Mounted upon the tiger, Tang Jie flew through the forest of flowers. Suddenly, a pitch-black cave mouth appeared in front of him.

Sinister and chilling winds blew out of the cave.

This was the Ice Cave.

The Frost Fairy’s figure vanished into the cave mouth. Tang Jie was just about to go in when a call came from behind him: “Tang Jie, wait for me!”

Turning around, he saw Wei Tianchong, Shi Meng, Cai Junyang, and Yiyi coming up behind him.

As Yiyi was with them, they hadn’t been affected by the Eight Desolations Illusion Formation, so they had been the first to get out.

Yiyi was the first to rush out, throwing herself at him. They had not seen each other in many days, and she dearly missed him. She clambered on his body and refused to leave him, even giving Tang Jie a kiss.

Tang Jie chuckled. “You finally caught up.”

Now that brothers had been reunited after so long, Wei Tianchong’s eyes were red. “Do you even realize… You ignored us for so long, even handing us over to Cai Junyang.”

Tang Jie chuckled. “And aren’t you just fine?”

He could tell that Wei Tianchong had been through a lot, having lost a lot of weight.

He hadn’t been too fat in the first place, and his skin had been white and fair. Now, he was much thinner, and his skin had a somewhat bronzed tone, making him seem much more energetic.

It was actually Cai Junyang who was upset, glaring and demanding, “What? You’re not happy about my protection service? Hey, where are the plumes you promised me?”

The last words were aimed at Tang Jie.

Wei Tianchong shrank his neck back, not daring to speak. It was true that Cai Junyang had protected him. The problem was that he wasn’t a servant student, so he had no need to speak politely or with Tang Jie’s gentle and comforting tone.

Tang Jie took out the plumes from his Mustard Seed Bag and handed them over. “I’ve always kept my promises.”

Wei Tianchong and the others were dumbfounded by all these plumes. Although they knew that Tang Jie had agreed to hand over one hundred plumes, they were still shocked when they saw Tang Jie take them out.

Even Cai Junyang was startled. “You really killed all the Thunderbirds?”

“Didn’t leave a single one,” Tang Jie replied. He flashed a fiend pellet for a moment—the one that had belonged to the Thunderbird King.

Everyone’s eyes widened.

Tang Jie put it away. “Alright, less chit-chat. While the Eight Desolations Illusion Formation is still holding them back, let’s go in there, kill the Frost Fairy, and take the Red Lotus!”

Cai Junyang’s eyes brightened. “You really were the one who laid it down. When did you learn formations?”

“When did you become so talkative? Let’s go! We can ask questions while we’re walking!” Tang Jie led the way into the cave, but in reality, he was thinking about what sort of lie he was going to concoct.

Cai Junyang and the others shared a glance before running after him.

The inside of the Ice Cave was pitch-black, and a sinister wind would occasionally howl out of the cave.

Even worse was that there were several different passages, and it was hard to tell which one was right.

Tang Jie shouted, “Shi Meng!”

“Understood!” Shi Meng activated a tracking spell and then pointed at one passage. “This way!”

“Let’s go!”

Everyone went in the direction Shi Meng had indicated.

As they madly pursued, they felt a greater and greater chill.

“It should be just ahead!” Cai Junyang excitedly said.

At this moment, a silhouette rushed out of the darkness and fired a dim beam of energy at the group.

Tang Jie had sharp eyes and a quick hand, and he quickly stepped forward. The dim energy exploded on his body, but by this time, Tang Jie was already swinging his saber down, striking the silhouette. The silhouette howled as it was sliced in two.

With the light unleashed by the saber, Tang Jie was able to see the attacker. “It’s a fiend cat. Be careful; this place has quite a few fiend beasts.”

Whether it was the Floral Forest or the Ice Cave, neither was only occupied by the Frost Fairy. The Frost Fairy was simply the ruler, so there wasn’t anything of a higher level than her.

“Let the puppet charge ahead!” Wei Tianchong shouted. He waved his hand, sending the puppet forward.

Having the puppet open the way was actually ideal.

What surprised everyone was that Wei Tianchong had made the proposal on his own, and even Tang Jie couldn’t help but glance at him. This guy has really made some progress. Truly, a person needs to be tempered to mature.

