5 Chapter 4

A boy who looked to at his late teens walked through the forest cradling a small, black-furred creature against his chest, a crystal sword hung from his waist. He kept glancing around looking for fruit. It would solve the issue of thirst and hunger for him, he could possibly use it to deal with his master's thirst before hunting for some meat. The cat was small, almost like a kitten. But from his preliminary investigation of his master, aside from finding it was a female, he estimated that the cat was close to the age of independence (about 10 weeks). So, it should have been weaned by now and could take solid food.

The forest was fairly damaged, like there had been a devasting fight here. It should have been rather recent as every now and then he passed by beast corpses in early stages of decomposition. Maybe that's what finished the temple off.

Some fruits were still hanging on fallen trees, all of them unfamiliar, so he tested each one that seemed to be in good condition on his skin before eating them. Some portions of the forest were burned to ash and there were places where it seemed as if everything had been erased. He had to go around or over the ash-covered areas because when he first tried to cross one, his mana shield had been broken through by the heat in a matter of seconds, barely enough time for him to leave the ash-covered grounds. The weird areas where stuff seemed to be erased somehow usurped control over his mana, so he kept a good distance away as he had a lot of mana flowing through his body as the moment.

It had taken him a lot of time to reach a relatively less damaged area and sate his needs. Now he was looking for some beast to hunt and then feed it to his master. He went downslope hoping to find a water source, since at this point, he was certain that it was the solvent the locals use. Beasts usually gather around water sources and this place was a valley. Since the battle was most likely aerial, the valley should have been safer, which meant the beast population here didn't suffer too much already evidenced by the significantly less damage he had come across in this valley. At night he would determine the height of the thermal belt and look for a cave there.

This place was a good seclusion spot. As long as there were no supremely powerful creatures with horrid tempers nearby.

He descended the slope, using Mana Radar twice every minute. He found a lot of beasts, but they were too small and too twitchy, running away the instant he turned to face them. He wanted something big enough to feed both his master and him for at least two days. Time he could use to seclude himself.

He finally came across a small brook, so he made cup out of ice, filled it with water and helped his master drink. It was draining. His mana seemed to disappear whenever it approached his master, most likely to protect the master, which meant that he had to continuously feed mana to the cup, an ability he unlocked when Ice Magic reached the Intermediate level.

At Apprentice level constructs couldn't be maintained for long. They burned the mana used to cast them and you couldn't feed anymore to it after casting. Intermediate level allowed him to maintain the construct by constantly feeding it mana. It was taxing on mana and impractical on the lower levels since you could maintain the construct but not reinforce it. If the construct got damaged its capabilities would drop and you could only maintain it at that level but not recover its previous level. Adept level meant that you could 'lock' the mana in the construct. You could feed as much mana as possible into the construct during casting and then lock it in. You would have a strong construct that didn't need to be maintained. For him, who had a sword construct he could then use a more mana to temporarily reinforce the blade. He hoped that once the skill had reached Master level the reinforcements would be permanent so that he could continuously improve it as you would do a life bound treasure.

The technique he was using to help his master drink was gained at Intermediate levels. As he quietly poured water into his master's mouth, he silently prayed to the old man that the water does not go down the trachea. If he could use mana he could prevent it, but now, he could only pray.

He stopped after half the water was finished and thankfully his master didn't seem to be drowning. He moved several metres away from the brook to a relatively flat space and created an igloo only four metres across. The space was sloped slightly so he made a platform out of ice and the igloo was on top.

Night would descend soon but it shouldn't prove too much of a problem thanks to Mana Radar. Deep in the night he would reascend the slope, looking for the thermal belt. Hopefully, he would come across a deer or something and serve it to his master.

With all the fruits he ate along the way, he was currently full, so he felt like he needed some proper sleep. The igloo was made using eighty percent of his mana so it should be strong enough to last a few attacks. He had yet to properly study the power structure of this world, but he preferred to assume that he was weak until proven otherwise. So, before he went looking for fallen branches and vines to camouflage the sparkling white igloo, he sat down and used a breathing technique to recover his mana.

Aside from his experience, breathing techniques were the only thing that worked as it should in this place, so he planned to find some time to research them in the future. His memories were a mess, and he couldn't the more complex techniques, so he hadn't bothered himself too much for now.

Once he recovered his mana, he took his master and gathered the necessary materials. Since his hands were occupied with his master, he used Ice Magic to create ice hands to hold everything and put it in place.

Once he was satisfied with the camouflage he went into the igloo. He walked to the centre of the igloo and carefully carved out a hole in the platform and filled it with snow with the mana locked. He needed thirty minutes to translate his experience with qi to mana and lock the coldness into the snow.

*Ding!

He had ignored the messages so many times that they no longer appeared. The ding still rang out and, if he wanted to, he could read all the messages he hadn't yet read.

Usually, cold wouldn't affect him but this place was weird do he couldn't discard the possibility. Also, his master was also there so he couldn't take any chances.