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The unique structure of the nearby mountains along with the climate and the forces of nature caused Nightrain City to be a place where rain clouds commonly gathered. Nightrain City was on the mountainside, but the origin of this rather poetic name lied in the fierce rainstorms that typically came at night when it was colder.

Militarily speaking, there was a height advantage offered by this city’s construction, and the rainy weather gave it an advantage in defense. Slippery mountain slopes would make it difficult for anyone to use siege weaponry, after all. Under Halent’s command, the entire nearby mountain was being carved out by humans, and this fortress city was expanding at a fearsome rate. Judging by its current rate of expansion, it would likely become a peerless impenetrable fortress within the next two years.

However, what the city guards at the city gate witnessed today was a snowy night that should have been extinct in spring. It was not the typical rainy evening.

First, the snowflakes came down as tiny specks. Then, the snow gradually grew larger in size until it imperceptibly became a flurry so heavy that it was impossible to even see one’s fingers in.

The area around the lich had transformed into snowy ground. Changing the environment with one’s mana doubtlessly meant that this lich was an incredible archmage, perhaps even at the Saint rank, yet…

“So what? No matter how strong, have we ever feared anyone?”

Halent’s heavy sword was trembling, but that was due to his excitement, not fear. After sensing that his opponent was powerful, this draconic warrior had found a worthwhile prey. He let out a low roar, causing all his muscles to naturally overload themselves, as if he was a predator about to hunt his prey.

“FUL!”

He uttered a magical incantation that caused his heavy sword to swirl with blue-white electricity. When the lightning flashes illuminated his face, Halent, who was filled with the will to fight, now had his overly clean face appear more resolute than before. His heavy sword was now enchanted with dragon magic with the properties of thunder and summoned lightning bolts with every swing, further increasing his might by approximately thirty percent.

And not far away, “Dark and Cloudy Windstorms” Sishusler viciously glared at the transformed Ah Dang. He flapped his wings, intending to begin a new round of attacks against Ah Dang. However, a light foot suddenly pressed down on his head; he didn’t even notice its presence until it was already there.

“Young one, if you don’t want to die, I recommend that you don’t move.”

On his head was a young human female. However, the Blue Dragon’s sense told him that her pressure was like a mountain. Dragons were a species that had their levels etched into their bloodlines, and this venerated Blue Dragon felt true terror for the first time in his life. This was an upper-ranked draconic might that even an Elder Blue Dragon was unable to resist.

“A Dragon Queen of some colored dragon? An Immemorial Dragon?”

Elder Dragons, Ancient Dragons, and Immemorial Dragons. Each type of dragon required thousands of years as the base unit, and there were tremendous differences in power among their ranks. The huge difference in draconic might caused the Elder Blue Dragon to be unable to do anything at all except surrender.

No one would believe it. The famous dragon knight Archduke and his Blue Dragon were completely suppressed right from the very start of fighting against some complete unknowns.

Meanwhile, I was enjoying my battle against Halent.

“Ice Pillar.”

I didn’t use any incantations, and there weren’t even any mana waves sent out from me. My bony middle finger had a ray of white light following it, and right after that, it transformed into a cone-shaped piece of ice as tremendous as dragonbreath would be.

With this right before him, Halent’s expression didn’t change at all. He unhesitatingly swung his sword and clashed against the pillar of ice, which forcibly transformed the ice back into snowflakes. That thunder-enchanted sparkling sword of his sliced through my icy attack with surprising ease.

“Hmm? A special anti-magic ability? It doesn’t seem to be an effect of the sword’s enchantment but rather a natural talent ability.”

When fighting with dragon, demon, or Gods’ descendants, apart from having to be on guard against their base stats, which would be much higher than an ordinary human’s, what one needed to be more vigilant about would be their wide assortment of natural talent abilities that were ever so difficult to defend against.

*Snap!*

With a snap of my fingers, yet another high-speed ice pillar appeared from the ground to stab at the dragon knight who was rushing at me.

He lowered his head, protected his face, and used his shoulder in lieu of a spear to charge through my ice!

*Boom!*

The heavy sword wielding knight didn’t stop at all and actually crashed through my ice pillar. However, judging from the tattered pieces of his armor and fresh blood on his forehead, he didn’t have an easy time. Yet Halent knew that keeping a distance from an archmage who had such a degree of expertise in ice magic would be tantamount to suicide. Only the courageous who took difficult paths would be able to win. Even if he injured himself, he would force himself closer to me.

“You actually like charging through head-on? Alright then, I shall allow you to enjoy yourself to your heart’s content. Come, Ice Wall!”

