12dz Chapter 406 Ice Dew Flower
Chapter 406 Ice Dew Flower
Hu Qing curiously reached out and touched the edge of the crack, and his fingertips just touched the flickering and free fragments of space.
A tiny wound was cut open in an instant, and bright red blood oozed out.
"Hiss—" Hu Qing quickly retracted his hand, "What the hell is this...?"
"Be careful, this thing is beyond my control."
Gu Yang looked smug, then shrugged, "This is my new ability—an upgraded version of 'Breaking the Air'. It can temporarily tear space apart and create a small portal."
After saying that, he shook his head casually, stepped into the crack without hesitation, and his figure was instantly swallowed by the darkness.
Hu Qing hesitated for a moment, then followed in. Xiao Zi roared excitedly and rushed into the crack with flapping wings.
Only the rat man was left standing there trembling, looking at the sharp space fragments and swallowing his saliva.
But the cracks began to flicker unsteadily, and he was the only one left here.
He finally made up his mind, closed his eyes and jumped in.
A dizzy feeling came over me, as if I was thrown into a drum and spun dozens of times.
When everyone regained their balance, they found themselves standing in an unfamiliar space.
Hu Qing took out a lighting stone from the storage ring. The soft white light dispelled the darkness and illuminated the space hidden behind the stone wall.
This space is more spacious than imagined, and the light from the lighting stone seems to have no end.
The space behind the stone wall suddenly became clear, several times more spacious than the cave outside, as if the entire mountain had been hollowed out.
Hu Qing walked in front, and the light from the lighting stone cast swaying shadows on the wet rock wall.
As you go deeper, the stone walls on both sides gradually expand to the sides, forming a natural dome hall.
This cave looks exactly as Hu Qing had guessed, it is completely in the shape of an hourglass.
Suddenly, a faint light in the distance attracted everyone's attention, and it was particularly eye-catching in the dark mountain.
"There's light!" The rat man pointed excitedly ahead.
Several people quickened their pace and soon arrived under the light source——
A pearl-sized hole had appeared in the rock wall above my head at some point, and gray light from the sky was pouring in.
The melted snow water dripped down the small hole, just watering the blue flowers below.
Gu Yang was the first to squat down and stare at the strange flower in fascination.
The flower was ice blue all over, its petals were as thin as cicada wings, and its surface was covered with fine ice crystals.
There was a visible chill surrounding the flowers, and it seemed as if even the air around them was frozen.
Every drop of falling snow water stays briefly on the petals, reflecting a diamond-like brilliance, and is then slowly absorbed by the flowers, turning into wisps of rising cold air.
"It's so beautiful..." Gu Yang stretched out his hand unconsciously, but was pulled back by Hu Qing when he was about to touch it.
"Wait, don't be so impulsive."
Hu Qing looked around cautiously, "The one that could be guarded by that white bear must be an extraordinary creature."
The ground is covered with the white bear's paw prints of varying depths. It is obvious that it often wanders here. This should be his treasured treasure.
What's even more strange is that the ground within three meters around the flower is all thick frozen soil, and there is a mirror-smooth ice surface under the flower.
"You two," Hu Qing turned and waved towards Xiao Zi and the rat man, "go and look around to see if there's anything else. This flower is a little weird, don't touch it yet."
"baby?!"
When Xiao Zi heard this word, her eyes lit up instantly. She immediately forgot about Binghua and rushed to the depths of the cave.
He was afraid that someone else would snatch his treasure away in advance!
The rat man hesitated for a moment, then followed happily.
Gu Yang stretched out his hand to touch the ice-blue flower in disbelief, but before his fingertips touched the petals, a biting chill suddenly rushed up his arm.
He retracted his hand quickly, only to see that his entire palm was covered with a thin layer of ice, and the skin was an unnatural bluish-white.
"Hiss--" Gu Yang sucked in a breath of cold air, and his body in the Duanchen period quickly started to work, healing the frostbite, but the piercing pain was real.
He shook his hands and cursed, "What the hell is this? Even I can't handle it?"
Hu Qing frowned, picked up a dead branch from the side, and carefully reached towards the flower.
When the branch was only one centimeter away from the petals, something strange happened—
"Kakaka..."
Visible frost spread rapidly along the dead branches, and in the blink of an eye it approached the position where Hu Qing was holding it.
