Chapter 66: Hanshan! It's Collapsing!

Ruan Xing could not help but shiver, exhaling a puff of white mist.

Looking out, the surroundings were all crystal-clear ice carvings, covered with a thick layer of sand-like snowflakes.

The sky was near dusk, yet the reflections from the sheets of ice and snow still made the entire cliff wall as bright as a grand hall.

Judging by the sky, she roughly estimated she had been climbing for about six or seven hours; the physical fitness of a martial artist was beyond reproach, and she hardly felt particularly tired. Ruan Xing guessed that her current location was likely the summit of Hanshan Peak.

So, had she just climbed up bit by bit from the inside of Hanshan Peak?

Were that black water lake and the underground river also at the center of Hanshan Peak?

She had thought Hanshan Peak was solid; the last time she did a Simulation, she had flown an entire circle around Hanshan Peak to find the black water lake and hadn't seen any opening.

But Wang Zhi had been able to bring her in, perhaps because there was some barrier or special method of entry and exit.

Ruan Xing covered her body with Spiritual Power to resist the cold and walked toward the source of the trickling stream in the middle, frowning after just one glance.

The summit of Hanshan Peak was a massive snow-capped ice platform; except for the crevice Ruan Xing had climbed up through, which was where the water flowed and thus not completely blocked by ice, every other part was entirely encased in ice.

And the direction of the water's source was merely a circular pool, half a person tall and two meters wide.

At most, it was a little bigger than a bathtub.

The water inside was not frozen, and there was a gap at the edge of the pool; the water was dripping out bit by bit from there, forming a trickling stream.

Ruan Xing was somewhat disappointed; such a thin stream of water could not be the reason for the rising water in the underground river.

Moreover, although this water was cold but not frozen, it was incomparably clean, and certainly not comparable to the dark, turbid water of the underground river.

However, a pool that did not freeze would not appear on the summit of Hanshan Peak for no reason; this place was definitely unusual, but she had yet to discover which item here was that unknown treasure. The disadvantage of being inexperienced was manifesting right now.

She only recognized some low-grade Pill and talisman-making materials; if a high-grade one lacked particularly intense phenomena or Spiritual Power fluctuations, she wouldn't recognize it even if it were placed right in front of her.

Then again, if there were phenomena, it probably wouldn't be her turn, a small shrimp, to pick up the scraps.

She could only investigate and see.

Ruan Xing probed the bottom of the pool with her Divine Sense, wanting to see if there was anything invisible to the naked eye inside.

The pool was not deep, appearing only one meter high; the water inside was clear and empty.

Yet when her Divine Sense probed inside, it felt as if it had encountered a thin film of resistance—soft yet tough—preventing it from going deeper.

Its ability to obstruct Divine Sense was even stronger than the black water.

Ruan Xing pondered for a moment, then boldly reached out to touch the water in the pool.

It was a Simulation anyway, so what was there to fear? Besides, the water in the pool had just been flowing into the crevice, and she had just climbed out of that crevice; although she had the protection of a Water Avoidance Talisman, she hadn't felt that the water was anything special.

The moment she touched it, Ruan Xing's hand turned pale and bloodless from the cold, but before she could even circulate her cultivation technique to resist the icy water, she felt a surge of joy in her heart.

The icy water in the pool actually contained dense Spirit Qi! That thin film was not only obstructing her Divine Sense from entering but also preventing the Spirit Qi from leaking out; it was protecting the icy water tightly.

But that wasn't right... why did the water flowing out of the crevice not contain Spirit Qi? There must be something in the water.

It wasn't the water that contained the Spirit Qi, but that thing which refused to be touched by Divine Sense and was invisible to the naked eye.

Ruan Xing endured the bone-chilling cold and reached into the bottom to scoop around, but she touched nothing. However, her hand had already been in the water for several seconds and was nearly numb; she had to take it out to recover before searching again.

But something she never expected happened: the moment Ruan Xing's hand left the water, it rapidly frosted over, visibly turning toward ice.

Ruan Xing was startled and subconsciously hurried to put her hand back into the pool.

What the heck... she seemed to be hard-locked by this pool; putting it in was painfully cold, and taking it out would cause it to freeze. If she couldn't think of a good solution, she was afraid she would turn into an ice sculpture here.

No wonder the surroundings were all ice and snow, and only the pool didn't freeze.

Should she just end the Simulation and go back like this?

Ruan Xing was a bit unwilling; she hadn't figured out what treasure was on the summit yet.

Having only had her hand in there for less than ten seconds, Ruan Xing could already no longer feel it.

No, she had to know what was in the pool at least, otherwise this trip would be a total loss.

Ruan Xing gritted her teeth and reached both hands into the pool to grope around. Because her arms were relatively short, she couldn't reach the center of the pool, so she steeled herself and simply flipped over to climb in, entering the ice pool entirely.

Her small body couldn't help but shiver in the pool as the cold seeped into her Meridians. Ruan Xing searched the bottom of the pool while circulating her Spiritual Power to resist, yet the biting, dense Spirit Qi in the pool seemed to form a resonance with the Spiritual Power circulating in her Meridians.

