Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

The Guardian dragged Mira along to another location to which Mira was very much looking forward to seeing what else she'll obtain!

A few seconds later, The Guardian teleported Mira in front of what seemed to be some sort of mine, and much to Mira's surprise, it was actually a mine!

"This right here is a Low-Grade Spirit Stone Mine. I'm sure I don't have to explain how beneficial having one of these can be. This mine will produce around 100,000 Low-Grade Spirit Stones every year. Unfortunately, right now there are only 10,000 Spirit Stones available for you to take and use at your leisure. Things can't be too easy, now can they? However, you won't have to go through any trials or anything like that to use this Spirit Stone Mine."

Mira nodded her head, not feeling happy or sad about having a Low-Grade Spirit Stone Mine in her possession. Sure, 100,000 Low-Grade Spirit Stones per year might sound like a lot, but with her Foundation, once she reaches the Core Formation Realm, 100,000 Spirit Stones won't be anything special. If she were to cultivate every day, she might blow through 100,000 Spirit Stones in a few weeks! Well, that's if she uses a high-level Qi Gathering Array and is constantly throwing Spirit Stones into the Array. So the likelihood of her using so many Spirit Stones all in one sitting is not that high, it still shows that 100,000 Spirit Stones isn't all that much for her current and future needs.

However, she won't turn down a free 100,000 Spirit Stones per year. She can use that as spending money or something.

Although Mira wasn't too excited about the Spirit Stone Mine itself, she is excited about the implications of one being here. It means she can obtain more! How can a seemingly omnipotent treasure possess only a single Low-Grade Spirit Stone Mine? Impossible! There should be even more Spirit Stone Mines that she can obtain along with Mid-Grad, Late-Grade, and even Peak-Grade Spirit Stone Mines! Naturally, she'll have to go through some trials to obtain them and Mira doubts that they'll be easy, but if she can get her hands on more of them, then she won't have to waste her time doing missions!

Before she could go any further with her thoughts, she was interrupted by The Guardian.

"Calm down there child. Sure, it would be smart to get your hands on a bunch of Spirit Stone Mines, but do you really think things would be that easy? First, let's talk about how many Spirit Stone Mines you might need to keep up with your current cultivation speed and a few other factors. You'd probably need around 10-15 of these Low-Grade Spirit Stone Mines to keep up with your usage. That's quite a bit, especially since it'll only be you and maybe your 2 friends using those Spirit Stones. You'd also have to go through various trials to unlock those Mines and the trials get progressively harder for each Spirit Stone Mine you want to unlock. And let me say this, those trials aren't easy. It might take you months or even years to unlock a single one if you aren't lucky. And that's if you are going through those trials every single day. Obviously, you wouldn't be able to do that as you'll have other matters to attend to as well. It might very well take you over a decade to gather that many Spirit Stone Mines!"

Mira's face dropped when she heard that. She was seriously starting to doubt whether or not she was being scammed. Was this person in front of her really a bigshot or was he just acting like one in order to scam her into taking this shitty inheritance??

"Hey! I'm a respectable man! How can you call someone as powerful and handsome as me a scammer?? Just so you know, a decade isn't even enough to qualify as a nap for me! Here you are complaining about a decade when most people won't even be able to get their hands on a Spirit Stone Mine in their entire lives! Also, what are you trying to do with so many Spirit Stone Mines anyways? You'll turn into a hermit if you do that! Go out and experience the world!"

Mira calmed down a bit and understood what he was getting at. These mines are here to assist her on her journey as a kind of support, they aren't here so she can spend all of her life in a cave cultivating.

Mira nodded her head in understanding to which The Guardian gave her a light smile and started teleporting her to the next area.

"Alright! On to the next one!"

Soon, Mira found herself in front of a large room. This room wasn't anything special except that all the sides of the room were white. Mira waited for The Guardian to start explaining what this room did which didn't take him longer than a second to open his mouth.

"Here we are at your next reward, this large empty room! Don't underestimate this room as this will essentially be your new Spatial Ring. You can store just about anything in this room other than living beings. However, that is something that can be unlocked at a later date. Not only that but everything you store in this room will automatically be organized without you having to do anything! Just throw in your loot, and leave the rest for the room to sort through and organize! Last but not least, there is a spell placed on this room that essentially stops time for the items placed in this room. Food won't spoil, hell, it won't even change temperature. Herbs won't wilt or die if they're placed in here. And those panties you stole from that little girl, Maria won't lose their scent! HAHAHA!"

Mira's face turned black when she heard that last part. Right now, she really wished she was stronger just so she could beat this guy black and blue!

"Fuck you! Why would I want her panties?! What do you take me for? Some kind of sick pervert?"

