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Chapter 519: The Blizzard of the Glacial Wastes.
Chapter 519: The Blizzard of the Glacial Wastes.
Experience for development Jobs has reached multiple breaking points.
[Star Idol]: Lv. 43 -> Lv. 55 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 16 Lv. 36
[Lightbearer]: Lv. 25 -> Lv. 50 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 14 Lv. 9
[Crimson Inferno Tyrant]: Lv. 0 -> Lv. 50 | Reset accumulation finished | Prestige 1 Lv. 47
Prestige requirement achieved! Job max level has increased. Experienced accumulation and reward quality increased.
[Star Idol] Max level -> 65
[Lightbearer] Max level -> 55
You may spend your prestige points when you are ready
Evolution Points: 34/50
You’ve removed [Job Crossover] from [Crimson Inferno Tyrant]Experience has reached a breaking point. [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor] has risen from [Level 37] to [Level 38]
Attributes have increased due to level up
Acquired 800 skill points
Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Tyrant’s Voice Lv. 2] [Scale-Manipulation Lv. 7] gained
Aquamarine, turquoise, azurite, lapis lazuli … sapphire
Luxury, rarity, and beauty—gemstones, although simple minerals and rock, were a staple of civilization due to their value as crafting materials and the way they would dazzle before your eyes. Admittedly, I did love their shine, and luckily, so did Mom. She even made a ruby necklace made entirely from my shed scales, always wearing it whenever she was in her dragonewt form.
Pretty, beautiful, and stunning sights and items were something anybody could understand, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that people would pay extraordinary amounts of money to buy a well-polished gemstone.
Then, what about a gem-crested mountain? Well, our mountain home’s diamond-like ice coat would like a say in that, as it brought the meaning of maximalism to its very peak … Hiehie. While the diamonds were actually just Mom’s ice, whether they should be considered fakes or not depended on the onlookers, and I sure wouldn’t have expected them to be if I wasn’t informed of it.
And yet, despite living inside that very mountain, I was still astounded by the sight of the northern glaciers!
Ice, so clear and pure that you just wanted to carve some of it out for a nice cold drink, could be seen on a nearby flowing river, surprising me that it still could move despite the chilling, unforgiving cold. Mana eyes told me it was brimming with mana, far more than its surroundings, like a lake going against the stream, fighting it off to continue “living.”
Around those riverbeds, you could start seeing the line between the rest of Frozen Nest and the start of the frozen wasteland, as the grey-brown dirt underneath the tundra snow disappeared completely once we approached the aforementioned river. It was replaced by a thick layer of aquamarine soil.
Blue soil! It was as if I had just entered an alien world, or as if somebody had thrown a bunch of chemicals on it. Regardless of the real reason for this discoloration, it did make it look like I was walking on a wealth of small, sparkling gemstones, and this wasn’t even mentioning the sun reflecting off the ice mountains in the distance that gave this place the “glacier” name.
This scouting mission had finally reached its destination.
However, with it came the fact I was absolutely freezing now. My draconic barrier was getting pummeled by the strong snowy winds, stealing away both my mana and body warmth, and I couldn’t help but shiver while practicing that body regulating technique the fire and ice wyverns taught me. Yet, it wasn’t helping that much.
My mood sank as I believed I had reached my temperature limit; I looked down at my chest, covered up by rhytilic armor, to where my core would normally lie. My solar core hadn’t made much progress in regrowing, so it was impossible for me to currently use it to produce enough warmth to ward off these piercing winds. If the weather got much worse, getting frostbite might be an actual issue.
“This is as far as we came last time,” Vifi said from on my back, reminding me she, Tasianna, and the twins had already made their own trip here. “Each step freezes, right?”
[“I can’t even melt the snow,”] I said as I lowered my head, looking at the crunching snow underneath me, completely fine despite me stepping on it. The icy flakes haven’t melted from my body temperature alone and were sticking on my scales like sand.
