Chapter 892: Um... Huh? She’s Xiao Han?!
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 892: Um... Huh? She’s Xiao Han?!
Inside the Glacial Throne Secret Realm.
Snow filled the sky, mingled with ice crystals. Driven by howling winds, they crackled as they slammed against the protective barriers raised by the travelers.
The blizzard here showed no sign of stopping. Snow accumulated relentlessly upon the earth, leaving behind nothing but a landscape of desperate white.
At this moment, Tan Han and her group were struggling through the drifts. The footprints they left behind stretched into the distance, but before they could even reach the limit of their vision, they were swallowed by the falling snow.
The Witch Secret Realm Club’s preliminary estimates suggested that this secret realm was far larger than the Witch Academy itself—meaning it was even bigger than the entire city of Magic Capital!
It wasn't that they didn't want to ride their brooms or use alchemical items to travel; rather, moving at the speed of a flying broom made it too easy to get separated and lost.
Visibility in the secret realm was extremely low. They had heard rumors of this at first, but only after experiencing it firsthand did they understand the true difficulty.
Furthermore... a mysterious power within the secret realm was suppressing their spells.
Unlike the Great Weakening Spell of the Core World, which suppressed power directly at the source of the spell, the suppression here was more akin to an offensive interference.
Essentially, as long as one was within the blizzard, they were subjected to power suppression. During the casting process, the flow of power was constantly being interrupted every single second.
A single mistake would result in spell backlash, so every casting required extreme caution.
Moreover, for alchemical items like brooms, prolonged exposure to the blizzard meant the runic arrays within them received the same "treatment" as active spellcasting.
If they couldn't hold out, the alchemical items would suffer damage at the runic level, leading to the collapse of their internal energy circulation.
Thus, high-mobility equipment like flying brooms was actually reserved for critical moments.
As for what constituted a critical moment... that was, naturally, when it was time to run for their lives.
After all... this was a true battlefield of life-and-death struggle!
Once the group had adapted to the environment, the hunt was about to begin.
As for the Great Spellbook research base and the related data within this secret realm?
In truth, they hadn't found a trace of them yet.
Preliminary judgments suggested that those research bases and laboratories had long since been buried beneath the ice and snow.
Indeed, the snow continued to cover, compress, and settle... everything that once existed had long since vanished from sight.
Trying to find such a place in an area this vast was like looking for a needle in a haystack!
Ultimately, that data was merely a gimmick—at least until the location was found, this place would remain nothing more than a battlefield fraught with peril.
Because... they weren't just facing the greed of other explorers, but also the highly unique monsters native to this secret realm!
"Get back!" Tan Han shouted, her instincts naturally sharp when it came to danger.
BOOM—!
Accompanied by a roar like a massive avalanche, the very earth formed of accumulated snow shattered.
Massive chunks of snow were sent flying, kicking up a vast cloud of ice mist.
"It's those Ice Crystal Monsters!"
As the shout rang out, the snow mist and ice dust cleared, and a gargantuan creature appeared before them.
This "Ice Crystal Monster" was a translucent ice-blue, its entire body sculpted from dense ice crystals. Its faceted surfaces, sharp as if cut by a knife, gleamed brilliantly under the simulated light of the secret realm.
This particular specimen stood at least two or three stories tall, and its somewhat lumbering torso seemed to have a portion still buried beneath the snow.
This meant their actual size was significantly taller than they appeared.
Once the group recovered from the shock, they immediately counterattacked, sending a dense barrage of spells flying toward the giant monster.
Though they were massive, these creatures only possessed basic mobility; their attacks relied on their heavy bodies to deliver physical strikes.
Even so, the destruction caused by such a behemoth was not to be underestimated. If one were to take a direct hit from this thing, their body would likely be smashed into mincemeat.
After just a few rounds of concentrated fire-type spells, the monster collapsed under the strain. However, the group did not relax.
Because... these Ice Crystal Monsters appeared in swarms, never alone!
No one even knew the population density of these creatures. The intelligence reports described it simply: wherever there was ice and snow, these monsters could crawl out.
