The clarity from her first session was a cold, like a sharp blade. But Khione knew that in the real world, beyond the academy's walls, battles were not won with re control. They were won with overwhelming power, with endurance that outlasted a storm, and with a will that could freeze a volcano. She had pushed herself, but she had not yet broken her own limits. The middle Adept Mage realm, reached through the deep ditation and prana cycling, was a new challenge. Now, she had to conquer it.
She sat once more in the center of the scarred training ground. The air was still frigid from her previous battle, and her breath plud in the lingering chill. Closing her eyes, she fell into the rhythm of the Undine Clan's ancestral breathing technique. Inhale—drawing the world's ambient energy through her skin, cool and vast like a mountain lake. Hold—letting it swirl and condense within her core, a swirling nebula of potential frost. Exhale—releasing the impurities, a faint, silver mist. Each cycle was like a revolution, each breath a turning of the wheel. She could feel the reservoir within her deepening, the walls of her spiritual core hardening and expanding. The feeling was not of heat, but of a profound, dense cold, like the heart of a glacier. When she opened her eyes, they held a new, deeper luminescence, the pale blue now shot through with veins of glacial white. She was settled, solid. Middle Adept Mage.
She stood, her body humming with the newly consolidated power. This ti, she did not approach the control panel with deliberation. She walked to it with a silent, terrifying intent. Her slender finger bypassed the previous settings and went straight to the bottom of the list.
HELL DIFFICULTY. INITIATE?
A faint, almost imperceptible tremor went through the ground. Khione tapped 'YES.'
The first change was the gravity. It didn't ramp up; it slamd down.
THUMMMMMMMM.
Six tis standard gravity. It was like having the entire sky collapse onto her shoulders.
"Ugh!"
She grunted of pain. Her knees buckled for a second, a sharp gasp ripped from her lungs. Every organ felt compressed. Lifting an arm would be like lifting a boulder.
"Huff! Huf!"
Breathing was labor. This was no longer just training the body; this was an act of defiance against physics itself. She must not fall behind, she had to increase her physical strength to be there for him, to defend what belongs to her at any cost.
The Ice Queen focused on the training, doing her best to endure, the real test would begin now.
The second change was the light. The runes on the walls didn't just flare; they erupted in a violent crimson. A deep, synthesized voice bood through the arena.
"COMBAT SIMULATION: HEL SIEGE. SURVIVAL PARATERS ENGAGED.''
The ground didn't just summon golems; it birthed them like how dungeon core birthed them. Dozens of shimring points appeared. Not three, not five, but twenty. Thirty. An army. They ford ranks—a phalanx of knight-types in the front, their forms mimicking various combat laws: Fire, Earth, Wind, and the dreaded Shatter. Behind them, a line of mage-types, crackling with Lightning, shimring with Illusion, and radiating pure Force. Above, winged constructs of sharpened crystal took flight, humming with piercing energy.
They did not wait.
Roarrrr!
A unified roar, artificial and chilling, echoed as the front line charged. The ground shook under their mass and the crushing gravity.
Khione did not move from her spot. The rage was there—a cold, infinite fury at the world's expectations, at the threats to Nero, at those thieves trying to snatch what wasn't theirs. But it did not show on her face. Her expression was a mask of perfect, beautiful ice. A portrait worth trillions.
The rage fueled the power, but the ice controlled its delivery.
She raised her wand, a movent that felt like dragging it through solid rock.
And Hell t Winter.
•••
The first spell was not defensive one. It was declarative one, the declaration of the one hailed as the Ice Queen, the genius of the Undine clan.
"Glacial Age: Dawn."
She didn't whisper. She stated itblikr a Queen giving an order. The words left her lips and the temperature in the arena plunged so fast the air itself seed to crystallize, it was a beautiful chilly scene.
A wave of absolute cold exploded from her in a perfect circle, rippling out across the stone.
Siiii~
Siii~
The leading edge of charging knights, five of them, hit the wave. Frost flash-froze over their fiery swords, snuffing them out. It encased their stone feet, rooting them to the ground mid-stride. The wave swept past, turning the arena floor into a treacherous, frictionless sheet of black ice.
The charge broke into chaos. Knights slid and stumbled. But the army was vast. Those behind simply climbed over their frozen vanguard.
The mages attacked. Bolts of lightning, lances of pure force, and disorienting waves of illusion magic shot toward the solitary figure in the center. Under the hellish gravity, Khione could not dodge. So, she built a fortress.
"Permafrost Bastion."
She slamd the butt of her elongated wand onto the ice at her feet. A wall of ice, thick as an ancient oak and dark as arctic midnight, erupted in a ring around her. It wasn't smooth; it was faceted, a diamond-hard hexagon. The projectiles slamd into it. Lightning spider-webbed across its surface. Force lances cratered it but did not penetrate. The illusion waves broke against its utter, non-sentient reality.
But the Bastion was a cage as much as a shield. She was trapped inside, and the golems surrounded it. The Shatter Knights reached the wall first. They began pounding, their law-disrupting fists causing whole sections to vaporize into dust. Cracks spread.
Inside the icy hexagon, Khione was already weaving her next spell. The air grew so cold it burned to breathe. She pointed her wand upward, through the open top of her bastion.
"Frozen Sky: Hailstorm."
A beautiful spell had been unleashed.
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