It didn’t even melt when I rubbed it against my legs, leaving me befuddled at the lack of moisture. It must be like dry ice, or at least something similar to it, but the snow in this region was most likely further empowered by the natural ice elemental mana, giving it this … unusual feeling to it. It felt too unnatural to me, and I guessed my body still didn’t feel 100% comfortable here.
Well, that or the fact I was scared it would hail at any moment now. The sky had some black clouds in the distance, so I wasn’t confident it would stay like this for too long.
It should melt when it comes into contact with my flames, but that would garner attention. Nothing to do here anymore but to go back home.
“A ton of elementals over there.” Vifi pointed to the west where a small valley could be seen.
As I flew up to see what was going on, I noticed there was a deep crevasse where the aforementioned river was flowering through. In addition, floating cyan-colored gas bundles were flying around with a spiky ice casing protecting over half of themselves.
They reminded me of Kiiro, the onnikai leader during the Davison accident, after he was purified by Zephira and turned into an elemental. These beings were most likely just like that—lesser ice elementals. I knew they were lesser since larger variants of them were around to compare, but unlike these lesser cousins, the normal and greater elementals were covered in large suits of ice armor, with the greaters assuming the form of various monsters I’ve seen on my trip—dragons, wyverns, lions, and so on.
They were golems, essentially, except that, unlike regular golems, these elementals were bundles of pure mana with the ability to back it up. Essentially, if I were to fight them now, it would be like fighting multiple lesser and more skilled Tasiannas, and they also didn’t have the debilitating weakness of having a mana core—break it and no matter how strong the golem, it would fall. An elemental could just absorb the surrounding mana to stay healthy—you had to fully drain their mana to kill them.
So, seeing the lesser bundles of mana and the large, humanoid golem beings dance and celebrate together, while the greater elementals simply lounged around, was a wonderful sight of peace. Elementals might be intelligent, but faefolk were still faefolk, and their natural disposition was more whimsical compared to the many threats around here … At least, that was what I presumed and I had no intention of trying anything with my solar core down.
“That’s the landmark Tasianna told us to use whenever we returned here, as she had personally spoken with one of the wandering elementals and spirits to get some information about the area,” Vifi reported on Tasianna’s use of her faemancer abilities. “Essentially, the river is like a mana expulsion system, managed by the many ice elementals and those water fae—uhh, nymphs or something. And by expulsion, I mean a way for the world to regulate and redistribute the mana, so no area is too contaminated by it.”
[“Ah, you mean monster spawnings, right? Or creating dungeons to contain it,”] I replied as I got the gist of the idea, making me also think of plants that extracted mana from the ground like macula plants.
“The second is a product of the Divine System, so it isn’t ‘natural,’ per se. Monster spawnings have been a part of our world like a law, and in this age, it is the precursor of a dungeon creation, if the locals can’t quell the monsters born from this method,”—Vifi then pointed at the river once again, before turning her finger towards the beach and ocean to the west—“Frozen Nest has an additional method, and this is only for the glaciers since the concentration of ice-aligned mana is so dense here, the snow won’t melt even in contact to fire. The further north you go, the more this place becomes a glacier as it floats above the water, shaking and tilting from the rhythm of the beasts splashing under the ocean depths. Only connected to the rest of the Nest through that very freezing mana creating all the ice.”
Essentially, the highest point of this glacier was where all the mana would flow towards as the concentration rises, similar to a water bottle becoming more full until it overflows at the mouth. It was there where greater ice elementals would congregate to absorb this mana and become stronger, hoping to eventually reach the heights of an ice elemental emperor.
Through this process, the ice peak would start melting, since the mana maintaining its form was being drained from it, eventually turning into the water this river was composed of. Some of the purest of mana water could be found at the start of this river, and as it flowed down the glaciers and through the many winding paths, tunnels, and cliffs of this land, it would continue absorbing mana as it always did until it finally entered the ocean, expelling the excess mana it absorbed into the sea, allowing all the life to flourish within it.