Furthermore, before these monsters became active, standard life-detection spells couldn't even pick up signs of life beneath the snow!
Sure enough, as soon as that monster fell, eerie cracks appeared on the knife-edged glaciers not far away. Immediately after, more monsters emerged directly from the ice...
The blizzard obstructed their vision, preventing them from seeing too far, but they could still identify the massive silhouettes of the Ice Crystal Monsters.
It wasn't just the glaciers; it was the ground beneath their feet as well.
It was as if the monster they had just killed was a fuse, completely igniting the fury of these creatures!
"Why didn't your intelligence mention this?" If they had known that killing a monster would trigger a chain reaction, they would have chosen to run immediately!
"You expect the scouts to actually kill these things? It's a miracle they can even make it back from the secret realm with their reports."
Regardless of who was right, it didn't change their current situation.
It wasn't that their group couldn't handle this many monsters, but wasting so much stamina here was simply unwise.
Even though Tan Han and her companions had self-generated mana and didn't need to worry about their reserves, their physical stamina and mental energy certainly couldn't withstand such attrition.
One must not forget that even if their physical fitness far exceeded that of ordinary people, the mere act of facing this harsh environment already consumed a balanced amount of stamina and energy. Any sudden battle would break that recovery equilibrium, plunging them into a prolonged state of exhaustion.
Faced with this imminent clash, they all tacitly chose to rapidly disengage from the battlefield.
These monsters were clumsy; the sky was not a domain they could tread upon.
However, as Tan Han looked up at the thick blizzard clouds in the sky, she instinctively felt that something bad was about to happen.
She had seen mentions of flying Ice Crystal Monsters in the intelligence reports. Although the reports said they were rare—with many explorer teams only encountering one—if they met them in this situation... once their aerial coordination was broken, they would very likely lose each other in the blizzard.
Even alchemical items used for mutual positioning might not be enough to help them regroup.
Nevertheless, Tan Han made the choice. At the very least, they needed to leave this hornets' nest to preserve their strength.
As for getting lost?
Tan Han knew very well that the members of this temporary alliance were practically itching to split up anyway.
The moment Tan Han rode her broom into the low-hanging clouds, she heard a series of sharp clacks—the sound of ice crystals colliding.
These sounds gradually became rhythmic. Ice crystals transformed into transparent wings, folding within the dark clouds to become a sharp frost falcon.
Swoosh—!
As the ice crystal bird brought forth a gale and a spray of fine ice needles, Tan Han finally realized that those low clouds were also "nests" for these ice crystal monsters.
These weren't normal dark clouds at all!
How could normal clouds produce an endless drift of snow? Only a Great Spellbook could create such a miracle!
This was the first lesson the secret realm taught them shortly after they entered.
Their greatest enemies weren't the other explorers who entered with them, but the ceaseless natural calamities within the secret realm itself!
* * *
The Glacial Throne Secret Realm had only been open for two days. Before all the explorers had even made it inside, some had already fled this "calamity" of a realm in a pathetic state via special means.
"Buz Gray... second son of the Gray family, wizard apprentice. The fragment he held was the Heart of the Cold Wave."
Watching the wounded youth emerge, Ming Xueming, standing outside the secret realm, saw his information flash briefly through her mind.
A faint smile touched the corner of her mouth. At the very least, this boy had fulfilled his mission. He had left the fragment... inside the Glacial Throne Secret Realm.
"My... my bead... the bead is gone! Let me down! I have to go back in!" The boy fumbled frantically at his pockets, completely ignoring his frost-covered wounds as he cried out the disastrous news in terror.
Ming Xueming smiled but said nothing. The people from the other Transcendent Academies simply assumed the boy had lost the fragment.
Only she knew that fragments brought into the secret realm could not be taken out.
You could cling to life and use spatial means to forcibly exit the realm, but... you couldn't take the fragment with you.
The only way to leave with one was through the official teleportation channels.
And the only person who could use that channel while holding a fragment would be the final victor.
Those holding fragments were all "desperadoes" within the secret realm; they weren't the type to quit while they were ahead.
They would either rob others or be robbed themselves. There was no third option.
