Spring comes as winter departs!
The temperature of the Extreme North remained completely unaffected by seasonal changes.
Still as frigid as ever!
Time passed in a flash...
Half a year had unknowingly gone by.
Half a year had caused the fervor surrounding Yang Fan's championship to recede like the tide. Discussions about Yang Fan gradually decreased, and even the Extreme North seemed to have forgotten that a human soul master still existed here.
Yang Fan slowly opened his eyes...
Half a year had completely sealed shut the ice cave he had previously carved out. Only a space less than two meters in diameter remained around his body.
And this cramped space had been created for him by Yao Lao using powerful Dou Qi.
"Success!"
Yang Fan slowly opened his mouth, discovering ice chips falling from his oral cavity.
"Little one."
"Don't move around for now."
"You've been frozen into an ice stick right now. This is when your body is at its most fragile."
It was truly fragile!
If he made movements too large at this moment, he would likely drop his limbs like an ice sculpture.
Yang Fan calmed down...
First, he mobilized the fire-attribute Dou Qi within his body to slowly unclog his eight extraordinary meridians that had been eroded by icy cold aura.
Once the meridians were opened, all he needed to do next was force the cold qi out of his body, and the ice sand on his skin would naturally begin to melt.
Yang Fan estimated this process would take no less than three days.
Taking advantage of this time...
Having awakened from absorbing the Heavenly Flame, Yang Fan didn't remain idle either.
Since his body couldn't move, he would let his mind turn...
He adjusted his internal breathing!
Focused his mind inward to observe the changes in his body after absorbing the Heavenly Flame.
Suddenly...
A violent pulse occurred in the aura within his body, and his frozen body produced sounds like cracking ice.
Seal Douluo?!
Yang Fan confirmed his current soul power changes once more.
Yes!
After successfully absorbing his third Heavenly Flame, he had broken through the final barrier belonging to soul masters, and his strength had risen accordingly to the Seal Douluo level.
Seal Douluo!
He had finally become what all soul masters on the Douluo Continent dreamed of being.
With Yao Lao, a Demigod-level master, by his side, he could now completely consider which unfortunate soul would be the target of his ninth soul ring.
But...
The current situation was clearly not the time to think about this.
What he had improved was far from simple soul power level. It also brought changes to his Dou Qi vortex.
Three-Star Dou King!
This was the true level of his current Dou Master cultivation system.
"Hoo..."
Yang Fan's mouth opened slightly.
A mass of white frost mist was slowly exhaled from his mouth.
He did this to calm himself down.
Because what he needed to do next was use spiritual introspection to sense the changes in his cultivation technique, the Flame Mantra.
For him...
Progress in his cultivation technique was truly the most important!
Yao Lao had said more than once: The rank of the cultivation technique chosen by a Dou Master largely determined a Dou Master's upper limit.
Looking across the Dou Qi Continent, all experts who could reach Dou Venerable level and above had chosen cultivation techniques that were at least Earth Rank.
This meant that if he wanted to become a powerful expert, he had to raise the Flame Mantra to Earth Rank, or even mid-level Earth Rank or above.
"Earth Rank!"
"Earth Rank!"
"Earth Rank!"
"..."
Yang Fan repeated this continuously in his heart.
His requirements weren't high. He only needed the absorption of the Heavenly Flame to raise his Flame Mantra to Earth Rank.
With this excited mood, Yang Fan slowly began to circulate his cultivation technique.
Beautifully done!
Just as he had hoped, the Flame Mantra had become what he wanted—an Earth Rank cultivation technique.
Even if it was only low-level Earth Rank now, it was enough to excite him.
Yang Fan tried circulating the Flame Mantra technique once...
High-level Profound Rank and low-level Earth Rank seemed only one rank apart, but the two were absolutely not the same species.
After the Flame Mantra was promoted to Earth Rank, the circulation speed of Dou Qi in his body was more than twice as fast as when it was Profound Rank.
The circulation speed of Dou Qi was closely related to a Dou Master's cultivation speed.
Which meant...
His cultivation speed was now more than twice as fast as before.
For Yang Fan, who had just been promoted to Three-Star Dou King, the Flame Mantra's rank increase was the most gorgeous flower on the brocade.
If his body hadn't been completely frozen right now, he would have done at least a few naked... backflips in this icy world.
Half a year's time seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, yet this final half day felt endlessly long to Yang Fan.
Like having endured an entire semester at school, counting down the final half day before vacation.
Each day felt like a year!
