Desolate Era (Book 36 - Book 40)

However, this was a place so dangerous that even someone like Realmslord Windgrace would only enter after calling a few friends to help out.

“Master! Master!” Flamewing let out an excited cry, his voice forcibly tearing through the suppressive effect of the terrifying aura of cold. Ning was able to hear him clearly from afar.

“Flamewing, what happened?!” Ning immediately moved, transforming into a streak of light as he flew straight towards Flamewing. Flamewing was standing within an icy gorge.

“Master, take a look! Do you see that?” Flamewing was rather excited, and he flapped his wing a few times as he pointed towards the front.

Ning hurriedly looked, only to see a series of long slender green leaves that were each three meters long. They were all growing slanted alongside the distant, icy-jade walls of the gorge. There had to be hundreds of those leaves, and there was a fruit at the very center of them. This fruit was completely azure in color, and it emanated a particularly pungent smell.

“Incense Spirit-Fruit?” Ning was rather amazed. This fruit was the second-ranked Daomerge treasure, but it clearly wasn’t ripe yet. Fully ripened Incense Spirit-Fruit was flecked with red and would emanate an absolutely alluring aroma which would cause even Hegemons to drool. For many major powers, Incense Spirit-Fruit was primarily considered a delicacy to be eaten. How many Daolords could possibly procure such a treasure, after all?

“So the Icewind Sea has Incense Spirit-Fruit within it?” Ning was very surprised. When Realmslord Windgrace had come here, he hadn’t found any Incense Spirit-Fruit. However, the Icewind Sea was a very large place; there had to be many places here which the Realmslord had yet to visit.

“Haha.” Hegemon Azurefiend flew over as well. He stared at the Incense Spirit-Fruit, then laughed, “Darknorth, your luck isn’t bad. We’ve just entered the Icewind Sea and haven’t even landed on the main continent, and you’ve already discovered some Incense Spirit-Fruit on an iceberg planet floating at the very outskirts. Given your crazy luck, you will probably be able to find the Daomerge Cloudfire Flower after all.”

“Right.” Ning nodded. Judging from the information Realmslord Windgrace had provided, Incense Spirit-Fruit would probably be of very limited use to him. However, it was still far more valuable than a Voidsea Jadeseal and still could be considered a valuable treasure.





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Book 38, Chapter 33 - Descending Upon the Continent


After an hour, Ji Ning and his team had finished fully scouting out this ice planet. They didn’t find any Daomerge Firecloud Flowers, while they only found a single Incense Spirit-Fruit. They did find quite a number of other marvelous items.

“There was nothing?” The Flamewing God continued to fly about the skies like a streak of light, unwilling to admit defeat as he continued the search.

“Forget it, Flamewing. This ice planet was nothing more than a tiny fragment of the Icewind Sea continent. We should feel lucky that we even found a single Incense Spirit-Fruit,” Ning called out loudly.

Whoosh. Flamewing descended and transformed into human form. He stared at the floating azure fruit before them, then muttered, “It isn’t even ripe yet. I wonder how long it would take for it to fully ripen.”

“Judging from the looks of it, it’ll take roughly ten thousand chaos cycles to fully ripen,” Ning estimated with a smile. “But that’s simple.” Ning stepped forward to set up a formation around the spirit-fruit, causing spacetime to accelerate. As time began to speed up around the spirit-fruit, it began to absorb increasingly greater amounts of energy from the surrounding area.

Ning couldn’t just harvest it right away, as fruits like this could only develop in highly specific environments! Even if Ning moved it over to another part of the Icewind Sea, he still might not be able to ensure its survival.

“I’ll accelerate time around it by a rate of 3000x. If I increase it any further, the rate of energy absorption will destroy the entire frozen gorge,” Ning said. Powerful cultivators were living beings, making it extremely difficult to accelerate time for them. The Incense Spirit-Fruit, however, was just a type of unique vegetable. Given Ning’s mastery over the Dao of Time and the Dao of Formations, he would be able to easily accelerate time by even a rate of 10,000,000x. Slowing down time wasn’t too hard either. His main worry was that if he accelerated time too fast, the environment wouldn’t be able to provide the Incense Spirit-Fruit with enough energy.

“Thankfully, the Incense Spirit-Fruit will maintain its potency indefinitely after ripening.” Ning shook his head. “If it was like the Daomerge Firecloud Flower, which must be used within a thousand years after it ripens, it would be a pain to deal with.”

“The Daomerge Firecloud Flower has a far more powerful effect. Of course it also comes with more stringent requirements,” Azurefiend said.

Ning scanned the area one final time, then said: “Let’s go. If we have enough time, we can come back after a few chaos cycles.” Ning and the others boarded the realmship, then departed from this ice planet and entered the tempest once more.

Because Ning had personally set up a formation on the planet, he was able to sense its location even as they flew farther and farther away from the ice planet.

……

Whooooosh. A wild wind howled ravenously through the void, causing even Ning and the others to have a limited field of vision. All of them were staring at the outside, but there was nothing but a haze blocking their sight.

Still, judging from how powerful the infinitely cold aura radiating from the icy sea of energy was in each direction, they were able to sense the general direction of the main continent.

Time flowed on, one year at a time. The realmship continued to fly forwards at maximum speed, while Ning and his team remained within the warm interior, eating and drinking. Ning and Azurefiend often discussed the Dao with each other. Ning’s advantage was that he was skilled in many Daos, while Azurefiend was a Hegemon. They occasionally gained insights from their discussions with each other.

They spent over 150,000,000 years slowly flying through the tempest. During this time, they only encountered one additional ice planet. Alas, this one didn’t have any treasures which intrigued Ning at all, and the total value of the materials they found on it was perhaps at most comparable to an Archon’s networth. Ning naturally didn’t care at all.

“Here we are.” Ning revealed a smile as he rose to his feet.

“We’ve made it already?” Flamewing, Azurefiend, and Whitethaw all looked towards the outside, only to see an utterly vast iceworld that was a bit hard to make out due to the storm. This was a world that was unfathomably vaster than the two planet-sized pieces of ice they had encountered previously.

“Starting from today, all of us must be careful. Especially you, Flamewing; don’t cause any trouble!” Ning instructed. “The Icewind Sea is quite massive; so long as we remain cautious, we might be able to avoid detection by Sourcewalkers.”

“What have we to fear?” Flamewing was unhappy. “Master, based on what Realmslord Windgrace told us, the Sourcewalkers of the Icewind Sea are at most comparable to Otherverse Lords in power. I can beat the crap out of any of them!”

“Obey my commands.” Ning frowned. He was afraid of Flamewing causing trouble. Azurefiend was a Hegemon; he would definitely be extremely cautious in such a terrifying place as the Icewind Sea. The Protector Whitethaw went without saying; he would obey all orders unquestioningly. Flamewing, however… Ning might have tamed him, but he was still like a child. He might just go crazy and start causing chaos.