CHRISTOPHER'S POV

Day 42

Huff, Huff.

My body hurt from the strain, but I powered through. Sweat was dripping down into my eyes but I was almost done and it would only take a little more.

I was doing the best I could and it was still threatening to fall apart. I could see parts of it shaking and about to fall. I had to double down and firm my grip to make sure that it all held.

"Hurry up, I don't know how much longer I can do this." My words fell on deaf ears.

In no more of a hurry than before I spoke, she put the finishing touches on, taking her sweet time. Now that she was down, I could relax. It wouldn't do to have a little girl fall from that high.

A round of applause rippled out from the crowd that gathered around us and I carried Anna back to admire our work.

It was flawless.

The snowman reached over 12 feet tall and the hat fit perfectly. Anna couldn't reach high enough to put the hat on, so I had to hold her up, while also holding the snowman together with [Ice Manipulation].

I never knew something so inconspicuous took so much effort. Creating the ice with [Hail] was the easy part, shaping it into what Anna considered the right shape was hard. I had to hold three separate balls of ice in the right shape before getting all of it according to her specifications. Admittedly, I could have made it easier on myself and done it one at a time, but that wasn't the point.

Trying to think of ways to train [Ice Manipulation] was hard, I had just been juggling a few pieces in the air when the thought of making a snowman popped into my head. It was just a random thing to make and I thought it would be funny, so I did it. Once Anna saw what I was doing she demanded to be able to help. By help, she meant to take over.

I had been using my skill to shape the ice into the right shape, but what I thought about how to do it was wrong apparently. Anna would shout out instructions of what to do and how I was doing it wrong. I would have to comply with her orders or face her wrath... of pouting until I did what she said.

How big it was, where it was placed, how oval-y it looked. Even how round it was. I never knew there were so many specifications for a snowman. This was turning out to be a great way to train the skill. I could feel the strain of holding it all together simultaneously.

When I first got the skill, I could barely shape the ice into what I wanted, now, I could do it with much finer detail. It was still rough, but better than before. As my control increased, so did the range.

The better I got at the skill, the further away I could control it. It still wasn't anything huge and only extended to about 15 feet, but it was farther than when the skill started. It started at 10 feet and it had already increased by 50%. Lack of familiarity in sensing the ice was the main reason I thought that it increased so quickly. That was also the reason it was so low to begin with. You couldn't manipulate what you couldn't feel.

I didn't know how much my affinity was helping me, but I could feel the increase from day to day. I was getting better at it with each passing day and the more I practiced.

My initial thought when I got the skill was to make weapons made of ice and wield them instead of my axe. I wouldn't have to worry about my axe breaking if I could make one out of ice. That idea didn't pan out well. I could do it, but it was fragile. I should have known that if I was deforming iron with my swings, ice wouldn't fare any better.

For some reason, I thought Magic Ice would be different. Instinctively, I knew there was a way to strengthen it, but I wasn't there yet. It had only been a few days since I got the skill and asking it to hold up to my strength was a bit much.

The ice was most effective being shot out at my targets. I didn't know if it was my familiarity with firearms that was the reason why this was the most effective or if it was something else.

Shaping the ice into an icicle wasn't that hard and then all I had to do was shoot it away from me. Aiming was something to get used to, but it wasn't that bad. What surprised me was that what I was doing was considered throwing.

How I knew that was because [Throwing Weapon Proficiency] activated when I did it for the first time. The skill had a subtle activation, but I could feel it, and I saw the bonus was applied because the icicle flew faster. After some testing, it revealed it only activated when the ice left my range of manipulation.

I guess it wasn't considered throwing if I could still manipulate it. Anything over 15 feet was considered a throw, for whatever reason. I didn't consider it throwing but I wasn't going to say anything.

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Looking back on it now, I wanted to slap past me. [Throwing Weapon Proficiency] was not a very useful skill and I could have picked something far better if I'd known more. I think it was a mixture of not wanting to get up close and personal with the monsters while also wanting a ranged skill that I even chose it.

It would have been a useful skill if my main way to attack was with throwing knives or throwing axes, but it wasn't. I still used the skill almost every fight but there were better ones out there I could have gotten.

Live and learn I guess.

Seeing how effective my makeshift ice bolt was, I ended up purchasing the skill version of it. The waves having more and more monsters had the side effect of giving me more and more points after I killed them. I was swimming in the points lately and I still had some left over after buying two skills.

With the new price tag of 5,000 points a skill, I had to be a little more cautious of what I got. I still had impulsive feelings toward certain skills but I worked to curb them into something useful. [Meditation] was the first one I bought.

