The harsh winter of Black Iron Town finally bared its most ferocious fangs.
The north wind, like a whip wrapped in icy grit, lashed every inch of exposed wall and skin.
The surface of the sewage ditch in the slums was covered in a grayish-white ice, and the rust on the discarded metal had frozen into sharp, brittle flakes.
The air was constantly filled with the choking, nauseating smoke produced by burning scrap wood, old clothes, and low-grade brown coal.
Seraphilia unhesitatingly exchanged the two silver coins she had earned for winter necessities: thick felt to plug every gap in the doors and windows, a small mountain of firewood, non-perishable beans and pickles, and even two discarded but sufficiently thick wool shawls.
Inside the shack, the fireplace burned almost all day, barely maintaining a small pocket of breathable warmth in the space.
But for Seraphilia, this deadly, freezing winter was not just a challenge for survival; it was also a natural, perfect training ground. Her obsession with Cloud Mist burned even more fiercely in the breath-steaming air than the flames in the hearth.
She knew better than anyone that among all forms of Cloud Mist, the'solidification' and 'cold' attributes contained within'Snow Cloud' were the only paths she could currently reach that possessed direct offensive potential. Water vapor condensing into ice was a drastic change in form and nature, an instantaneous transfer of energy.
If mastered, rapidly condensed ice could not only create hard, sharp weapons—ice blades, ice spears—but the extreme low temperature released instantaneously was itself a powerful means of crowd control and lethality. This was the 'ultimate move' she had to master to protect Robin in the future and deal with all unknown strong enemies.
The training location was moved to a more remote, leeward spot beneath the seaside cliffs.
It was colder here than the junkyard, and the sea breeze carried salty, damp vapor, stabbing the face like countless ice needles. But precisely because of this, it was an excellent environment for practicing low-temperature Cloud Mist.
The core objective of the training was crystal clear: condense as much water vapor into ice as possible in the shortest time, and begin preliminary shaping.
Crack!
Another failure.
An icicle, about thirty centimeters long, that she had painstakingly condensed, fell from mid-air because its structure was unstable. It shattered into several sparkling fragments upon hitting the ground, which was frozen as hard as steel.
From mobilizing her mental power to achieving formation, the entire process took her nearly half a minute, consuming enormous mental energy, only to result in this 'rock candy' that crumbled at the slightest touch.
Too slow, too fragile!
Seraphilia gasped for breath, the white mist she exhaled quickly condensing into fine frost on her eyelashes.
She was not satisfied with this inefficient repetition.
She began to force herself to calm down, enduring the severe headache caused by excessive mental exertion, and analyzed the principle. Freezing required two core elements: condensation nuclei and continuous extraction of low-temperature energy.
In nature, particles like dust and pollen could act as condensation nuclei, accelerating ice crystal formation.
Her Cloud Mist was composed of pure water vapor, lacking efficient condensation nuclei, forcing her to rely on brute force cooling, achieving only half the result with twice the effort.
A crazy and bold idea flashed like lightning through her nearly depleted thoughts.
What if... what if I could create the 'condensation nuclei' myself?
She tried not to directly cool a large mass of fog. Instead, she retracted all dispersed mental power, concentrating it intensely in her palm, aiming it at a small wisp of water vapor for extreme compression and cooling.
She intended to create a few extremely tiny 'ice crystal seeds' whose density and temperature were far below the freezing point!
During the first attempt, the'seed' disintegrated due to energy runaway before it could fully form the moment her mental power compressed it. She adjusted the output pattern of her mental power. Second attempt, third attempt... After countless failures, her fingertips were already turning bluish-purple and numb from the cold backlash.
Finally, when several'supercooled liquid drop seeds,' existing between solid and liquid states, which she maintained with all her strength, hovered in her palm, she unhesitatingly threw them into a large mass of dense fog she had prepared in front of her, simultaneously unleashing her remaining mental power like a breached dam, fully driving the extreme low temperature!
Hiss—!
A slight yet sharp explosion! As if several red-hot branding irons had been dropped into a calm lake, those few'seeds' instantly became the center of a storm! With them as the core, countless ice crystals, like wildly growing white thorns, spread over and devoured the entire fog mass at a terrifying speed visible to the naked eye!
A crude ice spear, over fifty centimeters long, with a sharp tip and covered in fine cracks across its entire body but possessing an incredibly stable overall structure, formed in just two or three seconds!
