Grinding EXP From Fireball Skill

"Alright, the Ice Soul cost us who knows how much time. We need to get going, or we’ll be too late."

Li Wei said, seeing Gu Sewei still staring blankly.

At his words, Gu Sewei snapped out of it, tightening her grip on her Frost Staff and nodding vigorously.

She closed her eyes, channeling her senses through the Frost Staff for a moment before pointing down and to the left.

Gu Sewei opened her eyes. "It’s that way," she said. "Let’s keep going."

Li Wei and Gu Sewei continued onward, heading for the coordinates of the Time Secret Realm given to them by the Ice Queen.

They paused for brief rests whenever they encountered the frigid air currents.

After that, they weren’t attacked by any more Ice Souls.

Even in the Extreme Cold Abyss, Ice Souls were an extremely rare phenomenon.

The chances of encountering one were like winning the grand prize in a lottery—next to zero.

The two flew deeper and deeper into the Extreme Cold Abyss.

The temperature of their surroundings plummeted, dropping from minus one hundred and eighty degrees at the edge of the Extreme Cold Abyss to minus two hundred and forty.

Li Wei began to fear that the deepest part of the Extreme Cold Abyss might approach Absolute Zero.

At that temperature, even time itself would likely be frozen.

’Could that be the reason the Time Dragon’s treasure was left here?’ Li Wei wondered. ’The Power of Time, frozen solid?’

Li Wei shook his head. It was useless to think so much about it. He’d find out when they got there.

Gu Sewei called out in surprise and delight, "Li Wei, I think we’ve reached the bottom!"

"Oh? So soon?"

Li Wei was surprised. He’d thought it would take them at least half a day more of flying to reach the bottom.

Gu Sewei shot Li Wei an exasperated look. "How much longer did you want to fly? I, for one, am about to collapse from exhaustion."

"If you’re tired, talk less," Li Wei said calmly.

In the Extreme Cold Abyss, even speaking a single sentence consumed several times more energy than in a normal environment.

The instant one opened their mouth to speak, the cold snatched the heat from within.

Gu Sewei glanced at him and said no more.

THUD! THUD!

The two landed on the frozen ground.

Li Wei looked around, surprised to discover that he could actually see soil at the bottom of the Extreme Cold Abyss.

Though it was frozen solid under a thick layer of ice, its presence was still a great surprise to him.

He realized he hadn’t seen soil since entering the Extreme North Icefield.

Everything he could see was either snow or ice.

Li Wei glanced around and asked, "Which way now?"

Gu Sewei pointed straight ahead.

After they had walked for a while, Li Wei suddenly let out a surprised "Huh?"

Gu Sewei glanced at him instinctively, her eyes questioning what he’d found.

Li Wei shook his head. "I’m not entirely sure," he said. "Let’s go have a look. I think it’s a person."

"A person?"

Gu Sewei couldn’t help but speak up.

It was far from easy to run into another person inside the Extreme Cold Abyss.

They quickened their pace. After crossing several hundred meters of frozen earth, they finally saw the "person" Li Wei had mentioned.

Gu Sewei stared at the patch of red Ice Crystals on the ground, then looked at Li Wei speechlessly, her eyes screaming, ’You call *this* a person?’

Li Wei crouched, picked up a fragment of red ice, rubbed it between his fingers, and brought it to his nose to smell.

A frigid, bloody scent shot up his nostrils, making him want to sneeze.

The chill was instantly neutralized by the Fire Spirit within him.

"I was right," Li Wei said. "These are the remains of someone who died here."

He looked up. "They must have fallen from above," he said. "Shattered on impact, then frozen into these ice shards by the frigid wind."

"That sounds like a truly terrible way to die," Gu Sewei said, too stunned to think of anything else.

Having flown down from above herself, she knew that a Fall from the top of the Extreme Cold Abyss would take a very long time to reach the bottom.

Over such a long period, the person falling would have likely been scared to death long before impact.

Li Wei glanced around and spread his Spiritual Perception, discovering that the icy shards of the corpse were scattered everywhere.

"Let’s search the area," he said. "See if we can find their clothes or equipment. It might tell us who this person was."

A look of disgust crossed Gu Sewei’s face. The idea of rummaging through the dark, surrounded by the shattered remains of a corpse, searching for leftover clothes and items was fundamentally repulsive.

But Li Wei paid no mind to what Gu Sewei was thinking and had already begun his search.

Spiritual Perception could determine an object’s shape and simple properties (hot or cold, hard or soft, liquid or solid), but it couldn’t reveal the whole truth.

Moreover, in the cryogenic environment of the Extreme Cold Abyss, virtually any object was frozen into a solid block of ice.

To his Spiritual Perception, they were indistinguishable from the rocks and ice on the ground.

Therefore, he had to get close and observe things with his own eyes.

Li Wei stood up, disappointed. It was just a piece of ice that had looked like an object from a distance.

From a short distance away, Gu Sewei’s voice called out. "There’s something here."

Hearing her, Li Wei locked onto her position with his Spiritual Perception and hurried over.

Gu Sewei had found a piece of Metal Armor, smashed flat from the impact.

The Armor was frozen solid to the ground.

Li Wei used his flames to melt the ice before he could pick up the Armor.

Touching the Metal Armor with bare hands would likely cause one’s skin to stick to it.

Li Wei held the Armor at a distance with his Mage’s Hand to examine it.

"There’s a mark here. What does it mean?"

Li Wei had found an unfamiliar mark on the Armor.

Other than that, there didn’t seem to be any more clues.

He showed it to Gu Sewei, thinking she might recognize it.

Seeing the mark on the Armor, Gu Sewei looked surprised. "This is Armor forged by the Beastman Race," she said. "Does that mean the one who fell to their death was a Beastman?"

Li Wei thought for a moment, then nodded. "It’s possible."

"The Ice Queen did say that the ones attempting to awaken the Ice Emperor are likely connected to the Beastman Race."

An excited look appeared on Gu Sewei’s face. "Does that mean we’re close to them?"

"Great! Let’s press on, catch up to them, and finish them off!" Gu Sewei exclaimed excitedly.

Li Wei quickly cut her off. "Whoa there, hold on. You don’t even know how strong they are. Rushing in blindly like that is just asking to be killed."

"They died from a fall. How strong could they possibly be?" Gu Sewei argued.

Li Wei shook his head. "Not necessarily. Even Legendary Powerhouses would be killed by the fall if they were frozen solid by these frigid currents first."

That said, Li Wei was fairly certain the person who died wasn’t a Legendary Level powerhouse.

The idea of a Legendary Level powerhouse dying from a fall was laughable.

It was just that, in the Extreme Cold Abyss, such a possibility existed.

However minuscule.

The fall was so long that any Legendary Level powerhouse would have had some way to slow their descent and save themselves.

"Let’s not worry about them for now," Li Wei said. "Our priority is the Time Secret Realm. We don’t even know how long we’ve been in the Extreme Cold Abyss. We absolutely can’t be too late."

Hearing this, Gu Sewei could only nod reluctantly. "Alright."

She looked at Li Wei, a little puzzled. "Why are you so fixated on finding the Time Secret Realm?" she asked.