Vampire Princess Guide in Progress - Volume 1 Chapter 44

Chapter 44: The Third Floor, Advancing to the Snow Plains!

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Third Floor, Entrance to the Winter Snow Plains (Lv.15)

“Are we there yet? Hiss, it’s so cold…”

The cold wind carried snow particles past her ears, making a soft whimpering sound. Cross instinctively shrank her neck, the silver fox fur at the edge of her cloak’s hood swaying before her eyes, turning into a hazy silver-gray in the white mist of her breath.

She had been keeping her head down trying to avoid the frost and wind, but the moment she looked up, her pupils immediately brightened with the reflection of ice crystals dancing in the sky.

“So this is… what the third floor looks like.” Her eyes widened instantly.

The entire snow plain seemed to have been soaked in moonlight, with snow underfoot emitting a deep blue phosphorescence. In the distance, ice mounds rose like sleeping giants, with angular ice ridges hanging from the mountain ridges, refracting thousands of fragmented rainbow lights, remaining motionless in the howling north wind.

From the distant cliffs, the mournful howls of wild beasts could be heard.

“It’s all snow, a vast expanse of white.”

“Yes, and moving in snow will be less convenient. Some areas have snow fog, reducing visibility, so we need to be careful.”

“Okay, I’ll pay attention. Hey! Shouldn’t that be something I remind you of as the team leader? How did Tilia get to say it first!” While Cross was still amazed by the completely different icy beauty of the third floor, a pile of snow falling from a nearby pine tree startled her.

Tilia couldn’t help but burst into laughter, making Cross blush with embarrassment at being teased for her timidity.

Standing on the third floor, both girls were now wearing very warm bearskin fur coats, the essential cold weather outfit for exploring this floor. Their deerskin boots left a trail of small footprints as they walked through the snow, one deep and one shallow.

Although the bear fur coat was very warm, the occasional cold wind that slipped into her collar still made Cross shiver.

Since the weather in the first and second floors had been quite mild, with little perception of heat or cold, it wasn’t until arriving here that Cross realized how perfectly the game reproduced the feeling of cold, almost completely indistinguishable from reality.

Ice and snow, cold, light-refracting crystals, hexagonal snowflakes, freezing…

For some reason, these words flashed through Cross’s mind at that moment, like a sudden inspiration, similar to when a creator suddenly gets writing inspiration or a painter conceives a novel drawing idea… how peculiar.

Just then, a light blue semi-transparent screen popped up in front of Cross.

【New Skill Notification: Congratulations on learning the magic 「Basic Ice Binding Technique

」】

“Ah!” Cross exclaimed with a mixture of delight and surprise.

“What is it?” Tilia, walking alongside her, stopped in her tracks, her gaze also settling on the notification in front of Cross.

“Tilia, look! I didn’t do anything, but the game system suddenly notified me that I’ve learned a new magic spell, and it seems to be ice magic.” Cross didn’t immediately close the notification box, but showed it to Tilia.

What, no way…

Tilia blinked in disbelief, “You just learned ice magic like that…”

“I don’t know either. Suddenly it was like a flash of inspiration in my mind, and then I got the notification that I’d learned it. Is this how magic is learned?”

Regarding how magic is learned, it certainly isn’t by randomly walking somewhere and mysteriously acquiring skills. Tilia wasn’t a typical elemental magic user so she wasn’t entirely sure — her magic, if classified, would be the special “dark magic” category.

But apparently, if one’s magical talent is high enough and they have strong elemental adaptability, magical skills can be learned directly through a feeling for the elements.

And this feeling could be a conception of an element’s materialized form, or through touch, hearing, smell…

How extraordinary… just because we came to the snow plains!?

Cross merely saw the appearance of the snow plains, felt the cold touch, and developed an awareness of elemental physical objects like snow and ice ridges, and immediately received inspiration to learn ice magic?

While her successful first attempt at Double Magic Bullet and subsequently learning Triple Magic Bullet at an extremely fast pace had already been impressive…

But now this talent of learning new magic just through inspiration, what is this? If elemental magic in this game was really that simple to learn, the vast majority of players wouldn’t have struggled to produce any results after trying magic, and wouldn’t have unwaveringly chosen physical weapons instead.

“Could there be some kind of error?” Cross asked softly, seeing her companion cupping her chin in thought.

“No… ahem. Well, indeed, Nolan and I were right. Miss Cross’s magical talent is truly remarkable. I’m starting to find Miss Cross a bit scary,” Tilia said with affected mannerisms.

“Ah, don’t be afraid of me. I’m not scary at all.”

“Well, learning new magic is a good thing. It gives you more attack options in battle,” Tilia said, then asked, “By the way, can you try out the special effect of that magic staff you acquired earlier?”

“Oh, you mean the Forest Deer King’s Staff.”

The magic staff in Cross’s hand had already been changed to one made of ancient wood, with vines wrapped around its curved handle and containing an emerald jewel. At Tilia’s reminder, she raised the staff in her hand.

“Come, deer spirit,” Cross whispered softly.

The raised staff immediately emitted an emerald green light, and beside the two girls, several green light streams gathered together, forming the figure of a giant deer with a body as translucent as crystal glass in the snow.

Cross first climbed onto the deer spirit’s back to try riding it, and after confirming it was fine, she invited Tilia to jump up as well.

“It can actually move through the snow, that’s great. At this rate, we might reach the Ice Snow City by tonight.”

“Good! We keep heading straight north, right? We seem to be at the southernmost part of the third floor map now, with the Ice Snow City’s main district in the farthest north. That’s what I heard from closed beta players,” Cross said.

“Yes, that’s right. Let’s head north.”

“Then, Tilia, hold onto me so you don’t fall off.” Cross sat in front, aware there were no safety belts, and not knowing if the deer spirit would be obedient when moving. It would be terrible if someone was jolted off accidentally.

Tilia’s expression became awkward for a moment, thinking she might be taking advantage of the girl, so she hooked her scythe around Cross’s waist instead.

Cross looked down at the cold blood scythe and immediately turned pale.

“Are you trying to kill me, Miss Tilia!”

“Hahaha, just joking… I’ll hold onto your coat hem instead.”