Chapter 2: The Frozen Heart
The Ruins of Winter's End rose from the northern plains like the skeleton of a fallen god.
Chen Feng had seen them in the game, rendered in careful detail—crumbling towers of white stone, archways carved with ancient runes, and at the center, a temple half-buried in eternal frost. But seeing them in person, feeling the unnatural cold that radiated from the ruins even a quarter-mile away, made his breath catch.
This was real. All of it.
"We should leave the horses here," Yue Lian said, dismounting with fluid grace. Her breath misted in the air despite it being late spring. "The cold gets worse the closer we get. They won't survive it."
Chen Feng nodded, securing his mount to a dead tree that somehow still stood despite the frost coating its branches. His fingers were already numb, and they weren't even at the ruins yet.
[Warning: Extreme Cold Zone Detected]
[Temperature: -15°C and dropping]
[Recommendation: Turn back]
He dismissed the system notification with a thought. Turning back meant death in fifty-two days. Moving forward... well, that might mean death tonight, but at least he'd die trying.
"Stay close," Yue Lian said, drawing one of her daggers. The blade gleamed silver in the moonlight. "Spirit beasts are most active at night."
They approached the ruins on foot, their footsteps crunching on frost-covered grass that shouldn't exist in this season. The temperature dropped with each step, and Chen Feng found himself cycling what little magical energy he possessed just to keep from shivering.
Second Circle. Barely enough to warm himself, let alone fight.
The outer wall of the ruins loomed before them, thirty feet of crumbling stone covered in ice that gleamed like crystal. An archway stood open, darkness beyond promising either salvation or death.
[Quest Update: Steal Destiny]
[You have reached the Ruins of Winter's End]
[Objective: Navigate to the Central Temple]
[Warning: Multiple threats detected]
[Spirit Beast Count: 12]
[Trap Count: 8]
[Formation Barriers: 3]
Chen Feng's enhanced vision from his player status allowed him to see faint red markers throughout the ruins—each one a threat. But he also saw the blue line, the safe path he'd memorized from playing the game dozens of times.
"This way," he said, stepping through the archway.
Yue Lian followed without question, though he caught the way her eyes scanned the shadows, her body coiled like a spring ready to release.
Inside the ruins, the cold intensified. Ice coated every surface, turning the ancient halls into a frozen labyrinth. Chen Feng led them deeper, following the mental map he'd built from the game, turning left at a collapsed corridor, ducking under a frozen archway, skirting around a courtyard where ice spikes jutted from the ground like teeth.
"How do you know where to go?" Yue Lian asked quietly. "You've never been here before."
"Intuition," Chen Feng lied. Then, because she deserved better than lies: "I had a dream about this place. Everything was... clear. Like a map in my mind."
She gave him a long look but didn't press further. One of the many things he appreciated about her—she knew when to accept mystery.
They'd been walking for perhaps twenty minutes when the first spirit beast appeared.
It materialized from the shadows like a nightmare made real—a wolf the size of a horse, its fur pure white, its eyes glowing blue with condensed magical energy. Ice crystals formed in the air around it with each breath.
[Frost Wolf - Fourth Circle Equivalent]
[Threat Level: LETHAL]
Chen Feng's hand moved to the dagger at his belt, a pathetic weapon against such a creature. Beside him, Yue Lian shifted into a combat stance, her twin daggers ready.
"Run or fight?" she asked, her voice perfectly calm despite facing a beast that could kill them both.
"Neither."
The frost wolf padded toward them, its massive paws silent on the ice. Chen Feng remembered this from the game—the patrol pattern, the trigger radius, the safe zone just to their left.
"Three steps left," he whispered. "Slowly. Don't run."
Yue Lian moved with him, her trust absolute. They sidled left, Chen Feng's heart hammering so hard he thought it might burst. The wolf's glowing eyes tracked them, its lips pulling back to reveal fangs like icicles.
One step. Two steps. Three—
The wolf turned away, continuing its patrol as if they didn't exist.
Chen Feng released a breath he hadn't known he was holding. Yue Lian shot him a look that clearly said explain later, and they kept moving.
