As a Warrior, once he broke through to Gold rank, he no longer needed to eat heavily and had more efficient ways to replenish energy. But eating so much that more than half the castle's stores were gone, forcing him to hunt and roast a monster midway, was on another level entirely. Even a dragon would be stuffed to death by her appetite.
As for Dotleivy, it had not really spent much time with this female master before. It had just been created when she hurried off to reinforce the seals, so their time together was brief. Still, being rubbed like a real dog and watching the castle's food supplies vanish in a storm of eating did not leave it with a very dignified impression of her.
"Ahem. Let's get back to the main point," Vann said. "According to what Dotleivy told me, and the ancient records passed down, Ice Spirit split her core mind and body into two parts when the seals were set, and sealed them separately."
"But the body alone cannot regulate such vast power on its own."
"That's right. Even though I've forgotten a lot, only I can control the power of the true body," Icelis nodded, piecing together a few clues from the fragments of memory she had recovered. "But the seal on the body was not just one. I remember breaking it into several pieces back then."
"Those bugs probably found the location of one fragment and used that power I really hate to stir up my body fragment. But before that, how did they control me at all?"
Icelis recalled being chased by that hateful Black-robed Man, when her body suddenly felt like it stopped listening for a moment. Could a mere fragment of her own body really do that? She was the core mind with absolute authority, the highest permission like a system administrator, the brain of the body.
If someone foolishly tried to use her own power against her, no matter how many fragments they held, she would instantly reclaim control. That was her privilege as the brain. What happened before felt like the body itself trying to rebel and smash the brain.
Icelis had tried to use her power to stop the Blizzard that swept across the entire the Northlands. After investigating, the strange Magic hidden within the wind and snow was impossible to hide from her as an Ice Spirit, and the mastermind was using the pervasive blizzard to trigger waves of monsters.
Stopping the Blizzard was as simple for an Ice Spirit as an ordinary person stopping while walking. She did not consume any Magic at all. The question was whether it helped.
It did help. She successfully calmed the Blizzard around the main city, but it was not permanent, and once she relaxed her control, the icy wind and snow returned. The effect was limited to the main city and a few secondary cities, and even then only because Icelis constantly split her attention to maintain it.
"So that's how it is," Vann said. "I've never heard of a Magic that directly controls fragments of your body's power. There's no contract involved, just direct control?"
Dotleivy nodded its head, and Vann's expression grew visibly grave. Ice Spirit's power being in someone else's hands was not good news. Before Icelis had been found, Dotleivy had also tried, as an Ice Element spirit, to calm the Blizzard itself.
In theory, as a being of the same ice lineage, calming a blizzard should have been easy. But it was just as useless, and the area it could support was even smaller than Icelis's. Worse still, it sensed a faint presence that stood above itself.
Even Gold-ranked mages showed the same result. Once their Magic was exhausted, everything returned to how it was before. This Blizzard was strange, not just cold, as ordinary people would grow weak and listless over time even if they dressed warmly.
The wolf guards carrying its power were unaffected, but they still could not trace the source. It felt as if countless unseen hands covered their eyes, ears, and mouths. The wind and snow erased bloodstains left by monsters and wiped away other traces, and reports showed that most abnormal monsters had absurdly high resistance to ice and snow.
That proved the mastermind also possessed some form of ice-related power. Among beings with such power, standing even above Dotleivy, there might truly be only one. It would be the former great spirit of ice, the true master of all ice and snow in the Northlands.
Yes, the little girl in front of them with a sulky face, gnawing on flatbread.
"So then, what exactly is this Abyss Church that Miss Fei'er Li mentioned?" Vann asked.
"I still haven't remembered. I just know I really hated them," Icelis shook her head. Fei'er Li could only listen from the side.
She had not read the novel carefully, and the main story took place decades later. What little she remembered about the main plot was pitifully scarce. Aside from things like the Demon King, gods, and demons from beyond, most content related to the Northlands was barely mentioned.
The main characters only passed through this place for an event, and deeper details came much later in the story. Icelis believed her explanation, and so did Dotleivy and Vann, and no one asked how she knew these things.
They had thought the situation might improve, but digging deeper only revealed a bigger problem. Fei'er Li's original plan was to leave early, but monster attacks and riots had nearly cut off all routes into the interior of Rohn Empire. Refugees flooded into the main city.
She had hoped to cling to this girl's support just to survive, only to be dragged into the main plot. If things continued like this, it would not just be Icefang Territory. The entire the Northlands could become the same dead land described in the novel, buried under endless wind and snow, crawling with strange monsters and unknown curses.
She let out a long sigh. She suddenly felt exhausted and would rather go back to working overtime.
"By the way, Icelis, about the Black Dragon in the Northlands you wanted us to investigate," Vann said. "Our wolf guards found nothing, but there have been sightings of a White Dragon."
Icelis's reaction was completely different this time. She stopped eating. That alone was shocking.
"So the one that broke your seal really was a Black Dragon? Recently there have been many reports of White Dragon."
"No way. The one that swallowed me was definitely black. Inside its stomach it was hot, like a sun!" Icelis puffed up her cheeks, a hint of fear surfacing.
For a child who had just woken up, being dragged out of her sealed bed and swallowed whole was deeply traumatic. "Are you sure it swallowed you, and not some strange Magic?" Vann asked, unable to help himself, with Dotleivy listening as well.
She had described it before like a child complaining to parents, how she was pulled from her sealed blankets and eaten until she melted. From the description, they understood that fragments of Ice Spirit's body existed as solid, highly condensed Ice Element, similar to crystals.
The Magic used to seal Ice Spirit, namely the Black Chain, was actually a spatial Magic that isolated inner and outer space. Such a profound technique could not simply be broken. Space was a concept, not glass to be shattered by brute force.
Yet in her story, a massive Black Dragon shattered the seal with raw strength, grabbed her body, and swallowed it, melting her in its stomach. Spirits did not die from that alone, so after losing the body that carried her mind, she was reborn outside.
Faced with such an imaginative tale fitting her age, Vann tentatively accepted that such a Black Dragon might exist. He assumed it had used some unusual Draconic Magic to break the seal, but swallowing and melting it still sounded absurd.
It was like someone scooping up liquid nitrogen with bare hands, drinking it like soda, then burping afterward without harm. Either the creature was not normal, or it was simply beyond reason.
Feeling humiliated at being dragged out and eaten so casually, Icelis decided she would find the culprit. Once she repaired her body and returned to full strength, she would beat it properly. Vann chose to set the topic aside until she remembered more.
"Then let's talk about a confirmed sighting of an Ancient White Dragon," he said. "This White Dragon seems particularly hostile toward the Abyss Church and has relieved several cities from monster crises."
"I've already sent wolf guards to contact it. We might have a chance to cooperate. I also invited a mage who studies dragons to talk. Icelis, would you like to…"
"No!" Icelis ran to Fei'er Li's side, grabbing the white dog and Fei'er Li at the same time. Holding one dog and one person, she said, "I'm going out shopping!"
"I'm not a pet!" "…Woof."
She did not care about any white lizard. She only wanted the mastermind to show themselves so she could kill them quickly, then recover her true body and find that Black Dragon to settle the score.