As he drew closer, Gu Ming saw that the clouds and mist at the summit were drifting like a thin veil, finally revealing the peak hidden behind them.

The peak was blanketed in pristine white snow, glistening with a cold, sharp light under the sun.

Most of the mountain, however, was exposed brown rock and dark green vegetation, forming a stark divide between cold and warm.

Near the foot of the mountain, the air still carried the warmth of spring.

But when Gu Ming looked up the mountain, he saw dozens of Pet Beasts huddled together and shivering about one to two hundred meters up the slope.

Tiny ice crystals clung to their fur. It was obvious they were suffering from the cold, and it was no ordinary chill.

’Are they trapped in an Ice Frost Array?’

He muttered to himself, his gaze fixed intently on the shivering figures.

Lu You, who was beside him, heard him. She followed his gaze, and her pupils narrowed slightly.

Both of them had a profound knowledge of Arrays and knew the techniques commonly used by first-year students like the back of their hands.

Realizing there might be an Ice Frost Array ahead, Lu You immediately entered a state of focus. Her fingertips traced a directional map in the air, reverse-engineering the layout based on the principles of Array formation.

Suddenly, her eyes lit up, and she pointed to several ancient trees shimmering with a blue light.

"Look at those trees! Don’t the patterns on their trunks look like icicles?"

’Those must be the nodes of the Ice Frost Array,’ she figured.

Gu Ming followed her pointing finger. The bark on those ancient trees did look a bit odd. His Divine Sense Sword Body sensed a trace of a cold aura—that had to be where the Array Flags were located.

He gave a slight nod. His gaze swept over the mountainside, and he quickly mapped out the low-temperature zone on the ascent.

Looking even higher, he saw that there were indeed Pet Beasts that had climbed to a higher elevation.

However, their bodies were wreathed in heat, and every step they took left scorched hoofprints on the rocks.

Clearly, they were caught in another trap Array, likely one of the Fire Element.

The area even higher up was empty. No Pet Beasts had ventured there, and there was no sign of movement.

Gu Ming quickly performed some calculations in his head, connecting the nodes of the two known Arrays. A winding path materialized in his mind’s eye.

’But the system said this is the Ice and Snow Mountain Forbidden Area. Why is there something emitting heat up there?’

"Let’s go. We’ll head up and see," he said in a low voice, deciding not to overthink it for now.

With that, he led Lu You onto the mountain path, his steps steady and light.

Although he had planned a route from the foot of the mountain to avoid the Array’s deliberately placed low-temperature zones, the air around them still began to drop at a noticeable rate once they started up the path.

Gu Ming felt a creeping chill on the back of his neck, as if countless tiny ice needles were pricking his skin.

At an altitude of 160 meters, both of them were breathing a little heavily. The white puffs of their breath lingered in the air for a moment before quickly dissipating.

They carefully skirted around the group of Pet Beasts trapped by the cold Array. Some of the creatures were curled up under rocks, while others pawed uselessly at the ground. Their claws and fur alike were caked with frost.

Someone saw them and started walking in their direction.

However, the person’s Pet Beast had only taken five or six steps in their direction when it started sneezing. The moment the air left its nostrils, it instantly condensed into frost.

The Pet Beast was so cold it immediately recoiled, unable to take a single step further in their direction.

Gu Ming shook his head. ’It’s impossible for them to cross over from here. They have to go back to the foot of the mountain and pick a relatively warmer path to ascend. That’s the proper Array-Breaking Method.’

"Hey, don’t go! Please teach us!"

Lu You glanced back at the group, then turned and kept pace with Gu Ming, offering no reply.

Soon, the duo reached the spot where the frontrunners had gotten stuck.

Gu Ming took a deep breath, only to choke and start coughing on a sudden wave of heat.

The temperature here was at least fifty degrees Celsius. The heat was scorching, and with every step, they could feel the sticky dampness of sweat soaking their clothes.

This spot was three hundred meters above the mountain’s base, a stark contrast to the cold below. It felt like jumping from an ice cellar into a steam room. The air was thick with water vapor, and a dense fog shrouded the way forward, making it impossible to see the path.

