Tilido surrendered to Mathew, and allowed him to obtain a claim toward the Dungeon. Mathew smiled, as this was his first Apprentice ranked Dungeon Core that would boost Blue Oaks’s power output and mana core production to new heights. Plus, he could start to grow Apprentice ranked Mana Cores as well.

With this came an upgrade to one of his titles, one he didn’t even consider until it popped up.

Title: Solo Delver III

For clearing up to an Apprentice ranked Dungeon alone, you are awarded +4% to all stats.

“So it doubles every time?” The first title gave him a 1% boost, the second was a 2% boost. If the pattern followed, then it would go to 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, then lastly a whopping 512% boost to all his stats at the final rank.

That was assuming there were dungeons for all those tiers. Yet, a 512% bonus to all stats, from a single title, at that rank? That was insane. Mathew wondered how his menu would be able to show such high numbers. He would be surprised if it stayed under six digits by that point.

Mathew stood next to Tilido, watching an entire small army pack everything up and leave. Thankfully, Mathew was able to purchase three bags for him to enchant himself later on. If he was to carry all the weapons and armor given to him, he would need it. Jeffery would be doubling as a pack mule moving forward until they all left.

“I won’t waste time by reminding you that I have put my entire future on your shoulders Mathew.” Tilido said.

“I know.” Mathew said coolly. “I made a promise to be your ally, and I will. Once Earth comes out of its integration process, we can draw up more specific lines. I will say, my only concern is the knowledge gap.”

“And that is why you have Black Snow. Get that trade center up quickly. There is more to trade than raw resources.” Tilido said knowingly.

Mathew liked Tilido. He was a man who would be the umbrella from any shit that fell from up above. He was willing to risk his entire life and future for a chance to improve the odds of his own people.

Once everyone except Tilido had left through the portal. Mathew stuck out a hand, Tilido looked at it weirdly. “Is this some form of saying goodbye?”

“On Earth, humans use a handshake as a sign of respect. It comes from when two leaders would cut their hands, and mix their blood to show a bond of cultures. We don’t do that part anymore, but the symbolism of two different hands joining is a sign of unity and respect.”

Mathew knew he was lying. He didn’t care. Whatever made Tilido like him more is all that mattered.

Tilido mimicked Mathew and they shook hands. “To an honorable future.”

“To a future of honor.” Mathew said with a smile.

Tilido left through the portal. It blink out of existence, leaving Mathew alone with Agnox and Jeffery.

“Finally.” Mathew groaned. “Okay, we have less than twenty four hours until this Dungeon forces us to leave. Let’s get to work.” He turned and went to an empty building.

Sitting on tables were dozens of suits of armor and weapons. One table in the front were the more unique items, including the meditation mat and bags for Mathew to enchant.

Mathew started to use his ability to call Cherry. It’s only been a couple hours, but he needed to check on her.

She appeared in a flash of pink. Visibly she looked fine, but Mathew could tell she wasn’t fully healed. “Did…did we win?” She asked, looking around at the empty building.

“Technically, yes.” Mathew answered. “The best kind of victory.” He filled her in on everything she missed. Including the alliance agreement. Cherry at first seemed excited, then grew serious.

“Why make a deal with them in the first place?” Cherry asked. “You didn’t have to, it sounds like you are a little disappointed for what will come.”

“The best agreement is when nobody is happy.” Mathew quoted. “In all honesty, this will be good for Blue Oaks. Plus, I have plans to mitigate their influence on us. Americans are still Americans. Very few people will be open to aliens meddling with their lives. Sure, resources will be welcomed, but ways of life won’t be accepted for a long long while. Possibly several generations before there is a seamless acceptance. I’ll talk to you about something called civil wars and about crusades another time. Agnox read about the American Civil War recently, didn’t you?”

“Reminds me of home. We have wars and slaves, but we never let the slaves join us as equals in the past. Although, they were not the same race as us.” Agnox added.

“Your planet is weird.” Cherry passively said. Mathew could tell she would want to know more. She would have all the time once they left this Dungeon with a giant pile of loot in their pockets and a dead floor boss behind them.

Mathew spent an hour enchanting bags, maximizing their possible size by taking longer for each. He ensured he had plenty of room to add in all the armors and weapons to the bags. He spent another hour reorganizing everything. He had a lot, most of it from dungeons like the Kobold, Golem, and all the beast Dungeons from the first floor. Plenty of materials to donate to the crafters of Blue Oaks.

Not to mention the nicer things, such as the red and green item he found in the Kobold Dungeon. . He hadn’t used his ritual to identify any of them yet. Like rewards from challenges that he didn’t know the specifics of.

