As her eyes swept around the snow-covered plains of the forest of gray trees with blue leaves, Aurora felt a sense of liberation. Taking a deep breath, her nose got filled with the pure, natural mana of this world. Unlike the dungeon's vile mana that felt like a foul stench, the world's natural mana felt like fresh roses.
To say that the air of the forest was like finally breaking off some shackles that bound her wouldn't be an exaggeration. Comparing the air in here to the air inside the dungeon was like comparing heaven and hell. That's just how huge the difference was.
'Finally! I'm finally out!' Aurora exclaimed inside her mind in pure joy. She had no idea how long she was in that god-awful place, but she definitely knew that she didn't want to see it ever again.
"I feel you, sis. Now that I'm finally back where I belong, I feel so much better." Yuki also chimed in, expressing her joy over finally being back inside Aurora's soul.
'Actually, I have a question, Yuki.' Suddenly, Aurora abruptly calmed down and said it in quite a serious tone.
"Hmm, what is it?" Hearing her 'sister's' tone, Yuki also turned serious, sensing that whatever was on Aurora's mind, it was quite important.
'You were the voice inside all those strange dreams I had over the days, right? But now, you always say that our souls only connected again just now. So how was it possible for you to appear in my dreams?' Aurora asked a question that she had been wondering about for quite some time, ever since she and Yuki finished their first talk.
"Oh, that? It's quite simple, really. Although I say that the two of us weren't connected, we actually were ever since you woke up as a fox. It's just that the connection was so weak that I could only ever talk to you when you were asleep." Yuki explained, clearing some of the doubts Aurora had on her mind.
'I see. So when you say our souls 'connected', what you mean is that your consciousness moved and became a stable part of my soul, right?' Aurora asked further, guessing perfectly what Yuki meant.
"Mhm." In response to her question, Yuki just let out a faint sound and nodded her head in a very cute manner. After that, she fell silent, not saying anything else.
Aurora also saw no need to say anything else, so she merely looked around the magical-looking forest. But, just as she was about to start walking in a random direction, she felt a soft tap on her back, causing her to jolt in surprise slightly before quickly looking behind her.
'God damnit! Don't do that!' She exclaimed in her mind, glaring at Rejoke angrily, causing the black wolf to shudder lightly.
He really didn't want to scare her, nor was he trying to make her angry. So, before Aurora could get really angry, he leaned his head down and opened his mouth, letting the object he was holding fall to the ground.
'This-' Aurora's eyes trembled with excitement when her eyes fell on the small, glowing object.
It was a small, glowing crystal. It was quite obviously an attribute crystal, but this one was considerably bigger than any of the other crystals she found, not to mention it being a five-sided crystal. This crystal was of a higher grade than advanced!
However, what caught Aurora's eyes the most wasn't the crystal's size or the amount of edges it had; it was its color. The crystal was constantly swirling with a mix of blue and orange, completely unlike any crystal Aurora had seen.
'When did this even drop? Wait, Aurelius?' Aurora questioned confusedly, only for the answer to click in her eyes the next moment.
"Yep, what you're thinking is correct. This crystal is indeed from that wolf. Actually, I'm surprised you didn't notice it dropped." Yuki giggled softly, finding the situation funny.
In her eyes, Aurora was like a small gremlin that would use anything that could make her stronger. So her not noticing something as significant as this crystal seemed absurd.
'In my defense, I was too preoccupied with the pain of having my soul torn apart.' Aurora retorted with a snort, taking the crystal into her paw and using her skill.
[Great Ice-Fire Crystal]
- Grade: Great
- Affinity: Ice and fire
– A powerful attribute crystal of a very peculiar type, combining the opposing elements of ice and fire into one.
[Upon consumption:
- Strengthens the consumer's ice and fire soul vessel by 25 000 exp points.
[Obtainability:
- A drop reward from a monster or magical beast corresponding to the crystal's affinity. The defeated being must be at least 50 levels higher than the user (differences between ranks are calculated differently).
'I'm not seeing things, am I?' Aurora blinked multiple times, staring at the screen in front of her eyes in disbelief.
"You aren't... unless I'm halucinating as well." Yuki responded, and from her voice, it was clear that she was also in quite shock.
'25 000 exp into both my ice and fire vessels!? That's absurd!' Overcoming her disbelief, that disbelief turned into shock mixed with excitement. Without any hesitation, Aurora took the beautiful multicolored crystal and crushed it in her paw.
Streaks of blue and orange energy flew out of the crushed crystal, heading towards Aurora's body and then into her soul, where that energy got absorbed.
[You have absorbed the energy of the Great Ice-Fire Crystal. Your ice and fire soul vessels grow stronger.]
[Your ice vessel has reached level 5.]
[Your fire vessel has reached level 5.]
'They really both went up both.' Aurora muttered, and although her voice still sounded a bit shocked, it was quite obvious that she was very excited.
"It makes sense if you think about it. Beings shouldn't just be able to beat someone fifty levels above them. And even then, level 5 is still probably far from the max level of soul vessels." Yuki thought out loud, and it wasn't really clear if she was speaking to Aurora or just herself.
