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"Do we really have to be here, Tiny Titan?” Llethunaxx asked while giving a small shake of his body. “I’m freezing my tail off. No, really, I think I’ve got frostbite on my tail.” He brought his tail up to Karna’s face, just to show the frost that was gathering on the tip.
“That’s exactly why we’re here. What better place to absorb ice elemental energies." Karna dismissed his complaint. The blizzard around them wasn't exactly helping matters though, and neither was the fact that she was clad in very thin clothing that looked more like a bikini than anything that should be worn in the polar regions. Unfortunately, the attire was necessary to really allow the freezing energies to enter her body. She would’ve been naked if she was alone. Not that it mattered much since the clothing would be destroyed during the process anyway.
"You're getting cold too," Llethunaxx stated defensively and gave a pointed glance towards her chest.
“Okay, A, stop staring at my nipples. And B…no wait, that’s about it.” Karna had to mentally admit that she was cold as well, but she had the benefit of a phoenix bloodline, so the freezing temperatures felt a bit brisk and not really freezing.
They were currently in the polar regions of their world and the temperatures were horrifically low for most races. Even for a dragon like Llethunaxx, staying in these kinds of temperatures for long would be dangerous. The local creatures were not exactly fond of their presence either, and they already had to kill a pair of frost wyrms and a pack of wendigos to clear the area. They didn’t want to be bothered in the middle of the process.
“Cast a warming spell or something. That should keep your tail intact until I’m finished.” She added, before a large magical formation started forming on the ground around her. Previously she had to rely on Arjuna to create a formation that would allow her to draw in all the elemental energies, but now she had the mana to do it herself. And she definitely had more expertise in the matter than her father.
“Right. Bully the friendly business-dragon that’s helping you. That seems smart.” Llethunaxx grumbled.
“A business-dragon that already got paid.” Karna countered.
Llethunaxx had learned from the earlier Awakenings and took enough distance from Karna, so that he would be able to keep an eye on what happened without getting caught in the mix. Unlike the time of Karna’s titan Awakening, this was definitely not his element, and he really didn’t want to be caught in the middle of the upcoming storm. He just hoped he wasn’t underestimating the area affected.
The process itself had become quite familiar to both Karna and Llethunaxx. Once she reached the critical point, all the ice elemental energy in the area started gathering into a large vortex with Karna at its center. The blizzard that had already belted the area turned into one that qualified as a tribulation, which once again didn’t accomplish anything against her, only feeding her Awakening, as well as the formation of the next circle in her magic core. As the energy gathered, she was frozen inside a huge block of ice, seemingly disappearing within the pure glacial chunk of solidified elemental energy.
Where most people would’ve died by freezing to death, the whole process only fed Karna, and once her Awakening reached its peak, the ice shattered while the spectral form of an enormous wolf howled at the sky, making the storm grow even worse and sending all the nearby monsters running away in terror. The spectral wolf seemed to breathe out a cloud of freezing energy, creating a small mountain range out of ice that would not melt without magical heat of similar power. Then the spectral apparition seemed to shrink down before disappearing.
“She really doesn’t half-ass these things, does she?” Llethunaxx grumbled again, while casting several spells to keep himself warm, as the weather was still affected by the ritual and only growing worse. As he landed near the epicenter of the devastation, he found a relatively normal-sized wolf resting on its haunches while panting with exhaustion. The wolf had glowing lines of power near its paws, eyes, and legs that looked like frozen flames, while sparks seemed to be flying off from its tail, showing that the current form was being affected by Karna's other bloodlines. On one paw the glowing lines form the image of a drop of blood, while on her flank the lines formed the image of a laughing cat with wings.
"You didn't come out as a puppy this time," Llethunaxx commented.
“No. I’m no longer a child, nor are my powers so minor anymore. From this point on I won’t have to start off as a baby in the other forms, though this one will grow to be almost as big as you by the time it’s done.” Karna explained, her voice sounding wiser and more experienced somehow.
“So, not a standard frostwolf from what I can see. A beast of the apocalypse unless I’m mistaken.” Llethunaxx suggested. Beasts of the apocalypse were famed monsters that brought forth the end of the world in various stories and legends. Those stories were fictional, but legends had power. Some also called them Divine Beasts, as such things often depended on your point of view. In the end though, such beasts were rather prominent players in the Divine Planes, and often the peak of the various bloodlines that were related to the beast.
