In the VIP room, Gauss and the others didn't bother with formalities and immediately started going through the reward list.
It was a rich selection—mostly spells and various tools.
Of course, many items on the list would need to be shipped in from elsewhere. Grayrock Town was a small place, and it didn't have an endless stockpile of rare rewards sitting around.
"Take your time with the list," Eberhard said casually when he saw them deep in thought. "Pick what you want, then come back and confirm it with me."
Normally, even when the Adventurers' Guild granted special rewards to adventurers who had made outstanding contributions, they wouldn't allow a reward list to be taken out of the guild—there were risks involved.
But Gauss and his party were different. In the guild, Gauss was basically on a whitelist: he had a lot of freedom in what he could do.
And Eberhard was busy, too—so he just told them to take it home and think it over.
Gauss and the others didn't linger at the guild, and soon returned to their lodgings.
The list included many spells—everything up to Level 4—and also skills suitable for each member's class.
Gauss understood why Level 4 spells were even on the list: Eberhard must've decided to add them after learning, a couple days ago, that Gauss could actually use Level 4 magic.
Besides, after obtaining Ice Storm (Level 4), Gauss's offensive arsenal was already more than sufficient.
Control Water and Ice Storm were both Level 4 offense spells.
At Level 3 he had Fireball.
At Level 2, Cloud of Daggers.
at Level 1, Magic Missile.
At Cantrip level, Firebolt.
These were all spells he used constantly.
So rather than grabbing more attack spells, he was leaning toward utility.
Blindly stacking offense was wasteful—many new "attack" spells would overlap with what he already had.
He studied the list. There weren't many Level 4 spells on it—just the ones that could be sourced quickly from nearby towns.
[Arcane Eye]
After casting, you create an invisible magical eye that floats in the air.
It has normal vision, can see in the dark, and can detect traces left by magic.
Through a mental link, the caster can move it freely, observe in any direction, and receive its visual feed.
[Confusion]
The caster targets one creature, flooding its mind with junk information and partially twisting its will, causing it to fall into a confused, stalled state for a short time.
[Locate Creature]
The caster visualizes a creature they are familiar with. Within a certain range, the caster senses the creature's direction. If the creature is moving, the caster also learns its direction of travel.
The detection range depends on the caster's mental strength.
Gauss didn't agonize over it.
He was definitely taking [Locate Creature].
For wilderness travel, it was perfect—he could casually use it now and then to track down familiar "old friends" and say hello.
Sure, he could ride Hephaestus and use the Eagle-Eye Monocle to scan the ground.
But most monsters didn't stand out in open fields. They hid under vegetation, in caves, or inside terrain that blocked line of sight.
Even with eyesight as sharp as an eagle's, spotting those concealed targets from the sky was hard.
With Locate Creature, as long as a monster came within range, it couldn't hide from the spell. It would save Gauss a huge amount of time.
That said, the range would need testing.
After deciding on that spell, he handed the list to his teammates. Their rewards had an overall budget—once the final redemptions were done, if there was still room, he'd choose another spell then.
That afternoon, Gauss felt mostly recovered.
After telling his teammates, he headed outside the town to test a newly acquired skill.
Outside the walls, the world was bleak.
You could still see traces of the battle's destruction—pitted ground with a thin layer of snow.
In the white expanse, there were no signs of life. Even the usual snow foxes and snow rabbits were gone.
Body Enlargement
He tested the skill that had dropped from the ogre chieftain via Duskfall Hour.
With a thought, heat spread through his body—and under his own gaze, he began to swell, his viewpoint rising higher and higher.
Feeling his robe and clothes bind and resist the change, Gauss made an awkward face and stopped.
This wasn't a spell, but a stamina-based skill.
It only enlarged his body—not his clothing.
If he ever needed to use it in combat, he'd either have to shamelessly fight naked, or find magic that resized clothing… or obtain adaptive, stretchable gear.
Gauss figured that when they went to redeem rewards, he could ask Eberhard to use guild channels to look for something like that.
Since there was nobody around for several meters, he glanced left and right—and decided to test the skill's upper limit.
He stood in the snow and removed his clothing. With nothing restricting him, the enlargement continued.
1.9 meters… 2 meters… 2.2…
In just a few breaths, he grew to over three meters tall.
That was his current limit.
He could force it higher, he could tell—but he risked tearing tendons.
At roughly three and a half meters tall, the world looked different.
He was less "human" now, more like a small giant.
Power surged through him.
Brute Force
He clenched his fist and punched the ground.
A giant body plus Brute Force produced absurd force.
The quiet snowfield rang with a world-shaking boom.
Boom!
A crater punched into the ground like it had been hit by artillery, throwing snow and mud into the air and turning the open space into a white fog.
"Cough… cough…"
Even Gauss startled at the sheer destruction.
He looked down at his fist. The knuckles were scraped raw, but bleeding stopped almost immediately and the wound began healing.
If he was going to brawl like this, he needed a surface layer of protection—either Ironscale Bloodline or Second-Tier Ghoul Form.
So he activated Second-Tier Ghoul Form.
Black-and-white wraith energy erupted from his pores, wrapping him into a living shell—like armor grown from smoke, clinging to his skin.
"Huh?"
Gauss raised a brow. Maybe he didn't need to be completely naked.
He could shape the wraith energy.
