Life 69, Day 642.

  We stand at the foot of the Ice Cap range. The mountain rises almost all the way to the floating islands above us. I am dreading the ascension already.

  Everyone is ready. Hound is stronger than ever. Princess has mastered her nature oriented powers to yet unseen levels. Little Knight still has a hard time looking at me, but has exceeded his previous level by a fair margin.

  Only our dancing kirlia has me worried. He is as strong as most of the others, and has demonstrated it many times during raids and even attacks, but Princess assures me he should have changed by now. Evolved if I am to use the right term. Yet he stubbornly remains a kirlia, claiming he knows what he is doing.

  Sadly we can see the strain this reluctance seems to put on him, and we try to accompany him as much as we can.

  We are setting camp at the base of what I believe to be a natural trail toward the top of Icen Sky Peak. I do not know how high this mountain is, and I do not want to try and reach the top. I still remember stories of people left dead atop Earth highest mountain, never to be recovered, to know I have no chances to survive up there. Even with my companions, just going over the mountain will be a challenge. But still one I am willing to take on.

  I have survived for almost two years now, and I intend to keep going longer.

  Life 69, Day 712

  We are only halfway to up the mountain, and the trail we have been trying to follow is clearly taking us to the top. Two months and about nine days of trekking, nine raids, and we are still going strong. Even the two year raid did not stop us.

  Everyone is pulling their weight. We can do it. I am certain we will be able to get over this mountain in this life.

  Either tomorrow or the next day, we will reach a forest growing on a flatter part of the mountain. I hope we reach it in time, because it appears clouds are gathering, and I would hate to be stuck in the rain without some cover.

  Life 69, Day 733

  Stupid mutts! Idiotic mutts!

  I am Princess and I write for my Savior.

  We were traversing the forest, trying to reach a pass to cross over and encountered a threat none of us could do anything about.

  An enclave of zoroark have laid claim of the forest, and saw our arrival as an intrusion. They have gotten our savior killed, sent right into a crevasse where he still lies.

  Stupid mutts!

  Kirlia is preparing for a long range teleportation, but it will still take us multiple jumps before we return to his return point.

  Knight has once more turned into himself, and I am afraid of what he may do.

  Let us arrive soon enough for our savior to not waste another life

  We have been travelling along the lake for a month now, the sheer size of the inland body of water is mind-boggling to say the least. Our travels have been quiet. The raids still consist of a single cultist, making them no longer a problem, but still a topic of worry.

  We have encountered a village along our travels, and I tried to see if any of the local villagers would accept soul coins as a currency. Every single one of them recoiled in horror at the sight and chased me away. So that was mostly a waste.

  On another topic, I have discovered, with the help of Mewtwo, a worrying fact about myself. Right after killing the hunters, I felt myself argue with Aster's morals along with something else. At the time, I had though this second voice to be mine, but now I am certain, there is another sentience within me. And we have finally found out what it is. And it is worth some stress.

  With me reaching the baseline stats for my body, I have unlocked more than just the normal strength my body is supposed to have. I have unlocked multiple hidden systems along with it.

  That is why the Battletheme system was available, among other things, but also how it unlocked itself. I did not activate it. My body did. Somehow, the programs that had been made to support this body original purpose have activated. They have no control over me, but can act as support under specific situation. Like having my head about to be cleaved open by an axe. The programs activated the Battletheme, saving me, but also stopping me from having full control of myself. Killing the hunters was still my choice, as the battletheme system only helps one achieve their goal, it does not forces the individual to do anything they would not want to. I still could have stopped at any time.

  Yet the program has now taken it upon itself to be a little moral compass as well. Both it and Aster's fragmented soul are constantly arguing about right and wrong. Aster tries to mellow me, trying to appeal to my more humane side, while the program deals in pure absolute. If there is a threat, dispatch the threat.

  The constant conflict can thankfully be put in the background, but it raises a worrying point. Both are trying to influence me constantly, and as much as I search for a way to stop them, none seems to be apparent. I guess I will have to live with constant nagging at the back of my mind. Mewtwo still teases me about it as he is not able to truly hear them.

  Speaking of my tall psychic friend, he has also taken some time to think about what he did and said after the fight. He still feels no remorse for killing the hunters, but did concede that burying them was the least we should do. He will happily kill humans again though. He has assured me so. And I cannot fault him. I have no ways of faulting him.

  Thus have we traveled toward the mountain, and thus have we reached it.

  We are at the foot of the mountain, standing before mighty cliffs. The white and rusty orange rocks form a wall that we will need to overcome one way or another. Just as I think that, Mewtwo slowly begins to ascend with an absolutely blank expression.

  "Hey! That's cheating!" I jokingly complain.

  Get good flightless machine! He retort, going higher.

  "I may not have flight, but I got hands and feet!" I retort, jumping at the cliff.

