Within the icy-gray, dead world, the passage of time could not be felt.
However, through the faintly visible Prime Material Plane beyond the World Gate, Aivrel could roughly calculate how much time had passed by observing the shifting patterns of light and shadow from its day-night cycles.
This feeding on mana lasted a full ten days.
After ten days, the mana was depleted, Aivrel’s exhaustion and hunger finally disappeared, and her energy-constituted body returned to normal.
At the same time, she was surprised to discover that the power to control frost within her seemed to have grown by a tiny sliver compared to when she first awoke!
“Can devouring mana also enhance my power?”
Aivrel’s face showed surprise.
Although it was a very negligible increase, it represented a path to elevating her strength!
But soon, feeling the mana within her body that, while replenished, was still nearly drained dry, she shook her head again:
“No, it doesn’t seem like growth. More like… recovery.”
“To make an analogy, it’s merely equivalent to dropping an insignificant droplet of water into a dried-up seabed.”
Having thought this far, Aivrel’s gaze almost instantly fell upon the World Gate.
Recalling the unknown, fatal threat she had sensed earlier, and the power increase brought by the mana from beyond the Gate, she quickly reached a decision:
“The identity I’ve transmigrated into is probably not simple, nor safe.”
“This icy-gray world of extinction is just a cage. I must find a way to escape.”
“Restoring my power first would be best, but relying on the Gate’s connection to absorb mana is still too slow…”
“I must rely on the Prime Material Plane. Whether to restore power or escape from here, I need to find a way… to enter the Prime Material Plane!”
Aivrel once again harbored the thought of crossing the World Gate.
However, she also knew that in her current state, achieving this goal was likely impossible.
This World Gate was too dilapidated, it could no longer withstand her power unless it was repaired.
Moreover, she currently had no confidence in avoiding the mysterious mark on the Gate.
But this did not mean she could do nothing.
In fact, that previous instinctive ability to pull and devour mana through consciousness had given her a new idea:
“Perhaps… I don’t need to cross the World Gate in person. Instead, I can project my extended consciousness over, entering the other side of the Gate!”
“Then, while searching for methods to repair the Gate and erase the mysterious mark, I can absorb mana, investigate the secrets of this body, and awaken those still-dormant memory fragments!”
This frozen, silent world had nothing.
But the other world beyond the Gate was full of infinite possibilities.
And all signs indicated that perhaps the other world was where the 【Ice Witch Aivrel】 was supposed to be.
Thinking of this, Aivrel’s gaze fell upon the World Gate again.
Projecting consciousness across the Gate was not that simple either.
She had tried over these past few days; conscious perception could not directly pass through the Gate. To project consciousness to the other side, she needed to rely on some kind of vessel.
This vessel had to be sturdy enough to cross between the two worlds, and also capable of holding sufficient mana.
After some searching, Aivrel eventually pulled out a snow-white phoenix-shaped pendant from her chest.
She didn’t know what material this pendant was made of. It was crystalline and translucent, vivid and lifelike, not only extremely sturdy but also highly attuned to mana.
Back when she instinctively extended her consciousness, she had sensed that this pendant seemed capable of hosting her expanded consciousness, and now it was perfect for experimentation.
With this in mind, Aivrel began to attempt it.
Manipulating and externalizing consciousness seemed to be an instinct of this body.
After only a few attempts, Aivrel successfully imprinted a strand of her consciousness onto the phoenix pendant.
At this moment, she discovered she possessed two perspectives.
One was her main body, the other was the pendant, as if she had gained an extra avatar.
This experience was quite peculiar, but surprisingly, she felt no discomfort.
Aivrel fiddled with it curiously for a while, ensuring everything was fine, before looking at the World Gate again.
Taking a deep breath, she carefully threw the phoenix pendant, imprinted with her consciousness, into it…
……
Aivrel felt the separated part of her consciousness being swept into an invisible storm, enduring near-tearing pain.
After an unknown amount of time…
When the violent tearing sensation finally subsided, this wisp of weak consciousness slowly awoke.
She had indeed succeeded.
The pendant had successfully reached the other world.
Aivrel could hear the wind, hear the rain, hear the long-lost clamor and vitality belonging to a living world.
But she was trapped once again.
The imprinted consciousness was trapped within the pendant, like a fly sealed in amber, unable to break free, only able to passively perceive vague, intermittent information from the outside.
At times, she felt as if she were being carried by something sharp, ascending amidst swaying…
At other times, she felt herself swallowed into a warm, damp, and utterly dark environment…
After an unknowable length of time, following a violent tremor and surge, she fell into a cold, flowing liquid, surrounded by the gurgling sound of water and the feel of pebbles…
She eventually sank into a clear mountain stream. After entering the water, the speed of mana absorption noticeably increased.
Time lost meaning here.
Sunrise and sunset, the cycle of seasons.
The stream water was sometimes rushing, sometimes calm.
The pendant was buried among silt and pebbles, then washed out by new currents.
Aivrel absorbed the faint, almost negligible free mana in the water, like a candle flame about to extinguish, arduously maintaining that wisp of consciousness.
And in this near-eternal solitude, her understanding of her own essence grew clearer.
She could clearly “see” that the core of this wisp of consciousness was of the same origin as the tiny ice-element mana particles swirling around her.
Its essential structure was identical to that of ice elementals, only more complex, more profound.
The so-called separation of consciousness was not like simple mental division, but more like a wondrous act of creating an avatar.
