10. Abilities

In the end I'm going to the river again. Being covered in blood is not only uncomfortable, but it's also disgusting. Despite the lowering visibility I have a good idea how to spend my time. Investigating my arms. Yes, I can feel basically everything going on in my body. However there is a limit to this ability of mine. 

I have to concentrate to see more in depth. Like where exactly I'm bleeding internally from. I'm not bleeding internally by the way. Rather lucky considering the fact my rib could have potentially punctured a lung or something. That's all besides the point. The point is my arms healed a lot faster than they were supposed to. 

'For whatever reason my arms are 82.8o while the rest of my body is around 83.4o. Not only that, my arms feel a bit uncoordinated. It's almost like using my hands to control another pair of hands which are my hands. If that makes any sense. I didn't really notice earlier due to the whole Snow Storm thing.'

As I walk to the river, I pay more and more attention to my arms. Soon enough I find out why my arms feel so weird. Winter Sprites. 

'Why are there Winter Sprites in my arms? I brought some in my body earlier, but all of them should be out by now. I can't even get them to leave now since they're connected to my muscles, nerves, and everything else.'

At this revelation I didn't know how to feel. I'm glad I can use my arms again, but my arms aren't entirely my arms anymore. To make things weirder it doesn't feel wrong. Just weird. 

Instead of being upset by the whole thing, I was more interested in what new things come from this. I gather the Winter Sprites around me, and I form an icicle. 

"Cold." 

I hold it in my left hand while I look at the palm of my right. I concentrate for a bit and the Winter Sprites gather around my arm. Soon enough my arm and hand is covered in a layer of frost. I knock on the frost a bit. 

'Studier than before, if only slightly. I can't help but notice it's not as draining either. Maybe it's like working out in a way? Only for my mind, and faster. When my arm is incorporated with my ability to use it it isn't as hard to do. It's harder, faster, easier, and other things. Maybe I should fuse my entire body with Winter Sprites.'

I only thought about it for a second before putting it away.

'Not only do I have no idea what doing that will entail, it's hard enough to use my arms with a couple Winter Sprites in it. If I do more than this I might not be able to control my own body. I'm not even entirely sure how my body was fused with them in the first place.'

I swing my frost covered arm around. While I'm doing this a thought comes to me. 

'Frost and ice are basically the same thing aren't they? Obviously they aren't the exact same thing, but they are very similar. The Winter Sprites made a snow storm before though. Can they make snow as well?'

With this in mind I look down at the snow. I noticed it before but the Winter Sprites occasionally came from out of the ground. So obviously Winter Sprites had something to do with snow. Otherwise there wouldn't be snow everywhere. With this in mind I end up playing around with my abilities. 

I end up making snowflakes, snow, small shards of ice, and other things. I don't go too far since I want to be able to defend myself in a time of need. Eventually I make it to the river. This time around the river is completely frozen over. I wonder how the animals even drink water from this thing. Either way I end up having to use my frost covered arm to break the ice. 

This time around I don't have to use a very complicated process to wash myself. I just covered my hands with small squares of ice and rubbed my body thoroughly. My hair is a bit of a different story. Getting blood out of my hair was not only hard, but very time consuming. As I finished cleaning my hair, I noticed the sun was replaced by the moon.

'A bit late. The wolves don't seem like they're hunting tonight. I'm not tired either. I'm not hungry. This is a good time to spend some time learning something. Walking like a rabbit isn't very important to my survival, so I should focus more on my abilities. Should I focus on more practical uses like tools, or maybe how I can better use them in combat?'

I froze the water covering my body before breaking them off into shards of ice. I feel a tug on my mind because of that. I shiver a bit before looking up at the night sky. The stars were shining brightly, however the trees blocked most of the light. This made it rather hard to see anything around me. 

'Can the Winter Sprites be used to make a light source? I can see them easily even if it is dark. I can't actually see anything around them so they don't actually produce light. They can be used to form snow, frost, ice, and nothing else as far as I'm aware.'

I gather a few of the Winter Sprites around me. They seem to be a bit excited. Well it's more like happiness. I need to remind myself that these Winter Sprites are simply the weakest of their kind. I haven't seen any strong ones thus far, but there's no doubt they're out there. 

'Controlling them individually isn't difficult. Controlling multiple isn't much harder. However, controlling a lot of them in quick succession causes a lot more mental strain. It takes a couple dozen of them to make a small knife. The knife wouldn't be very sharp though.'

I form a ice knife with the Winter Sprites. While not dull, it certainly isn't what I would consider sharp. 

'To make it sharp I need to use more of my mental energy to put the Winter Sprites into a more specific shape.'

My eyes become focused on the knife for a couple seconds. The knife slowly thins and the edges become noticeably sharper. As I finish my posture slacken a bit. 

'Doing so not only drains me mentally, but physically. That's a major problem in a fight ignoring the time problems. This is all such a hassle. I will need to make weapons in advance. That brings along the problem of me actually carrying them. Other than the coldness they have a bit of weight to them. This ice dagger weighs basically nothing, but that's because it's small and not condensed. It won't last long.'

I rub my arm in frustration. I realize that using my abilities effectively is gonna be a lot harder, and complex, than I originally anticipated.