Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 692 - 54 Ice House_2

Chapter 692: Chapter 54 Ice House_2

"Don’t worry, the situation is far better than I anticipated. With these frost spirits present, we don’t even need to bother building our own shelter. They’ll handle it for us." Pannis called out to Blue Hand, who was busy chatting away with his companions, "Hey, Blue Hand, if you want some grilled meat, you’ll have to help us build a house first. Otherwise, we won’t be able to cook."

"This’ll be easy," Blue Hand ceased his chatter, casually slapped the ground, and within a few minutes, a house stood before them. Well, ’house’ might not be the right term. It was more of a semi-spherical structure, five to six meters high with a gap on one side that served as the entrance. The door was high enough to accommodate any creature about three to four meters tall. There was a small hole at the top for ventilation. The building was made entirely of transparent, solid ice. When Blue Hand had slapped the ground, the ice layer morphed, gradually taking shape as a shelter. In just a few minutes, the problematic house was complete. Blue Hand stood up, waved to his friends, considering the current height of 4.5 degrees, he broke off one of his legs, tossed his old body aside, and downsized himself to fit through the shelter’s entry.

Upon peering into the shelter, it’s evident that it was spacious enough to accommodate more than ten individuals without feeling crowded. The girls in the adventuring party exchanged glances, visibly astonished by the sight before them. However, with their many peculiar experiences from previous adventures, their astonishment was short-lived. They followed the frost spirits and entered.

Inside the shelter, the temperature was not much warmer, but at least they were immune to the pervasive chill of the Snowfield. It felt a lot more comfortable. The frost spirits, who had entered before them, had already settled down in a corner, their eyes fixed on Pannis. With a wry smile, Pannis said to Vivian, "Use your Fire Element to heat up the place; otherwise, lighting a fire for grilling won’t be so easy."

"Will it be okay to warm up this place?" Vivian glanced at the icy walls, "I’m worried that if it gets too warm, the ice might melt, and the frost spirits might melt as well?"

"You underestimate them." Pannis shook his head, "They are Elemental Creatures with an innate affinity for the ice element. They can manipulate ice and snow freely. You won’t harm them unless you use high-intensity fire magic. Just warming up the place won’t affect them at all. As for this ice house, Blue Hand has already set the ice elements to solidify automatically during its construction. You could even set a fire on the floor, and it wouldn’t melt. It’s much safer than if we had made it ourselves. So, don’t hesitate to raise the temperature. It’ll be fine."

"That’s a relief. It seems like we’ll be much more comfortable here than on the Snowfield over the next few days." Vivian nodded. She shrugged her wrist, pouring a potion into her palm, which instantly ignited into a flickering flame. The mage closed her eyes, chanting a few spells, causing the flame in her palm to blaze, growing larger and larger.

As the magical fire burned, the room grew warmer. The girls shed their outer layers but still felt a bit hot. Just as Pannis had explained, not only was there no melting of the ice walls, but the floor, originally thought to be ordinary ice and snow, also remained dry with no traces of melting.

Only then did Pannis nod in satisfaction. He took out his Crystal Energy furnace from his backpack and turned it on. A bright flame sprang from the stove, and blue and yellow lights danced on its surface. The frost spirits were unfazed by this degree of flame. However, being repelled by the Fire Element, they tried to distance themselves from it as much as possible. Ignoring them, Pannis laid out the grill and various seasonings, then pulled out some game caught from the Snowfield out of his backpack.

During adventures, one of the most significant challenges is food preservation. Adventurers often go to great lengths to hunt a large beast, only to find the meat has spoiled a day or so later, forcing them to discard the rotten food regrettably. Of course, smoking the meat could slow down the spoilage process a bit, but who has the time to smoke the meat for a day or two when you could be off hunting another animal instead?

Adventurers had tried all sorts of ways to preserve leftover food to no significant success.

However, these were issues you face while adventuring elsewhere, and such problems simply don’t arise in the arctic and snowfields. One of the greatest advantages of adventuring in such an environment is that food can be preserved for a long, long time, and there’s no need to be concerned about spoilage or deterioration. The natural cold itself takes care of all troubles in this regard.

Pannis picked up a leg from an unknown beast. These creatures were slain during the hunt and had undergone preliminary processing; their skins had been removed and their abdominal cavities cleaned thoroughly. So it was utterly impossible to identify the original species of the animal, you could only tell it was a quadruped.

As he was finely preparing the hunted beast’s hind quarter, Pannis asked the frost spirits, "Blue Hand, why did you suddenly appear here? I remember your tribe lives some distance away from here, doesn’t it?"

"We came out for fun," the Frost Giant explained. "We set out over seven years ago, and we even encountered some humans a few years back. But those humans were no fun at all, they just kept plodding ahead and unlike you, they didn’t have fire performing dances. However, some of them ended up sleeping eternally in these snowfields, while others managed to leave the arctic successfully."

"What a coincidence," Pannis commented, "I was thinking that it would take a lot of effort to find you all, so it’s quite a stroke of luck to encounter you so easily."

"It’s not really a coincidence," Blue Hand shook his head, "We were tracking an odd sphere here. The sphere expands into a thin membrane and keeps hopping on the ground. Oh, you’ve seen it too, haven’t you, the blond dwarf? The snowfield here is teeming with such creatures, although they’re quite different."

"Yes, indeed, I have seen it, and it’s probably the same one you were chasing, it nearly attacked us," Pannis admitted, "But why are you chasing it? It doesn’t seem to pose any threat to you, why are you insistent on pursuing it?"

"Because it’s fun," Blue Hand answered naturally, "A flexible ball that rolls and jumps on the ice surface; it looks quite entertaining. We really wanted to catch one, so we kept following it. However, this creature’s intelligence is really low, I guess even if we catch it and play with it, it won’t be that interesting. It’s more fun to play with you guys instead."

"So, you were chasing it for fun," Pannis sighed, "And besides, we’re not here to play with you. We are here in the snowfield for a very important task."

"That’s fine," Blue Hand said, "You humans are quite interesting; just watching you is enough for us. Oh, we’ve kept forgetting to ask, why exactly did you come to the arctic? Was it just to bring me some alcohol?"

"No, no, no, we have a very important task to accomplish," Pannis shook his head, "And we need your help to do it. We want to find a relic that lies beneath the ice of the arctic, and we hope you can help us to locate it." (To be continued. If you like this piece, we welcome you to vote at qidian.com. Your support means a lot to us. For mobile users, please go to m.qidian.com to read).