“A Vanagandr to be specific.” Karna nodded and shook herself a bit, suddenly releasing a wave of pressure that Llethunaxx had only felt from immortals before. Angry immortals.
“Uuh, Karna?” He asked a little spooked.
“Oh, sorry about that.” She replied and the pressure vanished. “Still getting used to this.”
The sixth Awakening had been a very important step for her, not because there was something inherently special about this one in particular, but because of what it gave her specifically access to. When someone became immortal, they gained access to something called the Soul Space. This was an area inside their souls that reflected their nature and their personality and granted various benefits. Those that were the most gifted or the luckiest managed to develop their Soul Space into something called a Domain that they could manifest in the world, bringing various advantages. Both could be refined further with time and effort.
Perhaps more important than their Soul Space though, the immortals had to take a very large step in their development. They had to start building a totem inside their Domain, and the form and nature of that totem was completely up to the individual. A prolific fire mage for instance could develop a fire-related totem that made all their fire spells much easier to cast, or to cost negligible amounts of mana, or grant much better control over their element, or any of a thousand other benefits that were just as varied as the totems themselves were.
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The thing was, she’d already opened her Soul Space countless times in the past, and she’d even created multiple totems, something that should be impossible as the totem represented the core of your being. However, as she had changed several times as a person over her countless lives, so had her nature and values, and so she had been able to create several. Thus, she didn’t really need to re-create or even refine her Soul Space or her totem, as they were already there, just not available. And because of her powerful soul, she got limited access to them even before reaching immortality. She didn't gain their full benefit, not even remotely close, but she could briefly tap into the benefits they granted in a very limited way.
All reincarnators that had become immortals in at least one of their lives had this benefit to some extent, but the timing varied. This is where the benefits of her enormous soul started to really shine, allowing her to gain access to certain things much sooner than most others. Most reincarnators reached this point at rank nine, maybe at rank eight. Only the oldest and most powerful benefitted from rank seven. For a very brief moment, what Llethunaxx had felt was the presence of her Domain, even if it hadn’t manifested properly.
Of course, advantages like these were not free to use. As her body wasn’t really ready to handle the strain of her Domain yet, not to mention utilizing her totems, she was able to manifest that power for a very short amount of time, and the longer she used that power, the longer she would need to spend recovering afterwards. However, for that short time, she was able to easily match any rank nine being on the Higher Planes, with very few skilled exceptions like Arjuna, who would be able to withstand her power until she ran out of time. At least theoretically.
“So what does it do?” Llethunaxx, referring to her new form.
“Ah? Oh, the form. It holds power over ice and frost as you already noticed. One of the most notable things is that it can manifest what’s called a Fimbulwinter, which you can pretty much guess what that does from our surroundings and the worsening weather. On a sidenote, we should probably leave before this gets worse. More importantly, though, the bloodline has three main advantages. Speed, its claws, and the devouring ability. Speed is obvious, but the claws can cut through anything. Theoretically. If I run into a monster of much higher rank, then the effect is obviously reduced, but it's still one of the best possible weapons available. And the form can also devour pretty much anything. The same rules basically apply, but if you need something destroyed, I can just eat it. It might take a while to digest, but…” Karna explained.
Those were the reasons she had chosen the form over others, even though they weren’t the main benefit from this Awakening. She’d always liked the ice element, and now her control over the element was maximized. Additionally, the claws would go extremely well with the gauntlets…
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Llethunaxx couldn’t help but be increasingly impressed as literal tons of materials floated around, seemingly without any trouble, at the same time as dozens of magical formations ranging from microscopically tiny to enormous were formed and activated. At the same time, dozens of pieces of material were delicately connected either by mechanical means or just the power of magic. He wasn’t quite sure which impressed him more, the hundreds if not thousands of screws that precisely screwed themselves into place without any apparent input from Karna, or the way different magical and mundane materials shifted from solid to liquid and then back to solid in a matter of seconds. She was doing the work of several full crews of magical and scientifically oriented engineers at the same time and by herself. Which was good since the mix of a tower and a vessel of some sort was unlike anything Llethunaxx had seen before, and it was huge.