Two more spirit beasts. Four more traps—pressure plates that would've impaled them, a ceiling that would've collapsed, a corridor filled with poisonous frost gas. Chen Feng avoided them all with the precision of someone who'd done this a hundred times before.
Because he had. Just in a different reality.
Finally, they reached the Central Temple.
It stood in the heart of the ruins, a pyramid of white stone with a single entrance at its base. Massive ice formations surrounded it like guardian sentinels, and the temperature here was so cold that Chen Feng's magical energy was being drained just to keep him from freezing solid.
[Central Temple Reached]
[Warning: Boss Chamber Ahead]
[Guardian Beast: Primordial Ice Serpent]
[Threat Level: EXTREME]
"Young Master," Yue Lian said, her voice tight. "I can feel something inside. Something powerful."
Chen Feng nodded. The serpent. In the game, Tian Wu had barely survived the encounter, only winning because of a lucky critical hit and the protagonist's ridiculous plot armor.
Chen Feng had neither.
But he had knowledge. And sometimes, knowledge was better than power.
"There's a beast inside," he said. "Guardian of the artifact we came for. Sixth Circle equivalent, maybe higher."
Yue Lian's eyes widened slightly—one of the few times he'd seen her surprised. "We can't fight that. I'm only Seventh Level martial. Against a Sixth Circle beast..."
"We're not going to fight it." Chen Feng moved to the temple entrance, studying the runes carved into the stone. "We're going to put it to sleep."
"How?"
He traced one of the runes with a finger, feeling the residual magic thrumming through the stone. "This temple was built by ice mages. Everything here responds to ice-attribute magic. The serpent is bound by formations, controlled by them. If we can manipulate the formations..."
"You're Second Circle," Yue Lian pointed out. "You can barely manifest flames, let alone control ancient ice formations."
"I know." Chen Feng smiled grimly. "That's why I'm going to use my mother's bloodline instead."
The shock on her face was worth it. "Your mother was—"
"From the Northern Clans. Ice mages, all of them, before they were destroyed." He looked at Yue Lian, needing her to understand. "I've always had ice potential in my blood. It's why I could never advance with fire—the two elements conflict. But here, surrounded by pure ice magic..."
He didn't finish. Instead, he placed both palms on the entrance and reached deep inside himself, past the weak fire magic his father's bloodline provided, past the Second Circle that had become his prison, down to something cold and ancient that had always lurked in his core.
His mother's legacy.
For nineteen years, that ice potential had been suppressed, fighting against his father's fire. But now, in this place of absolute cold, it responded.
Frost spread from his palms across the stone. The runes began to glow with pale blue light.
[Hidden Bloodline Detected]
[Ice Affinity (Dormant): 67%]
[Conflict with Fire Affinity: CRITICAL]
[Warning: Forced activation may cause backlash]
Chen Feng gritted his teeth as pain lanced through his body. Fire and ice warred in his core, tearing at him from the inside. Blood trickled from his nose.
"Young Master!" Yue Lian grabbed his shoulder. "Stop, you're hurting yourself—"
"Almost... there..."
The entrance rumbled. Ancient mechanisms groaned to life. And slowly, the massive stone door began to slide open.
Beyond lay darkness and cold that made the ruins outside feel warm by comparison.
[Temple Entrance: Unlocked]
[Guardian Status: Dormant]
[Time Limit: 10 minutes before automatic reactivation]
"We have ten minutes," Chen Feng gasped, wiping blood from his face. "After that, the serpent wakes up."
Yue Lian stared at him with an expression he couldn't quite read. Then she nodded once, sharply. "Then we'd better move."
They entered the temple.
The interior was a single vast chamber, its ceiling lost in shadow far above. Ice pillars supported the structure, each one carved with scenes of ancient battles—mages wielding impossible power, beasts the size of mountains, wars that had reshaped continents.
And at the center, coiled around a pedestal of black ice, lay the serpent.
It was beautiful and terrible—scales of pure white that reflected the dim light like mirrors, a body as thick as a tree trunk, easily sixty feet long. Its head rested on the pedestal, eyes closed, breathing slow and steady.
