Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

When the last of the cave's ice was shattered, the people waiting to enter stood up, one by one, ready to enter when they were allowed to.

Alex stood up as well.

The Queen let one of the sect leaders speak up, a woman from the Thousand Snowfall sect. She was a beautiful woman, but that was hardly a rarity where they were.

She started explaining the important aspects of the Cave and how they would have to be careful. She talked for a while, but the essence of her speech was simple.

The Cave is cold. Don't die of it. Come back out in the next 2 weeks or you'll die in there.

"This is the talisman that will record the coldness of the place you reach," the woman said. "At the same time, this is also your life-saving measure. Crush this talisman and it will drag you along to a warmer place. Maybe even all the way out."

She pointed toward the many elders who stood by the cave opening. "Get one before you go in."

The many impatient individuals hurriedly nodded and started going in one by one.

The Queen herself brought one to Alex. "Make sure to leave within the next 2 weeks, Your Majesty," she said. "We cannot let you out if the doors are frozen by that time."

"They only open for 2 weeks?" Alex asked.

"We can't tell how long they stay open, but we have figured out 15 days to be the minimum. So we tell people to not stay in any longer," she said.

"Can't I just break through the mound and come out if that happens?" Alex asked.

The woman shook her head. "The ice that forms on the cave openings forms around the wall as well, and it's not normal ice. It's ice with Yin properties, which is why we need to come together to use our knowledge of Yin to break it," she said. "We can't break through a thick one if it closes."

Alex nodded. "Got it," he said. "I will take care."

With the talisman in hand, he walked in through the leftmost cave opening with people slowly walking around him, focused on themselves as they tried to handle the cold.

No one looked at him at all.

Alex brought out Whisker, placing him inside the folds of his robes.

"Why is it so cold?" Whisker complained.

"I told you it would be cold," Alex said.

"Not this cold," Whisker replied.

"Try to survive the cold. And try to learn what you can about Yin," Alex said. "And… do what you want. I don't have much else to say."

His eyes were already wandering around the place, his senses sensing the thick Yin just at the start of the cave. There was frost on the ceiling of the cave, yet to melt entirely, as the ice doors on the opening too had yet to melt.

"So cold," someone said not far away from Alex.

"Was it always this cold?" someone else asked with a worried tone to their voice.

"Maybe they opened it early this time around," the first girl said. "This was definitely not this cold the last few times I entered."

Alex looked at them and then felt the cold himself. He didn't find it as cold as they did, but that didn't mean it wasn't cold. It was a different kind of cold, one that he had gotten used to the last few years.

A cold that came from the presence of Yin, rather than a drop of temperature. Yin Cold.

Alex walked further, the cold increasing very gradually. He wanted to find a spot along the cave where the coldness was just enough that he couldn't go any further, but also where he could get to look into its secrets the most.

For now, that was going to be a lot more inward than he had expected.

Not even 100 meters away from the cave's opening, the cave started slanting, going downward. The lower they would go there colder it was going to be. 'The Yin is pooled up down below,' he thought.

People started sitting down very early on. It wasn't because they couldn't go further along, but rather adapt to the coldness before moving in. It was only the weaker ones though. The stronger ones could go on for much longer before they had to rest.

And someone as strong as Alex would have entered this place multiple times over and would not have needed to come.

Alex came across his first fork in the road and decided to go with the path on the left. He wasn't sure if his feeling was correct or not, but the path on the left felt colder than the right. And he had to keep moving toward the colder side.

After walking for 5 more minutes, he came across a drop nearly 10 meters below. He looked all over and saw that he had come to a giant pocket in the cave that was nearly 50 meters across on all sides, with even the height going over 20 meters.

The ceilings were full of icicles, made entirely out of Yin ice. He flew up to it and punched a single icicle. The cave shuddered in a boom, but the icicle barely showed any signs of cracks at all.

"What?" he looked up, surprised. That was not supposed to have happened at all. "I can't break it?" He had expected it to be tough, but not this tough. The ice was hard, reminding him of the ice back in the cave of the Turtle's domain.

That one was made using Immortal Qi, which was why it had been strong. Was this one made out of something similar as well?

He punched it a few more times, using Qi and heat to help him. In the end, it was the Space Dao that helped him cut through the icicle, which he grabbed.

Then, he reached the bottom and started studying the icicle. Whisker came out of where he was staying and looked at the icicle as well, his whiskers giving him information that a regular human or beast would never even know.

They studied the ice for a while in a corner of the cave. Many people came and went, but no one stopped to look at what he was doing. Everyone was stuck to their own thought.

"Ice…" Alex thought. "I need to know Dao of Cold or Ice before I begin to understand this. While Yin is helping form this, in the end, it is still made up of water. Water Dao, I will have to start there. I don't think I can learn anything else without learning those Dao first."

Whisker had nothing to say.

Alex put aside the icicle. "I guess the only thing I can possibly learn is Yin Dao for now," he said softly. Then he stood up and looked in a certain direction of the cave, towards the shadow where his purple eyes could see a haze of colors.

"You've been staring at me for quite a while," Alex said. "Care to explain, why?"

No one said anything.

"I can see you, lady," he stared directly in her direction.

"Well, I'll be damned," a figure appeared from the shadows. "I didn't expect you to see me this easily."