Q: What is the dominion supposedly the hardest to master in your opinion?

A: The Dominion of Transformation needs a lot of studying and training to master its function, still most of the practitioners failed to grasp its power. Still, there is a clear way for its training, but not for Dominion of Shift, Oscar had to grasp it on his own, and it was never easy when the primary function of the dominion was on astral projection.

- - -

Althan managed to find Zisk’moon in the north sky, peeking through the clouds, while the other two only twinkled a little through the swirling clouds.

After Oscar fled away, Althan tried to go after him and capture him again, but that flying abomination from Ruthalyn made it hazardous, not to mention in this blizzard. Even if he wanted to, Althan couldn’t go after Oscar.

Well, he did pay enough for what was due to Althan, however, the last-minute display of hurling everyone of his underlings, including him in that fiery circle sword swing, left a foul taste in his stomach.

Althan cursed at his underlings, screaming, imbecile, dimwit, dolt, fools—everything that came to his mind. Some of them even gave an unsatisfied look, led by Harth—they think it's his fault that Oscar got away.

‘Those imbeciles,’ Althan thought, ‘couldn’t even keep a single squire, and they think it’s my fault? That Harth, I need to show him his place.’

Althan shook uncomfortably to stand up, stretching his body. Even with him revolving his spirit energy frequently against the cold, he couldn’t manage to stay in proper form. Not to mention, drawing energy would exhaust his mental fortitude. It's just bad on all sides. First Oscar got away, destroying expensive equipment, and there’s no way for him to get it fixed without drawing attention. He even might get into trouble just possessing an item like that.

Twelve hundred dynes wasted just like that, and he couldn’t even get satisfaction beating up Oscar. ‘These imbeciles. They had one job, eight men to keep one person at his place, yet they screwed it all up. Bloody oafs, for a reason. I wondered if it’s even practical to raise these oafs.’

The blizzard went down by a lot eventually, though the bad wind swirled mercilessly. Half of his men were setting up tents. Godly fools, what’s taking them so long to set up some simple tents? Can’t they be any less useless?

They were behind the shade of the ridge covered in the snow, relieving them some of the wind. Harth, the Knight Squire, was watching over few, who were setting up the tents, while a couple of them were on the lookout.

“Harth,” Althan shouted, kicking the snow in frustration, “what’s taking so long?”

Harth turned his head to look at him, but he didn’t come to him like a Stonehound, wiggling his tail as he used to be. “The snow isn’t making it easier,” the squire answered flatly. “It’ll take some time, Master Althan.”

“More time?” Althan shouted again, still not moving towards them. “Have you never set up a tent before?”

“We sure did,” Harth answered, “but not in this bad weather. Wait for some time.”

After Oscar got away, Althan wanted to give chase, but the frightening blizzard stopped them. Well, they did cover some distance first, but seeing no hope of finding that flaming bastard, Althan finally gave up. At some point when the blizzard was in its full swing, he wanted to leave the mountains as soon as possible, abandoning his original mission which was to survey the Mountains to search for the sign of ice creature surge.

Well, he wouldn’t be abandoning it for good, this was kind of a big mission, the perfect thing to make some name, but who said he couldn’t come back again, not to mention this survey would take at least a couple of weeks to finish up. Only an idiot would keep going in such damnable weather.

It took ten minutes more for one of the tents to be set up. Althan wasted no more breath outside, got inside among the stares of his underlings. Wrapping a blanket around his body, he got busy igniting up a heatstone—the only one that he brought with him. It’s a lot smaller than a heater and dangerous at times too.

Heatstones are made up of fire crystal, which has the tendency to blast off. Even though this one was made into something to only release heat, it could blast off under some particular influence.

Althan was just getting cosy when he heard a disturbance outside. It didn’t take long for them to tuck on his tent. ‘Damnable fools! What’s this time?’

“Master Althan, there’s something you might want to see,” Harth’s voice came with some uncertainty.

Althan got up and came out wrapped with the blanket around his body. “I’m telling you if this is something—“ Althan paused, peering at the newcomer, breathing uneasily, shivering in the cold. “Yeriel?”

