Every single night, Yue would have a magical duel with that panther. She was never wounded, but her Qi reserves were always totally drained.

Since she had already reached the peak of her second Strengthening, it would have been redundant to keep training her physical body at that point. The main thing she needed to concentrate on was Condensing her aura and becoming more proficient at casting spells.

Each day the temperature of our cave became dramatically lower, until the humidity in the air turned into snow and the pool of water that used to be a hot-spring, actually froze over. By that point, my body was covered with loads of trinkets, necklaces, rings, ornaments and even a few pelts. She still needed to eat after all, so she also had to hunt.

However, the only magical-beasts on the entire island that could still threaten her, were those five Jungle Lords. The Golden Queen was probably Yue’s first friend, assuming that you considered me as her ‘family’.

Those two would sometimes go out to pick up ‘snacks’, they would nap together during the day and spar at night. Yet, she still continued to spend most of her time meditating near me, and inadvertently reinforced the Divine Yin Seal.

Fun fact: Ancient Beasts didn’t exist back then. Yeah, my story started before the so-called ‘Primal Titans’ even came into being. I mean, my daughter was the ‘Ice Empress’… Also known as ‘The Sovereign of the Eternal Moon’, not to be confused with ‘Luna’, because she’s a totally different person.

Anyway, the point is that the genetic memory known as ‘Ancient Bloodlines’ were barely even a thing at the time. Also, many of those supreme cultivation methods hadn’t been created yet. I guess with the current standards, ‘my’ technique would probably seem like the most amazing one that was ever devised. Of course, this entire universe would have died of old age before anyone else managed to practice it, so I never really bothered creating a manual or anything like that.

Yue had a poor affinity with the Golden Queen’s ‘Lightning Manipulation’, so even though the adorable panther tried to teach her, it was totally useless. ‘I’ on the other hand, as a disembodied spirit, couldn’t really practice much of anything other than stalking and patience. However, I definitely learned a lot from watching the two of them sparring.

It was going to be a long time before I could actually start using magic, but ‘seeing’ someone else do something, makes gaining insights far easier. Plus, you can definitely just take whatever they do and tweak it a bit, to create an even better spell or technique. Oh wait, now days they have all those silly patents and divine copyright laws; well, it’s a good thing that none of the people I stole from are around to sue me, right?

Actually, is there anyone powerful enough to even enforce those kinds of ridiculous rules against me? Didn’t think so… Let’s get back to the true story of the ‘Ice Empress’ now.

The second part of that old legend was relatively accurate. Yue did end up killing the giant crimson Lava Serpent, but not just because she wanted to train. Nope, it was a good old fashioned turf-war. Specifically, the Jungle Lord decided to expand his territory and led an entire horde of magical beasts onto ‘our’ mountain, from the one to the east.

Unfortunately for the oversized python, what it faced was not only a Lightning Panther who was on par with its own personal strength, there was also a human cultivator who was its elemental worst enemy. Technically, Fire beats Yin when the two sides are ‘evenly’ matched, but my daughter was also a natural at Water magic. While the Golden Queen was leading her own pride of Electric Lynxes, Silver Jaguars, Thunder Tigers and other miscellaneous feline magical-beasts to deal with the serpentine horde, Yue was having a direct showdown with their leader.

The little porcelain-skinned girl, with a shaved head, bright-blue eyes and a crescent Moon tattooed on her chest, was facing off against a colossal crimson snake. They were glaring at each other from across a barren snowy plateau, at the top of ‘our’ mountain.

On one side, not only did the ice melt, but lava began seeping out from fissures in the obsidian ground. Across from that was the gorgeous and amazing woman I raised; there was literally a blizzard raging around her ‘naked’ body.

Suddenly, the snow began clinging to her chest, back, face, the crown of her head, legs and eventually even formed a long and spiky tail that extended for ten meters behind her buttocks. It was like she had become some sort of icy pangolin humanoid creature. Well, actually, there is a race of people who look very similar to that nowadays…

I’ll get into that eventually. For now, let’s just stick to the fight-scene, okay?

My daughter roared “Why have you trespassed upon our territory?! Are you so arrogant to believe that you could face Goldie and I by yourself?!”

The enormous python glared at her with its glowing purple eyes and hissed “You do not belong here human! Look at how you have destroyed the ecosystem here?! Your very presence is destabilizing the very climate! If I cannot force you to leave or defeat you now, then it is only a matter of time before you bring calamity upon us all!”

Yue growled “This is ‘my’ home! I will not leave… I cannot leave! No, you’re trying to trick me! You’re trying to use some sort of magic to confuse me!” Without giving the beast time to explain in more detail, about how causing a blizzards on a tropical island was a bad thing, the battle abruptly began with her kicking off of the ground and soaring up towards the snake’s gargantuan head.

She reached out and swung her right hand down like the paw of a tiger; there was a massive explosion when the outrageously cold icy armor struck the superheated scales of that fiery beast’s nose. The serpent’s head was at least twice the size of her tiny body, so the small hand acted like the tip of an arrow, applying all twenty-six hundred Bears of strength into that singular point. Then there was the concussive blast that caused a Qi wave to pass straight through its snout, into its sinuses.

The snake jumped back on its own, but a moment later, the venom in its upper jaw flash-froze and the entire top half of its mouth exploded. Even its fangs weren’t spared; they cracked and shattered into thousands of pieces, some of which flew out and penetrated Yue’s thick scaled armor.

If she had been a ‘typical’ cultivator, she would have been crippled at that moment. However, she totally ignored the bloody hole through her navel and released an adorable, but ferocious high-pitched “Meow~!”

That tail whirled around rapidly and actually propelled her body forward at a rapid speed. Her enemy was stunned, so she used that chance to land as many blows as possible.

The beast coiled up in a ball, in order to protect its rapidly regenerating mouth, which kept her from dealing any mortal wounds. Yet, there was a constant stream of explosions caused by the ice on her fists, instantly transforming into superheated plasma. Of course, my daughter received some serious wounds from the backlash as well.

A few minutes passed with her just beating up on the snake, when something rather unexpected happened. The Golden Queen returned early and… No, she didn’t attack Yue; seriously, kids now days always expect everything to be a ridiculous betrayal plot that makes absolutely no sense realistically! Why would that even happen?! Look, the two of them were friends, regardless of the fact that one of them was a vicious and cunning magical beast.

Anyway, the yellow kitty wasn’t alone! She was being chased by the three other Jungle Lords! Exactly, it was four against two and my daughter was in serious danger!

There was Kuma-Khan, the six-meter tall grizzly bear with thick and seamless steel covering his entire body. His eyes were literally golden orbs, and I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t even an ‘organic’ creature at that point. In fact, ‘he’ didn’t have a gender either; ‘it’ was kind of like me, but it might have been a golem, I’m not totally sure.

Giggles the High-Hyena was well, a bright-green dog-like creature that laughed a lot. She wasn’t very big; only about the size of a normal wolf, but her forte was manipulating vines, trees and other plants. Technically, I guess she was more of a support, rather than a fighter.

Last but not least, there was Coco the Chocolate Cockatoo. That bird was the most dangerous of them all, and the most annoying.

The Diary of Destiny King