"This room is so warm... I feel like I'd never leave."
Frida threw herself onto the small bed, stretching her arms out as if trying to embrace the heat. The space was tight, but compared to the biting cold outside, it felt like a sanctuary.
Lena, meanwhile, approached the wall. She ran her palm over the dark stones and felt a steady pulse of warmth, as if the very heart of the mountain was beating behind the surface.
"Yes... quite ingenious,"
she murmured, eyes gleaming with curiosity.
"Actually, I think it might even be dangerous. On the other side of this wall, there must be something like superheated water mixed with magma, transmitting the heat. What intrigues me is how they managed to contain it. How did they stop the heat from simply frying anyone inside... or damaging the wall itself?"
Frida's eyes widened. That was more than she needed to hear.
"You mean we could die here?"
Lena pulled her hand away from the wall and sighed. Maybe she had gone too far.
"No. Of course not,"
she replied firmly, trying to calm her friend.
"Somehow, they've managed to synthesize this process precisely. My curiosity is just... how."
"For God's sake, girl, stop scaring me!"
Frida shrank back, pulling the blankets around her like a shield.
A brief silence followed, until Frida spoke again, now with a different concern on her mind:
"You know... I wanted to ask you. How did Hans know that giant guy?"
Lena froze. It was a question she herself had been mulling over.
The giant's face surfaced in her memory: the imposing presence, the raw strength, and the unexpected way Hans had spoken to him... not like enemies, but like acquaintances. Even Wilhelm had seemed surprised.
"I mean, from what General Wilhelm told us before we entered the territory, that giant seriously injured the inquisitor who came to oversee the punishment"
Frida said in a low voice.
"He looks like just a brute without magic, but he's far from weak. And even so, the professor talked to him like they were old friends?"
Lena didn't answer right away. The silence shattered the cozy atmosphere of the room.
Her mind, however, was far from silent. In fact, she couldn't stop thinking.
Who was Hans? How did he know the giant? What did they talk about so much? What did he really want in the North? What happened in those secret meetings between the two of them?
The truths seemed so obscured that Lena no longer knew exactly what they were doing there.
There was no plausible answer to Frida's question. In the end, it all came down to one thing:
"I don't know. I think we're being kept in the dark here. But I don't know why... or for how long."
It was clear the isolated pieces didn't make sense. But the whole picture? The whole picture seemed like something bigger, obscure, as if they weren't the protagonists, but disposable pieces on a board they couldn't see.
More and more, Lena had the uncomfortable feeling that she was merely a scapegoat for secrets Hans wouldn't reveal anytime soon.
Lena sighed, leaning back against the still-warm wall.
"What I see is what you noticed: the northerner Ivan doesn't seem to have magic... but there's something about him that's unfathomable. These people have a culture of survival of the strongest, more intense than any other civilization. He must be carrying some kind of secret. We just don't know what."
The two of them were silent for a moment. The muffled roar of the wind against the tower was a reminder that, outside, the North was death and ice. But inside, there was warmth and curiosity.
Frida broke the somber mood with a mischievous smile:
"By the way... there are some hotties here. I've never seen so many handsome men in such a short amount of time."
Lena raised an eyebrow, skeptical.
"They have physical traits different from what we're used to. And we tend to find the unfamiliar attractive. What you're feeling is purely psychological."
"Hummm."
Frida threw herself sideways on the bed, resting her head in her hands.
"So you're saying you didn't like anyone here…? Come on, Lena, you lie without even blinking!"
Lena blushed. She didn't want to come off as boring to her only friend, but she also didn't want to admit how much she secretly paid attention to details. She swallowed hard.
"Well… there was one guy I thought was handsome."
"See?! I knew it!"
Frida almost clapped her hands.
"But tell me, come on… what did you find so gorgeous about him?"
Lena hesitated. Thinking about describing his strong jaw, his muscular body, his heroic posture… it all felt way too cheesy. Ridiculous. Her face burned just imagining those words slipping out of her mouth.
She took a deep breath. Chose the safest answer.
"He had heterochromatic eyes."
Frida blinked, confused.
"Huh?"
Lena smiled awkwardly, looking away.
"One light eye, the other dark. Different. Unusual."
Frida was silent for a few seconds, then burst out laughing.
"You're impossible, Lena! Everyone here is huge, strong, covered in muscles… and you notice their eyes!"