I clapped and caused numerous walls of ice to rise between me and the path he was taking to charge at me. With such an amount of snow falling here, this place had already become my domain and battlefield.

“How is this possible! Does this lich not need any casting time at all or mana replenishment?”

Even though the cold-faced Halent remained calm on the surface, he found it incomprehensible how this unfamiliar mage was able to cast magic spells that seemed to break all common sense.

But even so, he believed in his own victory…

“I’m within five meters!”

Any battle between a mage and a warrior would eternally be about controlling the distance. Even a mage two ranks above a warrior in power level would easily die if the warrior managed to close the gap to melee distance.

“Ice Circle!”

I was getting more and more used to my own powers as I fought Halent. Although I was still shouting out the names of common ice magic spells, I was actually only using the most basic ice sculpting.

Elemental sculpting appeared simple but was actually marvelous in its countless applications.

I just had to use the easiest elemental sculpting of all to construct a model of what I wanted and pay the mana cost required to have all the basic ice element move into place. Making this one part horizontal would be an ice wall, while making that part vertical would be an ice pillar. Or drawing it in a circular fashion would create an ice circle. Unlike the rigid movements of casting spells I did in the past, the ice and snow here were extensions of my will and my body. It was basically no different from me physically fighting.

*Swoosh!*

This time, I swung my fist in midair at nothing, and with another swing, an invisible fist of snow suddenly landed upon Halent without any warning at an angle above him; it was impossible for him to notice. It forcefully hammered Halent into the ground.

“Oh my, that looked like it really hurt.”

The settling dust revealed a large hole in the ground with stone shards scattered everywhere. Just like what had happened to me earlier, Halent didn’t even get the opportunity to shout before he was buried in the ground.

My massive hand of ice and snow began dissipating as well. If you only judged by its outer appearance, it looked like a high-circle ice magic for manipulation, Balof’s Fist, but it was actually just basic ice sculpting as well. Although this ice sculpting magic was on a slightly larger scale than others, it was still only an insignificant drain on my mana.

After knowing the foundations, everything would be easier. Before, when I cast magic, I was just imitating mages before me. An analogy would be that someone taught me how 1 + 1 = 2, and I managed to go up to 10 + 10 = 20. However, the current me was at the level of knowing the formulas for how everything worked, so I could easily change basic magic spells’ templates as I pleased.

“Forming into solids is the most critical part of gathering the ice element. Although it’s sturdy and sharp, its speed is much slower. If I want quicker speed, I only need to gather smaller particles. If I want to shoot out rays or mist, then I also need to calculate the reacting force.

In my hands that appeared to be a lich’s bony hands were large amounts of ice, snow, and singing and dancing ice spirits. Under the influence of my mana, they constantly transformed into mist, or ice pillars, or invisible, tasteless frost. Their forms, conditions, and sizes were no problem at all. They could change themselves at will.

With only a thought, I could twist common sense and take so many shortcuts with unnecessary processes. After casting off the restraints of common sense, this completely unreasonable magic of mine which defied common sense was my foundational magic that I could control at will.

“Oh my, this is so fun.”

As if I had found a fun toy to play with, I wholeheartedly threw myself into the manipulation of my snow and ice magic. I even sent my own spells against myself to test them, almost forgetting about my opponent who was that really famous dragon knight Archduke.

*Clang!*

…Well, I almost forgot about him. This painful-sounding clang was the sound of his head crashing against the solid walls of ice encapsulating him. That poor little dragon descendant; I hoped that he wouldn’t get a concussion for this. It would be bad if he injured himself too badly and left some dark history in his heart… Or, should I make him hit himself in the head a few hundred more times so that he would lose his memory?

“Hmph, so easy. All you can do is dig some holes and attempt ambushing me from underground. How many battles do you think I’ve had against sand worms so far? I long since froze the entire surface of the ground here. I’ll simply wait for you to crash into more walls of ice.”

From the moment Halent cast a thunder magic enchantment on his sword, I knew that he was most likely of a Blue Dragon’s bloodline himself. And Blue Dragons excelled at controlling lightning and thunder and also really loved to build their nests in deserts and isolated hills; they were naturally skilled diggers. Their natural talents involved the ability to move through sand as well as underground, so how could I possibly not be on guard?

The snow kept increasing in magnitude. Although I wasn’t at the level of being able to create my own Soul World yet, all my preparations for what I wanted to do were now complete. I transformed all of my mana into the purest ice element. All this ice element would be the paint for redrawing the Northlands’ scenery, while my fundamental magic, ice sculpting, would act as my brush. The reoccurrence of my world of snow and ice was under completion.

Snow continued to blanket the ground. A small portion of the snow was transforming into a snow mountain, while magical crystal trees could faintly be seen.

