"What?" Astrid asked the air. She didn't seem to realize that I was the one responsible for what she was seeing.

"That's what saved my life. It is a tool to make you stronger. Made me strong enough to kill, shit, 3 Eaters. But, you don't have to take it. If you say no, I'll still try to help you and make sure we get out of here in one piece. But if you have this, it's going to help a lot," I replied.

Astrid frowned. Unlike Pops, she didn't rush to accept the System.

"Will I change?"

"Only physically, and I don't mean your appearance. You'll be stronger, faster, more resilient. And you will have a voice in your head that you can talk to. You'll also be able to get skills, powerful abilities that seem like magic, like the thing I did with the boulder," I pointed to the barricaded door.

Astrid looked at the door, and then at me for a long moment, staring deep into my eyes. She suddenly winced, clearly in pain because of her stomach. Despite that, she nodded, "OK."

I felt the particles leaving my body and rushing to Astrid's. I knew that in just a couple of minutes, she would have full access to the System.

"A couple of things. There are two skills that I want to share with you, one to help you heal, and another for you to level up faster. If you don't understand what that means, don't worry about it. The System will explain it. But you're going to need some food," I quickly rummaged in my pouch. I had left the backpack at Astrid's house, but I still had some basic supplies with me, even if there was nothing I could use for bandages. I really should change that. "Finish integration first, and then let me know so I can give you {Body Regeneration}. Then you can eat. Trust me, it will all make sense."

Astrid just nodded, but her eyes were focused somewhere else. While she was finishing up integration, I turned to the fireman's axe. I still could feel the particles inside of it and a part of me hoped this was some sort of special item, like a weapon from a game with special attributes.

'Sys, what does this actually do? Does it have any special power, or is it just sturdier?'

[Analyzing....]

[Analyzing...]

[Analysis complete. Display information about the item in question.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Frosted Axe - Rank 2 (Aspirant)

The cold environment permeated the very essence of this weapon, increasing its resilience and making it so the weapon is always cold to the touch.

Cold Edge:

Passive - Uncharged

Charge required: 1 Energy

Duration: 24 hours

The years beneath the ice created a frozen blade capable of piercing even the toughest of hides.

If the weapon is charged with energy, the blade of the axe will be covered with cold energy, increasing the damage dealt by the attacks.

Frozen Crash:

Active

Cost: 2 Energy

The ice lying underneath this weapon is always ready to strike.

Sharp shards of ice will be launched from the edge of the axe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'You know I have questions, right?' I asked the System.

[System agrees that was a likely possibility. What is user's first question?]

'What does the uncharged mean? I think I know what it is, but I want confirmation.'

[Unlike a user, items, for the most part, are unable to generate Energy by themselves. However, it is possible for items to have passive skills. Those skills might require energy to be activated. When the required Energy is given to the item, the passive skill will remain active until the end of its duration. Passive skills on items will always have a considerable duration. If skill {Cold Edge} lasted only a couple of hours, it would not be considered a passive.]

'If you need to activate it, it's not actually a passive, is it? It's more like a long duration buff.'

[That is a valid interpretation of the skill. Does user wish to change the name of the classification passive for skills in items?]

I tried to think about a better name for this, but nothing came to mind. Calling it temporary buff felt weird and aura wasn't exactly right. 'No, you can keep that. But just confirm I have to give Energy to the item to activate it, right? And can I use the other skill without activating the passive?'

[Correct. In order to activate the passive, it is necessary for the wielder of the weapon to send the required Energy. User is able to activate each skill individually. In most situations they will not interfere with each other.]

'Fair enough. And how do items become like this? Do they have to be in dungeons or can I make one somehow?'

[Items can receive skills if they are in an environment saturated with SP. It is also possible that certain skills would allow user to develop items with various skills themselves. However, System is unable to identify the path for the creation of any such skill at the moment. More data is required.]

"Cass?" Astrid spoke up, which made me stop talking with the System.

"Is the integration over?"

"Yes."

"Ok, then here," I touched Astrid's shoulder and asked the System to send {Body Regeneration} to her. "Just so I know, how much Energy do you have right now?"

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Astrid looked to the wall, likely seeing her own status screen, "One."

"And Memory?" I asked.

"Three."

"Just like Pops then. Don't worry, start using {Body Regeneration}. I'll give you the one to level up faster after it, and if you want, I can give you Energy Storage so you can start gathering more Energy later. It's just going to take a while. To pass the skill takes a few hours."

Astrid just nodded and leaned back, closing her eyes.

"Hey, hey," I snapped my fingers in her face. "Stay with me. You're really hurt right now and it's really cold here. It's not a good idea for you to sleep. Hold on until you use {Body Regeneration} a couple of times. Then I think it'll be safe for you to sleep. Here, start eating," I pulled some jerky and gave it to her. If memory serves me right, it would take around 2 hours for the meat to convert into one point of energy. Maybe we would get lucky and things would synchronize really well.

There wasn't much to do in the next hours. I wasn't about to leave Astrid alone. Not to mention she was injured, and she didn't really have a way to move. But that also confirmed the problem. The dungeon was cold, extremely so. The only reason that wasn't an issue so far was because we were constantly on the move. Now that we had stopped, our body temperature was getting lower and lower. When it came time for us to sleep, that would be a big problem. And I was under no illusion we would be able to leave this place today.