Lena tried not to laugh, but the warmth in the room and the lightness of the moment made her let out a soft giggle. For the first time in days, the cold and fear seemed far away. The two girls talked a bit more about meaningless things, but before they realized it, they had already fallen asleep in that new and unfamiliar place.
"Why are we going in separate groups?"
asked Lena, her eyes sunken, marked by a sleepless night.
Frida was also dragging her exhaustion. The reason was simple: they had spent the whole night whispering and laughing about the Northern men, like two teenagers who had forgotten they were on an official expedition. Now, they were paying the price.
"Ivan thinks it's better this way."
explained Hans, without taking his eyes off the path.
"Our goal here is simply to study the culture, suggest improvements, exchange knowledge. We don't want to interfere with their traditions."
"The distance isn't far."
Ivan added, his voice dry and firm.
"You'll be safe."
Despite the company, the two girls quickly realized there was an invisible barrier. Hans and Ivan were talking side by side, but their words reached the girls like distorted murmurs. It was impossible to understand.
Frida frowned.
"Magic."
"Yes…"
Lena replied, uncomfortable.
"The question is: why?"
The feeling of exclusion was obvious.
This wasn't just a cultural trip — it was the movement of pieces on a chessboard they couldn't fully see.
Frida was there for the rebellion, the curiosity, and the adventure.
Lena, for the grade, for the chance to become a winged one.
But diplomatic relations, for both, were beginning to reveal themselves as something much greater — more complex, more obscure… and above all, more dangerous than they had seemed at first.
"All right, girls"
said Hans with a forced smile.
"The main group is almost an hour ahead of us. Can we move a bit faster?"
"Of course, of course."
The pace, as Hans had promised, wasn't difficult. And soon the conversation turned to a topic that made Lena's eyes light up: knowledge.
"So your main food source comes from this dungeon?"
"We don't call them dungeons."
Ivan corrected.
"Vybor. They are meeting places with the deep beings."
He wasn't friendly, but there was a raw sincerity in his voice. For the first time, he seemed willing to explain.
"Unlike you, who cultivate what already exists, we feed on what we hunt. For many decades, we cataloged Svarog's creatures through trial and error. We identified which ones are nutritious, which ones kill quickly, which ones make us stronger."
Frida shuddered.
"But… isn't it dangerous? You still have to hunt those things…"
Ivan paused for a moment, staring at her with hard, merciless eyes.
"Danger begins the moment the first cold air crosses the lungs of our children"
he said.
"The cold here in the North cuts us down to death in a single night, if there's no shelter.
Here, the weak have no place. As cruel as it may be, this is the truth we accept as the only one."
His eyes turned forward, toward the wind howling between the rocks.
"So, yes. It's dangerous. We provide the tools. We create countermeasures. But in the end… it's a child who enters the slaughterhouse. And only they can come out."
The silence that followed wasn't of discomfort, but of fearful respect.
Frida hugged her arms, trying to ward off the chill.
Lena, however, felt her heart beat faster.
She didn't know if she just wanted to learn about the North… or if she was already being consumed by it.
Ivan's tone, although it made clear that the practice was intrinsic to his people's culture, showed no fondness for it.
"Well… in any case, it's thanks to the North that many parts of the Empire still survive"
Lena said at last.
"Not every place has fertile land or a favorable climate. For many, the Dungeon is the only rich source of nutrients and protein.
The North, despite all the controversy… has always been a wellspring of good ideas."
Frida nodded, for the first time seeing the Northerners not as barbarians, but as regular people who had built their own survival logic.
Ivan, however, was as direct as a blade of ice:
"Of course, the book you use was stolen from us… when you destroyed our former territory."
The two bowed their heads, without a reply.
Hans didn't argue either. Ivan's silence wasn't an accusation — it was simply the memory of something that should never be forgotten.
When he spoke again, his voice was neutral, almost serene:
"We've arrived."
The three of them looked up.
"How beautiful…"
murmured Lena.
"Fabulous…"
Hans added.
"Look at the size of this fucking wall!"
burst out of Frida's mouth, involuntarily.
The sight of Svarog was monumental, even for foreigners used to the splendor of the Empire. It was like stepping into a grand fantasy novel: black walls, corridors of living stone, and an interior so different from the outside it seemed like another world. The white of winter vanished, replaced by warm shadows, runes pulsing on the walls, and scorched ground made of smoldering basalt.
Ivan was direct:
"The tower before you is Svarog. It has belonged since time immemorial to one of the first czar families to rule the North: the Feodorovna family."
