After buying the map, Yun Hanshuang left Snow Swallow City directly, because tonight would be the full-moon night, so he wanted to find a place as quickly as possible and wait for nightfall.

Roar~

"Die. White Blade Slash."

In a small valley a hundred li outside Snow Swallow City, Yun Hanshuang spotted the den of a first-tier Frost Giant Bear. He swiftly struck and hacked it to death.

‘Such fine bear pelt, what a pity. At least the beast core wasn't corroded.’

After extracting the Frost Giant Bear's beast core, Yun Hanshuang saw that the corpse on the ground had already developed cadaveric spots. He felt it was a bit of a shame; the pelt alone would have been worth at least a dozen or so spirit stones. He activated a Flame Talisman, burned the corpse on the ground to ashes, and then began clearing out the Frost Giant Bear's den.

Once he had cleaned all the filth and odor from the cave, Yun Hanshuang took out five defensive formation plates and arranged them at the entrance. Watching the formation plates, now fitted with spirit stones, emit a faint glow that enveloped the entire cave, Yun Hanshuang felt at ease and took out a meditation cushion to begin meditating.

‘Tonight, I'll strive to fill the seventh groove.’

During the half-year journey, Yun Hanshuang's cultivation had broken through to the Late Qi Refining stage. The coverage of his divine sense had grown to twelve meters. He had cultivated Butterfly Shadow Layers to the Minor Achievement realm, able to simultaneously split out fifteen afterimages. White Blade Slash could be used dozens of times in succession. Spell casting required no cooldown time; he could continuously cast over a hundred spells without pause. The three spirit beasts could be summoned together for a quarter of an hour.

At the hour of Xu (7-9 PM), a thick plume of smoke rose from Yun Hanshuang's body. When the smoke dispersed, he had transformed into a cold and aloof young woman. He took out two jade bottles from his spatial ring, poured out two first-tier Profound Yin Pills and swallowed them, then began operating his cultivation method to absorb spiritual energy.

30 minutes later, Yun Hanshuang frowned and tipped the two bottles of first-tier Profound Yin Pills on the ground all together into his mouth. Another two hours passed, and Yun Hanshuang opened his eyes and sighed.

‘It seems what I feared has still come to pass. My body has already developed drug resistance to the first-tier Profound Yin Pills. I originally planned to wait until Qi Refining Perfection before taking the first-tier Ice Soul Pills. Now I have no choice but to start ahead of time.’

Yun Hanshuang took out the jade bottle containing the first-tier Ice Soul Pills, poured out a single blue pill, and placed it in his mouth. The moment the pill entered his stomach, it transformed into a dense and gentle spiritual power. Yun Hanshuang accelerated his cultivation method's operation to refine that spiritual power.

The night passed quickly. Just as Yun Hanshuang was about to revert to his male body, the seventh spiritual power groove of his Spiritual Power Seed was filled at the very same moment.

‘Thank goodness it filled at the last moment, or else I'd have had to wait another ten days.’

Yun Hanshuang let out a long breath, secretly rejoicing that the seventh groove had been filled with spiritual power at the final moment.

‘The Ten Thousand Mile Snow Forest is divided into three zones. The outer zone is primarily inhabited by first-tier spirit beasts, the middle zone by second-tier and third-tier, and the central zone is said to house a pair of fourth-tier peak Snow Eagles.’

Yun Hanshuang looked at the introduction on the map and sank into thought. Unless they were peak first-tier, first-tier spirit beasts were absolutely no match for him. Yet second-tier spirit beasts were not something the current him could provoke. So Yun Hanshuang was extremely torn over whether to enter the middle zone.

‘I'll first take a look at the border zone between the outer and middle layers.’

In the end, Yun Hanshuang decided to first check the situation at the junction of the two zones and retreat if it was too dangerous.

After retrieving the formation plates from the cave entrance into his storage ring, Yun Hanshuang did not use Butterfly Shadow Layers to travel, but instead decided to proceed step by step.

