About five hours after Aurora's and Rejoke's battle against the horde of tigers, the two stumbled upon a small obstacle in their path. It was just about now that Aurora also woke up.
As the little fox opened her aquamarine eyes, what greeted her was the sight of a rocky wall. Confused by what was happening, she looked to the sides, only to see the wall stretch out into the distance in both left and right.
'What? A mountain?' She gazed up, only to realize that she couldn't even see the top. Whatever mountain this was, it was crazy high.
'Well, no helping it.' Aurora reached down and patted the left side of Rejoke's body, just above his front paw.
This caused the black wolf to look over, gazing at the small fox on his back. Seeing her nod and once more point to the left, he nodded his head as well and set off to the left.
However, after walking for just a couple of minutes, something caused the black wolf to stop dead in his tracks. A low growl escaped his mouth as he stared forward, his guard raised to the max.
Aurora, who was still on his back, clearly noticed the change and quickly spread the aura that she's been holding back. Immediately, her chilling yet fiery aura spread into the distance, soon colliding with another force.
'Hoh?' The little fox cutely raised one of her eyebrows as she sensed the aura of the being about a hundred meters in front of them. Clearly, the being wasn't weak at all, probably the strongest one she had met to date.
'Interesting, it seems that not even Rejoke is confident in fighting an enemy of such level. Even if I doubt we would really lose, there's no saying we would win either.' She thought, getting off Rejoke's back.
Aurora had a good grasp on how strong Rejoke was. He was strong; that much was obvious. He was much stronger than any other beings of the first rank, thanks to which he was able to fight even those that were even good ten levels above him.
However, just from the aura of the monster in front of them, Aurora was able to tell that it was in the twenties when it came to levels. It was understandable that Rejoke wouldn't be very eager to fight such a thing. However, she was sure that if she told him to fight, he would do so without hesitation.
Howover, there was no need for that. Without hesitating for even a second, Aurora began to slowly walk in the monster's direction, not even bothering to hide her aura. There was simply no point in doing so.
Not only was she not afraid of whatever monster was waiting for her, she wanted to fight it head-on.
Seeing his alpha's intentions, Rejoke hesitated for a moment before following in her footsteps. Her was confident that Aurora could defeat such a monster easily; that, however, didn't mean that he wasn't worried.
As the two made their way towards the monster with leisurely steps, the pressure coming out of the creature only continued to increase the closer they got. Clearly, it was trying to scare them off.
'Interesting; it's probably a monster; that's why it isn't running away even in the face of my aura.' Aurora chuckled internally and continued to walk without a care in the world.
Soon, the monster came into sight. A large white beast that looked unlike anything Aurora has ever seen. But if you really wanted to compare it to something, you could say it distantly resembled a white gorrila that was like three times its normal size.
However, that was if you were really being optimistic. Because while the beast's posture might resemble that of a gorrila's, you couldn't say the same thing about the monster's appearance.
The beast's fur was snow white, very similar to Aurora's. Its front limbs were huge in comparison to its back ones, and large ice spikes protruded from its back. Its face was also anything but pretty, with two large tusks sticking out of the beast's mouth.
However, Aurora barely spared the creature a glance before her eyes locked onto something else. There, just behind the monster, a large gate that was clearly unnatural stood proudly among the snow-covered trees.
'A human-made structure!?' Her heart began to beat wildly at the thought of maybe finding some traces of a human civilization.
Even if she was now a fox and came to complete terms with this reality, she still wanted to find humans if possible. And while she had no idea if they even existed in this world, that mattered little to her.
What Aurora was looking for weren't the humans per se. She didn't care about them, and despite having the mindset of a human, she had no real attachments to the race. No, what she craved for was their knowledge. After all, unlike monsters and magical beasts, humans were intelligent even without evolving.
If she could get her hands, or rather paws, on some information about this world, it would be a huge help to her.
'I need to see!' Aurora's eyes burned with desire as she lunged forwaed without any hesitation, completely ignoring the yeti-like monster.
"Roooaar!"
However, unlike her, the monster very much noticed her and paid attention to the small creature. Even if it was a monster, it could still sense the incredible aura coming from the small beast; that's why it has yet to attack our favorite duo.
But as soon as the creature saw that the small intruder rushed forward, the yeti refused to stand still any longer.
Raising its huge front limbs into the air with a surprisingly swift motion, the yeti swung down, cracking the ground beneath as well as sending tremors throughout the forest.
Yet Aurora still paid no mind to the large beast. It wasn't worth her time or her attention.
The evident lack of interest clearly infuriated the yeti, which caused it to swing its front limb once more, this time aiming for the approaching Aurora.
'Tsk, annoying.' Grumbling internally, Aurora jumped up, easily avoiding the yeti's strike. And while still in mid-air, she spent some mana to cast two fireballs and send them in the beast's direction.
*Boom, boom*
"Roooar!" The two fireballs collided with the yeti's huge body, causing it to roae in pain. However, unlike what Aurora expected, the yeti continued to stand as the fireballs failed to severely damage the beast.
'I guess I underestimated you a bit, big guy.' Snickering internally, Aurora thought that it might be fun to test what this monster could handle, and so she finally started to take it as something more than just a mere joke.
Softly landing back on the ground, she wasted no time and lunged forward, aiming her slashing claw at the yeti. The beast wouldn't just let himself get hit like that, so after recovering from the previous blow, it swept horizontally with its large limb.