At the same time, the glaciers would continue absorbing water- and wind-aligned mana to create more of the dense ice it needed to continue existing, creating this rhythmic circulation of energy. This also explained why this river wasn’t freezing, as the concentration of mana within probably couldn’t be compared to the peak of this mountain I was seeing in the distance.
The towering spire at the very north-eastern edge, tilted slightly down like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, making it almost look like the bow of a ship as it pointed into the ocean. Now, due to the geography, depending on how large the world of Peolynca actually was, this spire might as well be pointing at the homeland of the demonkin, Bole’Taria. Sadly, I haven’t found a globe yet to confirm this; I’ve only seen the simple sheet map.
South, it’s blocked by that terrible Twin-Elemental Lake, and the north is too cold for anybody to reliably sail through. Even if there are paths to sail from Bole’Taria to Miononbolax, you have to go around all these threats to reach us … I guess that is one way for me to go there, if I ever train my [Ice Resistance] high enough.
I giggled. [“You say you’re not the best student, but you remembered all of that from Tasianna’s little faemancer report? She did tell you that faefolk sometimes would just lie to her for the joke of it, right?”]
“… Well, some of the information was. I blame those damn things for how we got ourselves into that blizzard! Brr!” Vifi shivered, recoiling back. “Worry not, the rest of the information we got was confirmed by the dragonewts. The library also had a ton of books on the topic, so I gave you the gist of it, so you didn’t have to read it … which I got from Tasianna, so I didn’t have to read that 80000 page book, or whatever its page count was.”
I could already imagine it …Vifi eating a donut while watching Tasianna being studious. My fairy companion lived in a library to read books during her over 80 years of living in her home village, so I really couldn’t dispute the idea of her reading an 80000 page book, even if I knew this was just an exaggeration.
[“So that’s how you got into that blizzard during your experience hunt,”] I said, remembering that topic when I got my one year coma catch-up. [“Though, I don’t see any ‘younglings’ around here, as you called it.”]
“Of course, not! Donut, this place is where adult dragons come to train! Those who came back from their pilgrimage and want to evolve to rank S after reaching rank A from hunting elsewhere. You can find ancient dragons here, as well! No way would you find some random rank B or C here!” she scolded me, urging me to rethink my statement. “No, the blizzard came when we were in the process of trying to escape this place, all because that ice elemental misled us. We couldn’t find a cave in time when we got away from the glaciers, which was when those dragons and wyverns tried to ambush us. Those young dragons we saw a few days ago might as well have been one of them, for all I cared.”
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Vifi sighed after I apologized to her for lacking some common sense. Hearing her calm down, she continued, “Dangerous places like these only attract the strong. Those ice elements I spoke about? Well, their dreams of becoming semi-gods as elemental emperors will never come true, as the beings living on this glacier see them as sacks of experience. At the end of the day, they might be powerful ice mages, but most creatures here would be adapted to all the ice mana. Dragons can easily cull them through brute strength and their innate resistances.”
I nodded before I flew back to the ground, where I noticed Vifi still staring at the peak in the distance, now completely hidden behind a mountain range. [“You seem to like it.”]
“Natural beauty. Nature’s way to create this incredible loop that has existed for centuries … Something I would never see in Bole’Taria.” Vifi shook her head as a frown formed on her face. “All you see are unfarmable lands, cold cities, and mana polluted areas that make you sick just from looking at them. The Twin-Elemental Lake, for example, is just an abomination between the explosion of a dungeon core and the might of Plesia ‘sending a message’ to us mortals. Seeing this freezing place makes me happy I’m gone from those streets …”
[“… Something similar to when you first ate a donut?”]
“Weird way to compare stuff. To me, it just makes you aware that there has been a kernel of truth in what my government has been saying, and that is that the world outside our borders is more beautiful than the land we’re born on. That’s we’re prisoners, in a way.” She shrugged. “And it feels good to be free from all that stuff.”
[“Well, then let’s make sure we can share this happiness with other demonkin.”]
“Yeah, hopefully, Donut.” Vifi paused, prompting me to look back in the direction of thespire.
