Petra tied her little boots and tightened her coat. The little girl was wearing a white winter coat with thick rims of fluff around her legs, cuffs, and hood. A pair of thick winter earmuffs clung to her neck, and the bag that was strapped to her back was double her size. Her bright green hair was tied into a large bun, and her big black eyes shone with excitement.
"Come on, come on~, it's time~ it's time to go for an adventure~!"
Petra trotted out, followed by Wind, Rose, and Nebula.
The three maids wore thick white coats over their maid costumes. Each of them had a big bag. Although not quite like Petras, their bags were each filled with supplies needed for a long adventure.
None of the beasts joined them, instead choosing to either stay at home and sleep or use the free time to train.
Petra left the barrier and began her first adventure through the Green Wind Forest, Winter Edition!
* * *
Four young girls walked tirelessly through the snowstorm.
The strong wind and low visibility seemed to have very little effect on the small party.
Petra walked in the lead, her little legs kicking at the snow as she walked.
Petra stopped by a small clearing to pick one of the many plants that had mutated after the green tide met with the curse of winter. After a few days of walking, Petra had picked up an interest in these strange, mutated plants.
The green tide was a mixture of four things, the lightning in the sky, the wind, the rain, and the green mist. After the influence of the cursed winter, the thunder became more violent, the rain became freezing cold, the wind transformed into a blizzard, and the strange green mist seemed to be completely suppressed, disappearing altogether.
Petra plucked an ice flower and added it to her bag.
The girls continued.
As they walked, they encountered all kinds of ice elementals. Some were small like little white hamsters, while others were big, like wolves and birds.
At night, the girls either slept in an abandoned cave or found a deep burrow. When they couldn't find a good place to stay, they would sleep together in a large tent.
Petra also used this opportunity to start training her abilities as a 'Controller.'
What did it feel like to control Mental Energy?
Well, one could feel the world around them, almost like an extension of their sense of touch. Petra felt like it was similar to how you would envision controlling the electromagnetic field around the human body. This new source of 'touch' could feel things that were more ethereal, almost like moving your hand through water and feeling different regions of temperature. As your control increased, these vague regions became more solid and defined.
As for what these regions represented, this ranged from physical objects to ethereal concepts. Some were dreams, and others were energy, even souls could be felt after a certain point.
Putting the questions about Petra's strange starting point on hold for a moment, most Controllers learned how to use their mental energy to move objects as an initial form of training. It was basic telekinesis, you just needed to extend your mental energy like a hand.
Normally, this mental energy was invisible to those who didn't have special methods, but for some reason, Petras' mental energy was clearly visible to all the girls. This came in the form of an ethereal green cloud.
Petra would use this to move small objects, catch small beasts, and dig small holes.
Very quickly, the girls discovered that Petra had a seemingly endless supply of mental energy.
Petra had a guess, but she didn't want to think about it.
She also felt like the reason her mental energy was clearly visible was because it was too dense.
After Petra learned the basics, she didn't move on to the intermediate skills. Instead, she focused on increasing the size, shape, and speed of her mental energy.
The current her was capable of using a very high level of power, but without the proper time to train, using too much power could be disastrous. Petra wasn't a child, and she naturally understood that you shouldn't learn to drive a car at 300mph. She was fine taking it 'slow.'
On the second day, Petra encountered the largest Ice elemental they had seen so far.
An ice bear towered over Petra, its 4-meter-tall body radiating a chilling aura.
Petra dropped her massive backpack, strode forward, arms akimbo, and laughed.
The little child radiated an aura of absolute confidence.
Swoosh- Bang!!
The ice bear slammed down its paw, smashing into the little girl like a tree trunk.
A moment later...
Grrrrrooowwwwww!!!
The Ice Bear let out a miserable scream.
Petra stood there, unaffected. Around her was an ethereal barrier tinted with green light. This shield bore the might of the Ice Bears' strike, not even showing a ripple.
Petra grinned.
So what if you can't drive a car at 300mph? Can't you just make a really fucking strong shield?
The little girl condensed this psychic force into a 'blade shaped shield' and swung it at the large bear.
The bear roared, meeting the green blade with a strike.
When the ethereal green blade met with the Ice elemental's paw, the paw was sliced through like butter. It was better to compare it to a piece of cotton candy trying to stop a jet.
Petra's eyes shone with a fanatical light.
Using this basic method to materialize mental energy and shape it was really easy. For the common people of Pillomal, building a three-dimensional construct was a rather daunting task, but for a resident of Earth, after understanding basic modeling and topology, this became incredibly easy.
Petra was too inexperienced to use her mental energy as a formless blob that relied on her visualisation to take shape. If she solidified it like a simple shield, then stuck a few shields together, she could make unreasonably strong constructs.
At this point, Petra had actually forgotten that she hadn't started training in cultivation or magic, she was just having too much fun treating the world as a modeling software.
Wind, Rose, and Nebula watched the little devil torment the poor ice bear.
Petra trapped it in a large box. After 'poking' a few air holes in the box, Petra watched from outside as the bear was chased around by poorly made 1996 Lara-looking little green dudets.
The three polygon like people smacked the big bear around the box.
The ice elemental tried desperately to escape the box, but this stupid green energy was completely unshakable.
Rose felt like she even saw tears fall from the ice elemental's eyes.
After Petra got bored, she clapped the box flat and dissipated her mental energy.
Where a normal Controller would feel slightly exhausted, Petra was feeling even more lively.
The group of girls continued their adventure.
-
Later that night, Petra and the girls had set up camp in a cave.
Petra was playing with a six sided cube formed with her mental energy.
The little girl looked incredibly focused, her face was red, and her little tongue stuck out.
