Eternal_Winter

Chapter 57: The importance of knowledge

Stuffed with insect meat Ethan walked through the forest until he heard the telltale noise of a river. When he finally stood before it he not only cleaned himself but also quenched his now rediscovered thirst. During the time he didn’t need to eat, which was at this point a couple of weeks, he was now once again relying on simple nutrition to fuel his body. When compared to magic it felt so inefficient and wasteful, taking time that could be used in more productive ways. 

As he u...

Chapter 56: The last 30 days

After walking at a leisurely place for around two hours Ethan couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing or rather someone. The familiar weight on his shoulders or around his staff, the soothing connection between them that shared not only their thoughts but also their feelings, their personalities. It was like a constant dance between two equal partners. It was built on companionship, respect and reverence for each other. A connection that formed a golden thread between them so ...

Chapter 55: The Wildwood elf and the feeling of finality

He totally did that and seconds before he actually did it felt like the right thing to do. When his sister was still alive he constantly annoyed her with such things, even when she was older. It worked wonders when she was in a bad mood or hated his guts for some unknown reasons, like all siblings do sometimes.

Well the elf wasn’t his sister, she didn’t even look like her but something compelled him to do it. He couldn’t rewind time so he just rolled it. There was after all nothi...

Chapter 54: Prisoner and nature magic

The moment Nora gave the green light he jumped from the tree, his magic working already to create clouds under him. So for the first few meters he just accelerated only to land on a magical hardened snow cloud that carried him downwards. Suppressing a grunt he managed to stay silent for now. Once he stood firmly he accelerated his descent.

Nora stayed silent during the whole time but her thoughts were relaxed and quiet so he continued, for now the plan was working, his approach wasn�...

Chapter 53: The search party and ambush plans

With the enemy approaching Ethan had only one possible way, a decisive victory to scare them off forever. He would crush their spirit, break their bones and send them away with a bloody nose and a lesson for life. At Least that was what he wanted to do but he knew how unprepared he was for a fight.

With his staff in hand he summoned a cloud of snow under his feet and floated up to the nearest tree. It was one of the giant trees that held the outpost in the air and thanks to his staff, ...

Chapter 52: The staff sings with power

Sleeping the night in some burrow was actually one of the best nights Ethan had in the entire tutorial, his need to sleep was decreasing with each level up but he still required rest, that lately came in the form of unconsciousness and shouldn’t be something he wanted to introduce as a permanent solution. 

Ethan chuckled and stretched his sore muscles, when he took his hat he noticed that Nora was gone. It seems she was already outside scouting. He grinned, it should be plenty of...

Chapter 51: Choosing the right path

Both of them decided to take a more stealthy approach this time, they walked a few hundred meters away from their last entry point and this time Ethan crawled over the ground. The moment he laid down he could feel the water soak into his robe, the ground was muddy and wet, grass constantly took his vision away and the bushes and shrubs that covered the forest floor ripped his clothes open. He even lost his hat at one point and had to crawl backwards to retrieve it.

Overall it was exhau...

Chapter 50: Getting ambushed in the last circle

Ethan stopped in front of the massive jungle. Looking up the trunks of the trees he could barely see the top of them. Vines as thick as his wrist stretched between the trees and formed a complex net high up in the air.

Taking a deep breath he rammed his staff into the ground and stretched his sore body, a smile tugged on the corner of his mouth, he did complain the whole time when he was in the desert how boring it was, the death of his allies still bothered him but now he could finall...

Chapter 49: The painful march through the desert

He couldn't remember when he fell asleep, but the shock he had when waking up nearly made his heart jump from his chest. Nora sat next to him, coiled up and her eyes staring into his face, it seems she watched over him the entire time.

Ethan managed to sit properly and let his pounding heart calm down, his eyes closed as he only focused on breathing evenly. With a sigh he opened his eyes and looked at Nora, she was back to her normal size which was still pretty big compared to her after...

Chapter 48: Sacrifices and Legacy

It wasn’t the first time Ethan stood in a magic circle, but the first time he was involved with blood magic. While he said magic wasn’t good or bad and he actually believed it but feeling the energies of the dead wash over his skin made him feel dirty, tainted. Maybe he would pay for it at some point but that wasn’t important today.

He saw the other mages approaching, keeping their distance. Ethan saw the worry in their eyes and disgust was all over their faces. Still even when t...

