Getting the chunk of Eternal Ice and Eternal Earth into a portable form was more complicated than I would have thought. The biggest problem was its sheer weight; the thing was stupidly heavy, while its tendency to absorb Astral Power working in its vicinity was a close second. Even with the different traits I had to enforce my Astral Power and my ability to control it, I had some difficulties, making me wonder if a lesser spellcaster would have been able to work near it at all.

Said tendency also made me worry about my magical bags, to the point that we decided to store the chunk nearby instead of trusting that dipping this material into the realm of shadows wouldn't damage it. Or damage the shadows, the sheer, physical and magical weight this thing had might actually do that, at least on a local level. Not something I was willing to risk, especially as our destination was, as far as I could tell, just a few more days, maybe a week, of travel from our current position. A distance I could cover in a matter of hours if I were willing to take some serious risks and isolate myself in the process, but that was neither here nor there.

Still, it made a lot more sense to keep the chunk of material here instead of risking the material, my magical bags and possibly a lot more in an attempt to keep it with us, especially as the thing was likely useless to the vast majority of beings, nothing but a stupendously heavy block of material with some weird additional traits. I hadn't even been able to test the Eternal Earth's toughness, though from what little I had been able to discern, the stuff was as hard as it was heavy. Still, part of that might have been due to the extreme cold it was subjected to, making it slightly harder, but also more brittle, than normal.

It would be interesting to see what we might be able to do with it once we had more time to invest in working on it.

But before we could spend that time, we had a mountain to climb and a Nexus to conquer. Hopefully, the guardian was the most dangerous foe living in these mountains; otherwise, the last stretch could very well be the most difficult one of our journey. Which would be quite annoying, I was ready to get to the Nexus, settle down and build up the facilities needed to revive Sigmir. Not that I was completely certain what facilities were needed for that, nor did I have a firm plan for how to get her soul back, beyond a few somewhat vague ideas that might work, if given sufficient time.

Still, vague ideas and plans offering a chance at success were a lot better than one would expect, given that resurrecting the dead was considered impossible. A miracle even the Gods didn't grant, certainly not casually or without some serious need and strings attached. If it were possible at all, I hadn't seen any evidence or even strong testimony speaking of such miracles. The closest I had seen on Mundus had been during my brief stop in the Mages' Guild and their library, but those stories had been as mythical and disputed as certain legends in our world before the change. Some people had taken those myths on faith, mostly those who followed the deities involved already, but that was hardly convincing. No, the closest I had come to hearing somebody knowledgeable about the topic speak was when Lady Hecate had given me that brief explanation to repay a small favour.

'Mastery over Life, Dominion over Souls and deep insight into the mysteries of the Mind.' Such simple words, but such deep and profound implications. Even now, I was well aware that I was far from capable of achieving even one of those, let alone all three.

After concealing the chunk of Eternal material in a small but greatly reinforced cave I had dug for that purpose, we continued our journey up the glacier. As we walked, we soon started to have a few problems. The terrain was rough, with steep inclines making it difficult to continue, and only a combination of magic and our system-enhanced bodies allowed us to make progress. Normal humans wouldn't have been able to make this particular journey, not without some serious training, equipment and luck.

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Still, thanks to my ability to reshape the Ice as needed, we made good progress. Sure, it occasionally took a bit of time when the Ice in question had absorbed enough Astral Power to qualify as Hard Ice or even something more resistant, but that was something I could work around. A part of me wanted to dig into the glacier and look for Eternal Ice, but from what I could tell, it would be futile. There was a conceptual difference between the level of reinforcement achieved by pouring more and more Astral Power into Ice to make it harder and the reinforcement needed to make Ice Eternal. A glacier, no matter how long-lived and enduring it was, would never become eternal by natural means, only by outside intervention.

That thought made me wonder if I would be able to provide that intervention, maybe after using part of the glacier's ice to build my home, but I soon discarded the idea. Eternal Ice, as durable and hard as it was, added too many complications. It gave off too much magical interference to use it like that. To say nothing of the danger such a construction would pose for Luna, Lia and Sivla, the three of them wouldn't be able to enter a place like that. Even I would likely be uncomfortable within, unless I carefully insulated the Eternal Ice from my living spaces, adding further complications.

The one with the biggest amount of trouble getting up the mountain was Silva. Her lack of opposable thumbs meant she had difficulties leveraging her superior attributes. However, there were also moments when her lower centre of gravity and four-legged gait gave her an advantage. It was quite interesting to observe how different types of terrain and the steepness of a particular slope influenced who could climb it with what amount of difficulty.

At least until I noticed one of the local goats in the distance, rapidly making its way up a cliff that any one of us would have been hard-pressed to climb. That stupid goat somehow managed what I'd only be able to replicate by cheating, making me briefly wonder if that goat had an affinity for Earth Magic and used it to add and extend the footholds it used on its ascent. Once the realisation that we were all amateurs, playing in a terrain that others were far better suited for, the comparison lost a lot of its lustre. It just felt so utterly demoralising to compare our struggles with a mindless, silly goat and realise that we came up far short. A part of me wanted to go and hunt down that stupid goat, turn it into a stew, or maybe some jerky or sausage. That way, it would be able to aid us on our ascent.

However, hunting down the local goats would only be possible if I decided to take to the air, opening myself up to the various raptors hunting here in the process. With the occasional Roc haunting these mountains, I wasn't willing to take that risk. I was powerful and confident in my ability to fly, but not reckless enough to believe I was equal to the local apex predators when facing them in their element. Not unless I had confirmed information regarding their levels, something I couldn't survey easily. Maybe if I could use Observe through my scrying constructs, I would know, but as things were, it would be a foolish risk.

After climbing a little over a week, making our way over rocks, backtracking when the terrain was too rough and slowly climbing the freezingly cold glacier, always upwards, always towards the faintly visible summit in the distance, I realised that we weren't quite on the right path.

The Nexus' pull didn't come from the summit, not even from somewhere below it, within the mountain. It came from a spot behind, from our perspective, the summit, on its other side. Sure, we could continue climbing until we reached the top, maybe put up some sort of marker to show we had been there, but we would have to climb back down on the other side.

Or we could just move sideways, walk around the mountain and look for the Nexus without having to make that final ascent. Especially as I had that funny feeling the top of the mountain would have a king living on it, maybe some sort of extra-large Roc or something like that. Regardless, we soon decided that ascending to the top of the tallest local mountain could be a pleasure and adventure project for later; for now, we were heading straight for the Nexus.

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