[“So, I guess that is what Tasianna is aiming for, right? The same method these ice elementals are supposedly getting stronger with?”]
“More or less. We’ve got no idea how exactly, but the Empress did state it should be possible since she’s a fae. How you will pull it off is another question, so all we can do when our expedition begins is to take anything that looks good and stuff it into your storage. Let your mother do the thinking, or, better yet, get your grandfather to elaborate more on those relics your grandparents left behind.”
[‘Grandmother’s crown,’] Hikari suddenly spoke up, surprising Vifi and me.
“Woah, I thought you two had a rule set up for that.”
[“For who can control our body, not on who can use telepathy. Frankly, I don’t think it’s good for either of us if we gatekept the other from speaking when one of us was controlling the body,”] I said. [“Sorry, should the one not controlling our body make it clearer?”]
“I can hear the difference in your accent, with how similar you sound like Tasianna, Donut—that need to articulate every word as clearly and properly as possible. Hikari has that nasalness to her,” Vifi stated, causing the both of us to feel slightly insecure.
Regardless, the point was that Kramps still hadn’t fully elaborated on what his wife’s crown had to do with my continued growth. Apparently, it would help me regulate my core better, but how exactly was that supposed to work? Furthermore, what about the other treasures from my maternal grandparents?
This conversation prompted Kramps to finally speak up.
One problem I’ve had with my solar core that only showed itself during the climactic battle of the Griffonpeak siege was the fact it could break if I placed too much strain on it. Similar to my scales, it would become stronger the more it broke and regenerated, but it was still a slow process regrowing it, like now. Once broken, I had to wait before I could use my solar energy again.
Kramps had the idea I could equip the crown around my core to have it regulate it, or have Grimnir dissemble it into its individual scales to create a way to maybe spur my next evolution choices. All these ideas also applied to the items Mom’s parents had left behind before their ascension with Kramps, all to hopefully help my growth into a rank A.
Coincidentally, both items were also somewhere inside the glaciers here; Kramps said he could only give me the Divine Quest once the time was right.
Uhm, okay?
… Tell me something is ominous without telling me it’s ominous. My goodness, Kramps! You’re doing this on purpose!
Yeah, I know … Got it, got it. I’ll just prepare myself then for when the time comes.
‘Then, let’s head back home. Probably better to hunt some mammoths around home than here when it’s freezing like hell here. [Providence’s Will] will probably enjoy it as well.’
With our return agreed on, I turned away from the glaciers and began flapping my wings to gain some momentum, only for Vifi to suddenly point to my right. Looking over, I saw five ice elementals fly towards all, before they swarmed around Vifi like a bunch of floating fireflies, all while ignoring me.
[“Do you recognize them?”]
“You think I would remember the appearance of some fae that I met a few months ago?” Vifi stated, nervously avoiding them by moving back and forth on my back, causing the elementals to suddenly stop moving, or “dancing.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
[“Aww, Vifi, we can’t understand fae but they can understand us, so don’t say such things out loud. You hurt their feelings!”]
[“Why would I care about some fae? Instead of worrying about these things, get moving and fly already. I’ve had enough of dealing with these flies.”]
[“Party pooper,”] I said before I took flight, only to suddenly feel a strong icy gust sway me to the side. I groaned, gasping for air as I felt the chill steal my body warmth, forcing myself to let some fire out of my mouth to heat up my throat and body. [“Wha—!”]
“Y-you have to be kidding me, what?” Vifi voiced my surprise when we saw the dark clouds from before speeding up, covering the sky above us as hail suddenly started to drop. A strong gale was incoming! “Second time is not a coincidence! Donut, find a cave, now! We’ve got a blizzard incoming!”
The cold was enough of a warning for me. My instincts were urging me to find shelter even before Vifi finished her sentences, scanning the area for any nearby mountains or a cave; however, we were on an open plain right now, and it only took seconds before my entire vision was shrouded in a storm of snow.