If Aurora continued in her track, she would undoubtedly get hit. Yet the cunning fox seemed to have no intention of dodging the attack. Instead, she faced it head-on, slashing at the yeti's limb with her paw.
As the two collided, the yeti's eyes went wide in pain and shock as it felt not only the stinging pain from the place of impact but also the beast also its limb being pushed back.
That's just how physically strong the current Aurora was. Even without using Leadership, her current strength was almost touching the hundred-point mark.
As the yeti was still in a state of shock, Aurora used the opportunity to close the distance between the two and slashed away at the monster's face.
With its senses screaming in terror, the yeti quickly pulled its head back, but even that was too slow. Aurora's claw still managed to cut across the yeti's face with its tip, leaving a shallow but painful cut mark behind.
In a state of pure shock and fury, the yeti swiftly raised both of its front limbs into the air, slamming down at Aurora once again. However, by the time it managed to even slam its limbs back down, the little fox was long out of reach.
'Let's try this, shall we?' Smirking internally, Aurora cast a singular spear of fire and shot it out towards the yeti, aiming directly at the monster's large torso.
Before the yeti could even react, the burning spear made of fire hit it right in the chest, exploding upon impact.
"ROOOAR!!" The yeti's roar of pain was much louder this time, clearly proving just how much damage the fire spear managed to inflict.
A large cloud of smoke and dust arose, completely covering the yeti's large body. The monster's roar died down, so it was impossible for Aurora to tell the current state of its body. But she knew one thing: the yeti was alive.
And this thought proved to be correct, as just as the smoke was about to settle down, with a loud roar, a stream of freezing air and energy shot out towards Aurora from the smoke cloud.
The freezing energy soon collided with her body, and soon, her small form was lost inside the icy mist.
The yeti that saw this snickered, knowing this battle was about to end. Never, no matter what kind of beast or monster it was, has anyone survived its freezing breath.
Yet as the mist dissipated, the sight of a small white creature wearing a teasing smirk on its cute face soon came into the yeti's face, moments before the monster's body got engulfed in the sea of orange flames.
'Sorry buddy, but ice really doesn't work on me.' Aurora chuckled internally as she saw the yeti's large body being burned with her magic.
If there was one attribute Aurora was most resistant to, it wouldn't be poison, dark, or light. Not even fire. It would be ice. Not only did she have a high affinity with ice and resistance against it, she also had a high affinity with fire, which directly repelled any foreign ice energy that came its way.
If it was ice that we were talking about, Aurora had absolute confidence that she could easily deal with it unless it was way too advanced. And at that point, it wouldn't matter if it was ice since the enemy could probably deal with her with sheer stats alone.
As the yeti's roars grew weaker and weaker under the onslaught of flames, Aurora patiently waited for the monster to finally lie down and die. And she didn't even have to wait long, because soon, the yeti's large body fell lifelessly onto the ground.
[You have defeated the Snow Yeti level 23.]
[You have reached level 4.]
[You have reach...]
[You have reached level 6.]
[You have obtained an item: Advanced Ice Crystal.]
[You have obtained an item: Snow Cloak.]
'Really? This thing was twenty levels higher than me, and I've only got three levels out of that?' Aurora complained internally, not at all satisfied with such a result.
'I guess I shouldn't be stingy. I basically played around with this thing, not to mention that the system did say I would level up a lot more slowly.' With a soft sigh, she walked towards the four-sided light blue crystal that fell down next to the yeti's corpse.
'At least I got a goodie.' With an excited smile, she gently crushed the crystal with her paw, letting her body absorb its energy.
[You have absorbed the energy of the Advanced Ice Crystal. Your ice soul vessel grows stronger.]
[You ice soul vessel has reached level 4.]
'Hell yeah! My first level four vessel.' Aurora smiled widely and opened up her soul vessel interface, checking up on her newly leveled-up ice vessel.
- Ice vessel: Level 4 (Exp: 350/10 000)
'T-ten thousand!? That's four whole advanced crystals!' She couldn't help but exclaim once she saw the absurd amount of exp she would need to get her ice vessel up to level 5.
'Phew, calm down, calm down...' Taking a deep breath, she shook her head, calming herself down before 'composedly' walking towards the second item she had obtained.
'A cloak? I didn't even know I had a slot for this.' Chuckling, Aurora tried to put on the cloak just like she always did, just to surprisingly fail. And before she could even question what was happening, she received a message from the system.
[You currently cannot equip this item due to the limitations of your body.]
Aurora's body shook as she felt her heart fall when she read the message. She really wanted to cry right now, but no tears came out of her eyes.
Such an item, and she couldn't even equip it! Even just by judging from its name, it was pretty obvious that the cloak would increase her ice affinity, even if it was by just a bit. But she just couldn't equip the damn thing.
'It's moments like these when I really wish I had my human body.' With a crestfallen expression, the little fox decided to put this item away for now. However, she realized yet another problem she had.
'I have nowhere to put this damn thing!' Okay, now she really wanted to cry. Since she had no bags or anything like that to store away this cloak, she would probably have to leave it here.
But just as she was about to lose all hope, the system came to her rescue once again!
[The user can equip this item in a fake slot temporarily until they are able to equip it normally. When equipped in a fake slot, this item will grant the user no benefits.]
As she stared at the message in front of her, Aurora's previously grim face suddenly beamed with happiness as she quickly put the cloak into that fake slot or whatever.
Now, in a much better mood, the little fox walked towards the strange stone gate that caught her attention earlier.
'I wonder what secrets you hold.'