Chapter 17: The Cave

 (Xander pov)

 Walking across the icy and snowy covered forest I was thinking about what other material I would need for the violin and guitar I wanted to have and since I had a few Ash wood branches from the world tree I thought that I couldn't slack on the material.

 Since I was walking in the forest I did have my scythe in my hand since there could be a monster that hopped out at me at any moment and I wanted to be prepared for that.

 On my way to the cave did end up running into a few wolves and a total of two Ice golems and ended up getting a few memory cards from them, but they didn't put up much of a fight for me.

 In about a fifteen-minute walk I finally stumbled upon the cave that I was going to venture into and see if there was anything of worth in.

 Before I took a step into the cave I did look around to see if there was anything that I needed to be worried about and if I would need to prepare to fight against them.

 Lucky for me there wasn't anything that I needed to be worried about, the only thing is that now and then an ice golem walks near here like it's guarding something.

 Seeing the ice golem walk by the front entrance I ran into the cave after he passed.

 When you look up after walking into the cave you can see ice crystals coming down from the ceiling like stalactites from a normal cave, and you could see that the cave just continued down and went far.

 Since there was nothing that I needed to be worried about immediately I started to walk down the cave to try and see if anything was interesting.

 Because I wanted to save time I decided that I should run through the cave since I had no clue how long it would take me to reach the end of it.

 Starting to run I made sure that I kept my scythe in my hand just in case something popped out at me, or if there would be some type of trap.

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(4 hours later)

 Still running through the cave I finally saw and heard something so I finally slowed down from running at my top speed, then I decided to take a small break since I had been running for four hours straight.

 Sitting down to take a rest I looked around to see if there was anything that I needed to be wary of or if there was something that needed to have my attention on.

 The reason I am being on edge so much is because during my run here there has been no monster or any type of trap to stop me from making my way here.

 After about a 15-minute rest I ended up getting from my rest and walking towards where I heard the noise coming from, walking for another 10 minutes I ended up reaching the very end of the long cave.

 At the end of the long cave, it opened up into a bigger and wider cave. When I was taking a few more steps into the cave a sudden cold wind hit me. 

 With the sudden wind, everything became colder, for the first time in this new world I felt the same coldness as that night, and with that coldness, a fear crept inside of me.

 Looking around in a panic one of the first few things I saw were a few flowers farther back into the cave, and the other thing I saw was a gigantic frost dragon.

 The frost dragon seemed to be in a deep sleep, and since I didn't wanna wake it up I slowly started to walk backward.

 In the few steps I took backwards the cold I felt slowly dissipated and the fear that crept upon me slowly went away too and a few more steps after those I was able to think again.

 Since I could finally think again I decided that I should run out of this cave because I had no clue when this dragon would wake up and come straight for me.

 Deciding that I should hurry up and get out of the cave I started to run towards the exit since it would be a four-hour long run from here to get out.

 Running at my top speed it took me a total of three hours and thirty minutes of a full sprint with no break or distraction. 

 When I finally exited the cave I was met with one of the ice golems that were roaming around the cave entrance and when I took a step outside of the cave the ice golem swung his fist at me.

 Seeing the ice golem fist approaching me I put my scythe in front of me to either guard against it or parry it, when I was about to parry the attack I thought of something that I hadn't tried yet and thought it would be interesting.

 Blocking the attack from the golem instead of parrying it, I ended up getting sent flying back a few meters, but since I was sent flying back into the cave I didn't hit anything. When I landed I used my scythe to cut my hand and tried to use my blood manipulation.

 After cutting my hand open blood started to pour out of my hand for 2 seconds then my wound was healed by my regeneration, with the blood that left my body I ended up using my blood manipulation.

 Using the blood that dripped out of my body I ended up transforming it into a total of 25 small bullet sizes that I could pelt the ice golem with.

 Shooting the bullets forward I chased after them with the scythe in my hand, after 7 of the blood bullets hit the golem it started to fall apart slowly, seeing the ice golem falling I tilted my head in confusion since I didn't think it would be this easy.

"Why did you fall so easily compared to when I was hitting you," I said while crouching down and poking the falling ice golem.

Finishing poking the golem I stood up turned around and faced the cave, then I pointed at it and said "I'll be back for you and defeat you stupid ice dragon"

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(3rd person pov)

 When Xander turned his back towards the cave he found a newfound determination to come back and kill him, and that he would end up consuming that fear that he felt and turn it into something else so that he would never have to feel it again.

 When he faced that dragon and felt the same cold of that night he remembered the fear that he had felt before when he was stabbed.

Although he may have never shown it to anyone he was afraid of death and afraid of leaving his mother.

While it was fine for him to feel fear he didn't want to feel it like that again and so he decided that he would try and get rid of that fear.

He promised himself that once he was ready he would come back and defeat that dragon without any fear.

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