Chapter 1543 — The Promise of Two Years: "The Heavenly Tier Assembly!" the Ice Palace Master Said. "I Wonder Whether You Have Heard of It?"

"The Heavenly Tier Assembly?" Wei Zhao was taken aback for a moment, then shook his head. He had truly never heard of any Heavenly Tier Assembly, though he had certainly heard of the Clans' Assembly.

"That is right, the Heavenly Tier Assembly!" the Ice Palace Master said. "As its name suggests, it is a grand gathering of all Heavenly Tier experts, and the Ice Palace is precisely one of the four leading sects that preside over it."

"What does that have to do with the inheritor? Isn't the Heavenly Tier Assembly open to anyone who has reached the Heavenly Tier?" Wei Zhao countered.

"Not so! That rule is meant for the other sects and clans — not for us, the presiding sects!" The Ice Palace Master shook her head. "Legend has it that there is an island called Cloud Steps Island, and upon it one may comprehend the Heavenly Dao and break through to the Heavenly Tier. But the key to opening Cloud Steps Island lies with the inheritors of the four leading sects! Only the inheritors of those four sects can open the gate to Cloud Steps Island!"

"Oh? You mean you want Feng Xiaoxiao to help you open this Cloud Steps Island of yours?" Wei Zhao asked, frowning.

"Precisely." The Ice Palace Master nodded. "This was meant to remain a secret. Even the Heavenly Tier experts of other sects may not know of it; only the four presiding sects do. But since you are Xiaoxiao's boyfriend, and you have asked about such things, I see no reason to hide it from you."

"Opening Cloud Steps Island — how is it to be done? Will there be any danger?" Wei Zhao asked with a frown.

"There should not be," the Ice Palace Master said. "But to be honest with you, everything we learned was handed down by the older generation of the sect, and their account was vague. And that entire generation has now vanished; even had we wished to question them, there would be nowhere to find them."

"Should not be..." Wei Zhao nodded. The way the Ice Palace Master spoke showed that she was not holding anything back; otherwise she would have had no reason to add that last sentence. "What else do you know? Tell me all of it!"

"All I know is this: to break through to the Heavenly Tier, one must set foot on Cloud Steps Island!" The Ice Palace Master sighed, a bitter smile on her lips. "I was told that years ago a great event took place. That man from the Hidden Clans' Arbitration Council paid a visit to every Heavenly Tier expert among the sects, summoning them all together to deliberate on a matter of the gravest importance — and my master was among them!"

"Oh? What matter?" Wei Zhao asked.

"My master did not say... And I was still very young then. Master simply left behind a document and departed in haste with the Supreme Elder, as if something urgent awaited them. From that day on... my master was heard from no more, and that whole company of people vanished without a trace..."

"What!" A familiar scene flashed suddenly through Wei Zhao's mind.

In the year he turned six, his own master had likewise told him abruptly that he was going away to attend to a great matter, and had then disappeared... Could it be that his master too was connected to that very affair?

Wei Zhao could not be certain, but the coincidence was too great, and he could not help but wonder whether some unknown link ran between the two. Afterward he had left his master's house and gone to live with Old Man Wei. He had once asked Old Man Wei for news of his master, but Old Man Wei refused him on the grounds that his strength was too low and that, for the time being, he was not yet in a position to touch that circle.

In truth, thinking back on it, Wei Zhao knew that Old Man Wei loved him. The old man did not want him to live a life of wandering hardship, and so would not let him take on anything too dangerous. It was only that this last assignment in Songshan City had exceeded all imagining!

What should have been a straightforward bodyguard assignment had instead set Wei Zhao upon an entirely different road!

Even now Wei Zhao did not know where the assignment had come from; Old Man Wei had never told him, perhaps because the time had not yet come. But Wei Zhao did not regret it, for it was this assignment that had truly shown him the meaning of life!

In Songshan City he had found friendship, love, a career, and ideals and aspirations of his own!

Though danger pressed in upon him every single day, his days were wonderfully full!

"What is it?" the Ice Palace Master asked.

"Did your master leave thirteen years ago?" Wei Zhao asked.

The Ice Palace Master's expression froze. She stared at Wei Zhao with some astonishment. "How did you know?"

"So it really was thirteen years ago?" Wei Zhao smiled ruefully. "I am afraid my master went away for this very same affair..."

"You? You have a master? Were you not an independent cultivator?" the Ice Palace Master asked in surprise.

"Once my master left, I was the only one remaining — doesn't that make me an independent cultivator?" Wei Zhao said.

"You belong to no sect? You have only a master?" The Ice Palace Master was more surprised still. "Was your master a Heavenly Tier expert as well?"

"Whether he was a Heavenly Tier expert, I could not say..." Wei Zhao shook his head.

"In that case, do you not know of Cloud Steps Island?" the Ice Palace Master asked. "Did he not tell you that once you broke through to the Heavenly Tier you were to go to Cloud Steps Island?"

"He did not," Wei Zhao said. "Perhaps he left in too much of a hurry and said nothing at all."

"That may well be. In fact, it was Aunt Qing who told me, long afterward; I was only six at the time and did not really understand these matters — all I knew was to bury myself in cultivation day after day." The Ice Palace Master spoke with a touch of feeling. "But that is all I know, and I have now told you everything."

"In other words, this affair may be dangerous, or it may not be — everything is unknown. Is that it?" Wei Zhao asked.

"You could say so." The Ice Palace Master nodded. "Well then? Have you decided?"

"How about this. You wait two years, and in those two years do not let Xiaoxiao receive the inheritance; let her cultivate only an ordinary technique. If I truly become a third-rank or higher alchemist and can refine the Ice Heart Jade Bone Pill, then I will refine one for you, and you will be the one to receive the inheritance. What do you say?" Wei Zhao pondered a moment, then set down his own proposal.

"And what if you cannot become a third-rank or higher alchemist?" the Ice Palace Master shot back.

"Then I will receive the inheritance!" At this, Feng Xiaoxiao herself spoke up!

"That will not do; there would not be time. The moment Cloud Steps Island opens falls within these next two years. If you have no Ice Heart Jade Bone Pill and Xiaoxiao receives the inheritance again, we may well run out of time," the Ice Palace Master said. "She is not like me. She has no strength of her own, whereas I stand at the peak of the late Heavenly Tier. Once she receives the inheritance, she must digest it herself before she can break through to the Heavenly Tier!"

"Then what do you propose?" Wei Zhao said. "If I really do refine the Ice Heart Jade Bone Pill within two years, then I won't stand for letting her take the inheritance!"

Wei Zhao had put it very plainly, and his meaning was unmistakable: whether the Ice Palace Master herself was in danger when she took the inheritance was none of his concern — but Feng Xiaoxiao, that was another matter entirely!

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