Chapter 14: A Snow Day

A kilometer, I hopped a good kilometer out of the dungeon pit. ‘A kilometer?’ Sure looks like it. Beats me.

From up above the pit, I saw a glimpse of a receding black dot on a sheet of snow. Quite noticeable. And I was, 'Quite comfortable if you ask me,' very much off-shooting the half-a-kilometer jump I was going for. If it was about an hour ago, I probably would’ve broken my legs. Excuse me if I’m acting nonchalant, I could still die from a fall of this height. I think. Maybe break an ankle or two.

I hadn't thought about the repercussions of falling from such a height until looking down upon the white sheets of snow.

"So, I guess I'm going to find out. " That's all I had to say, putting a damper on a few more of the gravitational threads pulling me down toward the ground.

A ground the average human would have trouble seeing through, especially with the wind and snow whipping across my face, forcing my jaws open. A gut feeling was all I had to go off of, but from the looks of it, I had more matter compacted in me than the dirt and grass hidden below all the surrounding snow.

Snow, snow, and more snow, you would think a world with such bountiful matter would have a person or two walking about,

Gravity is a web I can untangle myself from. It crossed my mind that I couldn't have accomplished this back on earth, even with caution. Especially with caution, Dada and I wouldn't have been able to grasp the power waiting at my fingertips, woven within me and Adena’s entire being. He probably wouldn't dare to let me reach such heights, wouldn't even let me sit on the refrigerator, so this was off the table.

My skin was sturdier than the ground below. Who could have imagined, not me? Soft and squishy on the outside, but what’s on the inside says otherwise.

The cold weather couldn't penetrate my brown skin. Even with an inhospitable environment, I still had [Pain Resistance] which was going strong. At the slightest notice of Frostbite, I'd let the dead skin cells fall off.

My body was getting used to the microscopic changes the system had made, a slight problem with not knowing how to turn my skills off. But I have no complaints. I was doing more with less, way less.

I could probably break a weighted scale without the [Density Defier] Skill. My weight shifted from light as a feather to putting a dent in four to five to six feet of snow. Maybe things were looking up, and by up I don’t mean the dark clouds vomiting snow for as far as I could see.

'Bing,' Now that's a great idea, it's just snow. I can see right through it. I wonder how far I’d have to look, but it shouldn’t be impossible for [Eyes of the Watcher] to find anything worth the watch. That would be funny on any other occasion.

'Please let there be civilization.' I’m blessed to not have to cover or open my eyes. I'd probably; be fine off if I were blind. My eyes feel like props from time to time. I felt like a prop from time to time.

Weather like this makes me miss, "I shouldn't dwell." Landing in a pile of snow, covering me from head to numb toes. I showed an aversion to the cold and frostbite creeping up my legs. This is so cool, these base stats are insane. I can already defy natural weather. I’m pretty sure fire would be a completely different obstacle. Snow is only a problem because of the cold and frostbite that comes with it.

I was lying to myself.

*Ping!* You have gained the skill [Frost Resistance]!

Isn’t that something? A minute there I wanted to call out for Adena, but I didn't want to wake her up while she was in nothing. She’d panic and probably lose herself in nothingness.

It's all good sleeping through nothing but being awake in that place is like nothing else. 'But If she was awake, maybe Adena could read the skill descriptions while I ran along.' I knew better. She wouldn't cut it. Better to bury the idea.

‘Ooh, Candralt’s icy landscapes are getting to me.’

Back to reality, no more what-ifs. Right now, I’m buried in a bunch of snow, and it’s very uncomfortable to move. My body generates heat, but it’s not enough to melt all of this stuff. Stupid idea.

"Keep the ball rolling Adi, what to do next," Easier on the mind to treat yourself like a toy, a boy, an inanimate object when the world only knows how to play rough.

Next, I got an idea, but no more [Dark Matter Manipulation], besides [Dark Matters Embrace] I can think about the possibilities some other time.

“Shelter,” Yup, shelter for Adena. Think about Adena... I can't feel my hands, feet, and nose, tuh-tuh toes.

I'm warm. I'm not cold at all.

“That's the spirit!” Looking around me, I narrowed my viewpoint after making sure there wasn’t anything dangerous creeping up on me while I settled in the snow to find a firm footing.

A soggy footing, slowly sinking in from body heat, and the weight, the weight of my dying world. A world being bombarded with endless barrages of snow.

"I'm fa-fa- fine," I can keep going. It's just water, lots and lots of water.

Water in every direction. Snow for miles.

First, a few meters from a ninety-degree angle, I saw snow. In two kilometers we have more snow and a few [Identifying]. Oh, so the skill requires a single thought. [Identification] goes hand in hand with my weird 'third eye', not a third eye. Let's not let the skill's name give us the wrong idea, Adi.

[Snow Rabbit], Okay, that’s something, in two more kilometers we have more snow and a [Cold Burrow], some type of tree.

