Lauren slipped the bracelet onto her wrist, and a chill shot straight into her bones.

  This wasn’t just any ornament carved from ten-thousand-year-old ice. Drake had refined it with rare materials, raising it to the level of a Spirit Treasure.

  Drake’s handiwork was priceless. In the cultivation world, people would kill each other over treasures like this. But in his hands? He tossed it like cabbages at the market.

  Magic Weapon < Treasure Weapon < Spirit Weapon < Spirit Treasure < Immortal Weapon < Divine Weapon.

  …Wait a second.

  Lauren glanced up. “Master, can this also store items?”

  “Yes.” Drake’s eyes flicked over the several storage bags hanging awkwardly from her waist.

  “Storage bags are too small, and too easy to tamper with. Anyone could erase the imprint of your spiritual sense. After you finish the ritual, this bracelet will be far safer.”

  Lauren hurriedly bowed. “Thank you, Master.”

  Later, once she returned to her cave, she immediately bonded with the bracelet. Afterward, she transferred everything from her storage bags inside.

  But she didn’t toss the bags away. She simply wiped the traces of her spiritual sense clean, so she could reuse them later.

  Storage bags were the cultivator’s version of plastic grocery bags—cheap, disposable, and handy for small things. Their flaws? Cramped space and weak security. Their perk? No one cared if you gave them away with gifts inside.

  A storage bracelet, on the other hand, was a vault with a combination lock. Even if someone stole it, they couldn’t open it. And if they tried to force it? They’d only wreck the contents, making it useless.

  ......

  Back in the Ice Cave, Lauren resumed her training. She drew in external spiritual energy, fusing it with the bone-deep chill of the ancient ice. Her Immortal Roots refined that energy, feeding it into her core.

  From there, she pushed the power back out, spreading both spiritual and icy essence through her meridians, cleansing them again and again.

  It was repetitive, dull work—more mind-numbing than being punished to copy out books line by line back in modern times.

  Yet the more she practiced, the more exhilarated she felt.

  The steady growth, the quiet power, the sense of becoming stronger—it was intoxicating.

  She realized she could stay holed up like this for years if she had to.

  In what felt like a blink, dawn arrived.

  Lauren was just about to stop and head down the mountain to watch the top-five matches—

  —when her body suddenly lurched.

  A violent suction force erupted from inside her, greedily devouring the profound icy energy she’d just drawn in.

  Horrified, she looked inward—and froze.

  That little four-legged creature, the one that usually lay limp on her Immortal Roots, was suddenly wide awake. Its jaws gaped unnaturally wide, sucking down streams of icy essence like a starving beast.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Lauren’s gut clenched. Something was very, very wrong.

  If she let it keep draining like this, the entire block of mysterious ice would be emptied. How the hell was she supposed to explain that to her master?

  “Hey! Enough sucking!”

  The little creature ignored her, guzzling away with feral hunger.

  Panic spiked. “I said stop sucking! Do you hear me?”

  She tried to jam her spiritual energy into its mouth, sealing the flow.

  But it didn’t matter. The beast just devoured the icy essence straight from her core, swallowing everything she’d worked so hard to channel.

  Shit. This was even worse.

  Lauren immediately cut off her connection with the Mysterious Ice, severing the stream at the roots.

  But even that didn’t stop it.

  The little monster kept drinking, leeching power straight from the lingering ice inside her.

  Lauren didn’t dare stay on the ice bed another second. She jumped off—

  —and her legs immediately gave out. She crashed onto the frozen ground, head cracking against the ice. Darkness swallowed her whole.

  She had no idea how long she was out. When she finally opened her eyes again, the world outside her cave was already pitch-black.

  “…I missed the top five matches,” Lauren muttered flatly.

  But wait. With her current cultivation, there was no way she should’ve fainted from a fall like that.

  Even now, awake, her body felt hollow, drained of all strength.

  Her spiritual core was bone-dry—completely emptied. And sprawled next to her Immortal Roots was that damned little four-legged creature.

  It had ballooned in size, its belly grotesquely swollen like a bloated black lizard. It lay there snoring, completely unbothered.

  “Fuck me…” Lauren’s jaw tightened. She wanted nothing more than to wring its scrawny neck. But she couldn’t kill it. Hell, she couldn’t even throw it out—he’d said it himself, they weren’t from the same dimension.

  And then a horrifying thought hit her.

  Lauren stiffened, forcing herself to turn.

  Her eyes landed on the ice bed.

  It was still there.

  A little smaller—shrunk from nearly two meters to maybe a meter and a half—but intact.

  Lauren exhaled hard, relief rushing through her. Alright. Smaller is fine. Smaller just means… melted. Better than gone entirely.

  She turned back to the snoring lump. “Little Four Legs? Hey, Little Four Legs?”

  The creature cracked its eyes open, let out a rumbling burp, and exhaled a plume of frosty mist.

  Lauren’s expression darkened. “Didn’t you say the immortal energy you need doesn’t even exist in the Cultivation Realm? Then why the hell did you eat the ice?”

  “This block of profound ice contains a trace of immortal energy,” it mumbled lazily. “Not much, but better than nothing. By absorbing it, I can at least recover enough to stay awake… without forcing myself to hibernate.”

  Lauren’s glare sharpened. “You sucked a one-point-eight-meter slab down to one-point-five meters—just so you could talk again? That’s all it takes?”

  “Exactly. That’s a bargain, if you ask me.”

  “….” Lauren ground her teeth.

  “This thing might not mean much to you,” Lauren went on, “but to us, it’s priceless."

  "Quit whining. I’ll give it back later.”

  Lauren wanted to laugh in its face. Give it back? Ghosts had more substance than this freak. Would it even exist long enough to keep that promise?

  Still, she forced herself to calm down. If this monster really was the key to bringing down the man who ruled over everything, then she had no choice but to endure.

  Taking a deep breath, she softened her tone. “Listen. If you keep swallowing this ice, it won’t do much for you anyway. Even if you ate the whole thing, it wouldn’t be enough. But if you leave it for me, I can push my cultivation to the tenth level of Foundation Establishment in a year and a half. Then I’ll qualify to enter the Hidden Mist Secret Realm. We can’t just sit here waiting for some miracle—you need me to venture into those places. That’s where we might find something that actually helps you recover.”

  The little beast blinked at her, then gave a slow nod. “Alright. Fine. I promise I won’t touch the ice again.”

  Lauren let out a long breath. Finally.

  “But you’d better be careful,” it added. “Don’t let me get hurt.”

  “…What?”

  “If my body is damaged, my instincts will take over. I’ll drain anything and everything I can reach in order to survive.”

  Lauren stared. “Huh?”

  “What happened this morning wasn’t intentional,” it said matter-of-factly.

  She wasn’t sure if that was true, but at least the explanation dulled some of her panic.

  “…Don’t worry. As long as we stay within the righteous sects, nothing’s going to happen.”

  The creature gave her a sly look. “What about that little stunt at the Heart-Questioning Gate?”

  Lauren’s face went blank. …Why the hell was she bringing that up now?

  “That was part of the entrance trials. It won’t happen again.”

  She yanked her spiritual sense out of her core, only to feel her head spinning.

  Quickly, she fumbled for a few spiritual pills and shoved them into her mouth, the bitter taste spreading across her tongue. Relief followed as her energy slowly began to trickle back.