Ethan opened his eyes as his brows knitted and the veins on his forehead bulged because he had found himself in the Kingdom of Extreme Frost once again.

"Can't a man even sleep peacefully after having a long day?" Ethan fumed throwing a childish fit as he looked around, only to see the same spot where he had spawned the last time.

"Oh come on! Are you serious right now? This game doesn't even have auto-save? I'm just gonna spawn at the starting point every fucking time?"

Ethan muttered as he was very tempted to just sleep right there and not be worrying about some bullshit gaining more power stuff. Fortunately, to his better judgment—the logical side of his brain prevailed over the lazy side in the end.

And therefore, Ethan once again began his journey to the pinnacle. His goal was once again the snowy mountain visible far ahead.

The place was the same just as before, it was extremely white as the sunlight which who knew from where came reflected all over the place by inches and inches deep piles of snow and frost.

While there were also the eternal burning Flames of The Extreme Frost still blazing vigorously all around. The winds were still harsh, blowing a bull load of snow on Ethan as he walked forward against the flow.

As he walked forward, Ethan also noticed a few changes from the last time he had been there. This time his eyes were completely aligned with the atmosphere as he could see everything very clearly.

Secondly, as he walked, the whole place itself seemed to be slowly bonding with him as he took each step forward. It was as if the locks in his mind were constantly unlocking while new mysterious knowledge entered his soul.

It wasn't something that he could read out loud or write down, or even understand himself for that matter, it was something incomprehensible yet fundamental like breathing that simply existed in him.

Ethan guessed that this exact feeling was called gaining affinity with one's blessing. This exact feeling was the root of gaining more powers of the blessing as well as unlocking more of its aspects.

On the bad side though, it became increasingly difficult to take each step forward. As if with each step he took the knowledge that entered his soul weighed the same as mountains.historical

A few hours passed and Ethan was pretty close to the spot where he had left off the previous time. He was walking steadily as the pressure on him had already accumulated a lot. Regardless though, this time he was able to handle it better than the last time.

"Perhaps, the more powerful I become the more I can cope with this damned pressure thingy?" Ethan muttered as he breathed heavily, gasping for breath.

The snowy plains eventually ended and a frozen lake came into view, with a long icicle as his support, Ethan moved forward.

Carefully putting his every step forward on the frozen lake, Ethan began making his way to the other side trying not to break the ice beneath him.

"It looks frozen hard enough.." Ethan muttered as he poked the ice with his icicle pike and walked forward slowly.

He successfully passed halfway through without any problem. Just as he was thinking that there would be no problem crossing over, the wind suddenly blew increasingly faster as the blizzard intensified.

Ethan had no choice but to put all his weight on the ice pike to not get swept away by the monstrous wind. On top of that, he was also mentally and physically exhausted due to the strange laws of the place.

"Crack!"

Suddenly the sound of cracking rang in his ears. Ethan saw below his feet despite the snowstorm hitting straight at his face and noticed that the ice below his feet was cracking at an alarming rate.

"Damn this place is fucking with me! How can it crack? It should be hard enough to hold!" Ethan cried out in panic.

Although Ethan knew that he would not die if anything happened to him in the special domain he could still feel pain and it would simply be terrifying to get trapped under a frozen lake. The only saving grace for him was that the freezing temperature did not affect him as much, but he knew better than to trust the laws of a strange place like the one he was at.

Ethan scrambled quickly to move away from the cracking base but the trivalent wind made him off-balanced.

The ice pike that he was using as a support also gave in as it broke in half and what Ethan feared finally happened.

"CRACK!"

"CRUMBLE!"

The ice below his feet, in the end, broke down as the ice crumbled and Ethan's feet submerged in the bone-chilling water underneath.

By pure luck, at the last moment, Ethan grabbed the edge of the hole in which he was sinking in. The wind was still blowing and even though he didn't feel cold, his hands were getting numb making it increasingly hard to grab onto the slippery edge.

"Agh! Oh, fuck me! The last time I went through nothing as this happened!" Ethan grumbled as he groaned in pain. He was starting to think that sleeping was the better option after all.

As the seconds passed by, the turbulent wind kept pushing him inside as one by one his fingers were losing the drip over the edge.

"This.. Won't do.. I haven't ever crossed my.. Last mark..yet!" Ethan thought as his brain began running at full horsepower trying to find a solution as soon as possible.

Ethan suspected that if he were to fall into the hole, he would most probably wake up in real life. That was unacceptable to him as he would lose an opportunity to make progress and gain more power.

Suddenly, looking around and seeing all the ice and snow—Ethan's eyes glowed with the light of hope.

He closed his eyes and focused on the source of his Ancestral Blessing along with all the mysterious knowledge he had gotten.

In a blink of an eye, the vague incomprehensible laws of nature in accord with the Element of Frost, Snow, and Ice flashed through his mind in the form of vivid archaic images.

The inner machinations of his Ancestral Blessing clicked in place just slightly like gears in clockwork as a string of unknown, mysterious as well as powerful words took form in his subconscious.

"Jal-syo' Hemam, Nirmana!"1 The words subconsciously slipped from his tongue in a muffled, faint but bold tone quite naturally as if he had known them from the very beginning for ages.

And then something finally occurred in Ethan's favor.

1 - I'm using Sanskrit here.

Jal - water

Hemam - Ice

Nirmana - Creation, Transform.