After finally enduring three days, Yang Fan used Yao Lao's Demigod-level strength to tear open a fissure from within the snowy mountain.
Spreading his wings and soaring high!
He let out a sharp, prolonged cry in mid-air, running wild through the ice and snow like a wild monkey.
Half a year of 'prison life' had finally ended, and Yang Fan had obtained his long-desired third Heavenly Flame.
Wait...!
Yang Fan suddenly realized a very serious problem: He still hadn't named his third Heavenly Flame.
"Master."
"What do you think about calling the Heavenly Flame I just subdued 'Extreme North Ice Flame'?"
Yao Lao pursed his lips and said: "Not too terrible a name. As long as you're happy with it."
Yang Fan gave Yao Lao a thumbs up.
Alright!
From now on, his third Heavenly Flame would be called Extreme North Ice Flame.
Just as Yao Lao had said: As long as he was happy, everything was beautiful.
...
After the excitement passed...
Yang Fan's mood became much heavier.
Why?
The Extreme North Ice Flame obtained unintentionally was indeed a pleasant surprise for him.
But...
His true goal for coming to the Extreme North, the Bone Spirit Fruit, had shown no progress from beginning to end.
Eight months had passed since stepping into the Extreme North.
Excluding the half year spent absorbing the Heavenly Flame, in the first two months he had climbed at least several dozen mountain peaks.
Yet he had found nothing!
Sometimes he wanted to ask Yao Lao a question: Does the Douluo Continent truly possess the Bone Spirit Fruit?
But he didn't dare ask!
Such a question would undoubtedly be a heavy blow to Yao Lao, who had always longed to reconstruct a physical body.
"Brat!"
"Our trouble has arrived."
As soon as Yao Lao's voice fell, two women appeared in their field of vision.
One of them was not unfamiliar to Yang Fan.
Ice Empress!
Half a year ago, they had fought, resulting in the Ice Empress fleeing with her tail between her legs, ending that farce.
The other was even more beautiful than the Ice Empress.
A head of pure white hair hung straight down from the back of her head to her feet. Her sky-blue eyes were ethereal and transparent, as if capable of seeing through everything in this world.
Her slender, perfect figure was flawless!
Though her white dress had no decoration whatsoever, it made her appear so noble and stunningly beautiful.
Yang Fan swore this was the first time he had seen such a pure woman, like a spirit walking out from the ice and snow world.
No need to guess!
The only one capable of standing here with an aura and beauty that steadily suppressed the Ice Empress was...
Wrong!
It should be said, the only one.
Snow Empress of the Ice and Snow Two Empresses!
That is, the one ranked first in the Extreme North, and third on the ferocious beasts list—the Snow Empress.
"Not simple!"
"Truly not simple."
"Never expected to witness such a wonder on the Douluo Continent."
"Silly boy!"
"Do you still remember what I told you before about things that develop spiritual intelligence?"
The well-traveled Yao Lao had already used his all-seeing eyes to peer into the secrets of the Snow Empress's body.
Born of heaven, nourished by earth!
This woman in white was completely born from the special environment of the Extreme North after tens of thousands of years of nurturing.
Forget the Douluo Continent—even on the Dou Qi Continent, this was a wonder rarely seen in a hundred years.
"Master!"
"Does that mean if we capture the Snow Empress, we can refine high-quality pills with spiritual intelligence?"
Yao Lao's expression suddenly changed!
"Silly boy."
"Such a beautiful woman, and all you can think of is using her for alchemy?"
"You need to learn to appreciate, you know!"
Yang Fan nodded very seriously.
Understood!
"So can the Snow Empress actually be used to refine pills with spiritual intelligence or not?"
Yao Lao said helplessly: "Romantically clueless."
However...
He still gave an answer to Yang Fan's question.
"Such naturally born, spiritually intelligent creatures can of course be used to refine pills."
"But..."
"She is already a treasure with spiritual intelligence. Why would you choose to refine her?"
Yang Fan and Yao Lao's conversation appeared relaxed and carefree on the surface.
In reality, his heart had already raised his alertness to one hundred twenty percent.
This was the Snow Empress!
A super ferocious beast with 700,000 years of cultivation, an existence that no one dared to provoke in the entire Extreme North.
He didn't believe such a Snow Empress was a vegetarian woman.
...
On the other side.
"Them?"
The Snow Empress's voice was as cold as the Ice Empress's, but within the icy, emotionless tone, one could detect a trace of gentleness.