As the puppet charged forward, it drew out many hidden fiend beasts. Everyone followed behind the puppet, killing the fiend beasts that popped up. Fortunately, most of these fiend beasts were of average strength, and Tang and Cai working together easily destroyed them. So that they could quickly catch up to the Frost Fairy, they didn’t harvest any of these fiends. As they continued forward, their field of vision soon opened up.

At the end of the cave passage was a wide and open space, like a hidden paradise.

In front of them were countless trees of ice. They were like rime-covered trees in winter, appearing to be weeping. The rimed figures amidst the misty snow presented a beautiful sight, like numerous statues of ice.

At the end of this forest of ice was a cold pool of blue water. The chill radiating off this pond was enough to freeze someone down to the bone.

This was the Frigid Pond.

Several little white flowers floated in the pond, and large clumps of water grass grew next to the petals. In the very center of the pond, a red lotus bloomed. This blooming red lotus appeared like a flame, and its lower half had a luster like a white flame, making it appear as if the red lotus was floating atop a flame that burned on the water.

“It’s the Iceflame Red Lotus!” Cai Junyang, Wei Tianchong, and Shi Meng shouted in unison.

The Iceflame Red Lotus was a rare spirit plant of the Rosecloud Domain with miraculous effects. It was one of the main ingredients of the Heaven-Opening Pill, and the Heaven-Opening Pill was one of the most important spirit medicines for creating the Heaven-Earth Bridge.

The cultivation of Immortality consisted of five major realms, with each realm serving as a threshold. Entering the Spirit Platform Realm required breaking through the Jade Gate, which necessitated a Spirit Master’s help. Entering the Mortal Shedding Realm required creating the Heaven-Earth Bridge, which was extremely difficult without the Heaven-Opening Pill.

The importance of the Iceflame Red Lotus went without saying. It could be considered the most important and most valuable herb in all of the Valley of No Return.

But this was precisely why the Basking Moon Sect did not permit students to obtain it. Any student who took it would have to hand it over to the sect.

Many people thought that when outer disciple students went adventuring, they could keep any of the major spoils they found, but this was a grave misunderstanding.

Sects existed to control resources.

The world was currently well-ordered, and every region had been divided, with eighty percent of the areas rich in resources under control of the six major sects and the remaining twenty percent controlled by the minor sects.

The sects strictly controlled their resources and would not easily give them to others.

Thus, while the Basking Moon Sect was so generous as to only ask for the students to hand over thirty percent of their gains, this was only if those items were not considered valuable or important by the sect.

The truly valuable things were simply impossible to divide up. The students could only rely on their efforts to eventually redeem such rewards from the sect, but they could never hope to keep such nice things for themselves.

The Iceflame Red Lotus was one of those items that could not be divided.

Everyone grew excited upon seeing the Iceflame Red Lotus.

But while Cai Junyang, Wei Tianchong, and Shi Meng looked excitedly at the Iceflame Red Lotus, Tang Jie was focused on the little white flowers and black water grass growing next to the Iceflame Red Lotus.

Icecloud Flowers and Chillshade Grass.

These were both spirit plants that they grew together with the Iceflame Red Lotus, and were quite valuable.

But what was most important was…

As a thought flashed through Tang Jie’s mind, Cai Junyang rushed at the red lotus while shouting, “Tang Jie, this Iceflame Red Lotus is mine!”

He rushed onto the pond, and with the Ripplewalk, he walked across the water like it was flat ground and made his way toward the lotus.

The mission was to get the Red Lotus, so chasing down the Frost Fairy was no longer important.

At his rashness, Tang Jie shouted, “Junyang, be careful!”

Cai Junyang was anxious to get the lotus, and he rushed up to it in the blink of an eye. But as he got close, a cold gale exploded.

A frigid wave formed on the pond as a surge of cold swept toward Cai Junyang.

Cai Junyang was alarmed. He was still on the water, and while the Ripplewalk let him stand on water, it made it difficult for him to exert his strength.

But he was still a Spirit Lake student, and he reacted quickly to the situation. He thrust his palm several times at the shore.

The winds created by his attacks managed to hold off the cold wave for a bit while also pushing him toward the lotus. He clearly hadn’t given up on it yet.

At this moment, countless ice spikes shot out of the water next to the lotus, whistling toward Cai Junyang.