Seeing how effective it was after Austin got it, it was a no-brainer. I had initially dismissed the skill because I didn't think that it would be useful. Yeah, increased mana regen and healing sounded good, but I didn't have a lot of skills that used mana initially and we had healers for healing.

I wouldn't need the increased regeneration if we had healers and I didn't use mana. How shortsighted that was. [Meditation] was better than I originally gave it credit for. Now with the disparity in levels between me and the healers, it was more important than ever to have a way to heal myself.

It was by no means quick, but Austin was up and walking around after the 10th wave while I was still bedridden. After using the skill for a few hours he was in good enough shape to fight again. He wasn't good enough to fight off another wave, but enough to be useful in a fight if it came to that.

I, on the other hand, was useless for over a day. A feeling that didn't give off happy and warm thoughts while I was lying in bed.

The skill was straightforward and there wasn't much else to say about it. I had been using it more frequently after I got [Ice Manipulation]. It was easy to get carried away while practicing and run out of mana.

The second skill I bought was [Ice Bolt]. I wanted a faster way to use my icicles as a weapon and a skill that formed them for me was perfect. My affinity made the skill more effective and it paired well with [Ice Manipulation].

I had compared with Alice on who's skill was better and I beat her easily. She had more magic stats than I did but didn't have the affinity for ice that I did. I thought for sure that she would, given that she had multiple ice skills, but she didn't.

Her affinity was for water. She said that it kind of felt like it helped, but not by much. I thought it was all in her head because the results were clear.

My [Ice Bolt] was all around better than hers. It was faster than hers and it did more damage. Turning off [Ice Manipulation] evened the odds and made hers just barely better. I had the affinity and my higher level to negate the fact she had higher magic stats. If we had the same magic stats it wouldn't even be close.

It seemed that having an affinity for the element drastically increased its power. Surprising, I know, but the difference was clear when seeing it side by side. There had to be a reason that my skill did so well compared to hers.

At first, I thought that magic was just a matter of having the higher intelligence stat, but that proved false. She had over double the amount of intelligence that I had and it still turned out that way. There had to be something else at play, like strength of spirit or something. The spirit seems to be the commonality over everything we've learned so far.

The guide in the white room at the beginning mentioned it and the alien Cypteris said something about it during his class. It seemed like a bigger deal than what we were giving it credit for.

But how was my spirit stronger? Was it my total stats? So many questions and so few answers. I guess stats weren't everything.

I pulled up my Status to look at it now that I was thinking about it.

Name: Christopher Zalenski

Race: (G) Human

Class: (G) Arctic Barbarian(Uncommon) – Level 22

Profession: (G) Novice Blacksmith(Common) – Level 14

Faction: Zalenski Family (Temporary)

Strength- 140

Agility- 58

Perception- 16

Fortitude- 64

Endurance- 78

Vitality - 40

Intelligence- 15

Wisdom- 20

Acumen- 16

Free Points: 0

Laws: None

Class Skills: Heavy Blow(Uncommon), Fortified Body(Common), Throwing Weapon Proficiency(Beginner), Identify(Common), Penetrating Strike(Common), Sweeping Slash(Common), Ice Wall(Common), Heavy Armor Proficiency(Beginner), Heavy Weapon Proficiency(Novice), Body of a Barbarian(Uncommon), Barbarian's Rage(Common), Hail(Common), Ice Manipulation(Common), Meditation(Common), Ice Bolt(Common)

Profession Skills: Sense Metal(Common), Create Weapon(Crude), Create Armor(Crude)

Coins: 0

Points: 7,671

My stats had exploded over the past 4 waves. Carrying the momentum from the 10th wave where I got 3 levels, I got 2 more per wave until the 13th. I had only gotten one level in the last two waves bringing me to level 22.

I was getting closer to the next evolution and I couldn't help but note the blank section on my status.

Laws: None

The coins section was also blank but that was different. Coins were the currency of the multiverse and we weren't able to get them while we remained in the tutorial. The Law section remaining blank kept drawing my eye and it stuck out like a sore thumb.

My skills were this overflowing list while the laws remained blank. I knew that my feats were incorporated into what kind of evolution I got and it was grating to think that I would evolve again while leaving it blank.

No one in our camp had a law, so it wasn't like I was behind or anything, but it was still annoying to look at. I wanted to get the strongest evolution I could and a law would help. I wouldn't go for anything fancy like karma or divination, but was an ice law too much to ask for?

I would have to do something to fix that. Maybe Austin had some ideas.

I wonder when everyone else in the multiverse gets a law?