Chapter 2142 — White Hell(4)

One year... two years... three years slipped by since Yuan began his cultivation in White Hell's sixth region. For all that time, he remained a frozen statue within an unremarkable cave, one among countless others scattered through the land.

While he had spent most of that time alone, sometime during his second year, he received an unexpected visitor.

it happened one seemingly ordinary night, when a lone figure suddenly flew into his cave and crashed to the ground.

The intruder was a woman, her body battered with wounds and stained with frozen blood.

However, having fallen unconscious shortly after entering the cave, she remained unaware of Yuan's presence. For the next few days, she lingered in a fragile slumber, surviving only thanks to the Sun Stone clutched tightly in her grasp.

Upon awakening, her eyes fell upon Yuan, and for a moment she was startled. However, she quickly calmed once she mistook him for nothing more than a frozen corpse.

"Damn it, you scared me for a moment," she muttered, sitting up and leaning her back against the wall.

For the next several days, she kept her eyes fixed on the cave's entrance with unwavering vigilance, as though expecting someone to appear.

“I doubt they would be foolish enough to follow me to the sixth region...” she muttered. The next moment, she retrieved several recovery pills and swallowed them, beginning the process of healing her injuries. Although she could have hastened the process through cultivation, she chose not to risk exposing her presence and relied solely on the pills for recovery.

A few weeks passed, during which the female cultivator stayed inside the cave without once stepping outside.

"At this rate, I should fully recover in about a year..." she muttered as she looked at the Sun Stone in her grasp.

“I'm glad I bought this Million-Year Sun Stone after all... otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to hide in the sixth region at all," she sighed.

Though the Million-Year Sun Stone was considered most effective only up to the fifth region, it could still aid entry into the sixth if the cultivator possessed other advantages, such as unique physiques or powerful treasures. In her case, she had a heaven-defying physique that granted her powerful resistance to the yin element, naturally giving her cold immunity.

“Those hateful bastards... Once I recover from my injuries, I'l tear them limb from limb!" Once the female cultivator was certain her pursuers would not suddenly appear, she turned her full focus to recovery.

After ten months had passed and the majority of her wounds had mended, the female cultivator's eyes snapped open. A sound unlike any she had heard in this cave reached her ears—the sharp crack of ice breaking. Until now, only the endless howling of the snowstorm had filled the silence.

Startled, she stood and turned toward the sound reverberating from the cave's depths. But bewilderment followed, for the only thing at the far end was the frozen corpse, unmoving since the day she had first stumbled upon it nearly a year prior.

It had never crossed her mind that the frozen figure might still live. After all, it was completely unprotected, and not even a God Ascension cultivator could survive in this region without some form of protection.

When the noise ceased, the female cultivator cautiously approached its source. A moment later, upon reaching the end of the cave, her eyes widened in shock and disbelief. The ice statue she had long assumed to be a corpse was no longer frozen, and standing before her was a man, very much alive.

"Hm? Who are you?" Yuan asked with mild surprise, not expecting company the moment he awoke from cultivation. During his training, he had entered a trance-like state of enlightenment, fully immersing himself and remaining unaware of the female cultivator's presence until he broke free from the ice.

The woman could not bring herself to answer. She simply stood there, eyes wide and lips parted in shock, unable to comprehend how this man had endured the merciless cold of the sixth region without the slightest protection.

However, the woman quickly snapped out of her daze and stammered, "S-Sorry, I didn't realize you were alive. I hope I haven't disturbed your training."

"No, it's fine. I didn't even realize you were here until I woke up," Yuan said calmly, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture.

He then noticed her blood-stained body and asked, "Are you okay?"

“I... I will take my leave now."

Without another word, the woman turned around and quickly left.

Yuan silently watched her depart, making no attempt to stop her.

His attention shifted to the notification.

"How long have I been cultivating?" Yuan asked the others.

“Three years." Yu Ning calmly responded.

“Three years, huh? Not bad, but my training is not finished."

Although he had attained Cold Harmony, it had yet to reach its full potential. Thus, Yuan left the cave shortly after and began making his way toward the seventh region, determined not to leave White Hell until he achieved the highest attainable realm of Cold immunity.

Over the course of five days, as Yuan made his way toward the seventh region, he encountered only one magical beast. The sixth region's environment was so merciless, so inhospitable, that only the rarest of creatures could exist within its bounds.

As Yuan stood at the border of the seventh region, his eyes widened at the sight ahead. On the horizon, a titanic beast, mammoth in form, loomed, its massive frame so towering it rose above the tallest mountains themselves.

However, what truly caught his attention was not the mammoth itself, but the faint silhouette of a human, barely visible, seated upon the beast's head.

Yuan narrowed his eyes at the distant figure. Though he could not make out their features, he could clearly feel the weight of their gaze fixed upon him.

However, the gaze did not linger, and a moment later the mammoth disappeared into the horizon. (More chapters in Buyers club for TMT)