresponding military merits and stored this precious map in his Magic Net terminal.

He did not linger any longer, and after simply saying goodbye to Edgar, he pushed open the outpost's heavy metal door again.

"Thank you, then, I'm off."

The cold wind wrapped around his body again, and the "Body Refining Method" operated autonomously, bringing a trace of warmth.

He glanced at the nearest red light dot marked on the map in his hand, identified the direction, and with a flash of his figure, he left the outpost again and disappeared into the vast wind and snow.

Relying on the detailed intelligence purchased from the outpost wizard and the precise 3D map in his Magic Net terminal, Jie Ming traveled through the vast wind and snow for several days.

Finally, an abyss covered by ice and snow slowly appeared before his eyes.

This was the first exploration target known as "Snow Monster City No. 4."

However, the location of this "city" was not quite the same as Jie Ming's initial assumption.

It was not built on the top of a towering ice mountain, nor was it a lair hidden inside a glacier, but inside an astonishingly deep, circular giant crater!

The outline of the entire city seemed to be built along the edge of this giant meteorite crater.

Jie Ming looked carefully at the intelligence he bought and couldn't help but sigh: "Judging from its smooth inner walls and residual traces,

was this giant crater actually formed by directly draining a large ice lake and then building on that foundation?!"

According to the data Jie Ming obtained from the intelligence station, normal Snow Monster gathering points usually involved excavating caves on glacier cliffs or piling up ice houses on flat ice fields.

He didn't expect that gathering points reaching the scale of a "city" would all choose to build in similar lake bottoms or basins!

"If ordinary creatures dared to do this, after a snowstorm, the entire city would basically be completely buried alive by thick snow!" Jie Ming sighed to himself.

If they were normal creatures, any tribe or town choosing such a low-lying area as a stronghold in such an extreme environment would undoubtedly be seeking their own destruction.

However, for Snow Monsters, these peculiar elemental creatures, such a site selection seemed reasonable and even carried some cultural significance.

It seemed that in Snow Monster culture, being buried by snow was a very sacred thing; they regarded this as returning to the embrace of nature, and even being frozen deep in the ice layer was a kind of "slumber" for cultivation.

Coupled with the fact that they themselves, as elemental creatures, did not need to breathe oxygen, being under thick snow layers and deep in ice layers was almost no different from being on an open ice field.

Instead, like fish in water, they could better absorb the cold energy in the earth's veins.

That was why there was such a unique city site selection.

"But since it's in a crater, infiltration is easier." Jie Ming couldn't help but be happy.

He restrained all energy fluctuations on his body and carefully applied several camouflage wizardry spells to himself that could isolate infrared reconnaissance, life detection, and temperature fluctuations.

Afterward, he quite skillfully mobilized alchemy to start digging a hole on the spot and carefully infiltrated the interior of the city.

Under his skillful technique, the passage slanted downward, quickly bypassing the sparse patrols outside the Snow Monster city and leading directly to the first underground level of the city.

After infiltrating the city, Jie Ming's first task was to conduct his most critical "verification."

He traveled through the cold passages like a ghost and arrived at the edge of the city's core area.

Quietly hiding in the shadow of a giant ice-sculpted building, Jie Ming calmly felt the complex energy fluctuations permeating this city, generated by the life activities of countless Snow Monsters.

For an entire day, Jie Ming was engaged in this complex perception and confirmation.

He traveled through various areas of the city, from the ordinary Snow Monster residential area to the crude "Council Hall," from their "breeding area" to their "training ground."

However, it was a pity!

The final result left him with a trace of expected disappointment.

Even in such a large-scale Snow Monster city, the Qi of Red Dust could not be born!

"Sure enough, there is a problem with this world." Jie Ming sighed helplessly in his heart.

Just as he had considered before, since it had been confirmed that these elemental creatures could not produce the Qi of Red Dust, the simple lack of the Qi of Red Dust could no longer be his problem.

Although this result was somewhat disappointing, what followed was another piece of good news!

Through this day's reconnaissance, Jie Ming also thoroughly confirmed another of his expectations—there were indeed a large number of Tier 1 Snow Monsters in this city, and their number was unimaginably huge.

But there were almost no Tier 2 or higher-level Snow Monsters!

He only perceived a very small number of Snow Monsters that had just been promoted from Tier 1 to Tier 2, whose auras were still somewhat unstable.

They were clearly breakthroughs that had happened recently, and their numbers were not large.

Since the most important "Qi of Red Dust" could no longer be obtained, the next step should be the second main purpose of his Frost-Dark trip—to look for any rare resources!

After all, Snow Monster gathering points of this scale usually hoarded massive amounts of rare resources.

Including high-tier ice-attribute materials, and even some peculiar minerals born in the depths of the Frost-Dark Realm.

With Jie Ming's previous strength, without a clear task, he would absolutely not dare to rashly approach gathering points of this level!

But now, with those high-tier Snow Monsters nowhere to be found, the resources here were undoubtedly a treasure trove waiting to be opened!

However, this also had to take into account the defensive power of this city.

Although there was no threat from high-tier Snow Monsters, the number was abnormally exaggerated; just the Snow Monsters Jie Ming could perceive numbered no less than one hundred thousand!

"One hundred thousand..." Jie Ming calculated silently in his heart.