Chapter 47: The absurd growth of broken classes

Ethan spat out some more blood and wiped his mouth, his black robe covered in so much red dust and pale blue blood that the black underneath wasn’t visible anymore. Using Nora’s offered tail as support he pushed himself to his feet and took his hat off. The long black hair on his head was messy and wet with sweat, his arms burned from using too much mana, pain stabbing into them as he tried to bind his hair into the resemblance of a pony tail, once he managed to gather most of it he froze...

Chapter 46: The Power of Winter

Like skeletal fingers frost started to cover the ground, arrows made from ice shot into all directions at once, rushing over and freezing the world at an incredible pace. Icy chains erupted from already frozen patches of sand and dragged everyone to the ground, which Ethan considered an enemy in this conflict. While the ground was quickly covered Ethan’s body got covered in more and more ice, forming a rather detailed armor.

The cold wind that swept through his mind kept his thoughts...

Chapter 45: Demons of the past

The darkness, the utter lack of any form of light, so all encompassing that you doubt your own existence.
The cold, there was no warmth, like the concept of heat didn’t exist in this world.
The Fear, it was depressing, cruel and paralyzing and had the ability to break every feeling creature in existence, something no weapon or magic could achieve.

He could only perceive those three things right now, the moment the wight king managed to conquer his mind he was lost, time stretch...

Chapter 44: The messenger of war

When you think about war in a fantasy scenario as a normal person you might envision speeches before battle, generals at the front raising a sword while a young man holding the flag of their nation behind him. The men challenge their enemies with cries of war that make the earth shake. Swords were brandished, shields got raised while the soldiers grit their teeth in anger, their eyes filled with grim determination.

Here in the desert there was nothing like that at all, Ethan stood behi...

Chapter 43: The Frostrot Revenant

When the commanders gathered he didn’t waste any time. While he had no actual knowledge of tactics and strategy he knew some things that were important for any kind of battle. For the rest he would rely on the commanders of his army to carry them out for him, this was after all their duty and passion. Standing in the middle of them he told them his plan, his words coming fast but he never stumbled over a word.

“I saw the army approaching and it’s closing in on us, we need to prep...

Chapter 42: The Wight King

Magical boots, convenient, stylish and with an amount of class you couldn’t achieve with a little bit of enchantment. Well fuck them because nobody included a stupid manual how useful they really were, sometimes an item description isn’t enough to explain it properly. Because “you will always find solid ground” should have been expanded to: “Always find solid ground even without a stupid ground!” 

While travelling through the snow covered desert Ethan wanted to walk for...

Chapter 41: The superiority of rituals

Rushed, that was the first thing Ethan came to mind when thinking about this part of the tutorial, from becoming a literal leader of an entire race he met only a day before to now commanding what was the entire living population of the third circle. He was pretty sure the so called capitals didn’t even exist and were just there for flavor to fill out the world. Because he wouldn’t visit them, not on the normal path where he would make peace between both factions and not in his weird path ...

Chapter 40: An (easy) alliance

Reaching the Brammgestir was, to Ethan’s surprise, uneventful. No ambush, no open attacks, no hordes of the undead. Instead more of his troops joined the growing army and even some Brammgestir scout parties merged with the delegation and formed a rather impressive shock force. While it didn’t have the order of the Crocodiarii they made up for it with their fierce style of battle. At this point the combined armies formed an impressive force that decided to rely on his guidance to make deci...

Chapter 39: War in Heaven - Part 2

Ouroboros stopped in the throne room and turned around to his allies, while he could attack the enemy forces and siege their castle there was simply no reason for that. This war couldn’t be won, only lost and the loser would be the side that tried to force victory.. The war on earth would bring the final decision, his side or rather Ethan’s side needed to win there to make the decision of the heavenly court final.

The good thing was that he had some influence on Ethan’s tutorial ...

Chapter 38: War in heaven - Part 1

The ground rumbled and cracks formed on both sides of the massive valley as something started to  break through the rocky ground. The mountains surrounding the valley shook violently, snow and ice drifted from their peaks and left only hard gray rock in their wake.

Dirt and rocks got thrown in the air when the top of a tower broke through the earth on both sides of the valley, perfect copies that stood on each end of the valley. They rose into the air like black monoliths. One tow...

