345 Chapter 345: Get Out!

Under the tutelage of Ryan Reynolds, I was able to learn ice magic very quickly. Well, I say "tutelage", but the mercenary in a red and black Spandex costume didn't really teach me anything. All he did was flip the books open and help me look at whatever page I needed to go to.

I didn't know how much time had passed, but it seemed like a week. According to my smartphone, it had only been five days. Time flew past when you were in a hurry, but fortunately, with no Internet, with absolutely nothing else to do, I could only practice ice magic. By the fifth day I had finally gotten past intermediate ice magic and was starting on advanced ice magic. I couldn't claim to have fully understood advanced ice magic, but at the very least I had some handle on it. Which was far better than what I could say for myself when I first entered the cavern.

At the end of the fifth day, Ryan suddenly snapped close the book I was studying.

"Okay, that's enough."

I stared at him blankly. By now, because I practiced ice magic, I had gained remarkable resistance to the cold and my fingers and toes no longer felt numb even if I didn't cast that small fire spell to warm myself up. Even so, all I had so far was knowledge. Not even comprehension or full understanding of ice magic. Just pure knowledge.

"I haven't finished learning all the advanced ice spells yet."

"Of course you haven't! It's only been five days! What, did you think you are some kind of unprecedented genius who can master ice magic in a matter of days when people take years? You already made quite tremendous progress with intermediate ice magic!"

Yeah, but advanced magic was the hard part. Intermediate was slightly easy…to put it frankly, it was a joke when compared to advanced magic. I needed a few years for that…a year at least.

"That's right. This isn't some cultivation story where you conveniently make breakthroughs or reach some weird esoteric stage or level after meditating next to something. Hell, in those stories you will absorb all the Thousand-year-old Ice Essence, dope on so-called spirit medicine – which is just a glorified name for steroids – and experience an increase in strength. Here, you didn't get any increase in strength, right?"

Ryan was right. It wasn't as if I became any stronger. Not that the point was to become stronger. So many readers had this stupid impression that it was about becoming stronger, about "leveling up" or increasing your mana or Strength stats or whatever. As if reality could be so easily quantified. Let's be real, nobody measured one's strength in terms of X value. I mean, you could…grip strength, for example, was measured in kilograms. And people's speed was measured by how much time they took to cover a specific distance. Or the distance of the javelin you threw. But all of these required different sets of muscles, different training, and only a fool would say Athlete X is stronger than Athlete Y. similarly, a soccer team didn't become better just because you added a new talented player into the mix. Teamwork, training, coordination, discipline and tactics all mattered. You didn't simply throw a bunch of talented players together and expect your team to win every game.

And even "big" teams could lose to "small" teams. That was the beauty of sports. Victory was not guaranteed just because you won a championship last year, or your skill was recognized. Anyone could beat anybody. Otherwise why would there even be a need to compete if the outcome of the match was decided beforehand by one's rank or "level"? Those levels are utter bullshit.

Unfortunately, too many readers were obsessed with simple systems such as rankings, stages or levels, and when things didn't go the way they expected, they started whining about how the protagonist was "weak" or whatever. Dude, there was so much more to "strength" than simply winning or losing, ranks and levels, or whatever.

So what was the point? To improve my ice magic. That was all, really. If I got better at ice magic, I had one more weapon in my arsenal, I could be a bit more versatile than before, and my ice-type Constellation spirits would be powerful.

It was about learning more, not necessarily about getting "breakthroughs" or "leveling up" or becoming stronger per say. In a sense, this was still considered becoming stronger, just not in the same way that most readers used to xianxia stories perceived. Essentially I was no longer a one-trick pony, and I had alternatives to delay and fight my opponent until I finished casting my summoning spells. In some cases, I could just defeat my foe outright with ice spells without even needing to resort to summoning. It added another weapon to my arsenal, so to speak.

As I said, it wasn't always about "leveling up" like in those xianxia or LitRPG stories.

Raising my hand, I gathered azure mana and crystalized more frost in the air. Turning it into an icicle, I then hurled it at the ceiling, shattering more ice and causing a minor hailstorm. That was just the basic ice spell, but it felt…a little stronger than before.

"That's because the mana you use for ice magic has been purified, and you've grasped on how to more efficiently cast them." Ryan was nodding in approval. "You've made great improvements, considering that it has only been five days. Alas, the rest of the ice spells you have to learn by yourself when you return to the outside world. We don't have a convenient plot device for you to suddenly turn into an ice master in such a short duration. It's just to give you an alternative option to stall for time until you summon your Constellation Soul Beasts. Or even a way to finish off weaker enemies without resorting to your mana-consuming summoning spells. That's all. You're not some Mary Sue god mode protagonist who can master all kinds of magic and go around being better than other people at them. You'll still lose to a specialized ice mage who has put in years of learning his craft, that's for sure. This training is not supposed to allow you to surpass them."

"Oh, I probably would lose to ice mages, yeah." I grinned. "But my ice-type Constellation spirits will not. Not after this training."

Ryan appeared to grin back from behind his mask. "That's the spirit, kid! But time's up means time's up, and to be frank, I don't want to stay in this godforsaken place for any longer than I have to. Sorry, bud, but I'm getting out of here!"

Well, I also wanted to leave this place, if I could be honest. I wasn't some ascetic or monk, holing up in a mountain for extended periods of time to cultivate or whatever. Furthermore, I was sure my friends would be worried. I hoped that Anastasia wouldn't be driving herself mad looking for me. if she and the Silver Wolves deigned to look for me. Most people would write me off as killed in action after seeing me fall into an abyss.

Furthermore, it had been five days. If they hadn't given up after the first three days, they should have given up by now. They had no obligation to search for me, to be honest. It was best if I assume that I was on my own.

