[Winter’s Breath (Ritual)]
[Related Domains: Ice and Frost, Light, Death]
[Ritual Environment: Daytime, outdoors, and the outdoor temperature allows water to naturally freeze]
[Ritual Materials: Influence: Any influence from the domain of Ice and Frost (required), Material: Twelve corpses that have lost their warmth and are intact (required), Magical Object: Ice block sealed with light (required), blizzard weather (additional), hailstorm weather (additional), downpour weather (additional), the corpse of a Transcendent (additional), "Old Grandmother’s" true name (additional), Mr. Radiance’s true name (additional)]
[Ritual Description: In this ritual, the carrier of the influence must be the ritual conductor; the conductor will place all the corpses at the twelve positions of a clock, facing upwards and inwards with their mouths open. There are no requirements for the posture of the corpses, but their poses must be as identical as possible. Place the ice block sealed with light in each person’s mouth, and the conductor stands in the center of all the corpses, maintains natural breathing, and waits for the ice to melt, with additional materials to be added at this time. If all ice blocks melt before sunset, the ritual is accomplished.]
[Ritual Effect: The conductor’s Ritual Spell "Winter’s Breath" will transform into the heterogenous ability "Winter’s Breath." This effect will last for twelve winters.]
[Winter’s Breath (Heterogenous): Can freely transform breath into "Winter’s Breath," which will continue to consume Order Mana.]
Although Annan knew that a skill that required a very difficult task chain... or rather, an achievement unlock was definitely very strong, but not knowing the specific abilities...
...No, I can ask, right?
Annan suddenly remembered that he was no longer alone!
He also had a mirror!
At this thought, Annan turned out the Mirror Man’s Mirror of Birth.
Because seeing this mirror would cost him his lifespan, Annan covered it with a cloth. As a result, because he could not see it, Annan almost forgot about it...
Annan took the curtain off the mirror and cast his gaze into it.
Perhaps due to the enhancement of his perception attribute... Annan clearly felt something permanently leaving his body this time.
It was a day of his life.
"Michelangelo Buonarroti... are you there?"
Annan hesitated for a moment, but still chose the Mirror Man’s "past" name.
Although he knew that the two forms of the Mirror Man should have the same knowledge, he instinctively felt that the older one might know more...
After a brief delay, the mirror surface rippled like water.
An elder with white hair and a beard, whom Annan had never formally met, appeared in the mirror.
His face was solemn, yet his tone was gentle, "What is it, Annan?"
"I want to inquire about..."
Annan quickly asked his question.
Michelangelo nodded his head.
He indeed knew the answer.
"You actually know what Winter’s Breath is."
Upon hearing this, Michelangelo chuckled and responded.
...Are all you people from the School of Prophets ?
Annan immediately muttered to himself in annoyance.
But wait, if I knew...
Annan suddenly paused, realizing something.
"Is it... Old Grandmother’s?"
"Right, you guessed correctly," Michelangelo said slowly, "It’s the blizzard that the Old Grandmother breathes out during her slumber... the blizzard that envelops the entire realm of Winter, capable of acting as a barrier to isolate and freeze curses.
"This is a ’dragon’s breath’ ability with the Old Grandmother’s characteristics. Among all heterogenous abilities, it is considered a rare type... Your possession of Old Grandmother’s bloodline will make it more powerful than it would be for others. Of course, it definitely won’t be as strong as when the Old Grandmother releases it herself..."
"...I know this." said Benjamin, nodding.
He had a sense of urgency in his mind—the ritual itself was quite difficult, but not to such an extreme degree.
Moreover, Benjamin had a vague impression of this ability...
In Nightmare: White Tower, when Merlin realized Maria was in danger and stood in front of her, he seemed to have used a similar spell ability.
He took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, letting the air seep out of his lungs as if he were smoking, a white mist emerging from his nose and mouth. White frost could be seen coming out of his eyes and ears, as the temperature of the air around him dropped rapidly to a palpable degree.
This was still Merlin’s nightmare, after all.
The spell he acquired should be the "Winter’s Breath" Merlin was preparing.
