The Messenger of Death

-Ping!

*Awaiting the user's command.

The system responded to Alex's call.

"How do ice formulate?" He questioned.

"Huh, don't expect me to answer that question?" Nana thought that he was asking her about that.

"I wasn't talking to you," Alex said rudely.

Somehow, Nana took offense to that. 'Sometimes I forget that my disciple is just as rude as I am. I will let this slide, only because of the similarities between the two of us.' She thought.

"Aren't you going to head down to the library to search for the answers there?" She asked when she noticed that Alex had no intentions of getting up from the chair that he was seated on.

"Nah, I have my own library." He pointed at his face.

Nana didn't understand what he meant by that, but she could tell that he was pointing at the treasure that she couldn't see through. Nonetheless, she decided to wait and see what he was going to come up with.

-Ping!

*Answering the user;

*Ice is a solid substance produced by freezing water vapor or liquid water. At a temperature below 0°C, water vapor develops into frost at ground level and snowflakes in clouds. Below the same temperature, liquid water forms a solid, as, for example, sea ice.

Ice is the solid-state of water…

The system gave Alex a very detailed answer and he didn't know which of them to pick from. He read through it for a while, then he selected the answers that he felt were suitable enough as answers for the question and relayed them to Nana.

While Alex was relaying his answers to her, Nana couldn't help but feel dumb. Some of the things that Alex mentioned, she had no knowledge of it. Although he had already answered her question and it was correct – to the best of her knowledge.

When he was done she just kept on staring at him weirdly.

The things that he mentioned were information that her clan's knowledgeable people found hard to comprehend, and the books that they had were limited, yet, her disciple just figured it out by talking about it.

It then hit her that he had a treasure with him.

"By any chance, was it the treasure on your face that gave you answers about that?" She questioned.

"Yes."

Nana's curiosity started to eat at her, she was one that liked knowledge. "Can I see the treasure?" She requested.

Alex could see the plea in her eyes as she stared at him. He sighed and chose to consult his alternate personalities first.

['What do you guys think? Should I show it to her?'] He questioned.

['I don't see any issue in doing that. She already knows about it, but she has never seen it. She said that she wasn't going to take the skin crawler from us, and even if she does she wouldn't be able to use it.'] Lex responded.

['Same here, I don't see anything wrong in doing that.'] Xander concurred.

Alex waited for a few more seconds to hear Al's thoughts.

['What about you, Al?']

['Do what you want, just know that I am against it. Since the majority carries the vote, it wouldn't matter if I voiced my opinion. The more people that know about the skin crawler, the more dangerous it gets for us, whether they are allies or enemies.'] Al answered.

['Uh, okay.'] What Al mentioned had no ounce of falseness in them, however, Alex didn't mind showing the mask to Nana too. So he ignored rationality and risk it.

He raised his left hand and used his index finger to tap his temple, 3 times. After he did that, the thousands of tiny needles that had implanted their selves in his face, started to retract. The skin crawler's camouflage turned off, revealing its thin metallic structure.

Alex used his hand to remove the mask from his face.

When Nana saw this, she was stupefied. She couldn't believe that it was something like this she couldn't see through, and also the thing that had all that knowledge within it. Nana inspected the skin crawler carefully, she was looking for the signs of runes inscribed on it.

She thought that there had to be runes on it for her not to be able to see through the mask. After checking it out for a while, Nana's pride was hit, she didn't see any rune on it. But how could she? The person that inscribed the runes on the skin crawler is a sovereign – Mr. Guardian. As compared to her, Mr. Guardian is legions ahead of Nana.

So it was normal and understandable that she couldn't find a trace of that on the mask.

"Where did you get this? It has the same information that is in the books my ancestors procured, and even more. Are there more like this?" She panicked a bit.

Nana knew that her clan's fortune didn't only come from the blessing that they got from the ice phoenix, it was also as a result of the knowledge that they possess, the science of things from the logical and scientific perspective, and not the cultivation-wise orthodoxy.

Her clan has tried all they could to learn more and integrate the knowledge from the books that they procured with the one that was quintessential here, in this part of the universe. Yet, her disciple possessed something like this that contained more knowledge than they did.

She felt something she rarely ever feel, Nana was feeling threatened. She wasn't feeling this threat because of Alex, but from the skin crawler. Something this amazing contained information that could topple the balance of power in the celestial plain realm.

"How many more of this exist?" She blurted out while her eyes were stilled glued to the mask.

"There are probably over a thousand in existence." He answered truthfully.

"What!!?" Nana exclaimed.

Alex could tell what Nana's fear was, she had told him the reasons why her clan was able to remain strong, and the existence of the mask was a threat that they might not be able to counter. So he chose to alleviate her worries by letting out a few more details about the mask.

"Don't worry, no one can use the mask apart from me. If they try to, then it will self-destruct. And the only people that own a skin crawler are those from the place that I was raised." He revealed.

"Where do you come from?" Nana questioned. She wanted info about the location of Alex's origin.

"Far, far away. Don't worry Nana, they can't make it to this part of the universe." He replied.

"Why? How did make it here then?"

"It is complicated, and I was told not to tell anyone." He said sternly.

"And if I do meet them, those people that come from the place I was raised, I will kill every one of them." He declared.

The flames of determination shone brightly in Alex's, eyes, making every doubt and that little panic that Nana had, disappeared.

After locking gaze for a while, Nana chose to give up on asking him about this. "In the future, I will need your help when I'm making researches. With the information that is within this mask of yours, I can even get stronger." She uttered.

"Let us return to what we were doing. Now that you know how to make ice, it shouldn't be hard for you to understand its process right?"

"I understand it, I need to conjure water first then manipulate the temperature to the freezing point. The shape of the water will determine the shape of the ice." Alex mentioned what he understood.

"Good, now make a snowflake."

"Huh? So soon?" He asked.

"Yes so soon, what else do you still want to do? You already understand the how, you just need to gain the experience."

"But Nana-"

"If you say another word, I'll take you back to that forest behind the snow-covered mountain." She interrupted him with a threat.

Alex drew in air through his mouth as he held his words back. He nodded his head and proceeded to attempt the creation of ice.

['Make some water first.'] Al whispered.

['Shut up, I know that.'] Alex retorted.

['Shut up and focus.'] Al said.

Alex started to create droplets of water, he was only able to create a few of them. 

"Steady, steady. The moment you lose control is the moment they deform." Nana directed. "Now use your QI to change the temperature surrounding the droplets of water that you have created, and once that is done, you can decide its shape." She added.

Alex could feel the QI in his core deplete faster than it has ever done. His breathing started to change and it was getting harder to cope with what he was doing.

Nonetheless, Alex kept on going. He began changing the temperature surrounding the droplets of water that he had made, making the temperature drop to the point of freezing.

Slowly, the droplets started to turn to ice…