System touched the icy blue ring above his head with his tentacles and looked at the white snow around him.

  A few days ago, this pce had still been as green as one would expect in early autumn, but now...

  System remembered the rainstorm, and how the flooded forest had gradually recovered its vitality afterward. He remembered the spiders in the forest that had woven their webs every day. He remembered the ants that had worked hard to prepare for wintering, even though they'd frequently been robbed by him. He remembered his old friend the brown slime whose growth had been deyed by his schemes, making it unable to split and reproduce, and how it had eventually been defeated in a battle against ants and devoured.

  He also remembered the countless grasshoppers that had been killed by the old druid's trap...

  In this forest, it wasn't easy for a creature to survive and pass on its bloodline.

  "Are you familiar with grasshoppers?"

  After a moment of silence, System asked Nellis this question, having decided to tell her the truth—that he wasn't a life form with a frost bloodline.

  System felt like the icy blue ring was looking at him. Although the ring had no eyes, he still felt the ice spirit's gaze.

  Nellis looked at System's body for a long time before answering his question. "It has many soft legs of different lengths. It is a very strange looking life form."

  System had a weird look on his face. This ice spirit obviously didn't know what a grasshopper was.

  System said to Nellis, "I am indeed a grasshopper, but ordinary grasshoppers aren't like me."

  System sent a mental message to Nellis after saying that. This time, he didn't transmit words. Instead, he sent her a video featuring the life of an ordinary grasshopper.

  "This is a magical mental ability. It's not only used for communication, but also for transmitting images."

  Nellis didn't respond to System's mental message, but instead excimed at his [Mental Transmission]. Not long after, she used [Mental Connection] to transmit a video to System.

  In the video, there was a giant white bear nearly three meters tall with a pair of eyes resembling ice crystals. It walked and ran from time to time as it traveled through a snow-covered forest.

  System noticed that the blue light shining from the giant bear's eyes in the video seemed to be the same color as the blue ring floating above his head.

  If his guess was correct, this white bear should be Nellis' former contractor.

  But why did the giant bear have a pair of blue eyes, while he had a blue ring over his head?

  System shook his head. Instead of discussing these things with Nellis, he wanted to tell her that he wasn't a creature with frost blood at all.

  He couldn't hide the fact that he didn't have frost blood, so he decided to tell the other party in advance in order to avoid any unpredictable troubles in the future.

  System expined, "Insects like grasshoppers don't have frost blood at all. They are very afraid of the cold winter, and I just happened to accidentally gain some frost energy. You must have chosen the wrong person."

  The ice spirit once again scanned System's body with her unique sight.

  Not long after, Nellis sent a mental message to him. "I didn't choose the wrong person. Not every creature with frost blood is born with it."

  "You mean, I'm a life form with frost blood in my current state?"

  "Yes."

  "Is that so...?"

  System fell silent, but after just a short while, he continued.

  "Nellis?"

  "Yes."

  "Don't you think the blue ring on my head looks strange?"

  "No."

  "Oh...but I think it's strange. Can I change this blue ring into something else?"

  "I can't do that. When ice spirits make contracts with different life forms, they will undergo changes and acquire new forms. Once the new form has been created, it won't change."

  "You really can't change into something else?"

  "No."

  "..."

  System was struck speechless for a moment.

  "Okay...then, tell me about the contract. And earlier, you seem to have mentioned that this pce is called Lilt Forest."

  ...

  The ice spirit had existed for hundreds of years. Although she'd been sleeping for most of that time, she still knew a lot about this world. That knowledge and common sense were what System cked the most.

  From the mental messages the ice spirit sent, System gained a clearer understanding of this world's power system.

  Most of the life forms in this world were mortals, such as mammals and pnts on nd or fish and cms under water. Most of the intelligent races were also mortal when they were born.

  However, mortals also had the possibility of mastering a magical power, awakening their ancestral bloodline, obtaining a special inheritance, or reaching the limit of mortals and receiving the gift of the world.

  For humans, elves, and other intelligent races, they could further master the power of magic through learning.

  When the magical power mastered by mortals reached a certain level, they'd advance to become magical life forms and gain all sorts of abilities that mortals couldn't understand.

  The ice spirit Nellis was a magical life form, but she wasn't a magical life form that had advanced from a mortal. She had been born that way.

  In addition to the power system of this world, most of the knowledge Nellis could pass on was reted to ice and snow.

  She told System the story of the sleeping God of Winter, as well as the frost dragon Aura, the Lord of Gciers, who had inherited the Will of Winter.

  According to Nellis, Lilt Forest had been covered in ice and snow for thousands of years, but the ice and snow had suddenly melted in the st few hundred years, resulting in the climate now having four distinct seasons.

  This change seemed to be reted to the sudden disappearance of the Lord of Gciers, but she'd suddenly fallen into a deep sleep at that time and didn't know the full details.

  Nellis also said that the reason for her awakening was the return of the Lord of Gciers.

  However, there seemed to be no special connection between Nellis and the Lord of Gciers, and she couldn't provide any useful information about the dragon. She only knew that the frost dragon was called Aura. Like System, she didn't know the true name of the Lord of Gciers.

  The so-called contract with an ice spirit was actually a means of symbiosis between an ice spirit and a creature with frost blood.

  Ice spirits provided power to those with frost blood so that they could protect themselves, and creatures with frost blood also provided ice spirits with mental power and the cold aura emitted by their blood.

  If the ice spirits failed to find a contract partner for a long time, they'd fall into a deep sleep, and could even die if they slumbered long enough.

  System didn't discover anything wrong with the contract, and his [Intuition] didn't make him feel uneasy.

  Except for the halo that floated above his head, which looked a little awkward, System could actually accept the situation.

  According to Nellis' description, the time it would take to establish the contract was about half a day.

  As for what kind of power System would gain once the contract was complete, Nellis wasn't very clear. She only knew that the power would be reted to frost.

  According to Nellis' abstract statement, after forming the contract, System might get a sword, a shield, cws, or wings. The power generated by each ice spirit after signing the contract wouldn't be exactly the same.