"Doubt it," This is going to take forever. Let’s just speed this up, I doubt [Mind Over Matter] and [Eyes of the Watcher] will let me down.

Turning the good ole spying goggles up a notch, I focused on seeing everything in that direction. That direction, as in the direction facing the pile of snow clumped on my eyes, I'm lost. Let's not make it a big deal.

[Identification] was having a field day. Now and then random tags popped up whenever I saw groups of matter coalescing to form... [Tree], [Bird], [Rock], [Boulder], [Snow] that's stupid, [Bear] could I kill a bear? "Naked, and afraid." Back to identifying more trees, [Wolf], [Wolf], Wolves, Pack of Wolves.

*ping!* [Identification] has leveled up!

*ping!* [Identification] has leveled up!

Rotating another one hundred and eighty degrees in the snow, I let [Identification] rip. Wait, why the hell am I not hungry? Ahh, that’s right. It hasn’t been an hour yet, me and my quick thinking.

[Tree], [Rabbit], [Rabbit], [Tree], [Ice golem].

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Oh, there is an Ice Golem... how interesting, 'So Boring.'

*Ping!* [Identification] has leveled up!

‘Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I’m sure the Ice block could give me a run for my money. I'm not invincible, maybe indestructible, but I don’t need to level up anymore and that could be the death of me.

Another suspicion. Is it intuition? I’m sure the sense falls under the guise of instinct.

Looking to my side once more, I brightened. Having a good feeling about the latest peak through the looking glass, I took a gander.

“Ha, a gander.” Why is that funny again?

[Tree], [Tree], [trees], [Deer], [Rabbit], [Goblins], A [Bear], I’m going to kill those and test out that free spatial inventory. 'I wasn't alone in the world, yippee. As steam rose from me, I squinted my closed eyes and kept looking at the Bear. I saw another [Rabbit] hiding in its den, more spread-out trees.

[Snow], great. I'm identifying snow, mountains, goats, and a little person.

"A Dwarf!" A person, I've found a person!

“Bingo!” Let's get to it. Drenched in snow and water, I started limbering up, the best way I knew how was by getting the black blood rushing and flowing.

I barely had any moving room, freezing my ass off.

I tried hopping out, which got me nowhere, seeing as my feet hadn't touched the ground. I stood stout, forgetting that I had to build up momentum to get myself moving in the right direction.

[Dark Matters Embrace] was such a lifesaver.

*ping!* [Dark Matters Embrace] has leveled up!

Hopping back down into the opening of snow I created just a few minutes ago from impact. I backed up, shifting my weight so the snow above wouldn't cave in on me.

Jumping back up into the air shivering as deadly winds and you guessed it, snow, snow, and more snow whipped and pelted me in the face, I smiled. Ignoring the chattering of teeth that hadn't broken thanks to you guessed, or maybe you didn't "System Initialization."

“How long was this blizzard going to last?” Shouting aloud into the wind, 'You know I’m happy there aren’t any Dragons in this world. 'Wait, are there dragons in this world? I guess I'll have to find out.

After ten minutes of jumping, I reached a tree, and from there I hopped down. I thought about running and killing the deer, but it would probably hear my footsteps. Who knows what a deer from a magical world had up its hooves?

Poor guy or gal, I’m not ending the life of anything smaller than chickens...'I’m going to stomp it in the neck. A good kick to the neck should take care of it.'

Lining up a lunge thirty feet away from the deer, who had no clue it would die soon. On second thought, the deer looked lonely and wouldn't want to kill a defenseless deer. 'I'm not even hungry, I'll spare it.' It was brown and pretty with white spots on its backside. “Awww." Might as well spare the goblins. Who knows, maybe they'd kill the Deer in my stead.

I'm not that big on killing. I love the sight, smell, and gore of the kill, but I'm not a monster. Papa and Dada didn’t raise me that way.

As I hopped passed the Fur-covered Goblins, they looked at me and started chasing but they couldn’t keep up with the six-year-old of snowy skies.

"Super ugly, but at least the Goblins weren’t running around while being covered in shit fog." There's nothing more unattractive than jealousy and envy.

‘That's not true.’

*ping!* [Identification] has leveled up!

Forty minutes had passed. I’m not the best at documenting time. My life was nonexistent, previously spent in nothing, so it would check out. All of my life, more like it. Another ten minutes went by, I think, and I could finally see the mountains in the distance.

Where the hell are all the Monsters? Adena’s fantasy novels were way off the mark.

This world was almost monster-less from the looks of it. Maybe I should be grateful. There has to be more to this place than a bunch of fugly big-eyed wrinkly blue Goblins and a couple of woodland creatures. Then again, maybe the monsters are nocturnal or in hibernation. Let’s put away all preconceived notions about this place.

“So how am I supposed to get the attention of this mountain dwarf?” “Dwarves,” where there's one, there's many. If the books held some truth.

“Also, when should I give Adena back the wheel?” I talked to myself as I jumped towards the Mountain that was high enough to make Earth's mountains look like lumps of sand.

