After the main body accepted the teleport, I left the shack to witness the aftermath of flicking the door. Which apparently reached supersonic speeds and triggered the Glacivein Muscle's chilling effect.

Unfortunately, my carelessness completely annihilated any tracks. Not that I was sure there would be any, even if I hadn't scored marks into the forest floor fifty metres in every direction, not with all this snow.

Which meant just randomly searching. I let out a sigh and hopped into the air, swung on a tree branch and then landed the doll perfectly on top of it. My Grace made movements like these nearly trivial. I did have to control my strength somewhat. Otherwise, I'd fling myself like I did the door.

Focusing on the other doll, I had realized earlier that I didn't have to control it manually. There was a Subsystem to automate functions, which was possible because of how Communication Mana worked. I wasn't sure of the specifics, but I just knew that the automated version would act as I wanted, and I could swap which doll I focused on at will.

I commanded the other doll to follow me, and moments later, it had joined me in the tree.

Crouching on the branch, I hopped towards the next tree and bounced off its trunk towards the next. I was going to work my way up to faster movements slowly. I didn't want to turn one of these trees into another door incident. To do that, I was running absolutely no Mana through the muscles.

While I looked for any signs of a trail, I decided to pass the time doing something useful.

Pulling my Mana through my circuits, I channelled the idea of Winter that I had meditated on. Something was telling me that Winter meant a kind of death. But another part of me was vehemently rejecting any idea that I should align myself with death.

I supposed Nature was built on those sorts of contradictions. Winter wasn't death in that it wasn't a true end. It was merely a period of stillness, a time when the sun only remained in the sky for a few hours a day.

I was not even a part of Nature myself, so Winter couldn't be thought of as a cycle of life. Since I was not alive, I couldn't relate.

What was Winter to me, then? Well, I had meditated on the concept for a while, something that my main self couldn't possibly do, and came to what I was pretty sure was my answer.

I looked out over the forest as I flew through the air, and after sitting with the thought for a long moment, I made my declaration.

Winter is control

Something within my Mana resonated with that truth. And a smile came to both my faces. Of course, it was. Why would it be anything else?

Winter didn't ask. It imposed itself on the world. It carved away the unnecessary and left only what must remain. No wild growth. No crawling, rotting, buzzing life. It's just the world pared down to its simplest form. Cold, sharp, and still. That's what control looks like.

I unleashed my control over the world. The flakes of snow falling from the sky froze in place, and an incredible quiet settled over the forest.

This is what Winter is. Nothing can hurt me here, where I am the master of myself. Nothing can influence me beyond myself.

I stopped as one of the dolls finally saw a clue. Something had passed through and just carved a path through the snow in the direction away from the shack. A burst of satisfaction travelled through my mind, and I shivered slightly.

I'm gonna get it done, main me! Don't worry.

I travelled down the path, but after a few minutes, to my dismay, we reached the boundary edge of my ritual. It just walked out of the ritual area, which indicated it isn't human.

Should I ask Kaede about the local wildlife?

Nah, I'd just kill it. I needed to level my Class anyway.

Hopping across the trees, I travelled through seemingly miles of forest. As I followed the trail of the being, it was becoming abundantly clear that it had been just walking straight in one direction.

Eventually, I hit the end of the treeline and looked out at a massive glade of flowers. The glade appeared to span hundreds of kilometres in every direction. I looked out in awe over the fields. There's so much potential for useful material here!

A line was cut directly through the glade, flowers crushed in the passing of the thief.

I was beginning to believe it didn't have a conscious mind. Why else would it walk in a perfectly straight direction towards wherever it was going? Was it some kind of golem? Who would build a golem just to steal my staff? Would I even gain Eidos from killing an automaton?

Travelling across the ground was going to be a pain with my little legs.

With a sigh, I hopped down into the flowers and began sprinting down the path of crushed flowers. The art style shifted almost immediately from the horror theme into something completely different.

My body took on a painterly quality and was now clearly three-dimensional. I had no idea what this style meant. There were too many possible variations. It could be anything from a political drama to an action flick, or a combination of both.