’Something’s wrong. Very wrong,’ Gu Ming muttered.

’I didn’t see fog this thick from down below,’ Gu Ming thought.

This meant he and Lu You must have walked into the trap of a Compound Array.

To be clear, he had seen the students farther up the mountain wreathed in fiery gas from below, so he knew that was a Fire Element trap Array.

But an Array isn’t limited to a single type; this was very likely a nested Compound Array.

While the visible Fire Element Array formed the outer shell, another set of traps was embedded within it, causing people to fall for the ruse unknowingly.

For example, the examiners must have anticipated that he would deduce the low-temperature ascent, so they likely hid another layer, a hidden trap Array, on this secondary path.

He wiped the sweat from his brow and stared at the steam-filled air, racking his brain for a solution.

"Cyan Treasure, sense the nearby plants. See which ones can drive away this water vapor. We can’t keep walking on a path this hot," Gu Ming said.

Cyan Treasure nodded, wagged its tail, and used its Ultimate Skill, Mastery of Wood Escape, to perceive all the trees in the area.

It listened intently, drawing the invisible life fluctuations into its Sea of Consciousness and constructing a contour map of high and low Life Energy zones.

’This way!’

Cyan Treasure’s tail shot up, pointing toward a misty, fog-shrouded area where the silhouettes of swaying trees were faintly visible.

Lu You’s heart pounded in her chest; she had a bad feeling about that place.

But Gu Ming chose to trust his Pet Beast. "Let’s go! Keep up!"

The two of them and their three Pet Beasts moved forward quickly, passing through a zone of high-temperature steam. Their faces stung, scalded by the vapor.

With their thick hides, the three Pet Beasts were relatively fine passing through the hot zone. The two Beastmasters, however, were struggling. The skin on their faces and arms was burned.

Fortunately, once they passed through, the surrounding temperature dropped, and the superheated steam thinned out considerably.

Gu Ming let out a sigh of relief. He had broken another Array.

’If this mountain really is formed by layers of overlapping Arrays,’ he thought, ’then passing through each temperature zone is probably equivalent to breaking a massive Array spanning a hundred meters in elevation.’

An Array of this scale was far beyond what someone at Gu Ming’s current level could ever hope to deploy.

Breaking this Array hadn’t been easy either; it had taken a serious mental toll on him.

Based on the two Arrays they had already encountered and the mountain’s total height, he estimated there were still four or five more Arrays awaiting them.

He didn’t rush forward recklessly. Instead, he rested where they were and took out some healing herbs he had gathered along the way, having Cyan Treasure help him mash them into a paste.

"Let’s not rush ahead. We’ll apply some of this paste to treat our burns," Gu Ming said.

Lu You turned at his words and only then noticed that Gu Ming’s face was covered in red, swollen burns. A look of concern immediately crossed her face.

Mouse Treasure also chirped with worry for its master. It thought this was too risky—his face was all messed up!

"Here, this is for you. Help your master put it on," Gu Ming said, handing the freshly mashed paste to Mouse Treasure.

Mouse Treasure nodded, cupped the pinkish paste in its paws, and went to its master’s side to apply it to her face.

Lu You subconsciously touched her own face.

TSS—

’So painful!’

She had been so focused on Gu Ming’s injuries, she hadn’t even realized she was hurt herself.

After they both had applied the medicinal paste to their faces and any other exposed skin.

Meanwhile, the teachers observing the competition were also paying attention to the duo’s herbal preparation, silently assessing its Medicinal Power.

"That’s a slow-acting healing salve. It’s quite effective, but there’s no way it will be enough to get them through this steam-room Array zone."

A teacher from Tian Nan City First High School said, shaking his head.

"Not necessarily. Are you aware that Cyan Treasure has Plant Life Light Wave?"

Next to the teacher from First High, Teacher Ruan from Nan Gao shook his head.

He was the very teacher who had personally witnessed Cyan Treasure’s exam. He was also observing this competition from the monitoring area and had made a point to carefully study Cyan Treasure’s set of Skills afterward.