After hearing Will's words and the certainty contained in them, the snake could not help being terrified. It may not be as intelligent as a human, but it knew about state of mind. State of mind was how calm someone's mind was, and the calmer their mind was, the more dangerous they could be. Will had the strongest state of mind that the snake had ever seen. As such, it could not help being terrified of it. Never before had it felt such terror from the bottom of its soul.
With this terror kept in mind, the snake made a decision. It was better to avoid being this little kid's enemy at all costs, including the clear flower at the bottom of the stream. With this decision, it quickly hid its fear and spoke again with its broken language, saying, "The flower is a mystic ice flower. It is very valuable and only grew by chance. No one else in the forest knows that it is here but me. It should currently be at the peak of the silver core realm in quality. Take it and go to the center of the forest, but take my warning to the center of your heart. Remember the dangers and the horrors that the forest contains."
With this, the snake slithered off, leaving not another word. Will was astonished by its behaviour, but he figured that it was helping him because it was scared of him. He could clearly sense the terror that had deeply rooted itself into the snake when it spoke to him.
However, what astonished him more than that was the mystic ice flower growing at the bottom of the stream. The snake had said that it was a treasure that was at the peak of the silver core realm. This meant that it was not inferior in any way to the strongest and most valuable resources that the strongest person in the Shadow Devil kingdom used. This seemingly weak flower was actually so powerful and so valuable?
With his astonishment, Will hopped into the stream. The moment that he did, he noticed that the stream came up to his waist, and it was moving very slowly. More than that, he noticed that the water was colder than anything he had ever felt before. It was as if he could be frozen at any moment, but the water somehow did not freeze. This was the mystery of the mystic ice flower. It was not called mystic for no reason after all.
Luckily, Will had a strong body, and he continued to approach the flower. As he did, he could feel the coldness getting more intense and that his clothes had already frosted over and were stiffening. However, he continued pushing on towards the flower.
As he was only three feet away, it was now so cold that his clothes had frozen solid, but he still pushed on. At this moment, however, he could feel that his legs were starting to freeze too and that he would soon start to freeze entirely despite his strong body.
With this, he knew that he could not go on any longer, so he started thinking of a solution. It did not take him long to think about his qi of hope, which he had seen have burning properties before. However, he did not know just how dangerous it would be to warm his own body with it. However, he did not care and started summoning the blood red qi around him, which quickly formed into a thin mist and entered into the water.
As it entered into the water, contrary to his expectations, the water did not evaporate, but it did get a bit warmer, just enough that he could continue to approach the mystic ice flower.
As he was only a foot away from it at this point, Will now reached down into the frigid water, which had only slightly warmed up from his red qi of hope. As he did so, he felt his hand instantly start to freeze, and that it would not take long for there to be severe damage to his hand. Despite the pain, he pushed onward, finally getting a finger to touch the mystic ice flower, but the moment he did so, he instantly felt a powerful coldness coursing through his entire body, and he quickly went blue. With a thought, he quickly summoned his inner breath and used it to heal his body which had started to freeze. As the inner breath circulated through his body, the coldness vanished, leaving only his arm feeling cold and frozen.
At this moment, he had gotten his whole hand wrapped around the stem of the flower, and with a grunt of intense pain, he yanked it out of the bottom of the stream. The moment he did, he felt that the coldness had diminished by an intense amount and that it would no longer pose any danger to him even if he did not use his inner breath.
With that, he stopped circulating the inner breath and jumped out of the stream. At this point, his whole hand was covered in ice and was solidly frozen, but before he even had a chance to use his inner breath to try to heal it, he saw that it was starting to thaw and that there was blood leaking out of it, which quickly formed into ruby, eventually covering his entire hand, seemingly rebuilding it. This was the healing ability that his ruby heart had given him. He would be able to heal from damage very quickly and more completely than even a high grade healing pill at the peak of the silver core realm. Such recovering ability was simply incredible, and it was unprecedented. However, everything had a limit, and Will did not know yet what the limit of his healing was.
