Shivering as a breeze of freezing air tickled my body, completely dissipating the bubble of air from my barrier. The newly created icy wasteland had lowered the temperate of the climate to near the freezing point and that meant there was a significant temperate difference between inside the bubble and outside.

Rubbing my shoulders, I gazed around the icy fields and sighed. Obviously, I hadn’t seen a nuclear explosion on Earth, but the devastation was definitely comparable based on my limited knowledge. I could only hope there wouldn’t be residual radiation with this type of explosion.

While radioactive material can give all sorts of superpowers in fiction, that’s mainly done as a convenient excuse as to why a specific character gained those powers. It’s completely unrealistic.

In reality, nuclear radiation simply kills you through cancer and other ailments. As for gaining superpowers? HA! You’d be lucky to live through nuclear levels of radiation, don’t even dream about gaining superpowers.

Looking toward the ice outside my barrier, it glistened slightly in the light and a liquid substance coated the top. Reaching down and tapping the ice with the back of my hand, a burning sensation instinctually jolted my hand away from the ice.

“Oww!” The pain involuntarily caused me to cry out.

Quickly brushing and shaking the liquid off the back of my hand, the acid’s burn marks quickly faded away. My regeneration quickly solving the damage caused by the acid.

The entire field of ice had a thin layer of potent acid covering it, and judging by its ability to eat through my scales in an instant... it’s an extremely dangerous to mess with.

It’s seriously one problem after another in this place.

The floating plate couldn’t be used for another week… Realizing I faced another problem with the potent acid covering the ice sheets, I instinctually sighed again.

Scratching my head, I searched the immediate surroundings for a safe path to walk and the shortest destination out of this place.

Everywhere within a few mile… huh?

I rubbed my eyes and blinked repeatedly.

There was a massive mountain to the south that seemed untouched by the explosion, yet it surrounded by the icy wasteland.

The only mountain nearby should be the basilisk’s mountain to the north. Doubtfully looking toward upward toward the mountain’s snowy peak while beginning to question reality, I searched through my bag and put on the ring to ignore illusions.

The mountain remained plainly in-sight, despite putting on ring to prevent illusion from affecting me.

In fact, the mountain’s height was several thousand meters and it should be clearly visible from a distance.

How did I miss an entire mountain?

Additionally, the mountain was definitely within the range of the explosion… yet it was fine.

The mountain looked untouched by the explosion.

There should be something protecting the location to have survived the explosion with zero damage.

Maybe this the so-called opportunity in danger? Considering it’s fine from such an explosion, it might be a temple or heritage site…

I’m surprised I hadn’t noticed the mountain’s existence beforehand. Maybe I been too surprised by the explosion and simply hadn’t remembered the mountain’s existence? It’s possible that I am simply blind and unobservant. It’s also possible I simply forgot about it, human memory is notoriously unreliable.

Reminds me of the saying in Chinese novels, I have eyes but failed to see Mount Tai. I laughed to myself at my internal joke.

Mt Tai... I should name it that to differentiate it from the Basilisk's mountain. Anywhere there's nobody to around to complain about my bad taste.

Regardless of my internal jokes, Mt Tai was a destination that was closer than the other edges of the icy fields. The potent acid across the ice makes the idea of walking across these icy plains for any decent distance… unpleasant.

Mt Tai was closer than any exit to the icy wasteland.

While it was a bit of walk, I might be able to sprint to it before my shoes were destroyed by the acid. The only problem with that idea is that if my shoes of teleportation were destroyed, I’d have to make a new pair...

Unless I took my shoes of teleportation off and ran to the safe area in barefoot...

The pain of the acid burning through the back of my hand flashed through my mind and I resolutely dismissed the idea. Even if I could regenerate from the damage from my feet as I ran toward the mountain, I would experience too much pain in the process.

Anyway, the shoes of teleportation are getting old… even if I couldn’t make a new pair, I could simply recollect a new pair in the second zone.

I’ll just run for it and hope my shoes of teleportation survive the journey.

I grimaced, set the mountain as a goal, and began to sprint toward Mt Tai in the distance.

As it turns out, I instantly regretted my decision. Trying to run on ice, particularly ice with a slippery liquid on it, was an extremely bad idea. While that sounded obvious in hindsight, I had little experience with ice as I grew in a tropical zone.

Regardless of my excuses, within seconds of setting off toward the mountain, I had fallen down on the ice and only barely managed to prevent my face from take a nosedive into the potent acid.

The cost of my lesson on the friction capabilities of ice was that my hands and lower legs were coated in the acidic liquid and constantly burned in pain.

Carefully standing upright, I steadied myself while enduring the pain and wobbled back toward the solid ground of the castle’s remains from my barrier.

Alright, lesson number one… sprinting on frozen water is a bad idea.

Lesson number two, acid is extremely painful on skin.

The cost of my lessons was that my hands and legs were completely covered in acid. They continuously stung in pain as my regeneration capability constantly fought against the flesh dissolving acid.

Attempts to remove the acid through normal methods failed continuously.

Summoning water only relieved the pain a little and it was impossible to brush off the amount of acid I had gotten on myself.

Fortunately, I began breathing flames onto my hands and successfully dissipating the acid through the hot temperature of fire and relieved my pain. I quickly breathed fire on my legs removed the acid eating away at them.