When looking at it from a distance, it was probably just a beautiful scene of snow. But just like the winter in the Northlands, death traps typically waited, hidden in such clean and beautiful scenery. If a traveler who was allured by the scenery and didn’t understand the natural laws of snowy mountains acted as he pleased, then that traveler would likely not live to see next year’s spring.

“…This is my Ice Treader Soul Imprint? Wow, it’s really so suitable for me. I apologize for not allowing you to display your true power until today.”

The snowflakes in the air could transform into fatal ice blades at any time, while the accumulated snow on the ground would suddenly collapse or freeze over. The layers of ice beneath the snow would silently form ice blades as well, and the sunlight reflecting off the snow would begin creating white illusions. With a single misstep, one had the potential of dropping into an endless abyss, sleeping forevermore amongst the pristine snow.

With the ice element continuously falling together with the snow, the ordinary streets transformed into snow mountains. This would seemingly take a lot of mana, but, in reality, all it took for me to summon the ice and snow was a small amount. Since the scenes of snow were already drawn by me, what I had to do after was slowly enjoy.

As I expected, fighting in actual combat with an opponent who was close to my level was an excellent shortcut for improving myself. In the past, all my opponents’ power levels were completely unbalanced compared to me. Either they were ridiculously strong to the point where I couldn’t win unless I cheated, or they were so weak that I could easily win with one hand tied behind my back. With me being forced to use only ice magic to fight in order to maintain my disguise as a lich, this was the closest even battle that I hadn’t had for so long. It helped my many years of accumulated knowledge as well as recently learned knowledge explode all at once, transforming into practical combat strength via real battle.

I could feel that deep in my soul, the newly reassembled Ice Treader Soul Imprint was beginning to glow. It was becoming stronger by feeding on a silvery light. However, it seemed much smaller than before, probably only about one-fourth of its original size.

“…One person only has one soul, which means only one Soul Imprint. Do I have to have all four of my abilities reach the level required in order for me to enter Legend rank?”

I didn’t need to say any more, nor did I need to search for a reason. It was as if the heavens had revealed something to me. I already knew that if I wanted to enter Legend rank, I would need to summon four Soul Imprints in total and progress even further than in the past.

“Others only need to reach a sufficient level of understanding once while I need to reach it four times? And I even need to combine all the powers at the end? What type of hellish difficulty is this? Forget about ice magic; I went down the wrong path before, and now I’ve corrected myself and made improvements. But as for Law, Holy Light, and undead magic, my mastery of these areas is almost at the top of the world already. How am I supposed to progress in these areas? Why is it that for me to enter Legend rank feels more difficult than for others to enter SemiGod rank?”

I had confirmed my future path of personal development but kept complaining endlessly. I was also beginning to burn up with a nameless anger. After all, I was no masochist who loved taking the most difficult paths, so of course I would object to the mysteriously high difficulty for me to progress in rank.

Yet, I still knew that the harder it was, the greater the benefits to be reaped at the end. There was no such thing as luck on the path of cultivation. It would be only natural that there would be even larger benefits at the end when I broke through these obstacles. Since I had to work four times harder than others, I wouldn’t request for ten times the rewards in the end, but it wouldn’t be too greedy to want five times the rewards, would it?

[Ice Treader Soul Imprint has been completely activated. Your ice magic’s effects have been improved by 20%, and mana costs have been decreased by 20%. You have now obtained the passive ability, Lord of Frigidwinter. System Reminder: Your opponent is still fine, so stop daydreaming.]

[Lord of Frigidwinter (Passive ability): Whenever you’re in an environment with plentiful ice and snow, you shall become the lord of ice and snow, which will greatly increase your ability to control these two elements. Once you finish constructing a cycle of ice and snow element in the surrounding area, the entire area shall be viewed as your personal domain. Only a minor amount of mana is required to maintain your domain of ice and snow.]

And along my improvement in understanding, my Soul Imprint was completely activated. With its assistance, the snowflakes increased a little in size yet again, and it became easier for me to control the minute details of everything. It didn’t seem to have much impact, but it improved my general abilities and changed me at the foundation.

When two people were battling, if one person suddenly became stronger, it was only natural that his opponent would be the unlucky one.

After this entire area around us fell under my control, all the ice and snow in a radius of one hundred meters acted as my ears. How could that “little lizard” underground possibly escape my senses?

“Ha, Roland’s Heavy Fist!”

A fist of ice and snow crashed down, smashing on the dragon knight’s head right when he popped out from the ground. He could only swallow his anger and pop back underground again. When his Blue Dragon saw that its master was at a disadvantage, it started angrily roaring and struggled to get back up, but Little Red, who was sitting on his head, stomped down once, causing the Blue Dragon to writhe in agony and lay collapsed in its place.

