The Frostspire Springs exhaled mist that stung the nostrils with its glacial sharpness. Lin Hao’s fingertips turned bone-white as he handed his academy badge to the female attendant. Her jasmine perfume clashed with the metallic tang of frost forming on the springs’ stone rim.

  “Ten contribution points per hour,” she recited, her breath visible in the frozen air. When the badge’s hologram displayed 1,000 points—equivalent to ten million silver taels—her gasp fogged the verification crystal. The male attendant nearby ground his molars, the sound like ice cracking underfoot.

  “Just deduct as I go,” Lin Hao replied, shrugging off his outer robe. The absence of his gravity armor left his skin prickling, every follicle hypersensitive to the springs’ subzero aura. Four Treabytes flapped to a nearby icicle, its talons slipping on the glassy surface.

  The male attendant sneered, his voice dripping with faux concern. “Most fourth-tier warriors last two hours at most.” His boots scuffed the frost-laden ground, releasing the earthy musk of frozen lichen.

  Lin Hao stepped through the shimmering barrier. The air inside hummed with suppressed energy, vibrating his molars. Before him, the springs churned lazily, their surface reflecting the pale blue of a midwinter sky.

  11:47 – Bone Nectar

  The first plunge stole his breath. Lin Hao’s scream emerged as a silent exhalation, bubbles racing toward the surface. The water’s cold wasn’t mere temperature—it was an entity, clawing through muscle fibers and crystallizing joint fluid. Four Treabytes shrieked from the shore, its feathers matted with instantly frozen spray.

  By the second hour, numbness gave way to revelation. Lin Hao’s skin glowed faintly blue, veins mapping constellations beneath translucent flesh. His Dragon Ape Bloodline thrummed in response, muscle fibers knotting into cables that resisted the crushing cold.

  14:03 – Void’s Hunger

  When the transformation completed—scales rippling across his shoulders, horns curving from his brow—the springs’ nature changed. What had been agony became nourishment. Lin Hao’s mutated cells drank the frigid energy, converting it into spiraling tendrils of dark matter that coalesced behind him.

  The Devouring Void manifested as a gravitational anomaly. Water swirled inward, dragging ice shards and stray photons into its event horizon. Lin Hao’s remaining clothes disintegrated, fibers unraveling into quantum threads that fed the growing singularity.

  16:22 – Fifth Meridian

  Deep within the springs, something ancient stirred. Bioluminescent tendrils brushed Lin Hao’s ankles—not ice serpents, but remnants of the celestial beast whose corpse had birthed these waters millennia past. The Void consumed them greedily, converting primordial essence into raw power that hammered against Lin Hao’s fourth meridian gate.

  Outside the barrier, the attendants gaped at the springs’ sudden turbulence. The female gripped her verification crystal as contribution points hemorrhaged—300, 500, 700…

  18:01 – Ascension

  When the fifth meridian shattered, the explosion of energy crystallized the springs’ surface. Lin Hao emerged encased in diamond-clear ice, his exhale shattering the shell into prismatic shards that sang as they fell. Four Treabytes swooped to his shoulder, its augmented eyes detecting the faint event-horizon glow lingering in Lin Hao’s pupils.

  The male attendant’s jealousy curdled into dread-sweat that froze on his brow. The female trembled, not from cold but raw awe. Lin Hao’s footsteps left steaming prints in the frost as he approached, his voice resonating with gravitational harmonics:

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  “How long?”

  “Six… six hours,” she stammered, breath fogging the contribution ledger. “Six hundred points deducted.”

  Lin Hao tossed her a heatstone from his pouch—its cinnamon warmth a startling contrast to the frozen hellscape they inhabited. “For your trouble.”

  As he departed, the springs began their slow death throes. The Devouring Void’s appetite had drained three centuries’ worth of accumulated energy. Four Treabytes preened ice from its feathers, sensing the approach of greater storms.

  Rising Star

  The Frostspire Springs hummed with subzero energy, their surface rippling like liquid mercury. Lin Hao’s transformed body glowed faintly beneath the water, scales shimmering with hoarfrost. Outside the barrier, the crowd’s murmurs created a low-frequency buzz that made Four Treabytes’ feathers vibrate uncomfortably.