Mana was not an external energy to her, but more like an extension of her body, the cornerstone of her existence.
And this, in fact, included her main body as well.
“I… am indeed an elemental spirit as well.”
“A high-level elemental spirit with a human form, known as the 【Ice Witch】… an elemental lifeform capable of transforming between humanoid, material, and energy states.”
This understanding was no longer just the girl’s speculation, but a conclusion drawn after repeated verification during the long solitude.
One year, two years… five years… eight years…
Aivrel’s wisp of consciousness slowly recovered amidst this near-eternal silence and gradual energy absorption.
Until a certain night in the tenth year, when the cold moonlight shone on the stream’s surface, and the weak mana absorbed by the pendant reached a certain critical point, Aivrel’s wisp of consciousness finally accumulated enough power!
She could project her vision.
A mental ripple, so faint it was almost undetectable, slowly spread out from the pendant as its center.
The range was small, initially only about ten meters in radius.
But it was enough for Aivrel to clearly “see” her surroundings—
The clear-bottomed stream, moss-covered rocks, small fish swimming among aquatic plants, and the plants swaying in the night wind on the banks.
Ten years.
A full ten years.
Aivrel was finally no longer a completely passive prisoner.
However, she could only “see.”
The limitations of the vessel and the damage incurred from crossing the World Gate meant she still could not move an inch, and her exploration range was extremely limited.
To put it bluntly, hoping to find methods to repair the Gate or erase the tracking mark this way was nothing short of a fool’s dream.
But a decade of dormancy was not without gain.
During the recovery process, Aivrel gained a deeper understanding and control over the frost power carried by this wisp of consciousness, which originated from her main body.
And what interested her most was the instinct possessed by high-level elemental spirits—the power of 【Creation】 and 【Contract】— Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
【To enlighten, and command lower elemental spirits.】
Aivrel could sense the ice-element mana contained in the surrounding moisture.
She could use ice-element mana as the core and her own consciousness as the brush, enlightening them into tiny ice spirits with basic sentience.
A natural master-servant 【Elemental Contract】 existed between these low-level elemental creatures and herself.
They were pure and loyal, capable of executing simple commands, and could feed back absorbed mana to Aivrel.
Moreover, these elemental creatures could inhabit birds, beasts, or even form equal 【Spirit Contracts】 with animals possessing relatively high sentience.
Once a contract was established, the elemental spirit could use the contract partner’s activities to absorb and refine mana, accelerate its growth, and simultaneously share corresponding elemental power with the contract partner.
And as the source of power for the ice elemental spirits, the growth of the spirits would be synchronously fed back to Aivrel, helping her recover this wisp of consciousness, and even… possibly nourishing her main body far away in the Realm of Frozen Silence!
This discovery invigorated Aivrel.
She immediately began to experiment.
She first selected a fish in the stream, enlightened an ice elemental spirit the size of a firefly, and tried to have it establish a contract link with the fish.
However, the fish’s consciousness was chaotic and ignorant, possessing only the instincts for survival and reproduction. It couldn’t understand complex commands at all. The contract link was fragile and collapsed instantly.
She then tried a wild rabbit on the bank, a field mouse in the woods, even a bird that happened to land.
The results were not ideal.
There was no helping it; animals’ sentience was too low.
They might instinctively sense some benefits brought by the elemental spirit, but they couldn’t effectively communicate, let alone perfectly execute Aivrel’s complex commands like “explore the distance” or “find items.”
Their sentience was also insufficient to maintain a spirit contract.
Repeated failures plunged Aivrel into contemplation:
If animals won’t do… then what about… humans?
Just as this thought clearly surfaced in her consciousness, as if touching a key switch, another sealed memory fragment slowly merged into her perception—
This was a piece of common knowledge belonging to this world:
【Elemental spirits forming contracts with intelligent beings is an ancient and powerful mainstream cultivation path in the Prime Material Plane.】
【Intelligent beings, by contracting elemental spirits, can become elementalists who wield transcendent power.】
【Elemental spirits can also use the contractor’s spirit and activities to accelerate their growth, even achieving leaps in life level.】
“So that’s how it is.”
Aivrel understood.
Her previous idea wasn’t a flight of fancy; it was a rule that existed in this world itself!
If she could find a suitable human contractor, her ice elemental spirits could not only grow faster and feed back more mana to her, but also use human intelligence and agency to actively explore this world, searching for everything she needed—
Methods to repair the World Gate, clues to erase the mark, and… this body’s lost past and power!
And when Aivrel thought of this, a new idea naturally emerged—
Since low-level elemental spirits could form contracts with intelligent beings…
Then, as a higher-tier being whose essence also belonged to elemental spirits, did she… also possess similar possibilities?
Thinking this far, Aivrel fell into deep thought:
Perhaps, if her power was sufficiently restored in the future, she could also, in some form, establish a deeper connection with a suitable and trustworthy being.
Like a spirit and its contractor, but transcending it!
By then, a successfully contracted her might not need to rely on the World Gate at all; she could directly use the spirit contract’s coordinates to return to the Prime Material Plane!
Of course, she wouldn’t consider such things now.
The 【Spirit Contract】 she currently grasped had too many restrictions.
But contracts for lower spirits were different.
She could command lower spirits through the master-servant 【Elemental Contract】, and naturally could indirectly command the spirit contractors of those lower spirits.
So… what she needed now was a human contractor for a lower spirit!