104 The progress...

Two weeks later.

Pale blue mana spread from feet and slithered across the floor as if it had a life of its own. It split up after reaching its allocated distance, forming a pale blue circle.

It didn't end there. The blue serpentine mana moved across the floor and proceeded to create intricate artwork inside the circle. The more the mana moved, the more snow and ice on the ground rushed toward the unfinished mana circle.

The wind became more vicious with every stroke of the blue mana. Creating a small cyclone inside the mana circle, it devoured all the snow and broken pieces of ice around it. Slowly, a mana-mixed ice blob formed in the center of the mana circle.

With each passing moment, the blob expanded and continued until the wind stopped with the compilation of the mana circle. In the end, it looked like a one-meter tall ice egg. As soon as it completed the mana circle, the mana circle shone brighter, and a change occurred inside the ice egg.

The thing inside the egg was struggling hard to break off the viscous shell of the egg. The shape of the egg continued to morph until four limbs of the unknown creature had become apparent. It took a few seconds to recognize the outline of the creature.

"Yes," Aiden cried, looking at the malnourished wolf made of ice. Yet, he couldn't contain his happiness. Even if the wolf looked weak, Aiden knew that he had mastered the spell.

"If you played enough, rest now. Your body is almost at its limit." Mraz's voice sounded like a father, tired of his overly energetic son. In the excitement, Aiden didn't notice it before, but as Mraz reminded him, he realized how weak he had become.

For one last time, he moved towards the three steles inside his mana space. The first was the largest one. Along with the outline of the wolf, there were almost a hundred mana circles.

"This is like the list of spells that the wolf had mastered. The few inherited spells are at the top. They passed these spells from one generation to another. It is not something that other than this species of wolves could learn. You can learn any of those hundred spells recorded below."

That was how Mraz had explained the stele with the wolf's image on it. Looking at the list, Aiden realized one bitter truth. The disparity between the arrogant wolf and him.

However, he had invested most of his time to comprehend his innate mana circle and enhancing his body. Only after that, Mraz had let him study the spells.

To begin with, he couldn't read or understand the mana circle. Naturally, unless Mraz helped him, he couldn't understand a single thing. That's also why his progress regarding the spell was so slow.

'At least I have mastered a few of them.' After two weeks, the numbers of spells he could use didn't exceed ten. Yet, it satisfied him. Even if those were the spells used by the wolf, he felt that he had regained a small amount of his pride.

Next to it was the stele of the baby elf, and the last one was of Robin. Unlike the ice elf, which had three inherited spells, Robin's stele was empty. Thinking about Robin, Aiden couldn't help but sigh.

Only after Robin had scrutinized the data from a few of the intact data hubs, he reluctantly believed that the federation had committed atrocious actions.

Aiden had no intention of knowing what he believes or not. The only thing Aiden was interested in was his body. Whether he could get accustomed to the ice mana or not.

To his surprise, it went well. Remembering that he will be the one who will teach Robin some spells, Aiden couldn't control his lips.

"What are you grinning about?" Aiden shook his head, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes.

Looking around, he realized that he was sitting about 14 meters away from the skull of the ice giant, one of the guardian beasts of the plane. This six meters progress, from the edge of the domain, was the culmination of his two-week effort.

But the path wasn't easy. For every moment inside the domain, he had to go through an immense amount of torture.

Whether it was the irritating feeling of bone itching or cold roasting of his internal organs, none of them was a pleasant experience. Fainting with blood in his throat and nose was a common occurrence.

At least now he didn't have to depend on Mraz to move his body out of the domain, or Robin to set up the stasis pods. But he knew that if he took another step, history will repeat itself.

He had gathered all his strength to stand up and stood there for almost fifteen minutes before he could take his first step. He knew that his bone was stronger, and his internal organs were strong enough to sustain the pressure, but there was a vast difference between knowing and doing.

Tears of blood almost escaped his eyes as he took the last step out of the domain. But it exhausted all his strength. He took five more minutes before he could move again.

He felt like a fish that had just escaped the pond of mercury. Slowly, he dragged his heavy body out of the door.

They had rescued all the people they could. Those who had part of their body turned into ice died on the first day. Out of 22 who had no abnormalities, only four of them survived. But the trauma wasn't something that they could overcome in a day or two.

After consulting with Robin, he kept them in the empty labs. When Aiden came out of the restricted door, Robin was coming out of the labs.

"How are they?" he asked, as he noticed Robin was looking through the stain-glass window.

"The woman ate nothing. We may need to place her back in the healing pod." Robin shook his head.