He decisively let go, and the completely frozen wooden stick fell to the ground, making a crisp cracking sound and breaking into several pieces.
Gu Yang stepped on a broken branch, and with a crisp "crack" sound, the wooden stick broke into pieces.
What's even more bizarre is that the fragments are covered with fine blue ice crystals, which sparkle like stars when illuminated by the light.
"What kind of flower is this?" Gu Yang scratched his head. "We can't go back empty-handed, right?"
Hu Qing closed his eyes and pondered, his mind rapidly flipping through the ancient books he had read in the past.
Suddenly, his eyes lit up: "I remember! This is the 'Ice Dew Flower', which is recorded in the 'Nine Provinces Wonderful Things' -
It only grows in extremely cold places, and must have thousand-year-old unmelted black ice as its roots and dew from heaven as its source."
He pointed to the small hole above his head and said, "This place of skylight and snow water just meets the conditions for 'sky dew'."
"It's so magical, but what's the use?" Gu Yang's eyes lit up.
“It’s an invaluable treasure for ice cultivators,” Hu Qing explained, “not only can it significantly increase ice attribute affinity, but it can also accelerate cultivation.
Even if you are not an ice cultivator, you can gain strong cold resistance after taking it."
Gu Yang rubbed his hands: "How do I pick it? I can't just stare it down, right?"
Hu Qing scratched his head. The book seemed to only describe the characteristics and properties, and did not seem to explain how to collect them.
After listening to Hu Qing's explanation, Gu Yang scratched his hair and suddenly his eyes lit up:
"I have an idea! Since we can't touch the flowers directly, why don't we just dig up the soil as well!"
He took out a fine iron shovel from his storage ring with a clang and weighed it in his hand.
Hu Qing frowned slightly: "Are you sure this won't hurt the spirit flower?"
"It's better than just watching!" Gu Yang grinned, picked up the shovel and dug into the frozen soil under the ice dew flower.
Hu Qing was silent. There was indeed no better way at the moment, so he could only let Gu Yang do it.
"Chong-"
The shovel tip collided with the frozen soil, making a sound of metal clashing.
"Hey!"
Several cracks appeared on the hard frozen soil, and the ice dew flowers were shaken slightly, with ice crystals falling from the petals, but they still bloomed tenaciously.
"The soil is so hard!" Gu Yang spat and continued to shovel.
With shovelful after shovel, the frozen soil gradually loosened.
Strangely, the root system of the ice dew flower is not well developed, with only a few crystal roots rooted in the soil, as if it deliberately does not want to go deep into the soil below.
After digging for half an hour, Gu Yang finally dug out the entire ice dew flower along with the frozen soil.
He carefully pinched the bottom of the soil and was surprised to find that the spiritual flower really no longer released cold air and was as quiet as an ordinary plant.
"It's done!"
Hu Qing touched the petals tentatively, and felt a cool touch on his fingertips.
Those ice crystals are like the finest pearls, warm with a hint of coldness, but no longer hurtful.
"There's only one..." Gu Yang scratched his head, "Then how do we divide it now?"
Hu Qing said calmly, "Since you picked it, it belongs to you. The journey ahead is dangerous, and your improvement in strength will benefit us all."
Gu Yang stared at the spiritual flower in his hand in silence for a moment, then suddenly reached out and tore off half of the petals, stuffing them directly into Hu Qing's mouth:
"Good brothers should each share half, why bother dividing it between you and me!"
"Hmm! Wait..."
Hu Qing was caught off guard and felt a coldness in his mouth.
The petals melted in the mouth, and the imagined bitterness did not appear. Instead, it turned into a sweet stream that slid into the throat.
Before he could say anything, an extremely cold air exploded from his dantian and instantly swept through his limbs and bones!
"The effect of the medicine... is so strong!"
Hu Qing quickly sat cross-legged, and white spiritual power rose around his body.
His eyebrows and hair tips were instantly covered with white frost, and his entire body froze in place like an ice sculpture. Now he could only practice his skills to guide the cold current.
Gu Yang laughed heartily upon seeing this, stuffed the remaining half of the flower into his mouth, and immediately shuddered from the cold: "Holy crap...it's so cold!"
The next second his laughter stopped abruptly, and he fell straight down, hitting the ground with a thud like a popsicle.