The month passed very quickly.

I was able to successfully follow the Eternal Compression cultivation manual till the point of impurities forming, but the actual cleansing of those impurities was going agonizingly slow.

At the rate I was currently at, I think honestly it would take me roughly another 10 or so months just to finish the process in its entirety.

That would be 10 months, and to be conservative, I'm probably better off saying it would take me a year per cycle.

Twelve years.

It would take me roughly 12 years to reach the Resonance stage of Core Formation. For some, it could even take them double the time to do that with fewer cycles.

Now, while that genuinely feels like a long time from now… my natural lifespan should be somewhere in between 1,000 and 2,000 years right about now.

Which is insane to think about, so I simply don't.

How the hell does someone even plan for a life that long?

Anyway.

Having the impurities present while walking around was painful. But not to the point where it would stop me from fighting.

Just a little pain.

And if I ever got tired of it, then seclusion it was.

In the meantime, it was time to go visit some distant lands.

Around 100 Infernals will be coming with me. Just Infernals.

The previous members of the Ash Guard were relegated to a different position.

Guarding Richard. They will fulfill their 100-year requirement, then… well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

I don't expect any trouble for Richard in the City, but it wouldn't hurt to give him a dedicated guard, especially since all the work he has on his plate takes away time from his cultivation.

The Ash Guard title was being repurposed though.

Vrusha is the new head of the Ash Guard, and he picked out a few others that filled out the rest of the team.

They wouldn't be given any other jobs other than to guard and fight alongside me everywhere I went.

And they were currently traveling with me as I headed north past the Infernal District.

I had two stops to make here.

First on the list was the Frost Dungeon.

The members of the Olirag Clan were no longer here to provide extra protection to the entrance of the dungeon, and a small squad of Infernals were stationed here alongside someone I haven't spoken to in quite a while.

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Brandon.

After crossing into the permanently winter lands, it didn't take very long to find the small outpost built around the entrance point of the Frost Dungeon.

Brandon was already standing outside, waiting for me.

"City Lord Raizen."

By now, the man was nearing the peak of the Qi Refinement Realm, and it was very easy to tell that the fruits were successful, as the strong sense of ice could be felt wafting from him.

"Long time no see, Brandon."

"Yeah, it's been a while."

Brandon has always been a man of very few words, but he always meant well.

"How are things here? If you're tired of living here, I can arrange for you to be relieved."

"Pretty used to it now. Having Ice-attuned Qi helps a lot."

"How is that? Does the cold affect you less now?"

"Just about. Nothing too abnormal though. I still can't go too far north without freezing."

We made small talk for a while longer, and I left.

It wasn't like we were particularly close friends, but it was nice to check in with him. Of course, Richard made sure they never lacked an abundance of supplies, so he really didn't need anything.

And safety wasn't an issue with Infernals staying in their little outpost now.

All in all, it wasn't a bad gig at all.

Yeah, the weather sucked, but being able to get Ice-attuned Qi very easily was no small benefit.

Good for Brandon.

Anyway, I would be heading much farther north than this.

So far north that even I had to be careful when it came to where we treaded.

At some point, it was no longer wise to run, and we walked carefully and attentively toward the location Lidaz directed us to.

The snow crunched underfoot as we moved through the winter wonderland with cautious gaits.

There are strong beasts that live this far north.

Ones that hadn't been hunted by humans at all and have just been fighting each other and evolving unnoticed by people for well over a year now.

The presence of a beast that could give Vrusha here—a Nascent Soul Infernal—a proper battle had not only been found, but 100% confirmed.

I was told it was a feline creature of a pretty decent size.

None of the Infernals who ventured this far were attacked by it, as they gave off auras that made the creature itself wary.

But there was no need for a fight here if we could avoid it.

Especially since the concentration of Qi in the area was almost dizzyingly high and thus made it harder to scout with just Qi alone.

Which meant we didn't really know if other powerful beasts existed here, so we just assumed they did.

Anyway, it was that concentration of Qi that led a team of Infernals this far north in search of precious ores, and it took them a while—and a lot of digging—but they did eventually find an ore deposit of something they recognized.

Frost Vein Ore.

It was apparently something truly valuable to anyone below the Immortal Realm.

There was almost a guarantee that any decent blacksmith would be able to use it to make something that could be usable for the Core Formation Realm at minimum.

Lidaz was pretty confident in that assessment.

We eventually made our way to the backside of one of the mountains, where an entrance to the world below had already been excavated.

"The deposit we found is just down here, Patriarch."

Entering the carved-out entrance that led into the earth, I could already sense the collection of Qi coming from deeper in.

And we didn't have to walk very far to see it.

The walls around us were a variation of black and grey colors, until a certain point where white ore created a stark contrast with the walls around it.

And to take it a step further, the white ore had lines of blue running through it that constantly pulsated as if blood was traveling there.

That was why it was called Frost Vein Ore.

The particular deposit I had my eye on was massive, but they guessed there was much more deeper in.

There was only one problem.

We didn't have tools to mine it…

It was unfortunate, but at least we have secured the location of at least one truly valuable piece of ore.

There were apparently two more locations to check, but they were on the far southern end of the continent.

Smack in the middle of the jungle.

One was another deposit of another special kind of ore, and the other was a dungeon.

A dungeon that was apparently called Monkey Reign.

And I couldn't help but think that I would be finding a Monkey King inside the dungeon.

For some reason, that really excited me.

Fighting a Monkey King.

Which means I basically get to fight Wukong, right?

Probably not, but I'll pretend.

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