As Aiden looked at the woman who was staring at the wall, he couldn't help but feel a little sad. But he knew no matter what he did, there was no way he could comprehend the agony of a mother who saw her child transform into a lifeless block of ice.

"What those sick bastards were thinking before they did these to a child. Are they even human?" Robin couldn't stop himself from cursing, "There is no difference between them and those monsters. Inhumane."

Aiden didn't have the words of comfort. He asked, "what about others?"

"The other three have already eaten. Yesterday, the teenager even spoke to me."

Listening to him, Aiden nodded. "Don't just spend all the time here. Train too."

"Don't worry about it. Now, I can maintain the effect of the ice mana on the bullet more than 200 meters. It can also change course." Robin proudly spoke about his accomplishments.

Aiden just smiled and patted his shoulder, "I am going to use the healing pods."

"Let me go with you." Robin too followed him. After a moment of silence, he asked, "How long are we going to stay here?"

"Why are you so eager to go back? You know very well how strong those monsters are. It's better to get stronger first. They will send you to battle as soon as you return, and if you are not powerful enough, you are as good as dead."

Robin sighed, said nothing. Looking at him, Aiden smiled and said, "Don't think about it too much. After I recover, I will teach you a spell, it will help you get stronger." Robin nodded.

"No matter how I look at you, you don't look 16 years old. I want to know what you have gone through on Earth that made you into this." Aiden just gave a smile but said nothing, "If I can become as strong as you, I would have signed in the program for sure."

"It's best if you don't go back there." Aiden paused for a bit, then continued, "But it would be best to be on Earth than here."

They came out of the door where they kept the survivors, and entered another door, with no. 9-16 written on it. As soon as they entered, a similar stinky smell had hit their nose.

Behind the thick stain-glass, they could see the body of a human with three hands. Looking closer, they could also see a child-head was growing beside its neck. The only good thing was that they've never seen it move in the last two weeks.

"To think monsters like this roaming on the Earth…" Robin shook his head, "because of carelessness, they have ruined the Earth. Now they are doing the same, here. Don't they have any kind of…"

Aiden didn't know whether it was because of the totem, or if he'd been here alone too long, that Robin had turned to a chatterbox.

"... I think I can make the transporter work again. We can use it when we leave this place."

"Good," Aiden said and opened the door. It was a lab similar to the one that contained the counterpart of Extra-arm. Aiden did not know what had shattered the strain-glass window, but there was a working healing pod in the chamber. The thing Aiden needed most now.

He put the potions in the right compartment, opened the pod, and lay down.

"See you later," Robin said, laughing, and closed the pod on Aiden.

[Connecting to Open World Network…]

[Failed to establish a connection.]

[Connecting to Local Area Network…]

[Failed to establish a connection.]

[Connecting to Database…]

[Error...]

[Sending an error report to the operator…]

[Failed…]

Looking at the string of failure notifications on the giant transparent screen, Aiden sighed. Even if the healing feature of the device was still operating, the other hardware had deteriorated.

"Run a full body checkup."

[Running a full body checkup of Sample no. 11]

[For research, the system will record the data for future reference. Thank you for your cooperation.]

Aiden was not sure if it was because of an older model, or whether the attack had harmed it, that the scan took longer. And even the data differed from what he used to get.

[NAME: Aiden Law

Age:16

Condition: Heavily Fatigued

Height: 178 c.m.

Weight: 73 kg.]

"Oh! I have grown two centimeters." A smile appeared on Aiden's face. According to Mraz, it was because of the mana strengthening of the bones. A week ago, when he had done it for the first time, his height increased a whopping five centimeters in one go.

Aiden was very pleased with the results. He feared he was going to hit the limit soon. Then it will be about solely strengthening the internal organs. But it excited him at the same time. After all, he could focus only on the spells after that.

"Oh! The system can't understand my mana anymore." It wasn't just him. The system even failed to identify Robin's mana, too. As if it could not sense it.

The string of words continued to appear on the transparent screen in front of him.

[Element: N/A

Level: N/A

Strength: 158 (72)

Agility: 212 (99)

Endurance: 271 (121)

Dexterity: 201 (78)

Intelligence: 258 (175)

Health: 715/892

Mana: N/A

Battle rating: Level 7

Passive skill: [Mana Acceleration (??)] (Locked)

Skill: None]

"Other than intelligence, all of my stats had improved a lot, compared to the time I had come to the planet." But one data Aiden wanted to see wasn't there. "I don't think I can study my innate skills without activating the chip."

Even if he missed the useful feature of the chip, he had no intention of reactivating it. "System, initialize the mana assisted healing." After giving the command, Aiden closed his eyes.