A giant ship was sailing silently over a seemingly endless field of ice with a large ravine splitting it right down the center, though the attitude of those on deck betrayed how cold it actually was. For the most part they managed to get along well in the frigid weather due to their artifacts and winter outfits, like Rias wearing an expensive looking red fur coat while Grayfia wore a what at first seemed like her usual outfit, but like Rias was lined with fur to keep warm. Others, such as Anne and Kuroka, however didn't seem to get warm no matter how many layers they added or how many artifacts they wore, and were hibernating below deck where it was better insulated. Then there was those like Alex, the madman who was doing general exercises in his own way, while shirtless even though the temperature was well below freezing. All of the girls on deck were watching him intently as he trained, working himself so hard that steam was rising off of his body, except for the only other person training. Shizuku seemed to be trying to copy Alex's approach and was only wearing a pair of shorts and a tight t-shirt, saying it helped temper the strength of her willpower. That wasn't all however, as she stood still on the deck and deflected all sorts of incoming attacks from an unseen opponent. The group continued watching the two back and forth while drinking hot chocolate, until finally Alex stopped when he received a call from someone.
"Go ahead." He said into the magic circle while putting down the things he had been lifting. Everyone watched him curiously as he listened to whoever was on the other line, before he finally ended the call and explained to them,
"The Vali team and Liliana made contact with the demon race a few days ago, and they're willing to cooperate now that their God Aruvhite and their champion have been killed. I told Le Fey to relay that there's going to be a peace conference in one month between the super powers now that each group is listening to us, Grayfia I want you to return to every place we've been so far with a ruling body like Ankaji and Furhen, and report the same things to the people in charge there. Hajime I want you to return to the empire since you're the only one who's been there before, and tell the emperor the same thing. I'll pick you up at Orcus in the morning, and Grayfia you can spend the rest of the afternoon off with Millicas since we'll probably be entering the Frost Caverns of Schnee tomorrow." The two took a few moments to prepare before leaving, with Hajime taking Kaori with him as well so the two could spend the rest of the afternoon on a date together. After they left it was just Alex on deck with Rias, Yue, Shia, Tio, and Ryutarou, while Suzu was huddled downstairs with Anne and Kuroka. Since he finished training Alex turned towards Shizuku and her hidden sparring partner while saying,
"You can stop as well Shizuku, we should spend the rest of our time relaxing before entering the caverns." After he spoke Shizuku visibly relaxed herself while to the side another Shizuku appeared out of nowhere, before they both turned towards him and said,
""Ok."" Though it was a bit strange to be seeing two of the same person, Alex didn't let it show on his face while everyone else present was alternating which one they looked at. Alex instead walked over and started scrutinizing both Shizuku's closely. It had taken her a few a days to understand the basics of controlling her newly squired chakra, and then another day or two before being able to adequately use it. She had only managed to successfully create a single clone of herself the day before, and this was the first time it was being put to the test by being her own sparring partner. As he was scrutinizing her Shizuku observed,
"It's actually enlightening to spar with myself-"
"-since I can experience firsthand my mistakes-"
"- and can learn to fix them immediately." Alternating back and forth unconsciously between herself and her clone, everyone else was also following the speaker confusingly while Ryutarou muttered,
"This is so trippy..." While they all slowly nodded in response. Alex then added to what Shizuku said,
"There's also a theory that you can use shadow clones to increase the rate at which you can improve your skills, since when they're dispelled any progress they've made is returned to the original as well. So, once again in theory, if you managed to create two clones and train for long periods of time before dispelling them, then you may be able to triple your training speed. However this method requires being able to create a large amount of clones and to maintain them for long periods of time to work properly." Hearing Alex's suggestion, Shizuku was shocked and started contemplating the possibilities of using such a shortcut, something she'd much rather attempt than simply using evolution magic to level up. Her thoughts were interrupted however when Alex slipped his hands down the back of both Shizuku's shorts and started teasing her.
""HYAN!!!"" They both cried out as Alex shamelessly started playing with her most intimate areas, before saying,
"Boy I am looking forward to being able to play with a whole horde of Shizuku's, but for now I'll satisfy myself by playing with two of you." Both Shizuku's glared at him hatefully while trying to extract his hands from their shorts, but were unsuccessful and were hopelessly dragged away by Alex as he retreated with them to the bath to wash the sweat off, as the rest of the girls swiftly followed.
"Being around these guys is practically torture..." Ryutarou muttered dejectedly as he stayed sitting for a few more minutes before making his way to his room in shame.
***
After a hot and steamy night in his room to contrast the weather outside, Alex stepped outside onto the deck of Zenith while leaving all of the sleeping women in bed. This surprisingly included Suzu who used the cold as an excuse to join them, something that made Alex feel a little guilty at first due to Ryutarou, but since the man in question was still pining after Yue and as there was currently no indication of a possible relationship between the two, he got over it. The one who had the biggest issue with it however was Shizuku, the one who suffered the most at the short girls hands and mouth once she had free reign with her body. Shaking his head lightly to rid himself of strange thoughts, Alex started doing some light warmups in preparation for diving into the icy labyrinth.
There was one particular trial on this labyrinth that the rational side of his brain kept screaming was dangerous, but alternatively made his saiyan blood boil in anticipation. It was because of this that he was unable to rest properly, as the closer they got to entering the labyrinth, the more excited he got like a child for Christmas. He fought back the anticipation however and focused on warming up his body in the freezing air, which had already frozen his hair that was still damp from his quick shower. It wasn't until the sun started rising that he went and woke up Rias to start preparing everyone, before leaving to fetch Grayfia along with both Hajime and Kaori. By the time they returned, everyone had already dressed and were preparing to eat breakfast before departing into the final labyrinth. After eating, Alex then stood up and said,
"So with this labyrinth I can safely assume everyone would want to finish as quickly as possible, that's why I want to try and do a speed run where we focus on mobility and moving forward as quickly as possible, something that should be easy to do with the magic compass." There was a bunch of enthusiastic nods in response to what Alex said as, even with extra layers of clothes and artifacts, no one wanted to be down there longer than needed. Alex then spent a few more minutes detailing how he wanted to approach traveling through the labyrinth, before everyone split to make last minute preparations. Finally, it was time to challenge the last labyrinth as Alex led everyone in their plummet from Zenith, before smashing through several feet of ice in order to reach the entrance to the frozen cave below.
