Frigid Whisperer

'Wait, does that mean that I can also create fire?!'

My pulse jumped because the irony was delicious. Yes, in theory, I could raise an object's temperature. I hadn't ever explored it, but then reason quickly took hold.

In Ronan's memories, my cursed limits were established early. Even though he never bothered to fully explore them.

He got his curse under… quite unfortunate circumstances and even lost key memories in the process.

Knowing what he went through, I could respect that, but I also saw how it held him back.

Yes, I could raise something's temperature. The slab confirmed it as the highest range was merely room temperature, which was 21 °C (70 °F). This was hardly useful in combat.

"Not exactly a flame-thrower, but at least I got the better half of the curse."

Unlike Isolde's flame-based power, which she couldn't reverse, my frost could melt; it had a give and take.

She could scorch but never unscorch.

"Great. So not just cultivation, now control and output are things I need to work on."

I clenched my jaw. 

The burden of potential was a heavy cloak.

I folded into a lotus position despite my body still feeling drained from the previous tests.

So instead of pushing power, I decided to focus on my cultivation. The goal was Third Rank by week's end. It was optimistic, but I could make up ground.

I was also going to fight for my life by the weekend. You know, nothing out of the ordinary.

I closed my eyes.

"How did that cultivation go again?"

I asked the empty room.

I then remembered the training manuals that the original Ronan had used. These manuals used Mantras, which were rhythm-based incantations to focus cursed energy flow. It was especially helpful for elementalists.

The Frigid Whisper, my manual's title, taught one how to bend the cold to their will, gradually changing your core affinity.

"At least Ronan bothered to learn something," I muttered sarcastically.

I inhaled and then exhaled deeply. I then began reciting the incantation softly:

"In stillness born through silence flows,

I call the chill where cold wind blows.

By frost and flake, by ice and breath,

I walk the line between life and death.

Let fire fade, let chaos cease.

Through my frozen will, I summon peace."

With each line of the mantra, I cycled cursed energy through my body over and over again in loops both subtle and deliberate.

I visualised the flow as threads of silver light winding through my nervous system with veins of frost threading beneath my skin like arctic serpents. The temperature in my muscles didn't just drop, it sank, like stones pulled into the bottomless black of a frozen sea.

At first, it was just a trickle.

A soft hiss, like breath fogging against glass. Then, it eventually became a stream; a cold river flowing under my skin washing away warmth and bleeding comfort from my bones.

And then it hit me.

For the first time since transmigrating, I truly felt cold.

The chill was precise, surgical and most of all intelligent. It didn't clumsily batter my nerves. It moved like a surgeon's scalpel, slicing through layers of sensation with eerie grace.

Every inch of my flesh slowly numbed. First the fingers, then wrists, and forearms, followed by my knees and thighs. My breath turned to mist, then to frost, curling from my lips in tight spirals.

My pulse slowed, beat by sluggish beat.

I didn't resist it, I even welcomed it.

This was the whole point.

The purpose of cultivation wasn't just mastery; it was alignment. To become an extension of the curse, my element. Not a wielder of ice but a vessel of it. Not to just command it but to dissolve the line between will and weather.

I inhaled again, deeper this time.

My internal temperature readings I'd visualised began to fall. Frim 21°C… to 15°C… to 10°C… then to 5°C.

Each breath crackled in my chest.

Finally… I reached 0°C.

It was then that something shifted.

My eyelashes carried frost and my sleeves were dusted white.

I whispered, "This… is sustainable."

My lips cracked on the word but my focus didn't waver.

I continued.

-5°C… -10°C… -15°C…

The room responded like a creature held in silent agony. The floor creaked beneath me, not cracking from weight, but shrinking from the low temperature.

Crystalline patterns bloomed outwards from my seated form in elaborate fractal swirls, painting the chamber with ghost-white lace.

Then came -20°C.

I sat there, unmoving like a living statue of glacial stillness.

The frost reached my skin and my hair was stiff with frost. Ice gathered on my brows, the edges of my lips and the corners of my eyes.

My curse was alive and I was the husk it puppeted.

The worst thing was that I was okay with that.

No, I was even proud of it.

I exhaled, painfully slow.

My voice rasped through frozen breath: "As I thought… this is my limit."

'This curse… is not a gift. This was only because of what it demands.'

I flexed a single finger.

'If I want to freeze others, I must first subject myself to equal cold. The same ice that paralyses them must run through me. That's the trade.'

I looked down at my trembling hands and chuckled softly. T

'On Earth, I'd be a goddamn miracle, a walking anomaly. But here? This isn't even impressive, it's just the minimum viable existence.'

I dragged my fingernail across the ice below, carving a spiral in the rime-dusted floor.

"I can reverse external temperature, but not internal. That means this entire path of cultivation boils down to one core philosophy: Inflict what I can endure."

I looked up. The lights overhead flickered. The cursed energy in the room was thinning, as if backing away from me in dread.

"Let's see if I can go lower."

I closed my eyes shutting out the flickering light and the cracking air. I recited the mantra again.

"In stillness born… through silence flows…"

The energy surged.

"I call the chill where cold wind blows…"

My ribs ached. My tongue felt like it was freezing to my own teeth, but I pressed on.

"By frost and flake… by ice and breath…"

I felt my cells contracting and my mind slowing. The sound of the room dulled like I was submerged under ice.

"I walk the line between life and death…"

The mantra didn't just carry cold, it summoned it.

It was a beacon to every icy force in my blood and bones.

"Let fire fade… let chaos cease…"

My heartbeat slowed until I felt each thump like a distant drumbeat.

"Through frozen will… I summon peace…"

And then the pain heightened.

It was not sudden or dramatic. But it was steady and gnawing like frostbite nibbling from the inside out.

My scalp throbbed. My cheeks burned with sharp stings.

But I held it, because I had to.

And then the cold burned, not metaphorically, but it burned.

The freezing flame licked through my nerves like electric frost. The absence of warmth was so complete that it circled back around and became agony.

I whispered the final lines again, barely audible;

"Let fire fade… let chaos cease… through frozen will… I summon… peace…"

And I collapsed.

The mantra ended. So did the temperature drop.

My posture slumped and my knees cracked as I fell backwards and lay on the floor.

My breath came in ragged wheezes with each inhale a struggle. My arms wouldn't lift and my thoughts wouldn't form.

But I was alive.

The cold of the room drew out my warmth. I stared at the swirling frost on the ceiling, regretting every choice that had led me here.

But no regrets, just a quiet certainty: this is what I needed.

Time passed.

A minute? Maybe Ten? A century?

I wasn't sure, but I let my body "cool off", the opposite of what I felt, waiting to thaw back to baseline.

Then, the Ori-blades hissed, retracting. The chamber door opened with a mechanical groan.

I didn't turn, I couldn't.

Boots clicked on the ice-crusted floor.

"Creak!"

She halted midway, seeing me, small, slumped, freezing, and still breathing raggedly like a corpse in a tomb.

She then glanced quickly at the slab readings, the now room temperature, but her eyes stayed fixed.

"Oh!" she said, on the verge of shock.

"Your time- are you… all right?"

I coughed.

"Doing… fine," I rasped.

"Just… cultivating."

She stared at the icicles clinging to my clothes "It's… cold, too cold." Then the realisation dawned. "Ooh, I wanted to inform you that your time is over."

She snapped out, straightening. "You have ten minutes to leave"

She slipped out, silently reversing the blade shutters behind her.

I lay there, alone with the ice and my thoughts.

Some might call it self-harm, but I called it progress.

Because in this world, I had to shatter every limit, even if it shattered me first.