Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

Mira, Maria, and the two beast companions made it back to Lunar Fox City a couple of days after Mira decided to leave. There was no reason for them to stay there anymore as Rhydian wasn't intelligent enough to understand what Mira wanted, so Mira just decided to put it off. Also, finding a beast that could fight Rhydian on equal footing might be difficult as well. It'd have to be at least Low-Stage Rank 4 and Mira guessed that the beast might have to be higher than that to fight with Rhydian in terms of power. Mira didn't feel like finding a beast that she could barely fight let alone a little wolf cub that doesn't even know how to stop ripping off the heads of beasts.

Mira really wanted to know more about the type of winged-wolf Rhydian was. Mira guessed that even a baby dragon wouldn't have as much power as Rhydian does right now. Plus, any beast that comes straight out of the egg at Peak-Stage Rank 3 has to be something special, though Mira didn't know much about this. Mira also wondered what she has to do to help increase Rhydian's cultivation. Will she just get stronger as she gets older? Does she need to find lightning for it to absorb? Does Rhydian only need to eat other magical beasts to get stronger? Mira doesn't know. It was this type of knowledge that made her want to join a Sect. Sure, she knows how to fight, but fighting isn't the only thing that cultivators can do.

When they reached the Zaria Family, Maria wanted to know if they would be joining the Battle Maiden Sect.

"Will we be joining the Battle Maiden Sect in 6 months? I'd like to join the Sect! I want to find something I'm good at and also meet with Diana and Ellie again! We should join!" Maria asked Mira as she really wanted to join.

"I think that we will attempt the Entrance Exam in 6 months to see if we can enter. That sect is the only one that suits me and it also seems that I need more knowledge about the cultivation world. We still have many things to do before that though. I'm going to continue teaching you unarmed combat, I want to reach Stage 8 Qi Condensation, learn the Elemental and Fist art that we got from the Trial, and have Rhydian reach Low-Stage Rank 4. I don't know if I'll be able to finish everything in just a 6-month time frame, but I think it should be doable. You should also similar goals in mind during these next 6 months." Mira said as she seemed to have the next 6 months planned out.

Maria groaned a little when she heard the plan Mira gave her. Why does she always have to train? She just wants to laze around, eat some nice food, go shopping, and play with Vulcan. Why does she have to spend all of her time training? But Maria was also excited because she really wanted to join the Battle Maiden Sect. She also might not have to train so much if Mira is off doing other things. When Maria thought of this she started smiling even brighter. She then got smacked in the back of the head.

"I feel like you are thinking about something stupid. If you feel like you will be able to escape my martial arts training then think again. I will make sure that you practice every day. In fact, why don't we start right now?" Mira said as she grabbed Maria and threw her on the ground and put her in a chokehold.

Mira then began to 'train' her for the next couple of hours before Mira wanted to move onto other things. After training Maria, she walked back to her room. Mira took out the 3 manuals she got from the Trial. The Mid-Stage Earth Grade Elemental Art Manual, Ice Prison. The Peak-Stage Mortal Grade Fist Art, Earth-Shattering Fist. And the Peak-Stage Mortal Grade Scythe Art, Double-Bladed Scythe.

Mira wanted to start with the Elemental Art. She doesn't know of any Elemental Ice Arts and felt this one would take the most time to learn as well. Mira's first thoughts on the name of the Art was that she would form bars around her enemy and lock them in a prison, but this wouldn't be that useful unless she could pull it off instantly. She then thought that it might also encase her opponent in a large block of ice, but she also felt like this wouldn't be that useful in a fight. She shook these thoughts out of her head and turned to read the first page.

"Ice is an extremely dangerous element where even its natural counter, fire, may have trouble melting an extremely dense piece of ice. Ice is generally a very rigid element. Ice doesn't flow like water and isn't as dense or heavy as earth. It isn't light and smooth like wind nor does it have the ability to provide life like fire or heat. Ice can reflect light, yet doesn't get consumed by darkness. Ice is always the same, cold. The cold is often something that living creatures hate and aren't able to live in. This is because the heat that keeps us alive is sucked out of us by the cold and replaced with that cold. Ice itself is like a prison as it attempts to shackle down the living creatures that come in contact with it. The Ice Prison manual has taken inspiration from this concept. When this technique is used against an opponent correctly, the opponent will have their whole body locked in ice from the inside. Veins of ice will flow through the body and prevent the opponent from moving any of their limbs and they might even stop being able to use their brain if the difference in power is too great." Mira started reading the manual and was surprised by how interesting it was. She then got to the part about how to use this Art.

