I launched myself into the air to join Storm. That action should have resulted in nothing of consequence, but my movement triggered something. The area transformed as I flew, a shift in weather and environment as a blinding blizzard took shape.

The land below that had been rife with lush plants, and life was remade. A tundra of ice and snow now encompassing the world. It was hard to tell how far and pervasive this new weather system was. The blizzard reduced visibility to almost nothing, but the world had changed. As far as my perception could reach, the forest had been replaced by tundra.

The Qi that had been wood and earth aspect had transformed. Now it was heavily laced with water and wind. I wondered if this change in environment was a function related to an individual or the realm. Perhaps the Mystical Realm tested the Qi signature of any individual that entered and transformed the world to amplify the elemental affinities to mirror those entering.

I wasn’t sure, but I had read about Mystical Realms that served to hone an individual’s abilities. Realms that tested the control of your affinities and would then create scenarios where you might gain greater control.

The howling wind of the storm had been all-consuming at first, making flight difficult. The blizzard was a gale of lashing winds as strong as any hurricane ever formed. That driving wind was the only sound I could detect, but I knew there was something else—an undercurrent to the wind.

A blending of wind to create sound.

Whispers in the absolute whiteness of driving snow that I was finally able to distinguish and understand.

‘Do you hear me?

‘Stupid! Why aren’t you listening?

‘If you can’t hear, why isn’t the cold making you sleep?

‘Hey! Do you want to see a secret?’

The voice was male. The sound tinsel might make if rubbed together. There was a lightness to it, an innocence that reminded me of those perfect winter days when you woke to find the world blanketed in white perfection and snowflakes tapping at your window.

I’m not sure why I associated the voice with the myth of Jack Frost, but for some reason, I did. Once I realized the whisper might be a spirit, I activated that part of my perception that would allow me to find him.

He was a face in the wind, a flutter of snowflakes joined together to give him shape and form. He wasn’t that big, barely the size of my hand, but he manifested as a fully formed Elf. The spirit appeared male, but that was a misnomer, spirits might mimic a gender or species, but it was no more male than it was a miniaturized elf.

He seemed to know that I could see him now and, with that knowledge, acted. He managed to arrest the wind around us, standing in place. It was like he had opened an umbrella; the snow and wind were diverted, ignoring the area he controlled.

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“Who are you?” I asked, hoping to get some answers.

‘I am the hoarfrost,’ he replied, ‘early morning dew that has frozen and taken shape. Given life, I became a harbinger of winter, warning of its beginning and end.

‘I am a servant of Yuki-onno, the snow woman. She felt your arrival and sent me to show you the way.’

“What should I call you? And is that why everything changed?” I asked. It was much easier to communicate with this spirit than it had been with the Triad. I wondered if that was a function of the Mystic Realm or how each spirit developed over time.

‘My name and what I am are the same. I am Hoarfrost as well as hoarfrost.

‘The world changes as the seasons demand. Lady Yuki-onno rules this world with three others, each representing a season. When you arrived, you were tested, and your affinities for wind, water, fog, ice, and lightning were noticed.

‘Lady Yuki-onno shares those affinities, so she was given precedence and control. The world changed to reflect her control.’

“What happens when others arrive?” I inquired. “There will be more cultivators coming, as many as three hundred. Will they each have a chance to explore in a world adjusted to complement their affinities?”

‘No. You have set the parameters for the world during this iteration of the Realm’s opening. Anyone else arriving will have to contend with the world as you see it now.’

I had hoped the Mystic Realm could conform to each person, but I’d realized even as I’d considered that possibility that it was improbable. The Qi expenditure for a newly discovered Mystic Realm to create a personalized Realm could not be sustained.

The Realm would grow. But it would take the deaths of those that entered to explore to kindle the spark for that growth.

The bubble of stillness Hoarfrost had created had not been stationary. Storm had informed me when it started moving with me along with it. I’d felt the changes myself but had decided to allow the Hoarfrost’s action. I wanted to see where he was taking me.

I wasn’t sure if I was being kidnapped or escorted to Lady Yuki-onno, but I had Storm fly a circling pattern and keep me informed about the world around us. She was as blinded visually by the snowstorm as I was, but she was well versed in using her perception ability by now.

I realized her ability to scan her surroundings had eclipsed my own at this point—a function of mapping my territory, something that she focused on accomplishing daily. Since the incident with the spiders, she had become almost obsessed with identifying the land I controlled. She had taken a blow to her ego after realizing that she had missed noticing the spiders in her initial scan.

As she flew, I felt a change within my inner mind. A second map began to form, one that detailed the world we were in. The map slowly filled in with shapes of rock, ice, and frozen rivers as those landmasses were revealed.

Storm had found and cataloged a few animals. Two of the animals were actual threats. The Qi aura from a creature that most resembled a Kuraokami had given even the Hoarfrost pause. An ice dragon of such power that there was no way anyone of my cultivation realm could survive if it attacked.

‘The Kuraokami has claimed the valley below this mountain range,’ the winter spirit informed me, forgetting that it hadn’t told me we were moving. ‘She is almost as powerful as Lady Yuki-onno, but she sleeps. She can’t be bothered to notice a single cultivator barely upon the path of enlightenment.’

I wasn’t sure if that was meant to be an insult or comfort, not that it mattered. I wasn’t insane enough to think I could contend with a dragon that could hold her own with the Queen of Winter. I worried that this Mystic Realm might be ranked high enough for the most powerful cultivator to explore.

A battle between an Immortal Venerable cultivator and the Kuraokami would be a world-shaking event. It might even provide the necessary energy or enlightenment needed for a cultivator to ascend and claim the Heavens.

If this realm was highly ranked, I was in trouble. There was no way I could survive an Immortal Venerable ranked Mystic Realm.