Cai Junyang hastily waved his Tsunami Sword, creating a sword net to protect himself.

Thankfully, the Massing Wave Mantra and Pilewave Sword he cultivated favored swift and continuous attacks, and with a great clatter, he fended off the ice spikes.

Even so, twenty-some spikes managed to get through the net and jab into Cai Junyang’s body.

A moment later, Cai Junyang’s barrier shattered, and three spikes struck Cai Junyang’s body without resistance, striking him in the left arm, left leg, and right chest.

“Aagh!” Cai Junyang yelled. Unable to keep up the Ripplewalk, he fell into the pond.

“Bao’er!”

The tiger growled and shot forward like a bolt of lightning, his wings opening as he reached out with his paws and grabbed Cai Junyang out of the water.

Tang Jie raised his hand, sending three golden lights flying out. These were three golden needles, but they were aimed at one of the little white flowers in the pond.

This attack seemed pointless, but as the golden needles flew out, the white flower shook and flew into the air, taking a human form. It was none other than the Frost Fairy.

But she had already recovered her arm. Given how quickly she had healed her injury, she had probably used the power of her sprite core.

She looked at Tang Jie in shock, shrieking as she dodged the golden needles, “How did you know…”

This was now the second time Tang Jie had so quickly found her hiding spot.

She really didn’t understand how this was done.

Sprites were plants that had gained spirituality. Under the Basking Moon Sect’s control, the Redflame Ice Lotus wasn’t allowed to gain spirituality. This was because if this plant gained spirituality, the sprite core it formed would be valuable, but its effects in the Heaven-Opening Pill would be greatly reduced. Thus, the plant with the greatest chance of achieving spirituality was the Icecloud Flower that grew near the lotus.

This was also a spirit plant, and as it was nurtured by the Iceflame Red Lotus’s spiritual energy and absorbed the freezing energy of the Frigid Pond, it became an ice sprite.

When Tang Jie arrived and saw that the ice sprite was nowhere to be seen, he knew that she might have transformed to hide herself, but there was no stopping Cai Junyang from letting his impatience get the better of him and falling into her trap. But this gave Tang Jie the chance to track down her spiritual energy pulses and find her body.

He originally didn’t have this skill, but after glimpsing the Dao Realm at Tiger Roar Peak and comprehending the Dao of Insight, Tang Jie found that he had become rather sensitive to the spiritual energy pulses around him. So long as he was given a clue, he could track it down to the source.

This was how he had found the Frost Fairy’s first hiding spot, and also how he had found the second.

Upon seeing that his golden needles had missed, Tang Jie charged out, flitting across the water like a bolt of lightning and swinging his saber at the Frost Fairy. “Little sprite, you could have only become a sprite through the nourishment of the Iceflame Red Lotus’s spiritual energy. Who do you think you were fooling?”

He sprinted out with uncanny speed, only striking the water’s surface three times to reach the Frost Fairy and swing his saber. This was the Violet Lightning Lunge pushed to the maximum.

The saber savagely struck the Frost Fairy, and she bitterly screamed as she flew back and raised her hands. A giant silhouette jumped out of the water—a huge fish that attempted to bite Tang Jie.

A Megabone Fish!

This was a rare fiend beast that innately possessed a huge size and a savage personality.

Judging by its size, this Megabone Fish was at least upper-grade Spirit Sensing.

No one could have expected the Frigid Pond to be hiding an existence like this.

But Tang Jie was fearless, swinging his saber with his right hand at the Megabone Fish’s lip, causing the fish to hiss.

“Useless!”

He punched with his left hand, releasing a powerful shockwave that sent the fish flying.

He had tempered himself through baths many times after entering the valley, and his strength was prodigious. With a single full-force punch, he had smashed away this giant upper-grade Spirit Sensing fish that was renowned for its strength.

The Frost Fairy had thought that her ambusher would be able to pose a threat, never expecting Tang Jie to be so unstoppable, and her heart shuddered in shock.

She didn’t understand how a Spirit Lake Tier student could possess such a formidable constitution, but Tang Jie didn’t give her time to think, rushing up using the Violet Lightning Lunge and unleashing the Windcleaver Saber.

“Yaaa!” With a bitter scream, the sprite produced another ice shield. The Heartbreak Saber shattered the shield into chunks, and the sprite behind it was sent flying backward.