While these people were discussing the immense risks of the secret realm, three witches arrived at the Experimental Zone.
A few days ago, after my clone left the Dean's office, the experimental procedures regarding the Dream Domain had been put on the schedule.
Today, after these three Body Cultivation Witches received their permissions for the Experimental Zone, they were led to the laboratory by the Dean herself.
After all, Mei Lind truly placed great importance on this experiment.
This visit was primarily to familiarize the three of them with the environment and the procedures.
There was still some time before the formal experiment began.
"Is this the place? It seems the experimental area your academy reserved is truly massive."
"Naturally. After all, our Witch Academy is primarily led by Academic Witches... Pay attention, we are about to enter the Dream Overlap Region."
"Dream Overlap Region? Will there be any side effects?"
"The Dream Overlap Region can be dangerous for those with weak willpower. Their bodies will instinctively be affected by the dream, and their consciousness will enter it. However, for Transcendent Witches, it has essentially no impact."
"True, I can feel it."
Long carefully sensed the surroundings after entering the overlap region. As Body Cultivators, their physical perception was very keen.
But no matter how much the dream overlapped with reality, it could not affect physical matter in the slightest.
The abnormality they felt was mostly the dream's interference with their own consciousness.
Furthermore, they felt that the closer they got to the laboratory, the more severe this interference became.
"Once we enter the laboratory, I need to state one thing in advance, as it concerns your safety."
"Is it because the equipment in the lab is too expensive, and you're afraid we'll break it and won't be able to pay? I was warned like that last time," Long said quite bluntly.
"That is indeed part of it. The equipment in the lab is very expensive." Thinking of this, May once again recalled Xiao Han’s skill in hand-crafting equipment and her primitive research style. She instinctively felt there was no need to worry about such things.
The most expensive thing in Xiao Han’s lab... was probably Xiao Han herself. Nothing was of higher value than her.
"But the main thing is safety. On the way here, I told you about the horrors of the Primitive Dream Realm. The central area of this laboratory is a controlled, man-made Primitive Dream Realm. Unless it's for the experiment, do not touch it and do not go near that area."
"Is that the only thing to watch out for?"
"Um... don't go looking for trouble or break the experimental materials. I trust your self-control, and I hope you can restrain your curiosity. If you don't understand something, you can ask, but do not pick things up..." Mei Lind rattled off a long list of precautions.
To a witch who was curious about everything, an ignorant witch in a laboratory was comparable to a category ten typhoon.
"There seem to be quite a lot of precautions. Are the lab rules that strict?"
"Actually, most of the rules are there to limit the overflowing curiosity of witches who don't know any better. Forgive my bluntness, but I hope you can sense my seriousness. This is no joke."
"I think you're equating us Body Cultivation Witches with those brute witches, Dean. There's really no need for such stereotypes," Muli spoke up from the side.
"Do you know what this is?" At that moment, Dean Mei suddenly produced something—a tiny object that looked like a feather.
"What is it?" Long, who was closest to May, instinctively reached out. But the moment her finger touched the tip, the feather instantly transformed into fire, burning between May's fingers.
Until nothing was left.
"This is Unstable State Combustible Feather Element Fire. It is a solidified flame encapsulation product, a universal material used in alchemy. Touching it requires a special spell to form a protective layer on the hand; otherwise, it will instantly disrupt the elemental balance and cause an explosion." May clapped her hands and looked at Muli. "It's not that I want to have stereotypes. Curiosity often strikes a witch when she least expects it. I hope this serves as a reminder."
"...I understand." Muli was silent for a moment, then glanced at the Dragon Witch beside her. She knew exactly who May’s lecture was intended for.
Afterward, Mei Lind led them into the laboratory.
She used her authority to open the door. Inside the lab, the pressure exerted by the Primitive Dream Realm on their consciousness grew increasingly intense.
"Xiao Han~ I messaged you in advance. You're not busy, are you?"
"Hmm? Sister Mei, you're here already?" I walked to the front of the lab, somewhat surprised, and saw the three Body Cultivation Witches again.
"Um... Huh? She’s Xiao Han?! Why is she a Little Witch?"