From my elevated position, several dozen lengths up into the air, I could see the scurry of countless forms off to the north, with flashes of fire and light punctuating the landscape at a particular location ahead of me. I veered towards it, holding my breath as the maneuver almost caused me to lose my balance and tip over. This was my first time putting theory into practice with these Frost Wings, and it was just a little bit harder than I had thought.

Not that falling would hurt me, but I would lose a lot of time. I began breathing again, gritting my teeth in concentration. Enhanced eyesight. I’d have to put that on my list of things to buy. That and some way to keep track of things, because as I glanced around I swiftly realized there was a LOT more going on than I had bargained for. Even the one battle I was heading towards had dozens of engaged combatants, way more than I could make sense of at any given time.

Luckily Tetra stood out starkly against the dirty-green of the plains below, her silver scales glinting in the afternoon sunlight. There were two soldiers focused on protecting her, but the entire group was heavily pressed, soon to be surrounded, and there were hundreds of beasts for each House Flameward cultivator! And the beasts were fast!

I forced my wings to flap as hard as they could, then contract, before reaching out to repeat the motion again as I closed the distance. Now that I was closer I could see the beasts were actually humanoid, or maybe ape-like from their posture, but they didn’t seem to have any hair. They had oddly patterned skin that ranged from green to grey, four long arms with sharp looking claws, and powerful legs that could propel them a dozen feet in a single leap.

My ice shards would fall apart too quickly to be of use from this distance, but my lightning bolt could reach nearly three times as far before it started losing power.

I chose a few of the larger targets I could see, visualizing a path between us and letting loose at full power – and with my perceptions sped up I could see my targets jerk, then shake, before finally burning from the inside out. I had figured that I could keep the connection open for nearly a second, making my attack comprised of dozens of lightning strikes in quick succession; more like a prolonged electrocution than a simple lightning bolt.

Only one of the beasts managed to survive my strike, but it was either unconscious or stunned. Hundreds of them had noticed me by now, and I decided that I had better use Temporary regeneration just in case they had some kind of ranged attack. I would only be able to use it a few more times before I was exhausted… but I wouldn’t be able to help anyone if I was dead.

“Tetra!” I called out, switching my focus from my wings and starting to visualize hundreds of shards of ice forming in front of me. As soon as the ice around me lost the focus that was animating them I started plunging towards the ground, but I wanted to get off as many shards as I could into the surrounding beasts before I landed among them. It’s not like I had to worry about hurting myself in the fall.

With only two seconds left before impact, I grit my teeth and willed the shards swirling around me to lash out, covering wide areas in a deadly hail as I descended. Just before impact I switched my focus back to the wings, planning to stop my descent just before touchdown, but my weight combined with the ice surrounding me was just too heavy to stop.

The alien click-screech of the four armed lizard-monkeys was deafening as I crashed into their midst, and I joined their chorus as the weight of the Frost Wings on my back drove me into the earth hard enough to shatter half my ice armor and send a nasty shock running up my spine. I dispersed as much of the force as I could, but the impact still left me stunned for a few seconds - luckily, the beasts around me were in bad shape as well, but it didn't take long for those at the edges to charge into the fray.

I regained my senses to the view of one of the beasts biting into my left arm… and for some reason that was just too much for me, and my mind blanked for a moment. I’d never been eaten before… and then suddenly frost began to cover everything around me, and I felt something give way deep within my mind… and suddenly all I could think about was ice, and that I needed to protect myself.

Bloody beast, not now! I recognized the symptoms of shock and panic, but that didn't help me regain control. A gigantic icicle shot from the frost near my feet, skewering the beast that had taken a chunk out of my arm and freeing me from it's grasp as I hissed in pain.

Beasting hell! I’d need at least a few minutes to calm down, but right now I was in the middle of a beasting battle field. I tried to slow my breathing, but even as my arm slowly regenerated, spikes of ice were randomly appearing everywhere I looked.

But I still had agency over my lightning. I struggled to regain control of my lungs as I felt a claw strike my ion shield from the back, picking me up off the ground, and I responded by blindly blasting the area behind me with a barrage of lighting – a tactic I had discussed with Wulfric in training. It was a dangerous tactic, but I had my ion shield to protect me… unlike my opponent.

I looked around, still trying to orient myself. I was sure I had given the squad protecting Tetra more than enough time to regroup, so I wasn’t as worried about her safety. Looking down at my hands I saw that both of them were covered with by long spikes of ice as my powers tried to protect me while I was still in shock, but there was nothing I could do about it now. I crouched down and surveyed my opponents to the best of my abilities.

A surreal landscape of ice was still shaping itself and cracking all around me, keeping the majority of the beasts at bay, so I started blasting lightning bolts wildly at anything that began making its way towards me.

“Heller! Heller!” I heard a faint voice behind me, so I spun around and raced in that direction, heedless of the grasping claws coming for me. I lashed out wildly with my frost blades, but my body was still that of a child: I was at a major disadvantage in close quarters combat against creatures this large.