After a few minutes of running, I could see something up ahead. I had no idea the speed I was moving beyond the fact that it was fast, so I couldn't actually tell how far I had travelled.

I could tell the other doll was dutifully following along. It felt like I could tell what it was doing as if I were also focusing on it. Its state was being communicated to me without expending mental bandwidth. I sent a mental command for it to match my speed.

As we drew closer, the object in the distance finally came into focus. It was some kind of insect, I think, that stood upright and was just barrelling through the flowers. Even though it wasn't moving particularly quickly, it was moving at a constant pace. Maybe my theory about it being a golem was correct. An insectoid golem?

I nodded towards the other doll, and we dove off to each side through the flowers.

We approached the creature, golem, whatever it was, from either side. Then I took direct control of both dolls, pumped as much Mana into the Glacivein Muscles as possible and launched both of us towards it. Flanking it from both sides.

My bodies tore through the flowers. No sonic boom happened, but I think that was mostly an effect of Grace. As I flew, I took from each doll's waist a Klyven Dew dagger that I had channeled Winter Mana into. The Nature Mana had turned the normally liquid metal into an incredibly durable material. Something I had tested extensively in a simulation

Just as I caught sight of the being, something slammed into one of the dolls, sending it flying into the air. Unfortunately for the bug-thing, there was more than one of us.

In a split second, I rotated myself in the air to land feet first on its side, and with another burst of Mana into my legs, kicked off its chest and lopped off one of its four arms.

The staff was floating next to it, seemingly held in the air through Authority alone or very precise Mana control, which would be effectively the same thing.

The other doll landed again, hidden within the flower patch, and I commanded it to find a better location to make another attempt.

I also relocated. I didn't believe I could pull off another attack like that now that I didn't have the element of surprise. Not with how quickly it reacted.

A wave of Mana passed overhead of both my bodies, and suddenly, a twenty-metre circle was cleared of the flower patch. They had been vaporized by something it did, so quickly I couldn't even tell what happened. Fuck, I might be outmatched here.

At that moment, I noticed something odd. There was an ON-CAMERA indicator that had just appeared in the corner of my vision the moment the flowers were cleared.

But that didn't make any sense. This was a different plot entirely. Did I accidentally leave the other story I was in?

Whatever, it didn't matter. All it meant was I now had to call out my moves. Which I probably should have been doing anyway for the benefit, huh?

The one upside of having all the foliage cleared was that I could now see what I was fighting. It was an odd creature.

The exact body of the being resembled a four-armed anthropoid with an exoskeleton shaped into armour, featuring a sloped shell for a headpiece covered in bristles that were manipulating Mana. Maybe tasting it?

The spot where I had cut its arm off was clearly covered in ice. I noted that fact for the future, if I wanted my enemies to bleed out, I can't freeze them.

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Wait, it isn't regenerating? Is that a function of Winter Mana, or is it a golem?

I should probably call out a cheesy line or something about thieves, right? For the camera. Just to set myself up as the good guy.

"If you didn't want to die, you shouldn't have stolen our staff!" Both dolls called out at the same time, "You're courting de—"

I coughed as a burning sensation travelled down my throat. Not a Xianxia animation, gotcha. This isn't even skin, how am I feeling pain through it?

More Zone fuckery, probably.

While I had been doing that nonsense, I was also building up Winter Mana in the hands of both dolls. I wanted to see what its effect in combat was, and this was the perfect opportunity to test what it did.

I was about to be given the perfect opportunity, in fact, as the insect-golem had turned towards me and was forming a ball of incredibly dense Mana in its hand. I think it realized just smacking me wouldn't really do anything.

With a crack, its arm blurred into motion, and it threw the Mana at me with its hand. That was interesting, but I didn't have time to think about why.

Raising both my hands, I pushed Winter out into the air in front of me. My tiny Authority Core shaped it into a shield. Either this would work, or I'd lose a doll, which was no big deal.

