Damien awoke to a new sense of himself.
Lying on the ancient bones, the first thing he perceived was not the cold stone or the thinning storm—it was the silent partner within. His Avatar, the Conquered Frost, stood serene and potent in his spiritual sea, a constant, humming focus of power. He could feel its presence like a second heartbeat, slower and deeper than his own, regulating the vast new mana reserves that flooded his perfected meridians.
He sat up. The motion was effortless. Where before strength had been a conscious exertion, now it was a simple fact of existence. He flexed his right hand, the first meridian he'd cleared. Without any visible effort, without a trickle of mana consciously spent, a gauntlet of intricate, razor-sharp ice sheathed his hand and forearm, forming and melting in a breath. His Avatar was handling the minute details, the shaping, the energy cost. His will was now a command to a perfectly loyal army.
He was powerful.
The thrill of it was immediate, heady. He stood, looking toward the throne with his Mana-Vision. The Heart still glowed, but its light was less aggressive, more observant. It had given up a fragment, and in doing so, had forged something it could not control. A respectful distance hung between them now.
His gaze turned inward, to the System's updated status. The Pathway Projection for the 2nd Order was already generating. It was no longer about clearing meridians in the physical body. It was about expanding the Spiritual Avatar, integrating it with his senses, his techniques, and the outside world.
[2nd Order Cultivation Path: 'Avatar Integration'.]
[Current Goal: 2nd Order, 2nd Rank 'Sensory Synchronization'.]
[Objective: Fuse the Avatar's perception with host's Mana-Vision, creating 'Soul-Sight'. Unlocks spiritual perception of truths, illusions, and the flow of fate (rudimentary).]
[Estimated time with current resources: 3 months.]
Three months. The timeline had reset, stretching forward once more. But the resources had changed. He looked at the mountain, his home and crucible, with new eyes. The Pods were now trivial. The Drake… the Drake was no longer an insurmountable god, but a serious threat. A 3rd Order beast against his new 2nd Order power was still a lethal mismatch, but not an automatic death sentence. He might survive a glancing blow now. He might even, with perfect strategy, escape a direct confrontation.
But survival was no longer the goal. Advancement was. And the mountain's resources, while vital for his foundation, were now insufficient for the rapid progress he craved. The Pod cores were low-grade fuel. The dragon's Mana-Spring was guarded. The Heart on the throne was a locked vault, and he had taken the only piece it would likely ever yield willingly.
He needed to leave.
The thought was at once terrifying and exhilarating. For nine months, this peak had been his entire world—a brutal, loving, demanding parent. To descend meant entering a world of unknowns, of people with eyes that saw, of clans like the Karyons and consortiums like the Moros, of politics and power struggles he was ill-equipped to navigate.
But it also meant possibility. It meant finding the Heavenly Flames of Revelation. It meant seeking the Eyes of the Unseen Storm. It meant stepping onto the path to reclaim his birthright.
First, he needed to know where he was. The mountain was a needle in a range. He needed context.
He spent a week consolidating his new power. He practiced summoning his Avatar's influence into the physical world. He could now lower the temperature in his alcove by twenty degrees with a thought. He could create structures of ice that lasted for days instead of minutes. He dueled imaginary foes with techniques that were no longer simple shaping, but Avatar-Enhanced Arts: an Icelance that shot from his palm with the speed and force of a ballista bolt; a Glacial Shield that sprang from the ground, thick and rune-etched with fractal patterns of cold.
He also discovered a new, unsettling ability. When he pushed his Domain of the Claimed Cold to its limit, the very memories held in objects seemed to… slow. The residual heat-echo of a past event held in stone would become sluggish, stretched. He could almost feel the ghosts of the ancient battles in the crypt below, not as visions, but as chilling, slow-motion impressions. He named it Frost-Memory Resonance. It was useless in combat, but it spoke of his growing authority over the concept of cold, even in its relationship with time.
At week's end, he prepared for descent. He packed a sack: strips of the last boar meat, a bladder of water, a few of the most pristine Pod cores as emergency mana-batteries, and a newly fashioned weapon. Using his enhanced Cryo-Shaping and a length of tough, dried sinew, he had created a Frost-Knife. The blade was a permanent shard of ice, magically sustained by a trickle of his Avatar's power, its edge molecularly sharp and colder than the deepest winter. It would never melt unless he willed it.
He stood one last time on the plateau at dawn. He faced the throne and gave a slow, deliberate nod. Not of thanks, but of acknowledgement. Two sovereigns of frost on a lonely peak.