It hovered silently in the air, emitting a visible, chilling white vapor.
Success!
By using her self-created 'ice crystal seeds' as efficient condensation nuclei, the condensation speed increased nearly tenfold!
Seraphilia's face instantly turned pale, her temples throbbing violently, as if a steel needle were stirring inside. Her mental power was largely drained in that instant, and she even experienced brief black spots in her vision. But she forced herself to stand firm, gazing at the hovering ice spear. Her ice-blue eyes burned with an almost manic spark of ecstasy. She tried swinging it; the feel in her hand was several times heavier and sturdier than the previous ice spikes. Using her last ounce of strength, she let out a low shout and hurled it with all her might toward the frozen earth not far away!
Thud—!
With a dull sound of penetration, the ice spear plunged nearly ten centimeters deep into the frozen earth before shattering into a sky full of ice shards with a series of overburdened 'crackling' sounds.
The power was still limited, but the path had been completely opened!
She knew that what needed practice next was: creating'seeds' faster while maintaining the stability of more'seeds'; expanding the fog mass to create larger ice; attempting to shape the ice into more complex weapons or defenses; and, most crucially and dangerously—how to safely and quickly extract and release the immense 'cold energy' absorbed by the ice during its instantaneous formation within the ice spear. That might be the true lethality of Snow Cloud.
The training became even more arduous and dangerous. The cold backlash began to leave its marks on her.
On several occasions of over-extracting cold energy, her fingertips even suffered second-degree frostbite, and the purplish-black blisters caused her pain for days. Mental exhaustion was a daily occurrence; she often had to lean against the cold rock, gasping for a long time after training before she could drag her leaden legs back to the shack that held the only bit of warmth.
She accepted this willingly. The frozen ground beneath the cliff was littered with shattered ice crystals and the remains of ice spears. Her tolerance for cold, her understanding of energy exchange, and her perception of the destructive potential within'Snow Cloud' were all growing at an astonishing rate.
---
The nights in the shack were harder to endure than the days. The fireplace wood could not burn all night; by the latter half of the night, the chill would penetrate all barriers, seeping into the marrow like mercury.
Seraphilia always slept on the felt-covered floor near the fireplace, giving the only slightly thicker mattress on the broken bed to Robin.
Robin initially accepted this in silence, but as time passed, especially as Seraphilia returned from training every time carrying an inescapable cold aura and looking increasingly haggard, this arrangement began to cause her a kind of... jarring irritation.
One night, Seraphilia returned again, carrying a body full of cold air and exhaustion so profound it was almost tangible.
She hastily ate a little something and curled up on the floor mat, quickly falling into a deep sleep.
But even in her dreams, her body trembled slightly unconsciously due to the bone-deep cold and fatigue.
Robin lay on the relatively warmer bed, using the faint glow of the dying embers in the fireplace to watch Seraphilia's curled, blurry silhouette, listening to her occasional faint murmurs caused by the cold or nightmares.
Her pale blue eyes were open in the darkness, churning with extremely complex emotions: vigilance, confusion, a trace of reluctance she didn't want to admit, and long-held deep suspicion regarding Seraphilia's motives.
Another night, the temperature plummeted, and the cold wind howled like ghosts, drilling madly through the poorly sealed window gaps, emitting a mournful whistle.
Seraphilia's floor mat was directly in the path of the draft.
Robin was woken by the cold. In the Moonlight, she clearly saw Seraphilia curled up even tighter, almost rolled into a completely defenseless ball.
Robin sat up, hugged her knees, and watched in the darkness for a very long time. The internal struggle was like an undercurrent beneath the ice. Let her freeze to death? No, impossible. If she got sick, it would do nothing good for their current survival situation. Her 'ability' and that strange 'money-making' method were the most important reliance for the two of them to stay relatively safe here for now.
This was a cold calculation based purely on self-interest.
A reason sufficient to convince herself.
"Seraphilia.", Robin's voice sounded exceptionally clear in the cold night, carrying a dryness that she herself hadn't noticed.
Almost the instant the sound fell, the figure on the floor mat moved. Seraphilia woke up immediately; this was an instinct developed from long-term vigilance. "What is it?" Her voice was hoarse from just waking up, laced with a hint of alertness.
Robin paused, forcing her voice to become steady, betraying little emotion: "The floor is too cold. You sleep up here."
The air seemed to freeze.