The ball of Mana slammed into the Winter Mana shield and slowed to a stop, like a bullet shot into a ballistic dummy. I stepped to the side out of its path and pulled the Winter back to me. The Mana immediately resumed tearing through the air, completely missing me and slamming into the ground.

The ground where the ball hit just vanished, and a deep groove was sliced into the earth.

It was my turn to act, though—a ball of Mana tore one of my arms off. Apparently, it wasn't going to obey anime fight rules. Rude.

With a burst of [Natural Enhancement], I pushed the Glacivein in my legs to the limit to dodge a barrage of Mana balls that tore apart the ground where I had just been standing. The bug's arms were a blur as it tried to hit me, my smaller form enhanced with the precision allowed by [Natural Enhancement] barely allowed me to weave through the shots.

I looked down at the lost arm with a sigh and began slowly regrowing it. Then, the other doll, which had maneuvered behind the being, finally revealed itself. A wave of Winter flowed out over the bug, it turned to respond, but rapidly slowed down as the Mana covered it until it was barely moving at all. Was Winter a time-based effect, or was it more like a slowing aura? I wasn't sure how to even test that, because I assumed it also contained a preservative effect.

Or at least it made sense to me that it would. I'd figure out the specifics later.

With being stuck in place, I jumped directly towards it, aiming for its head.

"Winter's Bite," I called out, swiping the hardened liquid metal blade and releasing all the Mana I had stored inside it.

For a heartbeat, everything froze—then erupted in a flash of white. Damn, I packed a lot of Mana in there.

I lost connection to the doll an instant later, its Core destroyed by something, presumably the bug responding to my attack.

My consciousness immediately transferred to the other doll. Observing the spot where the clash had happened, the doll was completely gone, and so was a half-kilometre of the field in a cone shape outwards from where the doll had been standing. The bug hadn't escaped unharmed from this exchange. Its torso had been split diagonally from shoulder to waist. The upper half lay on the ground, twitching, and it wasn't regenerating at all.

Winter Mana is even better than I thought it was! Is that a sharpness element imbued in there? I suppose you could say that the cold is particularly sharp during winter? I was not sure, but I was so excited to find out.

A moment later, I received a kill notification.

[Killed Void Myzari Drone (Basal) II-13]

Oh? Kill notifications are different after the update as well. So that would be Ascension two, level thirteen… How the fuck did I kill it? Was the Zone's effect that big, or was it because it was just a drone?

Well, I guess I did trade a body for it. Most people couldn't have survived that return attack. In fact, that would have killed Ellie.

Also, a drone did this?! I looked out over the massive ablation cone that resulted from its final attack. Yeah she'd be fucking dead.

Suddenly, I felt off, like something was staring at me over my shoulder, but I wasn't sure what it was or where it was coming from. I paid close attention to the environment and realized the ground was rumbling slightly.

Which was my cue to get the fuck out of here. I grabbed the staff and booked it, pushing my muscles to their maximum as I sprinted towards the forest. As I reached the treeline, I hopped into a tree and turned to look out over the fields. A horde of insects, some as large as dump trucks, were closing in on where the fight had taken place.

Yup fuck that, no way I can handle that.

I booked it into the forest.

Once I was back at the ancient tree, I decided I was sufficiently far away that I didn't have to worry and opened the notification I received.

Class Level (Neophyte Conduit) Increased +13 (47)

+26 Wit, +39 Spirit, +26 Fortitude, +39 Arcana Update your Soul network? Y/�

This was entirely worth the struggle.

Just as I was about to confirm and update her level, the main body sent a mental nudge my way.

That was fine. She was me as well, just as much as I am her. If she needed my attention, she deserved it. In fact, I loved that I could help her. I was sure she'd appreciate what I'd discovered, too. Now, what the hell did I want with myself right now?

Looking through her eyes, I finally saw what Nyxie looked like in person. Oh… That's why.

Of course, she's having a gay moment. What else would I expect from myself?

I sent her a chuckle. She could handle this herself. I'll wait until after the interview to send the update

In response, she sent me the exact way that Nyxie's dimples were making her squirm. Which obviously caused me to squirm as well.