"So how do I get out of this place?" I asked Ryan.

"Easy." Ryan raised both his hands exaggeratedly. "To be more precise, though, you're not the one getting out of this place. Our buddy over there is going to get us out of this place."

He jabbed toward the entrance of the cavern…in the direction of the slumbering Frost Dragon. For a few seconds, I stared at him dumbly.

"…eh?"

"I suggest you start casting your strongest summoning spells now."  Ryan waved his finger at me. "Any time soon, big daddy is going to wake up and get all mad that you've been benefitting off the Thousand-year-old Essence that he has been accumulating all this time."

"Eh? But it's not as if I absorbed it or took much of it."

I did gather and absorb some of the mana from the Thousand-year-old Ice Essence to train my ice magic, but just as with the Holy Spring, it wasn't something I could completely devour on my own. Not unless I overloaded and killed myself with excessive mana burnout. Or freeze-in, in this case. Whatever the case, I didn't absorb more than a tiny fraction of the whole thing.

"You do realize it's a dragon we're speaking about here, right? Greedy, possessive bastards that love to hoard? You know how you kill ants or sway away flies that approach your food? It's the same thing here. You're nothing more than a bug to the dragon."

"So he's just going to kill me because of that?" I shrugged. Oh well, that was karma for you. I had to pay for the sins of crushing and swatting annoying insects, and I understood how the dragon felt. Perfectly. I was in no position to criticize him for his perception, while taking the high and mighty ground of squashing bugs that irritated me. "Okay, I'll just have to defend myself then."

A slight tremor shook the place, sending a pile of frost raining down. Five days ago, I would have shivered uncontrollably from the cold, but today I merely brushed the white snow off my winter coat. I wasn't completely immune to the cold, so I appreciated having my winter gear on. What, were you expecting me to strip down to my underwear and walk around exposed, like a certain ice mage from some manga that spouted nakama power bullshit?

In any case, Ryan was right. I had best hurry and summon whatever I could before the Frost Dragon fully awakened. Already my glasses were picking up a spike in mana signatures as well as a huge increase in tetonic activity. Or what seemed like tetonic activity, but the movements were obviously coming from the dragon's sleeping chamber.

…and this looked like its pulse or heart rate. Oh, wow. It was rapidly increasing, stirred into vigorous activity as its host awoke from hibernation.

"Oh God…oh Jesus, oh God, oh God, oh God…"

I could feel a tremendous ocean of mana pressure weighing down upon me, suffocating me. More icicles rained down from the walls and ceiling as the Frost Dragon rose to all fours, his sheer weight sending tremors throughout the underground cavern. A thunderous rumble began from his chest and left his throat in a deafening growl that shattered quite a lot of ice. I had to conjure a small defensive ice spell to form a barrier between myself and the sharp shards.

And this was just the Frost Dragon waking up. He hadn't gotten furious or aggressive yet, he was just stretching and yawning, or something similar to that.

Then he appeared to turn and look in my direction. I didn't know how I knew it, especially with so many layers of frozen walls between us, as well as an entire tunnel. But I could feel his stare.

And you know what the best thing was? He wasn't looking at me. He was merely gazing in the direction of his beloved Thousand-year-old Ice Essence. Yet I could already feel the tremendous weight of his gaze. It was heavy as fuck.

There was a pause as the Frost Dragon took in what had occurred during his hibernation. He didn't even notice me – I was so insignificant that he couldn't care less that I was there. No, he was more interested in his Thousand-year-old Ice Essence. The walls and ceiling continued to shake as he appeared to move closer.

There was a slight pregnant pause as the Frost Dragon probed his precious Thousand-year-old Ice Essence with his magical senses. Even though he was not physically present, he could still reach out and feel it with his sixth sense, so to speak. Just like how mages could sense each other or monsters through mana.

Then he snarled.

"…and so it begins," Ryan remarked as he snapped his fingers.

The Frost Dragon evidently detected the slight reduction in his Thousand-year-old Ice Essence. Then he shifted his focus toward me, and the mere presence…or weight of his invisible gaze was enough to crush me. It took me everything I had to not sink to my knees in the snowy ground.

"Oh, he's mad all right." Ryan was nodding, not at all surprised. "He's going to come for you now."

The Frost Dragon let out an earth-shattering roar. If I had thought the growl earlier was bad, this was several times worse. The entire place exploded, ice shattering into a million pieces, piles of snow pouring down in pseudo avalanches. The sonic assault traveled through the tunnel, shattering the ice frozen along its floor, walls and ceiling, and smashed into the current chamber where I occupied, smashing even more ice and turning the whole place into a site of incredible destruction. If I hadn't conjured an ice barrier, I would have been cut apart by the sheer volume of sharp frost fragments that flew across the entire space like shrapnel.

Growling, the Frost Dragon charged through the cavern, his immense size obliterating the wall as easily as if it was made out of snow. Rock and ice toppled over in a mixed slush as the Frost Dragon bulldozed his way through, artificially enlarging the tunnel I had used a few days ago and turning it into a devastated trail of pulverized rock and frost. Within a few minutes, he burst into the chamber where his Thousand-year-old Ice Essence was. His azure eyes glared at me in hatred, and he raised a paw to swat me.

I dove out of the way, almost not making it in time as his claws raked deep furrows in the ground. Rolling across the snow, I completed my summoning spell.

"Draco!"

A gigantic black dragon manifested inside the chamber, bellowing a challenge as he confronted the Frost Dragon. Draco and the rank A dragon glowered at each other for a second before they charged and collided with earthshaking force.

Even as I tried to pull away to a safe distance, the entire space vanished in a ferocious explosion of snow and kinetic force.