"The Matriarch of the family behind this feat was a specialist in rare spatial magic and reinforcement. For a long time, this place was exclusive to the great castes, whose initial idea was to build a castle protected — not by warriors, but by beasts from the abyss itself.
When the war began, it became a training ground for novices — a way to separate the wheat from the chaff.
The Feodorovna family had many brilliant minds, and much of our current technology and sustenance came thanks to someone of their blood.
However, I don't like to deny it: they were extremely elitist and cruel."
Ivan didn't say this to the visitors. It seemed more like a statement to himself, as if trying to convince himself that nothing could erase the cruelty that family had represented.
"But today, it has become the place from which we draw our sustenance."
The reason was clear to everyone in that entourage: the prison imposed by the Empire.
Svarog had become the Northerners' lifeline. Without it, they would have succumbed to hunger long before Hans, Lena, and Frida had arrived.
As the group still reflected on everything Svarog meant to the North, a distant growl snapped them out of their thoughts.
It was a huge brown bear, approaching with heavy steps, seemingly unbothered by the group in its path. Ivan didn't move, even when Hans and the girls threw themselves aside, afraid of being trampled.
When the bear was just a few meters from Ivan, it finally stopped, kicking up charred soil into the air and filling the surroundings with soot.
"Marina."
"Lord Ivan… Imperials."
The woman didn't hide her disgust at seeing the faces of the three foreigners, but she also didn't bother waiting for any greeting.
She circled around Ivan atop her massive beast and, as soon as the bear began to run, she shouted — already at a good distance — before disappearing through the gates that had begun to close:
"I hope you know what you're doing."
Hans and the girls were covered in ash from head to toe. Hans seemed about to say something, but Ivan cut him off:
"Stay behind me and don't touch anything. We're going straight to the third floor, where the evaluation takes place."
The three nodded, obedient, but curiosity burned in their eyes. The more they were pushed forward, the more they wanted to know.
After all, they were in a new land — a place where, most likely, no one from their homeland had ever dreamed of setting foot.
When they arrived, Lena and Frida were left breathless. The ceiling was covered in drawings and colors, symbols arranged in patterns that resembled a giant rainbow split in half.
"These are the Specter Ranks."
Frida said, as if it were obvious.
Hans, however, smiled and gave a more detailed explanation:
"Yes. Here they assess each individual's future potential. It's, in my opinion, the most accurate method there is. The Empire… also appropriated this idea, but not in the same way."
He watched, fascinated, as people placed their hands on the crystal, the energy responding with colors, while Ivan remained impassive at his side.
Ivan questioned him:
"And how do you do it in the Empire?"
Hans gave a didactic smile.
"All students who pass with top marks can climb the benefactors' mountains and choose an egg.
Of course, saying it like that makes it sound easy — but there are many dangers tied to the mountain itself."
Hans seemed willing to elaborate, but Ivan's look was skeptical. He ended up thinking that talking about the danger of climbing mountains sounded ridiculous — especially here in the North, where even the ground might try to kill you. Compared to that, his explanation felt like a bad joke.
"Anyway…"
he coughed, trying to get back on track.
"They take the egg for evaluation.
The difference is that, once chosen, there's no turning back. The bearer's mana is inserted into it, and that energy determines whether the creature will be born — or not — and based on the resulting color, it's already possible to know its potential even before the egg hatches."
Ivan frowned.
"So it's more about luck than ability?"
"Not necessarily."
Hans shook his head.
"My theory is that all eggs are neutral. No gender. No defined shape. But when they receive the bearer's mana, the intensity, the potential, and the very nature of the individual shape the egg."
"So…"
Ivan concluded, bluntly.
"The egg is strong. But it weakens according to how weak the bearer is."
Hans laughed, adjusting his cloak.
"When you say it like that, it sounds too simplistic. But… yes, in part that's it. I still believe there are much more complex factors at play, but those I don't fully understand yet."
Lena watched in silence, fascinated.
She noticed a stark difference between them: the North reduced everything to the essential, as if survival allowed no room for embellishment. The Empire, on the other hand, expanded with theories, justifications, and layers of complexity.
But neither culture was foolish.
Both pursued power. Just in different languages.
Hans spoke with a dangerous enthusiasm, almost criminal in Lena and Frida's eyes.
No Imperial should reveal so much.
But there he was, laying bare the Empire's secrets without shame.
"You know, girls, you've probably noticed: They use the same colors as the Empire… but here, the meaning is reversed. The colder the color, the greater a Northerner's potential."
