At the moment when the skin of his fingers touched the hilt of the Blade Beast, a strange feeling simultaneously reached the bottom of Chen Yue's heart.

  It was the response from the Blade Beast.

  It was hesitating.

  "Could it be..." A sense of foreboding flashed through his heart. Chen Yue firmly placed his third finger on it.

  Time seemed to stand still for an instant. In the next moment, in Chen Yue's perception, the Blade Beast struggled desperately again.

  "Another failure." Reluctantly, Chen Yue loosened his fingers and let out a sigh.

  It was just a tiny bit short. This time was different from the previous attempts. The Blade Beast had hesitated, which meant that it no longer resisted Chen Yue. Unfortunately, in the end, it still refused.

  "I should be able to succeed next time. However, if I want to improve the compatibility, I'm afraid I'll have to challenge fifth-order magical beasts next." Chen Yue shook his head with a bitter smile.

  If the Ice Rabbit didn't participate in the battle, with his current strength, he basically had no chance of winning when challenging a fifth-order magical beast. Moreover, magical beasts above the fifth order could at least use one kind of magic. There was no way to pick the easy targets even if he wanted to.

  However, Chen Yue would never give up.

  The more difficult it was to improve the compatibility, the more powerful the summoned beast was. Judging from the current difficulty, it was definitely something Chen Yue had never seen before. Among the two-star summoned beasts, the ability of the Blade Beast should be among the best. Just thinking about how it didn't flinch at all under the coercion of the eight-star summoned beast in the Spirit Realm was enough to make Chen Yue look forward to it with great anticipation.

  Both were two-star summoned beasts. The ability of the Ice Rabbit was the freezing breath. Then, what about the Blade Beast?

  Even just to see the ability of the Blade Beast, Chen Yue would persevere.

  After digging out the crystal cores of the two Snow Pole Leopards, Chen Yue left their territory.

  The direction he chose was not the ice cave where he had lived before, but the core area.

  After climbing over a snow-capped mountain, Chen Yue suddenly stopped. His eyes were as sharp as a blade, piercing through the thin wind and snow and looking down below.

  There were roughly a dozen figures down there. Judging from the direction they were moving in, they were coming towards Chen Yue's side.

  "More adventurers." Chen Yue frowned slightly. Since he saw hundreds of corpses in the snow three days ago, adventurers had been constantly entering the Ace Mountains these days. Compared with the first batch of adventurers, their equipment was much better, and most of them were moving around in the outer area.

  Originally, Chen Yue didn't want to get involved in their affairs. Now that the Blade Beast was following him like a shadow, he was even less willing to meet them. Moreover, the characters of these adventurers were mixed. To avoid trouble, Chen Yue had always avoided them when hunting. Fortunately, the Ace Mountains were large enough, and the outer area was hundreds of kilometers wide. Naturally, he wouldn't be found by them on purpose.

  This time, it seemed that the commotion caused during the battle with the Snow Pole Leopards was too big, and this group of adventurers happened to be nearby and rushed over.

  Without hesitation, Chen Yue turned around and left.

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  At the moment when he turned around, a strong sense of fatigue surged up. Chen Yue's feet slipped, and he almost couldn't stand still and rolled down.

  "What's going on?" A sense of coldness that couldn't be suppressed welled up in his heart, and Chen Yue was shocked.

  With his control over his body, how could he feel sleepy?

  "Right, it also happened during the battle with the Snow Pole Leopards." After thinking for a moment, Chen Yue immediately remembered that thrilling scene. It was at a critical moment that the sudden drowsiness made his movements slow down a bit, and his left hand was so seriously injured.

  Could it be that it wasn't a coincidence?

  Another even stronger wave of drowsiness came, and the scenery in front of him became a bit blurry. Chen Yue immediately had a strong urge to lie down and fall asleep.

  Unfortunately, neither the time nor the situation was right for sleeping.

  He forcefully twisted his left hand wound. The intense pain immediately dispelled a lot of the drowsiness.

  Chen Yue racked his brains desperately. The actions that were usually easy to do were extremely difficult to perform at this time. What was the reason? He tried hard to analyze it.

  There had been no abnormalities in the previous two months, which was enough to prove that it wasn't because of the snowy climate. But it just happened to go wrong today.

  So, what abnormal situations occurred today?

  His thoughts were moving with great difficulty.

  "Today... before fighting with the Snow Pole Leopards... I encountered two groups of magical beasts fighting... Before that, at the ice lake... um... I practiced as usual... practiced the 'Health Cultivation Art'..."

  As if a bolt of lightning had streaked across his mind, Chen Yue suddenly woke up.

  "Oh... I see." With great effort, Chen Yue managed to pull a bitter smile at the corners of his mouth. He remembered that when he practiced the "Health Cultivation Art" this morning, he broke through the 18th posture and successfully completed the second level.

  "The second level, huh... huh, this is the second transformation."

  He remembered that when the first transformation took place, his body had adverse reactions and became a bit sleepy. However, the change wasn't too big at that time, and Chen Yue just thought it was a normal reaction and didn't pay attention. Now, when he connected the dots, he understood.

  Transformation was like a cocoon turning into a butterfly. After the transformation was completed, all aspects of the body's qualities would be greatly improved. How could such a big change happen silently under normal circumstances?

  If it were in other places, it would be okay. But unfortunately, Chen Yue was in the snow. The low-temperature environment would undoubtedly place a huge burden on his body. Under the double impact, it was very difficult to control this strong urge.

  "It really came at a bad time..."

  His eyelids were getting heavier and heavier as if filled with lead, and his limbs seemed to no longer belong to him and were becoming more and more difficult to control. Although Chen Yue twisted his wound from time to time to maintain a short period of awake，it was just like drinking poison to quench thirst.

  With the last remaining strength, Chen Yue dug a hole in the snow, put the crystal cores and other items into it. That was all he could do. As for whether the Blade Beast that was following him like a ghost would cause panic, it was no longer within his consideration.

  After finishing these, he could hardly stand up.

  The drowsiness hit him like a tidal wave. Chen Yue staggered forward dozens of steps in the opposite direction with great difficulty. Unable to hold on any longer, his feet slipped and he fell onto the snow.

  He was now at the mountainside of the snow-capped mountain. Once he fell, he immediately rolled down. Soon, his whole body was covered with snow. From a distance, he looked like a huge snowball.

  His mind was getting heavier and heavier. Chen Yue had lost most of his thinking ability. He didn't feel any pain either. He just felt dizzy and his consciousness was gradually slipping away from him.

  He hadn't gone far. This roll immediately caught the attention of the dozen or so adventurers.

  "Something is rolling down."

  "Everyone, be careful."

  "Quick, get out of the way."

  ...

  In the wind and snow, they couldn't see clearly what it was. They scrambled to get out of the way, allowing the snowball where Chen Yue was in to roll past them.

  Vaguely, Chen Yue seemed to hear exclamations. A ripple arose in his muddled mind, along with a strong sense of crisis. His fingers weakly lifted. At the moment before falling into a deep sleep, a bone-chilling command was transmitted to the Ice Rabbit through the spiritual connection.

  "Kill them."

  ...