Vessel of Worlds

Andy took out the spirit beast pouch. With a whistle of green light, a spirit snake over a zhang long—back green as jade, belly white as snow—shot from within and pressed itself flat against the freezing ground.

Throughout its molting preparations the Ice-Wind Snake had barely stirred, yet upon sensing this blue frost-mist it had actively demanded to come out—and the meaning it pressed into Andy's mind made clear that the blue cold would actually aid its molting.

On reflection, this was easy enough to understand. The Ice-Wind Snake was ice-attributed by nature; in this frozen place it only grew stronger, and its molting breakthrough would benefit accordingly.

So he had released it.

The snake had emerged from the pouch listless—but after two deep draughts of the frigid air, it perked up remarkably.

It swayed its head, tongue flickering in and out, gulping the surrounding cold in great mouthfuls.

The blue frost-mist, as though drawn by some pull, went streaming eagerly into the snake's open jaws.

As it drank in more and more of the cold, the snake's body grew ever more crystalline, slowly turning translucent.

Before long, the beast began showing signs of pain, pressing itself to the ground, its bowl-thick body twisting without cease.

Still the blue cold poured into it.

The snake's scaled hide—half jade-green, half snow-white—had gone so transparent that its organs and blood could be dimly seen.

Slowly, that scaled skin stretched and strained while the snake's body, as though inflating, grew longer and thicker by the moment.

Andy was overjoyed. The Ice-Wind Snake was about to complete the final step of its molt—here and now—and advance to a rank-two beast.

As its master, he could hardly withdraw at such a moment. So, resigning himself to the heavy drain of holding off the cold, he stood fast at the snake's side.

After roughly an hour, the snake's body had swollen to the thickness of a barrel, its length reaching a full three or four zhang. The greater part of the blue frost-mist had passed into its body—and Andy felt the pressure on his shielding Primal Unity Qi ease markedly.

Through their bond he could sense the snake enduring tremendous agony as its body surged in growth, flattened against the ground, hardly moving.

Then—a soft crack. The scaled hide at the snake's head, strained past all endurance, split open in a wide tear.

With a hissing cry, the snake gave a violent lunge and slid free through the opening at its head—leaving behind a single enormous, translucent, empty skin.

The Ice-Wind Snake now stretched three or four zhang, thick as a barrel, and the spiritual fluctuations rolling off it announced it plainly: a rank-two beast!

Yet no flood dragon horns had sprouted from its head—it kept its serpent form still. Though at its present size, "Ice-Wind Python" was now the fitter name.

The python rubbed its newborn, silk-smooth skin against Andy in a show of deepest affection.

Andy stroked the great body with delight. He noticed the python's scales, fresh from the molt, had not yet fully grown in.

Why the beast had not transformed directly into flood dragon form, Andy couldn't say. His guess: as a mutated beast from birth, its path of advancement simply differed from the Bitter Cold Flood Dragon's.

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After a bout of play with Andy, the python drew one tremendous breath, sucking nearly all the remaining blue cold into its mouth—then slithered contentedly through the cavern, hoovering up every last wisp, unwilling to let a single thread escape.

Under the python's rapid feeding the blue frost-mist soon vanished entirely, and the cavern's temperature eased from its deathly extreme.

Having absorbed so much cold, the python's scales seemed to have grown in considerably further.

And at the cavern's center, with a light ting, a blue pearl the size of a bean dropped to the ground.

"An Azure Ice Pearl!" Andy knew it at a glance—an ice-attribute treasure that appeared often in the texts. It was refined from azure mystic ice, a substance occasionally found after steeping ten thousand years in the coldest deeps of the sea, prized as raw material for ice-attribute treasures.

The Azure Ice Pearl itself was an auxiliary ice-attribute treasure: a cultivator of ice techniques who channeled spells through it could raise their power by a clear margin.

So the cavern had held an ice-attribute formation, its cold multiplied and its temperature driven far lower by this very pearl!

Andy didn't deliberate—he tossed the pearl to the Ice-Wind Python, which swallowed it whole in ecstatic delight.

Once the python refined the pearl, its ice powers would climb another step.

Which reminded him—he wanted to see what new abilities the beast had gained upon reaching rank two!

He commanded it through his spiritual sense to demonstrate.

The python's body surged—and it leapt into the air, streaking into rapid flight. Worthy of a spirit beast carrying wind-attribute power: freshly advanced to rank two, and already it flew with such freedom, and fast besides—about the speed of the Wind-Treader Dragon before its improvements, Andy judged.

After several circuits of the cavern, the python halted, then suddenly opened its jaws and blasted out a stream of blue cold a chi thick.

"Isn't that the azure frost itself? So the beast can absorb that cold and turn it to its own use. It seems the python commands the power to swallow and breathe the cold at will!" Andy murmured.

The python was newly advanced, and Andy dared not tire it. After a little more play, he returned it to the spirit beast pouch.

Then he crossed the ice cavern and set out along yet another narrow passage.

This one was not long. Soon he arrived at a chamber several dozen zhang across, walled entirely in pink jade.

Within stood several exquisite beds of pink-veined white jade and a number of extraordinarily fine dressing tables. Jade-green vases around the walls held brilliant flowers of species he couldn't name. Silks and satins lay everywhere—including no small quantity of women's intimate garments. This, plainly, was a lady's boudoir.

Andy drew a light breath, and a fragrance that pierced straight to the heart filled his nose—threaded through, it seemed, with the particular sweet scent of a young woman.

The boudoir appeared to have no other exit. Could the method the Fairy Yun sought be here? Andy stepped slowly inside, intending to search.

The moment he crossed the threshold, soft whispering—girls' voices—reached his ears.

Andy started, and looked hard. On the jade beds, appearing from nowhere, sat a dozen-plus young women in the first bloom of youth, seventeen or eighteen by their looks.

Some sat demure as sheltered daughters, heads bowed and silent; others clustered in twos and threes, pointing at Andy and murmuring, breaking now and then into ripples of giggling laughter. Some wore the lightest powder, pure and lovely; others were richly painted, radiant with worldly charm.

Some were shy and sweet—the instant their eyes met Andy's, color flooded their cheeks and their heads dropped. Some were gracefully composed, regarding him with easy smiles. And some cast glances like silk threads, wave upon wave of open invitation.

Some were slender as willows; some full-figured and richly curved. Some wore white gauze, some layered silks—each with her own allure.

Every one of them possessed beauty to shame the moon and abash the flowers, yet each was distinct—as though every quality of beauty in the mortal world had been gathered into these dozen-odd girls.

"Illusion!" Andy gave a cold inward snort, swept the girls with an icy glance, and looked straight through them.

At his indifference, the girls' reactions diverged. Some looked heartbroken, gazing at him in deep reproach; some went on smiling their flowering smiles, lovelier for it; and others began to preen and pose outright, jade-white curves half-bared, plainly bent on seducing him with beauty alone.

Andy paid them no mind, focusing his attention on a careful search of the boudoir.

As though desperate to claim his eyes, the girls' enticements grew bolder. Some began loosening their robes, baring skin like congealed cream; others caressed their own supple figures, breath quickening in soft, broken murmurs. And two girls, shy beyond the rest, remained seated all the while in perfect propriety—watching Andy with eyes of unspeakable ambiguity.

A scene of the most intoxicating allure unfolded before him—and it was only gathering force.