As for me, I kept loudly shouting out the names of my spells while having fun playing Whack-a-Mole.

Since these were completely self-created magics, based on mages’ habits, I had the right to name these spells as the creator. And adding the spell’s inventor’s name into the spell was considered one of the greatest honors for a mage. I was quite jealous of “Harloys’ Shadow Steps” and “Amelia’s Fruit Growing Spell” for quite a long time already, and now that I had the chance, of course I would take the opportunity to enjoy myself.

“Roland’s Ice Arrow! Roland’s Ice Blade! Roland’s Multi-type Ice Palm! Haha, I’m not an idiot mage! I want to take ten of you on at once!”

Since he had failed in his ambush from underground, it was only natural that Halent would have to return to the surface if he wanted to overturn the situation. I kept smashing all sorts of ice magic down at him; it was just like playing Whack-a-Mole with the dragon knight as the mole. Just as I was proudly thinking about how I should get my spells’ names patented, that silly cat actually ruined my fun yet again.

“Roland, new magic spells require new magical reasoning and absolutely unique spell models. What do you think your spells are?”

Alright then. Although it was easy enough to fool novices, it was impossible to fool another mage. While I was just randomly making names up, these seemingly different spells were actually all variations of a one-circle magic spell, ice sculpting. Even though it was extremely powerful at restraining and controlling my opponent’s actions as well as extremely low in mana costs, it was still only a basic form of magic. The fact that the dragon knight had taken so many direct attacks but still hadn’t died was the best evidence that it lacked attack power and still needed improvement.

“…You call yourself a dragon knight when being so skilled at escaping? I think you should change your name to cockroach knight.”

A large patch of snow and ice transformed into a gigantic ice blade and split the earth, directly threatening Archduke Halent who was underground. The most dangerous part of all wasn’t even the endlessly spreading ice and snow; it was the fact that this ice blade began spreading like a large tree’s roots. It would soon be able to capture its prey.

“It’s obvious that Roland’s just venting his anger now.”

“I think that he’s gotten angry out of embarrassment.”

“And he calls himself an old adult—but whenever he’s displeased, he takes it out on others. How immature! And he even dares to call others immature.”

Alright then, I decided to pretend not to hear my own companions making fun of me. Actually, this battle that had started for no apparent reason was basically at its end. While it was a fact that any typical mage would be defeated by a warrior in just a second if the mage allowed the warrior to close the distance, most situations were actually like this one. The warrior would be pulled into the mage’s way of battling, and even if the warrior had peerless physical strength, it would be useless unless he could close the distance. The warrior would eventually fatigue and be defeated while being toyed with.

And if the current situation continued, the ice would eventually pierce through the very ground itself and freeze all the earth around us, which would naturally seal off his natural talent ability to move underground. At that time, he’d find it impossible to even leave the ground.

“…This is the dragon knight Archduke? Although it’s to be expected, isn’t he a little too disappointing?”

However, Harloys seemed to have gotten addicted to going against me all the time and immediately countered my statement.

“Don’t make it sound so easy. With your personal equipment plus your Frigidwinter’s bonuses, do you think there will be any difference even if your opponent is a Saint rank? That youngster was quite unfortunate, as his speed was continually slowed down in the snow by your Ice Calamity’s Chill stacking effect. He was also foolish enough to crash straight through your ice wall using his body. With how-many stacks of speed reduction that are probably on him, his body’s time sensory system is probably all messed up now, and we’re moving at three times the normal speed of what he sees. As expected of the bloodline of the speediest Blue Dragons, though; it’s already incredible that he’s still capable of dodging your magic attacks.”

Harloys then seemed to recall something that made her quite displeased. “That ability of yours is just so insidious. Especially the Ice Calamity’s Chill that can slow down sensory perception of time, as anyone who doesn’t know about it beforehand will definitely fall for it.”

“Ohhh, I forgot about it already. So there was that as well! That means this guy’s normal speed is three times what he’s displaying now? How dangerous!”

Although I was saying it was dangerous, I didn’t treat it as anything important at all. However, there were always people who couldn’t be judged by common sense. What suddenly happened next proved Harloys’ wisdom correct. No matter how much she warned me about the dragon knight’s skills, I had still underestimated this dragon descendant I was fighting with.

“Ah!”

Halent jumped out of the ground, angrily roaring and accompanied by rampaging thunder. In order to more conveniently attack the underground opponent, the ground there would unfreeze for a split second when the ice blade inserted itself into the ground. Even though it was only a gap of a few milliseconds, Halent actually managed to leap out of the ground in that short instant together with the dirt around him.

