Zoe felt an almost endless well of pride rise up within her. It wasn't what she wanted to do — the exact opposite, in fact. She wanted to create Enchanted Mirrors. Or at least one of them, with her own power, in her soul.

  But her first venture into soul manipulation was a success! She didn't kill herself, she didn't ruin her life, she didn't destroy everything she held dear. She removed a skill from herself without the system's help with precision and finesse, and it worked.

  She laid back on the cold stone floor and closed her eyes, feeling the slight breeze wash over her. The slight tug as the wind pulled at the frilly ends of her dress, her hair bouncing across her face and getting stuck in her eyelids and the edges of her lips.

  It was deeply, deeply uncomfortable, if she were honest. Yet in that moment, high on the drug of success she felt like she was laying down on clouds. Like the world's challenges had parted for her. How many years had she wanted to try something in her soul? How many years had she spent studying her Enchanted Mirrors skill? Dozens? Hundreds?

  Zoe had lost track, by now. Year after year gone. Even before she'd left Foizo, the idea of taking Enchanted Mirrors was always floating around in the back of her mind. Every few years she'd get stuck in thinking about it again. Wondering and planning, but never feeling confident enough to take those first few steps to genuinely try something.

  And here she was. The culmination of more years than any human should even be able to comprehend. The sense of pride and accomplishment she felt was awe inspiring, breaking through any minor discomfort she felt at the jagged stones digging into her back or the frosty breeze biting at her legs.

  She shot up, her mind racing with anxiety and a surge of stress. She shouldn't be feeling a frosty breeze biting at her legs. Even the coldest winter nights should feel like more like licking some ice cream on a warm summer day.

  Zoe stared out at the entrance to the tunnel, winding around beyond her vision. Past what she could see with her Omniscient Beholding. But what she could see looked daunting. A thick layer of frost formed on the rocky walls with icicles dangling from the ceiling. The breeze that drifted through the cavern was flooded with mana, freezing everything it touched.

  Past her, the cold continued on, grasping at the slightly damp walls and covering them in that same thick layer of frost in an instant. Moss and shrubbery frozen over, capturing their slight ebb and flow in a timeless crystal of ice.

  She shivered.

  Zoe stepped forward, the soles of her black boots ripping as she pulled away from the ice they were frozen to. A sheath of wind and ash wrapped around her as she pushed mana through her Elemental Arsenal for some armour. She even pushed mana through an effect she almost never used anymore — her Aura of Seasons, pulling forth a torrent of blistering water around her.

  The two elements fought against each other, her scalding wave of water against the incredible cold seeping into the cavern. Some of the ice melted, pulled into the crashing waves. Some of the water froze as it pushed too far from Zoe's body. But the biting cold Zoe felt was pushed back, beyond the boundary of her aura.

  Warmth returned to her legs, and flooded through her body. She let out a sigh she hadn't even realized she'd been holding as she looked further into the tunnels with her Omniscient Beholding.

  Still nothing. Why had she come so far into this cave? She bit her lip. The safe option was to teleport away. She could use one of her Scrying skills to check deeper, but if whatever was causing this was faster than her then that moment of being unable to use any of her skills could prove deadly.

  She could wait for whatever was coming to reach her Omniscient Beholding range so she could see it without putting herself at risk, but the creature might somehow be aware of where she could see and intentionally be hiding itself.

  Of course, she could approach it herself. But if the creature had set any traps for her then she wouldn't have noticed them while she was delighting in her pride. Omniscient Beholding didn't show anything dangerous — besides the very dangerous frosty breeze, but trusting a skill to not have any counters was a terrible idea. It was entirely possible that something higher level than her could have some skill that would let it obscure its traps from her.

  Even proper Cold Elementals never got this cold in Zoe's experience. This would have to be something beyond one of those — maybe a very high level cold elemental? Or a cold dragon? Was that a thing?

  Maybe whatever was causing this had its seventh class. Right now, Zoe was stuck with only six. And even when she had seven, she was no match for the dragon so that hardly made a difference. Even with seven, she doubted she would hold a candle to John who was one of the lowest level adults she'd ever seen. Levels didn't seem to hold up on the edge cases.

  And something that could make Zoe feel the bite of cold from so far away was definitely one of those edge cases. This was something significant.

  Zoe sighed. The smart thing wasn't an option. This was something Zoe had no context for, no knowledge of. She needed to know what it was, even if it was risky. She would wait. There was a chance that whatever was coming didn't even know she was here yet. Maybe this wasn't an attack but just some passive effect that surrounded them.

  She stared out at the devastating battle between her aura and the freezing winds and bit her lip. It was unlikely that whatever was coming wouldn't notice something standing against its aura. She certainly would, though hers couldn't extend out as far as this.

  But it hadn't sped up when she started fighting against it. It hadn't reacted in any meaningful way, as far as Zoe could see. The freezing winds just continued pouring in. So maybe it had noticed her, but just didn't care? It thought that even this much scalding water was just a distraction?

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  That was good, she thought. It might give her the moment she needed to see whatever it was and then escape before it could realize she was a threat.

  She'd try to talk to it, of course. As stupid as the idea was. If she could.

  And so, Zoe waited. Standing motionless amidst the violent thrashing of water and ice. The freezing winds continued to grow stronger, pushing back further and further against her aura.

  It was a strange feeling. The Aura of Seasons wasn't a skill. She could use it almost like one, pushing mana into it or pulling mana from it. She had some form of control over it. But skills were manifestations of her will on the world. They gave her some control.

  Aura of Seasons was much more akin to a physical skill. Like the aura that it created was an extension of herself. It didn't feel like pain or pressure but there was a vague sense of awareness that came from it. She knew where her aura was, she knew what was in it. She knew what it was doing. It was a part of her, more than any of her skills would ever be.

