Imperial Treasure

Although she had sensed from the beginning that this physician standing so calmly beneath the Ice Gleam High Wall at Wooden Baby Court was no ordinary person, only after truly meeting her did Sui Yi confirm that this was someone she could not afford to provoke with her current strength.

The night was bleak and cold. Tens of thousands of cultivators still labored as tirelessly as in broad daylight. Standing atop a boulder, Sui Yi was not conspicuous. She turned her head toward the Wooden Baby Tower behind her. Previously, though she had not yet reached the Cloud Ascendant Level, by relying on witchcraft and Techniques she could fight across realms—able to come and go freely even against Kong Xue and Flying Snake at their peak at the same time. And this four-day epiphany had strengthened her will by at least half. Now she was stuck at the Cloud Ascendant bottleneck, her will ferocious, the speed at which she absorbed and digested the Jade Bi’s energy soaring. She was clearly on the verge of breaking through....

Was that why this woman told her to leave?

This was indeed no place for a breakthrough—too many people.

Moreover, breaking into Cloud Ascendant meant forging a Cloud Ascendant body.

A vast undertaking.

It concerned the very foundation of the Cloud Ascendant Level, so carelessness was not allowed.

Sui Yi’s gaze swept around... people were cultivating everywhere. Even scattered as they were, there were many powerful figures among them, including quite a few Cloud Ascendants in bitter cultivation.

Unless she went farther away.

Or else....

Swoosh... In an instant, Sui Yi flew ten thousand meters out.

A needle condensed at her fingertip... the needle tip shot out from her finger.

It pierced the ice beneath her feet.... The penetration force she’d condensed shattered a thousand-zhang thickness of ice!

Immediately she turned into a wisp of white smoke and slipped into that pinhole.....

Gurgle.

Beneath the thousand-zhang ice layer lay a vast frozen sea, its waters deathly cold.

Colder than ice.

The white smoke reformed into Sui Yi. She laid three layers of metal-weight Techniques upon herself; her body weight surged, and she allowed herself to sink down into the depths.....

The farther down she went, the more bone-chilling the cold, and the more terrifying the water pressure.

Where was the limit of the Witch Body?

Sui Yi intended to challenge her own limit....

Now she was at a depth of a thousand zhang beneath the surface, then.... one thousand five hundred!

Two thousand!

Three thousand!

Three thousand five hundred!

Three thousand five hundred was already the limit. Sui Yi could see the skin of her Witch Body, pressured by that overwhelming cold current, forcing her Witch Power to rebound outward of its own accord to shield her body... and a fine, dense layer of Cold Crystal was forming upon it.

Almost enough.

Sui Yi tilted her chin slightly back, her waist slowly arching backward. Her hands opened and rested upon her thighs, thumbs pressed against her palms—relaxed, natural, wholly in accord with the Way.

Comprehension Body Refinement Posture: Crouching Witch Style

And as her body settled into this form, in truth the soul within Sui Yi’s mind, that other self, also fully assumed the same posture.

Will Refinement Posture: Crouching Witch Style

Dual cultivation.

Sui Yi closed her eyes; her meridians flowed free, and the Jade Bi energy she had absorbed and digested began to pour forth.

Cloud Ascendant is without origin; myriad laws arise of themselves. Though I am a Witch, I too am willing to receive and initiate Heaven and Earth, to become Cloud Ascendant.

Gurgle, gurgle. The bubbles in the surrounding water grew fewer and fewer; the previously flowing sea seemed to turn still.

As though only she existed.

Only the light gradually brightening in her lower abdomen, at her dantian, was eternal.

That light streamed into radiant channels, flowing through every inch of her Witch Body.... destroying, shedding, remolding.

In this remolding.

Will was the master.

What kind of will did Sui Yi possess? The High Priest’s will was the foundation, inherited from antiquity, derived from Heaven and Earth. How powerful was such a base?

