The moment Kayn entered the second door, he was greeted by a violent snowstorm.
The ground beneath him was full of snow, and there weren't any structures, mountains, or anything else in the distance. It was just a flat, snowy ground with constant snowstorms assaulting him.
There weren't any ice walls, no visions of his failures, not even enemies for him to deal with.
Though there were what looked like demons all around him, their whole body were rigid and unmoving.
In this snowstorm, Kayn found himself the only moving creature as all the other demons stayed frozen.
Their expression varied as their whole body froze, some panicked and tried to run away, freezing their whole body in a position where one of their feet was lifted up.
Some others looked as calm as they could be. There were no expressions of fear or panic, and their eyes looked forward with calmness in their eyes.
But even then, they were still frozen solid, not even moving a finger as the snowstorm turned them to just another ice sculpture.
And Kayn wasn't immune to the snowstorm either. Each passing second that he stayed there and took a breath, his whole body would shiver, and his lungs would ache as the cold air invaded his body inside out.
Kayn quickly thought of the mantra once more and tried his best to stay as calm as he humanel- demonly can.
But different from the constant freezing he felt when his emotions were in turmoil, the snowstorm didn't stop invading his body with cold, even when he was as calm as a snowflake.
He would've usually panicked by now, but the first trial had taught him better.
Kayn then stood still, his mind still calm despite the ice constantly freezing his body little by little.
He looked at the different expressions of the demons around him, the ones he assumed had failed the trial of ice at this stage and had been kept as a decoration.
"The ones in panic surely failed this trial, but even those who looked even calmer than me had also failed… There must be something here."
Kayn kept thinking, running the gear in his head as he tried to find a way to clear the trial that seemed to have succeeded in failing countless demons.
As his mind kept going, his body began to become numb all over, as the snowstorm didn't care whether he was thinking or not.
Kayn tried finding any clues around him, but found nothing other than the frozen demons.
Kayn started losing feeling in his feet and arms, and he found it hard to even move them.
Kayn folded his wings and four arms tight to his body, trying to keep the warmth in his body as long as he could.
Kayn then tried looking at the distance, far into the horizon, but he really couldn't see anything other than the never-ending snowstorm far into the edge of the world.
Kayn's body began to turn rigid as he was locked on the spot right now, his whole body almost freezing completely, only his mind was running as fast as it could.
Kayn then looked around himself once more, trying to find something, anything that would help him clear his trial.
However, there was still nothing. The snowstorm and the snowy ground remained unchanged even when Kayn was almost completely frozen.
"There…must…be…something…"
Kayn's whole body had frozen. He couldn't even blink anymore as his eyelids had become frozen shut when he blinked the last time, his mind had almost stopped working completely.
With his eyes locked by the ice, Kayn couldn't see anything anymore.
The only thing that he could feel now was his own body.
In the darkness of his own mind, Kayn's whole senses were focused on his own body.
And that was the moment when he finally realized it.
The ice that covered his whole body, they weren't ordinary ice.
With his five senses locked by the ice, Kayn's mana perception became overly sensitive and he could feel the traces of mana brought by the ice.
Not only did he know the snow and ice contained mana within them, but Kayn realized that the mana was entering his body, spreading around the coldness even to the deeper parts of his body.
What he found was his own mana fought against the ice affinity mana, treating them as foreign objects, and tried their best to chase them away.
But it was a losing fight as the snowstorm was eternal, constantly assaulting Kayn with the mana-contained snow to overwhelm his own mana.
Kayn knew that there was no way his own mana, a demon who had just turned into an adult demon just about a week ago, could fight against the snowstorm.
He didn't know whether his train of thought was going in the right direction, but it was the only direction that he knew could possibly work.
'If I die then I die!'
Kayn then began consciously feeling his mana and took the command out from his instincts.
With him in charge, instead of fighting against the ice affinity mana, Kayn let them pass through his whole body freely.
His already frozen body could even feel pain from the process as he felt hundreds of thousands of needles pricking his body from head to toe.
But he let it. Feeling the pain told him that it was a change from before, where his whole body had turned completely numb.
Kayn began commanding his mana to integrate with the ice affinity mana, following their path, traveling all over Kayn's body.
Even more pain assaulted Kayn when he did this, but he was determined with his choice.
And finally, when the ice affinity mana completely filled his heart, Kayn's closed eyes jerked open.
His focus was still inside his body, and he began noticing that the mana coming in and out of his heart began having ice affinity mana in them.
Kayn continued the process, letting more and more ice affinity mana enter his body and guiding them towards his heart.
The more ice affinity mana entered his heart, it claimed the foreign affinity mana as its own, as Kayn's own mana had more and more ice affinity mana in it.
As the process continues, the ice freezing Kayn's body begins melting, absorbed into his body.
When it was finished, Kayn could move his body freely once more, and the snowstorm around him didn't even bother him anymore, as he couldn't even feel the cold.
Instead, he felt the snowstorm was nourishing him, supplying him with an endless amount of mana.
The mana inside his body now consisted of ice affinity mana, one that still had the feeling of a demon's mana instead of the pure ice affinity that he felt from the clear glacier in the middle of the ice temple.
Kayn then spread out his wings and four arms as he braced against the snowstorm with a smile on his face.
"I have made the ice mine! No amount of ice could harm me ever again!" Kayn declared.