Sil awoke to a room covered in fresh fallen snow. The events of the night before were shocking, but after the excitement was over it didn't take long for Sil's exhaustion to take hold again. He tried to think of a reason why his room was covered in snow, but nothing came to mind. Climbing out of bed he conjured a new robe, this time a deep blue robe with white accents. 

Noticing the improvements to his robe Sil decided to check his status.

[User: Sil]

[Health: Improving...]

[Bloodline: Queen of Ice and Snow {Snow Maiden S Rank}]

[Bloodline Boon: Eternal Beauty]

[Bloodline trait 1: Ruler of the Frozen Domain Rank 1]

[Bloodline trait 2: Soul Freezing Armament Rank 1]

[Bloodline trait 3: Skin of Frozen Jade Rank 1]

[Skills]

[Skill: Creation Magic: Garment Creation 1/5 Level 1 48/250]

[Skill: Agility Style: Unarmed Fighting 1/5 Level 0 82/100]

[Skill Misc.: Skill Growth Enhancement *H 1/1]

Sil stared as his status menu, he had somehow grown enough since last night to step well into level one control of his creation magic. He immediately thought about the hidden skill he has acquired when he purchased Skill Growth Enhancement. Opening his skill menu he looked into the details of his Skill Growth Enhancement. 

[Skill Description: Skill Growth Enhancement *H]

[Grants user a minor passive increase in rate of skill growth.]

[Hidden: Skills below threshold will grow passively without any activity on the part of the user]

"Well that explains it" Sil thought to himself.

The remainder of Sil's morning was somewhat strange. His parents did not bring up the attack from the night before and when Fanella arrives she made no mention it either. Before long she had lead him out of his home and they made their way to a training ground. The area looked almost like a battlefield. Evidence of various abilities being practiced had left their mark throughout the area. 

Fanella waved her hand and rapidly the ground around her froze, expanding out the entirety of the training area. Furniture made of ice appeared to rise up from the sheet of it that they were now standing on.

"Sil, have a seat" she gestured the newly formed chair. Sil obediently sat and looked at her awaiting further instruction.

"Your powers as a Snow Maiden are going to be exceptionally strong. You’re going to have to get used to certain facts about your new life." Fanella started, almost as though she had rehearsed a speech for this moment.

" The first thing you need to understand is that you are now a danger to anyone you can touch. There are things we can do to mitigate that but that fact but getting close to people is something you will have to approach with extreme care. I am told you had an abduction attempt last night and both of your would-be kidnappers were severely injured. Realize that you can just as easily do the same thing to a friend if you’re not careful."

Sil nodded in understanding of this and almost without thinking of it conjured a pair of gloves to wear over his hands.

"Gloves can help, but only so much." Fanella said with an approving look. "The second fact of your life is that you are now exceedingly desirable. When word gets out about you and your bloodline noble men from across the country are going to come running to try to take your hand in marriage. Even worse, kidnappers will likely try to sell you on the black market. You are a beautiful young woman, and your bloodline is going to ensure you stay that way. Men are often motivated by greed, lust, and pride, in that order, they will want to make money off of you, to bed you, and to show you off to their friends, so you would be well advised to prepare for that."

Sil looked at his teacher in shock, he hadn't realized that she didn't know it yet, but he really needed to clear this misunderstanding quickly. "Teacher Fanella I.."

"You nothing, that is your reality and you will have to accept it. Now to your powers we have a to great deal of work to do and you are not say another word during training until you can retract your aura!"

Fanella was forcing herself to take an overly authoritative tone with her young charge. The feeling of pressure Sil gave off was still preset and if she wasn't careful, she would give in to anything Sil asked of her. That would not make her a very good teacher, so she had decided the night before to preempt any chance of that happening by making Sil be silent while practicing.

The spent much of the morning in training as Fanella guided Sil in aura retraction. It proved very difficult as the slightest distracting would cause it to snap back out to its full range. As it came time for lunch Fanella pulled two meals from her bag made up entirely of cold foods They sat together in silence and ate deli meat sandwiches with a strange form of flavored ice chips that Sil found especially tasty.

"Training for today is done. You should make your way home and continue practicing what you've learned today. Tomorrow we will go over your combat skill, staying focused on one thing for too long will cause progress to stagnate after all."

Fanella began backing up her things and retracted the ice that she had spread out at the beginning of their training.

"You should be quite safe on the way back home; I have my own business to attend to so you will need to make your way back on your own." Fanella believed that a student needed time alone to process things they had learned. At training Sil was with her, and at home her parents influence would affect her.  A short walk by herself would allow her to find her own insights to her power and help her grow.

Sil bowed to Fanella as they went their separate ways. On the walk back Sil continued trying to retract his aura while thinking of how to deal with his teachers misunderstanding. He thought it best that he talk to his parents and have one of them correct the misunderstanding before something bad happened.

"Hey! Petty boy! heard you almost got snatched!" Sil suddenly heard and annoyingly familiar voice. 