Almost the entire island they had appropriated for their private use for the project was covered by the construction project. Much of it was due to what Llethunaxx would’ve called a drydock or a shipyard, but what Karna called a ‘cradle’. Apparently, the term was used with ships that were specifically designed to travel between worlds and even universes, though he wouldn't know about that. No matter what it was called, it looked like a bunch of scaffoldings and things that would hold the separate parts in place while Karna was either resting or just focused on some other part of the project. There were also devices that he had no idea what they were for, but Karna had assured him were absolutely necessary. Apparently, they had to do with creating the mechanical parts of the tower/vessel. According to Karna, you needed to create tools, so that you could create more precise tools, so you could create smaller tools, so that you could maybe finally create something very small and intricate, and the whole concept made his head hurt.
What he did realize was that the whole thing seemed like an unholy mix of magic and science, and it was big. Just the central portion shaped like a pyramid was several hundred meters in all dimensions, and there was supposed to be another larger section surrounding the central core. Unless he was mistaken, the whole thing was supposed to be large enough that smaller airships would be able to dock with it, and even inside it. Currently, only the central core was under construction, and it looked like someone had gutted and disemboweled a pyramid as tons of black stone-like material floated by and seemed to turn into liquid before solidifying into place around systems that looked quite delicate to his eyes.
While he didn’t understand the construction process very well, he did understand that it required extreme concentration from Karna. Even a momentary distraction could ruin weeks of work, as everything she did seemed to build upon itself and balance on a knife’s edge. If she were to be disturbed, the whole thing could come tumbling down or even explode. Especially that brightly glowing thingy that she had called a reactor. That one looked primed for exploding at any moment. That's probably why it was located at the very center of the tower/vessel.
That was also why he was here. He was here to make sure no one disrupted her concentration. She had made it quite clear she was now capable of dealing with any non-immortal attackers, but she didn’t have the luxury of getting distracted. Every time a monster appeared in a certain radius around the island, he would have to deal with it. Every time some curious humanoid flew nearby, which had admittedly only happened once, he’d have to go and shoo them away. Unfortunately, that also meant that he couldn’t bother her either, which meant he was bored out of his mind most of the time.
‘Ah, she’s about to rest again.’ He thought to himself as he noticed her perform a weird gesture that looked a lot like pulling a bunch of ropes or threads together and tying them all into a large knot, which cause the whole project to freeze in place. Every process came to a halt and froze in place, while the heavier objects were suspended by the ‘cradle’.
“Had enough for the day?” He asked, making polite conversation. He really just wanted to distract himself from his boredom.
“Yes. I’ll need my strength for the next part. Handling the Blackstone requires a lot of mana.” She nodded in confirmation.
“Seems to come easy to you. Are you sure it’s the best material to use?” He asked, a bit curious. It seemed too easy to affect with magic to him.
“That’s only because I know exactly how to do it. Thing is, most of the time Blackstone is almost immune to magical effects if treated right. That only applies while it’s in a solid and inert state though. That’s why I have to keep it liquid if I want to work with it. It also helps with shaping the material of course.” She refuted.
“But if it can just be turned into liquid…” he said suggestively.
"That's the thing. It's not. It requires very specific type of magic, which is a real mana hog. Besides, I'm obviously going to create protective magical formations on the ship against that kind of thing. That’s partially what the other materials are for, as the Blackstone itself can’t hold spells, as it’s resistant like I said.” Karna explained with a thoughtful expression.
“Is that why you’re doing all this…dabbling with mechanical bits?” Llethunaxx guessed.
“Well, that’s not the only reason, but it’s one of the reasons, yes. I won’t have to come up with magical means of lift or propulsion when there’s a scientific solution to be found. Technology has many other benefits as well though. Just ask the Host and the scourges. They’ve been discovering that fact lately.” She replied with a chuckle.
Llethunaxx often returned to his lair for brief periods of time to gather news while Karna was resting. They still wanted to keep up with the situation around the wider universe. The new arrivals that had been forced into their universe by the Expansion had in many cases taken a rather dim view of their situation. Some were quite happy to co-exist peacefully, but most had decided to make a foothold for themselves with force. The latter was made much easier by a combination of factors.
The first was that almost everyone that had been brought to this universe by the Expansion either had powerful technology on their side, or they were powerful in other ways. The number of immortals among their ranks was not something that could just be ignored. The second factor was that the Host was currently too busy dealing with the scourges to really focus their efforts into dealing with this new problem, as the new arrivals were a lot less destructive than the scourges even when hostile. They could be reasoned with.
“You don’t seem too worried about this new threat?” Llethunaxx noted.
“Let’s just say I might be a bit more informed about it than most.” Karna retorted mysteriously.