Chapter 51: A Cold Place

After that whole ordeal, the clerics and priests all over the mortal realms lose their connection to their Gods for a couple of seconds due to the God of Dreams interfering.

Of course, this is noticed by some high leveled clerics and the Popes of the different religions can even see which God had done the interference. But none of them knew why such a thing would happen? Was it an accident? Or was it some conflict between the Gods?

In the Holy Kingdom, an old man with a long white beard and hair looks at the sky. He is floating above a palace that seems to be embroidered in gold. But the man is wearing a normal white robe and a normal staff, which doesn't seem to show anything too extravagant about him. He looked like the everyday kind grandpa next door. 

With a loving look in his eye, he looks at the sky and then at the people below him, remembering the decades back when he too was like everyone else, powerless and defenseless.

"Oh, my dear goddess Ariel, has another Divine War started?" He begs, seemingly to no one. "Will the world see another was like the one 10,000 years ago?"

He knows that amongst the Gods, Ariel is the strongest so he has complete confidence in her power. But he is more worried about the mortals since when the war of Gods comes, the world is the one who suffers the most.

…

At the same time, within a desolate and cold land far in the north. The place where no living beings dare to step on due to the place's extreme temperatures. Like always another snow storm is brewing around the place and each snowflake was like a bullet of ice falling from the sky.

Fwosh!

A purple magic circle is made midair and Alex with Lily in his arms comes through it. 

As the cold terminates into his bones, even his fragile body immediately starts freezing, the blood in his body starts turning into ice. To him it feels like the worst pain he has felt in his eyes and he still has one missing eye so the blood in there freezes up so quickly that it feels like an ice pick has been skewered through his head.

Immediately he starts to use a spell but notices that some kind of strange power stops any of his Mana from leaving his body, so he instead takes the other approach and casts spells internally. Inside his lungs, a red magic circle appears, *break* but it is instantly broken too.

'Is this some kind of anti-magic field?' He guesses, but his mind is calm as his raw Mana surrounds his robes. 

<Basic Enchantment>

He uses his Life Class skill to deal with this. 

<Basic Anti Cold>

<Basic Antifreeze>

Immediately his body finally gains some warmth at this and his clothes are made into Magic Items that deal with the cold. But still, this is only a temporary measure due to this being only a Basic Enchantment.

He connects with his dimensional storage, but he can't seem to open it. 'Hmmm… a dimensional lock too, I have a rough grasp where I am now. Since this used to be my base after all, as the Ice God in-game, I remember the minimap of this place perfectly.'

But that doesn't bother him at all as he also Enchants Lily's clothes. He looks around once more and sees that only endless heavy snow was around him with no clear thing in sight. The cold wind seemed to freeze everything around and even with the enchantment, Alex knows that it is not good to stay outside like this. 

'This far north, there is only one place which has such high-level anti-magic Enchantments…' Alex's understanding of this place is impeccable. So he looks at Lily and smiles. 'This girl, as expected of a Hero, she just turned an unfortunate situation into a fortunate one. I am really grateful to her.'

Slap!

He slaps her in the face and she immediately and groggily wakes up looking confused. "Where am I?"

"Wakey, wakey princess." Whispers Alex, faking the grave look on his face. "Because if you don't then we are both dead."

"Huh?!!" That immediately shocks her into full alert and she looks around. 

"What is the last thing you remember?" Inquires Alex, testing her to see if she is possessed by some deity or charmed by them. Now his face is back to normal.

Lily pouts and gets off his arms and looks around while answering him. "I remember a giant eye in the sky looking down at me and sending a dark energy towards me."

'Her guardian has already started to protect her? This is decades before he would have normally started. Meaning that her already weakened guardian injured himself to save Lily. 

As expected, a real Hero dying isn't quite easy. They always have something protecting them. Though if someone with absolute power in the mortal realm, like the Headmistress, interfered, then it would be easy.' Thinks Alex counts his lucky stars as he finally thinks that Lily's luck is rubbing off on him. 'Thankfully Gods don't have that much influence as long as I stay in the mortal realm.'

"Can you dig down?" He invites her with a greedy look on his face. 'In the cold lands of the North, the Gods won't be able to get even a glimpse of me, and that is all because of the thing that should be right below me.'

Due to the recent event with the Gods taking notice of him, Alex plans to take advantage of this as much as he can. 

But remembering the pain he went through to come here back in the game he can't help but shed a tear of pity for his past self. The months he spent packing up anti-cold items and the one death he had along the way and the waste of a revive token.

