"I'm never serious," Ryan replied. When I gave him a look, turned around and began to walk out of the cave, he got fl.u.s.tered. "All right, all right! Sorry! Of course I didn't mean it literaly. All you need to do is absorb the Thousand-year-old Ice Essence from this frozen pool."

"Thousand-year-old Ice Essence?" I repeated incredulously. Now that was a term I had never heard of before, apart from a few obscure comics back in the mid-2000s. I wasn't sure if they were the same thing. With all the different stories out there, you would never know. I had a suspicion that I could guess what this one was.

But this was not a cultivation story, so I doubted it would work the same way.

"Hmm, how should I explain this?" Ryan Reynolds rubbed his chin and pondered for a few moments, and then he snapped his fingers. "Well, to put it simply…this mana has been acc.u.mulating in all this ice for a thousand years, and has basically transformed into…well, sentience isn't the right word. A soul of its own? A spirit?"

I scowled at that. Spirits were something I really didn't want to deal with, especially after hearing what they entailed from my dad. Sacrificing someone I love in return for awesome power…what was the point? The whole reason for getting such power in the first place was to protect the ones I loved. Sacrificing them completely defeated the purpose of attaining such enormous power in the first place.

"Don't give me that look. I'm not talking about spirits from another dimension." Ryan placed his hands on his hips. "That's why I called it essence. It's almost living, but it's not exactly…sentient, tangible or physical. I don't know how else to describe it."

"Okay." I scratched my head. "Let's say it is fine to absorb this essence. But mana and magic have only been around for 800 years at most. How did this conglomeration of mana manage to acc.u.mulate for a thousand years?"

"Ah…" Ryan appeared to grin, but as always, it was hard to tell with his mask on. He jabbed his thumb toward the entrance of the chamber. "You might want to thank the Frost Dragon for that."

I raised my eyebrow at that. It was true that the age of monsters were unfathomable, especially the high-ranked ones. Many of them were observed to live unnaturally long lifespans. Dragons, in particular, could live for centuries, if not millennia. Well, those were based on academic a.s.sumptions and studies, where scientists used carbon dating and other scientific-magical methods to examine specimens and monster bodies brought back by mercenaries. I was in no position to question the validity of their methods or investigations.

"The Frost Dragon, like all monsters, emanates lots of mana. The excess mana, as you know, bleeds off into the environments and diffuses normally. But in an isolated pocket of s.p.a.ce like this cavern, the excessive mana gets trapped in here, with nowhere to go. So the mana ends up acc.u.mulating in this pool over here. Or ice. I also suspect that a significant amount of water was actually brought over by the Frost Dragon to this dimension. Meaning, some of the water is actually from another dimension. Don't worry, it should be watered down, though!"

At his words, I glanced at the ice once more. It was huge, about five meters wide and tall, and of a largely blockish shape. The edges, on the other hand, were rounded, so I didn't need to worry about cutting myself on it. Edgelords should learn from its example and stop whining about the lack of deaths or killing, or how I wasn't ruthless enough. Anyway, I could see a s.h.i.+mmering aurora inside the center. That must be the Thousand-year-old Ice Essence.

If there was indeed some water from another dimension mixed into the ice, I honestly couldn't tell the difference. Water was water…on the molecular level, it was made out of two hydrogen atoms bonded to a single oxygen atom. Whether it came from another dimension or was formed here, it didn't matter. Water was water.

Reaching out, I felt a tremendous amount of power emanating from it. A cool, almost comfortable sensation that washed over me, giving me the impression of drifting along the northern seas like…well, an iceberg.

However, as always, I was skeptical that things were this convenient and easy. Absorbing this thing? Getting stronger without needing to pay any price? Since when did something so good exist in reality? This wasn't a cultivation story.

Ryan noted my doubts and nodded.

"You're right. It's not as simple as absorbing it and becoming stronger."

"So what's the point of absorbing it?"

