Alex walked towards the area where the giant octopus had landed.
He didn't want to miss out on any potential rewards the hedgehog had for him.
While Alex was walking to that place, he looked at his left arm.
His left arm was no longer frozen, and it actually felt a bit hot. Sadly, his left arm was still severely injured. The freezing of organic material completely destroyed its structure, severing veins, and many other things.
Alex's left arm hadn't been in pain while it had been frozen, but as soon as it had thawed, Alex felt searing pain coming from it.
Alex couldn't really move it much, but he could still experiment with it.
The ethereal spire had entered Alex's left arm, and it remained there. He had already accidentally shot some cold air out of his left arm earlier, and Alex wanted to know how that worked.
Alex was already familiar with how it felt to move Mana, and he willed for the cold Mana in his left arm to explode.
SSSHH!
A blast of cold air left Alex's left arm. Since his left arm was still limply hanging around, the cold hit part of Alex's left leg and the ground.
The ice below Alex's left arm grew by a bit, and the coat on Alex's left leg completely froze.
However, Alex was too busy with something else.
As soon as Alex had willed the Ice Mana to explode, his arm started to burn. Well, it wasn't burning literally, but it felt like it was burning.
Alex quickly ran to one of the spots with destroyed ice. The octopus had destroyed a huge part of the lake when it had surfaced.
SSSSSS!
Alex put his arm directly into the icy water and gritted his teeth. The sound of something hot touching cold water could be heard as soon as Alex's arm hit the water.
'Fuck! That's so hot!' Alex thought. 'Are you serious?! You have Mana, and you follow the Laws of Thermodynamics?! You want to make stuff cold, so you have to make other stuff hot?! Why can't you just do something magical?!'
After a while, Alex pulled his arm out and moved it through the air for a bit.
His arm had received several burns.
However, it was coated with a thin coating of ice now.
His arm definitely felt colder than before.
'My arm is colder than before. So, let's try again!'
SSSHH!
Another blast of cold air, and Alex immediately dipped his arm into the cold water again.
'It's not as hot as previously, but it still feels like I touched a hot plate or something,' Alex concluded.
After a while, Alex pulled his arm out again.
pᴀɴdᴀ nᴏveʟ 'I wonder, can I use less?'
Alex tried to suppress the Mana but also made a bit of it explode.
SSSH!
A cold wind left Alex's left arm again, and Alex's arm heated up again.
However, this time, Alex's arm wasn't burning hot.
It was just uncomfortably hot, the temperature that would make someone sweat profusely.
Yet, in exchange, the cold air that left Alex's left arm wasn't as cold as in the earlier blasts.
Alex scratched his chin as he thought about everything he had witnessed. 'So, my arm heats up proportionally to how cold the air is. I'm not sure, but I think the amount of air leaving my arm is the same as the weight of my arm. Because of that, the blasts are quite powerful.'
'Now, I need to test something else.'
Alex grabbed his left arm with his right arm and pointed it at his face.
'Just a little bit. Just a tiny, little bit,' Alex thought.
SSSSSHH!
Alex's head was blown back by the storm coming out of the arm. However, since he had only used a little bit, Alex's face wasn't injured.
Only some icicles had formed on Alex's face.
Alex rubbed the icicles off his face and looked at his arm with excitement.
'Interesting,' Alex thought, scratching his chin. 'I only used a tiny fraction, and my arm probably only heated up by a single degree. Yet, the air on my face was slightly colder than the surrounding air.'
'This means that this blast uses the outside temperature as a reference when cooling something, not the arm itself.'
'So, theoretically, if it were -40°C right now, and if my arm were 20°C hot, and if I unleashed a blast equaling 20°C, the blast of air would be -60°C, and my arm would reach 40°C.'
Alex scratched his chin as a complicated expression appeared on his face.
'That means the power of this ability relies heavily on my environment. After all, if I were in some desert that's 50°C and I did the same thing, my arm would reach 40°C, and my opponent would get a comfortable breeze of 30°C hot air.'
