Here, deep inside the surrounding mountains, where it was usually shrouded in mist and never saw sunlight, it was not dark at all, but rather quite bright. Soft light shone from all directions on the cliff walls, illuminating the entire bottom of the cliff as bright as day. Upon careful inspection, Xuefeng found that the cliff walls were densely studded with countless gleaming beads, each resembling a small egg. The soft light emanated from these beads.
Oddly, these beads didn't seem to be solely for illumination, as they were irregularly embedded, some densely packed while others were sparse, with variations in depth and even some of the beads appeared to be broken, as if they had been forcefully embedded into the stones. This raised a question in Xuefeng's mind, so after Xiaokai was placed on the grassy edge of the pool, he walked to the base of the cliff to study them. Each of these beads was crystal clear, radiating a faint chill. When he tried to touch them, they felt icy cold to the touch.
Xuefeng carefully observed these beads, which only appeared increasingly peculiar to him. These icy beads, if not maintained by a powerful force, would only remain cold in similar temperatures, yet this location had existed for thousands of years. The climate of the entire Yellow Mountain wasn't frigid, yet these beads had remained cold for a millennium, signifying that they must contain the energy to maintain their temperature for this long.
What kind of object could release a chill for a millennium? In his mind, he deemed such objects to be divine artifacts. With hundreds of these beads, he couldn't fathom their purpose. Why would the predecessors have embedded hundreds of these beads into the cliff?
After pondering for a while, a thought suddenly flashed through Xuefeng’s mind like lightning, causing him to momentarily start and almost exclaim aloud. A chilling realization dawned on him — these must be the Ice Beads of a Thousand Frost!
It was said that during the golden age of cultivation, there were ten legendary divine artifacts, and the "Thousand Frost Canopy" was one of them. Its exterior appeared to be a cloth canopy, but it was covered with exactly 999 ice beads, each not your average type but containing the essence of ancient frost from the far north. Almost every single bead was a significant treasure, and when clad together, they didn't just add up their powers; the unique array formation of the Thousand Frost Canopy could multiply their powers, making it undisputedly one of the top ten divine artifacts in that era of numerous adept cultivators.
The beads on the cliff wall before him undoubtedly belonged to the Thousand Frost Canopy. Evidently, at a crucial moment, the owner of the Thousand Frost Canopy had exhausted all of its power to unleash a fatal blow. Consequently, the divine artifact was destroyed, and the ice beads were scattered, thus ending this legendary treasure’s existence.
Xuefeng's hand trembled as he lightly touched the ice bead. Attempting to dig it out, the moment he activated his inner energy, the entire cliff suddenly shook, as if an immense force beneath the ground wanted to unleash itself. Startled, Xuefeng hastily withdrew his hand, having just realized there would be calamitous consequences if he forcibly removed these beads.
"Alas..." Xuefeng let out a quiet sigh. They say cultivators have no desire or want, but in the face of this extraordinary divine instrument, he could only watch from afar, without hope of possession, making the Sect leader of the Emei sect feel very vexed.
"Hey..." Xiaokai suddenly shouted from not far away. "Stop!"
"What's wrong?" Xuefeng swiftly returned to where Xiaokai was.
"What did you just do?" Xiaokai pointed to the empty air. "Look, the entire area is filled with this white gas, and when you touched the cliff, this gas suddenly rushed toward you, as if there was a hole, and all the gas wanted to fly out from there."
Xuefeng was completely speechless about Xiaokai's gifts. He didn't see any "white gas" at all, but he was insightful and instantly understood Xiaokai's meaning. This place was sealed with incredibly rich spiritual energy, together with many different characteristics of energy left from thousands of years ago. These forces' interactions were extremely complex and had reached a perfect balance under the suppression of the ice beads. If Xuefeng were to remove the beads, it would certainly upset this equilibrium, potentially causing catastrophic disaster to the area.
"Alas..." Xuefeng let out a quiet sigh, the Leader of Emei unable to hide his frustration.