A part of me wanted to just go out and start looking for something that could help. Maybe I could even find one of those bears, kill them and sleep inside its carcass. There was a scene in a movie Pops loved that was similar to that. It would also help if there was any way to start a fire. The storage to the side of this room had a bunch of wooden scraps. Blue wood, sure, but those should burn just as well, even if it would be harder for them to catch on fire. Or at least, that's what I was assuming. Since this kind of wood was changed by the particles inside the cave, they might also have some ice attributes.

I didn't even notice when {Body Regeneration} finished copying to Astrid. What I did notice was her attempt at getting up.

"What are you doing?"

"We must leave."

"No, we don't. You're not in any condition to walk around," I held her in place, being careful not to make her wounds even worse.

"The skill helps."

"That's kind of the point. While it helps, it doesn't fix everything, not this quickly," I pulled her shirt up, the wound on her side was getting better. In fact, I could clearly see it slowly closing. While the skill was currently active, "are you in pain?"

"No."

"That's because of this skill. It numbs you until it's over. You're still hurt, you still need rest. Sit down. Also, we might have a few problems."

Astrid slumped back to the floor, her body unable to sustain her weight. Between all the blood she lost and the fight with the bear, she had to be exhausted. "What problem?" she asked with a half groan.

"Before I tell you, I need you to promise me you're going to sit still. Don't rush off, don't try to do anything. We are going to handle this, but we need time and planning. Understood?" I was honestly scared about what would happen once I told her about what was waiting outside. I was pretty sure that was the creature that killed her father, or at least was responsible for her father's death. If I were in her shoes, it would be hard not to rush out and try to kill it.

"Understood."

"Just for the record, if you try anything I am going to knock you out," I paused but Astrid didn't say anything back. "The tunnel outside leads to the Ice Devil's nest, or lair, whatever you want to call it. And the monster is there, but it's much bigger than us, it's much stronger than us, and it can kill us quickly. So we're going to need to be careful here and make a good plan before going after it."

Astrid glanced at the entrance with wide eyes. She paused for a moment as I got ready to wrestle her back to the ground. Yet, instead she turned to me and nodded, "Ok, but we kill it."

"We kill it. I might not have a personal connection to it, but I don't like the idea of leaving something like that near a village, even if the people who live there are a bit annoying."

"Plan?" Astrid asked.

"I'm still working on it. For now, you need to recover, and I need to see if I can find something to keep us warm for the night. I still have some water, but worst-case scenario, we can drink the ice that's covering the walls. It would be better if we could boil that first. I'm not sure if bacteria will be affected by the System," I frowned.

"What?"

"Oh? You didn't get that far? Ask your System about Dungeons and how the particles affect monsters and other creatures. I can help fill in the blanks but it knows more than I do. Also, keep using {Body Regeneration} every time you get energy. I will give you another skill later. It's called {Quick Tier 1 Evolution}. It's going to help you level faster so you can get stronger quicker. Ask the System about the tiers. It's better if it explains it to you. Now, I'm going to try to go outside. This was supposed to be an old gold mine, so maybe there's still something that was left behind that we can use to get warm."

Astrid looked at the rock blocking the entrance and nodded, "Be careful."

I gave her a thumbs up and checked the passage to see if there was any noise coming from the other side. Since the coast seemed clear, with another two uses of {Compression} I quickly opened and closed the entrance of that room. To my right I could see the large form of the Ice Devil in the distance, but it looked like the creature was still sleeping.

Heading deeper into the mines, I continued searching for something. There was a strange lack of other bears in the area. According to what I heard before the ground collapsed, there should be a lot more around here. Then again, the Ice Devil was nearby. It is possible that they were staying away from its territory, but that didn't explain what happened with the ones that fell along with us.

After around 20 minutes of careful walking with the Frosted Axe in my hands, I started to get worried. The tunnels here followed the same non-pattern as the ones above. It was very easy to get lost in the middle of all these corridors that were seemingly random. What if I wasn't able to get back to Astrid? Even if she recovered, there was a chance she wouldn't be able to get out of the door. After all, the lock was able to hold back a bear, a Tier 1 bear at that. Maybe someone who just got the System wouldn't be able to break through.

Deciding I had spent too long trying to find something, I entered one last room just in case before heading back. Every single larger opening I found only led to more corridors or mostly empty spaces, only with scraps of wood or metal. There was no bone, no storage facility, no weapons, no tools, nothing. But this last place was different. It was smaller than any of the other rooms and there was a large table in the back with some broken down tools like a hammer, a pickaxe, and some other smaller ones that were too rusted and broken for me to recognize. There was a metal box to the left with a padlock holding it shut.

I didn't even have to use the axe for this. Just by yanking the lock, the thing fell apart. But inside wasn't a weapon like I was hoping. Instead was an old broken down lantern, the kind of thing that would be considered old even for the old world. And to the side was a small piece of metal with a wooden handle and a chisel attached to it. I had seen something similar one time when a merchant showed up in the Hidden Horn Village. He said this was a fire starter. If you struck the metal rod with the chisel, sparks would fly and that could ignite a fire. But for that to work, I would need something very flammable.

Taking a shot in the dark, I grabbed the lantern and opened the small internal piece where people would put the oil. I doubted anything would have lasted from the old world, but I could at least take a look. To my surprise, there was still some wet mush inside it, and by the smell, it was oil not simply water. With this, I might be able to create a fire for the two of us back where Astrid was.

Satisfied with that small expedition, I grabbed everything I could, including some wooden scraps and pieces of metal that were not too rusted, and ran back to the room near the Ice Devil, hoping that nothing went wrong while I was away.