The thunderbolts he sent out along with his furious roar broke my descending ice blade to pieces, while his glaring eyes seemed to breathe fire at me. The next moment, I understood how it was that he had managed to grab that millisecond chance to successfully break out from underground despite the fact that he had been repeatedly slowed.

Halent must have used his heavy sword at that moment to suddenly wield it forcefully behind him, crashing into the earth. He then used the power of reactive force to help propel himself out of the ground.

“So it was reactive force.”

I immediately realized that he must have discovered the slowing effect on him. Although he didn’t know how to get rid of it, he thought of an idea of his own. Since he was currently slowed, why not use reactive force to help propel him out? Reactive force wouldn’t be affected by the slowing.

When his speed had been slowed to one-third already, doing this and managing to catch a millisecond opportunity truly wouldn’t be easy. That would require an almost bestial instinct along with a calculative prowess on the level of premonition. Even without paying attention to any of that, Halent’s ability to adapt when forced to the brink was truly something.

But I unhurriedly muttered an incantation. With such a distance between us, I had long since prepared a Dimensional Door spell. I increased the distance between us again and continued my game of Whack-a-Mole.

“Ame!”

The dragon descendant used his own ace as he uttered an incantation and tossed down his heavy sword. Wings suddenly unfurled from his back, and blue streaks of lightning twirled around him. He shot himself directly towards me at top speed, showing off his own natural talent ability as the bloodline of the speedy Blue Dragons. The next instant, his blood-red eyes were right in front of me.

“It’s over.”

“It’s over.”

Both dragons said the exact same words. Halent’s Blue Dragon had a delighted tone, while Little Red shrugged as if she was bored and didn’t care about the result at all.

As for me, I laughed at the shiny Halent filled with lightning. I merely reached out to empty air, causing the heavy top-quality metal mage staff which weighed almost a few tons to materialize in my hands. Then, I lowered my head, twisted my body, and wielded my staff at the person using his own body as a cannon shot to attack me. Home run swing!

“Hup! What manner of monster is this!? Take my staff!” [1]

However, nobody responded to my ripping off of Journey to the West. I indeed made an excellent home run swing, and Halent went flying backwards at twice the speed he came. He crashed into the city wall—yes, the city wall. He completely and utterly sunk into the city wall, causing an entire portion of the wall to collapse. He was even more pitiful than me from earlier.

“Ha, I’m white-robed Gandalf—I mean Rex! I’m skilled at magic, and my mastery of staves is even better. Who said that mages don’t know martial arts!? Hit! You want to compare Strength with me? You’re two hundred years too young.”

Normal dragons would only have 25 points or so in Strength, while a dragon descendant would probably have at most 23 in Strength. And ever since I equipped that armlet I received from Emordilorcan, my Strength value surpassed the barrier of 30, which put us on completely different levels.

Yet, I didn’t have the free time to continue laughing at the person I just defeated. Perhaps I had made too much of a spectacle of things, or maybe Halent had some special method to contact his allies. While I was busy playing with Halent, we were now surrounded by his allies that had arrived under the cover of the weather. Currently, there were over ten visible dragons flying around and perched on the city walls. Who knew how many more were waiting in the shadows?

Vicious glares gathered in my direction, while those threatening dragons flew circles in midair. The dragons weren’t impatient; they had plenty of time to enjoy the thrill of the hunt against a strong opponent.

“Should I say that it’s my honor? I met an entire dragon knight squadron right from the start? Sigh, this is really such a strange battle for no apparent reason.”

But, before I could even consider how to deal with all this, an ancient-sounding voice spoke up in midair. Along with it, a silver dragon descended.

“Your Highness Fina? Aren’t you Her Highness Princess Fina? Young ones, what are you all doing! Stop our attacking formation! This is Princess Fina, someone who carries true Bardi royal blood! I’m Jonan, your knight captain guard!”

Hearing this, Lilith trembled with a face filled with disbelief. She didn’t expect to meet a familiar face here. But, since this Jonan was a dragon descendant, it was only natural since one or two hundred years was nothing to a dragon’s lifespan.

Lilith took a huge step back and seemed to instinctively want to escape. However, when she thought about Amelia whose fate was currently unknown, and how that we couldn’t avoid Nightrain city no matter what since the situation had developed in this manner already, she gritted her teeth and nodded, admitting her identity.

“Earl Jonan? It’s been such a long time, but please call me Lilith now.”

Note:

[1] TL/N: Sun Wukong’s favorite quote when attacking monsters in Journey to the West.