Delia was the local beauty. Her face was sharp, but she possessed wide expressive eyes that she often used to appear sweet and innocent. She also had short pixie cut dark red hair and an overly developed figure for her age. In addition she was rather tall both for her age and for a girl in the town at five foot seven inches. Her looks drew the boys in easily and there was something of a competition going as to who would be marrying her after her awakening. She had long been in something of a one-sided animosity with Sil. 

"You've always looked like a girl, guess you decided to start dressing like one as well" Delia mocked

Sil ignored Delia and continued making his way back home. His lack of response seemed to anger Delia further so motioned to her friends and they surrounded Sil.

"Don't ignore me pretty boy, I'm talking to you. You may have powers and have this bit of cold around you but that's not going to stop me from getting what I want. Where did you get this robe, it’s nice. You should give it to me." Delia mocked as she began trying to pull Sil's robe off. 

Sil pulled the robe and backed away from Delia trying to avoid the confrontation, not realizing that he had already grown claws from his fingers as an instinctual response to the threat. Delia's hand was scratched in the struggle and she quickly reached back her bloodied hand. 

"He scratched me" she shouted, holding her injured hand. One of the larger boys from the group stepped forward and punched Sil hard in the face, sending him stumbling back several feet.

"It didn't hurt" Sil commented to himself, almost in a whisper but still the large boy heard him.

"Didn't hurt huh, well try some more!" the boy shouted as he leapt in and began pummeling Sil's face and body. Other boys from the group joined in on the abuse and started kicking Sil in the sides as well. Sil blocked as best he could, and his new combat skill was helping, but the combination of having no experience fighting and the surprise of not feeling any pain from the assault let the boys beat him without resistance. Delia cheered as her group continued the excessive pummeling.

Much time passed before the boys finally grew exhausted from the beating before, they finally backed off. Sil stood up from the ground and looked completely unharmed, much to their collective shock.

"Are we done here?" he said, the calm threat lurking in his voice and the now very visible claws on Sil's hands acting as an immensely powerful threat to the group. "Then I should get home." 

Sil left the group stunned as he began walking away. The claws receded and his clothes seemed to clean and fix themselves from the dirt and damage they had received. 

When he got home Sil went straight to the bathroom stepping through the large puddle that had developed on his bedroom floor to examine himself. Looking over his body there were no bruises or signs of the beating anywhere to be seen. 

"Jade Skin seems pretty tough against normal people... I wonder if Targin would be able to break through its defense."

Back in his room all of the snow and clothing he had conjured the day before had melted and was now slowly freezing again as the cold of his aura began affecting it.

Sil conjured up more robes seeing what new designs and options he could come up with. The upgrade in level seems to only allow for rearranging a very small color pallet of White, light blue, and dark blue, and altering the design imprinted into the robe between snowflakes, a simple circular design, or plain with only light color accents at the bottom of the robe and on the collars. 

Sil also discovered why his room was covered in snow when he woke up that morning. a crack in one of his windows from the previous night had allowed the warm moist air from outside to mix with the cold air he was creating. Based on what little he had been taught about Aura's and weather, snow was one of the effects that came about when a cold aura and a wet aura or weather collided.

Sil spent the remainder of his afternoon practicing his combat art in the wide-open space outside of his room. Though he hadn't been hurt, today's pummeling taught him that he also didn't know how to avoid it when something that would hurt came along. Much of what had been taught to him involved twisting the body, rolling away from danger, and catching or deflecting attacks that came in. Without a training partner there was much he couldn't learn but it was a start.

Sil's mother came home just as the sun was starting to set and called to Sil. "Sil honey, some of your friends have come over to visit"

Sil walked over and saw Targin and Crysta coming in. "Targin," he called "Just the guy I wanted to see. Crysta its nice seeing you as well. Come to check out the house you'll be staying in next month?" 

"Naa, just coming to see the damage from you freezing some guys arm off, that must be one heck of a cool power you got." she said with a laugh

Crysta and Targin were the only two people Sil spent much time with outside of his own family. Sil met Targin when they were both twelve and a boy had started a fight with Sil. Targin came running to the rescue thinking a girl was being bullied, only to find Sil standing his ground. After Targin drove off the other boy, and Sil in a huff had told him that he was a boy and he didn't need any rescuing. For Targin's part he was embarrassed that he had stepped in on a fight between two guys. Not long after the two had become fast friends.

With Crysta, the two had met in somewhat similar circumstances.  A few months after Targin and Sil had met, they came across the same boy from before, this time pushing a short green haired girl to the ground. Targin was about to charge in again when Sil saw what was happening and stopped him. Crysta kicked the boy in the shin and then nailed him in the face with her elbow as she was standing up, giving the kid a bloody nose. Sil and Targin introduced themselves and after Crysta got over finding out Sil was a boy they started hanging out together every day.

"Targin, this is going to sound pretty strange, but I need you to punch me."