In moments, it molded into a sleek, streamlined suit—an energy armor with a texture somewhere between leather and crystal, following the lines of his muscles without restricting movement.
Chest, shoulders, elbows—vital areas were thicker, with dark patterns flowing faintly across them.
And beyond armor, Second-Tier Ghoul Form made his enlarged body feel sturdier and faster.
His pale hair drifted in the wind. His white horns gleamed sharper and longer.
He tested movement.
Boom!
A crater appeared—and he flickered, instantly reappearing far away.
Wraith energy swirled around him, pushing snow haze aside in a small clearing.
At this moment, no one would mistake him for human.
Three and a half meters tall, horns, wraith energy armor—he looked like a war statue.
He tested the armor's defense.
With a thought, he wrapped wraith energy around his right fist, used about half his force, and hammered his left forearm.
Thump!
Most of the impact vanished into the armor. Only a dull thud reached his skin.
He watched closely: the armor simply dimpled and rippled, then returned to normal—no damage at all.
"Defense is really solid," he muttered.
"And it seems to reinforce areas based on intent—thickening weak spots."
Then he tested movement and attacks.
A huge body plus stacked skills and spells produced terrifying results.
Haste.
Vampiric Touch.
…
It looked like a natural disaster tore through the snowfield—charging, stopping instantly, smashing the ground to gauge output—crater after crater.
When Gauss considered layering Ironscale Bloodline on top of all this, his body suddenly sent a sharp warning—like something catastrophic would happen if he pushed it further.
He hesitated, then stopped the idea.
Human bodies had limits. Stack too many amplifications and you'd snap like an overwound spring.
He'd already felt the early signs while testing spells and skills.
Compared to ordinary adventurers, he was stacking far too many buffs at once. If he didn't have a class specialty like Master of Stable Casting, he probably couldn't cast properly at all.
One more discovery: enlargement increased skill reach.
With Vampiric Touch, normally he could concentrate the power in his hand or extend a tentacle about a meter.
Now the range expanded to roughly four meters.
Even Magic Missile changed—its projectiles grew from fist-sized to head-sized, consuming more mana but hitting harder.
Gauss canceled Body Enlargement and Second-Tier Ghoul Form.
His mountain-sized body shrank back down, and the wraith armor returned to his body like smoke.
He took a few breaths.
The enhanced state burned stamina and energy faster, but it was still within acceptable limits—probably because evolving Ghoul Form reduced wasted drain.
Beast Breathing
He began breathing in a special rhythm, and his stamina recovered faster. His muscles loosened.
He ate a little.
After a short rest, he tested Ice Storm (Level 4).
Cold flooded from the white staff.
"Ice Storm!"
At the final syllable, moisture in the air rapidly condensed into a storm cloud.
A blizzard exploded into existence, filled with razor ice-crystals.
At the same time, fist-sized hail fell like a barrage.
Boom boom boom!
Each hailstone struck like a cannonball, then detonated with freezing mana, spreading pale-blue frost that locked everything it touched.
If enemies stood there, they'd be frozen solid in moments.
And the affected zone kept expanding—tens of meters… then a hundred… even two hundred, as Gauss continued feeding mana.
He could push it even further if he was willing to pay the cost.
After a while, Gauss stopped the spell.
He was satisfied.
Compared to Fireball, Ice Storm covered a wider area and wasn't a single burst. Fireball had terrifying central damage but fell off sharply at the edges; tougher elites could survive.
Ice Storm kept applying pressure, and it blended with ambient natural mana to amplify the effect.
Plus, his team carried Esvel's Blessing of Storm and Snow, giving them far better resistance to cold mana—one reason they'd fought so smoothly in snow battles.
Just as Gauss finished testing and prepared to head back—
His eyes snapped to the horizon.
In the snow haze, silhouettes appeared. Not one or two—a whole group.
They were stumbling forward, supporting each other.
Gauss immediately understood.
He summoned Hephaestus and vaulted onto the dragon's back.
Ahead, a crowd of refugees—families dragging what they could—staggered through the snow, frequently looking back in terror.
In the distance, a pack of pursuers riding dire wolves was closing in.
"Move! Grayrock's close!"
"We're almost there!"
"We can't outrun dire wolves!"
"There are too many elders and kids!"
Panic rippled through the crowd.
Just as the wolf riders drew near—
A thunderous roar split the sky.
Everyone flinched and looked up.
A pair of crimson wings swept overhead.
"Is that… a dragon?" someone whispered, swallowing hard.
They thought it was the end.
But the dragon didn't turn on them. It dove straight at the pursuers.
And a clear male voice carried through the cold air:
"Keep moving toward Grayrock. I'll handle them."
The words hit like a balm. The refugees steadied.
"Ice Storm!"
A savage blizzard erupted behind them.
Hail crashed down.
Some dire wolves died on impact.
Those that survived were instantly crippled by the freezing mana bursting from the hailstones—body temperature collapsing in seconds.
And the slicing windstorm shredded through them like blades.
Frost crawled over flesh like a poison, freezing riders and mounts alike into rigid ice sculptures.
In moments, the entire pursuit force—over a hundred creatures—became a frozen "exhibit" on the plains.
Gauss dispelled the spell.
The situation flipped instantly.
"We're saved…"
People who'd already lost homes and family, who'd been chased through the snow on empty legs, finally broke—tears spilling as they collapsed into the snow.
~~~
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