Once it was all organized, Mathew only had two items left out. The prayer mat, and a small jewelry box. He picked up both. “I’m going to try and utilize this freezing cold Dungeon to its fullest use. You three stay out of trouble. Cherry, I suggest you work on developing a new spell or something. Our next step is fighting a Dungeon Boss. Alone. I don't want to bank on getting lucky by finding help from nowhere. Agnox, you work on your own powers as well. I know you are maxed out on your slots, but you are my second in command in this group. I need you ready to go toe to toe with me against whatever we end up fighting.”

Mathew looked over them all, mainly Agnox and Cherry. “All of you. This is life and death at this point. We are safe in here while the horde outside rages. This is our only chance at rest, but also the only safe place to prepare. We have twenty hours, let's not waste it, okay?”

They both nodded. Mathew left them to find a quiet place. They were on the tallest mountain out of the five, so he went to the edge of the small hamlet that the Lost Souls were living in. He unrolled the mat and noticed that it was very nice looking. The mat was a dark shade of purple with a gold trim. Going around the edge of the mat face was a white strip.

When he sat down on it, he felt all of his emotions mellow out. He almost didn’t catch it and instantly jumped off the mat. All his stress and worries came back, clouding his mind. Mathew tested it three more times, and realized that it wasn’t muting his emotions, but clearing his mind. He still remembered everything, but while on the mat, it was calming.

It was like lavender incense, calming music, mood lighting, all while receiving a massage from a beautiful woman. He was at peace. Mathew sat there for several minutes, enjoying the tranquility.

Looking out at the snow covered mountain range was an experience. Growing up, Mathew rarely traveled for pleasure. It was always a public relations stunt from his parents, work, or for school.

There was one trip when he was around twelve years old that he took during the summer. He went out to visit Greenland. It was a class trip, to visit the volcanic area as well as to see glaciers and whales.

Even though it was summer, it was still cold. Mathew had actual fun. Not only for the experience, but his classmates were nice. Yet, they were still kids, and the occasional trouble happened, but nothing like the movies made all rich kids out to be.

What Mathew remembered the most was the giant floating glaciers. The fact they were three to four times larger than what you could see on the surface was fascinating. Just like people, there is so much more underneath. Good things, bad things, and ugly things.

When he was told he had an Ice affinity, it didn’t surprise him. A lot of his powers have had that element as a focus. His own [Mana Bolt] had dozens upon dozens of choices for what type to pick. Yet, he picked ‘Cold’. Apparently, it’s been a part of him since birth.

Wispy and Whis are an extension of his soul. Wisps are a reflection of one’s soul. The fact they adapted to be ‘Cold’ just proved that they were a part of him.

This was why he chose to make this his third element to internalize. Yet, he wanted more. Ever since talking to Gaia, forging his own path, he knew he had five Axioms. He would need to combine them together. A few different ideas have come to him, but he didn’t have one at Apprentice rank.

It would be a long while until he could start thinking of ways to combine them, or simply upgrading them to Student rank on their own. Yet one thing he knew for sure was he wanted a sixth Axiom.

One thing he lacked in his current set was something that boosted his mind or raw magical output. Piercing was more physical. It worked, but if he could enhance his magical capabilities, that would cover his only weakness right now.

Mathew pulled out the small jewel encrusted box. Inside was a deep purple crystalline vial. It was slightly larger than a shot glass. Mathew uncorked it, and instantly drank the liquid. It tasted how he expected lightning to taste. A static shock washed down his throat and landed in his stomach.

His entire body went numb. It reminded him of when a leg or arm lost circulation and you couldn’t move it. Mathew didn’t even panic, he couldn’t. He was in a happy place.

The landscape in front of him morphed and changed. The swirling snow swirled more. The blue sun started to stretch and bend. The mountains grew taller and the valleys fell lower.

Mathew felt the entire environment grow around him. He was among all of the snow. The cold feeling was gone. He felt nothing physically. Mathew tried to reach out an arm or anything, but nothing moved. With a deep breath, Mathew allowed himself to further become swallowed by his surroundings.

Ice was, to put it simply, cold. It was hard. The element of cold is harsh and unforgiving. People ran from it to return to the safety of warmth. Nobody liked a cold shower. However, ice is used in a number of various ways. People use it to create homes to protect them from the outside elements near the poles on Earth. It is used to create art sculptures. To cool off a drink. To reduce swelling from an injury. Iceboxes were used to keep food fresh longer.

Mathew knew the cold was unyielding. It went everywhere, sapping away the heat from all that was around it. Science said that cold was just the lack of heat. Now that magic existed, he wondered if that was still true. Could Cold be created?

This wasn’t the first time he thought of the cold. Especially since talking to Gaia and even more so when he planned out the three elements he wanted to choose. Ice could be sharp. It was obviously cold. Yet, all those things were surface level.