I had no choice now, I just had to fly as quickly as I could to the nearest mountain to escape. My scale-dust burst in action as I snapped my claws and gnashed my fangs, creating a cloak of flames to ward off the cold. The heat melted the skin of ice slowly forming on my scales and carapace, but was unable to completely thaw away the frightening cold, merely delaying the embrace of the storm.
My rocket boosters activated from the surging flames, blasting me forward until it seemed like the sun had vanished, replaced by darkness from the engulfing clouds. My blurred, obstructed vision could only see the grass right below me, as grains of snow and the descending hail of ice cubes made it impossible for me to see what was what further on ahead.
The gust only worsened, slowing me down to steal my warmth, and destabilizing my flight as I couldn’t stop myself from shivering nonstop. I immediately took out my flame catalyst to activate its [Flame Furnace Aura] skill, creating a barrier around me to warm me up as I started playing [Dragon Fire].
Buffs up, Hikari!
[Music Resonation (Minor)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]
“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫
In hellfire ♫
All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫
It’s music ♫”
[Dragon Fire]’s lyrics did not warm me up, as its effect could only activate when somebody had [Music Resonation], and only if the water or ice attack came from a spell or ability. This blizzard was nature’s wrath and unless nature was casting this through a spell, I couldn’t warm myself up with this song. However, that wasn’t necessary, as I was relying on the periodic flame meteor coming down at me.
[“Vifi, sorry, but I need to target you as a enemy!”] I warned her as I couldn’t designate myself as an “enemy” for the sake of [Idol]’s spell songs. Knowing this, Vifi did not complain, merely adapting to it by dodging along my back as I basked in joy as large flame meteors struck me.
Ahhh, a fire shower, yes!
Relishing in this reprieve for a moment, I let out another burst of flames from my mouth before I—
Incoming!
[Foresight] activated, warning me of an incoming projectile. Casting [Wind Blast] against the storm as I gnashed my fangs together to cause a spark explosion, I launched myself past an icicle spear as it used the slipstream of the storm to accelerate its trajectory. In the next moment, as I was stabilizing myself, a signal suddenly appeared on my Detection Sensor] with a speed similar to the spear.
Using the same evasive maneuver, I dodged out of the way as something large crashed right in front of me. Snapping my eyes up, I only saw a glimpse of the being’s frame, towering over me as if it was an adult rank A dragon. Its form was hidden behind the storm and darkness, only for blue flames to suddenly burst into existence around the being’s silhouette, causing me to take a step back.
A feral cry with a gurgling aftersound erupted from the beast’s mouth as a mane of fire shot out from its neck fur, pushing the storm around us back before the monster lowered its head. Its two black eyes gazed at me with fury.
Two large canines rattled as the monster growled slowly, shaking the velvet-fur covering its nose, brows, and mustache-like appendage. Muscles so thick they could crush my head shivered in anticipation for a fight, while the blue flames on its manes surrounded the beast’s fist like gloves. With white fur protecting most of its body, the elemental looked pretty bare and dull if you ignored the aquamarine-dazzling ice armor covering its torso and posterior. The mere sight was enough to remind me of the gem-like earth around the glaciers.
A mandrill. I recognized the ape monster.
Furthermore, small and large elementals started to show themselves from hiding on the back of the monster, dancing around as it spread their mana around them, creating a giant ice spear for the mandril to pick up like a weapon.
“Gruuulaaaaayyyy!” it shouted before it jumped up, arching its back as it was ready to slam the spear and its fist into the ground.
[“Get ready, Donut!”] Vifi shouted before she jumped off my back to slam her hands together, turning herself into a magnet to repel both the ape and me away from her.
Using [Air Walk], Vifi used her voltaic lightning to dash away from the conflict, further pushing me away due to how her magnetism worked. However, it only lasted for a moment before her movements ceased.
She snapped her head down, clicking her tongue as the concentration of ice mana around us was disturbing her lightning run. Since her legwork relied on mana-magnetism inside her demonic mana to create her iconic movement-style, it essentially was unusable when everything around her was mana molded by spells and abilities, unlike the natural mana in the environment that hasn’t been “tainted.”