It actually drilled into her body, thread by thread.

Her Spirit Bone, which stored Spiritual Power, was invaded and unable to resist, gradually becoming entangled. That thread of biting Spirit Qi traveled through her Meridians within her body, actually circulating for one cycle along with her own Spiritual Power and merging together.

Bursts of stinging pain came from both her Meridians and her Spirit Bone.

Could such aggressive Spirit Qi also be used for Cultivation?

Ruan Xing suddenly had a realization; she stopped resisting the icy Spirit Qi from entering her body and instead began to actively absorb it, sitting in the pool and starting to cultivate.

This tyrannical Spirit Qi brought immense pain as it circulated through her body; Ruan Xing couldn't help but bite her lower lip until it bled, just to keep herself from fainting.

Thanks to this Spirit Qi, Ruan Xing finally found the source of this vigorous energy. She reached out with some difficulty and touched a somewhat round object at the bottom in the center of the pool, grasped it in her palm, and took it out to look.

This time, her hand was not covered in frost, and the transparent round ball in her hand turned into a snow-white orb after leaving the water.

"You... what kind of thing are you?" Ruan Xing looked at it in a daze and muttered, "You should be a good thing, but I don't recognize you, and is this the correct way to use you... it's just too cold and painful..."

From the moment night fell until the sky began to brighten.

Ruan Xing finally absorbed the water in the pool until it was clean; the empty pool no longer leaked water from the crevice, and Ruan Xing stretched her limbs and stood up.

Although this night could be called torture, the benefits brought were also obvious: she was at Qi Refining Layer Nine.

Of course, the effect of the Spirit Qi in the pool was more than just that; the most important thing was that her Spirit Bone and Meridians had been washed and widened quite a bit by that tyrannical Spirit Qi circulating over and over again.

If her Meridians had previously been as thin as a thread, they should now be as thick as a milk tea straw. The improvement this brought to Ruan Xing was enormous; her speed in recovering Spiritual Power when circulating her cultivation technique was much faster.

If Spiritual Power was her mana bar, then the Spirit Bone was her maximum capacity for storing mana, and the Meridians were her mana regeneration rate per second.

Originally, her Spirit Bone had been obtained by taking a Luoqi Pill to break through to the Innate realm, which belonged to the lowest-tier aptitude in the world of Cultivators. But after this unexpected event, although she didn't know how much it had improved, Ruan Xing could be certain that her Spirit Bone aptitude had improved.

The summit was still covered in ice and snow, but Ruan Xing's physical sensation was not as cold as it had been yesterday. Putting the snow-white orb into her Storage Bag, Ruan Xing began to check if there was anything else unusual around the pool, but very unfortunately, she found nothing.

Anyway, the time to end the Simulation had already passed, and this second point was definitely spent. Ruan Xing was not in a hurry to leave; instead, she summoned her Flying Sword, wanting to try flying down from the summit to see if she would arrive in the normal Secret Realm and encounter other Cultivators.

Walking to the edge of the summit, what met her eyes was still a vast expanse of white, like smoke and mist, deep and shallow; she figured these were the clouds surrounding the summit.

The Flying Sword hovered in mid-air, and Ruan Xing jumped down, leaning forward to fly in one direction.

She had only been flying for half a quarter of an hour, yet she still hadn't passed through the clouds; the distance seemed unchanged.

She looked back, the peak was not far behind her, and she could almost still feel the chill brought by the ice and snow.

After thinking for a moment, Ruan Xing took out the snow-white sphere, held it in her palm, channeled her Spiritual Power, and attempted to fly on her sword again.

This time, she passed through the clouds quite smoothly; Ruan Xing could already see the dense greenery below from afar, so she put the sphere away and landed on the outskirts of the forest.

Then, she took out the Wooden Tablet issued by the Xuanbing Sect and channeled her Spiritual Power into it.

Although the entry point when teleporting through the Light Gate is random, the exit is fixed; one only needs to use Spiritual Power to activate the Wooden Tablet, and it will point out the direction of the exit.

She wanted to go to the exit and lie in wait to see if Wang Zhi would go out and trick someone else into coming in.

However, he was a Demon Cultivator at the Foundation Establishment Late Stage; killing a Foundation Establishment Stage demonic snake alone should not be difficult for him. He only needed someone to take the blame for him and did not want to use his demonic cultivation powers and be discovered.

There were still more than two months left before the Cold Mountain Secret Realm's opening period ended. That Demon Cultivator seemed quite patient; perhaps he wouldn't act personally. Once he discovered he had been tricked by Ruan Xing, he would be furious and come out to look for a new target.

Thinking of this, Ruan Xing couldn't help but curl the corners of her mouth.

There were many low-level cultivators at the exit.

Loose Cultivators without a Sect were unlikely to be willing to buy a Storage Bag with a larger space; a Storage Bag with only two cubic meters of space couldn't hold much, so they wouldn't stay in the Secret Realm for ten days. They might go out two or three times in the middle to sell the harvest in their Storage Bags.

They could sell directly to the Xuanbing Sect, or to the cultivators setting up stalls outside.