"In order to use Ice Prison, you will have to plant the seed of ice inside of their body. There are many ways to do this, but we recommend just having them come into contact with your ice somehow. As long as a piece of ice is able to touch and enter their body, that's all you need. The next part is the hardest and most important part. You will have to focus on that piece of ice in their body and control it to start consuming and freezing parts of their body. The ice will start freezing the inside of the opponent's body as the more it freezes the easier it will get to spread. After the Ice has spread throughout their entire body, all you have to do is manipulate the ice to lock down their limbs as a web of ice is now formed in their body. If they try to break free through brute force, then they will only be ripping up their insides and kill themselves." Mira read the instructions for utilizing this art and was surprised by the difficulty of it. Pulling off this art in battle might prove difficult, but if she learns how to use it then she will essentially be putting a timer on the battle. If her opponent can't defeat Mira before she can use this art then they are as good as dead. The more Mira thought about this, the more excited she got.

Mira took out one of the dead beast corpses that Rhydian killed in the forest and immediately started following the steps. With something that isn't moving, she doesn't need to worry about planting the seed.

Mira shoved a small ice needle into the dead beast's body. She then tried to sense the ice inside the body. She was able to feel it as she has already done this several times before where she exploded an ice needle inside an enemy's body. This is where Mira got stuck though. It's extremely easy just to destroy what she created, but now she has to create more and inside of the beast's body as well. Mira tried to make the ice needle spread out inside the body of the dead beast, but she wasn't able to form something like a web of ice that the manual talked about. The ice needle just cooled down the surrounding flesh it was in.

Mira kept focusing on trying to have the ice consume and replace the flesh of the beast with ice for a couple of hours before she decided to take a break. She was mentally tired as she was focusing on that small ice needle for hours. Mira wasn't upset that she didn't succeed though. This would give her something to work on other than cultivating and training Maria. Mira threw the beast corpse towards Rhydian. Rhydian licked her lips and started to devour the dead beast. It was only a Rank 1 beast so Rhydian had no trouble eating every part of the beast. After Rhydian was done, there weren't even any bones left of the beast as it all entered her stomach and turned into energy. Mira noticed that the energy contained in that small wolf body increased by a minute amount. Mira threw her a couple more Rank 1 beasts and Rhydian devoured all of them down to the last bone. Again, the energy within her increased by a tiny amount as it barely seemed it increased at all. Mira knew that reaching Rank 4 would be impossible with only Rank 1 beasts, but this was just food for Rhydian.

After feeding Rhydian, Mira sat in a lotus position and took out a couple of Spirit Stones, and started circulating her Hell Scythe Cultivation Technique from her Hell Scythe Essense Gathering Manual. The Qi from within the Spirit Stones entered into her meridians and circulated throughout her body as the amount and density of Qi in her body increased by small increments. Part of this energy also circulated into her soul as it strengthened her Abyssal Sea Scythe. This was her soul weapon and also part of her cultivation technique.

Mira continued to cultivate until it was time to train Maria in martial arts. After training Maria for a few hours, Mira would go back to her room to work on her Ice Prison technique for a few hours before cultivating again. Mira didn't need to sleep as cultivators don't need sleep and the act of cultivating brings more benefits than sleeping does. This kind of schedule went on for the next 2 months.

***

Mira was currently in her room. She has been in here for a full day as she continued practicing her Ice Prison Technique. Mira has used several tens of beast corpses on this day alone as she was perfecting the Ice Prison. In these last 2 months, Mira was able to complete every step in the Ice Prison Elemental Art Manual. The reason that she had spent an entire day in her room working on it was that she was testing herself. She wasn't satisfied with the speed of her Ice Prison and kept working on speeding up the process. She worked on beast corpses ranging from Rank 1 to Rank 3. It was easier and faster for the lower-ranked beasts and now Mira was currently working on a Low-Stage Rank 3 beast corpse. She stuck an ice needle into it and started to focus on spreading the ice inside the body. The ice slowly started to form a web around the ice needle as it continuously spread throughout the rest of the body. This went on for around 2 minutes before the inside of the beast corpse was fully encased in ice. Mira was satisfied with this time. She then took the beast's arm and forcefully moved it upwards. She heard a loud crack and pop. Then the beast's arm went limp. Mira nodded her head in satisfaction.

"The final test will be to try this out in battle, but I will do that after I take a look at the other Manuals and reach Stage 8 Qi Condensation. I'd also like Rhydian to reach Low-Stage Rank 4 before I go and try all of these new techniques." Mira said to herself in satisfaction. She couldn't wait to try this Ice Prison out on something alive. She figured that it'd take longer than 2 minutes to complete the Ice Prison on something that was alive, but Mira didn't care.

Mira then started to feed Rhydian the Rank 2 and 3 beast corpses that she had. She took out more Spirit Stones and started to cultivate. She would continue this schedule until it was time to take the Entrance Exam for the Battle Maiden Sect in 4 more months.