Hoarfrost didn’t speak again before he left. A slight disturbance in my perception let me know when he had flown away. I didn’t mind, and his presence didn’t change my plans. I was going to search the city before braving the castle.

It was there that I hoped to find hidden jewels, jewels of knowledge that would last much longer than any ephemeral treasure or artifact. I had to be methodical in my approach; there was no way to know how long the Mystic Realm would remain open.

I was both hoping and worried that it would be months before the Mystic Realm closed and I could leave. My family was slated to arrive in only a few weeks, and I wouldn’t be there to greet them. But the city sprawling before me was huge, and it could take centuries to sift through every building.

I had left instructions with Gwen and Zui on where my family was to be housed. I had purchased land and had a crew build three buildings for them to work and live in. A bi-level building would serve as home—the first in my memory that wasn’t connected and part of my mother’s shop.

Another building had been built to work as both shop and lab. It had been furnished with equipment and arrays that might be found in any Alchemist’s workshop. Finally, a greenhouse had been crafted for my father, a building constructed near two acres of land suitable for growing.

The building’s location had been chosen to allow my father to restore his garden. I had wanted to see their faces and share in their joy when they arrived and first saw the home I had prepared for them. I was missing it. It made me resent the need to explore this rift, but my duties and responsibilities as a cultivator and Baroness were clear.

My family would have to take a backseat. The opportunities a cultivator might encounter could not be ignored, not if they wanted to continue growing. I had become a virtual stranger to my siblings. Their year-long journey was only the first step on a path that would see our relationship weaken.

Storm and I were studying the city’s layout from the air. Since it was too large for me to explore every building in the time I had, I needed to concentrate my efforts on facilities that might contain benefits to me and my people.

What I was hoping to find was a Sect or Clan, a place with a library of cultivation techniques and professional resources. I noticed a few locations that might serve but began to wonder if ignoring the castle might be the wrong choice before deciding not to second guess myself.

My time would probably be better served looking for areas where the Qi density spiked. Those high-density areas might have items I could salvage and give clues on where I could find the tokens and resources I was after.

Storm and I stopped looking for possible libraries and started looking for those pockets of dense Qi.

The castle was a beacon of energy that took a concerted effort to filter from our perception so that we could isolate those lesser areas where Qi pooled. Thousands of places triggered our new search parameters, more than we could feasibly explore.

I was left relying on my intuition. The tides of fate would determine my success. All I could do was select areas with the densest Qi pools and hope that whatever was causing the Qi to fluctuate in those areas would help my territory, people, or me to grow stronger.

The first place I settled on was a cluster of buildings. A site that had a slight resemblance to the Dojo I had built. I could detect a Qi gathering array functioning, surprising considering how long this city must have been deserted. I wondered if this Realm had only existed as a possibility and if my entrance had unlocked the conditions that allowed it to form.

Stolen story; please report.

I focused on one of the outlier buildings, to begin with, a building being used as a smithy. There were chimney stacks and ducts that would allow any furnace to operate safely, the ductwork an interesting mix of opening and bellows that allowed the smith to control temperature.

It seemed paradoxical for a building of ice, a people that lived their lives under the embrace of Winter’s cloak, to have the means to create and contain that fire keeping it from melting the building. That was until I came across the fuel the smith was using.

Ice could burn. Cold-smithing existed. It was a practice that Elven blacksmiths had no skill in. Here it was only made possible because of the intricate knot of arrays that blazed before my Dharmic sight. This smithy had taken that idea to another level. I used one of the recording tokens I had brought to document the arrays inscribed, around, on, and in the furnace.

Most of the runes were new to me, but I was barely an apprentice Arrayist. I wasn’t sure if they were new discoveries for my people or runes, I would discover as I advanced my mastery. It hardly mattered; even if the runes were known, the patterns and arrays they were used in were unique.

Elves didn’t have a reason to cold smith or the fuel used in the furnaces we created to make the attempt. The ‘coal’ I discovered was made from some type of tree I couldn’t identify- old growth that was brimming with ice-aspected Qi. I had never seen anything like it, but it was so cold that touching it without protection would cause burns.

The tools and furnace had also been created with a type of metal I wasn’t familiar with. There were blocks of a kind of ice ore stacked neatly. The entire forging area was well maintained. Each instrument was well cared for. Even the anvil had been well maintained.

There was none of the metal shavings or ash one would expect to find in a foundry. I wasn’t sure if that was because of time, or a trait of the metal and coal. What I found fascinating was the metal ingots, brimming with ice-aspected Qi, were comfortable to hold and handle.

The ingots did seem to absorb the heat from my hand, but not so drastically that it would cause any alarm or danger, even for a non-cultivator. I wanted to experiment with everything, but my knowledge of smithing was purely academic.

I had read all the material I’d purchased for the Dojo, but I’d never put any of that knowledge to practice. It seemed idiotic to make my first attempt using tools, metals, and ores that even a Grandmaster Blacksmith had never tested.

Instead, I began collecting everything, placing one item after another into my spatial ring. I still wore the first spatial storage device I’d purchased so long ago, but that first device would have been hard pressed to store everything before me. Thankfully, I’d augmented that device with several rings and bracelets.

I’d entered the Mystic Realm with most of those storage devices empty, hoping to fill them with whatever I discovered. I planned to store anything I came across by type. I hesitated about keeping raw resources and metals with the smithing equipment before deciding it made more sense than trying to find space for every herb, ore, or artifact I came across.

It was only when I attempted to store the furnace and anvil that I ran into problems. The assault on my mind came with no warning, and I was forced to retreat into my mindscape. Something was trying to possess me, and if I couldn’t get my mind’s defenses shored up and active, they were going to succeed. I’d been careless, assuming that I was safe because there was nothing living.

Sister was happy and excited. I had watched her explore for a while before I got bored. Sister was always working. She needed to learn to play more.

I decided to explore on my own.

That is how I found them.

They hid well. But after I had missed the spiders that attacked Sister and her people, I had improved the way I searched.

They moved slowly, inching forward to surround the building Sister was working in. I didn’t worry that they might be friends. Friends didn’t try to sneak up on you. They were weird. Even when I was completely focused on them, they seemed nothing more than snow and ice.

If I hadn’t seen them moving, I would have ignored them.

But I had, and it was a matter of seconds before I released wind sheers to shatter and destroy whatever they were.

They were easy to kill, I found. Sister didn’t need to be bothered with something so weak.