Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 683 - 47 Frozen Chasm_1

Chapter 683: Chapter 47 Frozen Chasm_1

Two days ago, Lady Mina carried the six members of the adventure team on a long-distance journey around half of the Yarran Continent. Since Mina’s flight altitude was extremely high, far beyond any creature’s visual range, their way did not cause any disturbance in any region. Unseen by human eyes, they crossed the Yarran Continent, over the territory of the Falar Empire. One hundred fifteen years ago, Nellie, a demigod of the Falar Empire, citing her knightly fidelity to honour and justice rather than loyalty to the royal family, refused the empire’s call to war and was forced to join the Neutral Land. Over the past hundred years, the empire has not seen the birth of a new demigod. Thus, Mina and Pannis, purposely avoiding the Neutral Land, did not cause any sensation to any demigods. Their secret reconnaissance ended in failure however, due to Ava’s ruthless denial, their target was not among the two places they had scouted.

However, their regret did not last long. A day later, on the Perpetual Icefield, Ava finally confirmed that the fragment carrying Laboratory No. 9 of the Fifth District was located below on the icefield. The detection radius was very large, a circular area with a radius of thirty kilometres. After confirming this, instead of eagerly descending, the group had Mina take them to the medium-sized city located furthest north in the Mage Country of Butt. It was one of the cities closest to the Perpetual Icefield, thus it had the expedition essentials for the Icefield available for adventurers passing through. The girls hadn’t been to the Perpetual Icefield before, nor had Pannis been in it for a long time. Therefore, they did not know much about the necessary items for the Icefield. However, Pannis and Catherine, using information gathered from the Adventurer’s Guild Branch, along with their adventure knowledge, bought sufficient Icefield adventure supplies. On top of that, Catherine, in a twist of events that no one saw coming, quickly scanned all the high-rank quests at the guild relating to the Perpetual Icefield. In this way, if they found any items listed in the quest, they could deliberately collect them. Even though it wouldn’t contribute to their exploration substantially, it could make up for a noticeable amount of the cost through task compensation and if they were lucky, they could even make some profit.

For Catherine’s insatiable quest for profit, everyone had no energy left to comment. They knew that even though she was fanatical about making money, she still knew how to prioritize and definitely wouldn’t put everyone in danger simply to make a profit. Moreover, she wouldn’t allow the pursuit of finances to interfere with important matters, so it wouldn’t have any real impact on the adventure team’s operation. Therefore, they pretended not to notice and let her do as she pleased.

Once all preparations were made, they were once again carried by Lady Mina back to the Perpetual Icefield. This time, after Mina dropped them off, she returned directly to the Dragon Mountain Range. Over there, she would need to summon Waren, the oldest of the Drakes, to hold a meeting to discuss the problems presented by Pannis’ group. She could not afford to waste time with the group on the Icefield searching for a goblin relic.

It wasn’t until Mina left, and the group had to walk on the Icefield using their own legs, that they truly understood how horrifying the Perpetual Icefield, one of the forbidden lands of life in legends, was. Chilling winds penetrated their thick woollen clothes and randomly falling snow didn’t even need mentioning. Simply walking brought considerable trouble. Traversing the slippery frozen snow and solid ice was near impossible, even with anti-slip chains wrapped around their boots. It was easy to slip and fall, and if this happened in battle, it would be disastrous. The chance of falling also drastically slowed down their pace. Usually, maintaining a normal speed to conserve energy, they could travel over 10 kilometres in an hour. However, here in the Icefield, it would take an entire day to traverse the same distance.

It took them half a day to get used to walking in the Icefield. They tried to keep their bodies from leaning back or forward, maintaining an upright position perpendicular to the ground. When stepping, they ensured that the entire foot touched the ground at the same time to increase the area of force and to avoid slipping. By using this way of walking, the group was able to progress smoothly and arrived at this opened chasm.

"If it’s impossible, we should take a detour," Catherine suggested hesitantly, "The wind here is not enough to use the kite like we did in the Shining Forest, and jumping over is too dangerous."

"The detour would be really long," Pannis said while looking far into the distance along the sides of the chasm then shook her head, "I can’t see the ends of both sides. I guess it’s at least 3 to 4 kilometres each side. Given our current speed, I fear it would take half a day to a day to get around it, which would be a waste of time. Lina, in this environment, can you summon a pillar to raise our side’s altitude by transforming the terrain here?"

