"It’s getting cold," Gu Zhiwei shivered, his golden aura flickering. "Brother Xie? Are you okay?"

Wangchen didn’t answer. His brows furrowed. The spiritual energy in the air began to swirl toward him, forming a visible funnel cloud.

"He’s breaking through!" Wen Shiru gasped, snapping his ledger shut. "Here?! Now?! Without a protector?!"

"He’s insane!" Lu Jianheng stood up, hand on his sword. "If he fails, the backlash will blow up the pavilion!"

"We have to help him!" Gu Zhiwei shouted. "Circle formation! Protect Brother Xie!"

The three Protagonists, despite their rivalry, sprang into action. They formed a triangle around Wangchen, channeling their own Qi to create a buffer zone.

But Wangchen didn’t need their help.

Inside his spiritual sea, the image of the Ice Dragon roared. It wasn’t a dragon of destruction anymore.

It was a dragon guarding a treasure. And that treasure was a memory: A boy in gray robes, handing him a meatball.

’I must be stronger,’ Wangchen’s soul screamed. ’Stronger. To keep him. To hold him. To freeze the world so he can never leave.’

The obsession fueled the breakthrough. It bypassed the bottlenecks of doubt and fear.

BOOM!

A shockwave of blue light exploded from Wangchen. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

It blasted Gu Zhiwei, Wen Shiru, and Lu Jianheng backward. They slid across the floor, their boots carving grooves into the wood.

The roof of the Study Zone was blown off. The bamboo screens disintegrated into snow.

In the center of the chaos, Xie Wangchen opened his eyes.

His pupils had turned a piercing, glowing blue. The air around him distorted.

He took a deep breath. The frost on the ground shattered.

Half-Step Golden Core.

He had crossed the threshold. At sixteen years old.

The silence this time was terrifying.

The other disciples in the pavilion were cowering under tables. The Protagonists were staring at him with wide eyes.

"Monster," Lu Jianheng whispered, wiping a snowflake from his cheek. "He really is a monster."

Wangchen blinked. The blue glow in his eyes faded back to black. He looked around at the destroyed furniture, the frozen tea, and the terrified elites.

He felt... powerful.

He looked at his hands. ’I can protect him better now.’

He stood up. He picked up Winter’s Sigh.

"Brother Xie!" Gu Zhiwei scrambled up, beaming despite the fact that he had just been blown across a room. "Congratulations! That was incredible! You destroyed the roof!"

"The bill for the damages..." Wen Shiru started, looking pained.

Wangchen ignored them. He didn’t care about the broken roof, nor did he seem to care much about the breakthrough.

He looked at the position of the sun.

"Lunch break is over," Wangchen stated calmly.

He walked past the stunned group.

"I am going back to class."

He left the Sky Pavilion in ruins, walking with a spring in his step. He couldn’t wait for the evening. He had to tell Ji’an of this achievement.

He had to show her. Maybe she would be so impressed that she would cook him that "Sweet and Sour Ribs" dish she mentioned?

As he disappeared down the stairs, Lu Jianheng kicked a piece of frozen bamboo.

"I hate him," Lu Jianheng grumbled. "I’m going to the library. I’m not sleeping tonight until I break through, too."

"I’ll help!" Gu Zhiwei cheered.

"I will... calculate the cost of repairs," Wen Shiru sighed, rubbing his forehead.

And thus, the legend of the "Ice Demon of the Sky Pavilion" was born, all because a villain wanted to impress his cook.

Time in the cultivation world usually flowed like a slow, majestic river, centuries passing in the blink of a meditation session.

However, in the Celestial Sword Sect, time had recently started moving like a chaotic, mud-splattered landslide.

And the boulder rolling at the front of that landslide was Lin Ji’an.

Three months had passed since the entrance exam. The snow on the Eternal Cloud Peak had thickened, while the grease in the Outer Sect Kitchen had vanished entirely.

High atop his frozen cliff, Elder Qin Changxu stood with his hands clasped behind his back, watching his disciple train.

In the center of the ice field, Xie Wangchen moved. His disciple didn’t use a sword; the boy simply walked on the ground, but with every step, the air around him shattered.

Ice lotuses bloomed in his wake, razor-sharp and radiating a terrifyingly pure coldness.

"Excellent," Elder Qin murmured, stroking the feathers of his pet crane. "His Heart of Glacial Indifference is forming beautifully. He speaks less. He frowns less. He is becoming a true statue of the Dao."

The Elder smiled, feeling vindicated.

"I knew it. That boy from the kitchen... he is merely a temporary crutch. Wangchen is growing beyond him. Soon, the mortal dust will fall away, and he will forget the taste of... what was it? Braised Pork?"

Elder Qin nodded sagely. "Yes. He is forgetting."

Meanwhile, down in the valley, Xie Wangchen stopped his training. He pulled a small, hidden notebook from his sleeve.

’Day 89,’ he wrote with precise, elegant calligraphy. ’The Young Master mentioned he wanted to try "Snow-Lotus Sorbet." I have secretly harvested three lotuses. I must hide them from the Master. Also, need to kill a Rank 3 Sugar-Beast for the syrup.’

He closed the book, his eyes burning with a determination that had absolutely nothing to do with the Dao and everything to do with dessert.

While Wangchen was excelling in his "double life," Lin Ji’an was busy building a reputation that was confusing the entire sect.

She had become an urban legend.

It started in the Herb Garden.

The disciples of the Medicine Peak had begun to notice strange occurrences. Rare herbs weren’t being stolen in the traditional sense.

They were being... harvested sustainably.

A patch of Spirit-Scallions would disappear, but a bag of high-quality fertilizer would be left in its place. A Thunder-Root would vanish, but the hole would be neatly filled and watered.

"It’s the Phantom!" a junior disciple whispered, clutching her basket. "I saw him yesterday! A gray blur! He smelled like... sesame oil!"