The crisp cracking sound came from the deepest part of the cavern.
Bai Qingxue turned her head, her gaze piercing through the water curtain of the waterfall.
A thin layer of frost had condensed on the stone wall, though she couldn't tell what exactly had met the water curtain to form such ice crystals.
The ice crystals bloomed across the stone wall in fine patterns, resembling a frozen spiderweb.
The crisp sound from earlier had been one of the outermost ice threads of the web, unable to bear its own weight, snapping under the thickness.
Bai Qingxue took two steps closer.
Yet, the closer she drew to the stone wall, the colder the air became.
Immediately after, Bai Qingxue sensed an aura.
The aura was seeping out from behind the stone wall.
It seemed to belong to some kind of spiritual item, and its essence was incredibly pure.
The aura seeped through the cracks in the stone like an invisible finger, gently plucking at the depths of Bai Qingxue's dantian.
In response, the ice lotus trembled violently.
Bai Qingxue's pupils contracted slightly as she circled to the side of the stone wall.
There, at the junction where the stone wall met the cavern wall, she discovered an extremely narrow fissure.
The fissure was barely two fingers wide, yet the concentration of the aura was so intense that a layer of white frost had formed along its edges.
Bai Qingxue pressed her hand against the fissure and closed her eyes to sense it for a moment.
The feedback of spiritual energy from the fissure was clear and pure; not only was there no barrier of restrictions, but there was also no fluctuation of any formation array.
All that remained was a naturally formed stone shell, sealing whatever was inside for who knew how many years.
When she opened her eyes, Bai Qingxue's breathing was a fraction faster than usual.
She had likely stumbled upon a piece of spirit marrow.
And a top-grade spirit marrow at that.
This kind of spiritual item was priceless and extremely rare in the outside world; a fragment the size of a fingernail would be enough to benefit a Foundation Establishment cultivator immensely.
Yet what Bai Qingxue sensed right now was an entire, intact piece, at least the size of a fist.
If she could refine this spirit marrow, breaking through the bottleneck to late-stage Foundation Establishment would no longer be an issue.
Without hesitation, Bai Qingxue raised the Frost Moon Chant to her lips and played a thread of ice blade at the lowest output of 《Ice Condensation》, slicing open the stone wall along the edge of the fissure.
The stone wall was hard, but the ice blade sliced through it like tofu, silently carving out a half-foot-long opening in an instant.
A blast of cold air surged out at her.
Behind the stone wall was a natural cavity the size of a fist.
The walls of the cavity were covered in a thick layer of ice crystals, shimmering with an eerie blue luster in the faint light refracting through the waterfall.
At the very center of the cavity, a translucent piece of spirit marrow glowing with a faint blue light floated quietly. The surrounding air was frozen into fine ice crystals, resembling a thin ring of stars.
Bai Qingxue reached out her hand.
Just as her fingertips brushed the edge of the spirit marrow, three distinct auras closed in from outside the cavern at the same time.
“Someone got here first.”
“It's Bai Qingxue of Xueji Peak.”
“The spirit marrow is still there. Strike!”
Three figures lunged into the cavern from three different directions simultaneously.
A burly man wielding a heavy sword slashed through the water curtain from the left.
A tall, thin woman wielding dual hooks descended upside down from the stone wall on the right.
And a third person burst straight through the waterfall from the front, hands forming hand seals as an earthy-yellow light condensed between his palms.
Bai Qingxue withdrew her hand, already raising the Frost Moon Chant to her lips.
She didn't speak, nor did she question them.
When seizing treasures in a mystic realm, first come, first served was the rule, but might makes right was also the rule. Since they had chosen to strike, there was no need for words.
The moment the first note sounded, the temperature inside the cavern plummeted.
The outermost layer of the water curtain froze into ice mid-air, the resulting sheet of ice sealing off most of the entrance.
However, Bai Qingxue had no intention of continuing to play.
After all, she knew very well that unleashing the full version of 《Ice Condensation》 in an enclosed space would sweep her up in it as well. Moreover, although the three before her came with aggressive momentum, there was no killing intent in their spiritual power fluctuations.