Ruan Xing had just flown to the entrance and was about to identify whether Wang Zhi was among the crowd when suddenly the earth shook and the mountains swayed; she stumbled and almost fell.

What was going on? Opening a mechanism caused such a big commotion? When she opened the mechanism last time, she was right next to it and it wasn't this violent, was it? Ruan Xing was completely bewildered.

The surrounding cultivators were also confused.

"Is it an earthquake?"

"There are earthquakes in the Secret Realm? This is the first time I've heard of it."

"We should get out quickly; staying here feels too dangerous."

Several cultivators immediately rushed toward the direction of the Light Gate, leaped forward wanting to pass through, but were bounced back by the Light Gate, flying a few steps away and landing on their bottoms.

Suddenly, the cultivators began to panic.

"What's going on?"

"Why is the teleportation gate suddenly not working?"

"Are we going to be trapped in the Secret Realm!?"

"Does the Xuanbing Sect have some conspiracy to harm us?"

Gathered at the exit were not only Loose Cultivators and cultivators from other Sects, but also many Outer Sect Disciples of the Xuanbing Sect. Hearing this, they hurriedly argued: "Absolutely not! The Sect has managed the Cold Mountain Secret Realm for thousands of years and has never encountered such a thing. This is an accident; the Sect would never abandon us!"

Just as the cultivators were about to start arguing, someone suddenly shouted in terror: "Hanshan! Look! Hanshan has collapsed!"

Hearing this, everyone looked toward the direction of Hanshan Peak.

Ruan Xing was extremely astonished; the Hanshan Peak, which towered into the clouds and stood straight like an unsheathed sword, was now slowly tilting to one side.

Some trees, rocks, and ice on the mountain peak were already falling down with a rustle, unable to withstand the pressure.

"My god... what on earth did that guy do..." Ruan Xing muttered to herself.

However, with the collapse of Hanshan, streams of black smoke accompanied by shrill shrieks, as black as lacquer, swirled in the air as if fleeing, gradually approaching the exit.

They were dense, covering the sky and the sun, numbering in the thousands.

When they got closer, the cultivators finally realized what they were; terrified, they all picked up their weapons.

And at the very front of those black smokes.

Whether they were the leaders of those black smokes or the targets being chased and fleeing, Ruan Xing finally saw that familiar figure.

It was the utterly disheveled Wang Zhi.

He also saw Ruan Xing in the crowd; being the only shorty among so many tall people, she was naturally very conspicuous. He flew his sword and rushed over urgently, his eyes cold, and said viciously to Ruan Xing in a low voice: "You little bastard, you played me, hand over the Hanshan Snow Marrow!"

"What is Hanshan Snow Marrow? I don't know." Being in a simulation, Ruan Xing was fearless.

Wang Zhi growled urgently: "Stop pretending, it must be you who took the Hanshan Snow Marrow, that's why Hanshan Peak collapsed. Hurry up and take it out, do you want to die here!?"

Ruan Xing guessed that the Hanshan Snow Marrow Wang Zhi spoke of was the snow-white sphere in her Storage Bag, but she still played dumb: "If you don't explain it clearly to me, how would I know what Hanshan Snow Marrow is? Why don't you tell me what it looks like and what its function is?"

Those black smokes were already surrounding the cultivators and launching attacks; Ruan Xing could hear shrill screams and also feel waves of pure Yin Qi.

But the person most worried and anxious right now was not her.

Wang Zhi took a deep breath to calm his emotions and said quickly: "Hanshan Xianjun Han Qianjun once suppressed the Clear and Turbid Qi, but until he fell, no one knew where the seal of the Clear and Turbid Qi was. So, some people rumored that the Clear and Turbid Qi was never sealed, but had always been on Hanshan Xianjun, turning into the Secret Realm along with him. I have news from a special channel that the Clear and Turbid Qi was refined and merged into Hanshan Xianjun's weapon, the Stone Staff. After the Stone Staff became Hanshan Peak, the Clear Qi turned into Hanshan Snow Marrow, and the Turbid Qi turned into Hanshan Ink Marrow. The two grow together, and only then could the Cold Mountain Secret Realm be maintained for thousands of years without dissipating. They are the foundation of the Cold Mountain Secret Realm."

"Now, can you give the Hanshan Snow Marrow to me? If you don't give it to me, when the Secret Realm collapses later, we will all die in the Spatial Turbulence!" Wang Zhi said through gritted teeth.

Ruan Xing was relentless: "And its function?"

There was no time for Wang Zhi to hesitate; he said briefly, "It can be used to refine a Spirit Tool!"

A Spirit Tool is a higher-level existence than a Dharma Artifact; generally, only big shots at the Nascent Soul Stage might have one or two Spirit Tools in their hands.

"You swear that after you finish using it, you will return it to me and not kill me."

"I swear! After opening the Secret Realm teleportation, the Hanshan Snow Marrow will be returned in its original state, and I will absolutely not kill you. If I break this oath, may I die and my soul dissipate!"

Thanks to book friend 20210208190203865 for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to book friend 20200627121310166 for the monthly ticket~(End of this chapter)