Despite being in the far north’s extreme cold, it still snows in summer, but the snowfall has become much less frequent and lighter. As a result, William Carter’s speed in building the ice steps has also slowed down.

Therefore, William Carter is extremely eager for summer to end quickly and for winter to arrive soon!

When practicing the Zhengyang Fist, William Carter took only five days for the first move, forty days for the second, and a full two months for the third. This made him mentally prepared for the progress of the third move, even setting a completion deadline of about four months in his mind. But to his great surprise, the fourth move took only three days. William Carter couldn’t help but cheer repeatedly, and at this moment, he really hoped Old Man would open his eyes to express admiration or surprise.

However, Old Man still kept his eyes closed, leaving him a bit disappointed, as if he had achieved good grades but couldn’t get any praise from his parents.

Chapter 6: Inheriting the Position of Sect Leader

However, Old Man still kept his eyes closed, leaving him a bit disappointed, as if he had achieved good grades but couldn’t get any praise from his parents.

When it came to the fifth move, reality completely wiped away all of William Carter’s previous pride, because his progress was excruciatingly slow.

The fifth move is the most important one. While throwing a punch and releasing profound energy, he must simultaneously gather enough profound energy in his meridians and store it in his qi sea to support the next attack, and he must be able to sustain at least three rounds.

After a full three months, William Carter hadn’t even completed the first round. After releasing his profound energy, it took him half a minute to gather new profound energy.

This progress left even himself feeling hopeless. But William Carter is exactly the kind of person who becomes more determined the more desperate things get, so in the end, he practiced with complete madness. After three hours of daily training, he would rack his brains thinking about it, even dreaming about it at night.

Three months, four months...

Summer in this world passed, autumn passed as well, and it entered winter again. (In the far north’s extreme cold, it’s actually winter all year round. The slightly less cold period is called summer, and the very cold period is called winter.)

In the freezing winter, one heavy snowfall followed another. This made William Carter temporarily shift his focus from the Zhengyang Fist to making ice steps after his daily practice.

Because besides martial arts training, there was an even more important matter: to leave this wretched place with Old Man as soon as possible.

Finally, after the tenth heavy snowfall of this winter, William Carter’s ice steps were 99.99% complete, with only a dozen or so steps left to reach the ground, just three or four meters away.

With just one more heavy snowfall, William Carter’s year-long project of building the ice steps would be finished. This massive undertaking of over ten thousand ice steps would be complete, and he could finally leave this hellish place with Old Man.

He had been trapped in this ice cave for over a year. Now, he could soon leave.

……

Half-asleep, William Carter suddenly felt a chill on his face and immediately opened his eyes.

It was snowing—sure enough, it was snowing again. And it was a heavy snow, more than enough to finish the remaining dozen or so ice steps.

William Carter didn’t start making the ice steps right away. Instead, he first did an hour of Tiandi Jue breathing meditation, then practiced the fifth move of the Zhengyang Fist for three hours.

Now, after releasing a profound energy attack, it took about fifteen seconds for all his meridians to gather enough energy for the next attack. So, let alone completing three rounds, he couldn’t even finish the first round. At this point, William Carter had let go of all wishful thinking and was prepared for a long battle.

But... it was as if fate was playing a joke on him.

That morning, he practiced the fifth move of the Zhengyang Fist as usual.

“Bang...” With a punch, he scattered the snowflakes in front of him.

“Bang...”

“Bang...”

“Bang...”

……

Without any warning, William Carter unleashed ten consecutive waves of profound energy attacks. He didn’t even realize it himself—it was completely continuous, with no need for any accumulation time. His meridians instantly gathered new profound energy.

When he realized this, William Carter was utterly stunned. How—how could this be? After four months of not even completing a third of the progress, he had been prepared to spend a year or two on it, but suddenly, he broke through and completed the fifth move. And the requirement was only to do three rounds, but he managed over a dozen.

William Carter was afraid it was just an illusion, or a fluke, so he tried the fifth move of the Zhengyang Fist again.

Sure enough, he could easily unleash over a dozen waves of profound energy attacks. Only after the thirteenth wave did his meridians need time to gather new profound energy.

William Carter was completely stunned, even forgetting to cheer.

At that moment, Old Man suddenly opened his eyes and said, “That’s right, martial arts are just this mysterious. Most of the time, they’ll leave you frustrated and disappointed, but occasionally, they’ll give you infinite surprises. Of course, all these surprises are built on comprehension and talent.”

Then, Old Man repeated, “Sigh, comparing people only leads to frustration!”