Claud let out a breath slowly, which turned into a steady gust of white mist that poured out into the room. It was a superfluous action, one rendered inert by how he actually no longer felt the urge to breath or to do other acts required by a human to survive, but he did it all the same.

After all, deep down, he was still a tri-folder.

Touching the icy throne beneath him, Claud called out, “Status.”

Name: The Frozen Emperor — Claud Primus

Lifespan: 998395 years

Active Skills: Will of Solitude (11), Will of Freedom (11), Will of Captivity (11), Will of Purity (11) FiBoD:A??? (0), FiBoD:A??? (0)

Passive Skills; Divine Life Contractor (Inactive), Energy Universe, Omen of Entropy, Omniscience (False), Aeon Fold — Omen (14), All-Life Nemesis, Cornerstone of Coincidence, Dealer of Destiny, Lord of Stillness, Weaver of Wisdom

Mana Circuit Superimposition: 9.9999

Mana Control Proficiency: Transcendent

Comments: We salute the Great One and hail his awakening. May the world serve as fuel to melt your frozen heart.

“Uwah.” Claud rubbed his eyes. His status looked like something out of a delusional child who wanted to rule the world. “What the heck? I’m practically invincible, right? Nearly a million years of life, damn. I don’t think the world goes this far back. And there’s level 11 for skills? And what are those skills supposed to be?”

[Omniscience (False) has activated. Planned examination running now.]

[Skill: Will of Solitude

Skill effects: When used, shrouds the user from detection, karma, time and fate for thirty days.

Passive effect: Attempts to pry into the user will passively fail if unbacked by a will, and the user will be made known to such attempts.

[Skill: Will of Freedom

Skill effects: The user can move freely in all directions, while ignoring all other physical forces, for thirty days.

Passive effect: The user will never suffer from impaired movement and can never be trapped.]

His other skills opened up of their own accord, revealing more information that dazzled his mind. From what he could tell, his current skills were effectively a supreme version of his original skills. For instance, Will of Solitude was an extreme form of his Presence Nullification, while Will of Freedom was an extreme form of his Flight. Judging from the naming style of these skills, Claud also determined that the endpoint of skills would generally be named ‘Will of XX’, where XX was an adjective that was related to the original skill. They also had secondary, seemingly permanent effects that focused on the concept of ‘Will’, whatever that was.

His passive skills had been upgraded to versions with grand sounding names too, and their effects were rather scary. For instance, Energy Universe’s effect was to increase his regeneration speed by sixteen times. In comparison, Mana Hub, the skill that used to be in its place, only raised his mana regeneration at four times the speed.

That said, both were quite pointless to him, since Claud rarely fought, and those that he did fight in ended pretty fast.

“Divine Life Contractor, huh…” Claud looked at the revealed form of his original skill, and then felt his heart clench up at the word appended on the end. He looked at the bisected box that slept in his throne and clutched his heart.

In this Second Tutorial, something had happened to the Claud of this world. Throne, Crown and Lily had died at the same hand of some unknown entity.

Claud shook his head. There were two hundred years’ of memories he needed to sort out, but he had a feeling that there was only so much time he had in this world. He needed to get his bearings first, and then work on his Personal Quest, One’s Order.

A notification appeared in his mind as he scanned the next upgraded skill, Omen of Entropy.

[The power of Entropy surges forth. Omniscience (False) has been forcibly deactivated.]

Claud felt his eyelid twitch…which was a really odd feeling to him right now. Clearly, the him in this world was not used to moving his face muscles around. Would it be a problem when he had to interact with his nominal subordinates, who had simply built a city around his Frozen Coffin and sent up devotees every so often? In fact, he had no idea what was going on in the huge city around this palace his predecessor had made, but within the city of ice and snow, all things were revealed to him.

Claud retracted his spiritual sense a few moments later. While his mind and body were probably unrivalled in terms of durability, the same couldn’t be said for his soul, which had been brought into this realm. There was no way he could sense the entire city at once without suffering from immense pain, and…

“I could train it, though.” Claud thumbed through the rest of his status, but there was no response from his Omniscience. “But it’ll hurt.”

A quiet part of his mind informed Claud that he never did care much about pain, a point that he heartily agreed with, and he promptly began to fortify his soul by increasing his range of detection. Training his mana control and his spiritual sense was a decision that came easily to him, just in case they could be brought out of the Second Tutorial.

Of course, since he didn’t have such a detection ability in real life, there was no way he could put it to good use this quickly. Even with his Omniscience skill forcibly deactivated, Claud could vaguely sense that this skill granted him all kinds of auxiliary abilities passively, although there was probably more nuance to it.

Getting up, he stared at the throne for a moment, and then left the palace.

“Will of Freedom,” Claud murmured, desiring to test out his new skills. With a single thought, he’d reappeared at the city walls, where the Moonlit soldiers were still kneeling. “Will of Solitude.”

No one noticed him as he drifted around the walls, before entering the city. Despite the cold climate, the city itself was alight with a comfortable warmth, and he couldn’t help but liken it to staying by a fireplace while a storm was raging. The juxtaposition made the whole place seem very comfortable, and as his detection range continued to rise, Claud found himself content with the general development of things.

Something flickered in his mind a moment later, and Claud immediately made his way there. Mockery and jeers filled his ears at that very instant, and he took in the sight of three red-haired teenagers taunting a scrawny fellow.

“Weakling, you failed again. How many times are you going to fail?” The teenager at the centre grinned, his words laced with malice and mockery. “So pathetic. The Frozen Emperor would have beheaded you for being this weak.”

The two laughed and spat at him.

“By this time next month, you’ll be out of the city,” said one of his lackeys. “Your mum died to bring you here, but you’re completely useless. What a waste. You should have died instead.”

The scrawny boy roared and charged at the speaker, only to be floored by a good, hard punch glittering with azure light. Blood flew, landing on the snowy ground.

“What are you doing?” Claud dispelled his Will of Solitude and caught the boy before he smacked into the floor. “Three teenagers, ganging up together…really?”

The three boys froze. They didn’t seem to recognise him, but a single flare of his mana was enough to send them fleeing in fear.

“Hmph. Pathetic.” Claud turned his attention to the injured young man. “You. What’s going on?”

“What’s going on?” The injured young man looked at him. “I’m going to be chased out from Rimestar.”

This city built around his Frozen Coffin was called Rimestar, but…

“Why would you be chased out?”

“I’m too weak,” the boy replied.

“…Help me out here,” said Claud. “Why would weakness be a reason to chase you out?”

“My lord, are you…new here?”

Claud paused and rubbed his nose. “In a manner of speaking.”

He wasn’t lying. He was new to this world, and as for the Frozen Emperor, he had been sitting on that throne for a hundred and eighty years, after settling his revenge for the events two centuries ago. Therefore, the him back then could also be termed as new to the city.

“Oh. Well, to stay in the city, you must demonstrate a certain level of strength,” said the young man. “The Frozen Emperor despises weakness. All with strength are welcome and groomed here, but the weak must die beyond those walls, out of his line of sight.”

Claud froze. “Really now?”

He looked through his memory, which was full of the same image of staring out of his throne. If he didn’t get it wrong, the Frozen Emperor had spent most of his time in dreams, indulging in fantasies where Lily and the little fellows were alive, so…

Maybe it was an earlier policy or something that he’d forgotten saying.

Claud shook his head. “Do you have any family with you now? If not, follow me. As repayment, I’ll help you grow stronger.”

The young man hesitated for a moment, complex thoughts flashing through his mind, and then nodded. “Yes, my lord.”