"Oh, even though I say absorb it, I don't mean you literally suck the whole thing and suddenly get all that amount of mana added to your own existing mana pool. That's ridiculous. If it was so easy, people will go around absorbing mana from everything they can get their hands on. Of course you don't just suck the mana to amplify it." Ryan jabbed a finger in my chest. "Use your brain. Remember how you cultivated next to the Holy Spring?"

"DON'T USE THAT WORD!" I bellowed. Ryan actually flinched from that, and he quickly held both of his hands up in a soothing manner.

"Sorry. I mean, remember how you trained next to the Holy Spring? That helped you improve your magic, and gave you poison immunity, right?"

"Yeah." I nodded, recalling the time when I trained next to the Holy Spring to improve my summoning magic. The coin dropped, and I realized what he meant. "Oh, so I just need to train next to the Thousand-year-old Ice Essence, and my summoning magic will improve?"

"Not your summoning magic, you dolt!" Ryan smacked me…or tried to, but his ghostly hand went through my head. He threw his hands up and rolled his eyes. As far as he could, behind those white lenses, anyway. "This is a Thousand-year-old Ice Essence. What kind of magic do you think it will improve?"

"…ice magic. But I only know the most basic of ice magic." Then I thought for a moment, recalling Cetus. "I have a few Constellation spirits that are of the ice attribute. I can use the Thousand-year-old Ice Essence to improve them."

"Yeah, but this is also a chance for you to improve on your elemental spells. Other than your wood magic, all of your other elemental spells are pretty basic. Never mind that, your wood magic was basically ripped off from the Stuart Clan's techniques…"

"I didn't steal the Stuart Clan's wood magic," I interrupted, annoyed. "I honestly just read all that from a few books on wood magic, and learned that from Teacher Woodgate's cla.s.ses at Jing Tian Academy. If you don't believe me, you can ask her."

"Oh, that's not what I mean." Ryan slapped his forehead in exasperation. "But did you never honestly wondered where those books, or where your teacher learned and developed their wood magic from?"

"…eh?"

Now that he mentioned it…

"In fact, did you never wonder why the Ten Great Families became the Ten Great Families? And why five of them bear the emblem of the five Celestial Guardians? The same Celestial Guardians you learned to summon?"

"That's…"

The Porter Clan bore the badge of the Vermillion Phoenix. The Lacroix Clan displayed the insignia of the White Tiger. The Stuart Clan boasted the emblem of the Green Dragon. And if I wasn't mistaken, the symbol of the Hei family was the Black Tortoise. There was a fifth family who sported the Golden Kirin as their crest, but because I didn't want to give away spoilers, I wasn't going to name them just yet.

This was no coincidence.

"These five of the Ten Great Families were the ones who pioneered the spells for the five elements. Anyone who is learning the spells for any of these five elements can trace their lineage back to these families. They were the great ancestors, the primogenitors, the creators or innovators of their respective elements."

"…so that's why the advanced wood magic I learned from reading and from cla.s.s was so similar to the Stuart Clan's…"

"Also because no one else outside the Stuart Clan bothered to master wood magic to that extent. If you recall, you're probably the only one who attended Woodgate's cla.s.ses all the way to the end. The rest dropped out before the year was out."

Yeah, but the only reason I did that was because I had hit a critical phase while developing Green Dragon and I realized that basic wood spells weren't going to cut it. So I spent a lot more time reading and studying wood magic than I did for the other elements…simply because basic wood magic wasn't very good for combat. And I was a combat-orientated person.

"Also, there's a major flaw with my wood magic," I admitted with a sigh. "I can't cast advanced wood magic without summoning Green Dragon…or at least a chibi form of him."

That was why I always had to summon the chibi Green Dragon to imbue my swords with wood magic before I could cast them. I must have screwed up somewhere, because I was unable to cast advanced wood magic without him otherwise.

"Oh, that?" Ryan shrugged casually. "That was entirely your fault. You missed a step somewhere and tied your wood magic too much to your summoning magic, and now you can't use it unless you use summoning magic. Your foundation is pretty…weird. You approached wood magic from the wrong direction. I think Woodgate also misunderstood your request. When you asked her for help to summon wood-type Soul Beasts, she thought you wanted to entirely dedicate wood magic to summoning, and so she taught you an alternative form of wood magic. That was the wrong way of using wood magic."

