Hours passed.

A few more hours passed.

The first rays of sunlight started to peak over the horizon.

"What am I doing wrong?" exasperation colored my tone.

I had been at this for the entire night and the sun was already beginning to rise. A full night with nothing to show for it.

I tried everything I could think of to gain 'enlightenment' and comprehend a law, but nothing worked. I spent most of my time just exploring the feeling I had during the boss fight.

Something about it made it feel like it was the right direction but no matter what I did, it remained elusive. To make my ice denser I had to make it colder, those two were linked somehow and I didn't know how.

I knew the science behind it but that did little to help. As things got colder, molecules slowed down and got closer together, therefore becoming denser. I knew that theoretically, it was practically that I was having trouble.

Having magic powers for a little over a month wasn't enough time to learn the ins and outs I needed to make this easier.

To make something denser, the space between the atoms needed to shrink. The same amount of mass had to take up less space. Simple math. Except compressing it did absolutely nothing.

Every time I tried to squeeze the ice I was manipulating, it would shatter. Every attempt to make my ice denser resulted in ice shards exploding in my face.

There was something I was missing and for the life of me, I couldn't figure it out.

After repeated failures trying to compress the ice, I tried to make it colder. Ice by itself wasn't really that cold in the grand scheme of things, but if I could decrease the temperature, it would do more damage.

I didn't know the exact time it took for frostbite to set in for normal snow, but it was all dependent on temperature. I'd spent many a day in the snow throwing snowballs without gloves on and had all my fingers still working.

The current ice I summoned was like normal mundane snow and ice that fell from the sky during winter. I needed it to be more like what fell in the Arctic Circle on the coldest of winter days that only took moments for permanent damage to set in.

I wanted a way for it to be more damaging.

Knowing it was possible and accomplishing it were two different things. The skill description for [Frostbite] came out and said it was possible.

Frostbite(Uncommon) – Augment your blows with ice mana, injecting whatever hit with a chilling cold. Adds to the penetrating power of your strikes while leaving a cold damage over time effect.

Lasting damage over time was the exact effect I was going for. If I could get the law that strengthened my ice, then I could accomplish what the skill did manually.

Sadly, it ended in more failure. Pushing more mana into the ice didn't make it any colder, it just created more. [Ice Manipulation] didn't work the way I was trying to make it. Picking up a piece of ice with it and shoving mana into it didn't do what I intended.

It was more like my [Sense Metal] skill. The more mana I sent into the ice, the closer I felt to it. I felt the crystals more closely and the imperfections in the way they froze. It was like putting it under a magnifying glass and telling me all its secrets.

Stray thoughts plagued me the entire time. Questions came up with every action I took and I didn't have the information to answer them. When I used [Hail], where did the ice come from?

Did it draw in and freeze the moisture in the air? If that was the case, how did I create so much of it? A few casts of [Ice Wall] would drain the surroundings of moisture.

If it wasn't from the moisture in the air, where did it come from? Was it conjured up from the mana spent on the skill? If that was the case, why did it feel so real?

For all intents and purposes, the ice felt real. It melted in the warm temperature, it was cold to the touch, and it cracked and shattered like ice. With my level of power, it was indistinguishable from normal ice.

My thoughts spiraled further after that line of questioning. If my ice was real, what about other mana conjurations? Could a metal skill create actual metal? How would the market for that work economically? Would anyone mine for metal again?

My mind wouldn't settle down. All of the questions I had bottled up since the start of the tutorial came to the surface now that I had the time to relax and think about them.

It was slightly infuriating to have it happen now when I wished to be thinking about something else.

At the start, a part of me let my mind wander so I could get a break from the futility of what I was doing, and now getting it to stop after I started down the rabbit hole was difficult.

Instead of trying to refocus my mind, I attempted something different.

I had felt it ever since I entered the snowy region of the mountain and I wished to explore it more.

The surrounding ice mana felt pure and untainted from most other mana types which made my body feel great. It was like sitting in a sauna. Every breath was easier and I could feel the mana working its way through my system.

Over the previous days, tracking the mana flowing through me got easier and [Meditation] helped tremendously. It helped me focus inward and watch the mana as it flowed around my body in a circuit.

