Chapter 46: The Awakening of Ice and Illusions
Xiao Qiang took out a porcelain bottle filled with shimmering pills while calmly speaking.
"What is this?" the Ice Emperor asked, raising an eyebrow in suspicion.
"This is something developed by the Sun Moon Empire," Xiao Qiang replied, holding up the bottle. "It's called the Soul Skill Pill. According to their research, if you feed this pill to a soul beast and kill it shortly afterward, there's a high chance of acquiring its strongest innate soul skill."
"Despicable humans!" the Ice Emperor growled, furious at the thought.
"Calm down, Bingbing!" Tian Meng interjected, laughing nervously. "We're all becoming Xiao Qiang's soul rings eventually, so don't worry too much about it."
Still irritated, the Ice Emperor snorted and lashed her tail, sending Tian Meng flying into a nearby ice wall. After using the silkworm as a makeshift punching bag, her temper finally cooled.
"You even know that I lack our clan's strongest innate skill, Ice Explosion. It seems you weren't lying after all."
Xiao Qiang gave a small nod. "That's right."
"Give it to me," Bing Di said, stepping forward. "If this helps me awaken Ice Explosion, it'll be a win for both of us."
Xiao Qiang handed the Soul Skill Pill over. Bing Di didn't hesitate. She swallowed the pill, and the effect triggered immediately. Her body trembled slightly, and her expression twisted in discomfort.
"This pill… it works, but the level is too low," she said through gritted teeth. "With just one, it's not enough…"
Before she could finish her sentence, Xiao Qiang took out several more porcelain bottles and opened them—each one filled with identical Soul Skill Pills.
The Ice Emperor blinked in silence, speechless.
"With this dosage," Xiao Qiang said, "you should be able to awaken Ice Explosion. As for the other soul skills, I was originally planning to decide on my own and give you four. But since you're someone with clear thoughts and not as passive as Huo Yuhao, I'd rather hear your opinion."
The Ice Emperor paused briefly, considering his words. After seeing Xiao Qiang's capabilities with her own eyes, she decided it was best to cooperate and strategize together. The two held a quick but serious discussion.
In the end, under Xiao Qiang's direction, they finalized a total of ten soul skills—some for soul rings and others for soul bones.
While Tian Meng acted as a lookout, Xiao Qiang and Bing Di began the fusion process. Thanks to Xiao Qiang's far superior physique compared to Huo Yuhao, the fusion of both soul rings and soul bones only took about two and a half hours.
When it was over, Xiao Qiang stood in the snow, his clothes completely torn apart from the energy surges—only two wrist soul guides remained intact. Yet, despite standing in the heart of the icy Far North, he didn't feel cold in the slightest. If anything, it was pleasantly warm.
"So this is the life of an ice-type soul master… even in this freezing land, I can't feel a bit of chill," he muttered with satisfaction. "Feels pretty good."
He retrieved a fresh set of clothes from his wrist soul guide and got dressed. Then, raising one hand, he formed a sword from condensed ice. With a casual wave, he embedded it into the snow.
Then came another sword. And another. One after another, until twenty-one ice swords stood in a row.
Xiao Qiang walked fifty meters away from the ice blades and pulled out a thick tendon from his soul guide—it was the tendon of a thousand-year-old Green Wood Ox. He stretched it carefully, forming a bowstring, and attached it to a bow crafted from extreme ice.
He then created an arrow, entirely formed of pure ice, and nocked it to the bow.
Thwack!
He fired the arrow, hitting one of the ice swords dead-on, shattering it. One by one, he shot all twenty-one swords until none remained.
This precise control and execution would've been impossible for him in his past life. But now, as an ice attribute soul master, it came naturally.
Just then, Tian Meng's voice echoed in his sea of consciousness.
"What are you doing?" he asked curiously.
"Nothing much. Just playing with ice," Xiao Qiang replied calmly.
"Oh." Tian Meng accepted the answer without further questioning. "By the way, have you thought about what you want for your fourth soul ring?"
"I have some ideas…" Xiao Qiang turned to Bing Di. "Bing Di, are there any mirror beasts in the Far North?"
"Mirror beasts?" She thought for a moment before nodding. "Yes, there's a 20,000-year-old one I know of. You should be able to handle it with the bonus my soul bone gives you."
"Only 20,000 years, huh? That's a bit on the low side," Xiao Qiang said, rubbing his chin. "But with Brother Tian Meng here, it should be fine. Let's go."
Guided by Bing Di, Xiao Qiang quickly reached the lair of the mirror beast. With Tian Meng's spiritual detection, finding it was child's play.
As the mirror beast came into view, Xiao Qiang's eyes spun—the three-tomoe Sharingan activated instantly.
The beast didn't even have time to react before it was dragged into an illusion.
In the past, Xiao Qiang had limited ability with illusions due to only having one tomoe. But after reaching three, a natural understanding of genjutsu had emerged within him. Coupled with Tian Meng's spiritual interference, his illusion capabilities had skyrocketed.
For a soul beast like the mirror beast, which was only 20,000 years old, Xiao Qiang's illusion was inescapable.
In the illusion realm, the mirror beast found itself tied to a cross under a blood moon. In the sky, Xiao Qiang's silhouette loomed over it with an eerie calm.
"Sorry," Xiao Qiang said softly, "you'll be experiencing this for the next twenty-four hours."
The mirror beast didn't understand—until Xiao Qiang stabbed it with a blade.
It screamed in agony, but when it blacked out and awoke again, he was still there, smiling coldly, with the same blade in hand.
Over and over, the pain came again. The beast lost count of how many times it had been stabbed. It looked up and, for the first time, saw a massive clock in the sky slowly ticking down.
"23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds remaining," the illusion chimed.
When the mirror beast's mental state finally crumbled, Xiao Qiang ended the torture with a single arrow through the heart.
Outside the illusion, he quickly absorbed the soul ring. Then, he dissected the beast's corpse and found what he expected—an extremely rare head-type soul bone.
"So it can be done," he mused. "Sharingan illusion boosted by mental interference… but man, this method really is pretty nasty."
He took out a soul power crystal and channeled his power into it.
"Level 48. Not bad."
He chuckled. "Xiao Hongchen just reached level 49 two days ago. Better not tell him about this, or he might explode."
"Hmph, do you even know what level of existence my soul ring represents?" Bing Di snorted proudly in his mind. "If your body weren't so limited, I'd have pushed your level even higher."
"All right, all right," Xiao Qiang said, amused. "Anyway, if there's nothing else, go ahead and rest. You've worked hard."
"Mm… good. I'm exhausted," Bing Di murmured sleepily.
"Wait a sec," Xiao Qiang said, stopping her just before she dozed off. "Bing Di, we still have one more issue to deal with."
"What now?" Bing Di asked tiredly.
"You don't want anything to happen to the Snow Emperor, do you?"