'However, in a cold environment, the effect would be different,' Alex thought as he looked around. 'Sure, the creatures living in such a cold environment have a great cold resistance, but that's only true to a certain extent.'
'A beast living in a 50°C hot desert wouldn't mind a blast of 30°C hot air. However, a beast living in a -40°C cold tundra would have some issues with a blast of -60°C cold air.'
'Even more, I can reduce the temperature of my left arm even further in cold weather. I could run around with a 5°C cold arm without issues. It would simply feel very dull, numbs, and awkward. However, I could unleash a blast of 35°C. In a cold climate, this would severely damage someone. After all, the blast would nearly reach -100°C!'
'Additionally, if I'm willing to pay some injuries, I can even blast them with like 60°C or something. Sure, my arm would get severe burns and would become useless until I healed it, but my enemy would be frozen.'
Alex scratched his chin.
'There surely are some uses for this ability in a fight. My sword is one-handed anyway, leaving me with a free arm.'
Alex had been walking all this time, and he finally came close to his goal.
Alex passed a tree and saw an area of absolute destruction.
The trees were all destroyed, and many gigantic needles poked out of the unmoving octopus.
Right now, the hedgehog was calmly munching on the octopus, seemingly without a care in the world.
Alex walked up to one of the tentacles and saw how it towered over him.
This was one of the thicker tentacles of the octopus, and just its width was at least three meters.
It was like Alex stood before the fleshy wall of an estate.
That tentacle was probably fifty meters long, which simply seemed unreal.
Alex jumped onto the tentacle and walked along with it.
Then, Alex walked over to the spot where the hedgehog was currently munching away and stopped before it.
The hedgehog continued eating, but after some seconds, it noticed him.
The hedgehog extended its head to Alex and sniffed several times.
Alex became a bit nervous.
Maybe it smelled the ethereal spire in his body? After all, it was currently munching on the creator and actual owner of the ethereal spire.
Maybe Alex smelled similar to the octopus?
He hoped not!
After a bit of sniffing, the hedgehog pulled its head back and looked at Alex.
Then, it looked at the octopus below Alex.
Then, back at Alex again.
After that, the hedgehog walked to the tentacle where Alex had come from.
CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!
After a minute of biting, the hedgehog had severed the tentacle from the corpse.
BANG!
Then, the hedgehog threw the tentacle a couple of meters into the distance with a kick from its paw.
After that, it looked at Alex again for a while.
And after that, it went back to eating.
Alex realized what the hedgehog meant.
It had given Alex one of the tentacles!
Alex became excited for a bit.
The Octopus probably had an insane amount of Mana stored in its body!
However, Alex quickly deflated and sighed.
That tentacle weighed so many tons!
He couldn't possibly eat all of that.
Alex scratched his chin for a bit.
Then, he walked to the end of the tentacle and tried to move it with all his power.
Alex managed to lift the last couple of meters of the tentacle and rotated it slightly towards the hedgehog.
"Hey!" Alex shouted. "I can't eat that! You take it!"
The hedgehog stopped munching and looked at Alex.
Alex pointed at the tentacle, shook his head, and then pointed at the hedgehog.
The hedgehog looked at Alex for a bit and realized what he meant.
The hedgehog walked over, bit down on the tentacle, and moved it back to the corpse, showing that the tentacle now belonged to it.
Alex looked expectantly at the hedgehog.
The hedgehog looked at Alex for a while.
Ten seconds of nothing happened.
The hedgehog was probably thinking hard on what to do.
Then, it looked at the sky for a bit, seemingly thinking about something.
Lastly, it looked at Alex again.
RRMM! RRMM! RRMM!
The hedgehog's body began to vibrate slightly in a rhythmic pattern.
Alex recognized the sound.
'Hey, isn't that the weird sound dogs make before they barf?' Alex thought.
Sure enough, the hedgehog opened its mouth and spat something out.
However, it wasn't barf, but something else.
Alex's eyes widened in shock at what he saw!