Flying across the sky of a world filled with nothing, but ice completely devoid of life, a massive bird with 3 females is soaring towards the tallest mountain.

This massive bird has a 30-meter wingspan, is almost 20 meters long, and seems to have razor-sharp ice as feathers. But if one were to look closely they’d see that radiating off of this being are blazing blue flames that threaten to burn everything in sight to ash while also causing an insatiable cold.

These 4 beings are Elenei the Frost-Fire Phoenix, Mira, Maria, and Celaine. Mira’s group is currently flying on Elenei’s back, but they aren’t the least bit comfortable. It’s so damn cold on top of Elenei’s back, but that’s not the worst of it as it’s cold everywhere in this world. The worst part is they feel this cold trying to burn them to ash, which is an extremely disconcerting feeling.

Mira seems to be the only one that’s not having it rough, either that or she’s just not showing it.

It didn’t take them long for the giant Phoenix to make her way up on top of the tallest mountain, where her current residence is.

Once they reached this spot there are a few things that Mira and her group noticed. The first thing is how dense the Qi here is, but this isn’t too surprising considering a Phoenix lives here. Another thing they noticed was how cold it was on top of the mountain. This isn’t a normal cold either. To their surprise, there is no wind at the top of the mountain just like how it is for the rest of the world which only proves just how naturally cold it is on top of this mountain. Mira’s the only one out of the three who finds her body screaming in joy rather than pain and suffering.

They also immediately noticed the…garden? They aren’t sure what to call it because they’ve never seen any of these plants or herbs before. The place is packed full of icy flowers, mushrooms, roots, shrubs, grass, moss, and other things they’ve never seen or heard of before. There are also various minerals laying around that they’ve never seen or heard of before. All of these things seem to radiate tons of Qi into the area which only further increases the Qi density.

Then there is a large cave that seems to be where the Phoenix cultivates. This cave looks ordinary except for a large number of beads strung out all over the place which puzzles the three of them. The only thing they know is that these beads are radiating a very chaotic yet massive amount of Qi. They are sure that each of these beads most likely holds more Qi inside than tens maybe hundreds of them.

“Welcome to my abode, humans. As you can see it isn’t much, but this is pretty much everything that this world has to offer, well at least on the surface. There are probably other things hidden, but most of these things are useless to me so I quit searching after I found everything easily available.” They heard the majestic voice of Elenei flowing into their minds as they were brought out of their reverie.

“It is quite humble, but I like it! There’s no need for such extravagance when you literally have everything in the world and the best spot to cultivate!” Maria chimed in excitedly. She was hoping to make the most out of this place and do her best to catch up to Mira.

Elenei was a bit surprised at how cheerful Maria was, but she couldn’t help loosening up seeing her pure and innocent face. Even though Elenei is sure that Maria’s gone through some ** while hanging out with Mira, she still hasn’t lost that childhood innocence which is something extremely rare to see in a cultivator.

“Miss Elenei, I have a question. How are you able to speak into our minds like that?” Celaine asked curiously.

“When a magical beast becomes Rank 7 they gain this ability, well that is if they are intelligent enough to use it. Rank 7 should be equivalent to your human’s Nascent Soul Realm which is the Realm above Core Formation. When you reach that realm, you’ll be able to project your soul out of your body into what’s called Soul Sense. Soul Sense will allow you to search for things around you, levitate objects with your mind, and even send telepathic messages to other sentient beings. There are more uses, but those are the most basic.” Elenei explained, which excited Maria and Celaine, even Mira was listening in closely.

“What are those beads in the cave, Elenei? I’ve never seen anything like that before!” Maria asked with shining eyes.

Elenei looked at them a bit strangely and started to wonder where these country bumpkins came from. They don’t even know something as simple as this?

“That’s a beast core. They start to form when a magical beast becomes Rank 6, just like how you humans enter the Core Formation Realm. Those beast cores that you see in there are Rank 7 or above Beast Cores. In fact, that Tiger you killed a while back had a beast core. Didn’t you know?” Elenei spoke like this was common knowledge. Well, it was common knowledge, it’s just these three haven’t done anything other than train for who knows how long.

“What?!” Celaine and Maria were dumbfounded and even Mira was shocked. Mira immediately took out the stored corpse of the Tiger and started ripping the bloodless body apart for the core.

Sure enough, Mira found a golden bead around the size of a thumb in the Tiger’s abdomen.

…

“What can these cores be used for?” Mira asked after a long period of silence.

“Lots of things. Arrays, forging, alchemy, cultivating, formations, and more. Not only are beast cores used for this, but you can also use human cores as well.” Elenei said.

“Dammit…” Mira cursed under her breath as she thought back to the time when she killed numerous Soul Devouring Sect Core Formation Realm experts. Luckily it wasn’t a total waste because Rhydian seemed to have her fill with cores, but Mira would’ve liked to use those cores for herself.

Mira looked at the Tiger beast core in her hand and wondered if she could absorb it. Elenei sensed her thoughts and decided to warn her.

“If you are thinking about absorbing a beast core, then let me give you a warning. When absorbing energy directly from any core, human or beast, the Qi contained within it is much more chaotic and difficult to absorb than the ambient Qi. This is because this is the energy that belonged to said beast or human before they died. It was collected, refined, and compressed into their cores making it something that is only for them. Cores are much more efficient when used on pills, forging, arrays, etc. because Qi is Qi even if it was someone else’s. But if you choose to absorb it, the efficiency is quite bad unless you have a formation or something to help deal with the chaotic energy.”

“Another thing to note is that beasts have an easier time absorbing beast or human cores than humans do. Well, maybe not all beasts, but most beasts generally have an easier time and are able to absorb more than their human counterparts. We just have an easier time absorbing the chaotic energy in these cores.” Elenei explained, but it didn’t make Mira feel hesitant about absorbing the Qi within a beast core. Even if she’s only able to take in a fraction of the amount of Qi held within it, a beast core is vastly more valuable than tens maybe hundreds of Low-Tier spirit stones.

Mira nodded and stored the beast core and the tiger as thoughts started churning about going on a beast massacre in the next world they enter.