On the pedestal, pulsing with cold blue light, sat a crystal the size of a fist.
The Heart of Primordial Winter.
[Divine Artifact Detected]
[Heart of Primordial Winter]
[Effect: Awakens dormant bloodlines, grants Celestial Physique]
[Warning: Extremely dangerous to use]
[Compatibility: Calculating...]
Chen Feng approached slowly, every step feeling like walking through water. The pressure of the serpent's aura alone was crushing, even while it slept. This was a creature of the Sixth Circle, maybe higher—a predator that could level cities.
Yue Lian stayed at the entrance, watching the serpent with the intense focus of a warrior who knew she was outmatched.
Chen Feng reached the pedestal. Up close, the Heart was mesmerizing—frost swirled inside the crystal like a miniature blizzard, and he could feel the power radiating from it. This was an artifact that could change everything.
His hand trembled as he reached for it.
[Compatibility Check Complete]
[Ice Affinity: 67% - COMPATIBLE]
[Fire Affinity: 12% - CONFLICT DETECTED]
[Recommendation: Purge fire affinity before absorption]
[Warning: Absorption with conflict present may result in death]
Chen Feng's breath caught. Death. Of course it might kill him. Nothing worthwhile ever came easy.
But he'd die anyway in fifty-two days. At least this way, he'd die trying.
His fingers closed around the Heart.
The world exploded into cold.
It wasn't pain—pain would have been merciful. This was every nerve in his body freezing and shattering simultaneously. The Heart pulsed in his hand, its power flooding into him like a river of liquid nitrogen.
Chen Feng screamed.
His fire affinity tried to resist, flames sparking weakly around his body. But the ice was overwhelming, drowning the fire, extinguishing it like a candle in a blizzard. He felt something fundamental inside him break, his Second Circle shattering like glass.
And then, in the ruins of his broken cultivation, something new began to form.
Ice. Pure, absolute ice. It spread through his meridians, his core, his very blood. The Heart dissolved in his hand, its essence merging with him, rewriting his body at the most fundamental level.
[Fire Affinity: PURGED]
[Ice Affinity: AWAKENING]
[Celestial Physique: FORMING]
[Warning: Transformation in progress - 0%]
Images flashed through Chen Feng's mind—memories that weren't his own. Ancient ice mages standing atop glaciers. A woman with his mother's eyes, commanding blizzards. A bloodline that stretched back to the primordial cold, to the first winter, to absolute zero itself.
His mother's clan. His heritage. His birthright.
The serpent's eyes opened.
They glowed with killing intent, and the creature rose from its coil with a hiss that shook the temple. Chen Feng had taken its treasure. Disturbed its sleep. Violated its sanctuary.
And now it would kill him.
"Young Master!" Yue Lian's voice seemed to come from very far away.
The serpent struck, fangs extended, moving faster than anything that size had a right to move.
Chen Feng couldn't move. Could barely think. The transformation had him paralyzed, his body convulsing as ice and power rewrote his very existence.
But Yue Lian could.
She moved like her namesake—like moonlight itself, flowing between one position and another without seeming to cross the space between. Her daggers flashed, striking the serpent's scales and skittering off harmlessly, but she wasn't trying to wound it.
Just distract it.
"Run!" she shouted at him. "I'll hold it—"
The serpent's tail whipped around, catching her across the ribs. Yue Lian flew backward, slamming into a pillar hard enough to crack the ice. She slid to the ground, gasping, blood on her lips.
Rage ignited in Chen Feng's chest—a rage cold as winter itself.
His eyes snapped open, and for the first time in his life, he felt truly awake.
[Transformation: 15%]
[Emergency Power Release: AUTHORIZED]
[Warning: Premature use may damage foundation]
He didn't care.
Chen Feng raised his hand, and ice answered his call.
Not the weak frost he'd managed at the entrance. Not the pathetic tricks a Second Circle mage could perform. This was real power, raw and terrible and beautiful.
A spear of ice materialized in the air, six feet of crystalline perfection, sharp enough to cut reality itself. It hung there for a heartbeat, frost spreading from it in waves.
