Steel and Mana - Chapter 409 – Royal Duel (1)

Silvermist Evermore never belonged. Born to unloving parents and cast aside, she had long accepted that life would never offer her warmth—until she was chosen as an apprentice at Moonstone Academy, a place where magic breathes and fate is written in the stars.But her arrival comes with a price. In an act of betrayal and manipulation, Silvermist shatters Frost's staff, the formidable Winter Guardian, unraveling a secret that should have remained buried.Now, bound by an ancient rule, she must take its place—not as a mere apprentice, but as something far more dangerous: Frost’s human staff, the living embodiment of his power.As Silvermist struggles to navigate the treacherous halls of Moonstone, she discovers that Guardians without apprentices are doomed to vanish, and the balance of the four seasons—Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter—hangs by a thread. But the shadows whisper a greater truth: a war looms on the horizon, fueled by the Sandman’s wrath and a hidden enemy who has been pulling the strings all along.Haunted by cryptic dreams, hunted by those who seek to use her, and betrayed by those she once trusted, Silvermist must uncover the truth behind her own existence before she loses herself to the very storm she was forced to wield.Can she survive the weight of Winter, or will she be the final snowfall that buries them all?

God rewards hard work, and there must be rewards for paying.

And no matter how hard you work, you will gain 100%!

So, for things like cultivating immortals, don’t you just need to have hands?

- Description from novelbuddy

The Jiuzhou Continent contains an era of chaos and fiendish demons, haunted by mysterious beings and fraught with feuding martial families, demonic sacred grounds, and endless struggles between various powers. Conflict is a constant throughout the world.Within such darkness, Gu Chen opened his eyes to this reality.At the same time, he discovered that as long as he slew these fiendish demons and ghosts, his cultivation strength could continually elevate.Killing a Panic Level Demon yields a decade's worth of cultivation.Slaying a Ghost Level Fiendish Ghost brings thirty years of cultivation....Eventually, one day, staring at the endless swarm of fiendish demons and world-renowned grandmasters in his path, Gu Chen chuckled lightly, “Are you able to withstand this fist of mine, charged with 1600 years of cultivation?”

Civilization is destroyed and records lost. Only Dudian survives in a cryogenic sleep. Three hundred years later, Dudian wakes up and must become Dean to survive. Who can he trust in this world overrun by monsters without and within?