  And just like that, I start climbing the hundred meters tall wall of rock. I easily find multiple holds for both my arms and feet. My ascension is fast, and easy. Even when I do not find any ways forward, I simply stab my left fingers into the rock, their metallic ends easily penetrating the soft rock making up the cliff.

  Mewtwo makes sure to show off how easy it is form him to just float up. He first sit on the air, looking bored as he follow my still slower way up.

  Well I'll be, you might get up this wall before nightfall. He comment in faked sarcasm.

  Fifteen minutes later, he changes his position to a lying one, faking a nap. Wake me when you clear the wall. I am unsure if the following yawn is faked or not, but it makes me attempt to move faster.

  Up the cliff we climb, higher and higher. At some point, I begin to jump from holds to holds, relying on my ability to simply create them by stabbing the rocks. This proves to be almost a mistake when my hand breaks a bit more than I expected.

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  My fingers stab at the rock and I clench my fist on dust and gravel. I barely have time to realize my mistake as gravity immediately makes sure to remind me it exists. I stab both my feet into the wall of rock, hearing the clang of metal against rock as my armor connects with the wall, and I end up in an upside down U position, only held by my feet.

  Mewtwo cracks an eyelid open at this point, and I see a shadow of worry pass over his eyes. But it quickly vanishes, and a smirk grows on his face. So? How is it hanging? He asks.

  "Fuck off," I laugh, not too bothered by the fall I barely avoided.

  I bend further backward, and sling myself back against the wall. I'll have to be more careful.

  My ascension continues for a good hour before I finally clear the cliff. According to the coordinates on my mapping system, I have just climbed about two hundred meters in an hour and a half.

  Mewtwo claps at my performance and get back on the ground. We turn around and take a minute to appreciate the view.

  From our height, we can see Raging Lake and the gradients of trees making up the forests that borders it. It is a beautiful sight.

  On our left, the cliff slopes down, and we can see, some couple kilometers from where we decided to go up, that a natural trail could have gotten us here without the exercise. On our right, the cliff gently slopes up, and seems to be leading toward one of the multiple waterfalls that supply Raging Lake. Behind us, is a harsh slope covered in close together oak trees.

  I want to go see the waterfall. Mewtwo confesses, his gaze turning right.

  "Any reasons in particular?" I ask him in curiosity.

  We have gone through enough forests as is, and I like the view. He replies.

  "Good enough for me." I declare, and we turn toward the distant fall.

  As we go, I take a look at what quests we could continue, but most would require us to settle for some time. Something we will need to do at some point.

  True, the night are a good source of experience for me, and Mewtwo self-training allows him to grow as well, but we are growing stagnant. I am afraid there will come a time when our exponential growth will turn linear or worse... logarithmic. Mewtwo has made an impressive breakthrough in his paths. During the fight with the hunters, he has unlocked the path of the venomous. More exactly, he has learned how to use poison type energy. He can now poison foes with a punch.

  Only the path of Darkness remains, but he has no idea where to start, and he regrets not asking for help back in the Sanctuary. It is a little too late to go back now though.

  The pleasant weather makes our travel to the nearest waterfall a calm one. We witness some birds and bird pokemons all around us, but the natural ones flee us and the pokemons simply eye us with suspicion. A wolf observes our passing from the covers of the trees, but does not attempts to attack us. Mewtwo informs me the wolf has left after we go far enough.

  We reach the waterfall by sunset, and the view is beautiful. Ages of erosion by the waterfall has made it come from a couple kilometers above us and fall right through the cliff. The uproar of the water is so loud I have to converse with Mewtwo through thoughts alone.

  We observe as a rainbow forms from the setting sun, making our view even more magical than before.

  A barely audible splash has us look closer to the pillar of water, and we realize there are actual fishes inside of it. More precisely, pokemons. the deep orange magikarps are fighting against both gravity and the strength of the water as they attempt to climb the waterfall. We can see the determination in their fishy eyes.

  As the sun set, we sit at the edge of the waterfall, and look at them. We do not intervene, this is nature at work, it is not our place to do its job. After an hour, most of the shoal has fallen back down, but a couple of the orange fishes still persist. One begins to shake furiously and swimming faster, and we look in awe as he barrels up the waterfall at high speed. The other, sadly, falls back down after failing to jump higher up the pillar of water. We watch as it tumbles back down the fall, hundreds of meters down.

  "I hope they all survive this fall..." I think with a wince.

  It is what they are meant to attempt. I am sure they will be fine. I can still feel them down at the bottom. They seem a bit bruised, but far from dead or dying. Mewtwo reassures me.

  A mighty roar makes us jump, and Mewtwo has to grab me as I almost slip from our seat into the fall. Once I am settled back, we look up, and witness something majestic.