There was a specific circulatory system specifically for mana that ran all the way through my body reaching every spot. Thick branches split off into my appendages before splitting further into my phalanges.

Looking at it deeply with [Meditation] showed that the mana in my system was mainly ambient mana or neutral mana. Mana without an affinity. There was still ice mana there but it wasn't as prominent as I thought it would be.

There wasn't a lot we knew about affinities and at first, I thought that they would make all the mana in my system into that type of mana.

Over time I realized that way of thinking was wrong. After I spent an amount of mana my body worked to pull more of it from the surroundings to replenish it. Whatever affinity the mana was in the area was what I pulled in.

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In camp, it was majority plant and earth, with nature and wind there as well but not as common as plant and earth. My body pulled in the mana and set about cleansing it.

I first noticed this when I was injured and had slept for almost an entire day. That 17-hour sleep was the longest time I had gone without using mana. After seeing what happened, I made time to investigate further and discuss what I found with Rachel.

She was the leading expert we had with all things relating to magic and we came up with what we thought was the answer.

The affinity a person had worked kind of like dialysis. It took in and filtered the mana in the body getting rid of other affinities, or cleansing it, before working to raise the purity of the mana that remained.

It would first remove the affinity of unwanted mana, then turn it into the preferred mana. After doing that, it would work to raise its purity.

The only problem was I never gave it enough time to truly turn it into the ice mana I was experiencing here. I always used it so fast that my affinity had little time to do more than color it.

If we were in an area of ice and snow then it would be fine, but we weren't. The area we were in was detrimental to my affinity and I was finally feeling the difference here.

Austin had the same problem but his was easier to fix. Solar affinity was everywhere while the sun was up, it was just the process of making sure you absorbed it instead of the plant mana that was around it.

Using [Meditation] it was possible to manually direct what mana you absorbed but it took a lot of effort until you got used to it. I never bothered with it because it didn't matter what mana I took in, none of it was useful.

I had heard Austin complain about it being difficult to Rachel while we practiced and I couldn't help but make fun of him. It was possible to do it without using [Meditation] but it took a level of skill that required training.

Most of the time we practiced, Rachel would sit around the campfire for the fire mana it released. That led to another discovery, opposite mana types took longer to 'cleanse'.

It took longer for my affinity to work through the fire mana than it did with the others.

After making fun of Austin for complaining about how hard it was to absorb specific mana, I had to eat my words when I found out how difficult it was. I wasn't even trying to absorb specific affinities, all I was doing was trying not to absorb the fire mana.

Even with the lessened difficulty, it still took a while to get the hang of it.

None of that I had to worry about here though. All around me was Ice mana with only a few undertones of other affinities. The snow carried with it a hint of water mana and the occasional breeze brought wind mana. The sun in the sky created solar mana and the moon did the same for lunar. Dusk and dawn brought shadow mana that varied in density throughout the day.

There weren't a lot of trees up on the mountain and there weren't many shadows to be found. It was when the shadows were cast from the nearby mountains that shadow mana was the most commonly found.

There were others as well but those were the main ones. All of them were smothered by ice mana though and it was exactly what I wanted.

I used it to flush out my system of other affinities and leave only the pure ice mana behind. I wanted to saturate my body in it to connect with it on a deeper level.

If meditating didn't work, I would seek other ways to deepen my connection with ice mana.

It carried with it a feeling of rejuvenation and it felt like getting a full-body message. This was the first time my entire system was filled with ice mana and I dreaded the thought of leaving.

I spent a long while just basking in the feeling.

Without time to waste, I didn't dally long.

I let my actions flow and worked more on instinct than anything else, I pulled some of the snow together into the air in front of me.

I wanted to create the perfect ice.

Sending my mana into the blob of snow, I worked to condense it down into ice while also using my mana to sense what was happening. When the ice crystals didn't align, I broke it and did it again.

I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted none of the imperfections that I felt when saturating it with my mana, none of the deficiencies in the crystalline structure. It was like making something in the forge to the best of my ability. This piece of ice would be my masterpiece.