Then Chen Feng thrust his hand forward, and the spear shot toward the serpent like a bolt of frozen lightning.
It struck the creature in the side, punching through scales that had turned aside Yue Lian's daggers like they were toys. The serpent shrieked, thrashing, black blood spraying across the white ice.
Chen Feng formed another spear. And another. He threw them with wild abandon, each one finding its mark, each one driving deeper. The serpent tried to strike back, but ice spread across its body wherever the spears landed, slowing it, binding it, freezing it solid.
[Transformation: 25%]
[New Ability Unlocked: Ice Manifestation]
[Warning: Power consumption critical]
The world tilted. Chen Feng dropped to one knee, his vision swimming. He'd used too much, too fast. His body wasn't ready for this kind of power.
But it was enough.
The serpent lay still, encased in ice from head to tail, its eyes frozen mid-glare. Not dead—he could still feel its life force—but completely immobilized.
Yue Lian pulled herself upright, staring at him with wide eyes. "You... what did you just...?"
Chen Feng tried to answer, but the world went black.
The last thing he heard was Yue Lian calling his name, her voice sharp with worry.
And the last thing he felt was cold—absolute, perfect cold—spreading through every fiber of his being.
[Transformation continuing...]
[Estimated completion: 7 days]
[Status: CRITICAL]
Chen Feng woke to agony.
His entire body felt like it was being torn apart and reassembled, over and over. Fire burned in his veins—no, not fire. Ice so cold it burned. His bones creaked, his muscles spasmed, and every breath was a struggle.
"Easy." Yue Lian's voice, soft and close. "Don't move."
He forced his eyes open. They were back in his room at the Ling manor. Dawn light streamed through the windows. How long had he been unconscious?
"Three days," Yue Lian said, reading his expression. She sat beside his bed, dark circles under her eyes suggesting she hadn't slept. "You've been... changing."
Chen Feng tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. Pain lanced through him, and he fell back with a gasp.
[Transformation: 42%]
[Time Remaining: 4 days, 7 hours]
[Warning: Do not attempt strenuous activity]
"What happened?" he managed.
"I carried you back." Yue Lian's expression was carefully neutral. "Told your family you'd gotten drunk and fell down some stairs. They believed it—why wouldn't they? The family failure, making a fool of himself again."
Bitterness laced her words, but Chen Feng barely noticed. His mind was racing through calculations. Three days gone. Forty-nine days left until his scripted death. Four more days until the transformation completed.
And the protagonist would arrive in nine days.
"The artifact?" he asked.
"You absorbed it completely." She studied him. "Young Master... what's happening to you? Your eyes—they're different. And the temperature in this room..."
Chen Feng glanced at the windows. Frost coated the glass, spreading outward in delicate patterns. The air felt cold enough that he could see his breath.
"I'm becoming what I should have been from the start," he said quietly.
[New Status Window]
[Name: Chen Feng]
[Age: 19]
[Family: Ling (Seventh Son of Twelve)]
[Rank: Third Circle of Manifestation (UNSTABLE)]
[Affinity: Ice (Awakening) - 78%]
[Celestial Physique: Body of Primordial Winter (42% Complete)]
[Special Abilities: Ice Manifestation (Lv. 1), Extreme Cold Resistance]
[Reputation: The Ling Family's Shame (Soon to change)]
Third Circle. In three days, he'd jumped an entire circle. And this was just the beginning.
"You should rest," Yue Lian said, but her eyes held questions she wasn't asking.
"No." Chen Feng forced himself to sit up, gritting his teeth against the pain. "I need to train. Four days until the transformation completes. I need to be ready."
"Ready for what?"
He met her gaze, and something in his eyes made her stiffen.
"To steal everything the protagonist was supposed to have," Chen Feng said. "And to survive what comes after."
Outside his window, snow began to fall despite it being the height of spring.
The countdown continued.
Forty-nine days remained.
[End of Chapter 2]
[Next Chapter: "Seven Days of Ice"]
[Transformation Progress]
[Current: 42%]
[Next Milestone: 60% - Fourth Circle Breakthrough]