They had only come to snatch the spirit marrow.
Not to kill.
In that case, she only needed to force them back.
The burly man's heavy sword arrived first. The blade was wrapped in a thick, earthy-yellow sword glow, carrying immense weight as he sought to overwhelm her with sheer force.
Bai Qingxue didn't budge. With a slight flick of the Frost Moon Chant's end, an ice blade materialized from the musical note, sliding along the spine of the sword and lightly tapping the hilt.
The ice blade shattered, but the force was just enough to deflect the heavy sword's trajectory by half an inch.
It grazed past her shoulder, severing only a stray lock of her hair.
The burly man's pupils contracted slightly.
He hadn't seen clearly how Bai Qingxue had done it, but the counter-force transmitted through his wrist told him that this move was no simple clash of strength; there seemed to be something deeper hidden within it.
The tall, thin woman's dual hooks followed close behind.
Her movement technique was extremely fast, the dual hooks sealing off Bai Qingxue's escape routes on both sides. The tips of the hooks gleamed with an eerie green light, clearly coated in some kind of paralyzing agent. While not lethal, a single scratch would likely incapacitate her in short order.
Bai Qingxue stepped aside and retreated, playing a second note on the Frost Moon Chant.
This time, however, what materialized was not an ice blade, but an ice screen as thin as a cicada's wing.
The ice screen unfolded out of thin air half a foot in front of Bai Qingxue.
The dual hooks plunged into the ice screen as if piercing a vat of glue, their forward momentum instantly grinding to a halt.
The tall, thin woman's expression shifted, and she tried to pull back, but the ice screen was already spreading up the shafts of the hooks, sealing them and her wrists in thin ice.
“Ice Condensation? No, it froze my spiritual power?” she blurted out in shock.
But there was no one to answer her now.
The person from the third direction had already made his move.
The man who had burst in from the front finished his hand seals, the earthy-yellow light turning into a stone shield.
He didn't use the stone shield to attack; instead, using it as cover, he lunged straight for the spirit marrow in the cavity.
From the very beginning, his target had not been Bai Qingxue, but the spirit marrow.
Bai Qingxue's brow furrowed slightly. She was currently using her left hand to maintain the ice screen sealing the tall, thin woman, while her right hand held the Frost Moon Chant to play. The stone-shield man had chosen the perfect moment when both of her hands were occupied.
His judgment was precise, and his actions were decisive—he was an experienced fighter.
But Bai Qingxue still had the ice lotus.
Before the man could make his next move, an extremely cold aura surged from within Bai Qingxue's body—an aura that belonged to the ice lotus itself.
This aura was purer than any spell, far closer to the origin of ice-attribute spiritual energy.
When the stone-shield man rushed to within two steps of the spirit marrow, his footsteps suddenly froze.
He looked up in horror, his eyes meeting Bai Qingxue's calm gaze.
“Back away,” Bai Qingxue said.
Bai Qingxue's words carried no threatening tone, yet they struck a deeper chord of fear in the man before her.
The stone-shield man grit his teeth, glancing at the spirit marrow within arm's reach, then at the Frost Moon Chant at Bai Qingxue's waist. Ultimately, he took a step back.
And then another.
Then, he turned and exited the cavern.
The burly man and the tall, thin woman exchanged a glance and stopped their attacks as well.
The heavy sword was sheathed, and the thin ice on the dual hooks was shattered by the tall, thin woman as she channeled her energy.
Without a word, the two bowed slightly to Bai Qingxue before retreating out of the cavern from either side of the water curtain.
Quiet returned to the cavern once more.
Bai Qingxue withdrew the aura of the ice lotus, walked over, and took out the Mystic Frost spirit marrow.
The spirit marrow was icy to the touch, like a piece of cold jade saturated with moonlight.
Bai Qingxue stored the spirit marrow in her storage bag and, without lingering, stepped through the water curtain and walked out of the cavern.
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