7th of Season of Air, 57th year of the 32nd imperial era

After finishing the paperwork at the guild and after Dandelion collected his belongings from his much humbler lodgings at the Stellar Night inn, he and Newt reached the gate just in time to see the members of Everfrost Order exit a cramped side street and reach the main boulevard.

"What is it with these women and dark alleys?" Dandelion muttered before speaking in a louder voice.

"Greetings, honorable ladies." He gave a perfect half bow. "We have not introduced ourselves properly yesterday. I am Dandelion, and my young friend is Newstar Salamandra."

"Everlast."

"Puresnow."

The women introduced themselves with icy voices and neutral expressions.

"Nice to meet you, Lady Everlast, Lady Puresnow," Dandelion pretended he didn't notice the women's disinterest. "Before we head out, we should say something about our skills. I will start. My area of expertise is unarmed melee combat and the staff. I dabble in alchemy and have some basic understanding of the healing arts."

Dandelion looked at Newt, who cleared his throat.

"Hello." Discomforted by the two women, he stuttered and spoke with more er-s than he liked. "I fight unarmed and with two swords and Dandelion told me I should pick up a short-sword too. I am very agile, and I can take more blows than most; I think. I can also shoot bolts of fire at close range, cauterize my own wounds, and purify foreign mana invading my body—"

"Thank you, Newstar," Dandelion took the chance to stop Newt from blathering, then the two women introduced themselves with almost identical lines. Two sentences each. They both fought with long-swords and could handle themselves. Newt got a clear impression these women wanted men around as much as he craved female company.

"I guess we shall figure out our tactics as we go along." Dandelion offered a diplomatic smile, and they headed out the gate, due north.

Dandelion sprinted, relying on nothing but his body, while Puresnow and Everlast followed, with Newt resorting to Salamandra's Flight occasionally to catch up.

He observed the rest of his group and noted that Dandelion hardly used any mana, relying mostly on his body. Meanwhile, the two women did the same as Newt, flaring mana from time to time, but he couldn't see any outward manifestation of whatever power they were using.

Newt expected they would stop at a tavern shortly before sunset, but he was wrong. By the time the sun rose on the next day, the party had covered well over sixteen hundred miles, steadily heading northward, ever deeper into the empire.

"We will rest here," Dandelion proclaimed, gradually slowing before he finally stopped.

Newt's back was wet, and his legs throbbed, his mana drained to around half capacity. Everlast and Puresnow also seemed winded, but Dandelion just smiled, not a drop of sweat on his brow.

"Sit, rest, meditate to replenish yourself." He took his own advice and sat on the grass, then pointed towards a nearby mountain entirely covered in snow. "We are heading for that mountain, aptly, if unoriginally, named Frostworm's Grave."

Dandelion paused. Newt was certain the man had expected a laugh or a chuckle, but other than the leaves and blossoms rustling in the wind, there was no sound.

"The entrance to the tunnel complex is some thirty miles away, and we will reach it with a light two-hour jog to warm up before fighting."

The women didn't get the joke of warming up before fighting in frigid caves, and Newt didn't find it funny either, assuming Dandelion was making puns.

You're better off when not trying to break the ice with jokes. Wait! Should I say that aloud? At least Dandelion would laugh. By the time Newt reached the decision, it was already too late to make a witty remark, and he would feel stupid if he broke the already long silence.

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So, they sat in silence for two hours, eyes closed, focused on meditation. Newt didn't need to enter his realm and focus on drawing mana from the environment, so instead he contemplated his realm blueprint and the possible improvements.

Unlike the second realm, Newt had no existing design to draw upon. He couldn't ask Dandelion to make one either, his debt had already reached the point where the former townlord would have every right to demand a slave contract drawn up.

No, Newt had to figure it out himself using the runes he knew and perhaps by perusing the scribes' guild's library. What he knew for a fact was that he needed to keep splitting the lava flows, but they were already stretched, each forking so many times they could be called rivulets instead of rivers.

There has to be a better way. If I split each flow into another three, lava will barely trickle down them. No, simply splitting the lava isn't the answer, but what else can I do?

