Alex and the Elder walked to the entrance of the village.
When some of the gathered villagers saw Alex, their eyes opened in surprise.
Alex looked completely different from before!
Why?
Well, when Alex had finished talking with the Elder after an hour or so, he stood up from the chair. That's when he noticed that the chair he had been sitting on was coated in mud and grime.
Alex quickly realized that this had come from him, and he remembered that he hadn't washed in an eternity.
He wouldn't jump into icy water at such temperatures.
So, Alex had asked the Elder if he smelled.
The Elder had only awkwardly coughed into his hands.
After that, the Elder offered him a chance to properly wash and take care of his clothing.
Alex wanted to decline, but after some of the villagers had heard that their savior hadn't had an opportunity to wash in forever, they basically forced him.
They wouldn't want any other people outside the village to think that Coldew Village didn't take care of its visitors!
They had filled a big barrel with ice and snow and put it above a small campfire, and while Alex was taking his first bath in this world, his clothes were being washed by some of the older women in the village.
Alex wasn't sure how they had done it, but his coat looked nearly perfect. It was almost like it was new.
As for the clothes beneath Alex's coat, they had been thrown away.
Instead, Alex got a set of new clothing made out of animal hide.
In such a cold environment, cotton didn't grow. Because of that, the villagers mainly used the skin of their pigs and cows to fashion clothing.
When Alex came out of his bath, it was like he had become a new man.
The bath had felt divine!
Alex also thought that since he was already clean, he could also cut his hair and shave.
After everything was done, Alex put on his new clothes and old coat.
He no longer looked like someone living in the wild but like a suave young warrior from some village.
Then, Alex had spent the night in a free room in a random house.
This was the best sleep Alex had ever had since arriving in this world!
Alex only very rarely slept since his meditation could supplement sleep to some degree. Additionally, sleeping in the wilds was dangerous.
pᴀɴdᴀ nᴏveʟ After waking up, Alex felt refreshed and said that he wanted to leave.
The Elder brought him to the exit of the village, and all the villagers looked with shock at him.
He was so young!
When they had seen him previously, they had imagined him to be some 30-year-old man.
However, now, Alex barely looked like an adult!
He almost looked like a teenager!
Alex had grown a bit ever since arriving in this world, but he still had some growing to do. He barely reached 170 centimeters.
When Alex arrived at the exit of the village, he spotted a sled with some wheels at its side.
'That's surprisingly small,' Alex thought.
The sled wagon was barely one meter wide and two meters long.
Additionally, there wasn't even much wood on it. The wood barely reached a meter in height. Even more, the wood was very finely cut. It was like someone had taken a standard piece of cut wood and halved it two more times.
Sure, it was massive to some degree, but Alex was sure that he could pull more.
'It takes up about half of the sled wagon, so it should come to about one cubic meter of wood.'
Alex looked at the villagers and the smiling Elder and couldn't bring himself to ask for more.
'They already helped me plenty. I can always earn the remainder in Warrior's Paradise.'
Alex looked at the surroundings and saw that everything was still coated in snow. This meant that he didn't need to put the wheels on the sled car yet.
Alex turned to the villagers and nodded with a smile. "Thank you all," he said.
The villagers said that it was no problem, and the Elder gave him some last advice for his way.
Alex nodded and said his goodbyes.
All the villagers waved after him as Alex walked over to the sled wagon.
Alex grabbed the rope at the front and pulled.
And the sled wagon didn't move.
Alex looked with surprise at the sled wagon.
'Okay, maybe this is heavier than I thought.'
Alex pulled with more force, and the rope shook violently under the strain.
And finally, after putting a lot of force into it, Alex could move the sled.
Alex threw the villagers a shocked expression, and most of them only smiled back while some of them oh-ed in respect when they saw that he could move the sled wagon.
'That's definitely more than a ton!' Alex thought. 'I know the power of my new body, and one ton is not that heavy! That's more like 1.5 or 2 tones!'
Alex started to feel bad about wanting to ask for more.
The villagers had already given him more than he had asked for.
'However, the Ice Wood is truly massive,' Alex thought. 'Just a mere cubic meter is already closing in on two tons of weight! No wonder it's cut into such a small size. One of these small pieces is probably as heavy as an average-sized piece of wood.'
Alex waved thankfully at the villagers again and began pulling.
And with that, Alex began his journey to Warrior's Paradise.
He wasn't sure exactly how far away it was, but Storm Eagle Zone should be the next zone towards the southeast, according to what the Elder had said.
The area was very uneven, and Alex had to fight against slopes and rises of mountains.
Pulling the sled wagon up a mountain was incredibly difficult. Alex's feet constantly lost their grip, and he was basically running against the elevation as his feet continually slipped away beneath him.
He essentially moved forward like a car with summer tires on pure ice.
Every five rotations of the wheel would only move the car one rotation worth of distance.
It was incredibly tiresome.
Meanwhile, the slopes were not very tiresome.
Instead, they were very stressful.
Alex basically stood in front of the sled with his feet firmly on the ground. The sled was pushing him forwards, and Alex had to slow it down by continually grinding his feet against the ground.
His new shoes had already undergone a lifetime's worth of stress in just two hours.
However, the shoes remained in one piece, surprisingly.
Two hours later, after ascending another slope, Alex's eyes widened in wonder and shock.
'So that's what the Elder meant when he said that I would get a fun surprise on my way to the Storm Eagle Zone,' Alex thought.
Right now, Alex was on top of an absolutely gigantic slope.
Even more, Alex noticed that he was basically on top of a mountain!
When Alex looked to his side and behind him, he saw relatively even ground, but when he looked into the distance, everything was far below him in elevation.
Alex could see kilometers upon kilometers into the distance.
'This is actually a plateau?' Alex thought in shock.
'Even the Duke's garden is on this plateau!'
How huge was this plateau!?
Alex looked back at the plateau behind him, and he could still see many huge mountains.
At this moment, Alex also felt the movement of the Ice Mana.
Alex felt like all the Ice Mana of the plateau was flowing down the slope.
'Does this mean that the Ice Wyvern is somewhere on this plateau? Why else would so much Ice Mana flow down from here?' Alex thought.
Alex had thought that the resident godly beast was far away, but it had turned out that it had been closer than he had thought.
'Where does that river in the Duke's garden even come from?' Alex thought.
Many thoughts went through Alex's head, but he quickly got distracted by the land below him.
The area on the bottom of the gigantic slope was still filled with snow and ice, but the ground was far more even. Alex wouldn't have to deal with all these slopes anymore.
Then, Alex spotted a town on the horizon.
It was probably over ten kilometers away, but the path from here to there was only one long slope.
Alex guessed that he was about two kilometers higher in elevation than the town.
Alex looked at the town.
Then, he looked at the slope.
Then, he looked at the sled.
Alex got a terrible idea.