Although Benjamin didn’t know what would have happened if Merlin had actually breathed it out...
But just charging it up to have such effects...
A thought crossed Benjamin’s mind.
...It seemed quite attractive?
"As a characteristic inherent to the grandmother herself, it is a kind of heterogeneous ability... Abilities acquired through rituals for a prolonged time are broadly categorized as ’heterogeneous’ and ’trait-based’ types.
"Heterogeneous abilities are the body possessing a kind of mutation that is close to divine. For example, Noah’s shadow demon who can give life to her own shadow is a heterogeneous ability. As for your Winter’s Heart Curse Binding, if it fully awakens, it too will hatch into a twisted-tier heterogeneous ability.
"Trait-based abilities, on the other hand, are about invoking some otherworldly creature to merge with oneself and bestow special blessings. They do not change organs or alter souls. Usually, heterogeneous abilities last for years, while trait-based abilities cannot be preserved for more than a day after the ritual ceremony or its completion in the original ritual site.
"More common trait-based abilities include the fire and creation god Vulcan’s ’Flame Breath’ and the light and purification god Mr. Radiance’s ’Purifying Touch.’ The former enables the one conducting the ritual to breathe fire... although it sounds similar to Winter’s Breath, it is, in fact, a special ability of Vulcan’s Transcendent ’Forging Spirit’... You can think of it as, when he makes a ’breathing out’ action, the Forging Spirit attached to him also synchronously breathes fire at enemies or into his creations. The latter is when the ’Lake Fairy’ is summoned into the ritual site, and as long as you’re within its proximity, you can borrow the Lake Fairy’s ’Purifying Touch’ ability."
Michelangelo, the man in the mirror, patiently explained to Benjamin.
Benjamin immediately realized—the first ritual ability he encountered, "Mirror’s Tongue," was indeed a trait-based ability.
"Is Kafney’s ability from a ritual?" he asked. "Do you know whose ritual it is?"
"That’s the ritual of Lady Silence, ’Shadow Activation.’ It’s the heterogeneous ability of Lady Silence. She herself can freely shape any shadow she touches into various forms... be it flame, web, chariots, castles, or even beasts, monsters, or people," Michelangelo replied. "From what I saw that day, what Kafney got must be ’Shadow Activation - Tentacle Form.’ She’s smart, choosing a form that’s not too difficult to shape but has a lot of potential... These tendrils are connected to her on a mental level, expanding her range of perception, and naturally, they can be augmented like parts of her own body."
Benjamin was taken aback.
He had thought it was a boon from some False God.
To think it was actually from a True God...
Did Kafney actually have contact with Lady Silence?
"Then, one last question," Benjamin said, following that thought. "Do you know of nightmares with a ’memory’ feature? And what is this memory collection?"
"...That is one of the simplest yet most difficult Twisted-tier nightmares," Michelangelo paused before answering. "If the nightmare is Twisted-tier and ’the possessed’ is your past self, it may trigger the memory feature. With the memory feature, the nightmare won’t distort or abstract the past as normal nightmares do; it’s completely accurate to history—unless you fail to play the role of yourself and are exposed, at which point an enemy named ’Memory Fragment’ will appear. A Memory Fragment could be any enemy of yours from the past, and once it appears in the memory, the ’memory’ feature begins to deteriorate...
"When the nightmare has the memory feature, you don’t have to think too much. Just act as you did in history, and you can complete it. That’s the simple side.
"The difficult part is, you have to reverse your thought process, do what you dared not do, think what you dared not think is possible, to completely unravel the core of the nightmare. It means you have to conquer the past version of yourself, reverse your thought process... you have to change things that happened in the past.
"And if you perfectly unravel the nightmare and continuously succeed in playing yourself, you’ll complete ’memory collection.’ It represents confronting your own inner self—and the ’memory objects’ themselves are advancement materials for some special professions. I also know a ritual that deepens the extraction of the essence by burning a large number of memory objects during the advancement to Gold. In short, this is a very precious thing..." Michelangelo paused again, then added in a lower voice, "Also... Benjamin has been waiting for a ’memory’ of his own."