  16:45 – Gathering Storm

  A shadow swept over the assembly—a snow-feathered raptor whose wingbeats carried the ozone tang of storm fronts. Bai Yuzhe descended like winter personified, his white robes flaring to reveal silver-threaded boots that crunched frost with aristocratic precision. The crowd parted like wheat before a scythe, their breath fogging in synchronized exhalations.

  Qin Yu sniffed the air. “Peacock oil,” he muttered, recognizing the cloying scent favored by court dandies. Beside him, Gu Yunle scraped frost from his sleeve, the granules melting into his palm with a faint sizzle—residual heat from last night’s drinking game.

  Bai Yuzhe’s gaze locked onto Princess Yan Xinyue. Her jade hairpins chimed faintly as she turned, releasing a whisper of sandalwood that clashed with the raptor’s musky plumage. “Princess,” he intoned, voice smooth as polished ice. “Your brother mentioned you’d be here.”

  Yan Xinyue’s smile held the precision of a clockwork mechanism. “Scholar Bai’s memory serves him well.” Her gloved fingers tightened imperceptibly around a heatstone—a gift from Lin Hao that now radiated cinnamon warmth through kid leather.

  17:03 – Clash of Titans

  Inside the springs, Wolfspider detected the newcomer’s arrival. Its mandibles clicked a warning that reverberated through Lin Hao’s neural link. The Devouring Void pulsed in response, ice serpents dissolving into spectral mist as their essence fed the growing singularity.

  “Five hours!” someone in the crowd shouted. The words rippled outward, tinged with awe and thinly veiled schadenfreude. Bai Yuzhe’s eyelid twitched—a microscopic tell that traveled faster than the announcement itself.

  Gu Yunle yawned theatrically. “Ten hours? I could do that in my sleep.” His breath fogged the air, carrying the sour tang of pickled plums from breakfast.

  Lei Meng’s rumbling chuckle shook snow from nearby pine boughs. “Last winter,” he said, “I slept in a glacier crevasse for three days.” The lie carried the earthy authenticity of a campfire tale, complete with the scent of charred cedar from his fire-starting kit.

  17:29 – Pressure Points

  Bai Yuzhe’s smile tightened. His boots left crystalline imprints as he approached the barrier, each step calibrated to produce the exact same crunching pitch. “Adept Lin’s fortitude is... commendable.” The pause before ‘commendable’ spoke volumes, its duration precisely calculated to imply condescension.

  Qin Yu’s nose wrinkled at the sudden floral intensity—Bai Yuzhe had activated a hidden sachet of night-blooming cereus essence. “Your raptor’s molting,” he observed, pointing to a down feather caught in the ice. “Shouldn’t you be tending to that?”

  The crowd’s tension spiked, a collective inhalation that lowered the ambient temperature by half a degree. Four Treabytes’ augmented vision tracked Bai Yuzhe’s carotid pulse—a telltale acceleration betraying his calm facade.

  18:11 – Breaking Point

  When the barrier finally shimmered open, the released energy flash-frosted nearby saplings. Lin Hao emerged wreathed in vapor, his scales retracting with a sound like sliding tectonic plates. The Devouring Void’s afterglow lingered in his pupils, casting faint event-horizon shadows across the snow.

  Bai Yuzhe’s composure cracked. His boot sole squeaked against ice—a miscalculation in weight distribution. “Impressive,” he allowed, the word tasting of ash.

  Lin Hao’s nostrils flared, detecting the complex cocktail of scents clinging to his rival: peacock oil, cereus, and the sharp ammonia tang of suppressed fury. “Your bird’s tired,” he noted, nodding to the listless raptor. “Should feed it better.”

  The crowd’s laughter erupted like breaking glass—sharp, sudden, and dangerously brittle. As Bai Yuzhe stiffened, Four Treabytes launched into the twilight sky, its mocking caw echoing across the frozen springs. Somewhere in the gathering shadows, Wolfspider’s sensors logged the exact moment a new rivalry crystallized—18:23:47, temperature -12°C, atmospheric pressure falling.