Then he turned to the edge, to the sea of cloud that hid the world below. His Mana-Vision pierced the vaporous blanket, revealing miles of jagged, snow-covered slopes, dark pine forests, and the distant, winding silver thread of a river in a valley.
His plan was simple: descend, find the river, follow it to signs of civilization. Avoid contact until he understood the lay of the land.
The climb down was a revelation of his new physique. Where the ascent had been a desperate struggle, the descent was a controlled fall. He used Rime-Step not for silence, but for adhesion, skating down near-vertical faces. He used Icelances as pitons, creating handholds where none existed. He was a blue-white blur against the grey rock.
He reached the tree line in a day. The forest was a world of profound silence, muffled by deep snow. His Domain made the silence deeper; small creatures buried in their burrows shivered as he passed. He moved like a winter wraith, leaving no tracks, his white hair and pale skin blending with the snowfall.
On the third day in the forest, his new senses tingled. His Domain detected a disruption—a pocket of intense, concentrated heat and chaotic life-force ahead. Not a beast. Something else.
He melted into the shadow of a giant pine, his aura compressed to nothing. Through the trees, he saw a clearing.
A battle was ending.
Three humanoid figures in crude, fur-lined leathers lay dead in the snow, their blood steaming. Standing over them was a creature. It was bipedal, vaguely human, but its skin was the mottled brown and green of bark, and horns of twisted wood grew from its head. A Forest Troll. In its clawed hand, it clutched a rough sack, from which spilled a few glittering stones and a simple, bronze medallion. Its aura was a messy, vibrant green and orange—2nd Order, 3rd Rank. Slightly above him, but wild, untrained.
The troll snarled, sniffing the air. It had sensed him. Or rather, it had sensed the absence of life and heat around him—a moving hole in the forest's energy.
It dropped the sack and charged, a surprising burst of speed, its claws ready to rend.
A month ago, this would have been a dire fight. Now, Damien assessed it with cold clarity. It was stronger, but he was precise. It was wild, but he had a System and an Avatar.
He didn't move. As the troll closed the last ten feet, he unleashed a pulse of his Domain at full force, focused into a cone.
The effect was instantaneous. The vibrant heat of the troll's body guttered. The sap in its woody limbs slowed, thickening. Its charge faltered, a stumble born of sudden, profound cold.
In that moment of imbalance, Damien moved. Not away, but forward. His Frost-Knife flashed in his hand. He didn't aim for the heart or head. He aimed for the mana-flow. His Mana-Vision saw the crude, tangled knot of energy in the troll's chest—its spirit core. His knife, guided by his Avatar's precision, punched through bark-like skin and found it.
A pop of releasing energy. The troll's eyes, full of fury, widened with shock, then glazed over. It collapsed, its body already cooling rapidly, frost blooming across its skin where Damien's knife had touched.
[Combat Concluded. 2nd Order Spirit Beast 'Forest Troll' eliminated.]
[Experience Gained. Minimal advancement toward next rank.]
[Loot available.]
Damien stood over the bodies, his breath pluming in the air. He felt no thrill, no disgust. It was a transaction. They had been in his path; they were a threat; they were removed.
He checked the dead humans. Hunters, by their gear. Poorly equipped. Their weapons were simple iron. The medallion one of them had was a guild sigil—a stylized mountain peak over a hammer. A prospector's or miner's guild from a nearby settlement.
He took the medallion and the sack of stones. The stones were low-grade Spirit Quartz, barely infused with earth mana. Pocket change in the cultivation world, but it was currency. It was a start.
He also took the troll's core—a pulsing, walnut-sized knot of green life-essence. It was incompatible with his frost, but it could be traded.
He left the bodies for the forest. As he turned to go, his Frost-Memory Resonance, stirred by the recent violence, brushed against the cooling troll. A flash, not of the troll's memory, but of its final sensation: not pain, but a shocking, all-consuming cold that felt like the end of the world. The echo of his own power, imprinted on a dying soul.
He stored the sensation, a data point on his own lethality.
He continued toward the river, the bronze medallion cold in his hand. He had taken his first life in this new, wider world. He had acquired his first meager resources.
He was no longer Damien, the blind boy in the mountain.
He was Damien Karyon,2nd Order Cultivator, bearer of a Conquered Frost.
He was in the world.
And the world,he knew, was seldom kind.
Ahead, the river's roar grew louder. Somewhere beyond it, smoke would mean hearths. Hearths meant people. People meant danger, opportunity, and the next step on a path that stretched toward heavenly flames and a stolen sight.
He adjusted the sack on his back and stepped out of the treeline, onto the rocky bank of the frozen river, a solitary figure in a vast and watchful wilderness. The Conquest had left its cradle. The long, cold walk had begun.