Chapter 206

  The Sight of Silver (I)

  The summit--well, not the literal one, but more so the one passage between the two sides of the mountain--turned out to be a wide col, a flat saddle between two peaks, but instead of rock, it was a plateau of solid ice, approximately eighty feet from front to back and about two hundred across.

  We emerged right by the edge of the leftmost side, with Rayce leading the charge and me coming up second, pulling the kids up.

  It was a glacial plateau if I ever saw one--a thin layer of snow covered the icy surface beneath, though the ice itself didn't appear to be uniform in make. The part closest to us actually resembled hoarfrost. I mean, it wasn't; it was probably either just glacial ice that formed in a strange pattern or some ice formation unique to this world, but it looked the part, especially with the snow forming feathery patterns on top of the ice's own feathery patterns.

  Further toward the center it became very much akin to verglas--a thin sheen that looked like it would crack if someone so much as spat on it, and toward the other side, it looked to be 'just' glacial ice... if its saturation was blown up just a tad.

  No, seriously, it was so goddamn blue. It all but glowed through the thin layer of snow on top of it.

  The entire plateau was walled off by massive, jutting ice crystals. Even the smallest looked to be at least eight or nine feet long, as thick as trunks of the trees, their surface almost glass-like in how transparent they were.

  Eerily, all crystals seemed to bend westward toward their tips, thus coming together to form a shroud of sorts that bled into the mountainside that went up another two hundred or so yards. In addition to their bodies bending westward, they also looked like they were arranged into a wide spiral, all spiraling around the center of the plateau--well, not really a room, as it didn't have a ceiling. Its edges were shaded by the protruding stones of the mountains to some degree, though the rest of it was laid open to the elements.

  Which begged the question...

  How is there a fucking plant in the middle of it?

  Just one look caused me to frown, as it was eerily similar in its make, though still distinctly... alien. Its bodice had a singular 'rod-like' structure that pierced into the ice below, pulsing at irregular intervals and stirring the glow of the glacial sheen beneath it. As it went up, it broke off into branches that more so resembled roots and would wriggle and writhe like excited worms each time the vine pulsed.

  Oh, holy shit!

  It's that parasitic vine!

  I mean, not the exact replica, but a pretty close simulacrum!

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "Oh. I did not expect that, actually." Long Tao's words sent a bolt of electricity through me as he emerged onto the plateau.

  He walked over rather casually, and I followed, telling others to stay put.

  It was like walking, well, on ice; I had to use Qi to generate enough friction to not just slide and skid over the entire thing. On top of that, each crunch echoed out almost like a detonation, though only for a moment as the howling winds quickly suffocated the sound. We stopped about a foot from it, as there was a thin sheen of light coating it.

  "It really is the vine," I mumbled as a statement, though I intended it more as an egging question.

  "... I've underestimated them," he said. "I just thought they were greedy for some Life Qi, as they had arts designed for it, but this... hmm. It might be quite serious."

  "Was the vine causing the bad weather, then?"

  "Yes," he nodded with a shrug. "Not directly, but just as a byproduct of what it was doing--sucking up all loose Life Qi from the entire mountain range."

  It's odd, and it looks like he also picked up on that fact.

  If it was collecting all that Life Qi... then where exactly is it? The fading bits and pieces within and without the vine itself surely aren't all it's collected in however many months or years it's been here.

  "Someone's probably come here recently to collect it," he said, crouching down and fiddling with the sheen for a moment as it scattered, leaving the vine exposed. It lasted for precisely three tenths of a second before it froze into a chunk. I swear I could hear a distant wail as its last tendrils got coated in a thick sheet of ice. "That shield should have started imminently around the vine itself but would have expanded as it collected Life Qi. And considering how expanded it was..."

  "..."

  "Master."

  "Yes?"

  "We'll become quite rich once we thieve those bastards of all they've got."

  "Right."

  This time, however, he said it with a plume of anger thinly veiled in his voice. If it was there, or if I'd imagined it, it was difficult to say, as a quick glance at his face revealed... nothing.

  Practically within minutes, the weather calmed.

  Well, 'calmed' is being generous--it did get better, but it was still a ravaging, frozen mountain. As such, we didn't dally around and quickly went to the opposite end and started our descent.

  It was much of the same, truth be told--harsh, biting winds interspersed with frequent blizzards and fogs made the descent just slightly more bearable than the ascent was.

  We still spent about five days meandering downwards until finally seeming to come out of the most dangerous part, where the view opened up into a rather breathtaking valley. A wide river cut and curved through it like a serpent, and the colors of lush green emerged halfway down the mountain, becoming thick canopies of forests soon after.

  There were just about a dozen waterfalls cutting straight down into the river from the many, many cliffs that bulged from the sides of the mountain.

  It was still all wilderness, however, though I expected it.

  Luckily, all we had to do was follow the river as it flowed outward, since the Silvercrest City resided upon its banks... at some point down the stream.

  First, though, we found a tidy little spot and pitched the tent that, unfortunately, we couldn't use at any point in the truly harsh weather, as it would have been destroyed.

  At the same time, I started a fire while Dai Xiu and Xi Zhao hunted down a buck, while Wan Lan and Light skinned and prepped it, all within just two hours. Before long, the smell of meat began to drift, and I added a few herbs on top of it that had some spice to them, just to add a bit to the flavor.

  As we ate, I whipped out the map again and confirmed it all--according to it, once we descended to the riverbank, it was about two days' worth of travel to the city itself. I'm honestly looking forward to it so much.

  It's a city.

  The very first city that I'd be going to in this world.

  So, it begged the question.

  Just how big was it?