Letting my mind wander and only really focusing on the structure of the ice, I wasn't aware of what I was making. Without my conscious mind to guide it, my subconscious took over.

Thoughts of how I was going to prepare my next weapon had filled my thoughts for a while and imprinted the design onto my subconscious.

A long handle of ice 5 feet long built itself into reality. Constantly breaking apart before being formed again. Any imperfections would not be tolerated. Every destruction and consequent reconstruction took time, but I didn't notice.

My mind was somewhere else and didn't notice the sun streaking across the sky at a quick pace.

The handle was about wrist thick and after it extended out 5 feet, the changes shifted to one end.

The hammerhead would be the coup de grace of my work so I saved it for last.

The other end needed some ornamentation and couldn't be left as it was.

When I designed the Warhammer in my mind, I thought of a few ways to cap the other end. Many things could have worked but I went for the most common.

A weighted ball on the end to provide some semblance of balance while also giving me the option to hit things with it. Using it as a weapon wouldn't be its main purpose but it was still a possibility, like the butt end of a spear.

Making it a perfect sphere would work, but I wanted to add a little flair, so I flattened two sides of it for room to add a marker. In the few times I let my mind wander to the possibilities of what was to come when we returned to earth, I fantasized about heraldry.

Ancient knights with coats of arms and sigils were used throughout most of history and were the mark of a family or clan. Family sigils from 'Game of Thrones' came to mind and I wanted to make one for myself. They weren't used anymore and our family didn't have one, but I still thought they were cool.

I imprinted a miniature version onto both sides of the pommel before moving onto the head. The sigil was so small that no one would be able to tell it was there except me, but that was all that mattered.

Moving to the head created the hardest difficulty. I needed to connect it to the shaft in such a way that it wouldn't snap off when I hit something. I reinforced that area with as much ice as I could without hindering the final product.

Still not aware of what I was making, the ice grew out into two massive hammerheads to either side. I made it symmetrical along the handle axis so that it was balanced.

Both hammerheads grew from the center, breaking and reforming where it was appropriate and the ice didn't form correctly.

From my experience in the forge, my subconscious knew that the face of the hammer needed to be hardened. If this were metal, I would quench the weapon to harden the steel. Since this was ice, I couldn't do that.

I kept breaking the ice that formed and trying again. Nothing I made was right and my mind worked on autopilot to break it down. I needed it harder. I needed it denser. I needed it colder.

I required a weapon that would hold up to my strength. I needed one that wouldn't break against the waves. I needed a weapon that would help me protect my family.

I threw everything into making it the best weapon I could.

All of my thoughts and feelings, my worries and regrets, my hopes and prayers. I pushed with my entire spirit to make it the best weapon I could.

It was almost there, I could feel it. I was just missing one more thing.

To make an ice that would last, I needed one to be able to last through the seasons. Normal ice wouldn't work. That ice wasn't meant to last. It would melt when the rains of spring and the heat of summer came.

No. I needed ice that would last. Ice from the poles that had stood the test of time and had lasted. Ice that had been around for millions of years. I was an Arctic Barbarian. I needed Arctic Ice.

I pushed with everything I had and sweat began to build up on my brow. Even in the cold, I was working up a sweat.

The ice I required took time to form and I didn't want to rush the process.

I sat and pushed for what felt like hours. The sun had long set and it would be soon time for me to leave. I knew I was close, just a little more time.

My mind threatened to give out but I pushed through it. [Ice Manipulation] was taking its toll and keeping it active for so long made my mind feel like it was splitting apart. My spirit strained against what I was putting it through but I didn't give up.

I finally knew what I needed and there was no way I was going to give up now. I needed this to protect my family and I would sooner die than give up.

It was when the sun started to rise that I finally felt it.

At first, I thought the pressure I was putting on it shattered the ice, but I was wrong.

It condensed down and became the ice I needed it to be. It would stand the test of time.

A notification chimed in the background and I felt a new connection with my surroundings snap into place but I didn't worry about any of that.

My mind needed a break and my spirit was on its last legs. I needed to rest.

It was with a sense of accomplishment that I laid on the ground to rest. Worrying about the cold was a thing of the past and I covered myself with snow before closing my eyes.

I never did use that tent.