"Two hours are up," Dandelion shouted, "Ladies and gentleman, are you ready to continue?"

Newt wanted to say, 'Sure,' but then Everlast and Puresnow stood and nodded without uttering a word, so he mirrored them and remained silent.

Dandelion also nodded, his expression grave to the extreme, but he winked at Newt and flashed him a half-face grin, positioned so that the women couldn't see the gesture and break the serious mask he showed the other two.

How do you even—?

Newt guessed the man had practiced that exact face, but didn't want to know how idle Dandelion must have been to waste time on such frivolous tasks.

The team of four ran through blooming forests and flowery meadows for an hour and a half before the land turned frosty, and the spring's warm air vanished, giving way to an unending winter.

The mountain's jagged peaks loomed over them, but Dandelion pointed towards the base instead.

"There is the entrance."

Newt looked down and saw the closing jaw of a giant monster. The maw was a black hole in the white mountainside, with giant spiky teeth rising from the ground and stabbing down from the above. Given the distance, it must have been at least fifty feet from top to bottom.

"Is that the dead frostworm's mouth?" Newt asked, shuddering as he imagined the monster's size. Then he recalled Magmin, and for the first time truly realized that the mountain range his clan was living on might very well be the tiny serpent's eons-old corpse.

If Magmin grew by a factor of ten each time he evolved, he would have been thousands or millions of miles long. Newt shuddered at the thought, but Dandelion mistook it as his fear of the frostworm.

"No need to be alarmed." The experienced man reassured the youth. "That is a hole the ancient frostworm dug ages ago. The teeth are mundane icicles, and the most powerful manabeast residing inside the cave system should be at the fifth realm. Are you ready for this?"

Everlast and Puresnow gave Newt a cold look, but he had accepted that stare as the norm. Instead of minding them, he gave Dandelion a confident nod.

"Let's go," he said, and took the lead to prove that he wasn't afraid.

Seventy yards from the entrance, the unnaturally cold air bit through Newt's clothes, the pain almost tangible, his skin turning red. Newt activated Magmin Scales without hesitation, instantly banishing the ice invading his body, and just in case examined himself with a flick of his will, but found no traces of foreign mana permeating his body.

He turned around and found the ladies from the Everfrost Order unaffected. They even seemed more comfortable than he had ever seen them. And Dandelion, Newt squinted, a useless gesture made out of habit as he forced his mindcore to scrutinize the former townlord, but he found nothing out of the ordinary.

Dandelion was not a void, like Lady Frostgrave, but he was resisting the chill and moving at his prodigious speed without enhancing himself with mana.

Still running while looking back, Newt tripped on a chunk of ice harder than a rock. As he fell, he sent a gust of warm air in front of his chest, melting snow and propelling himself upwards. He somersaulted and perfectly landed on his feet.

"Showoff," Dandelion poked fun at Newt with a smile as he ran past him.

Newt took a moment to gather his bearings and started running again, this time last in the group.

Everlast and Puresnow stopped in front of the fifty-foot-tall pillars of ice. They drew their swords and stared into the darkness. Dandelion was a step slower, a thick black staff wrought of metal held in two hands, his backup weapon wrapped in cloth and strapped to his back.

Unlike the frowning women, he was relaxed, but constantly pumping faint pulses of orange-red mana into his weapon.

Newt arrived last, his face showing similar worries as the two women, or so he thought.

This is way over our head. A fifth realm monster can destroy us with a sneeze. He stared into the black hole and the torrent of bluish-white mana gushing from it.

"Ladies, remember your master's instruction," Dandelion said. "Ice jade marrow certainly is important for your progress and the tools and elixirs you need, but your lives are more important."

Ice jade marrow?

The women glared at Dandelion, who just kept talking.

"In all matters relating to combat, exploration, and taking risks, you are to consult me and obey me as you would your master. Those are your master's orders, are they not?"

What? Newt stared at the three of them, the Everfrost Order's mageknights' silence and foul mood suddenly justified.

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