Once he realized that his contract with Nellis wouldn't make any progress for a while, System continued on his way. He headed back to the temporary nest carrying the bird meat.

  Forming a contract with an ice spirit like Nellis didn't significantly affect him. She wouldn't make him change his behavior, nor would she make any absurd demands. She'd only hang above his head while observing both his actions and what was going on around them.

  If System didn't try to start a conversation, Nellis would remain silent. He could sense that she liked to talk, and since System himself hadn't communicated with anyone other than Shava for a long time, he talked to Nellis from time to time during their journey.

  As the two of them got acquainted, he learned many stories about her previous contractor, the white bear. Actually, in System's opinion, what she was telling him couldn't really be regarded as stories. These 'stories' basically had no plot and consisted only of the white bear's hunting history.

  There hadn't actually been many food sources in the frozen Lilt Forest of the past.

  In addition to absorbing the frost energy in the air, the white bear had greatly enjoyed eating fish. In fact, it had only eaten fish.

  It had usually broken through the ice covering a ke with its strong, icy bear cws in order to catch the fish swimming below. Though the ke had been frozen over, there had still been a variety of fish surviving beneath the ice.

  System had previously seen the ke where the white bear had caught fish while he'd been taking Quin's eyes for a flight among the clouds. At that time, the ke had been surrounded by countless orange and brown butterflies.

  Nellis also sent images of the white bear fighting an Abyssal demon to System. It had swung its icy cws and roared furiously. Icy blue beams of light had erupted from the white bear's eyes when it had finally defeated the demon that had invaded its territory.

  However, when the powerful bear had refused to leave its territory for the Lilt Mountains after the ice and snow had melted, it had eventually passed away in silence.

  ...

  For the next several hours, System rapidly swung from tree to tree using his tentacles. He was getting closer and closer to the temporary nest.

  As he neared the nest, his senses from [Intuition] grew stronger. Shava was still alive, but most of the other ants were in bad shape.

  After the sun had completely set, System, who was still traveling, suddenly felt a strange surge of heat emanating from the icy blue halo above his head.

  He felt a little dizzy and immediately sent a mental message to Nellis. However, Nellis didn't respond to him. She seemed to have once again fallen into a deep sleep.

  System knew that his contract with Nellis was about to commence.

  'Will it be a sword, a shield, wings, or cws?'

  System repeated the possibilities that Nellis had mentioned. He was also a bit curious about just what kind of frost power he'd receive as a result of the contract.

  A loud buzz suddenly erupted in his head. Hearing it made him feel very uncomfortable.

  This sound seemed familiar to him. System realized that this buzzing sound was simir to the Voice of the World that he'd heard when he'd acquired his talent [Perception]. After that, he'd appeared in a vast, white world.

  He soon discovered that he'd once again arrived in a white world. It seemed like he'd arrived in the same pce as the st time.

  However, this time, System noticed a difference. Now, he could clearly sense his own presence. He could also perceive and freely control the many tentacles sprouting from his body.

  There seemed to be no gravity. He was floating in mid-air, completely unable to move his body or traverse through the space.

  Soon, a peculiar, icy blue aura suddenly surged toward him from the void, enveloping him completely. System felt his mind gradually becoming exhausted, and he soon fell asleep.

  ...

  System's slumber was surprisingly brief this time. In fact, he thought that he may not have truly fallen asleep at all.

  When he regained consciousness, he found that his tentacles still maintained their grip on the tree branches he'd been holding onto earlier. The sky had not yet grown dark.

  He saw from the time recorded in the [Tools Menu] that only around a dozen seconds had passed between the moment he'd entered the white world and the moment he'd woken up after falling asleep.

  When he looked around, System suddenly discovered that the icy blue halo above his head had disappeared.

  'Could it be that the contract failed?'

  System used his tentacles to inspect the area above his head where the light ring had previously been, feeling around in an attempt to locate Nellis.

  ...

  Ding! You acquired the unique Special Talent [Frost Form]!

  Ding! The level of [Frost Breath] has increased.

  Ding! You acquired the Derived Skill [Ice Spike], which can only be used in [Frost Form]!

  Ding! You acquired the Derived Skill [Frost Slime], which can only be used in [Frost Form]!

  ...

  After a series of [Tools Menu] notifications, System realized that his body was now full of frost energy. His [Frost Breath] had directly risen to level 11, entering a new tier, and he'd also gained many new frost-reted abilities.

  ...

  [Frost Form] (11/25): A unique Special Talent acquired through System's contract with Nellis. Can be activated to transform into Frost Form, gaining the power to control frost.

  [Ice Spike] (11/21): A unique Derived Skill obtained from [Frost Form]. Allows icy spikes to be formed at the end of System's tentacles to use as weapons.

  [Frost Mucus] (13/27): A unique Derived Skill obtained from [Frost Form], [Frost Breath], and [Corrosive Mucus]. Provides the ability to spit out frosty mucus with corrosive properties.

  ...

  As he felt the strange flow of the frost energy inside his body, System attempted to activate his newly acquired [Frost Form]. He felt an intensely cold energy gush out from his heart, then begin flowing through his body's bloodstream.

  A yer of white frost gradually condensed on his body's surface, slowly solidifying and forming light blue ice crystals. Finally, a yer of light blue armor made of ice crystals formed on the surface of his body. A peculiar pattern simir to the one on his exoskeleton was also on the armor's surface.

  At the same time, System's tentacles slowly changed color from brown to an icy blue. While the tentacles were still very soft, their ends gathered frost energy, eventually forming ice crystal spikes five centimeters long.

  In addition to those changes, the icy blue halo above System's head had also reappeared when he'd activated [Frost Form].

  The process of System's transformation into [Frost Form] seemed slow, but it was actually completed in only a brief moment.

  While in [Frost Form], System's physical fitness was significantly enhanced, and the frost energy contained inside his body increased by dozens of times.

  However, [Frost Form] pced a heavy burden on his body. He felt like he could only remain in [Frost Form] for about fifteen minutes, after which his body would be completely exhausted. Therefore, in order to avoid losing his mobility, he could only activate it for roughly ten minutes at a time.

  System casually waved his new frost tentacles through the air, finding that he could now move them more than twice as fast as before.

  With a bang, he stabbed the sharp spikes at the end of his tentacles into a tree. The five-centimeter-long spikes completely submerged into the tree trunk.

  With this [Ice Spike] ability alone, System could now easily kill the bck bird that he'd needed to work so hard to subdue earlier.

  When he observed his information in the [Tools Menu], he noticed that his combat power had directly increased by more than ten times after he'd transformed into [Frost Form], rising from 3.7 to 43. His rank had also improved from Metamorphosis to Magic.

  It seemed that in this state, System had transcended the limitations of mortal beings. He had now become a magical species.