"You want to use height difference to glide across?" Lina instantly understood Pannis’ plan, but shook her head, "But unfortunately, ice and snow cover the ground. Unless we cut the ice to a certain extent, we cannot alter the topography here."

"That doesn’t seem to be an option then," Catherine said with a frown, "Vivian, back when we escaped from the sea, your Floating Bridge was very effective. This place is also full of water elements, so can we use that method again?"

"The elements here are ice elements," Vivian corrected, "Although both come from the same source, their properties are entirely different. Water elements are very flexible. I can use them to create a Floating Bridge, but ice elements lack this flexibility. It’s impossible for me to extend such a bridge from thin air. Unless enough ice elements could be converted into water, which is obviously impossible in this place."

"That indeed complicates things," Pannis said, crossing her arms, "Without a height difference, gliding from here will result in descending at least 30 to 40 meters by the time we reach the other side. The cliffs on the other side are all covered with ice. I can’t be sure I could climb that height. Well, maybe I should just try it."

"Hey, that’s a bit reckless," Catherine, getting a bit frightened, dissatisfiedly said, "We’d rather take an extra day to detour than be careless. What if it fails?"

"I’ll secure the safety rope properly." Pannis took out a special safety rope two hundred meters long, tied it around his waist, and tapped on the knot saying, "With this safety rope, even if I can’t grip the ice surface while gliding to the other side, I won’t fall."

"Yeah, you won’t fall, but you would likely plunge about a hundred meters down and smack onto the ice surface instead." Catherine rolled her eyes in annoyance and said, "We don’t want to figure out how to get you out of the ice again. Put the rope down."

"Hmm, looks like we have no other option but to take a detour." Pannis reluctantly acknowledged, obeying the command to untie and hand the rope to Ava, who was reaching out for it. "We’ll find a way round. Let’s hope our luck holds, and may we choose a shorter distance. Maybe we can reach the other side by this time tomorrow."

Everyone was engrossed in thinking about their strategy, oblivious to what Ava was doing. By the time Catherine spotted it, Ava had already secured the safety rope around her waist. She was expressionless and silent, walking towards the edge of the cliff.

"Ava." Catherine called out in alarm: "What are you about to do? Please, don’t be reckless; it’s dangerous."

Ava turned around, her gaze falling on Catherine who was tentatively making her way towards her. She cocks her head in confusion but still doesn’t speak, just turns back around and steps off the edge of the cliff into the open sky. In front of their stunned gazes, Ava stands in mid-air, her golden strands dancing in the cold wind coming from below the cliff.

"So, what exactly were we fretting over just now?" Freya suddenly groaned, burying her face in her hands as if embarrassed by their slow realization. "We spent over ten minutes deliberating only for the answer to be... she can fly."

"I never knew she could fly." Catherine said, lips twitching in a grimace. "If I did, why would we waste all this effort? Pannis, you didn’t know either?"

Pannis answered her question with his actions, immediately hollering, "Ava, how can you fly? Can all Deities fly?"

"Once one reaches a certain level of strength, they can. This is a special ability of the Triclops. Yes, when you reach roughly between your Legendary Rank and Demigod, you can barely walk in the air like this. If you can attain the strength of a top-tier fighter, you could completely fly at will." Ava, stable as if on the ground, easily turns around and continues, "Didn’t you guys know this? The old top fighters have battled with deities. Without the ability to fly, how could they face the deities in a fair fight? I thought you would have known."

"Ah, well, that makes sense." Pannis and Catherine share an awkward glance and chuckle dryly. True enough, since the dawn of the goblin civilization, nearly all creatures needed wings to fly. Even the sole exception of half-god mages could only slowly advance in the air using their magic, hardly considering it flight. Therefore, everyone overlooked what Ava had said. Or, rather, they hadn’t even thought of it. Pannis shakes his head at his own folly, tossing a few metal brackets her way as he calls out with a bitter smile, "Be careful on your way. Once you get there, secure the rope to help us cross."

"Understood." In Ava’s plain reply, a hint of amusement could be detected. She briskly turns back around and carries on walking towards the opposite cliff edge. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, feel free to drop a recommendation or two on qidian.com. Your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile users can read on m.qidian.com.)