The girl on the snow lifted her head and stared at the source of the voice. Her face was pale red with exhaustion, the sweater full of snow, even her hair was bound in a braid behind, they were full of snowflakes. Two of his men stood beside her, uncertain what to do.

“Yeriel, what happened?” Althan called, stepping forward.

“I . . .” She tried to stand upright, but staggered to fall on her four limbs. “Help! They . . .”

“What happened?” Althan called coming before her. “We have nine men here. You don’t need to worry. Just tell me what happened?”

“No, no . . . I have to get to Oscar.”

‘Ayaan curse you, Oscar,’ Althan cursed in his head. He tried to pull her up and found no resistance from her, though her legs were still shaking. Gasps of white, smoky air came out of her mouth and nose. Touching her forehead, he found she was burning with fever. “Tell me, what exactly happened?”

“Dead, they are dead,” Yeriel whispered.

“Dead? Who?”

“Warlock attack, I need to get to Oscar. I need to tell him about William.”

“Damnable Woman, speak clearly,” Althan shouted. Warlock? Is there really something like that? He recalled Oscar saying something like that too, but back then he thought it was just an excuse. And even if there’s some warlock, what that has to do with Oscar, it’s not like he can compete against a warlock in full force.

“I need to get to him,” Yeriel only whispered the same thing, almost in an inaudible voice.

Althan grunted and supported her shuddering body, pulling his right arm over her back. 'Still Oscar, huh? Curse that bastard.’ Coughing a bit, he looked at the two covering behind and then at Harth. “Where did you find her?”

Harth pointed at one of the youths in the back with a quiver and bow on his back. “He noticed the disturbance first on watch duty,” he said. “Only after seeing she’s helpless, he called for others. What do we do with her?”

Althan thought for a second. “Send a couple of men to see if there’s any truth in this warlock notion,” Althan commanded and looked at one of the lesser practitioners. “Kian, come with me. I need you to see what’s wrong with her.”

Kian was a lesser practitioner, not even a healer, but he has some expertise in apothecary. From the way things went, even Althan could tell Yeriel was exhausted and catching fever in this situation was a pretty easy thing. Maybe some potions would help.

‘You better be grateful to me after this,’ he muttered, looking at her place face, still whispering nonstop, as he got her towards the tent.

Kian followed by as commanded, carrying his side to carry with him. Althan laid Yeriel, getting into the tent, gesturing at Kian to do his thing. The lesser practitioner followed, nodding. He crouched down next to her to touch her forehead and ran his spirit energy to check on her. His expression stiffened immediately as he lifted his head to look at Althan.

“What?”

“Her channels,” Kian said, eyes widened, “they are sealed.”

“Sealed? You mean someone forcefully did it?” Althan asked, mind calculating, “With spirit energy?

One needs to have a standard level of strength and an excellent hand of control to seal someone else’s channels. Althan had not reached that level, and he doubted any of the students could achieve that. However, they all are taught how to free themselves from these seals.

“Yes,” Kian acknowledged. “Something very peculiar about this sealing, though. It’s a lot different from the usual way.”

“Let me see,” Althan said, and put his arm on Yeriel’s forehead to check.

Immediately, he felt some alien force resisting his interference. After a very careful examination, Althan found its very hard for the sealed person to be free from this alien energy, which might take days if not weeks, and in this condition of weather which also makes all usage of spirit energy difficult, it's almost impossible for Yeriel to do anything about it.

However, that was only limited to the sealed person, Althan could unseal the channels in a matter of a few minutes to a quarter of an hour or so. He needed to be careful only because he was not familiar with this way.

“I’ll work on her channels,” Althan told Kian, “Do something about her fever and exhaustion.”

Kian followed and Althan got busy, saving the damsel in distress. However, he only got a hold of the foreign energy on her left side when the tent shook in an upheaval, angry wind rattling all over.

Something was very wrong.

Yeriel screamed, lurching her body upright, tossing away Althan’s arm from her forehead. The wind rattled the tent, as waves of spiritual disturbance tainted the air.

“What’s happening?” Kian bellowed, frightened.

Althan’s expression changed too, as he stood up before Yeriel could and got out. The blizzard hadn't come back, however, something else was coming.