"If you look at this pool," Xiao Kai said, "I don't know why the color is so pure, it's completely like a piece of sky-blue, it doesn't look like pool water, it looks more like jade, maybe the pool water itself is blue."
Xuefeng nodded, swung his robe sleeves, and a surge of vitality rushed over, wanting to stir up some water splashes to see the color, but when the vitality went over, it seemed as if it had entered the boundless sea, the pool water remained motionless, not even a ripple.
Xuefeng frowned, snorted, and used a lot of force this time, but even with the vitality going over, there was still no response, the pool seemed bottomless, no matter how much force was used, as soon as it touched the water, it was completely dissolved.
"Don't be so troublesome," Xiao Kai ran over and reached into the pool with his hand. Xuefeng was startled and exclaimed loudly, "No!" But before he finished speaking, Xiao Kai had already scooped up a handful of water from the pool and looked at it in his hand. The pool water was clear and transparent, obviously colorless.
You should know that places with restrictions are taboo to touch directly, with Xuefeng's experience, seeing Xiao Kai take action, he thought something was about to happen. Seeing Xiao Kai actually scoop up the water, he also couldn't help but feel a bit self-deprecating: it seems that this place is really friendly to this idiotic sect leader, but to myself, it is very unfriendly.
Suddenly there was a loud "splash", and Xiao Kai exclaimed, "Oh!" Xuefeng was surprised, and without hesitation, he grabbed Xiao Kai, and their bodies almost turned into a stream of light, pushing back about four or five zhang before he said, "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing," Xiao Kai was anxious. "My Wordless Book fell into the pool."
Indeed, when Xuefeng looked over, the last corner of the Wordless Book was just submerged in the pool water. Xiao Kai suddenly felt his arm being grabbed tightly, it turned out that Xuefeng had unconsciously tightened his arm, completely focused on examining the pool water.
The pool water began to change!
The originally calm pool water suddenly seemed to boil, with a string of bubbles emerging, one by one bursting on the water surface. Although the bursting sound was slight, in such a scene and atmosphere, it seemed particularly thrilling. Without any hesitation, Xuefeng unsheathed his sword with a shout, "Xiao Kai, come up!"
Xiao Kai dared not say much, and quickly jumped up. Xuefeng didn't say a word, and swiftly ascended with the flying sword.
Everything here was too eerie. Who knows what taboo was triggered. Now the only thought of the Emei sect leader was to flee from the cliff as fast as possible, and to escape as far as possible. Once these ancient things were no longer restricted, it was difficult to imagine what kind of situation would unfold.
Unfortunately, his plan was doomed to fail. The space above the pool water seemed to suddenly have an invisible barrier. When the flying sword rushed up, it seemed to be stuck in adhesive mud, the stickiness was astonishing, so much so that even with Xuefeng's strength, he couldn't ascend at all, and the pressure from above was overwhelming. Xuefeng's forehead was covered in sweat, and he shouted, "Ha!" putting all his strength into a surge upwards.
With a "bang", it was as if hitting an iron plate. Xuefeng and Xiao Kai were stunned, the flying sword completely lost its strength, and quickly fell down.
"Alas, forget it, today's fate is such," Xuefeng let out a long sigh. With his high level of cultivation, at this point, he had to take it in stride. Standing by the pool, the rising bubbles calmed down.
Xiao Kai had a strange feeling, as if he could still sense that his Wordless Book was somewhere at the bottom of the pool. Although he couldn't see it, he could feel a surge of energy pouring into the Wordless Book from all directions. Even though it looked frightening on the water surface, he didn't feel any danger at all.
The vision lasted for about ten minutes, and eventually, the pool water completely boiled, countless bubbles rising and the entire bottom of the cliff was filled with hot air, like a natural sauna. Xuefeng automatically emitted a few feet of true qi, unaffected, while Xiao Kai was steamed with sweat all over, with his clothes soaked through. Feeling uncomfortable, he heard a splash of water, something suddenly jumped from the pool water and flew towards Xiao Kai.