Rose and Nebula were preparing supper.
Wind leaned over, interested. "What are you doing?"
Petras's hands shook, dissipating the energy.
The little girl let out a sigh.
"The problem with mental energy is that it needs me to constantly stay focused. If I lose focus for even a second, then it dissipates like dust. I'm trying to keep the box active while using the least amount of focus possible."
Wind nodded.
"Why can't you use spiritual energy?"
Hmm?
Petra blinked.
Why didn't she think of that?
Petra's little eyes looked at Wind, almost feeling like she was a god.
Winds face reddened, and she turned away in a huff.
Petra raised her hands and conjured the cube again.
The way magic usually worked was a caster - either a mage or a cultivator - would use their will to command spiritual energy to control the components of a spell and tell it what to do.
For example, sir spiritual energy, please go and… grab the fire type elemental energy from the air, compress it into a blade, strengthen it with natural energy, and shoot it towards a target.
The problem was that mental energy was an extension of a person's mind. It had the natural properties of being very resistant to the influence of spiritual energy. To put it more clearly, it was like two people arguing over a 'command'. The 'Mind' wanted to go left, and the 'Will' wanted to go right.
Petra had overlooked the possibility of using spiritual energy because she unconsciously assumed that it wouldn't work.
Thinking about it again, what she actually needed to do was sync her 'Mind' and 'Will'.
Petra focused on the cube. She had experience creating the Crystal Tome, so infusing spiritual energy into an empty container wasn't anything new.
Petra focused so hard that sweat started to fall from her forehead.
She could feel the mental construct interacting with her will, but they refused to fuse.
Petra pursed her lips.
She felt like she was missing something...
Hmm…?
'How about this?'
Petra dispelled the cube before recreating it. This time, she focused on mixing spiritual energy into the cube before it fully 'hardened'.
After a moment, Petra was holding the same cube.
She let go of the cube, letting it float freely in the air.
A wide grin slowly appeared on Petra's face.
She realised that not only had it worked, but Petra could now affect the cube through her will. Because of how hard the cube was before, spiritual energy could not be mixed in. It was the same thing as not being able to switch drivers in a car that was already going 300mph.
Petra could use her mind to alter the 'car', and her will to alter the 'driver'.
The cube floated there, no longer needing Petra's continuous concentration.
Petra could feel the cube running out of 'fuel'. This fuel was the mental energy Petra had originally put into the cube.
Although it was slowly draining, Petra felt like it would take a 'long time' before it ran out of energy. Even if it was about to run out, Petra felt like she could touch it and recharge it.
Petra finished her experiment just in time for supper.
Petra scooted over to the cooking pot.
Wind poured her a bowl of vegetable soup, and Petra slowly enjoyed the hot broth in the cold winter.
-
The next morning, the girls moved on.
Petra spent the next few days switching between training her mental power and searching for treasures. As for what constituted a 'treasure', that was anything Petra found interesting, even if it was a small rock.
Petra found that using her 'Mind' and 'Will' on the same target was actually more difficult than it seemed at first. Her intentions were often chaotic, and what she thought and what she wanted were not always in perfect sync. This caused instability in the form and control of her attacks.
Petra focused on this, allowing her to slowly improve her overall control.
A normal beginner level controller wouldn't have such a condensed mental energy, allowing them to control what should have been 'fog' with far more ease.
Petra's abnormal strength slowly started to take her down a very different road from other controllers, diverging from both the Controller and the Witch pathway. Instead of focusing on 'controlling' things, Petra was closer to materializing living constructs and using them as extensions of herself.
This of course, was a long way off...
-
Later, Petra and the girls were walking through a frost filled forest. The snowstorm had calmed down a bit, allowing the natural landscape to display its beauty. Ice covered trees, fields of white, and a complex ecosystem filled with miniaturised ice elementals.
The little green haired girl held a glowing green cube in her hand.
Locked in this cube was a living furball, no larger than the size of a fist. This tiny bite-sized elemental was Petra's current victim of interest.
Petra could reference the information contained in her Inner Library, but she still couldn't understand some things. It was like one rabbit hole leading to another.
Petra's inner library had taken root in her Sea of Consciousness. Although she didn't understand how it worked, the library was filled with both the inheritance contained in the black seed and the inheritance contained in the book left behind by the old man.
If Petra could finish reading all the information, then she might be able to call herself the most knowledgeable person in Pillomal. Unfortunately, the inner library only helped her collect and store information, not understand it. Petra had to take time to read each book and understand its contents. Fortunately, if Petra wanted to know something specific, the inner library could call up the information like a search engine. As for the black butterfly, Petra could not find any physical knowledge provided by the Ethereal Echo Silverwing, but she felt like her understanding of Space and Illusions was silently improving every day.
Petra had referenced the inner library for information relating to the Ice Elementals, but the information didn't cover what Petra wanted to know.
Petra wanted to understand how this ball of snow could become a living thing.
After a long struggle to find information, Petra found the method to create elementals.
Unfortunately, Petra didn't understand it.
After half a day of studying the mini ice elemental, Petra got frustrated and just gave up.
The girls entered a stretch of forest that was more ice than forest. From Petra's perspective, these trees had begun to turn into pure ice.
After collecting a large sample of the surrounding flora and fauna, Petra discovered that this ice transformation was similar to a poison. This ice poison spread through the snowflakes and transformed the surrounding landscape into ice after a certain level of accumulation. It didn't affect living things, but Petra still felt like it was very interesting.
Another hour later, the girls stopped for lunch.
After they finished eating, Petra continued forward until they finally found an opportunity where she felt like she could test her strength.