"That sucks." I sighed wearily and stared at my swords. Was I doomed to repeat this mistake?

"Now, I'm trying to help you not commit the same error here. If you do this right, you'll be able to cast advanced ice spells without needing to summon any chibi ice constellation spirits. Additionally, you will be able to power up your ice Constellation spirits further. All you need to do is master the advanced ice spells."

The b.a.s.t.a.r.d made it sound so simple…

"But I don't know anything else about ice magic besides the basic spells. I mean, I could convert several of my Constellation spirits into ice types, but…"

Since my Constellation spirits were based on my imagination, they were fairly fluid and easily changed. Subject to the limitations of my current abilities, of course. I couldn't change them to be stronger just because I imagined them to be more powerful, for example. Obviously such convenient things did not exist in reality. There were hard restrictions even though they were mostly shaped by my imagination. Otherwise there was nothing stopping me from imagining them to be invincible, and they would become invincible.

Nope, not happening.

"Weak," a reader sneered. "What a pathetic MC. Dropped."

Ryan shot the reader in the head without even turning to look at him. His bullet pa.s.sed through the fourth wall and obliterated the idiot's skull, turning it into a messy shower of bones and blood. The raging edgelord toppled over, his brains spilling to the floor. Not that he needed them, since he had only displayed the mentality of an edgy twelve-year-old obsessed with wish fulfilment power fantasies and overpowered protagonists.

"Ignore that loser," he told me. "Focus on the present. Yeah, you can change some of your Constellation spirits to ice type if you want. That might be for the best. But before you do that, you might want to improve on your ice magic."

"And how am I supposed to do that, concretely?" I asked, glancing around. "Just practice my ice spells here? Then they were get stronger just like that? For summoning magic, training by the Holy Spring helped me get a better grasp on the advanced summoning spells, and improved my efficiency, allowing me to maintain my Constellation spirits in reality for extended durations, and allowed me to be able to withstand the mana burden of summoning and maintaining more of them. But that was because I already had some knowledge of the advanced summoning spells. I don't know anything about advanced ice magic…"

"That's easy to solve!" Ryan took out a few books and tossed them at me. I would have caught them, but they pa.s.sed through my hands. "Whoops. I forgot that you can't touch them. Never mind, I'll open them for you and show you. I can't teach you ice magic, but I can at least help you gain access to the books you need, and flip through them for you. Just let me know when you want to turn the page." He frowned. "Hey, wait a second…did I just become some glorified personal digital a.s.sistant?"

"No, you're still the merc with a mouth."

"Thank you." for some reason, Ryan Reynolds looked pleased when I stated the obvious. Well, since I was going to have to rely on him, I decided to just roll with it.

"Okay, I guess I'll get started then." Scanning the t.i.tles on the books that were now hovering in the air for some reason, I pointed at one. Intermediate Ice Magic for Innovators. That sounded like a good place to begin as any, given that I already knew the basic ice spells. "Do you mind helping me open that?"

"Sure!" Ryan snapped his fingers, and that particular book levitated toward me, opening itself up to reveal the pages within.

"Thanks." Nodding, I read through the first chapter, with Ryan's help, and then began practicing next to the Thousand-year-old Ice Essence, benefiting off the tremendous amount of icy mana that it emanated. As I practiced, I realized the benefits.

The Thousand-year-old Ice Essence was helping me purify my mana, allowing me to cast ice spells with greater effect than before. It was also strengthening the particular mana type required for ice magic and making the mana conversion (from energy into ice) more efficient than before. At this rate, I should be able to master the advanced ice spells in much less time than I would if I were to study it outside.

Even so, I couldn't spend too much time here, or the people outside would get worried. However, as it seemed that the only way to get out of here was to…master ice magic, I might as well roll with it for now.

Not to mention, ice magic was…cool.