Before I started working on that, I wanted to take stock of my stats. But something was a bit strange, I hadn’t gotten my tier C skill upgrade for my soul stat.

  I’m sure you get a skill after that, right? I might be forgetting something, but I should have something I think…

  System?

  

  [What is your query user Drifa?]

  Did I unlock a tier C skill for my soul stat?

  

  [Processing…]

  […]

  [Affirmative.]

  Okay, and?

  

  [You have three options:]

  [1. No upgrade.]

  [2. Upgrade now.]

  [3. Wait for upgrade to combine with another stat that’s upgraded to tier C-. While you wait your soul stat will be unable to surpass C+ tier.]

  I wasn’t entirely sure why the System hadn’t mentioned this earlier, but whatever, I had the option now.

  What to do, what to do…

  I tapped my chin and looked up at nothing in particular.

  Option number three sounds like the smarter idea, I have no idea why someone would choose number one, and the second one has immediate gratification.

  I might just do it now because of the boss fight but…

  I pursed my lips.

  Does that make sense long term? We’re gonna fight for a while unless a miracle happens or, well, if Ismund doesn’t get better.

  I really wanted him to get better, even if I couldn’t fight. I didn’t know his background or anything really, other than he wants to get more powerful, but I think he’s putting all of his chips into this one thing. He doesn’t care about anything else.

  I’ll go with the long term plan I guess… I’m not really—

  

  [User Drifa’s skill upgrade will be put on hold until further notice, even if she doesn’t want to wait any longer.]

  What.

  I put a hand on my head and my mouth parted.

  But I hadn’t been sure!

  I wanted to say it aloud, but that’d probably make the guys wake up and make me look weird, like last time.

  Okay then…

  I wiped my damp, frosty palms on my pants.

  May as well look at how long that’s going to take. Fingers crossed.

  My mind stat was 200 points away and my body was somewhere around 236 away.

  So not too bad, but it’ll be a bit for sure. I’m not sure if that’s the right call or not… but I guess it’s best to not dwell on it for too long.

  Done with looking at my status and trying to get an upgrade, I moved onto my own magic.

  It was all dark now, there wasn’t even flickering lights.

  I wonder if this is what stuff looks like to Ismund right now? Kind of?

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  My head was feeling kind of floaty from being tired I just felt like curling up on the floor as I was and falling asleep but I wanted to help beat this boss. Because it looked like I might be able to do something substantial. The boss is just made of snow and I do snow magic stuff.

  I had been messing with some magic when we were walking through the dungeon, so I had a vague idea of where to go.

  Okay, so there’s snow. I need to make it into a shape… I’ll start with snowballs. That should be easier than anything geometric.

  I’m gonna need snow for this.

  I sneaked up latter again, after bumping into a few things and stubbing my toe once or twice, and filled a bucket with it before bringing it back and hitting some more chairs and missing one of the steps.

  I wonder if I could make the snow myself at some point. That’d be cool

  Sitting back where I was before (at least I thought), I emptied the bucket of snow on the ground and spent my time connecting to as many snowflakes as possible.

  It always takes so long to connect to snowflakes because they’re all different shapes. It was easier with the bone earlier because it was basically the same structure on the outside.

  I reached out and tried to move them all at once. It didn’t work.

  Is this even possible.

  Only maybe two or three snowflakes moved where I wanted, everything else kind of just exploded.

  I guess I’ll be a bit more delicate. That was basically just kicking it.

  The snow was everywhere now.

  I grimaced and shrugged to myself.

  It’ll be more accurate I guess? If the boss is like a snow storm it’s all going to be far apart, right?

  I tried grabbing a chunk again, but it was even worse. I only got two snowflakes to move.

  I’m obviously doing something wrong. But I don’t know what.

  I sat for a moment.

  May as well go through what I’m doing.

  I’m connecting my energy signature to the snowflakes so I can move them. When I want to move them I use a big chunk of energy and, well, first time I tried just pushing all the snow with it, kind of expected the snow to attach to it, they didn’t, after that I tried matching it too the idea of snowflakes I had in my head at the moment.

  I’m not sure, but, I might know what the problem is.

  I drummed my fingers on my crossed legs.

  I think that mass of energy I use needs to stick to something when it goes by the snow, otherwise it’s just pushing. I thought it would work since it’s my energy and my energy’s in the snowflakes, but… ehh, it just doesn’t work I guess.

  I tried again. It exploded again.

  Same thing won’t have a different result. That’s what they call being crazy right?

  I waved the thought away again and re-focused.

  All of them are snowflakes, but when I match the shape of my energy signature it doesn’t work… so that doesn’t work. Do they have something else in common since I guess them all being snowflakes doesn’t count?

  I let out an exasperated breath.

  Oh, I guess I could try that.

  I reached out with my energy after waiting a bit longer and connected to my energy signature instead of the snowflake part. My energy signature would stay the same, even if everything else wouldn’t.

  [Negative. Energy signatures can change after significant change in a person’s mind, personality-]

  Tell me later. I’m interested, but like, I’m tired.

  

  [Acknowledged.]

  Then, I moved the energy up. It worked. a large chunk was left behind, but it worked so much better compared to before. The improvement was exponential.

  I bounced up and down a bit and I smiled so much it hurt my cheeks after a while.

  I need to smile more so the muscles don’t get tired.

  I clenched my fists and held them in-front of myself, close to my chest and took a big breath out.

  I can’t wait to tell Ismund that I got better, Abs too.

  I rocked back and forth happily.

  I’m gonna do it again!

  So I did. I kept practising, over and over, I couldn’t help myself. This was magic I could actually do something with. One snowflake isn’t much, but throwing a snowball, that was something.

  Oh, good idea.

  I grabbed some snow with my hands after gathering it with my energy and packed it into a snowball.

  It’ll be denser this way, when I move it around with magic it’s pretty loose.

  I threw the snowball and tried to make it come back to me. It didn’t go very far away from myself, but it was still harder to hold onto the snowball once it got further away.

  Some of the bonds I had with the snowball started snapping once it got too far. I gasped and then wrenched it back towards myself saving the bonds as fast as I could I stopped some of the momentum, but the rest of the snowball rolled away and broke off the rest of the connection I already had to it.

  I hurt. I knew that I wasn’t really being permanently hurt, not even my soul, it was just excess spirit energy, but I was still attached to all that snow. There was so many connections.

  I’ll keep that in mind for the future.

  Even if I wanted to practice more, I didn’t have any more energy to spend and I was completely exhausted.

  It seemed like Abs was waking up but I just laid down on the floor and passed out.