That meant, this blizzard wasn’t natural. It was being created by somebody. As Vifi said before we started our escape, this storm wasn’t some coincidence. We were being hunted, and the perpetrator, or rather perpetrators, were obvious.
“Gruyyyaaaa!” With a primal roar, an icicle spear nearly crushed Vifi with its size if she hadn’t dodged. The ape then shouted once again before it landed a double hammerfist into the ground, causing the ground to erupt in a deluge of snow.
The ape roared as the elementals on its back danced, before it stood up on its hind legs, throwing its arms into the sky in rage as ice gathered around its fist, creating an ice hammer befitting its titanic size. With blue flames surging around its head, the mandrill shook its mustache crest in intimidation.
Slamming the hammer on the ground, the ape was using it like an anchor to stop itself from being blown away from Vifi. It did not want to give up on us.
“... Fucker, you think you’re the only one who can do that trick?” Agitated, Vifi conjured up a lightning spear with her prosthesis. “Haha, if you think you can scare us away, then better luck next time!”
Dammit, her wrath side is taking over!
Vifi’s demonic features were on full display, meaning her emotional states were all at 15%. Her battle-hungry, daredevil side was rearing its head at the wrong time, making her drunk with rage by the ape’s declaration of war. As she hadn’t inverted or canceled her magnetism, I was still being repelled by her. I had to rely on [Battle Frenzy] if I wanted to get her out of this.
“Voltaic Red!”
Sadly, I was a step behind our speedster.
“Thunderspeed Roar!”
Similarly, the ape couldn’t react in time as Vifi threw her thunderspear at it, piercing right through the beast’s ice hammer to drill right into the monster. A thunderous clap shook the entire tundra, silencing the blizzard for a moment as it was blown away from around the battlefield.
Hope grew in my mind as I had thought Vifi had once again handled a threat without a single trouble, only for my eyes to widen in a shock followed by Vifi’s own surprise. The dust was blown away as a new, stronger blizzard took the place of the last.
The mandril still stood unwaveringly before us. Only a scorched patch of fur proved Vifi’s attack hit, but no wound was showing. The monster had fully tanked one of Vifi’s strongest attacks.
… Shit, Hikari!
… I sent that description to Vifi.
“… Retreat!”
[“Run away!”] I pulled out [Providence’s Will] and tethered it to me with some corrosive slime. [“Omnictus!”]
Hikari and I used our combined 18 multi-casts to our advantage to cast 18 [Omnictus] at random intervals to create an escape. Since the ape was somehow resistant to fire and lightning, it meant only my holy spells could seriously hurt the monster. Sure, [Providence’s Will] was draining my mana like crazy, but its strength was no joke as the ape quickly realized it when it got hit by the first blast of holy energy.
It did not pursue us any further once we made it out of the center of the blizzard and hid in a nearby cave to wait out the rest of the storm. With a victorious cry that pierced even through the sound of the blizzard, the elemental mocked us as Vifi and I could only grind our teeth for two different reasons.
“… It’s laughing!” Vifi’s face looked like it was ready to pop a vein.
[“Not ready yet for that storm …”] I admitted as I was hugging myself, trying to stop myself from shivering as I saw some of my scales cracking from being frozen solid. My toes and tail had lost all feeling in them until I finally warmed up again.
Yet, the blizzard didn’t subside even when night came, and its merciless cold kept sapping my strength. I couldn’t unfurl my wings to fly and my flames were just enough to keep me from losing any more scales from frostbite.
Although fueled by her anger to stay awake, even Vifi’s body had slowed down as the cave barely stopped the cold from outside. We were shivering without rest and I wholeheartedly wished Tasianna or the twins were here to help us warm up like they did during my [Ice Resistance] training.
In the end, we had no choice. We had to call for help from Iceskale for dragon support.
Survival is winning … but this feels like a complete defeat.
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Uuuuh, well, then. Sneaky ape attack.
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