And in four days she had absorbed the totem wills of a hundred mighty figures throughout history, fusing them together into an even stronger body of will.

As the flesh was remolded, the will-body too was undergoing metamorphosis.

Sui Yi was astonished, yet did not hinder it, nor did she urge it on—she simply let it follow its nature.

Thus, when it began to recall the ancient past.

Memories of Ancient Spells from the High Priest revived in part.

Thus, when it recalled the many adventures and battles of these years.

Combat techniques from all those wars revived in part.

Thus, when it recalled that resplendent, mighty world where gods, Witches, and humans coexisted in vastness, and those Peerless powerhouses.

The luminous strength of the Schools of Thought revived in part.

Flesh remolded—Cloud Ascendant, or Witch?

Will transformed—Sui Yi, or High Priest?

She opened her eyes, and they were strangely different, as if four eyes were opening at once.

Sui Yi’s eyes: lingering, gentle, wistful yet restrained.

The High Priest’s eyes: ethereal, profound, elegant yet controlled.

They were not the same.

One was a Peerless Primordial Spirit that had witnessed the desolation of the cosmos, having too much from the very beginning—great perfection turning to ruin when the circle broke.

One had already lost, now possessing nothing, drifting up and down along the way; whatever little she gained became immeasurably precious.

From 100 to 0, from 0 to 100.

These were two completely opposite paths; both had been walked in loneliness and hardship.

If in this moment they were to coexist as one, then toward each other....

They would need only one answer apiece.

Sui Yi: "I am searching for you."

High Priest: "I am waiting for you."

Thus, four eyes merged into a single pair.

Her thumbs left her palms; her palms radiated light, and her index fingers touched the thumbs.

Crouching Witch——Witch Awakening.

Cloud Ascendant, open!

Crash!

The vast ice sea, peerless cold currents, move!

On the ground.

In Wooden Baby Tower, the woman on the couch opened her eyes; that pair of eyes, more pure than the bright moon, rippled with clear flowing light.

So it’s actually stirring up ten thousand miles of extreme cold.... Back then, only Ice Venerable ever created such a spectacle, and that was three thousand zhang below....

She stretched out her hand, fingers slender and graceful, yet pale and frail; moonlight slipped through the gaps between them, fell upon her forehead, and she lazily narrowed her eyes.

Beneath her, dreamlike snow spread in patches.

With that single glance, she saw the string of Spirit Currency hanging on the railing outside, still swaying in the wind....

Her voice was pleasant, cherry blossoms lonely.

She closed her eyes, and the entire room suddenly turned into another world altogether, a completely sealed realm of pallid snow.

She paid it no more heed.

And if any other Cloud Ascendant were to see this scene, they would be horrified—who is this, to still be able to open the Cloud Ascendant Realm while asleep? One must know: once the Cloud Ascendant Realm is opened, the longer it is sustained, the more terrifying the expenditure of energy and will becomes. If it were opened for an entire night....

————————

The power of utmost cold was drawn out from the ten thousand li cold currents, bit by bit, like dust; strand by strand, like hair; condensing!

It could become extreme cold itself!

When this extreme cold entered the body!

Using the cold currents as the Cloud Ascendant main body?

It seeped in inch by inch, covered inch by inch—this was a remolding where every second was fought for, every fraction of an inch must be exact....

Every single particle was the most yin, most frigid power.

Until.....

It was done.

Sui Yi had become an exquisitely perfect extreme cold crystal.

But at the moment of forming her Cloud Ascendant body.

Sui Yi clasped her hands together.

"Witch, devour."

In one second, within the extreme cold crystal, another Sui Yi—the Witch Body Sui Yi.... from inside out, took a single gulp and swallowed the outer cloud-cold body.

After swallowing it.

The two constitutions clashed...

"Will, control."

"Witch, condense!"

"Witch, bind!"

"Witch, balance!"

