Chapter 46: Frost Bear
Alden stared at both notifications.
Then his grin came back, slower and wider than before.
"...You’re telling me I get double the rewards?!"
He looked at the wilderness ahead. The sound of something large moving between the trees carried out clearly. His eyes had gone to a place that was not quite calm and not quite dangerous but somewhere interestingly between the two.
"Now we’re talking." He cracked his knuckles. "Come on then, you damn beasts—"
He stopped. One foot off the ground.
’Wait.’ He thought about it for a second.
High-level beasts surrounded the area. Multiple massive threats, and only him and Pyrion to face them.
One support beast against multiple high-ranked opponents wasn’t the worst plan he’d ever had, but it was nowhere near the best one either.
’Two would be considerably better than one.’
He opened Soul Forge before he’d fully finished the thought.
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SOUL FORGE
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Available Blueprints:
▶ Spider
▶ Wolf
▶ Owl
▶ Firefly
▶ Dragon
▶ Polar Bear
Available Concepts:
▶ Keen Hearing
▶ Predator’s Instinct
▶ Razor Claw
▶ Thread
▶ Prediction
▶ Glow
▶ Insight
▶ Breath
▶ Fortitude
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His eyes stopped on the new one.
’Fortitude? That must be from the Polar Bear.’
He checked the description.
[Fortitude: Extreme cold resistance. High pain resistance. Ability to continue fighting through severe injury.]
He stared at it.
"...At least this one description makes sense for once."
He closed it. Not what he was looking for right now.
His eyes moved to Dragon, expression immediately brightened.
"Forget everything else." He pointed at it.
"I JUST WANT TO CREATE A DRAGON!"
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CRAFTING REQUIREMENT
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Blueprint: Dragon
Required Soul Fragments: ×15
Owned: ×1
Status: Insufficient Soul Fragments
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The grin froze. He stared at it.
"..."
"...Damn it." He lowered his hand slowly. His expression went somewhere unfortunate.
"Okay. Something else for now." His gaze moved to Spider.
Last time, Spider and Glow had given him twelve percent compatibility and a warning about structural collapse. He wasn’t about to repeat that. This time he’d try something different.
"Spider with Breath and Razor Claw."
The image that came to mind was immediately appealing — a spider with elemental breath and reinforced slashing claws. Something fast and layered and devastating.
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Selected Blueprint: Spider
Selected Concepts: Breath + Razor Claw
Analyzing Compatibility...
Breath — ✔
Razor Claw — ✔
Compatibility: 32%
Warning: Low compatibility detected.
Crafting Stability: Unstable
Failure may result in structural collapse during creation.
Proceed with Crafting?
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Alden’s eyebrow went up.
"...Do spiders have some kind of personal grudge against being forged?" He looked at the screen.
"Seriously. What is wrong with you."
He stared at thirty-two percent for several seconds. Then sighed and looked elsewhere.
Spider was supposed to be his strongest available Blueprint aside from Dragon. He’d been thinking of it that way since the underground chamber.
’Wait.’ He looked at Polar Bear.
’It’s also B-Rank.’ His eyes moved to the available list.
’Polar Bear already has claws naturally. Razor Claw would be redundant.
But Breath...’
"Polar Bear with Breath."
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Selected Blueprint: Polar Bear
Selected Concept: Breath
Analyzing Compatibility...
Breath — ✔ Compatible
Natural Structure: Suitable
Concept Adaptability: High
Compatibility: 68%
Crafting Stability: Favorable
Configuration is likely to remain stable.
Proceed with Crafting?
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He stared at ’likely.’
"Why isn’t it at least seventy."
He rubbed his chin.
’Breath comes from the Dragon Blueprint. The system probably considers Dragon Concepts too strong for B-Rank species. The integration fights itself.’
He looked at the wilderness.
A short silence.
"Whatever." His grin came back. "I came here to take risks anyway."
He raised his hand.
"Proceed."
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CRAFTING REQUIREMENTS
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Polar Bear Soul Fragments ×9
Owned: ×11 ✔
Dragon Soul Fragment ×1
Owned: ×1 ✔
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Proceed with Crafting?
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Alden’s eyes went wide.
"Nine?!" He checked his Polar Bear count. On the way back to the academy, he had run into a few more and extracted them as well.
Then at the Dragon fragment.
Exactly one.
"IT NEEDS ONE DRAGON FRAGMENT."
He stared at the single number.
"If I needed even one more—" He ran the math.
"I’d be sitting here with no way to make anything worth making. That was way too close"
He shuddered.
"But it would be zero now wouldn’t it?" Then he looked at the wilderness and the grin came back full.
"No, I’m here to get more of them. That’s why I’m here." He cracked his neck.
"More fragments. Stronger beasts. And finding out exactly how far Soul Forge can go."
He raised his hand.
"Proceed."
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CRAFTING INITIATED
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Soul Fragments consumed.
Blueprint synchronization beginning...
Concept integration: Breath.
Stability check...
68% → Stable
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Brilliant white light erupted in front of him.
Expanding outward and taking shape at the same time, the light so concentrated that the surrounding snow reflected it back in every direction.
Four massive legs formed first. Then a broad body taking shape behind them, dense and deep-chested. A large head. Claws that pushed into the ground as the form finished solidifying.
The white light faded.
Alden’s eyes went wide.
A Polar Bear stood in front of him.
But nothing like any Polar Bear he’d seen before.
Its fur was dark, almost black, swallowing the light instead of reflecting it. Against that darkness, the cyan frostfire burning across its body stood out.
The frostfire crawled around its jaw first, then moved up along its neck, flowing backward over its shoulders like water that had decided to go the wrong direction. The same fire flickered at its ears. Along its back. The cold mist and the burning light mixing into something that shouldn’t have worked but looked completely inevitable.
Its eyes opened. Cyan frostfire burned inside them.
The beast looked at Alden and lowered its head.
Alden stood there, opened his mouth.
"AWESOME!"
He walked around it immediately, eyes moving over every part of it, the excitement running completely unchecked.
"You’re a Polar Bear. But you have Dragon Breath." He came around the front and looked at the frostfire around its jaw. "And it came out as frostfire because — the cold." He pointed at it. "Because the environment. Because Breath responds to intent and you were created here in the middle of a snowy mountain range!"
He grinned at it.
"You are freaking awesome."
The system appeared.
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SOUL FORGE
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Name: Unregistered
Type: Forged Soul
Base Beast: Polar Bear
Integrated Concept: Breath
Evolutionary Variant: Frost Bear
Rank: A
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