"But first..." Ryuk mused as his eyes opened, finding himself back in the snowy plain.
"I need to improve my Frost Cultivation until I reach a bottleneck," he muttered to himself.
As tempting as acquiring a Void Art and unlocking a new ability and element might be, he didn't want imbalance in his cultivation.
He was already more than capable of increasing his frost cultivation and felt it would be best to focus on that first and reach its limit.
When he reached a bottleneck, where he could no longer progress, then it would make sense to switch to the Void element, get a Void manual, and begin cultivation.
To leave one incomplete just to move on to another would only create chaos and might even hurt him in realizing his full potential.
For that reason, he spread his senses around him, his eyes straining for thousands of miles and overlooking everything.
All he could see were small creatures that wouldn't be able to do much harm. His hands reached for his clothes, tearing them off, leaving his body bare.
The harsh, snowy wind sent a chill up his spine, but he easily brushed it away as the space around Ryuk began undulating.
Normally, he would place restrictions on his cultivation to avoid overpowering others with his ability.
However, as he was alone, he might as well release the bonds on himself, resulting in a powerful force of energy blowing through the plains, seemingly merging with the frost wind.
"Ahhhhhh." A breath of cold white air escaped his lips as he sat down cross-legged on the ground, both of his hands raised into the air, his eyes closing.
The Primordial Frost scripture flashed in his head, along with the words, as he quickly reshuffled through the entire book, making sure he understood every single thing before his eyes finally shut.
His heartbeat slowed down until it went almost completely silent.
With hands raised, heart as calm as a lake, the imagery of the chants flashed across Ryuk's memories as his lips parted, and he began:
"Niv'rath kalemai forsta, jor'aan ivyrith kael. Sol'arth nythrae vendra, asi'tor vvalur elase."
"Niv'rath kalemai forsta, jor'aan ivyrith kael. Sol'arth nythrae vendra, asi'tor vvalur elase."
"Niv'rath kalemai forsta, jor'aan ivyrith kael. Sol'arth nythrae vendra, asi'tor vvalur elase."
The chants were unending, ringing out clearly through the frosty plain.
Soon enough, the harsh snowy wind began to change direction, slowly spinning in a cycle around Ryuk.
As an hour passed, a tsunami of frost wind had enveloped Ryuk.
One whose top reached into the clouds, howling with incredible energy that even a Dominion stage expert wouldn't dare to step into.
But within the chilling wind, things were as calm as a lake.
Ryuk remained in his sitting position, his face serene and seemingly lost in himself, even though his lips kept moving.
The incredible air did nothing but send his hair gently flying across his face as cold white air began ushering out of his lips with every chant.
There was no haste within him to cultivate faster or slower, nor did he care about time limits.
He simply dove deeply into himself, the image of the primordial frost scripture constantly flashing by in his head as he continued the chant.
The more he chanted, the denser the air grew, and the temperature around him began plummeting to a level that would have frozen a Dominion stage expert into an ice block, extinguishing their life.
But then...
Something began materializing from beneath Ryuk's feet.
Spreading outward and downwards, the illusion of snow-covered mountains began appearing all around.
It was none other than his domain materializing in the outside world, beyond Ryuk's own control.
The ice that used to dip into him and freeze apart his organs was instead absorbed into the runic lines of the domain that formed the image of a large Frost Wyvern, entering the runes instead and spreading all across.
From the frost, particles materialized from thin air, swirling into a glowing mist before converging into a sphere of pure condensed Ice Apex energy above Ryuk's palms.
Suddenly, runic lines began appearing in the thin air, connecting from the ball of ice on Ryuk's palms down to the runic lines beneath his feet, until a connection was made.
The powerful frost energy in the air raged over him, but then some of the energy snaked into Ryuk's own body.
Instead of being an energy that would freeze him up, some of those energies entered the runic lines beneath his feet, as the domain itself began widening and widening, until they overlapped with the true mountains that were present in the plain—seemingly merging from their ethereal illusion form into a reality.
Ryuk's experience through the ordeal was as calm as a lake, closed off from everything in the outside world.
But in Ryuk's mind's eye, he could no longer see the Primordial Frost scripture wavering.
Instead, Ryuk saw a... body.
A silvery-colored, golem-like body that was slowly spinning in his mind's eye, enlarging by hundreds of thousands of times.
Suddenly, a memory appeared in his head...
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Abilities To Be Obtained in the Grimoire:
Frozen Physique:
Your body becomes a vessel of primordial frost, immune to frost damage and radiating an aura of cold that saps the strength of foes. This passive ability also increases physical resilience and sharpens your affinity with Ice-based techniques.
_____
"Could this be it?" Ryuk mused to himself, as he watched his mind's eye begin solidifying.
Soon, Ryuk's consciousness opened completely as he felt himself step down into a frozen ground.
Looking around him, he was on his feet, and looking at his own body, it had been reduced to nothing but silvery-white particles that seemed to have been gathered together by some sort of bonds.
But in front of him was a gargantuan, snowy white golem, with a body seemingly made of well-crafted armor of ice, its face covered by a mask of ice.
Instead of two arms, it had four gargantuan ice arms whose weight seemed to press down on the territory space, even though they remained hanging in the air.
"This... This is what they call a Physique? A Frozen Physique?"
"Such an amount of power within a body..."