Chapter 37: A new dawn approaches

- you better believe me Ethan, the next time you pull something like that I’m gonna bite you enough to make even my venom work on you. You promised no more near death experiences for my sake, but especially for yours! Even when you die by my hand I will just ask your benevolent patron to revive you…so that I can kill you again! Do you even know how worried I was about you?! You wi-

Ethan stopped listening a while ago to Nora’s threats, it was quite amusing how she switche...

Chapter 36: The duel for supremacy

So it finally happened, Ethan fighting his first proper duel. While he had challenging fights before, even against single opponents he wouldn’t consider them…sentient. The monster Marie became wasn’t even it's own being but more a guided flesh puppet and while the ghoul king and the fire giant could be considered intelligent they were cunning creatures but nothing more.

In the seconds before the fight he studied the Brammgestir with the creative name Brakan. He would have rolled ...

Chapter 35

There were many things humanity could be proud of, their successes since the beginning of human history were truly marvelous. Like the discovery of electricity, the fact they could build a car, extract resources from the earth or use the sun to generate energy. There were also the negative things like guns, atomic bombs and more ways to kill each other than you can count.

But one thing in Ethan’s case wasn’t something grand or big, it was a curse, a curse to wonder and excitement in...

Chapter 34

Ethan raised his hand and the general knew instinctively what he wanted. The group of behemoth lizards stopped and prepared for battle, after climbing down from the lizards they streamed to the front and positioned themselves in orderly rows. Ethan, still holding the sphere of ice in his hand, stood up and looked over the head of his mount.

Then he saw them, an army of undead, multiple times bigger than the horde that attacked the camp only a day ago. While the last ones looked like...

Chapter 33: Revelation & Abyssal Frostbite of Relentless Growth

During his journey with the Crocodiarii Ethan learned a bit more about them, but the general wasn't someone interested in culture and arts, he listed the abilities of his people. Their strong scales and mighty jaws, their fearless nature and their pride. Which weapons they could use and how many troops he could expect. When the general fell silent he watched his improved stats while riding on the so called behemoth lizard, then Ethan noticed a new category in his status window, he knew stuff ...

Intermission: Nothing can repair a broken vase

“Stop that Lily!” Liliane swatted the roots away that her murder plant tried to wrap around the Brammgestir laying in front of her, the beast was barely breathing but with some healing spores she managed to keep him alive a bit longer. After all she wanted to test her new creation and what better flower bed than a juicy body filled with nutrients?

Grinning and giggling she pressed a seed the size of her fist in the wound in his belly and sprinkled some healing spores over it. Since...

Chapter 32: March to War

When Ethan woke up again he felt surprisingly good. Someone carried him into the barracks while he was unconscious and stuffed a blanket under his head. Nora raised her head when she noticed Ethan’s mind becoming more active, her unblinking eyes looked at him inquiringly.

Are you feeling better? That last skill knocked you out for a few hours, I could feel it, you were close to death Ethan, you better not do that again. While her voice was mostly monotone but he could hear th...

Chapter 31: The heavenly court

Ouroboros opened his eyes as a swirling vortex opened in front of him. It glowed in an ominous red, the color of blood. Through it stepped a man, his skin had the color of charcoal, eight eyes dominated his face. The white hair on his hair looked stiff, more like bristles than actual hair. He looked tired and while his posture was perfect everybody could see the exhaustion.

“You did it…you fulfilled your promise Boros but what price will you pay? The heavenly court is ready for you...

Chapter 30: Wizard of Glacial Chains

Ethan walked behind the Crocodiarii, a few steps brought him up the berm the guards had built so it was possible to look over the palisade wall. What he saw drained the remaining blood from his already pale face. Hundreds of undead moved towards the guard post. He saw Crocodiarii but also the hulking Brammgestir.

Their bodies broken, he saw missing jaws and broken horns. Some crawled, the legs missing, while others had no arms to hold a weapon. Their eyes were not the milky white you wo...

Intermission: Revisiting the other tutorials

Sophie looked down from her throne, it was a crude thing made from bones and animal hides but it was hers. In front of her, kneeling like the dirt they are, were the other tutorial attendees. She took control of them a week ago once the goblins served their purpose. Those dark green fucks, she thought while looking down at her newest toys. While they tried to survive she gathered her own strength.

The swamp was no problem for her, the undead were easy to control, a dead mind didn’t re...