On thick translucent ice, a figure covered with lightning zoomed across with immense speed.
This was of course Lu Zheng.
He kept on pouring Qi into his legs until his legs nearly exploded.
Soon, he ran out of Qi and was forced to stop.
Panting heavily, Lu Zheng squatted and checked his surroundings. He wasn't sure if Thea had chased him.
He used a few Simple Grade pills to replenish his energy as he stared at the numerous cuts and holes Thea had riddled him with.
His red and white robe was now mostly red due to the blood that poured out from his wounds.
When Lu Zheng stared at his skin, he saw that the muscles beneath it were crawling towards each other like tiny worms but whenever they made contact, sharp sword light would cut them apart again.
The process was never ending but the sword light was weakening at every turn.
"Sword path dao imprints!" Lu Zheng gasped.
Dao imprints were the very reason Domain Formation realm martial practitioners could never beat Sky realm experts under normal circumstances.
They were also the reason why martial practitioners at the Sky realm or above were titled 'experts'.
After undergoing tribulation, a Sky realm expert would receive forty eight dao imprints each of his respective path.
These dao imprints were like infinitely small runes that covered the physical bodies of martial practitioners.
It was impossible to see them with the naked eyes.
Each dao imprint served as a sort of multiplier that buffed the effects of any martial technique the martial practitioner used.
Lu Zheng had forty eight fire path dao imprints and forty eight lightning path dao imprints.
If he could create a small fire ball with a strand of Qi at the Domain Formation realm, he could create over two hundred fire balls with the same strand of Qi at the Sky realm.
Ten dao imprints meant twice as much power, twenty was thrice as much and so on.
Whenever Lu Zheng also attacked anyone, dao imprints of his path would be temporarily imprinted on them like Thea's sword path dao imprint.
As a result, it would be hard for such a person to heal their injuries.
After dozens of breaths of times, the sword path dao imprints in Lu Zheng's wounds dissipated and his injuries finally healed.
A normal human would have bled to death.
When his injuries were finally healed, Lu Zheng took a deep breath and observed his surroundings.
In contrast to the icy plain around Lu Zheng, there was a huge cave a certain distance from him.
The cave's mouth was adorned with snow and icicles and was very dark.
The bright Vermillion True Flame ignited on Lu Zheng's palm as he walked in.
An intense cold many times stronger than it was outside suddenly assaulted Lu Zheng as frost appeared on his forehead.
"Hmph!" At once, Lu Zheng's entire body caught flames.
He resembled Ghost Rider at the moment but even with this, his body temperature was only normal.
The cave was lit up, the cave walls were all covered in thick blue ice.
As Lu Zheng went further in, the cold's intensity only increased. At a certain time, the thick blue ice on the cave walls had been replaced by cold blue fist-sized gems.
"Frost gems!" Lu Zheng was pleasantly surprised as he plucked one of the gems from the cave wall.
Lu Zheng's hand froze over but was instantly thawed by the Vermillion True Flame.
"Hong Haoyu would like these" Lu Zheng muttered as he busied himself with plucking the frost gems on the cave wall.
The frost gems each contained as much ice Qi as a rank six ice path beast's beast core.
For someone like Hong Haoyu, they were of immense worth.
However, Lu Zheng didn't even want them at all.
It was like the saying, one man's food was another man's poison.
"When I meet with Hong Haoyu next, I can give him these frost gems as gifts. Even if we don't meet again, I can still sell them for a valuable price" Lu Zheng thought as he stored the many frost gems in his spatial ring.
The sheer amount of frost gems was astounding. There was over a hundred thousand of the and Lu Zheng still continued to see more.
If his spatial ring wasn't extremely big, he wouldn't have the space to store them all in.
~What could produce frost gems in such quantities? No wonder there are so many Void Passage realm experts gathered here. This cave itself is a trove of wealth!~
Lu Zheng was overwhelmed by curiosity as he walked deeper into the cave.
His intuition told him that the reason there were many frost gems resided in the deepest part of the cave and the further he went, the closer he was to the answer.
Many hours passed yet he hadn't reached the cave's belly. All he had been doing was collecting frost gems.
He was lucky he had many empty spatial rings in his pockets which he had taken from the pirate ship.
He stored the excess frost gems there.
~This cave is so large. What could have dense ice Qi that it was able to produce frost gems from such a distance?~
From the main world's standards [1], the cave could be regarded as a mid-scale resource point.
This was merely the first layer of the secret realm.
After what seemed like an eternity, a bright light pierced Lu Zheng's vision. He was stunned.
~Why is the cave's belly so bright?~
When Lu Zheng's eyes adjusted to the light, a robust figure entered his vision.
It was a beast.
[1] The main world is the realm Xue Ritian originates from