"I think I found it!" Udyr's expression gradually returned to calm.
His pained, conflicted look had lasted all night, but at least he managed to figure it out before breakfast.
"It's fine. Even if you couldn't find the problem, it wouldn't be a big deal. Worst case, we slow down a little and wait for Ashe's group."
Caleb held a bowl of porridge and blew on it twice. In truth, blowing on it made no difference. With snow and wind filling the sky, the flakes landing in the bowl cooled it down on their own. Unlike Zaun, the snow that fell here was at least clean. Kai'Sa was also slowly drinking her porridge. After eating something that spicy last night, she did not have much of an appetite this morning.
The mountains of the Freljord were brutal, real godforsaken badlands, and some peaks simply were not made for people to live on. It made sense when he thought about it. War never stopped here, and under the power of demigods, many of those mountains had already been battered out of shape. But the mineral deposits here, shaped by the meeting of lava and seawater, were unbelievably rich.
"Once Zaun's terrain has been fully reorganized, maybe we could bring Mecha Malphite here."
They would not actually need large transport aircraft, or even those enormous cargo ships. They could just let Mecha Malphite walk there on its own.
After thinking for a moment, Caleb continued asking, "So, did you communicate more deeply with the beast spirits?"
Caleb had never had a firm grasp on Spirit Walkers. To him, chatting with beast spirits in itself was an absurd idea. Piltover did have its share of strange supernatural phenomena, but at least it still studied the use of magic through a proper scientific lens. Once he reached the Freljord, part of the "Hextech fundamentals" Caleb had learned before stopped working again. It was like how he could see part of the runes on Ryze, but if Caleb had to explain it, he could not say anything concrete.
"Beast spirits, to be precise, are the souls of beasts wandering through the Freljord."
Udyr's words might as well have gone unsaid. Seeing the corner of Caleb's mouth twitch, he seemed to realize that this explanation was too obscure for an outsider.
"Across the entire Freljord, the consciousness of animals gathers and forms beast spirits. Beast spirits can grant us strength and speak to us. That is also why some beast-spirit shamans possess special abilities."
Caleb had heard of that. For example, walrus shamans were said to be able to predict the movements of the sea. Looking at it that way, walrus shamans probably relied on the walrus beast spirits in that region to learn what would happen in the ocean.
"I see. Then logically speaking, since you're a beast-spirit shaman, and such a talented one at that, shouldn't talking to them be as easy as breathing?"
"Of course not." Udyr slowly shook his head. "Usually, when it comes to beast spirits, we can only hear their calls. In compensation, we can ask them to grant us power."
"So generally speaking, you can only receive information and power from beast spirits one-way?"
"That's right."
Now Caleb could understand why Udyr had struggled so much with communicating with the beast spirits.
"Then you've done something truly remarkable."
Caleb knew that a method like this, one that could practically be called unprecedented, was definitely comparable to what Jayce and Viktor had done. In the history of the Freljord, and during the rise of the Winter's Claw, Udyr's name would surely be remembered everywhere.
Caleb cleaned up the bowl that had already gone cold and thought over the next step of the plan. Since they were not in a rush to find Lissandra, perhaps they could try making contact with Ornn. Caleb had two trump cards in his hand. Calling directly upon the thunder of the Freljord once could summon Volibear. Snapping the small sword in his hand would let Aatrox, who always knew his location, come to him.
At the current stage, these two people, well, or rather, these two demigod-level beings, were still relatively polite to him. But Caleb knew that was only because of the item and skill the system had given him. Having dealt with them before, Caleb knew they were absolutely not reckless people like Tryndamere. For example, Volibear had noticed almost at a glance that he was not from the Freljord. As for Aatrox, the moment he saw Caleb, he realized that Caleb's body had been modified by the Darkin.
That was Caleb's confidence, the thing that let him speak his mind in front of them. But if the Caleb of the future turned out different from what they imagined, in other words, if he was weaker than they expected, then Caleb would have to start worrying about his life. He could only consider every strategy carefully.
"Are you still thinking about the Void?" Kai'Sa came closer again, looking at Caleb's face.
"More or less, but right now, we may need to look for Ornn."
Caleb did not mind calling a demigod by his true name. In his view, so-called demigods were only beings that had appeared earlier than he had.
"Everything's packed." Sejuani dismantled her tent and tied it onto Bristle.
"Make a marker."
Caleb was still thinking about how to make a marker that would be obvious, but not buried by falling snow.
Thud!
With a heavy crash, Olaf headbutted a tree and knocked it flat. In the Freljord, where there already were not many trees, one with such a strange broken surface lying in place naturally counted as a very obvious marker.
"So why did you have to use a headbutt…"
Caleb sank into deep confusion.
"That kind of break is the most obvious!" Olaf's answer was also completely unexpected. Caleb silently sighed and turned to Udyr.
"Do we have a direction?"
Udyr closed his eyes, then quietly pointed in one direction.
"On that mountaintop where there is no snow, smoke often rises."
The moment Udyr said that, Caleb wanted to make a remark. The god of forge and craft had that much lava around him, so of course there would be no snow on the mountaintop.
"Looks like the temperature difference will be pretty high…"
After thinking for a moment, Caleb still suppressed the urge to complain. After all this time, Caleb was finally going to search for that most unpredictable Forge God. Caleb also knew that this god did not like being disturbed. But if he kept staying out of worldly affairs, the final result might be the entire Freljord being swallowed by the Void. As the "firstborn" of the Freljord, Ornn could not turn a blind eye.
What Caleb had to do was make him stop standing aside. The sooner the demigods entered the war, the greater their chances of resisting the Void would naturally become. That would be good for the entire continent, and even for the Twin Cities.
As for Anivia, who created True Ice and made it into weapons to help humanity, she would naturally be willing to stand with them. Caleb planned to leave that easiest-to-talk-to demigod to the two descendants of Avarosa and Serylda to negotiate with.
"This is it?"
Caleb finally understood why, even though it was so obvious, no one had come searching for Ornn. The bare mountain rock was so smooth that it did not look suitable for climbing at all. Of course, someone could use tools and force their way up, but the difficulty of that climb alone was enough to discourage anyone who was hoping to get lucky. One careless mistake, and they would fall to pieces. For the sake of a demigod whose temper they knew nothing about, staking their lives really was too much of a gamble.
"Then let's get started."
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