Thud thud thud thud thud

A pack of Snow Rabbits, half a meter tall with blood-red eyes, surrounded Yun Hanshuang and continuously leaped up to ram into him. Yun Hanshuang was rather unlucky; because his divine sense could only cover a twelve-meter range, he had been rolling snowballs along the way and throwing them ahead to probe the path. As a result, about a thousand meters after leaving the cave, a snowball he threw struck a Snow Rabbit kit, ultimately drawing the besieging attack of dozens of Snow Rabbits.

Snow Rabbits cannot use spell attacks. Their method of attack is to ram enemies with their heads, which are harder than iron. Because their strength is immense, each collision from an adult Snow Rabbit is equivalent to the full-force strike of a Late Qi Refining cultivator. Moreover, they are social spirit beasts, so Snow Rabbits are considered a dominant force in the outer zone of the Ten Thousand Mile Snow Forest. Neither spirit beasts nor human cultivators are willing to provoke them. Yun Hanshuang having inadvertently provoked them this time could be said to be a bit unlucky.

Watching the Ice Shields he cast being continuously shattered by the collisions, Yun Hanshuang was not the least bit anxious; he even appeared to handle it with ease. Because of the gloves' enhancement to the Ice Shield Technique, although the Ice Shields Yun Hanshuang cast were shattered, the Snow Rabbits themselves also suffered damage from the recoil.

‘It seems yin-attribute spells shouldn't be cast too frequently, otherwise my soul can't quite bear it.’

While using Ice Shield Technique to block the Snow Rabbits' attacks, Yun Hanshuang also intermittently cast Fear Curse and Weakness Curse at the Snow Rabbits. As a result, Yun Hanshuang discovered that after casting several dozen yin-attribute spells, his soul had begun to show signs of overexertion.

Thud~

One Snow Rabbit rammed into an Ice Shield Yun Hanshuang had cast. This time, unlike before, the Ice Shield was not shattered. Instead, upon colliding with the Ice Shield, the rabbit seemed as if its strength had been suddenly drained, collapsing limply onto the snow. Its eyes stared at Yun Hanshuang in terror. As if contagious, the other Snow Rabbits also suddenly went limp, terror filling their eyes.

"I didn't waste all that time stalling for nothing. You've finally exhausted yourselves."

Yun Hanshuang bent down, raised a hand, and slapped a Snow Rabbit unconscious. Then he did the same to all the other Snow Rabbits, knocking each one out and piling them together.

Thud~

Just as Yun Hanshuang was considering how to handle so many Snow Rabbits, a wooden arrow shot swiftly toward him. Before Yun Hanshuang could even react, he was struck in the chest and sent flying backward, landing with a thud on the snow, completely motionless.

Thirty meters away behind a snow pile, two middle-aged cultivators dressed in white beast-hide clothes were watching Yun Hanshuang lying motionless on the snow.

"Did he die after taking my Heart-Piercing Arrow?" The rugged-looking one of the two asked the refined-looking middle-aged cultivator beside him somewhat uncertainly.

The refined middle-aged cultivator shook his head and pointed at the snow around Yun Hanshuang.

"There's not even a drop of blood. He's definitely faking. Shoot another arrow."

Hearing this, the rugged middle-aged cultivator immediately took out a wooden arrow, nocked it, and shot it at Yun Hanshuang.

Whoosh~ Thud~

This time, the wooden arrow did not hit Yun Hanshuang, blocked mid-flight by several Ice Shields.

"I told you this brat wasn't dead!"

"It's you two? You've been following me?"

Seeing the arrow blocked, the refined middle-aged cultivator had an expression that said "just as I thought." Meanwhile, Yun Hanshuang got up from the snow and saw that it was those two middle-aged cultivators who had been sitting at the table next to his back in the tea house.

"Brat, don't put it so harshly. We just happened to run into you and were merely planning to borrow a few things from you."

The rugged middle-aged cultivator abruptly released the aura of Qi Refining Perfection and looked at Yun Hanshuang with a beaming smile.