My Ion Shield was damaged from the initial crash and the attacks I took while I recovered, and I knew full well that I had to be careful to protect my vital organs from damage. My plan had been to section off this area with solid walls of ice, turning a massive melee into a series of controlled battles, but I could still feel my powers running wild all around me as I lacked the proper focus to direct them – that option was out.

I was brought short by a gigantic wall of ice suddenly forming in front of me, blocking off my path back to Tetra from this direction. I took a deep breath, still struggling to regain control… and then I felt a sharp impact from behind me, and I was flying…

The sensation of tumbling through the air was terrifying, so I just started blindly striking the ground all around me with lightning. Hopefully that would give me enough time to put myself back together… and then darkness consumed me as I struck the electricity-saturated ground, the impact rattling my skill even through my protective forcefield.

***

COLD!! I gasped in a frigid breath, forcing my eyes open as I looked around me. I could see movement through thick slabs of ice, and it took me a moment to realized that I must have somehow entombed myself in ice while I was recovering from the impact.

I decided to file my recent experiences away for later, keeping my mind on task. My power was still running wild, and now was as good a time as any to get it back under control.

But bloody beast was I cold! I focused on my Ion Shield, trying to generate some heat by vibrating the iron it contained… only to realize that any metal I had stored in my field (or on my body) was almost completely gone, dropped or stripped away by the frantic combat I had just survived.

I took a chattering breath, trying to ignore the cold. Maybe I needed some kind of body transformation power… Body of Ice, perhaps? At least THAT wouldn’t get cold. Body of Air might have more utility, but it wouldn’t let me interact with the physical world except… except through my powers… Ok, Body of Air was now top of my list. I’d look it up when I had some time.

But for now I needed to regain my control over my Ice Powers. Meditating was nearly impossible when you are literally dying of hypothermia… only to be just barely kept alive by your stupid regeneration power...

Ok, I take that back. Good regeneration, nice regeneration. The last thing I needed was for that power to start going AWOL. I had no idea why only ice seemed to give me so much trouble… but then again, it was an incredibly powerful ability for a really cheap price… and I had put it together before I had finished stabilizing my cultivation with the new system I had come up with.

Oh crap. Ok, that actually made sense... Luckily I had waited until after I had all my new cultivation rules setup before buying my other powers.

While doing my best to calm down whatever part of me was running out of control, I ran through what I had so far. The power sets I had built were simple, and I was quite happy with how they worked together, covering for weaknesses in the other sets. It would be amazingly overpowered if I could get my damn Ice powers back under control… ok, deep breath.

So I had my Electricity and Magnetism package. It had my Ion Shield, my Lightning Bolt, and all my abilities to manipulate Magnetism… if only those stupid four-armed-monkey-lizards were wearing armor…

Next I had the Ice package. Shoot ice shards, create ice armor, walls, and constructs… no real limit on the volume I could create, unlike what I had expected, and it was the one power I had that neither Tetra nor Wulfric had figured out a counter for yet. Lighting was weak against metal, magnetism required Iron specifically, and was weak against anything non-magnetic, and my healing package could be overcome with enough effort.

But create a wall of ice twenty feet thick and fifty feet tall? Nobody was getting over that sucker. The only limitation was that the more ice I manipulated, the more tired I became (both mentally and physically), but it took quite a lot to wear me down completely.

I had also built a power set that included the ability to slowly heal though intense meditation and focus, a necessity because my Temporary Regeneration was useless against any existing injuries - all it did was force your body to return to whatever state it was when the power was activated. Even if you stubbed your toe just before it began working, the stubbed-toe-pain would stay with you for the entire duration; a bleeding wound would continue bleeding; even a hangnail would come back to haunt you over and over again until TR’s duration expired. Which meant that it was completely useless against suprise attacks, or cutting your finger while cooking.

That also meant that exercise was impossible when under the influence of TR (as the body returned to the same state, regardless of physical activity), but luckily it seemed that a lot of learned reflexes were more mental than physical (muscle memory turned out to be a lot more memory than muscle).

To combat this effect, we simply did the majority of our physical training the normal way, and I was even able to cheat by speeding up our recovery, easing muscle soreness and using the slower healing power the next day. It could even heal torn ligaments, though the effort took a lot out of me.

Suddenly I felt something snap back into place… I had calmed down enough that my Ice abilities had finally stopped going crazy trying to protect me! I took another chattering breath, smiling: My plan to distract myself had worked. Now it was time for a little old-fashioned revenge.

I reached out and channeled my will into the ice around me, gathering it in one location and forming it around me. I was already naked and freezing cold – might as well just deal with it.

After my initial preparation was done I flexed my will, causing the twenty-foot-tall Ice Giant I had just formed to stand up. I was firmly encased within the center of its massive head – my lips still blue from the cold – with only a few air holes leading into my head-pocket. I smiled as I looked down at the dozens of lizard-monkeys screeching up at me, a few just about to charge.

Let’s see how they liked being the small one in a fight!