Despite being healed by his ruby blood, the frozen hand still took a long time to recover, and it was only done healing after three more days, which was many times longer than it had taken to heal his shattered ribcage when he had just gotten the ruby heart. This was because the damage caused by the flower was of a much stronger level and would be much harder to recover. As such, even with his inner breath of calmness helping to heal it, his hand still took three whole days to heal. The mystic ice flower which he had grabbed had been put into his bag which he had slung over his shoulder. The bag was obtained in the kingdom where he had gotten the saber and dagger, and it would be able to hold many treasures the size of the mystic ice flower. The mystic ice flower, powerful and valuable as it was, was only the size of his thumb, and it would not take much space at all in the bag.
In the three days that it took his hand to heal, He had sat next to the stream messing around with the ways he could use his inner breath. He did not want to continue to go into the forest while being injured as that would be akin to courting death. As such, he could only continue to experiment with the inner breath or cultivate, and he had chosen the former. During this time, he had found out that he could use the inner breath to not only destroy something's mind or heal, but it could also be used to help him control his emotions and strengthen his mind. It just being in his body had already strengthened his state of mind, but he had now discovered that he could actively use it to strengthen his state of mind and let it succumb to calmness.
This was similar to the meditative state which he had discovered, but it was not for cultivating, but rather, it was for keeping him calm in all situations, which was a major advantage over others.
Another thing that he discovered was that he could barely control the inner breath to rest on his blade, making it stronger. It was nowhere close to the amplification that came with fusing inner breath with a weapon at the fourth strand of the spirit realm, but it was still stronger than that because of the sheer quality of the inner breath compared to a normal cultivator's inner breath.
When he did this, the originally plain black weapons would shine with a pearl like luster, looking slightly like a black opal. When he hit them against a tree, he could clearly feel that there was no increase in damage or sharpness, but the strength of the weapon had gone from the peak of the foundational realm to at least the middle of the spirit realm and was now many times stronger.
With this, his hand had now healed and he could now continue on his journey to the center of the forest. Grabbing his bag and his cloak, he continued to the center of the forest.
What he did not know, however, was that he was being watched by the young girl in the ice palace in the center of mirage forest. At this moment, she was looking at him intently despite being hundreds of thousands of miles away, or maybe even further. On her face was a look of surprise as she muttered, saying, "He got the mystic ice flower so easily? Could there finally be someone in the spirit realm that can get to the center of the forest?" It was evident that she had been waiting for a long time for a spirit realm to get to the center of the forest.
As for the reason she was waiting, no one but her knew.
... In the blink of an eye, two weeks passed. During this time, Will had come across many beasts, but all of them met the same fate of being slayed by his hands. All of them died by his blades, and only one of them died by his wings, but none of them died by his inner breath as none of them had been strong enough to force him to use it.
The beast which had forced him to use his wings was a beast which was at the third level of the spirit realm, the same as the snake which he had met, but it was obviously a lot less intelligent than the snake. This was enough to lead him to the conclusion that the snake's intelligence level was an anomaly and that there were not many beasts as smart as it in the entire mirage forest. Along the way, Will had come across another natural treasure, which was also of the ice variety, but it was much lower quality than the mystic ice flower, and it was only at the peak of the foundational realm. However, as he still lacked even the most basic cultivation resources, he still picked it up. It was a piece of blue bamboo, and it was also of the element of ice. The pity was that Will did not have any ice variety cultivation manuals, and that both the mystic ice flower and the bamboo were useless to him as of this moment. The only manuals that he had were given to him by Old Man Dai and they were of the fire type.
Despite this, Will was not disappointed, and he continued to the center of the forest. After all, to him, even if he couldn't get any resources that were useful to him, then he would still gain experience from the forest and he could still sell the resources that he got in the forest for a lot of money.