It went deeper. It was to slow things down. His own chains was a creation upon the idea to have an ice themed Ability to slow down his enemies. His own bloodline simply took that idea and made it more.

He took it further than simply to slow things down. The cold hurt. It causes the same feeling of burning to exposed skin. It affected things physically in all sorts of aspects.

Mathew could feel the cold, but not on his body. He imagined himself in a blizzard. Cold winds whipping around him. The flurry of snow and ice. It slowly whittled down anything that was stuck within its wrath. He remembered stories of people who traveled to the north pole or to the top of Mt. Everest. The cold would slowly suck away your warmth if you didn’t properly take care of yourself. Most died from the elements, not from starving or an accident. The cold was just too much for most humans.

The winter cold was not fast. It came at a crawl. Over time it drained you of everything until you are a frozen husk. As Mathew considered what Cold was, he felt a familiar energy in his mind. Yet he didn’t stop. Cold went deeper than a physical level. Emotional Cold existed too.

A cold heart. A cold shoulder. A cold and calculating mind. Mathew knew that computers ran faster in colder environments because they can run harder without risk of overheating. Mathew needed this. To think faster. React faster. He used his Axiom of Piercing for his eyes, but he had nothing for his mind.

The logic worked if he could do so magically, or simply with whatever energy Axiom’s really were. He didn’t know. Nobody had a solid understanding other than it was to simply understand a Truth of the universe.

Mathew accepted all of this, because it is who he was. A lawyer had to be cold to the truth. The law was the law. It was factual. It didn’t play favorites, but people cherry picked what applied to them and what didn’t.

Even he bent the rules, or played around them, to his liking. Using underhand tactics to win court cases. To ensure his clients won and received the majority of what was theirs if not all of it in the divorce. That was just the truth of the reality. The cold hard truth.

Mathew’s mind swelled as that thought occurred to him. Nobody can fight the truth. It was like fighting the laws of reality. The rules that govern how everything works. It was infallible. Yet, Mathew was living proof that wasn’t always the case. His soul was shattered into dozens of pieces, some even missing.

He took reality and told it to fuck off. He wrote his own truth. It didn’t matter what he was told was how things should be done, he would do it his way every time. Like a glacier, everything moved around him. The water, boats, animals, nothing could deter him from what he was.

A flash of his previous visit to the Monolith of Time in Gaia’s Domain showed itself to him. Instead of rock and stone, it was replaced with snow and ice.

Whirling around him was the outside world, trying to make its mark on him. Yet he remained. As the Axiom solidified in his mind, he noticed it was powerful. Far more than any other Novice Axiom he had understood.

He knew it was because his understanding of Cold was beyond a Novice. He had accepted his own truth, and that was enough for The System and himself to understand a far more complex idea of Cold.

It wasn’t his strongest understanding, but it was a powerful start. Mathew took a breath in, and the cold air felt comforting to him. It was always a part of him, he just never realized it till now.

The effects of the liquid and the mat still lingered. Mathew let his mind run over his six Axioms: Bolster, Enforce, Pattern, Piercing, Resistance, and now Cold. Each of them a reflection of who he was at his core. What he valued. What he sought for this world.

His mind went to the cultivation manual he has followed for months now. He has focused on all three parts of himself. Body, Mind, and Soul. He did this to allow his Body and Mind to support his soul.

It’s the reason he can do what he has done thus far, mitigating the stress on his soul. He hasn’t focused on any soul based powers other than his contracts. He has learned the hard way on what happens when he over strains his weakened soul.

When his chains are broken, the backlash hurts. Even when his summons are doing things to themselves, he feels it himself. Like holding a metal bat and hitting it against a tree trunk. It’s an echo of what they were experiencing.

What he wanted to start thinking of, was how his Axioms could reflect this as well. He had six, why not have each of them assigned to a part of himself. It was an idea he hadn’t considered until now.

Mathew started to imagine combinations. Bolster and Enforce. Pattern and Resistance. Bolster and Resistance. The list went on. In total, if he only did pairs of two, there were fifteen combinations. If he did in combinations of 3, there were twenty. Combined between the mixing of two’s and three’s, it was over fifty.

There were a few combinations that stuck with him. Mostly the pair’s of two. However, the effects of the potion started to wane off. Mathew mentally internalized those combinations before he forgot, so he could meditate on them later.

Mathew opened his eyes. The cold around him was nothing anymore. It felt comforting. He realized all his clothes were off his body, all laid neatly next to him. Sometimes he must have done it unconsciously.

His bare skin was exposed to the elements, yet he felt none of the bitter cold. Mathew smiled, almost laughed. Both at the fact he was naked, sitting in a mild flurry of snow that surrounded him. Also at the situation of his own growth.

Standing up, Mathew opened his menu, casually glancing at what The System registered his newest Axiom to be.