This order of magnitude of enemies, even if they were all Tier 1 living beings of the same level, if they were alarmed all at once, that kind of human-sea tactic would be extremely terrifying.

Even for him, wanting to quickly take down the entire city in this kind of numerical advantage and ice and snow environment, and without paying any substantial loss, was quite difficult!

This required an efficient and large-scale clearing method.

Jie Ming stood in the underground area in the center of the city, closed his eyes, and pondered for a few seconds.

Countless plans jumped out in his mind, and finally, a simple and direct plan gradually took shape.

He immediately made up his mind, turned his wrist, and directly took out the "Tier 6 Small Elemental Pool" he had purchased at a high price from Mentor Clark from his internal space.

To be honest, Jie Ming had originally intended to use this thing as a "backup power supply" for his Purgatory Sulfur Plane.

But now the infrastructure of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane had not been completed, so it was still on his person for the time being.

This elemental pool presented a mysterious blue-black color throughout, containing majestic and stable energy inside.

This kind of thing was normally used to provide continuous elemental energy, but his usage this time was completely different.

With this small elemental pool as the core, Jie Ming quickly constructed a simple and efficient rune array on the ice surface under his feet.

The runes of the array flickered with a red faint light, forming a sharp contrast with the coldness exuded by the elemental pool.

The effect of this array was very simple: it was to forcibly convert the massive energy stored inside the elemental pool into heat energy and then release it all at once!

Simple and crude, yet highly efficient!

He had quite a lot of research results on Snow Monsters before.

Similar to how Lava Giants were not afraid of cold, as elemental creatures, Snow Monsters themselves were actually not afraid of small amounts of fire attacks.

When Jie Ming studied their physiological structure in the laboratory, he had already discovered that the white hair on the surface of Snow Monsters was essentially energy crystals filled with ice elements.

As long as the power of the fire-attribute attack received did not exceed a specific limit, this layer of hair could act as a "reactive armor" to resist external damage.

But conversely, similar to how Lava Giants would have their surface structure changed if they received a large amount of rapidly cooling low-temperature attacks in a short time, leading to sluggish movement, Snow Monsters also had their own weaknesses.

If they were affected by sufficiently high temperatures in a short time, their internal cores, after being overly activated, would lead to an inability to maintain a stable physical form for a short time.

Simply put—they would melt!

This melting was not fatal; just like Lava Giants, as long as the temperature dissipated, the core activity of the Snow Monsters would return to normal.

They could then use the core as a foundation and quickly re-condense into shape.

But during this period of "melting," their own bodies would become quite fragile, unable to move, unable to attack, and left to be slaughtered!

This was the "clearing" plan designed by Jie Ming.

"Activate!"

Accompanied by Jie Ming's order, the runes of the array under his feet suddenly lit up with a dazzling red light, producing a violent energy resonance with the Tier 6 elemental pool at the core.

Instantly, huge energy fluctuations swept in all directions!

Rumble!!

Inside the entire ice city, the air underwent an almost explosive expansion in an instant!

Visible air waves spread outward at high speed with Jie Ming as the center!

All the energy stored in the Tier 6 elemental pool was released by the array at once, and the massive heat, like a nuclear explosion, instantly vaporized the air inside the entire city!

The core area where the array was activated even experienced a real explosion due to the drastic temperature difference.

The temperature inside the entire city, in a short time, actually rose from the extreme cold level of nearly minus 200 degrees Celsius to a terrifying 100-plus degrees Celsius!

Looking around, there was rising steam everywhere; the originally solidified ice and snow buildings began to emit a "creaking" melting sound, and water even began to gather on the surface!

"Aiga! Aiga!"

Countless Snow Monsters let out painful and chaotic roars.

Their huge bodies were instantly wrapped in scorching steam and heat waves, the ice crystal hair on their surfaces was instantly evaporated, and their hard bodies also became soft under the high temperature, like heated plastic. Some Snow Monster cores began to flicker, and then their bodies quickly went limp like melted ice cream.

Turning into pools of shapeless ice mud, temporarily losing all mobility, they could only twist powerlessly on the ground.

This level of temperature, if it were a Tier 2 Snow Monster, could completely withstand it by relying on its stronger core activity and physical advantages, but it would also have to pay a considerable price!

And for the vast majority of Tier 1 Snow Monsters, it was enough to make them completely lose the ability to move and resist!

Jie Ming was not affected in the slightest.

After surviving the initial air shockwave with defensive wizardry, the "Body Refining Method" on his body operated autonomously, resisting the impact of this drastic temperature difference.

He scanned the surroundings with sharp eyes and drove the rune wizarding tools to clear out the few scattered Tier 2 Snow Monsters that were still letting out painful roars and trying to resist.

Although they could resist, they were also sluggish in the heat wave and difficult to dodge Jie Ming's fatal wizardry.

The entire city was completely cleared!

He didn't care at all about those Tier 1 Snow Monsters that were limp on the ground, waiting for the temperature to dissipate before re-condensing.

They were now just piles of living "materials," with no threat at all.

Jie Ming knew he didn't have much time.

His figure flashed, and he quickly searched through the city.

His goal was the resource treasury that the Snow Monster city might be hiding, as well as any items of high value that might exist! ===== CHAPTER 196 =====