But his pity for his past self is easily discarded as he starts digging the snow whole Lily looks at him from the sidelines. "He just keeps becoming weirder and weirder."

Then she covers her hands in cloth and starts helping him. 'He must have a reason for this.' Thinks Lily as she uses Ki in her hands to keep them unhurt from frostbite.

Alex on the other hand had his hands turn claw-like due to manipulating the blood in them. But as he breathes in the cold his lungs feel to start like they are freezing again. 'It doesn't matter if my hands fall off during this, that is something that can be easily replaced. But this thing below me can help tremendously.'

But he doesn't mind the pain as his eyes look at the ground with prevailing greed and a smirk appears on his face even as his hands turn blue due to the cold. 

Still, he keeps digging, digging and digging. His hands feel numb and he can't feel them even as his nails fall off. The pain is excruciating, but he doesn't use any spells to dull it because this will keep him conscious.

"Oy, Alex, I think you should rest." Mumbles Lily, worried at Alex's behavior. 'He is so goal-focused that he forgets to even take care of himself.'

From what she has seen, most of the mages were like this, never resting, always in search of their goal. This made them terrifying to the world because while they were human, their mindset wasn't. Their rationality is different. Family? As long as one lives long enough they can make as many as they want. Love? They can also get that as long as they live long enough and have power. 

Time can heal all kinds of emotional wounds. That is the truth of the world and once someone knows that… the mages just abandon such useless thoughts and chase their goal thinking that as long as they reach it, they will have enough time to play around after it. 

A Mage without big ambitions is even rarer than a Legendary one - at least that is what people say.

"No, no, no, you don't understand." A mad look appears on his face. "The power underground here should be the chamber of the Ice Goddess, it has a shard of her power and if someone absorbs the thing then they can become the God Of Ice once they arrive at the peak of the Legendary Realm, the choice for them is easily opened."

Lily looks at him with a strange gaze. But she doesn't interrupt him, since he isn't the weird one in this situation… she is… Only she doesn't have the will to give certain things up in the chase of power. 

People say that one doesn't have to give things up for power, but that is untrue, just reaching Legendary Rank will raise your lifespan to 200 years naturally. Then with Lifespan Potions, one can live as long as they have access to them. 

'So this is the guts one must have to reach powers of her level.' She thinks of the Headmistress and why she seemed so similar to Alex. 'They are people with the mentality to become monsters, both in power and mindset. He already just had a life-threatening event and an encounter with Gods. But he is already working again, like always, simple-mindedly chasing after a goal.'

Though he didn't say it out loud, Alex is terrified… but also overjoyed, he liked the game for a reason. The unexpected and manipulation that he could encounter in this world was at lethal levels, just as he liked it.

Since he had finally met the beings that he didn't want to meet till he was at least at the highest level of the Legendary Rank. His plans have changed considerably.

Gods are no joke, and even with the gamer interface, he is nothing in front of them all. He will have to stay here in the far North to escape the Gods' vision. As soon as he leaves this place then he will be targeted again. 'Wait… the God of Snow should still be able to gaze in this place.'

[Warning: You have suffered Frostbite Effect in your hands]

It doesn't matter to Alex at all as he hears such warnings from the interface. He needs to take this chance no matter what, and due to his mind thinking of so many ideas, a thought comes to his mind and he stops for a second and smiles.

Lily looks at Alex as she digs with him. "There he goes again, definitely planning something."

As a cautious person, she wonders if she will be pulled into another crazy situation again.

Doubts start appearing in her heart. After all, in her mind at the end of the day, she isn't in love with Alex or anything like that. Though she is only seven years old, she has grown up on the streets and understands what that means for her. To her love is just a fleeting feeling that compels animals to breed, and it slowly fades away.

While Alex thought of her as a Hero and had great prospects. Lily herself was filled with endless doubts about the situation. She feels that she isn't quite good enough to be able to keep up with him… and she doesn't want to die either. 

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A/N: Lily feels average in front of people like Alex and Julie, they are both monsters, not in a literal sense, but in their mindset, it makes them terrifying. Remember, the MC used to live a normal life, but he now can rip out his eye without a problem.

P.S: The MC knows many things about this world, that is why he can't rest... knowledge of the terrifying creatures can't let anyone sleep easy. Would you be able to sleep without a problem if you knew that Chthulu existed?

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 Don't forget to throw some power stones :)

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