"It's even colder in here than outside!" Anne wailed even though she was fully clothed for the first time since her first life, causing the bulge that was the cat form Kuroka in Alex's jacket to start chuckling condescendingly. As Alex was taking the lead Kuroka was hiding within his jacket in order to erect a barrier to protect everyone from the worse of the cold, and once they entered the cave from the snowflakes that induced frostbite on impact. Shortly after entering the cave they encountered their first opponents, a quintet of yetis that were instantly smashed by Alex, turned to pulp by Shia's hammer, sliced to ribbons by Shizuku, obliterated by Rias's destruction, and set aflame by Yue's fire magic, no one even bothered to slow down in their rushed charge forward.
"...Fire magic is being suppressed..." Yue muttered as she fell back in their formation and Grayfia took her place, while Hajime took Shia's, Kaori took Rias's, and Suzu took Shizuku's. Though Alex was staying in the lead with the magic compass, everyone else was alternating their positions within their formation in order to ensure they all got a chance to fight and prove themselves to the labyrinth. Though they didn't encounter any other opponents, a chill did go up everyone's spines as they saw several humans and demon race people frozen within the walls of ice around them, correctly assuming they were people who lost their lives within the icy caverns. There was an shared sense of alertness when they saw the perfectly preserved corpses, but when they didn't move no one paid them any mind for the moment and continued. They swiftly made their way through the labyrinth taking the rights and lefts in the path's forks as the compass led them, until finally arriving at a four way intersection.
"Ok, this way next!" Alex shouted before Shia replied,
"Wait! I hear movement!" Everyone then glanced down all four passages, and saw what seemed to be entire hordes of zombies coming down all of them, even the one they were just on. Rather than being intimidated by the oncoming undead though,
"Target practice time!" Alex shouted as he charged down the correct path, while dismembering any bodies that got in his way. With speed that betrayed their sluggish appearance, the horde from all the other passages chased after them before being bombarded by the hailstorm of attacks courtesy of Yue and Rias, while those in the front helped Alex clear the path forward so that they were participating as well. No matter how much damage they did however, the ice around them would fill in any destroyed parts of the zombies bodies and they would quickly reform before resuming the chase once more.
"Any place else and this would be an amazing training exercise..." Shizuku muttered as she bisected her thirtieth zombie, and was answered by several agreeing nods. Alex smiled at the thought as he continued forward until reaching a larger room that had no other exits, instead they were further assaulted by several opponents that formed from surrounding walls of ice itself, into wolves and Eagles. Similar to the zombies, they quickly reformed after taking any damage before resuming their attack. Alex then stated,
"Kill some time on the attackers to farm exp, I'll deal with the main one controlling them." After hearing their confirmation of hearing his orders, Alex once more turned his attention towards the magic compass to find where the crystal controlling the ice golems was. He then watched as a giant turtle made of ice crawled out from the walls surrounding them, before slowly taking a step forward. Alex was intentionally approaching his opponent slowly so as to give everyone else plenty of time to farm exp, during which the bulge that was Kuroka would occasionally disappear from within his jacket as she'd instantly teleport to slaughter any zombies or ice golems that approached him before returning to her den of warmth once more. The only thing Alex had to be conscious of as he approached his opponent was its frost breath, but as it was nowhere near as fast as him he didn't even consider it a threat. Finally Alex got close enough that decided to make his move and disappeared before reappearing right above the massive turtle, and bringing his Haki coated fist down through the armor of bladed ice-sickles right into the middle of its shell. A thunderous boom echoed throughout the room, before the turtle and the floor beneath it caved inwards as the dark red crystal within it shattered. As the turtle died everything with the room froze, before collapsing into lifeless corpses and chucks of ice once more.
"Well that was simple!" Shia stated relaxedly as the enemies disappeared before Alex approached her and delivered a merciless Haki infused forehead flick, making the usually indestructible rabbit fall to the ground while writhing in pain.
"Never raise a flag! The moment you say something like that it sets you up for something else about to happen, no matter how small the chances were!" While Shia looked up at Alex teary eyed while holding her forehead, she also saw Hajime and Kaori nodding in agreement in the background while everyone else was muttering things like 'now that you mention it...'.
"...I'm sorry..." She muttered dejectedly, before she felt someone roughly ruffling her hair and rabbit ears. She looked up to see Alex with a small smile as he explained,
"Just remember that using such lines can make even the simplest victory turn into a dangerous situation, even for you." Shia smiled at the concern Alex was showing for her, even if it was a little rough, and narrowed her eyes contently at his ruffling of her hair and ears. Sadly such a nice moment couldn't last, as Alex only gave them a few minutes to relax and refresh themselves before resuming their swift trek into the newly formed tunnel after the destruction of the red crystal. The tunnel didn't go very far however, before opening up into a massive cavern that none of them could see the other side of, with the entire floor of which was covered by a maze of ice.
"Flag rabbit..." Everyone muttered while Shia writhed in shame, and even Alex could only smile wryly as the size of the maze was far larger than even he was expecting. Without further ado, and after grabbing Ryutarou by the scruff of his neck to prevent him from trying to jump above the walls, they started their long journey into the maze of ice.