On the third day of the third week of traveling in the forest, Will finally came across an opponent which would trouble him to beat. It was a purple rhino, as were all the beasts in the forest, and it was at the fourth level of the silver core realm. This was the first beast which was at the fourth stage of the spirit realm, and he had almost no confidence to beat it without using his inner breath. Still, he would try his best and if he couldn't beat it, then he would escape from it. After all, he did have wings and he could fly extremely fast. The only question was if he was fast enough to actually escape from it. After all, he only knew that if he flew at full speed, he could be faster than someone at the second level of the silver core realm. He truly had no idea if he could be faster than someone at the fourth level of the silver core realm, let alone a beast at the fourth stage of the silver core realm, which would be faster than a human cultivator of the same level.
Seeing the beast in front of him, Will did not hold any but the inner breath back and instantly slashed with not only his wings but also the saber and dagger. The equivalent of four blades slashed at the rhino all at the same time, but the moment the dagger and saber hit the rhino, they bounced off with barely causing a scratch on the rhino's thick skin. His wings hit the rhino as well, but they only caused slightly more damage, leaving behind deep slashes, but compared to the rhino, Will could tell that these deep slashes were absolutely nothing and there was no way that he could beat the rhino even if he used his wings. As such, he instantly started to flee, but as soon as he did, the rhino started following him, leaving a perfect gap between them that neither grew nor shrank. It was at this moment that Will finally discovered his limits. The rhino was many times stronger than him and he could not kill it, and he could not escape from it either. Being only at the first thread of the spirit realm, Will would obviously have less endurance than the rhino which was a realm and a half above him and would have spiritual power which would not deplete much slower than inner breath.
Knowing that he could no longer escape from the rhino, he decided to simply go where the rhino could not follow, the sky. Instantly, he changed direction and headed directly straight up, going past the trees and the mist of the forest and into the sky. Being a rhino, it could obviously not follow him there, but Will was still thankful that he had run into the rhino because it showed him his limits and what he should expect from one at the fourth level of the silver core realm. He now knew that he could not currently fight against one at the fourth level of the silver core realm, and that he could only escape to the skies if he met one.
What he did not know was that the girl in the ice palace was still watching him, and that she clearly saw his wings and that he could fly at this moment. She obviously knew that he had wings before, but she did not know that he could actually fly, and she had assumed, like others, that the wings could at most serve as a weapon for him, but the moment she saw him flying with the wings, she could not help herself yelling one word, "Bloodline!!!!"
She was previously not concerned about the wings because, even if it was a bloodline, it would not be of much use, but there was a very big difference between a bloodline with wings for assault and wings that could fly. The bloodline with wings that could fly would be of a much higher level then if they could not fly.
With this, she decided to let him roam in the forest as he pleased, but if he were to come into life threatening danger, she would help him, because even where she came from, flying bloodlines were extremely rare and valuable. In this way, she decided to use the mirage forest as a form of test for Will.
...
Very quickly, three months passed by.
Will, who was unaware of the girl watching him, continued on his journey to the center of the forest. He had now met multiple beasts at the fourth level of the silver core realm, but he escaped from every one of them and continued on his way. He had yet to come across a beast at the fifth level of the silver core realm, but he knew that he was simply not far enough into the forest. After all, the snake had said that the entirety of the forest that the kingdoms had explored was merely a small part of it and that there were dangers much stronger than the kingdoms had seen in the center of the forest. He knew that the fifth level of the silver core realm would become the regular at some point, and at another point, they would be the very weakest of that part of the forest. After all, even peak silver core realm experts had come into the forest and not gotten out before. This meant that there were at least beasts at the seventh level of the silver core realm in the forest.
At this moment, he had traveled a total of a hundred thousand miles into the forest and he had yet to come upon a beast at the fifth level of the silver core realm.
However, at this moment, Will heard a screech. The screech was ear piercing and deadly, and he could not help but look up when he heard it. Above him was a massive bird, as big as he was, charging directly towards him. When he sensed its aura, he could not help being terrified. It was a bird at the sixth level of the silver core realm!!!
He finally knew what the snake meant when it warned about the horrors of the forest.