  Her form, her existence, was that aura. And feeling the freezing winds pushing back at her gave this strange sense of something, like phantom pain at the farthest reaches of her soul. It was a strange sensation.

  Time dragged on as the battle continued. Eventually, Zoe was forced to spend even more mana on her skills, flooding the area with even more heated ash and pushing back against the frost with her own Frost, to little effect.

  Then she saw the source. It was an elemental, as it turned out. But one far greater than any Zoe had seen before. Tendrils of frost reached out into the edges of her Omniscient Beholding, translucent, almost transparent crystals marred by cracks stretching out and dragging a worn, damaged body behind it.

  The elemental scraped along the ground, a gouge of frost carved into the cavern behind it as it dragged itself along by its many tendrils. Even its body was covered in cracks, massive shards splintered off leaving foggy ice behind where they were.

  It was wounded.

  How, Zoe wondered? What had wounded it? The sheer power radiating from even its wounded form made Zoe hesitant to even say she'd best it at the peak of her power. The cold she felt now was on the same level as some of the elementals she'd fought in the past and as far as Zoe could tell it wasn't even trying to attack her. Just being near it was more dangerous than those elementals were when they were actively trying to kill her.

  Could she help it, she wondered? Would it accept her help? Or would it try to kill her as soon as it noticed she wasn't dying from its mere presence?

  Zoe pulled back the Aura of Seasons, keeping it wrapped around her as close as she could manage with as much mana packed into its heat as possible. A layer protecting herself, rather than fighting against the elemental itself.

  Letting it go entirely would be tantamount to suicide, but leaving it as frantic and violent as it was might annoy the cold elemental. Though the much hotter speck of warmth might also be worse. She wasn't sure, but she had to make a decision.

  Zoe stepped forward towards the cold elemental, walking through the tunnels. The cold grew more and more intense with each movement, every step bringing her deeper and deeper into the frigid cold. Her mana flared, flooding herself with heat and Restoration to heal as much as she could bare.

  She crested the corner where the cold elemental was and its crystal clear tendrils stilled as soon as she did. She chose not to identify it, not wanting to let what she'd see taint her actions. She could feel the tension in the air, the chilly breeze and the elemental stilled. The anxiety was palpable. The fear in the air present even without her Vampyric Empathy.

  Both her fear, of it. And its fear of her.

  Zoe held out her hand to her side and pushed mana into her Frost skill, forming a small ball of ice just outside of her Aura of Seasons. She rolled it along the ground towards the elemental. A tendril of ice reached out and touched the ball. The ice deformed, almost melting into the tendril as the mana within was pulled into the elemental.

  "Can I help you?" Zoe asked in as hushed and gentle a voice she could muster. The elemental twitched at her voice.

  How hurt was this elemental that it was even afraid of her? What had it fought to bring it to this point? Had it won?

  "I can make more of those if you want?" Zoe summoned another ball of frost and rolled it over to the elemental. "I could try healing you directly, but I don't know how well it would work. Is that okay?"

  The elemental reached out to the ball and pulled the mana into itself.

  Zoe formed another ball of frost and tried her best to form it to the elemental's shape, though she couldn't manage to get it as crystal clear. She formed the cracks, the splinters and crags. Then she made another structure, humanoid and made it walk up to the elemental.

  Mana pulsed from the smaller humanoid structure through to the larger cold elemental and mended the cracks, building up frost where the splinters had broken off.

  She looked to the cold elemental and nodded to the display she'd just created. "Can I do that for you?"

  The cold elemental radiated with a sense of anxiety and a hint of curiosity. Zoe took that as a tentative yes and took a step forwards. The anxiety and curiosity was replaced with fear and frustration.

  She tossed the ice she'd formed towards the cold elemental. "Look, I'm helping you, see? I can do better if you let me get closer, though."

  Zoe summoned another large ball of frost and rolled it towards the elemental as she took another step forward. Trepidation flooded the cavern. The fear radiating from herself mixing with the anxiety of the elemental, the world seeming to shudder as the two forces met.

  The elemental reached out two tendrils, one stretching to the rolling ball and absorbing the mana within it. The other reaching past, towards Zoe. It stopped about a foot ahead of her, poking and prodding at the warm aura surrounding her.

  Zoe pulled a little bit of her mana away from the aura and reached her hand outside of it. The cold bit into her flesh, cracking and splitting her skin as she healed it back with Restoration. She reached for the tendril in front of her and pushed as much mana as she had left through her Restoration, into the tendril.

  It felt daunting. Her mana coursed through the elementals body, mending the cracks and splinters bit by bit and giving her something of an intuitive understanding of the elemental's well being. It was incredible. An ocean of power stilled under the immense weight of its cold. Her mana flooded through the elemental yet still felt so unsubstantial.

  Bit by bit, the wounds on the elemental were repaired. Cracks healed over, massive shards remade. Holes filled in with crystal clear ice. The trepidation and anxiety Zoe felt slowly gave way to a sense of calm and peace as the elemental felt itself being healed through her power.

  The cold grew as the elemental was healed, its body radiating even more of that intense, biting cold. More of Zoe's mana was spent healing herself and bracing against the intense breeze which slowed the process down. The elemental must have noticed, as Zoe felt the tunnel warm as it pulled the surrounding cold into itself.

  *Ding*

  For being blessed by a Glacial Elemental, you have been awarded the [Glacial Blessing] feat.

  [Glacial Blessing]

  You have proven yourself to a Glacial Elemental, and it has chosen to reward you. Gain the Glacial skill.

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