Gods damn it, just because she looked like Rena… Wow, like almost an identical clone of Rena at the start of that whole mess of a relationship.

We never did get over her. The one that got away.

Right after ruining our lives, of course, just for good measure. Couldn't skip ruining my life. Where would the fun be in that? I bet it was like kicking a puppy in her mind. That sick fucking bitch would totally love to do something like tha—

I took a deep breath and pulled Winter through my circuits and regained control over myself. I felt the fire that had been burning in my mind cool off.

Everything was okay. She wasn't in my life anymore. It wasn't fair to get angry with her for hurting Ellie.

…

Wait, no, everything was not okay! What the fuck was I saying on the broadcast?

The main version of me was having a meltdown on a live radio show, and Nyxie's eyes had gained the same quality that Rena's had when she… Shit, she needed to get out of there.

Just as I was about to alert the other version of myself of that fact, Nyxie blurred into motion.

My main body was suddenly lying on the ground, drooling. An outside influence was also trying to infiltrate my mind, but I pushed Winter to the limit and held firm against it.

Nobody can control me but myself. I am in control.

I turned my focus back to my main body after regaining complete control over myself. Unfortunately, I couldn't apply that control to the main body because I couldn't manipulate Mana inside her part of the Core. There was a circuit she built inside herself that was going to purge the Mana inside her, but there was just one problem.

Why the fuck did she put a thirty-second activation timer on the… Oh, she definitely intended for this to happen, didn't she? Fuck, why am I so self-destructive?

A message popped up in front of her that she didn't even realize was there.

Moderator Nyxie is attempting to ban you from Eternia. Would you like to cancel the Moderator action? Y/N

I immediately hit 'Yes' because that seemed like a great way to either be killed or enslaved by Nyxie. Either option was untenable.

I tried to pull her back using [The Roots That Bind] to banish her back to this dimension, but she seemed to be stuck. The artifact in the room she was in was holding her in place, pulling the root just made it wrap tighter around the artifact.

Fuck.

I accessed the Core's internal messaging system. I hadn't figured out how to do much yet. This shit was so complicated, and ninety percent of the features just seemed to be non-functional. But I had figured out how to send messages to the primary user.

[Hey]

She didn't even seem to notice the message and was saying something stupid to Nyxie. Gods fucking… Okay, breathe. We can get through this.

[Hey!]

That garnered no response, so I upped the priority on the message to register as a maximum-level threat. I'd never seen our Core actually output a message with this level of priority before. I wondered what the original function for those messages was before the fuckwit got their hands on my Core and redesigned my internal circuits using a blender.

[ELLIE]

She began replying as if I were in the room with her. I walked up to the nearest tree and slammed my head through the trunk.

"Yes?" She finally thought in my direction.

[You don't have much time. Nyxie didn't like your little rant. She's trying to salvage the show, but trust me, you don't want to be there when she finishes.]

Nyxie was trying to play the rant off as a joke. But she was clearly upset, and since she tried to ban Ellie from ever returning to Eternia… I didn't like the idea of what was going to happen.

I never thought I'd have to talk a completely wasted version of myself into doing something critically important. But here we are.

The only way I could think of getting her out of there was by unwrapping her root using [Covenant of the Unbound].

With what ended up being way too much coaxing and showing her exactly how to do it, she managed to unwrap the root from the artifact. I felt my body jolt as she was ripped out of the dimension towards me, barely avoiding being splattered by Nyxie as she spoke.

She popped into existence right next to me.

"Oh, hi! Little me, I forgot you existed. You're so cute, I wish I could—" She was cut off when I shoved a hand into her chest and injected Winter Mana directly into our Core.

"… You didn't have to ruin it already. It's not like we're doing anything important." Ellie grumbled, pouting at me.

I sighed, "You almost got us killed. I think we need to have a talk."

"About what?" Ellie asked.

I gestured broadly towards her, "You're kind of a mess, and I know you know that. I don't expect us to fix it, gods know that wouldn't be possible, I just want to talk."

"Okay… I wish you had left the nice Mana in me. That would make this so much easier."

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