Mira was the first one to step onto the frozen tundra, but a strange change occurred as soon as her foot landed on the ice. Maria and Celaine weren’t far behind either as the ice was better than the ocean.

The scenery around them began to change and started to look almost surreal. The ocean behind them disappeared as well as the bright sun.

All that was left, in every direction, was a world of ice. A large moon hung overhead as it showered the icy plains in front of them with its silver luster. The reflection of the light of the moon on the ice made for an especially beautiful scene as things were peacefully calm.

Mira felt her body yearning for such an environment as just breathing in this environment was providing insights into her Dao and increasing the Qi in her body bringing her closer to a breakthrough.

It’s been a long time since she’s progressed in her Dao as the power of her ice has fallen behind the level of strength she currently has.

All of this will soon come to an end though as she can feel this place will be able to provide her with an exponential rise in strength.

Mira already felt the need to meditate and digest the insights overflowing into her. In fact, once she finds a nice place to stay without being disturbed she will definitely go meditate and digest everything.

Meditating out in the open in an unknown and most likely extremely dangerous environment is probably the worst thing she could do.

First, they have to explore a bit, search the surrounding areas for any dangers or treasures, and find out the strength of the enemies they’ll be facing from here on out.

After the three of them took everything in, Celaine and Maria started to feel a chill seemed to want to freeze every fiber of their being.

The two of them have faced Mira’s worst, swam in the depths of the ocean, tempered their bodies with magma, and felt like they should’ve been able to stand the cold, at least a little, but they were wrong. All of that seemed useless in this place!

What they didn’t know was that if their bodies weren’t much stronger thanks to Kayda, then they might’ve become blocks of ice already and Mira would have no way of helping as this place was beyond her level currently.

They felt their skin and bones constricting as their fingers started to become slightly numb. To warm up their bodies, they had to channel a bit of Qi into their fingers, but this only helped a bit.

“Umm, Mira? I think we might need to find a place to stay as soon as possible. My body is already going numb from the cold and I’m only able to warm myself up by circulating my Qi, but once I run out I don’t know how long I’ll be okay. I think Maria is the same, although she looks just slightly better than me.” Celaine said with clattering teeth.

Maria didn’t look much better, but being with Mira and experiencing ice for almost half of her life now, she was able to build up a bit of tolerance.

“Eh? Oh, I see. It’s certainly cold here, but I didn’t think it was that cold. I suppose it’s due to my physique?” Mira started to get lost in thought again and started to ignore them. These two always complain when it’s cold and this time was no different.

It was only when Mira got a good look at them did she start to notice that their skin was already turning blue and ice was already forming on their body.

“Mira! We need to find a place to warm up!” Maria yelled and started to run ahead of her. Celaine also followed after Maria.

“It seems that we must. I highly doubt you’ll find a warm place, but if you find a cave then that should help alleviate some of the cold.” Mira said while running with them.

The two of them nodded and immediately started looking for any signs of a cave.

This place wasn’t just a flat icy tundra, no, it almost looked like a world that had a layer of ice put on top of it.

There were Forests of Ice, where the trees seemed to be made of ice. Ice mountains, Ice canyons, Ice plains, even a place that looked like a desert of ice. The desert of ice had tiny grains of crystal ice that looked almost like sand, it was quite incredible.

The three of them weren’t able to take note of everything as they just ran in a direction that was sure to have a cave of some sort, the canyon.

Sure, they could probably go anywhere but the flatlands and desert to find a cave, but finding a cave in a forest is like finding a needle in a haystack and they had a feeling if they charged to the mountains recklessly, the only thing awaiting them is death.

They thought that a canyon would surely have beasts as well, but finding a cave would be many times easier as all they have to do is open their eyes.

It didn’t take them long to reach the canyon as it wasn’t that far away from where they started.

The place was eerily quiet around the canyon which made the three of them feel uneasy. On their way to the canyon, they didn’t spot any beasts or hear any noises either. The whole place was quiet as nothing moved or made a sound, there wasn’t even any wind. Even stepping on the ice hardly made any noise, if any at all.

Their hairs were standing on end as their bodies and minds screamed danger, but there was nothing.

They were just waiting for some random beast to come out and attack them, in fact, they were hoping for that at this point. It would be much simpler if that were the case.

The three of them tried to push this to the back of their minds as they formed wings on their backs and jumped into the canyon to start looking for a cave.

The canyon was incredible, unlike anything one would ever see in their lifetime. It was tens of kilometers deep with ice covering every inch of it. The moonlight reflected off of the sides of the canyon which made it much brighter than on the surface.

It also made it much easier to find a cave as they were able to detect every hole along the walls of the canyon.

The three of them made their way towards a small entrance that was barely big enough for one person to fit through, but after making their way inside, they found it to be big enough to fit 4 people if they scrunched together.

The first thing Maria and Celaine did is get close to each other to warm them up while Maria layered herself in light to see if that’ll warm them up, which it did a little.

Mira, on the other hand, was feeling conflicted. This place was perfect for her to grow, but the only problem was that wherever she went, she felt danger.

Even in this cave, she didn’t feel any better and felt like she was going to die at any moment.

‘Why am I getting this feeling of death no matter where we are? What’s wrong with this place? Is it a beast? Is it the climate? What’s wrong with this place?’ Mira asked these questions but found no answers.

“I’m going to block the entrance just in case. You two just warm up and we can discuss our situation after.” Mira said to them, but they were too cold to hear what she said and focused on warming up.

Mira walked over to the entrance and started layering it in ice, albeit much weaker than the ice that is already present.

After that, she sat near Maria and Celaine and tried to help them warm up a bit as well.

***

In this world of ice, on the highest peak, a being slowly opened its eyes and looked in the direction Mira’s group was running.

It thought of something for a second before closing its eyes. It seemed that, for whatever reason, Mira’s group narrowly escaped death as this entity chose to ignore them for now.

Even though it’s been a long time since it’s had any visitors in this place, that is of no concern to this being. It only wants to stay in this frozen world and cultivate in peace.

Although this being was not human, it was highly intelligent maybe even more intelligent than humans, and was getting close to being able to gain its human form. It didn’t want to take any risks even if the trespassers were weak. It seems to understand that even a weakling is capable of amazing things if it’s cornered.