Thanks to the reminder from a female practitioner of the Snow Essence Palace, Zhou Chun timely rushed to a marketplace directly under the Snow Essence Palace, where he managed to exchange for a Foundation Establishment Pill from a Purple Mansion Phase Cultivator of the Snow Essence Palace.
Although the Snow Essence Palace had sent many people to purchase Snow Crystal Worms in various parts of the snowfields, in reality, these individuals didn't have Foundation Establishment Pills on them. They were merely using Spirit Coins or other treasures to purchase the Snow Crystal Worms.
To trade for a strategic treasure like the Foundation Establishment Pill, one would have to bring together three Snow Crystal Worms at once to the marketplace.
Zhou Chun also knew that the encounter between the female practitioner from Snow Essence Palace and the Ice Armored Bear in the Snow Valley meant there must've been some extraordinary treasure there.
But right now, all he was thinking about was catching the Snow Crystal Worm King to exchange for the "Snow Soul Pill," without wanting to stir up more trouble.
The snowfields were, after all, the domain of the Snow Essence Palace, and it was obvious that the female practitioner held some influence within the Snow Essence Palace. Zhou Chun did not want to lose out on more by seeking small gains and causing trouble for himself.
After he had exchanged for the Foundation Establishment Pill, he immediately left the marketplace and headed back onto the snowfields to search for ice caves.
In just a few days, news of the cancellation of the Snow Crystal Worm-for-Foundation Establishment Pill reward spread quickly throughout the snowfields.
Many Cultivators who had come chasing after this opportunity were so angry that they stomped their feet, sighing and lamenting without end. Even more started to curse loudly at the Snow Essence Palace for deliberately duping them.
In fact, the actions of the Snow Essence Palace did indeed contain elements of deliberate deception.
They lured a large number of Cultivators with the promise of Foundation Establishment Pills to help them catch Snow Crystal Worms, and once they had purchased a sufficient amount, they unilaterally cancelled the reward like tearing down a bridge after crossing.
But what could be done about it!
The Snow Essence Palace had vast power, and they had the capital to play such tricks.
As for the cursing of the lower ranks of Loose Cultivators, who would care?
In a few decades, all those Loose Cultivators would be dead of old age, and how many of the successive generation would remember this incident?
Humans, after all, are forgetful creatures!
So, curse as they might, upon realizing they couldn't change the decision of the Snow Essence Palace, more than eighty percent of the Cultivators who had come to the snowfields to catch Snow Crystal Worms soon left.
Only some, who still wished to catch Snow Crystal Worms to exchange for Spirit Coins, or, like Zhou Chun, wanted to capture the Snow Crystal Worm King, continued to drill into ice holes and venture into peaks, pressing on towards their goals.
With the interference from other Cultivators looking for Snow Crystal Worms now gone, Zhou Chun's exploration efficiency improved.
And during the repeated ventures into the caves, he also began to gain some experience and insight.
Based on his observations, those ice caves that were not very stable were very unlikely to host Snow Crystal Worms, as they could collapse and vanish at any moment.
In contrast, some semi-permanent ice caves were more likely to show signs of Snow Crystal Worms.
Following this guideline, his exploration efficiency increased even more.
In the short span of four months following, by using the set of experiences he had summarized, Zhou Chun unexpectedly discovered four Snow Crystal Worms in the ice caves and managed to catch two of them.
This result greatly encouraged him, knowing he had identified the correct target.
Therefore, he became even more resolved to continue using this method to search for the Snow Crystal Worm King.
That day, as Zhou Chun was exploring an ice cave, he encountered another collapse.
However, unlike the many collapses he had experienced before, this time it was the ice beneath his feet that suddenly gave way, causing a chain reaction of collapses.
During this collapse, Zhou Chun was forced to fall along with the ground and didn't know how deep he had fallen before he was buried by countless layers of solid ice.
If anything, the risk of ice collapsing was not as great as a mountain collapse.
The ice blocks were very hard, and the older the ice, the deeper it was, and the harder it became.
In such a collapse, a Cultivator with strong Divine Sense and agile movements like Zhou Chun could easily find a nook with enough space to take shelter, much like survivors trapped in a collapsed building during an earthquake.
A Cultivator in the Foundation Establishment Stage could fast without food, and they typically carried Fasting Pills and other such Elixirs in their Storage Pouches. Even if buried under a glacier, there was no concern about dying from starvation.
Zhou Chun had safely survived many such cave collapses in the past.
This particular collapse, though sudden and unforeseen, ended without incident for Zhou Chun, who had adopted the correct response to survive until it was over.
Once the collapse had ceased, Zhou Chun, as usual, unleashed his Divine Sense to scan his surroundings.
The collapse of the ice had left numerous voids, which improved the depth of his Divine Sense scanning.
He could use this type of scanning to find a suitable spot to begin digging a tunnel leading back to the surface.
But after Zhou Chun sent out his Divine Sense this time, his expression shifted, and he let out a surprised "huh."
It turned out that in Zhou Chun's scanning, he had actually discovered the existence of stones.
"Could it be that the consecutive collapses have made me plummet to the bottom of a trench?"
Zhou Chun thought to himself, feeling somewhat pleased.
For him, digging a tunnel through a dirt and rock surface was clearly easier than making one on the hard but fragile collapsed ice layers.
Thus, he immediately used his Magic Artifact to strike forward, quickly carving a path for himself.
Soon after, Zhou Chun's figure appeared in a new underground ice cave tunnel.
Yes, a wholly new underground ice cave tunnel.
He had initially planned to dig an escape tunnel through the dirt and rock surface, only to accidentally discover that the so-called ground was actually the side of a deep abyss, and not far from the collapse, there lay a natural ice cave tunnel.