Cultivation Begins with Daily Intelligence Reports

315: Giant Ape’s Soul Astral Projection”Crack!” Several extremely faint sounds of ice cracking came from above.

Lin Jingyu didn’t even look up; his Divine Sense had already detected the danger.

He saw several monsters, as large as millstones and shaped like spiders, entirely composed of translucent Profound Ice. Their eight compound eyes gleamed with an eerie red light, silently swooping down from the cave ceiling!

Their razor-sharp mouthparts opened, spewing out several streams of pale, bone-chilling cold Qi, imbued with terrifying freezing power. Wherever they passed, even the air emitted a ”sizzling” freezing sound!

These Ice Spiderss moved stealthily, their aura almost perfectly integrated with the surrounding environment. If Lin Jingyu’s Divine Sense hadn’t been so powerful, he would have easily been ambushed.

However, Lin Jingyu didn’t even use his newly acquired startling thunder sword. Facing the deadly cold current rushing towards him, he merely pointed his fingers like a sword, seemingly casually, and poked forward.

”Chii! Chii! Chii!”

Several condensed, almost material, purple lightning Sword Qi, as thin as a strand of hair yet as swift as lightning, burst forth from his fingertips.

These Sword Qi did not fly straight but traced strange arcs, precisely bypassing the densest part of the cold Qi. As if alive, they instantly shot into the core, most vulnerable energy nodes at the center of the Ice Spiderss’ compound eyes.

”Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Dull thuds echoed one after another.

Those terrifying Ice Spiderss, capable of wiping out the Great Wind Tribe and its most elite hunter squad, couldn’t even let out a whimper before their massive ice crystal bodies exploded from within by the domineering lightning power.

They transformed into a sky full of shimmering ice dust, rustling down, and were instantly frozen into ice chips by the cold Qi in the cave.

Lin Jingyu’s steps did not falter in the slightest, as if he had merely brushed away a few specks of dust, and he continued deeper.

But the further he ventured into the core of the Sacred Mountain, the more powerful and bizarre the ice-elemental mutated beasts and ice monsters became.

There were ”Ice Shadow Leopards” whose figures were blurry, almost perfectly blending into the shadows of the ice walls, only revealing their fangs when attacking; there were ”Ice Elementals” that, when shattered, could not only rapidly absorb surrounding cold Qi to reform but even split into several smaller individuals.

Furthermore, there were ”Ice Crystal Giants,” standing ten feet tall, entirely composed of incredibly hard blue ice crystals. With every move, they could condense countless sharp ice cones, raining them down like a storm. The Spiritual Pressure they exuded was comparable to an Early Foundation Establishment Stage Cultivator!

The passage also became increasingly complex and treacherous.

Some areas were even filled with strange force fields that could invisibly disturb the mind and create extremely realistic illusions. If someone with an unstable mind stepped in, they would instantly lose themselves and be forever trapped in the illusion.

Facing these, Lin Jingyu finally stopped holding back. The startling thunder sword was unsheathed for the first time!

”Clang!”

A clear sword cry echoed in the deep ice cave, like a Dragon’s roar.

On the dark purple sword body, natural thunder patterns lit up one by one, flowing with heart-palpitating electric light.

Lin Jingyu’s figure was like lightning, his Thunder Shadow Steps executed to the extreme, flickering and weaving through the monster crowd. Each flash of sword light was followed by a condensed purple lightning tearing through the darkness.

”Palm Thunder!” He thrust out his left palm, and a thunderball roared and exploded, blasting a huge hole in the chest of an attacking Ice Crystal Giant.

”Thunder Arc Flash!” The sword tip trembled slightly, and dozens of dense electric arcs descended like a net, completely purifying and annihilating the Ice Elementals attempting to split and reform.

”Condensed Thunder Finger!” His finger wind was like a sword, arriving later but striking first, precisely piercing the energy nodes of the Ice Shadow Leopard during its concealment.

In the depths of the gloomy ice cave, clusters of dazzling thunder light occasionally erupted, illuminating the bizarre ice crystal world as if it were daytime, then instantly returning to darkness. Only the lingering power of the thunder and the disintegrating ice crystals of the monsters attested to the ferocity of the battle.

The powerful Divine Sense brought by the Spirit Refining Art always allowed him to see through illusions in advance and find the weakest points of energy nodes, achieving the greatest results with the least consumption.

This arduous journey and battle in the desolate land lasted for an unknown number of hours.

Finally, after forcefully splitting open the last blue ice crystal barrier, naturally formed by extreme cold energy, with a powerful ”Thunderstorm Slash,” an even more ancient, desolate, and majestic aura rushed towards him.

Lin Jingyu stepped in, and his vision suddenly opened up.

This was a massive underground ice cavern, far beyond imagination.

The dome hung high, seemingly endless, with countless giant ice prisms dangling down. The smallest required several people to encircle, like an inverted forest of sharp swords, emitting a faint blue light that seemed to come from ancient times, illuminating the entire space in a hazy glow.

In the center of the ice cavern was a vast, boundless frozen lake, calm without a single ripple. The lake surface was as smooth as a mirror, clearly reflecting the sword-like ice prisms on the dome, forming a beautiful yet deadly and heart-tightening symmetrical picture.

And at the very center of the lake, a colossal figure lay prostrate, shaking one’s Soul.

It was a Mountain Giant Ape, over ten zhang tall, like a small mountain!

Its entire body was covered in snow-white, jade-like fur, several feet long, faintly glowing even under the ethereal blue light.

Its eyes were tightly closed, its face showing a strange serenity, as if it had merely fallen into a deep sleep.

However, there was no trace of life around its body. Its massive form was covered by a layer of crystalline, yet absolutely zero-degree cold and indestructible Profound Ice, completely sealing and freezing it.

An ancient, desolate aura, once vast and mighty, but now only a remnant, flowed like mercury, permeating every inch of the ice cavern, silently narrating its past power and the merciless Law of time.

This was the pillar of faith for the Great Wind Tribe, their guardian deity, the ”Mountain Giant Ape.” It had not suffered severe injuries, but rather its Lifespan had run out, and it had already passed away.

Lin Jingyu sighed inwardly. Even such a powerful existence could not escape the Laws of Heaven and Earth, succumbing to the end of its Lifespan.

Perhaps he was overthinking it; birth, aging, sickness, and death in this Secret Realm were just like the outside world.

There was nothing special about it.

Suddenly, an anomaly occurred!

The massive ape corpse, completely sealed by Profound Ice, unexpectedly trembled slightly without any warning.

This tremor was extremely subtle, yet it seemed to shake the core of the entire ice cavern.

Immediately after, an even more astonishing scene unfolded.

Between the ape’s tightly closed brows, where a third eye would be, a crack suddenly appeared.

There was no blood, no ice chips, only an incredibly condensed, soft yet extremely penetrating milky-white light pillar, like a comet streaking across the night sky, shooting out from the crack and directly towards the ice cavern’s dome.

The light pillar did not dissipate in the air; instead, it rapidly converged, contracted, and solidified, eventually transforming into a miniature ape phantom, only about a foot tall, vivid and exquisitely detailed.

This phantom no longer had the serene, sleeping appearance of the giant ape. Its eyes were open, filled with the profound wisdom accumulated over countless ages, and a detached calmness that saw through worldly affairs.

It floated silently in mid-air, its gaze piercing through space, accurately landing on Lin Jingyu. That look was as if it had waited here for tens of thousands of years, finally waiting for the person it sought.