Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 415: Being cold means nothing to me...

The cold energies in the small chamber intensified as the two elves continued to channel their power, using the crystal to amplify everything they did many times over. Thalion still lay on his back, now unable to move at all. The two elves were merciless and ignored that Thalion looked more like a dead chicken taken out of the freezer than a majestic eagle that commanded the storms. Yet they didn’t stop, even as Thalion’s health bar kept dropping and dropping.At this point, Thalion was confident that he would die to sheer incompetence. He had used a few rituals himself, and he had never seen anyone perform one like this—with such utter disregard for the subject they were funneling all this power into.

The whole crescendo finally stopped the moment Thalion’s life pool hit three percent. By then, Thalion was so far gone and in so much pain that he barely registered anything anymore. The elves shared a surprised look before the female produced a tiny ring from one of the pockets of her robe and slipped it around one of Thalion’s feet.

“Interesting. This variant must be extremely powerful. I’ve never heard before of the process taking so long and consuming so much energy for an F-grade beast,” the female said curiously.

“Yes, indeed. We should discuss a breeding program at some point. Does the sigil work as always?” the father asked, touching the small ring on Thalion’s foot.

The female seemed to check something—either on her status screen or the ring itself—before answering with a light smile.

“Yes, it works perfectly. All skills are locked, and it can’t move more than a few hundred meters away from one of us.”

Thalion slowly began to regain his senses as the connection to the Outsider fueled his body with energy, gradually regenerating his health pool. Everything felt blurry, and Thalion was confused. Despite the cold, no real physical damage had been done to his body—so how had his health dropped so drastically?

There was also another thought dominating his mind.

He was fairly sure that if a god was observing him right now, that god was probably laughing uncontrollably.

On the other hand, Thalion had to admit that this was likely the best hiding place imaginable from the other trial-takers. No one would ever guess that he was here. At least in that regard, he was safe. The two elves soon left the chamber, leaving Thalion behind on the crystal.

Now came the second problem: the ring around his leg that blocked his skills—a slave collar, just specially modified. But Thalion suspected he might have a trick to deal with it later. After all, what would stop him from simply putting it into his spatial amulet? The elves hadn’t seen the amulet, since in beast form he wasn’t wearing it. How that worked, Thalion had no idea—but it might be his way out. Otherwise, things could become quite difficult.

Either way, for now he needed to heal first and then check everything else. At the moment, he had time—and he needed to find the right moment to run. Thalion also hadn’t given up on the grand treasure of this stage. Maybe it was somewhere inside this mountain?

It was definitely worth investigating.

The next problem was that he had no idea what the hell the elves had done to him. Sensation slowly returned to his body, but what he felt was… different. The first change he noticed was that the more he healed, the less he felt like an eagle that had been stuffed into a fridge for the last few minutes. It almost felt like he had gained some kind of immunity to the intense cold—or at least that it affected him far less than before.

When his health reached fifty percent, he managed to stand up instead of lying on his back. Lying on your back as a bird was deeply uncomfortable, to say the least.

Thalion examined himself, inspecting his feathers and talons.

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His feathers had changed from a light gray to almost white. He was still far from looking like a snowflake, but it was noticeably closer. The next thing he noticed was the spark jumping from one of his talons—it had changed color as well. It was now a very pale blue, slowly turning toward white, just like his feathers and talons.

Thalion observed the changes closely. He didn’t yet know what they meant, but so far, it didn’t feel like a downgrade at all. The chamber was still extremely cold, and normally Eagly would have struggled badly—especially while standing directly on the crystal.

Thalion concluded slowly. He hadn’t noticed any negative effects so far, but he also hadn’t tried out his skills yet. Hopefully, the lightning now coursing through his body was just as destructive as before. If his lightning skills had lost their punch, then he might be in real trouble—especially when it came to evolution.

Eagly already lagged slightly behind his other forms when it came to raw output, even though its body tempering was very solid. Thalion hoped it would still be enough for his divine evolution. Every one of his forms had to be in peak condition by then, and Eagly falling behind could mean the difference between reaching his goal or failing.

Between resignation and annoyance, another emotion surfaced. Greed.

Thalion even began to feel that the cold was already helping him—but first, he had to check something else. There was still that annoying ring on his foot. He looked around to make sure no one was watching through the ice or the corridor, but there was no one. To be safe, he sat down like a brooding chicken and tried to put the ring on his foot into his spatial amulet.

Elation filled Thalion as the ring disappeared.

He smiled and placed the ring back onto his foot. Now—where were those annoying elves?

Thalion was done sitting on the ice-cold crystal. With a beat of his wings, he shot down the corridor the two elves had brought him through. It was also the only way back. He had to be careful not to scrape his wings against the tunnel walls.

Then he entered the dining room—and only now did Thalion notice that the table and chairs were made entirely of ice. The family was sitting there, eating some kind of soup that looked even colder than the rest of the room.

That was the last thought Thalion managed before his head slammed into a translucent barrier of ice right before the dining room entrance.

His head throbbed, and from the corner of his eye, he saw all three of them laughing and pointing at him.

He didn’t get to finish the thought. The translucent barrier disappeared, and the mother picked him up by one leg again.

“We’ll have to do a lot of training with this one,” she laughed loudly, holding him up like a trophy.

Thalion began to sincerely dislike these people. They were lucky they had a little daughter—and lucky that they could teach him something about this cold activation they had forced on him.

If he got the grand treasure of this stage, it might help him make Eagly far stronger.

Thalion was back at full strength now, and he was done being handled like a stupid bird. He jerked his body upward and tried to bite the elf’s arm, but she was much faster and simply let go of his foot.

Thalion tried to twist in midair like a cat and land on his feet. Instead, he landed on his head—again—not ideal, considering he had slammed into that icy barrier a second.

“But Frost Nugget will have to go through a lot of training if it’s to be of any use to us. And since I’m finished with my meal, we can start right now,” the father said as he stood and walked toward Thalion.

A golden ring appeared in his right hand, matching the design of the one around Thalion’s foot.

“Up!” the father commanded loudly.

Thalion heard the command echo directly in his mind, which irritated him greatly. Still, since he had to play the stupid beast, he jumped back onto his feet.

It was the third time that day he’d had to roll off his back. It was time to evolve into a dragon and leave all this nonsense behind.

“This is very good. It already understands basic commands and knows who’s in charge. Perfect. Here—a treat,” the father said, tossing a small ice pearl toward Thalion.

Thalion knew what was expected of him and reluctantly caught the pearl and swallowed it. The sensation reminded him of summer back on Earth, when he and his buddy Mike had competed to see who could drink an ice-cold beverage the fastest. It had ended with a brutal headache and that same headache was coming back now.

He tried to spit the stupid pearl out, but slender elven fingers held his beak shut.

“No, you have to deal with it. It’ll be good for you,” the mother said with a wide smile.

Thalion really didn’t like where this was going.

Getting the grand treasure of this stage would be more satisfying than ever—after everything he’d already been through.