There was no telling how thick the ice was. Too thick for a pair of mental hands to try and punch their way through it. Instead, tools were a man's best friend. Unfortunately, Alwin wasn't a man, so tools were just friends—thank Cor, they weren't acquaintances or, even worse, strangers.

His friend of choice? An ice drill! Sadly, it was the manual kind.

Alwin summoned out an ice drill, otherwise known as an ice auger. It featured a long metal shaft with a corkscrew-shaped blade at the end that connected to a T-shaped handle. His consciousness alone wasn't enough to operate the piece of equipment; he needed help from his favorite pair. The mental hands!

They popped into existence and gave a double salute. No further instruction was required, they instinctively knew what to do. They zipped over to the ice auger and gripped the handle, but Alwin had made a fatal flaw in his calculations. The moment the mental hands grasped the handle, they froze—literally. Ice consumed their translucent form, transforming them into a pair of frozen hands.

For some reason, the ice auger's handle was made out of metal. It was a dumb design—whoever came up with such a terrible idea deserved to be fired. Not wanting to waste too much time on such an insignificant detail, Alwin dismissed the now-frozen hands. A quick re-summoning, and they were miraculously thawed out. This time, instead of zipping over only to be frozen again like a pair of buffoons, they waited for Alwin to come up with a solution.

It was a simple solve. The answer was gloves! Two wooly gloves so thick a dozen sheep had to be shaven just to create them came into existence inside of his Core. They dove into their new clothes, and needless to say, they fit like a glove.

Finally, they could start the drilling process, revealing what secrets the frozen landscape held. The hands plunged the drill into the ice and began cranking the handle. Slushies of pure white ice spiraled up the corkscrew-shaped blade, being deposited onto the top of the ice shelf. With each turn, the auger dug deeper. With each twist, more ice was excavated.

Alwin's consciousness waited and waited, watching the hands crank the drill, hoping for signs of them breaking through the ice shelf to come soon. They had already created a huge pile of icy slush. Yet, there was no sign of what lay underneath. Did he overdo it with the freezing?

He was bored. Really, really bored. No amount of words could describe how boring the boring taking place in front of him was. His eyes started trailing around the frozen landscape, settling on the pile of ice that they had dug out. Something about it caught his attention. It was… off.

Parts of the ice pile were as white—well, as white as snow. But, other parts took on a light blue tinge. That was weird. But weird was good. Weird meant that he had something to do.

Alwin floated toward the pile and started inspecting the oddly colored ice. A visual inspection garnered him no results. So, It was time for his handy dandy remote.

The remote popped into existence, and he pointed it at the pile of blue ice, but there was an unforeseen problem. He couldn't press down on any of the buttons. Darn cold! It was ruining all of his plans. Without any other ideas, he floated over to where the hands were drilling, commanding them to lift up the ice auger so that he could get a good look at what they were digging up.

Upon closer inspection of the cylindrical hole that they had made, Alwin had came up with a hypothesis. The ice near the top of the hole was its usual stark white, but as it went downward, there was a sudden change. The transition wasn’t gradual, as if a line had been drawn where the white ice suddenly gave way to a light blue. If his theory was correct, the light blue ice was the newly created Ice Mana.

He had done it! Probably.

Now, to put his theory to the test.

Introducing friend number two, an ice saw. It was like any other saw, just made specifically for ice. That was all the description Alwin could allocate. There were more pressing matters to attend to.

The mental hands dropped the ice auger and grabbed the saw. They wrestled and wrought over control of the handle. Each one vying for the chance to impress their master. Too lazy to deal with their antics, he summoned another ice saw inside of his Core. Still, that wasn't enough. A game of 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' would determine who wielded the right to the first saw.

Three rocks and three papers later, it was an avalanche victory. The losing hand did a sad float toward the other saw while the winning hand pumped its trophy up in the air in triumph. With the two hands finally ready, they dove into the hole and began sawing away. Shavings of blue ice fell to the ground as they carved into the presumably frozen mana.

After even more waiting—Alwin's biggest bane other than disappointing Uchronia—they had successfully excavated a block of ice. They tossed it out of the hole, nearly crushing Alwin's consciousness if not for his quick reflexes. But he was too excited to get upset.

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He had two options: begin creating Ice Arrow or chuck the block out of his Core and view the result. As usual, the old Alwin would've jumped in head first without caring about whether he was truly working with Ice Mana. The new Alwin was too serious; he didn't want to waste time working on a project doomed to fail.

It was with a sound mind but a heavy blow to his fun-loving nature that he decided to launch the block out of his Core. Taking a baseball bat to the block didn't look like it was going to work. Time for the old-fashioned way.