Lena and Frida looked at each other, stunned. In the Empire, red meant fire — the pinnacle of strength, the domain of the most legendary Wyverns. Orange and yellow came right after, gleaming like thunder and lightning. Green and blue were the average water types, and indigo and purple were considered nearly useless.
Hans raised a finger, pointing to a boy who had just removed his hand from the crystal, his eyes glassy while others seemed to laugh at his misfortune.
"Look."
Hans opened his arms, theatrical.
"In the Empire, someone with red would be treated like a god. Here… he's just another Inutil."
The silence that followed was heavy.
Lena and Frida stood speechless. There was no shame, no compassion, not even a trace of relief in the professor's voice. Only the cold detachment of someone revealing an inconvenient truth.
The recently evaluated Northerner lowered his head, crushed not only by the color the crystal had revealed but by the public judgment he now faced.
Ivan, beside them, didn't move.
No indignation, no surprise. He simply crossed his arms, his face as expressionless as ice.
"I know what you're thinking, girls."
he said at last, his deep voice echoing through the hall.
"But there's a very simple explanation."
The girls held their breath.
Ivan leaned slightly forward, and the question came like an invisible blade:
"Have you ever seen an ice Wyvern?"
The question hung in the air like a trap.
Lena and Frida exchanged a glance, mentally combing through everything they knew, every record and mutation described in the Empire's books. After a few seconds, they reached the same conclusion:
"No… Why?"
Hans, beside them, leaned forward slightly, swept up in excitement:
"Allow me to answer that, my friend."
Ivan simply nodded.
"Of course. Go ahead."
Hans took a deep breath and let the words fall like stones into the silence:
"Because the Benefactors can't use that kind of magic."
The shock was immediate.
For Lena and Frida, it was like hearing that the sun might not rise tomorrow.
Magic was magic. They had always believed that affinities were infinite, just difficult to master. It had never occurred to them that some types of magic were simply off-limits.
Hans, seeing the astonishment in their faces, continued with the same didactic tone he used in his lectures:
"There are spectrums that are unreachable. No creature has access to them all. It's impossible. If such a thing existed, it would be an aberration so powerful it could defeat any enemy… all it would need is to strike at their weakness."
He walked slowly, as if drawing ideas in the air.
"Affinity is natural balance. Fire is where the Benefactors shine the brightest. Here in the North, it's ice."
he raised a finger, as if underlining an important lesson.
"So the colder the color revealed by the crystal, the greater the potential. Because we're not just talking about brute strength… but real capability."
Lena felt her heart race.
Suddenly, everything made sense.
Frida, in a whisper, completed the line of thought:
"So… if someone had enormous potential… but it was tied to a magic they couldn't use… they'd become…"
"Inútil."
Lena murmured, almost without realizing.
The two fell silent.
It was cruel, but logical.
And for the first time, they understood why Ivan hadn't been outraged by Hans's bold words.
For the North, this truth wasn't a secret.
It was simply the raw, frozen reality.
The two of them watched in silence as the last students were evaluated. Tears streamed down the faces of some youths who received weak colors — colors that, in the Empire, would have been praised, but here meant a future as cannon fodder.
Lena felt her heart tighten.
If it were her… she would've reacted the same way.
Then Frida jabbed her hard in the arm.
"Look who's up next…"
Frida murmured, nudging her friend again.
"Isn't that your man of the year… though maybe you'll want to reconsider, seeing as he's missing a piece."
Lena followed her friend's gaze.
Her chest tightened.
It was him.
The boy with the different-colored eyes.
That handsome face, marked by youth and determination.
But he was missing a leg.
Part of her wanted him to be special, unique.
Another part — cruel and involuntary — saw him as less.
The dilemma burned in her chest.
Suddenly, Ivan leaned in and whispered something in Hans's ear.
The foreigner raised his eyebrows, interest gleaming in his eyes like fire.
"Something's happening."
Lena murmured, more to herself than to Frida.
While her friend was still distracted admiring the Northerners' weapons, Lena didn't take her eyes off the boy. He walked toward the crystal sphere with cautious, almost reverent steps.
The entire room went silent.
The boy raised his hand.
Hesitated for a moment.
And then, his fingers touched the crystal.
The world exploded in light.
Not blue.
Not green.
Not red.
Not purple.
White.
A blinding brightness filled the hall, as if a white dwarf had descended into the tower. Everyone shielded their eyes, blinded, gasping.
"What is this?!"
"I've never seen anything like it!"
"Why is everything white?!"