My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting

Three months slipped by.

Naran was only seven months old, but he'd already learned how to saypapaandmama.Snow was delighted to no end.

The first wave of expectant mothers had given birth to healthy babies of the flame. Now a second and third wave, totalling almost a thousand people, agreed to relocate to the Western Extremes.

In a couple of years, the new generation would far outnumber the original nine tribes. The Ice Folk and inhabitants of Cloudpeak Province would truly become one people.

One evening, after a round of intimacy on a fur bed inside their tent, Li Yuan gazed at his fair skinned wife. Her expression had grown calm, capable of shouldering any challenge; for a moment he drifted.

Snow seemed to have reached some private decision. She had no intention of ending things quickly. Only when a very long time had passed did the woman who now commanded near-supreme respect among the Nine Flames finally settle back in the glow of the bonfire, a deep contentment warming her heart.

She collapsed onto him and murmured, "Darling, you should be out in the wider world. You've stayed here far too long. Don't let this place hold you."

Li Yuan slipped an arm around her but said nothing.

"I'll raise our son well," Snow went on. "Just come back to see us whenever you can."

Li Yuan bent to her ear and whispered a few, almost inaudible words. She froze, cheeks flushing rose-red, then answered softly, "My darling only ever thinks of my happiness."

"Then I'll stay a little longer," he said, "though I won't always be in camp."

"Mhm. You're a free man, not a captive of these tents." She shut her eyes and leaned against him, reluctant to part yet even more reluctant to chain a hero to bonfire.

The permafrost of the Evernight knew no dawn or dusk.

When Li Yuan woke, he tousled Naran's hair, slung Azure Serpent across his back, and set off alone toward the white nothingness.

After weeks of brooding, he had decided. This land that smothered flame and shadow blood alike might be the perfect training ground. If he could fuse the two powers here, where their rage was dampened, perhaps wielding them outside would come easier.

He gave the Deathless Tomb a wide berth. The Gravekeeper and Wolfmother both set his instincts on edge. Some cards are best kept close.

A day's march carried him onto a pitch black ice field, already far beyond the territory of the Nine Flames. The flame in his marrow tugged faintly toward the distant bonfires, so he wouldn't lose his way.

Everything here lay frozen, lifeless. Yet his ember red gaze pierced the ice and sawfoodtrapped below. Three deer—two large, one small—were frozen in eternal mid-gallop, with a lion pouncing from a brush behind them, all suspended over what had once been a rolling prairie.

"It's as if an ordinary grassland froze in an instant," Li Yuan muttered, the sight of that little deer family pricking his heart. Would some future digger one day find him and his loved ones, flash-frozen at the dinner table?

"Here will do." He stopped and drew Azure Serpent. With the first sweep, wind-driven snow shredded into a fine white mist around him.

Buzz!A hum like a temple bell ripped through the gale, blade qi spreading in every direction.

BOOM!Fire surged like a mad python, gouging a trench ten feet deep and hundreds of feet wide through the ice.

Ten fold compression released in a single breath.

Li Yuan hacked and slashed, alone in that vast grey heaven, sharpening his art. Sometimes he unleashed the Tranquil Sea Blade, sometimes the Explosive Blade, Nine Suns Martial Arts, and even circling back to the old Ruling Blade, Phantom Blade, Final Blade, and City Toppler.

He was disassembling, recombining…analyzing and comprehending.

There were days of wild flurries of strikes, and days he clutched the blade fromdawn to duskwithout swinging once.

When fatigue or inspiration called time, Li Yuan trekked home.

If Snow was sleeping, he slipped beside her without waking her. If she was up, the family played games like tag or having Naran try to snatch a branch from his father.

In truth, the barely a year old toddler could never touch Li Yuan, even with a combat power of over 600. That said, after thoroughly wearing the boy out, he would always ease up and let his son win. The silly child would always cry out and celebrate, as though it were all his own effort.

When Li Yuan was away, Naran would waddle over to play with the other youths. None of them stood a chance against the natural born Arikkhan. He could bowl his peers over long before branch tag even started. Each time he ran, the huge direwolf Finn bounded at his heels, forging an unlikely friendship of child and beast.

Days blurred into months, months into years. Naran began awaiting Li Yuan's return like clockwork. If his father was absent, he sought outUncle Suljagar, one of only two people in the camp who could give him any sport.

Three years slipped past.

At last, Naran decided playing with Suljagar was getting dull—until he discovered that when Suljagar gripped that gleaming golden axe, he was anything but dull.

From then on, Naran always demanded that Suljagar hold the golden axe.

"Kid, this axe isn't for play." Suljagar would always say, which made the boy lose interest all over again.

Soon he was counting the days until Li Yuan came home.

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Li Yuan spent most of his day in cultivation, forgetting the world around him. The rest of the time, he visited Yan Yu or Xue Ning.

He personally watched Sheng'er move in with Xue Ning, learning how to run the merchant group, hire people, and keep books. The new generation of Ice Folk toddlers and their families also brought to Xue Ning's manor.

The children learned to walk early but spoke late; by around four years old, they could finally manage clear words.

Even so, Li Yuan marveled at Xue Ning's talent. Every one of those 50 kids now called herMama Xueand Sheng'erBig Sis. They'd scurry to the manor for good meals, and then trot obediently off to lessons before joining Sheng'er for games.

A letter arrived from Yao Jue too. It mostly contained news of the situation in the Holy Tree Temple and a line or two about how much she missed Li Yuan.

Threads upon threads of connection, Li Yuan felt how sweet it was simply to be alive. One day he might have to part with some of these loved ones. But until then, he would live with blazing vigor; and when he grew truly mighty, he would wake every sleeping soul.

Late that year, years of sweat finally bore fruit.

On the frozen wastes, Li Yuan sheathed his blade and then swung. A blinding flare of scarlet erupted raced forward not as a shock-wave but as a ripple. Too bright to look at, it simplyarrivedin the next instant, severing over a hundred feet of wind-driven snow and flashing it to steam. A spectacular white mist roiled upward.

He glanced at his inner skill list. No new entry. Either the skill sat outside the System's recognition, or it was an ultimate skill still unfinished.

The snow turned to vapor, then to glittering ice-grains falling from high above.

"Time to practice somewhere else," he muttered.

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Naran fussed whenever Li Yuan left, but Snow coaxed him along, handing over the Nine Suns Martial Arts and starting the boy on proper cultivation.

Li Yuan had once said that the ultimate killing move was for the Khagan only, but Snow taught Naran it anyway, plenty to keep the little terror busy.

His father still occasionally returned home, just less often.

Li Yuan headed for Cloudpeak Province, no longer seeking enlightenment in the mundane world. One slip of his current blade could level a city block.

After a lot of wandering around, he found a barren, grassless plain and began testing his blade there. Unlike the frozen tundra, this place allowed him to use the ability of White Serpent, temporarily forcing a fourth rank breakthrough. This way, he could explore deeper skills with a domain.

Time after time, Li Yuan tried to recreate the fusion of shadow blood and Yang energy first perfected in the Western Extremes. Time after time, he failed.