More than a hundred Witchcraft spells were driven by willpower, one after another shot into the dual bodies, like nodes, using the dual bodies as material to perfectly stitch the two constitutions together.... remolding a dual-body Cloud Ascendant.

Until....

When the final Technique was driven into the space between her brows.

"Witch, cloud."

Hum...

Three thousand five hundred zhang below, the currents.... roared!

They howled as they burst outward.

Surging upward.

Boom!

Ye Zixu jolted awake, and like everyone else, sprang up on reflex.

Tens of thousands of cultivators all stared toward the southeast, at that boundless ice field.

A hundred-zhang-thick layer of ice had been blasted up from the ground, protruding like a frozen mountain, so enormous, so terrifying.

"Who on earth is it.... this is too terrifying."

"Is it a Cloud Ascendant?"

"Heavens, which Cloud Ascendant expert is so powerful, such a grand display...."

Within the range of the Ice Gleam High Wall, more than ten Cloud Ascendants appeared in midair. They circled the hundred-zhang ice mountain that had been blasted out of the ground from a kilometer away, faces deeply shaken.

"To blast out a hundred-zhang ice mountain, at least a Third Level Cloud Ascendant could do that.... The problem is, this person struck without any of us sensing a thing beforehand..."

"It must have been from beneath the ice!"

Ye Zixu swept his gaze around, seeing many people using little turtles to communicate, or chatting in twos and threes. The other side consisted of three Cloud Ascendants, so of course he could not pry into their traces, yet he had a strange feeling.

—As if he could vaguely sense that the three of them were right here, and one among them had been observing him all along; that had to be Kong Xue. And it seemed Kong Xue did not know that he could sense him—was it because they shared the same lineage?

But if that were so, why could the other not perceive his sense of it?

Ye Zixu felt doubt in his heart, yet did not dwell on it. In any case, Kong Xue had already taken him for a rabbit, planning to wait for Sui Yi to come knocking on their door herself.

However, he did not know where she was right now.

Ye Zixu glanced up at the bright starry sky, and suddenly a flash of insight struck him. On instinct, he used the sensing method Sui Yi had taught him, and invoked his will to approach that Thousand Buddhas Seal.

In an instant.

His entire soul was yanked into the past, as though embedded within the Thousand Buddhas Seal itself. In a single second, his range of perception expanded to cover the entire underside of the Ice Gleam High Wall. Tens of thousands of people were laid bare under his eyelids with nowhere to hide; though he was shocked by such a sudden change, he quickly calmed down and rapidly locked onto one direction...

On the other side, Kong Xue was indeed watching Ye Zixu. It had only been two days since they arrived at the Ice Gleam High Wall, yet they had not found any trace of that woman. Of course, no one had approached Ye Zixu either.

She isn’t here?

Naturally, the three of them had never considered that Sui Yi could evade the tracking of the Flying Thief; there was only one possibility—she had not arrived yet.

Then they could only wait.

"What on earth is that woman up to? Could she be cultivating on the ice field? If that’s the case, she’ll be hard to find... The ice field is enormous; even with the Flying Thief, it’s not easy.." Flying Snake’s patience was not great to begin with, and after waiting two days, he was somewhat impatient.

Kong Xue gave him a glance. "In any case, she’s in this region; sooner or later she’ll come.... After all, she doesn’t know the three of us are waiting for her, and she previously gravely wounded the two of us—there’s no reason for her to be too scared to come... You can go handle your mission first."

Hearing this, Flying Snake raised his brows. "Been waiting for you to say that... My mission target will arrive here tomorrow... I just need to set up an ambush."

Kong Xue neither affirmed nor denied it. "Don’t make it sound so easy. The other side might be a student, but she possesses a very formidable Eye of Insight, able to perceive Cloud Ascendant Level aura fluctuations within ten li. Once she senses it, she can simply flee far, far away—a Fifth Level of Breaking the Void long-range divine archer is more than enough to shake off a Cloud Ascendant."

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