"Oh? Would that not consume a great deal of true qi?" Xiao Qing asked in some surprise after hearing the Ice Palace Master's words.

"In theory, it does consume a great deal of true qi. It amounts to trading the loss of one's own strength for a head-on clash with the enemy!" At this point the Ice Palace Master paused, a trace of doubt crossing her face as she said, "But this man is rather unusual! Aunt Qing, did Xiao Li not say before? All his true qi had been absorbed by Zhang Nai Pao, leaving him utterly reduced to a cripple, yet in a single night he not only recovered his strength but even broke through!"

"It seems there are indeed many gifted talents among rogue cultivators!" Aunt Qing sighed. "Pity he is a man, destined never to become part of the core of the Ice Palace!"

The inner sect of the Ice Palace does not admit men. This is an unwritten rule of the Ice Palace, never made public, yet everyone in its core knows it! The inner sect is made up entirely of women. If a man were ever to enter, there could be only one possibility, that the successor of the Ice Palace has appeared, and in order to continue the inheritance the successor must take a husband to bear offspring. Yet over all these years no successor has ever appeared, so naturally no man has ever set foot in the inner sect!

And those male trial participants who dream of becoming outer disciples of the Ice Palace, of being noticed by the inner sect and taken in as inner disciples, are likely all to be disappointed. No matter how outstanding they are, they will never enter the core of the Ice Palace!

Take innkeeper Xiao Li for example. He possesses miraculous abilities and his strength is not weak, yet after all these years he remains an ordinary disciple guarding the gate for the Ice Palace, never admitted into its inner sect.

"Our Ice Palace has no need to recruit outsiders." The Ice Palace Master shook her head, clearly Wei Zhao had not caught her eye. She was merely curious, nothing more than that.

"True enough! But, Palace Master, what of the woman carried on Ling Yi's back?" Nominally Xiao Qing and the Ice Palace Master stood as mistress and servant, yet after the Palace Master's master passed away, it was she who raised the Palace Master to adulthood, much like an aunt!

Their relationship was therefore not distant. Before the Ice Palace Master, Xiao Qing never felt overly restrained, and the Palace Master affectionately called her Aunt Qing! She had called her that since childhood, and even after growing up and formally succeeding as Palace Master, she still called her so!

Moreover, owing to the Ice Palace Master's strength, even the Grand Elder treated her with courtesy within the palace. Among the ancient sects, strength had always commanded reverence. With her power there for all to see, no one could gossip about what she did, nor would anyone dare!

"I am not sure, but she looks as though she is dying. I have not examined her in detail." The Ice Palace Master said, "Perhaps he joined the trial only to win the right to exchange for a natural treasure, in order to heal the friend on his back!"

"Perhaps that is how it is..." Xiao Qing nodded.

While the Ice Palace Master and Xiao Qing were discussing Wei Zhao, Wei Zhao suddenly felt a sense of being watched. It was not that he had sensed anything concrete, but came entirely from a natural sixth sense!

Wei Zhao at once closed his eyes and entered the jade pendant space, using its perceptive power to try to see who was watching him! Since the jade pendant space had given no advance warning, that meant the watcher had no intention of ambushing him!

To Wei Zhao's disappointment, however, he could only roughly judge that the watcher should be coming from above the Ice Snow Spirit Mountain, yet he could not see exactly who was watching him!

Wei Zhao instinctively raised his head and looked toward the summit of the Ice Snow Spirit Mountain, the seat of the Ice Palace. Could it be that people of the Ice Palace were watching every move of the trial participants here? That was most likely it!

Having figured this out, Wei Zhao paid it no further mind. After all, it was only normal for the Ice Palace to keep watch over what happened below.

Seeing Wei Zhao look up, Xiao Qing was taken slightly aback. "Could he have discovered us watching him?"

"That should be impossible! We are Heaven-rank masters. When we are not circulating our mental cultivation method, low-level cultivators absolutely cannot sense our presence, unless the man's sixth sense is innately strong or he has undergone some professional training!" The Ice Palace Master shook her head as she spoke.

"Perhaps rogue cultivators all have keen perception. To have survived, they are naturally stronger than those pampered young disciples from noble houses." Xiao Qing said.

"Yet that Yang Qiqi is quite mediocre. How has a rogue cultivator of such a level survived until now?" The Ice Palace Master said with some disdain. Because Yang Qiqi was a girl, the Palace Master had naturally paid her special attention, only to be left deeply disappointed.

"Indeed. It seems for the next trial we should require that all participants be women. Otherwise the trial participants sent by the various houses are almost all men!" Xiao Qing nodded.

As the saying goes, enemies meet on a narrow road, when foes or those who would rather not meet insist on crossing paths! Such was exactly the situation for Wei Zhao and Yu Bing now!

Following the Thunder Pig in search of the next natural treasure, they ran on the road into Feng Nitian and Yu Shan, who were in the act of seizing a small team's natural treasure!

"If you do not want to end up crippled, obediently hand over all the natural treasures you have found!" Yu Shan stood before the members of that team and said domineeringly, "You all know what Brother Nitian can do. If you dare run or resist, he will pin you down with the Nitian Divine Art and beat you into cripples!"

The members of this team had just found a three-hundred-year snow lotus, guarded by a white bear beside it. They had spent great effort defeating the white bear and were about to gather the fruits of victory, when Feng Nitian and Yu Shan appeared to rob them!

They had naturally heard of Feng Nitian's deeds, so before Feng Nitian they dared offer no resistance! They were neither Zhang Nai Pao nor Wei Zhao!

Faced with an existence like Feng Nitian, they could only accept their bad luck!

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