The hands grabbed the block of ice and began traveling toward the edges of his Core. As they journeyed, they battled glacial winds and treacherous hail to reach their destination. He wasn't going to risk toning down the freezing conditions lest the Ice Mana turned back into normal Mana.

At long last, they had arrived at the edge of Alwin's Core. The hands began swinging the block back and forth, building up momentum for the monumental throw. As they did so, Alwin began thinking about what might happen. If the block was simply a consequence of his mental shenanigans, it’d disappear the moment it left his Core. But, if it were indeed Ice Mana, it'd materialize outside of his Core. With a heave and with a ho, they tossed the block of ice.

A familiar tingly in his throat melted all of his worries away as it thrusted his consciousness back into the real world.

"Ice!" Alwin shouted.

Like the name suggested, a block of ice in the air appeared right in front of him. But, like gravity suggested, it crashed onto the ground, shattering into a thousand chunks. It didn't matter. He had done it! He had created Ice Mana! He had also, apparently, casted a new skill. Too bad he wasn't going to dwell on it because it was practically useless.

It was Ice Arrow time.

Alwin dove back into his Core. The sight of it having returned to normal made him roll his eyes. It was annoying how everything got reset the moment he left his Core. With much annoyance, Alwin repeated the Ice Mana creation process again. A couple of frostbite-inducing snowstorms mixed together with hail the size of boulders later; his entire Core had frozen over.

Ice auger, ice saws, wool gloves, and mental hands were once again called upon. When the blue ice started being dug up, they switched to the saws and began extracting a block of ice fit for a king.

While all of that was happening, Alwin was doing something mind-blowing. He wasn't just waiting. No, he was doing something far more productive. He was thinking—planning how to create the Ice Arrow. Alwin replayed the scene of Lapis demonstrating the skill. He replayed it over and over, studying the intricacies of the spell she had casted, craving its shape into his memory. From there, he started coming up with methods to construct its form, given the limited tools in his arsenal.

The moment the block of Ice Mana was removed from its hole, Alwin got to work. He knew what to do. Through the connection with his mental hands, he gave them a set of instructions. As always, they acknowledged his commands with a salute, ignoring the fact that they were still holding saws when they performed it.

They began to cut away at the block of Ice Mana using the Ice Saws. It was crude, lacking any fine control, but that was fine. Right now, he was working on a proof of concept. Refinement would come once he got the fundamentals down.

Chunk by chunk, pieces of ice were cut off. His consciousness floated around his circles, monitoring the sculpture his hands shaped, ensuring that not the slightest hand wobble nor tremor would compromise his work of art. Alwin was the supervisor while his hands were the workers—dull, mindless, and dutiful.

As he oversaw his little peons toil away, realization set in. He was currently practicing an ancient ability. It wasn't a skill recognized by the System nor one that required mana. This ability originated from the age before monsters existed on Earth, back when humans ruled the world from their concrete towers.

He knew this because of the information download during his birth.

Alwin was practicing the mystic art of Eye Power.

He continued to hone this ability while his hands sculpted the masterpiece. The more they cut off, the closer it was getting to completion. And then, one final slice. The mental hands stopped in their tracks. The sculpture was completed.

Now, Alwin could evaluate the finished product. Per his instructions, the hands carved away at the block until it looked like an icicle. He could understand Lapis’ annoyance at the naming scheme behind such a skill.

It resembled what Lapis had conjured up, albeit rough in certain places. A round base that transitioned to a sharp point. Its surface was riddled with bumps—so uneven it was odd—due to the poor workmanship of his mental hands, while its pointy tip had a slight bend.

A proof of concept. That was what he kept telling himself in order to avoid blowing up over the imperfections. There had to be zero room for errors in the future, especially during his final exams. If not, Uchronia would be even more disappointed in him. The thought of that happening made him shudder.

Shoving that thought aside, it was time to escape Lapis' prison. Like before, the hands had to journey to the edge of his Core, braving the elements, while they carried the Ice Arrow. Once they reached the border, they tossed it out with all of their might.

A bubbling in his throat brought Alwin back to the real world.

"Ice Arrow!"

The Icicle materialized itself right in front of Alwin before flying straight at the wooden dummy. It struck the black gemstone, shattering it into pieces. Finally, he could be free.

Alwin turned around, ready to leave Lapis' training room, when he realized something. Only white walls greeted him, the door to her lab was still sealed shut.

"Lapis! I broke the gem. So why hasn't the door opened yet?" he shouted.

Crackling static filled the room as the intercom buzzed on. "Good job, apprentice of mine. But, there may or may not be a slight problem."