Frostbound

"Are you sure about this?" I asked skeptically as my eyes roved the building in front of me. The heat rolled off the building and distorted the air if I looked close enough.

It reminded me of when it was me standing where Vincent was getting asked the same question. When I was the center of everyone's worried glances and expressions of pity.

"Were you?" He asked in response, which was as good a response as any.

I knew the pain that he was in for.

Looking at what was built to contain the fires needed for the process, I had to say it didn't look like a fun time. At least it was built solidly and didn't have glowing lines strewn all over it like mine did.

After the castle was finished, Vincent had asked for a few of the construction workers' help in building this monstrosity. I had agreed to his request, as it was only a small portion of our workforce that he needed, and it would help both him and Rachel.

After hearing some of the newcomers' stories, advancement was a hard thing to postpone without good reason. Especially with the knowledge of certain new threats our world would face.

Similar to the Wind chamber I had built so long ago, Vincent had done the same, but with fire.

He and Rachel had gotten together to examine all the secrets of their technique book and come up with this to facilitate the process. Maybe it was envy or jealousy, but their technique was better than mine.

It didn't have better benefits or anything, as all Body Refinement grades were about equal, but it had way more options. When I bought mine, I knew exactly what I wanted and only bought the one specific technique I needed.

To keep the cost low.

But they bought theirs at the end from the Reward store which had a lot more options. The one they ended up getting was a branching technique book that had multiple different ones to choose from depending on the exact effect you wanted.