Half a year ago...
After the Ice Empress fled, she returned, but when she returned, she brought the Ice Empress with her.
The Extreme North had been invaded by an unidentified powerful soul master. As the big and small kings of the Extreme North, the two sisters had the responsibility to drive the invaders out of this pure land.
However...
When they returned to this land, there was no longer any trace of Yang Fan and Yao Lao.
They had judged that the two had already left the Extreme North.
Now it seemed...
This judgment had been wrong from the very beginning, and terribly wrong at that.
The two had never left this snowy mountain from beginning to end. Instead, they had used spiritual power to shield themselves from the sisters' tracking detection.
"Yes!"
"It's them."
"Last time, I was defeated by that detestable human."
Seeing Yang Fan again!
The overbearing aura on the Ice Empress had completely vanished.
The Douluo Continent respects the strong!
This saying applied not only to the soul master world but was even more thoroughly demonstrated in the soul beast world.
In the soul master world, there might be alternative existences like Ning Fengzhi who relied on intellect, but in the soul beast circle, they had always ruled by virtue.
The virtue of martial might!
After her first escape, Yang Fan's strength had already forced the Ice Empress to begin taking him seriously.
"Detestable humans."
"Never expected you two to still be alive."
Though the overbearing aura on the Ice Empress had disappeared, the hatred for human soul masters in her eyes had not diminished in the slightest.
This was a grudge between human soul masters and soul beasts spanning hundreds of thousands of years, absolutely impossible to erase.
In an instant...
The area detected by Yang Fan's soul power was instantly covered by an invisible energy.
The temperature of the Extreme North instantly dropped to its extreme.
The massive temperature change caused the ice surface beneath their feet and the steep ice walls to shatter with a boom.
Snowflakes falling on Yang Fan instantly cut open a wound on him.
The Snow Empress was completely different from the Ice Empress!
Born in response to the environment, she didn't even need to make any movements to control climate changes within tens of thousands of meters of the Extreme North.
If Yang Fan wasn't mistaken, what the Snow Empress had just used was one of the three great ultimate techniques—Empress' Chill.
A domain-type skill!
It was said that once this domain-type skill was released, it could turn tens of thousands of meters into a forbidden zone.
Neither soul masters nor soul beasts could survive under the domain of Empress' Chill.
"How can this be?!"
The Snow Empress's brows slightly furrowed, and an expression of disbelief appeared on her icy face.
Such an expression hadn't appeared on her face for hundreds of thousands of years.
The Snow Empress was now beginning to believe that what the Ice Empress had said before was true.
To remain unharmed under her Empress' Chill domain attack—the strength of these two humans indeed could not be underestimated.
If it had been the Yang Fan from half a year ago, he certainly couldn't have withstood the Snow Empress's domain attack. But in this half year, he had undergone a complete transformation.
The Ice Empress's domain skill was extremely powerful, but under the premise of controlling tens of thousands of meters, it still couldn't compare to the Extreme North Ice Flame.
"Snow Empress."
"Don't show mercy."
Hundreds of thousands of years of friendship let the Ice Empress know this wasn't the Snow Empress's true strength.
At this moment...
The Snow Empress's ice-white right hand slowly raised. The amplitude and speed weren't fast, like a kind-hearted, gentle girl caressing the drifting snowflakes of winter.
In an instant...
The drifting snowflakes in the air emitted incomparably dazzling light, with an intensity like that of the sun.
The Snow Empress's domain skill's full name was Empress' Chill · Snowy Dance of Ultimate Ice.
The first stage used temperature to deal with opponents; the second stage used incomparably dazzling light.
Yang Fan shielded his face with his hand...
He was surprised to discover that what was most dazzling wasn't the brilliant light emanating from the snowflakes, but the powerful soul impact contained within.
Yang Fan had thought his soul power was already at peak level on the Douluo Continent.
Only when he was truly within the Empress' Chill domain did he realize the terrifying spiritual impact of a 700,000-year soul beast.
"Are you not putting this venerable one in your eyes?"
This time, Yao Lao didn't choose to lend his strength to Yang Fan, but chose to act personally.
A powerful soul storm instantly reversed and swept out, tearing the domain attack the Snow Empress had created in an instant into pieces.
The collision of two powerful soul forces caused ten-thousand-foot ice and snow storms to rise in the Extreme North.
The skies above the Extreme North were completely filled with ice and snow!
Though Yang Fan stood between heaven and earth, it was as if he was frozen within the ice and snow.
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