  Coming from the ledge high above the mountain, from where the waterfall starts, is a massive sea serpent. It blue and cream body shines with moisture in the last rays of sun, and he roars again. A mighty gyarados has been born. He slowly circles down the waterfall, as if swimming through the air. He does not notices us, and we make sure it stays that way. The gigantic serpent passes us and we hold our breath. Just like the others from Raging Lake, his level is absurd. I am starting to understand why Raging Lake seemed so safe in a way. The pokemons around it are absurdly strong.

  Once we are sure the mighty serpent is far enough for him to no longer notice us, we get up, and move away from the waterfall. The noise fades, becoming a distant rumbling in the background.

  Mewtwo looks at where the waterfall begins, and I can already tell what he is going to ask before he does. I actually beat him to it. "Want to go see where all that water is coming from?"

  He turns to me with almost pleading eyes, and I laugh. "Alright, let's go."

  He beams at me, and we begin to trek upward. We sadly have to leave the somewhat rocky path we had been travelling upon and venture into yet another forest. This one is thick. Bushes grow beneath every trees, making it quite the chore for me to move. Mewtwo simply floats as I plow through the multiple layers of greenery.

  It is not all too bad though, as I do manage to find a couple new gardens I had not seen before. I collect new seeds for future crops. They will prove useful as I still need to have a 'varied' diet according to the system, to avoid reactor clogging. I feel like this is another restriction put there by the Trio just so they could make me as they did.

  Another silver lining is that as much as the bushes hinder me, they also hinder the monsters.

  As night has fallen, so have the monsters risen.

  Zombies are easy to deal with, as the environment makes them slower and clumsier than ever before. It is almost as if they are throwing themselves into my sword.

  Skeletons are slightly trickier, as they prefer to keep their distance. The trees once more play in my favor as they obscure me from them. They also play in their favor as I realize the only way to dispatch them will be to beat them at their own game. The bow duels that follow a skeleton appearance becomes a game of peek-a-boo on both sides.

  The only monsters that actually are a threat becomes spiders. The multi-legged bastards easily circumvent the natural barriers of bushes. They are still weaker than most monsters, so I can easily dispatch them, but the first one that jumps me does give me a scare. Mewtwo is actually forced to kill it as I am unable to fend it off.

  After a couple hours of trekking, we finally emerge from the forest, only to realize we are still a few dozen meters away from the origin of the waterfall. The good news is, there is cliff. It is far enough from the waterfall that moisture has not rendered it slippery, nor has erosion started eating at it.

  Mewtwo snickers while I sigh. See you at the top. He declares, taking off with a laugh.

  I roll my eyes and begin my second session of climbing for the day. As the wall of rock has a slight incline to it, it is easier to climb than the previous one.

  Problems arise as I reach the half-way point however. A ghostly screech freezes me in my tracks. I look around, trying to locate its source, but it finds me before I can.

  A massive manta like creature latches onto me, trying desperately to bite and scratch at me. I flail and try to remove the monster from myself, but another one joins the first, soon followed by a third.

  Their weight is enough for me to let go of the holds, and I fall. The phantoms immediately fly away from me.

  I land with a crunch of metal and before I can get back up or even assess the damages, the monsters are back. Once more they latch onto me, biting and scratching uselessly against my armor. This time however, my arms are free.

  A quick slash from my sword sees one lose a wing, and the others fly back to the sky. I take out my bow and attempt to shoot at them. I manage to touch one, but my arrow only tears some of the washed blue fabric that makes up their wings.

  With the short reprieve, I take a look at myself and realize one of my legs is bent. The damage quickly disappear, but the implication is clear. I am not immune to wounds from falls.

  The phantoms circle above me, and then dive for me once more. They never reach me. Two spheres of purple energy impact them, and only their remains fall upon me.

  Astra! You okay? Mewtwo calls from the top of the small cliff.

  "Could be better. Cover me, I coming." I call out to him.

  I get back on the cliff and climb once more. Another couple or screeches echo above me, but they are followed by the deep rumble of shadow balls from Mewtwo.

  When I reach the top of the cliff, Mewtwo helps me up. Another couple of phantoms descend upon us, but Mewtwo's attacks and my arrows quickly dispatch them.

  With a moment of peace once more, we move away from the cliff and behold what feeds the waterfall.

  Descending along the face of Icen Sky Peak is a massive glacier. It is still some hundreds of meters above us, but we can easily reach it by following the hundreds of small streams originating from it.

  All those streams gather in a surprisingly small reservoir, and their combined flow is enough for gallons of water to be sent above the rock wall and turn it into a massive waterfall.

  As we behold the sight, I notice something higher along the glacier. A forest of tall, pointy trees, covered in snow. I know that forest, as it correspond to what Aster encountered when he attempted to cross Ice Cap range for the first time.

  Mewtwo notices my gaze, and he nods. This is our next destination, both because we want to meet the zoroark enclave living there, but also because it is the shortest way to the top of Icen Sky Peak.