Pioneer Wizard's Notebook

"The raven's perspective as it soars through the sky, taking in everything around it, is truly fascinating."

Linde leaned back in his chair, looking as excited as a child who had just received a new toy.

In addition to the clear view from above.

There's another advantage to transforming into a raven—it won't attract attention.

As a manor lord, Lind's usual inspections of his territory inevitably affected the residents' production and the soldiers' training.

Even though he said that current development is more important than anything else, and that there is no need to bow when you see him.

Residents will still subconsciously stop what they are doing and slow down the pace of production.

Now we don't have to worry about these things anymore.

He doesn't even need to go out himself.

By simply letting the raven fly around the manor, the construction progress of each area can be observed.

It can also effectively prevent workers from shirking their duties.

The workers may be able to evade the supervision of officials, but they cannot escape the eyes of the heavens.

"Enough playing around, time to get started on today's research."

Lin De stretched and went to the second-floor laboratory.

He took out the manuscript about runes and prepared to conduct research on the fusion of the two runes.

During the research, I would occasionally take a break to check on the situation with the ravens.

With his current spiritual strength, controlling an ordinary animal and multitasking is not difficult for him.

Once you get used to this state, you can have your main body conduct research in the room while the raven roams outside.

Controlling a spiritual clone is itself a form of spiritual training.

It is also the foundational training for future use of the soul anchor to ascend to the spirit world and explore.

Before I knew it, the sky outside the window had completely darkened.

The manor lacked entertainment during the cold winter.

Apart from a few enthusiastic young men and women, most residents were already asleep.

Linde recorded his complex thoughts, which were not yet systematic, on blank paper.

Then, leaning back in his chair, he changed his perspective and decided to relax in the forest at night.

Ice-mist forest, river valley area.

"Gah~"

The raven opened its bright eyes, flapped its wings, and shook off the frost and snow that had accumulated on its feathers.

The bird preened its feathers with its beak.

Linde looked around.

Unlike the bustling daytime, the icy mist forest is deathly silent and secluded at night.

The moonlight shone down, illuminating the icy branches of the spruce and fir trees that pointed towards the sky.

Between the cascading icefalls of larch trees, every branch is imbued with the silvery moonlight.

Linde tilted his head and stared, then flapped his wings, the snow beneath his claws groaning softly.

As we arrived above the forest, a cold wind carrying shards of ice swept around us.

The temperature at night is much lower than during the day.

He realized he had overestimated his body; after flying only a hundred meters, a layer of white frost formed on the surface of his raven feathers, and he felt increasingly powerless.

With no other option, he prepared to land.

But before that, Lind intently observed his surroundings.

The view from above is completely different from what you see inside the forest.

The animals slumber, and the forest breathes in a different form at night.

From his perspective, jellyfish with an icy blue sheen and translucent, swirling bodies swayed in the air above the forest.

These icy blue jellyfish look as light as air.

Ignoring the howling wind around them, they drifted slowly as their bodies contracted and expanded.

Ice-blue stars adorn the deep starry sky of the forest.

The scene before my eyes was breathtakingly beautiful.

But Lind knew very well that if the people of the North saw this, they would only feel fear from the bottom of their hearts.

"Permafrost Vortex Spirits," Lind murmured the names of the jellyfish in his mind.

In ancient legends, the frozen vortex spirits were hailed as messengers of the ice god, and it was they who caused the ice storms.

When millions of ice god messengers gather, a death storm sweeps across the sky, carrying all living things on earth to His kingdom.

This is probably not a rumor.

The raven's meager magic gathered in its eyes, and Lind used his Eye of Insight to vaguely guess the true nature of these magical creatures.

The eternally frozen vortex spirits are not beings of the material world, but rather spirit beings from another dimension.

When they descend upon the material world, it signifies a brief overlap between reality and the spiritual realm.

The resulting clash of rules is probably the truth behind the ice storm.

Given the frost runes that appeared in the storm, it's not impossible that a deity intervened.

Since the celestial bodies came into contact, many hidden entities have emerged behind this ancient world.

Linde stopped paying attention to the sky and descended into the forest to escape the cold wind.

The frozen vortex spirits he was seeing were merely afterimages left behind by the recent ice storm.

Their true forms exist in the spirit world.

Only when the ice storm reappears will it truly descend upon the material world.

It was a disaster, but also a blessing.

Beings in the material world can absorb the eternally frozen vortex spirit. If they can withstand its power, they will begin the evolutionary path of the frost runes.

If one cannot withstand it, their spirituality will be absorbed, turning them into an empty, icy ghost.

The ravens curled up on the branches and drifted off to sleep.

Linde, meanwhile, was lost in thought in the room.

Seeing the existence of the Eternal Frozen Vortex Spirit with his own eyes, even if it was just a fleeting image, sparked inspiration in his mind.

It concerns the expansion of the military.

In the current manor's army, the Shield Guard Battalion is forming the Bearmane Iron Guard, and the Archer Battalion is forming the Longbowmen.

A stable training system has been established.

As long as equipment production continues and veteran soldiers mentor new recruits, the number of soldiers in the two battalions can be rapidly increased.

However, in the North today, ordinary troops alone are not enough to establish a foothold.

Linde knew very well that the Sunflowers needed to have their own extraordinary knights to form a knightly order for conquest.

The Sun Rune and Power Rune cannot be reliably utilized yet.

The candidate is naturally the Icefield Knight with the Frost Enhancement Rune.

The problem is that creating Icefield Knights using the method of [Bloodline Modification] requires both precious materials and Lind's research time.

The efficiency is extremely low.

He needs a way to reliably produce Icefield Knights without having to put in much effort.

The permafrost vortex spirits under the ice storm might be able to help.

"I cannot go to the Spirit World for the time being, but if I can collect the frozen vortex spirits that have descended into the material world, and handle them properly, I can definitely create a Legacy Golem."

Linde jots down his inspirations on blank sheets of paper.

Compared to ordinary golems, the most crucial aspect of heritage golems, besides their internal core, lies in the special spirituality infused within them.

Based on the type of knowledge contained in spirituality, there are many kinds of lineage golems.

What Linde is preparing to create is a knight's stone tablet to guide knights in their advancement.

The secrets of frost runes are hidden within the frozen vortex, a natural spiritual inheritance from the Knight's Stone Tablet.

All that's needed is to remove the impurities from his research findings and make slight modifications.

In theory, this would guide the knight onto the path of becoming an Icefield Knight.

By then, Icefield Knights will become a regular unit in Sunflower Manor, and every knight will have the opportunity to undergo baptism and step into the extraordinary realm.