Beauty and the Bodyguard

Chapter 1498: The Test Begins

“Not bad- it seems like everyone today is following the rules!” Qing said as she finished looking over everyone with a nod.

The group smiled bitterly- with the examples from before, nobody dared do anything suspicious in front of them. They didn’t want to die.

“Everyone follow me then- do not bicker among yourselves on the way. Don’t blame me for what happens!” With that, Qing started walking forward.

The group followed immediately. Yu Shan was still planning on getting Nitian to make a move on Yu Bing during the walk, but seemed like that wasn’t possible now. The Ice Palace had made the statement, and no one would disobey.

The beginning path was rather flat and was alright to walk on. The moment they entered Ice Palace territory, the path got much harder. Snow flew around, the visibility of the path was super low, and everyone channeled their practitioner’s arts to maintain alertness!

Qing had said that no one was allowed to fight during the walk, but who could guarantee that no one would try anything? For visibility conditions this poor, it’d be fatal to get ambushed.

Everyone was Mystic level, so their eyes and ears got a lot stronger once they channeled their arts. Keeping up with Qing’s pace was no trouble, at least!

In truth, Qing had already intentionally slowed her pace- otherwise, with her Sky class strength, she could practically be flying with her walking speed!

“How is it, you alright?”; Yu Bing was worried about Lin Yi- it was hard enough to walk already, and Lin Yi still had to carry someone on his back. He could tell that Lin Yi kept using his body to block the wind all the time so that the snow wouldn’t hit her face.

Perhaps this wouldn’t matter much to Xiaoxiao, but it was a subconscious movement Lin Yi did in the first place.

“It’s fine!” Lin Yi smiled. “She’s actually pretty light... plus, carrying her gives me motivation...”

“Uh... I understand...” Yu Bing said as he looked at Lin Yi, and Xiaoxaio’s chest was pressing against his back, making an “I get you” look.

“...” Lin Yi was pretty speechless when he saw that look- the guy was clearly a misunderstanding. He was talking about curing Xiaoxiao as the motivation, not that...

Though, with Yu Bing’s reminder, Lin Yi realized that it did feel pretty good.

The group walked for more than an hour when they arrived at the foot of the Ice mountain. Down there, there was a row of Ice Palace disciples, all white-clothed women. Though they didn’t seem as young as Qing or the sect master, and they looked rather average, too, around thirty or forty years old.

Their white clothes were different from the sect master’s- the sect master’s clothing had white silk laces that traced the air, but these disciples only had white cotton clothes. They looked rather simple.

What surprised Lin Yi, though, was the fact that all these Ice Palace disciples were at Earth class, with the strongest one being Earth class late phase peak! Of course, there were no Sky class masters here.

A Sky class practitioner wouldn’t just be a common disciple, after all.

“Alright, the testing grounds start from here!” Qing said as she stood and turned to everyone. “For the sake of fairness, the Ice Palace disciples will bring all of you to different locations at random- now, all of you form your teams. Each team must consist of three or less- going beyond that number would mean that you’ll split the group and try to find each other in the mountain on your own.”

Nobody had any disagreements there- if they entered together, fights would break out here and there instantly. It wouldn’t be much of a test then.

But this group limit was quite a disappointment- they had already made their contacts and circles for the sake of being stronger as a group, preventing anyone else from bullying them. But with these three-person a team limit- that whole thing had lost its point!

While it could be said that they could meet up in the mountain, it wasn’t that easy. Assuming they were able to find each other in the first place, who knew if the other team would be willing to join back? They might have gone to another team themselves!

Naipao naturally was in a team with Zhuang Naipao and Zhuang Niaoqiang- these were the ones who got to know Naipao the earliest, and were the ones he was most familiar with. The others didn’t come close.

Nitian, on the other hand, was in a group with Yu Shan. Zhao Qikun had no choice but to be in a team with Zhao Qijiu. There were no other options. He couldn’t let Qijiu be in a group himself, could he?

Lin Yi, naturally, was in a group with Yu Bing- though he did have Xiaoxiao on his back. Even so, they didn’t pass the three people count!

Soon, when the teams were done splitting, Qing gave the call, and the disciples all started moving to their designated group, grabbing them and lunging into the mountains.

Of course, the ones from the same group went to the same location.

The Ice Mountain was a blur of white, but these disciples were clearly very familiar with the landscape. The practitioners, though, weren’t- being throwing in random locations like this made them lose all sense of direction!

“What do we do now?” Yu Bing and Lin Yi were put in a place without any other practitioners- Yu Bing couldn’t help but ask that once he stared at the white world in front of him.

“Look for the fire spirit’s fruit while finding other treasures. You’ll be able to pass successfully, too!” Lin Yi said.

“Alright, we’ll do that.” Yu Bing was making Lin Yi the leader- after all, he felt that the guy was much better and stronger than him in comparison!

Yu Bing was considered part of the genius generation in his house, but with Lin Yi, he really wasn’t much, in terms of both intelligence or strength.

“Skybolt pig, where is the fruit? Can you feel it?” Lin Yi turned to the pig.

“Oink oink...” Skybolt pig shook its head.

“What do you mean, you damn pig, we’re here already, and you still can’t sense it?” Lin Yi raged and kicked the useless pig.