Either way, Aurora got quite intrigued by her words, so she opened up her soul vessel interface and focused on her ice vessel. However, seeing those light blue words, her eyes contracted to the size of needles.
- Ice vessel: Level 5 (Exp: 16 100/100 000)
'A h-hundred thousand!?' Aurora exclaimed, feeling even more disbelief than what she felt just a moment ago. Not even Yuki had any words, too shocked to say anything.
The amount of experience required seemed simply absurd, and so Aurora did the best thing she could. She closed the vessel interface, turned around 180°, and began to walk. She completely forced the matter of the soul vessels out of her mind, or at least she tried to.
"If you think about it, it's not tha-" Yuki, who was about to say some encouraging words, couldn't even finish her sentence before Aurora cut her off.
'Don't say anything!' She borderline screamed; clearly, she had no intention of even thinking about what she saw.
Sensing that she really didn't want to talk about the matter, Yuki also shut her mouth, not mentioning it anymore at all. Instead, she mostly kept quiet, only occasionally chatting with her 'sister' about some trivial matters.
And so, the trio of the two foxes, who were actually one, and a wolf began to wander aimlessly around the forest. And while they seemed quite harmless, well, probably just the fox did, no magical beast or monster attacked them during their journey.
It wasn't that there weren't any monsters or beasts around; it was just that those beings valued their lives too much to just throw them away. The pressure emanating from Aurora's body wasn't something the first-rank monsters could handle, so they merely got out of the two beasts's way.
However, even then, there would always be some foolish ones who simply didn't understand the disparity between heaven and earth.
A pale blue magical beast that looked like a rhinoceros was charging towards the two beasts, who simply looked small in comparison to his huge size. This was especially so with the fox, who was comically tiny in the face of that giant beast.
The rhino's horns seemed to be made out of some tough-looking deep blue ice, his skin seemingly made out of metal. Truly, such a raging beast was not to be underestimated.
The rhino was truly powerful. Anytime an enemy stood in its path, that enemy soon met their end. It didn't matter what or who it was; they would simply succumb to his mighty horns and muscles.
However, the rhino was very unlucky because the enemy who stood in his path today was so powerful that the raging horned beast was like a joke in their eyes.
Obviously, this enemy was Aurora, who simply watched the charging rhino with an amused smile. She wasn't at all intimidated by the beast's size or physical prowess. She only had one thought in her mind when she looked at the exotic-looking animal.
'I wonder just how strong my magic is now. Even if I would love to leave this guy to Rejoke, I'm just itching to see how much this rhino can take.' Aurora thought excitedly, looking forward to seeing the power of her magic after all the increases in power it had gone through.
"This rhino seems to be more of a strength- and defense-focused beast. Trult, a perfect test dummy." Yuki giggled, finding the idea of trying their magic out to be quite amusing.
As if sensing the excitement and amusement of the small creature in front of it, the rhino felt anger bubbling inside it. The rhino put all his strength and agility into its rush, planning to stomp the small white beast into a pile of mess.
However, when the rhino finally got close to almost attacking, its eyes went wide as it realized that that hateful small beast was nowhere to be found.
Then, with a sudden and soft bang, the rhino's eyes rolled back as blood splattered out of the center of its head, where its brain was located.
The spear of fire easily pierced through the beast's high defense, killing it on the spot without the slightest difficulty.
[You have defeated the Ice Silver Twinhorn level 32.]
[You have reached level 21.]
[You have reached level 22.]
[You have obtained a Basic Ice Crystal.]
'Somehow, I expected this result. Even then, it feels no less good seeing it really happen.' Aurora commented with a slight smirk as she watched the now lifeless body of the rhino fall to the ground.
One attack. That was all she needed to end the life of a magical beast twelve levels above her. Not to mention that the fire spear she used to kill the creature didn't seem to weaken at all even after killing the beast.
"With all the intelligence we have and our fire affinity that is probably reaching some really scary levels, I wouldn't hesitate to say that our magic has increased by about 25% in power ever since our battle against Aurelius." Yuki pointed out proudly while nodding in agreement to Aurora's words.
Meanwhile, Aurora walked over to the beast's corpse and picked up the small tringular crystal. She squeezed the crystal in her paw in an attempt to break it, only to sigh dejectedly.
'Still, this is really unfortunate.' She muttered in a slightly disappointed tone as she stared at the newly-appeared text in front of her.
[You cannot use any more basic-grade or lower ice crystals.]
'I kind of expected it when my ice vessel reached level 5, but it's still infuriating nonetheless.' Aurora shook her head softly, walking over to Rejoke and handing him the crystal.
In the past, when her ice vessel had reached level 4, Aurora became unable to absorb simple-grade ice crystals. And now that her vessel has reached level 5, she also became unable to use even the basic-grade ones!
"I guess it's the system's way of balancing things. Not to mention that your soul won't get any more powerful by absorbing energy that is too weak." Yuki reasoned and also tried to cheer Aurora up a bit, not wanting her to feel sad about it.
'It's not a big deal. I just feel that it's a bit annoying, but those crystal won't really do much anyway.' Aurora shook her head softly, shaking off the bad feelings she felt.
'More importantly, it's nice to be outside again.'