Resting on the surviving castle’s stone floor, I breathed a gigantic sigh of relief. There was little pain that could compared to the pain of continuously having your skin eaten away by acid.

I brief looked around at the icy fields surrounding my location and instantly decided to wait for the cooldown of the stone plate of levitation.

It’s only a week. I can wait for the levitating plate to recharge.

Examining myself for damage, I grimaced.

The good news is that my boots of teleportation seem to be fine. They were well built.

Sadly, my pants were… not so fine. They had patchwork holes where the acid and flames had eaten through them.

Guess I’ll be checking out Mt Tai in a week. Maybe it’ll have armor, hopefully leg armor.

Sighing at my wishful thinking, I closed my eyes and prepared to enter the illusionary realm of my wristband. I promised that I’d try to find that panther and those other monsters, so I might as well get started on that. It’ll break up the boredom of simply waiting around.

…

Over the following week, I waited around whilst occasionally searching through various forests in the illusionary realm. Like normal, I avoided all traces of civilization and people in the illusionary realm. If there was a singular issue I had with the illusionary realm, it was that I had to utilize that necklace that turned me into a girl whilst I was inside for safety.

Regardless, the problem was relatively minor in the scheme of things. Avoiding civilization was relatively easy in the forests. There didn’t seem to be that many populated areas and the unpopulated zones with monsters were free of most people.

Whilst I failed to find the panther or any of the other monsters I’d promised to kill in this time period, I wasn’t particularly bothered by that. This was always going to be a long-term goal. To be honest, I would’ve been extremely surprised if I found them in a short period of time.

After the week passed and the cooldown on the levitating stone plate refreshed, I took it out and utilized it to travel over toward the mountain in the near proximity. Flying over and completely avoiding the icy fields with acid.

Despite a week passing by the ice hadn’t melted in the slightest and the temperature was still around the freezing point. It was as if a localized ice age had descended on this location.

After flying over to Mt Tai, I began looking around for any abnormalities. By all accounts, it seemed to be a normal mountain. There were trees growing in some places on the mountain, but there were mostly steep cliffs and stone.

It wasn't until I circled around Mt Tai, while searching for abnormalities that I discovered a large man-made doorway with various symbols carved on it.

Vaguely translated it meant… uhhh- ‘Fight yourself and receive rewards’.

I wondered whether I had translated that correctly, but in the end simply decided to enter and find out.

There was one word that I had certainly translated correctly, the word for reward. While I could barely make out the vague gist of other words and sentences, I had made a point to remember that the words for treasure, reward, prize, etc.

Basically any word that indicated there was something of value inside, I took the liberty of memorizing beforehand.

Entering into Mt Tai through the man-made entrance, there was a hallway leading to a combat arena thirty to forty meters wide. A door on the far side of the arena.

Near the center of the combat arena, a humanoid puppet with a dagger practiced in the room.

The puppet had a proper fighting stance, its movements were fast and fluid. There as no flare in the fighting movements, it merely aimed to disable to defeat the enemy.

There were lines engraved into the floor of the arena and the puppet stayed within them. Presumably a boundary to the edge of the arena.

Turning my gaze away from the puppet, I found a pile of writing on the wall…

Three rooms, rewards and techniques.

I only recognized these couple of words.

Despite the lack of clarity from my translation failures, the writing was helpful enough to understand what was going on. It appears this was a test similar to the golem arena. Only there was a singular puppet instead of multiple golems.

I briefly pondered utilizing my ability to cheat my way through, but decided to simply fight upfront. This was supposed to be a trial and it was only a puppet. With my current physique, it should be easily defeated.

Tossing my bag onto the floor, I readied God-hunter and prepared for combat.

Breathing deeply, I prepared and entered the combat zone.

The puppet dashed toward me immediately, releasing a purple energy slash projected from the edge of his dagger that extended outward in my direction.

Dodged the projectile, the battle puppet had already dashed within striking distance by that time and slashed once more in my direction. Another projectile shot out from his blade and forced me to move out of my stance.

The battle puppet took the opportunity to slash my arm, but his attack ended up causing no damage as the blade bounced off my transparent scales. Realizing that it couldn’t hurt me, I took advantage of my physique and grapple the puppet pulling its head off.

The puppet’s head was ripped clear off and the body jumped backward and slashed another energy projectile in my direction.

While the battle puppet’s head had remained in my arms, the body was still clearly able to move and fight.

Examining the disembodied head of the puppet as I dodge projectiles. The head was mostly human looking, save for the fact the material was condensed earth.

Whilst I had turned my gaze away, the puppet had regrown a new head and charged toward me once again.

Taking the puppet’s following strike for an opportunity to hit him, I stabbed the chest of the puppet and God-hunter easily pierced through the chest of the puppet.

The puppet stopped functioning shortly afterward.

I pulled God-hunter out and examined the defeated puppet with a frown. The puppet’s body remained in perfect condition and mended itself, but it completely stopped moving.

That felt way too easy.

Thank you for the snack!

God-hunter chimed in my head, apparently the fighting had awoken her. Her words were a reminder of God-hunter's preference for eating souls.

A battle puppet with a soul?

While that thought made me uncomfortable, I threw the nonsensical thoughts out of my head without a second thought. Anyway, even if it did have a soul, the puppet’s soul was already devoured.

Nothing I could do about it now.