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"Different? How is it different!" The Ice Empress huffed, her emerald scorpion tail standing tall and stiff behind her. "They are all sneaky and shameless people. What could a human possibly give you that would make them different?"Â
Before she could say another word, she saw the Snow Empress calmly flip her wrist. Without making a sound, she pulled out more than twenty pieces of ten thousand year profound ice marrow. The pure energy coming from the crystals was incredibly strong, and even though the light they gave off was soft, it looked dazzling in the frozen air.
The Ice Empress blinked, and the insults she was about to shout got stuck in her throat. Her golden eyes cleared as she stared at the pile. Slowly, she reached out and touched the ice marrow, feeling the pure and perfect extreme cold energy hidden inside. She looked up at the Snow Empress with a look of pure disbelief, silently asking if this was real. The Snow Empress gave a small nod, and the Ice Empress went completely quiet.
The Snow Empress watched her friend, her voice becoming very serious. "Do you understand now? He really is not like other humans."
The Ice Empress looked back and forth between the pile of treasure and the Snow Empress's serious face. She grit her teeth, still struggling to believe it. How could a human be so generous with such a rare item? It felt wrong to her; she was sure that the human must have some secret plan.
She stood up, her golden eyes filled with a stubborn flame. "I don't believe it! Unless I see him with my own eyes, I won't be convinced. Snow Empress, take me with you! I want to see what kind of trick this human has played on you!"Â
The Snow Empress stayed silent for a moment. She thought she had explained it well enough so the Ice Empress wouldn't worry. Why did she still want to come along? A strange thought entered her mindâcould this be exactly what Kong Mingan expected to happen?
After thinking about it for a long time, the Snow Empress let out a sigh. "Fine, but you must promise me something, Bing'er. When we see him, you are not allowed to attack him or do anything to hurt him. Do you understand?"Â
"What if he tries to hurt me first?" the Ice Empress asked, sounding very defiant.
The Snow Empress looked away. She knew he wouldn't harm her, but she worried he might try to "make a move" or win her over just like he did with the ice marrow. She decided not to say that out loud. Instead, she stood up and spoke calmly. "I can't really describe what he is like; you just have to see him for yourself. But for now, Bing'er, I need you to be my Protector."Â
The Ice Empress looked confused. "Protector?"
"Yes, it is time for my own 700,000-year Heavenly Tribulation," the Snow Empress said softly.
This was one of the instructions Kong Mingan had given her. He told her that undergoing the tribulation in the Extreme North Land would make it impossible for her to fail. It seemed like he really cared about her safety and didn't want anything to go wrong. Thinking about this, a small, faint smile appeared on the Snow Empress's cold face.
Back in the Capital City, deep inside the Hall of Worship, the laboratory was busy. Inside a cold barrier, a scary-looking evil Spirit Master with a hunched back was struggling. "My lord, please! Let me go! I didn't do anything wrong! They forced me to do those things! Please!"Â
The evil Spirit Master had watched several of his partners die slowly and carefully before him, and he was now terrified. His eyes were red and full of madness. Kong Mingan didn't listen to his begging. His eyes were calm and even a bit bored. He made a mental note that in the future, he should probably remove the tongues of his "materials" first to make the work quieter.
Kong Mingan used his mental force to tap a dark tool called the Ten Thousand Soul Banner that he had taken from the criminals. The banner began to flutter on its own, and a gray beam of light shot out and hit the evil Spirit Master. It pulled his soul right out of his body and sucked it into the banner. The screaming stopped instantly.
Kong Mingan raised his hand, and thin blue threads made of energy and mental force stretched out. He used a special method taught to him by Elder Yi to control the body. The blue threads acted like a new soul, taking over the empty body. The evil Spirit Master's body went stiff for a second and then stood up like a puppet on strings.
Under Kong Mingan's control, the body's spirit rings appeared: two yellow, three purple, and two black. This showed he was a Spirit Saint. A dark and evil energy began to leak out of the body. Kong Mingan gave a mental command, and the body activated its Martial Soul True Body.
"Awooâ!"
A loud wolf howl echoed in the lab. The body grew large and changed shape, turning into a giant wolf with dark red fur and glowing red eyes. The air began to smell like blood and evil. This was the Bloodthirsty Soul Wolf, a spirit that grows stronger by eating people. It was clear this man was not as innocent as he claimed to be.
Kong Mingan looked at the giant wolf with a light blue glow in his eyes. He activated his own Elementalization, and a layer of ice-blue light covered his body. The room became freezing cold. He held out his hand, and the energy of ultimate ice turned into a small, sharp scalpel.
He moved his hand quickly. The ice scalpel moved so fast it was hard to see. He began to "dissect" the energy of the wolf's body, cutting along the lines of its spirit power. You could hear a quiet sizzling sound as the ice blade sliced through the energy.
Soon, the giant wolf was covered in tiny, straight blue lines where it had been cut. Even though it was cut into pieces, Kong Mingan used his energy threads to keep the body "alive" and active for the experiment.
"This confirms what I thought before," Kong Mingan whispered to himself. "The Martial Soul True Body, Elementalization, and the way blood and energy transform are all connected. It might be possible to combine them into one power."Â
He wrote down his discovery and moved to the next step. Cutting the wolf open was just the beginning; he had a bigger goal. He moved his fingers, and the blue threads shook. He began to push the spirit power inside the body against the spirit rings in a very specific way.
This wasn't a "Ring Explosion" where the ring is destroyed for a quick burst of power. Instead, it was a gentle and careful way to unbind the energy from the ring. This allowed the massive amount of spirit power stored inside the rings to flow back into the body safely. Kong Mingan called this new method "Ring Dissolution."