Yi Shuang spent ten minutes reading the first volume of the "pure frost technique".
Although the system had called it that, in the book, it was always referred to as an art, and it was called "pure frost art".
The young man wasn't interested in the meaning, he was solely focused on understanding what he had read.
Indeed, as the system had told him, this "pure frost… manual" could be his last rope.
Following what was instructed in the manual, the boy sat on the floor cross-legged in a lotus position.
He breathed in deeply, feeling the remnant cold enter his body.
Although the technique was created to absorb cold and frost from the outside, there was no reason why it could not work when he tried to absorb from the inside…
With that in mind, the boy breathed deeply and closed his eyes.
He focused on his body, his limbs, and most specifically, his fingertips.
It was as if he had entered a trance, the only thing he could do was try to feel it… not the sensation in his fingers, no, he had lost that countless hours prior.
He was trying to feel the cold, more specifically, as the manual called it, the cold qi.
Qi was supposed to be an energy natural to the world, and although Yi Shuang had never heard of its existence back on his home planet, here, it seemed to be common knowledge.
So much so that even the manual provided by the system gave only a brief introduction about it.
The first step he had to take to utilize the pure frost art was to feel the qi in a place where the ice energy was abundant.
Even though the manual was probably referring to the environment, what other place would have more ice energy than his frozen body?
Yi Shuang stood still for more than thirty minutes, the cells in his fingertips had already started to die as the blood flow had long since been frozen by the piercing temperature.
'Feel it…'
He thought to himself before recalling what he had just read:
'What form does cold Qi take?
Some may say it looks like little flakes in a raging blizzard, invisible yet making up the whole, however, that is incorrect, a blizzard is made of something like a house is made of something, but it is not the same for cold.
Saying that cold is made of cold qi is like saying that water is made out of water drops.
Cold Qi, frost Qi, yin Qi, it has always been called by many names, but it remains the same thing, and although many people are not aware of it…
Cold is just one of these many names.'
This part of the manual was the only vague and incomprehensible one, it was in contrast with the rest of the book, which was written like a set of instructions.
Yi Shuang couldn't understand it at first, but the further he tried to sense qi, the more these words came to his mind, aiding him in his search.
And the closer he was to his objective, the more he realized those abstract words were the ones that helped him the most.
At that moment, as the words of the manual echoed in his mind for the umpteenth time, Yi Shuang felt it… Qi.
Just as the manual said, it is impossible to 'feel' cold, one can feel his temperature rising or falling, but that has nothing to do with 'cold' just with 'heat'.
After all, cold and heat are not opposites, cold is what stands at the foundation, and heat is just something that stands on top of it.
Even when referring to cold, normal people are unaware they are simply talking about a smaller heat.
There is no 'cold'.
Just cold Qi.
The less heat there is, the more cold Qi can once again take its natural and deserved spot.
Yi Shuang had finally understood, and as soon as he did, he felt it… the cold qi that had already started taking over his fingers.
And it almost felt like a tree rooted in the ground.
As if he wanted it for himself, leaving none for his body, Yi Shuang grabbed this Qi, not with his hands nor with any other part of his body, he grabbed it with his senses.
This was the second step he had to take to use the pure frost art, and also the only way he would have managed to stop the decaying of his severely frozen fingers…
Qi absorption.
Greedily absorbing every last strand of cold Qi, Yi Shuang slowly emptied the 'reserves' on his fingers.
As the cold Qi retracted and the blood flowed once again, the dark color that once enveloped his fingers slowly receded.
And as the young man focused solely on that, time flew by in the blink of an eye.
Five whole hours later, the last patch of black surrounding his left pointer finger disappeared, and the boy slowly opened his eyes.
His tranquil gaze was different from before.
The feeling of desperation and resignation had been washed away, but the look of longing and regret remained steady.
His ethereal pale face observed the dancing flames before turning towards the middle of the room.
He got up and moved to where his gaze was pointed, distancing himself from the fire.
There, the feeling of the cold wind kissing his skin overwhelmed the warmth produced by the flames.
He then once again sat down and closed his eyes.
All the Qi he had worked so hard to accumulate was already dispersing from his body after just a little movement, he couldn't afford to delay it any longer…
The third and last step of the pure frost technique: processing.
He had to take all that wild Qi he accumulated and process it into purer Qi before absorbing it, and he could do so by tempering it.
He took the huge amount of Qi he had accumulated and started laboring it onto itself, as if he had split it into two knives, and was grinding them against one another.
Yi Shuang did so incessantly for the next few hours, and when the process finally came to an end, the product wasn't even a tenth of what it was initially.
However, just that little qi gave off a freezing feeling dozens of times more powerful than the large amount he had previously gleaned.
After doing everything as written in the manual, he circulated the remaining Qi through his meridians, circling it around his body before returning it to his abdomen.
The cold Qi that once spread messily in his fingers, causing him frostbite, now moved around his body in proper order, nourishing him and even making him feel empowered.
A ripple of Qi spread through the room but was extinguished as soon as it bypassed the entrance, consumed by the blizzard outside.
At that moment, Yi Shuang opened his eyes.
Greeting him was a system panel that said:
[Congratulations on your breakthrough into the first layer of the foundation establishment realm]
[Host, you have now officially stepped into the realm of cultivation]