Chapter 93: "You look terrifying right now."

Julian could feel his knuckles freezing solid, the extreme cold swirling all around him. His Mana, sitting at Rank-D, wasn’t even enough to fully offset the cost of the B-Grade skill he now possessed.

But that didn’t mean his Mana had run completely dry either. If anything, Julian was surprised by just how much of his reserve still remained.

It seemed that, upon reaching Rank-D, a great many changes had taken hold of him. Like how his body felt noticeably lighter, his physical condition clearly improved and healthier than before.

The Mana accumulated within his body had also multiplied by an amount that genuinely defied reason.

With progress like this, Julian could actually make a fairly solid estimate. If he used Fearless, he might be able to sustain that skill for several hours straight without worrying about running out of Mana.

Maybe even half a day?

That also meant the cost Fearless demanded wouldn’t put much of a dent in Julian once he climbed to the next Rank.

Perhaps Rank-C, or even Rank-B.

Julian snapped back to his senses, letting out a cold breath, a thin trail of frost curling out from his lips.

He surveyed his surroundings, now blanketed entirely in snow.

Everything looked exactly like what had happened the previous night. A situation where the surrounding environment had fully entered its own isolated winter, completely separate from the world beyond it.

Crack—!

Julian’s brow furrowed as he lifted the sword he’d been using. The blade showed faint cracks spreading across it, revealing its inability to withstand the strain of unleashing Winterfall.

Julian wasn’t surprised. After all, this was the exact same sword he’d carried the night before.

It wasn’t forged from particularly expensive materials, so it was honestly impressive the blade had managed to survive two uses of Winterfall before finally breaking.

’I think I should get myself a proper personal weapon soon, something far sturdier.’

Considering the future might not treat him kindly, Julian needed to properly prepare himself.

He needed equipment, needed to secure whatever he could for himself, and for his disciples too, if possible.

Which was exactly why Julian had been thinking about paying Aclyris another visit.

He took another breath, then shifted his gaze toward the edge of the field. Julian froze slightly, his eyes twitching, because from what he could see, it wasn’t just Kina and Adelle standing at the field’s edge anymore.

Several students who’d been watching from the building’s windows earlier had now come running out to get a closer look at what was happening.

Some had even gotten close enough to start scooping up handfuls of the snow now blanketing the field below.

Julian simply watched them with a calm expression, then turned his attention to Kina and spoke.

"That’s called Winterfall. As you can see, it carries a tremendous amount of destructive force, powerful enough to create a small-scale disaster in the surrounding area."

Julian explained it with the intention of walking Kina through the core of the skill. Of course, Kina could probably piece most of it together just from watching, but Julian was able to explain far more, since this was a skill he’d conceived himself and, quite literally, developed from scratch.

"This skill is built on the foundation of One Slash and Frost Edge."

Honestly, from Julian’s own perspective, what had been in his head was actually fairly simple. He’d struggled to think through and develop the skill at first, but looking back on it now, the end result turned out remarkably straightforward.

So, as he continued explaining to Kina the true core of Winterfall and how he’d arrived at his current conclusion, Julian found himself, oddly enough, explaining it all with surprising ease and fluency.

As he did, it wasn’t just Kina listening. Even Adelle herself tried to catch every word Julian said, and every student who’d shown up purely out of interest in the spectacle found themselves unable to look away from Julian either.

Julian probably didn’t notice all those stares, since he was focused entirely on Kina, listening quietly and intently.

Focused enough that Julian failed to realize his behavior right now would, once again, spark a whole wave of rumors, something he genuinely never once considered.

***

As Adelle listened to every word of Julian’s explanation, she no longer felt a shred of doubt.

Julian’s identity as a Hidden Master had just been proven flawlessly here, right in front of her.

Who else could have ever conceived of something like this?

Thinking to combine two skills into a single, entirely new skill, even creating the mechanism behind it himself. And, his actions seemed driven by one simple purpose.

To give his disciple, still just a Rank-F, access to a skill of extraordinarily high Grade.

Not an innate Talent skill, not a skill from the archive Adelle doesn’t know about, and apparently not a skill translated from some other civilization either. But a skill he created entirely on his own.

Possessing two or more skills and combining them to achieve a specific effect was something that happened fairly often.

But having two or more skills and fusing them into something entirely new, with an entirely new mechanism to boot, was something else entirely.

That stirred up Adelle’s curiosity.

’What’s his actual Talent Grade? What is his Talent? And... what’s his core element, when he looks like someone who can use practically anything, simply because he wants to?’

Adelle stood lost in thought, her gaze still locked on Julian’s figure. The students’ awed murmurs, the blowing wind, everything around her blurred into background noise.

In Adelle’s view, there was only Julian, standing there with that cold, emotionless expression.

Adelle sank deeper into her admiration. But she snapped back to reality the moment she felt a light pinch on her shoulder.

"...Inna?" With a face nearly identical to Adelle’s own, Inna looked at her flatly, showing no trace of emotion whatsoever.

But Adelle, who knew her older sister well, found herself genuinely startled.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

The emotion behind Inna’s stare was full of confusion, as though Adelle had just acted in a way entirely unlike herself.

And, from Inna’s perspective, that was crystal clear. Just as Adelle could quickly read Inna’s emotions and intentions, the reverse held true as well.

Even when Adelle didn’t understand her own feelings, Inna understood them for her.

So, watching Adelle, her cheeks flushed, an awkward smile on her face, Inna blinked, let out a small sigh, rolled her eyes, and said:

"You look terrifying right now."