Hoarfrost increased our speed. The bubble of stillness he had created ignored the blizzard that raged. The blinding snow was all but bypassed. Storm might have been lost if we weren't bonded. Even with her heightened perception, it was hard for her to navigate excluded as she was from the changes to weather that Hoarfrost was able to produce.

I allowed myself to be towed by the pixie. The Hoarfrost seemed more curious than dangerous, an assumption I probably shouldn't have made. Even if I was right and he wasn't dangerous right now, that didn't that wouldn't change. I kept a continuous thread of Qi powering my armor as we moved. I wasn't sure how strong Hoarfrost was, but Yvonne had made my armor, and she was a talented Armorsmith. The leather was crafted well enough to survive an attack or two from a Nascent Soul realm cultivator.

We had traveled far enough from where we first encountered Hoarfrost that the snow was lessening. I wasn't sure if that meant we had flown in the direction where the storm ended or began. The sun started peeking through clouds, the snow and ice refracting those rays into a blinding glare.

I withdrew a scarf made from the spider silk my Dojo was farming. It was sturdy enough to protect my eyes from the glare but light enough to see through. It had the same cascading pearls of water woven into each strand of silk, that water ignoring the biting cold and remaining liquid.

It was part of the enchantment that had been woven into the garment. The droplets were able to be manipulated by anyone with any ability to direct and control water. That ability to transform at the owner's direction was what allowed the material to shimmer and redirect light. That refraction and control of light allowed an individual adept with water Qi to activate and maintain a stealth field.

The water droplets bent the surrounding light so that a person wearing the spider silk faded into their surroundings. It was how the spiders Storm and I had defeated had managed to survive so long and get close to Xiwang. When not acting as a hive, each individual spider created a web of concealment that made an effective trap for anything unlucky enough to stumble across them.

'We're here,' the Hoarfrost announced.

"Where?" I asked, searching the area but not seeing more than some broken ice—a ground cluttered and formed by glacial erosion.

'This is where Lady Yuki-onno said to bring you. She is near, but it is up to you to find out where and how to get to her.

'Think of it as a test,' he suggested. 'If you can't figure it out, you will go no farther or find anything of import, no matter how much you search.

'Pass this test, and you gain access to what the realm has to offer.'

Hoarfrost sped off once he'd given his instructions and warning. I could have followed or had Storm follow, but there was no point. His ability to hide within the confines of the blizzard made finding a needle in a haystack more likely than seeing him.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Turning to begin scouting my surroundings, faced with the possibility that his warning was likely true, I began to really examine my surroundings. The ground looked like a lake of floating ice that had been shattered. Ice that had been the epicenter of a tremendous explosion, something or someone had dealt a savage blow to the area I was surveying.

There was order in that chaos. Clear passages that could serve as roadways if they were widened might have existed. Jutting up from broken landscapes were ice flows. Some of those flows seemed to create partitions that segmented one section of the land from the other.

What was interesting and began to take shape was the scattered shapes almost uniformly found amongst the detritus of broken ice. Shapes that appeared to have been sculpted. Sculptures and forms shaped like spheres and cubes were abundant.

I only noticed them when I looked past the debris in that unfocused way your vision could alter your perception and make sense of what seemed senseless.

The squinting of my eyes to understand what the puzzle the landscape before me represented. A subtle shade of shadow highlighted the more advanced shapes. Shapes that were as precise and abstract as spheres, decagons, and hectogons.

Storm and I were canvassing the area, flying to better map and understand the land around us. The only hint that Hoarfrost had given was that Yuki-onno was near, so as we scanned the area, we searched for some doorway that would lead underground.

Storm had taken to hopping across the ice sculptures, treating them like the branches of a tree. It gave her time to focus on each area. She had learned to hover using her Qi, mainly as a means to ambush me, but still landed when she wanted to peck at an object that interested her.

She had become frustrated with me when I'd first used the [Hammerhead Maneuver], right before we found the spider hive. She had spent time and energy learning to use her Qi in place of wings so that she could master that movement. Once she had the ability to stall and had internalized how to achieve that stall, she made the leap in logic to understand that a chained sequence of adjustments at the apex of the [Hammerhead] would allow her flexibility that gliding couldn't.

We spent most of the day searching through the ice flow. We had even taken the time to examine areas the other had quartered. No matter how we searched, how deep we focused our perception, there was simply nothing to find.

No passage, no hidden cave, no room buried beneath the ice. At least not one that we could find. It might be possible there were rooms, roads, and even cities just beyond the reach of our perception, but I didn't think it likely.

Hoarfrost made it seem that finding Yuki-Onno was possible, and if there were no way to get to her, that would defeat the test's purpose. There had to be a way, something we were missing.

There were two anomalies that we had noticed in our search, differences we thought were natural or a function of time. One of the shaped pieces of ice had been splintered. A section had broken off and was lying with disturbing imperfection in a field of perfectly shaped objects.

The other item of note we had come across was a divot that appeared to have been dug out of one of the larger cubes. We had both examined that divot meticulously. The ice had been hallowed out purposely. It appeared spherically in shape, but a detailed scan showed it to be something more—a perfectly formed myriagon. A piece of ice was carved out, and the sides remained faceted into a polygon with ten thousand sides.

We searched for a 'key' that might work with that opening, but that search was in vain. It was only when the day was coming to an end that I realized that the test might have been two-fold in nature.

Certainly, we needed to find Yuki-onno, but this was a land where my elemental masteries would shine. Instead of finding a key, maybe I was supposed to use my water and ice affinity to create one. To use my skills to repair the broken hexagon that we had discovered.

The Queen of Winter might want a demonstration of my abilities.