"HAHAHAHA!"

The two of them bantered a bit more before moving on to the next reward. This room, although it wasn't that spectacular, was pretty useful. The only thing Mira was confused about was how she was going to carry everything around. Obviously, she can't just walk around with a near-infinite garden on her back. She tried asking The Guardian, but he just shook his head and told her to be patient.

The next reward was something Mira was actually ecstatic about. This reward came in three parts. The first part was that her cultivation manual, the Hell Scythe Essence Cultivation Technique, was perfected. Any flaws that were present in it before were now gone. Not only that, but Mira could even cultivate all the way to Immortality without having to spend any time researching how to do that. There were also versions made so that Mira could keep cultivating this technique even after she ascends to Immortality, but those are locked behind a pay-wall or as Mira likes to call it, a 'pain-wall'. She'll also have to become an Immortal first before even thinking about unlocking those versions.

The second part of the reward is that not only were the hidden imperfections in her body fixed from cultivating a partially flawed technique but her body was also changed slightly so that it perfectly suited her cultivation technique.

Mira had no idea what that even meant until she asked The Guardian for clarification. After listening to him, she started to understand the importance of cultivating a technique that is perfectly suited for oneself. She also asked if having flaws in a cultivation technique is normal, to which he said that it was pretty much the norm for Cultivators that haven't become Immortals yet and even most Immortals have 'flawed' techniques.

According to what The Guardian said, having a cultivation technique that is perfectly suited for oneself isn't exactly all that important. It might raise the strength of a cultivator slightly and increase the speed of their cultivation a bit, but the real reason and pretty much the only one is that it prevents any hidden flaws or that slight sense of dissonance one might feel if they were to cultivate a technique that didn't suit them. This will, in turn, make one's cultivation journey just a bit smoother.

However, apparently, these things don't mean much to mortals. That's simply because every cultivation technique created by mortals is flawed in some way. It's simply impossible for a mortal to create a technique that perfectly suits them all the way up to becoming an Immortal.

But does this prevent mortals from ascending and becoming Immortals? No, it doesn't. Mortals ascend quite regularly even with their flawed techniques. It's just that most people, after ascending, give up their mortal cultivation techniques for ones created by Immortals. That isn't necessarily bad, but it can make their future journey much more difficult.

There is, however, a logical reason behind why mortals give up their original mortal techniques for Immortal ones.

After ascending to Immortality, one's body will essentially undergo a rebirth. So, thinking that any flaws that were created by their techniques were wiped clean, most newly ascended ditch their shitty techniques for amazing Immortal Cultivation Techniques. It makes sense. Why would they keep using a technique that was meant for mortals when they can either create a better new one or find a different one.

This isn't inherently wrong, but it can drastically limit one's growth potential as an Immortal since although their bodies are essentially remade after ascending, they are still remade in accordance to what their body was before ascending. So although one's body might be near-perfect after ascending, there will still be a few very minor flaws left in their body.

In fact, many Immortals aren't even aware of this. This is simply due to the power difference between an Immortal and a Mortal. Even if there was a flaw in their mortal body, so what? Their body effectively evolved after ascending so why should they care about a flaw that was left in their mortal body.

However, just like how a speck of white on an all-black painting can effectively ruin the painting, the same applies here.

It was only after The Guardian explained this to Mira in detail did she begin to understand that her future would have been much more difficult if she had kept on going like this. Worst of all, there isn't anything she can do about it. She'd still have to use a flawed technique to cultivate Immortality. She also most likely would've ditched her Hell Scythe Essence Cultivation Technique and used something else after ascending.

She also understood that the benefits of these changes now most likely won't be seen until she ascends.

And last but not least, the reward that Mira was the most stoked about so far, even surpassing the Infinite Garden…

"A recipe that will allow you to create the perfect Core when you break through to the Core Formation Realm! This core will make full use of your Dao, weapon style, bloodline, physique, Foundation, the various elements you'll be able to control not only now but in the future as well, the scythe sitting in your Soul Sea, your connections to those two little beasts you're contracted with, and even your title as the Successor of the Firmament of Limitless Death and Infinite Life. I've also listed out a few instructions on what to do about some of the harder requirements and/or ingredients on the recipe."

Mira was struck speechless as she stared blankly at the piece of paper laying in her hands. She thought she might have to go robbing some families and killing some young masters in order to get her hands on something like this and that's only to get her hands on some trash recipe. Now, however, she doesn't have to do any of that nonsense! All she has to do is collect the necessary materials on this sheet of paper and she'll be fine! Easy!

Oh, how naive Mira was to even think of such a possibility… Easy? No, when has anything ever been easy for her?