After setting up a small stone for Sasha, despite knowing that Luna's efforts with the coffin would see the stone buried in greenery before long, I finally let my mind wander and look at the various notifications I had received after the battle. They had been near the edge of my mind, but caring about my family and burying Sasha had taken priority.

To my surprise, there was no special message regarding the guardian's demise. Nothing beyond the fact that it had died and we gained EXP, making me wonder if I had been wrong about its control over the Nexus. I didn't quite recall if I had received some special message when destroying the Yeti, but given the circumstances of that fight, it didn't really matter.

The level-up had been expected, but what was unexpected was that it wasn't just one level I had gained; it had been three. Those brought me up to level one hundred twenty-seven, granting me the usual spread of attribute points. With those came two traits for achieving milestones with my attributes, at least once I put my free points into Intuition, bringing the attribute up to ninety-six. I had considered dropping only one point, as ninety-five would have given me the same trait, but decided against it.

The trait for Intuition was curious, an improvement to my Extra-sensory Perception for minds. From the description of the ESP: Emotions trait, I would now be able to directly sense the target's emotions alongside sensing their minds. While understanding where the trait came from was easy, the continued manipulation and guidance of the giants had taken a lot of time and effort in recent weeks; I wasn't sure how useful it would be. And, quite frankly, a part of me was deeply insulted that the system apparently felt I was so bad at reading the emotions of other people that I needed supernatural assistance for it.

Which, if I were being honest with myself, wasn't too far off. There had been more than one occasion in the past in which I had misinterpreted or misread the intentions and emotions of other people, or even my own, but that didn't mean I needed a trait for it. But I now had one and would have to see if I could make use of it. Probably not, at least not as well as most people, but that was just how the cookie crumbled, or something like that.

The trait for Intelligence was amusing. Magical Giant's Bane, as it was called, wasn't just good against giants. The description said it would improve the effect of my magic relative to my opponent's size, with the added piece of wisdom that the bigger they were compared to me, the harder they would fall. It would be interesting to see how that worked in practice, especially as I was working on that whole draconic transformation. Depending on the trait's effect and scaling, making my draconic form big and imposing might not be the way to go, especially as a part of me would consider it highly amusing to have a dragon of a very unusual size wreak havoc. After all, I had magic, why would I need to make my draconic form big and bad, other than, well, ego?

Other than the results of my level-up, I also gained a few points in different magical disciplines. Mind Magic, obviously, though it only gained one point, jumping to ninety. Darkness and Death Magic, maybe due to the way I had used them to destabilise the spirit's efforts near the end, gained two points each, ending up at seventy-two and forty-one, respectively. Crystal and Soul Magic gained a point each, bringing them to forty-six and thirty-nine, both coming along nicely.

Crystal Magic served as a curious reminder that affinities and creative use mattered. While I occasionally used it casually to embed crystalline strands of matter into constructions to improve stability, I primarily used it in highly focused and deliberate projects. Unlike Water or Wind Magic, both of which I used very casually, be it to conjure water or subtly manipulate my surroundings to make them more comfortable, Crystal Magic was seldom done like that. Due to that, or maybe because of its similarities with Ice Magic, Crystal Magic had overtaken the classical elements of Water, Wind and Fire and was closing with Earth Magic, despite being used a lot less. Just with a lot more meaning.

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"Mom, look at this," Luna's call brought me from my ponderings, making me glance over to the area my daughters were exploring. It was the epicentre of the spirit's explosion, making me curious what had caught their attention.

After walking over, I could get a better look at what caught their attention and had to admit, it was something interesting. The explosion had flattened the area, as much as one could flatten a barren landscape of rock and ice, but it had also crushed the ground downwards, creating a gently sloped bowl in the process. At the centre of that bowl, right where the spirit's core had exploded, was a much smaller depression, maybe a metre across. And in that depression was what had caught my daughters' interest.

The hole in the ground was filled with a solid chunk of a strangely streaked material. It almost looked like a marbled cake, with two very distinct and differently looking materials squished together into one chunk without intermixing, which made a certain amount of sense. At least it made a certain amount of sense when I realised what one of the two materials, a slightly opaque material that gave off a faint silver glow, reminded me of. It looked suspiciously similar to the Eternal Ice I had seen in the past, and when I stretched my senses, I could tell that it felt similar, too.

Using Identify on the chunk didn't work, probably because it wasn't one elemental material but at least two, creating interference, so we would have to do the identification the old-fashioned way, by testing things.

However, that other material made me leery. By the way the light glinted off it, I was fairly certain it was metallic, and its close proximity to the supposed Eternal Ice meant it would be as cold as it could be, at least as far as I understood things. That, in combination with the fact that it was created in the aftermath of a spirit's death, a spirit of Earth and Ice at that, made me think that this was the Earth version of Eternal Ice, or maybe a related element, maybe something metallic.

"Curious, indeed," I admitted, and, for a moment, I was tempted to start poking and prodding the stuff, but I quickly pushed the impulse away. I already knew that Eternal Ice could be quite volatile when handled the wrong way. If the other component was Eternal Earth or something along those lines, it would be just as dangerous but with other triggers. We had just buried one member of the family; taking another risk now would be just foolish.

"But we need to be careful, I think I know what the silver stuff is, and the way it feels cold fits right in with my thoughts. We can try digging it out from afar and take the entire chunk with some of the stone around it with us, but I don't want to start poking it without some serious precautions. And most definitely not within an area where the Astral River has been churned up, who knows what happens if we poke it the wrong way," I told them, getting looks of surprise from both of my daughters.

"What do you think could happen?" Luna asked, her curiosity in full effect now.

"I believe that the silver material is Eternal Ice, which is basically Ice Astral Power forced into a solid state. I think the dark, metallic material is something equivalent, just for Earth," I explained, "Eternal Ice can easily be turned into free Ice Astral Power. However, I don't know if the same is true for the earthen equivalent, with Earth being such a placid and solid element. I don't want to test things, certainly not with chunks this big. The destruction the spirit unleashed at the end would pale in comparison to the devastation caused if all that Astral Power were freed at the same time." I paused for a moment, considering the situation, "Oh, and that is ignoring the current churned-up state of the Astral River, that could play into it, too."

"Oh," Lia let out a soft gasp, nodding in agreement that prudence would be necessary here. "Let's just put a cap on the thing, make sure nobody and nothing can get to it easily, and get some rest. Not sure about the two of you, but I don't feel all that comfortable," she suggested, getting nods of agreement from all of us, even Silva was nodding along.

Yeah, rest sounded exactly like the thing to do. These chunks would still be there after I slept and processed things.

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