Eyeballing the landform, this being the first time seeing a mountain in real life.

"This mountain is majestic as hell." I should look for an entrance. There's no way Dwarves could just walk into the mountain surface.

I could see the structures on the inside of the Mountain, miles, and miles of peering underneath the surface. I was getting giddy inside. Raise a hand if you love being warm and alive.

"I’ll take it in when I get in there." I'm pretty tired of doing all this thinking. It’s unbecoming. I haven't rhymed in a long time."That was bad. It didn't sound natural. I miss Earth. Forgot how lazy I could be."

Adena, my little Eden, needs to take the wheel. How am I supposed to get her into the village, town, whatever they got going on down there? Do they even speak English or any earthly native language?

I’ve got an idea. That didn’t take long. It doesn’t pay to be a genius. It's settled. I’ll torment the Dwarves from the outside and make them come out; I’ll move the matter inside the mountain... Scratch that bad idea. Let’s just find an entrance and get their attention. A crying little boy should be a great motivator.

[Performance of a lifetime] my way into a house or a home. Damn, that’s also a bad idea. I'd have to stay out longer to keep up my performance of being a normal “human” boy.

"I AM A NORMAL BOY YOU DAMN SYSTEM!!!!” I shouted from the top of my lungs and boy, did it echo.

The ground started shaking as a loud rumbling turned into a massive avalanche.

"Not to worry, I could just jump over it," and that’s exactly what I did.

I got stuck without the momentum to push me back into the air for a while.

Ten minutes had passed, and I thought about what Dada would do in my situation. He would take time to scope the place out, and that put me right back on track to looking for an entrance.

“Found it!” There was an enormous gate made of a sort of super tough metal, shiny stuff. The door reflected the sunlight blending in with the snow on the mountain.

"Would you look at that? Dark clouds are clearing, must be a sign." Now, how am I going to sneak inside? Do I need to sneak inside? There was no line leading to my new sanctuary. Her new sanctuary, hopefully, a sanctuary is what I'm looking for, a sanctuary. A temporary resting place away from the freezing snowfall on the horizon.

'Yeah, I give up.' I should just throw a punch at the gateway and let things go from there. Another bad idea: they might have deadly traps or something. It’s a world of magic, after all. “Is it?” I have a “Magic regeneration” stat, that has to be a head nod or some indication. The Planet has a system and a status menu might as well be proof enough of magic. I wonder if it’s possible to hop down into the mountain using [Matter manipulation].

‘I'm all out of ideas.’ I’ll jump into the mountain and drop Adena's body in front of a woman of my choice. Also, a bad idea, but I'm out of them.

How would I go about shifting through solid objects? All this brainstorming is giving me a headache.

What makes a solid, nope, it’s simpler than that. Lazily Dangling my legs from the treetops, staring aimlessly at the overbearing magical mountain in front of me, a scheme was on my mind. Move matter fast enough and you can phase right through solid objects. Sounds simple enough, but how to carry it out using [Matter Manipulation], and how the hell am I going to stop myself from sinking into the ground without dying???

To think that I was seconds away from experimenting with an arm. Let’s start with a finger. I'm sure it’ll grow back if I lose it somehow.

"Nice. Dada would have something to say about my thinking. No precaution, hazardous, suicidal."

[Matter Manipulation] and [Dark matter affinity] Wait, I need to look at my finger on a macroscopic scale again [Eyes of the watcher] joined the party. I wrapped all the matter in my right index finger and vibrated my finger as fast as possible. I was trying to wave my finger through the tree I was sitting on while [Actualization] and [Miracle Maker] activated.

"TADAAA!" My finger shifted right through. The only problem was my finger almost came off, probably because I didn’t focus on keeping the finger attached to my hand. Fixing that mistake was a cinch by keeping track of how far the matter in my hand spread apart so I would disintegrate into nothing, more specifically so my finger wouldn’t disintegrate into nothing.

[Memories and more] were there to save the day. I tried to phase my entire hand through the tree [Miracle maker] activated and it went right through.

*Bing!* you have unlocked a new skill [Dark Phase]!

I jumped up the mountain for about five minutes, lining myself up on the ground in a rush to return to nothing. Having my eyes set on an abandoned street in the distant Dwarven city below from afar.

The view from outside the mountain was deceiving. I’d seen an outline of a Dwarf and here lies an entire city.

‘Where was the Dwarf I’d seen up top? A bit late, don’t you think, Adi?’ Yes, people were every which way, and I felt proud of myself. I had set a goal and accomplished it in record time.

Activating [Dark Phase] along with [Memories and more] to keep track of my body's flailing anatomy while falling to my death.

I had succeeded. On my way down the mountain, I remembered something. Snow angels.

Adena made snow angels with our parents. I’d ask to do the same at night. I missed them, but I had to carry on. Adena was counting on me. 'I'm Papa’s special boy.' I descended with a smile, a part of me feeling his absence. An absence that may or may not have been my own.