Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

When Mira's consciousness appeared back in her original body, a 10 Liter jug of blood appeared on her lap simultaneously.

It took Mira a few minutes to adjust to her body, especially after spending almost 40,000 years inside of the trial world, but oddly enough, those 40,000 years felt like nothing more than a blip of time.

It didn't feel like she had just spent the last 40,000 years as a beast; instead, it felt like she only spent a few months as a beast, and there was this weird disconnect between her mind and body.

After about 15 minutes, Mira was finally able to adjust to her body, and the first thing she did was look down at the massive jug of blood in her lap.

As soon as she looked at it, pieces of information about it entered her mind.

'Sub-Zero 9-Tailed Fox Progenitor Blood Essence'

Apparently, there hasn't been another 9-Tailed Fox to control the power of ice, making Mira the progenitor of the bloodline in both the trial world and the real world.

That's not to say that other 9-Tailed Foxes can't or don't control the power of ice. It's just that they possess other elements as well. For example, many 9-Tailed Foxes specialize in illusions, or if they control the elements, they can control all of them.

9-Tailed Foxes rarely specialize in a single element like ice; even if they did, they certainly wouldn't specialize in ice. Fire, Light, or Darkness would be the most likely elements for 9-Tailed Foxes to specialize in, but Mira wouldn't know that.

As for what it means to be a progenitor of a race, well, there are many benefits, one of them being her strength and comprehension in whatever her bloodline specializes is on another level compared to those that aren't progenitors.

As for the rest of the benefits, Mira will have to discover those herself as the F.LD.I.L didn't provide her with any more information.

Mira was also curious as to why she had so much Blood Essence, but when she remembered back to her gigantic body, it made sense. Her heart was the size of a village or maybe even a city. It would only make sense if she had stored multiple liters of Blood Essence in her body.

If she only had a small drop of Blood Essence in her body, as her human body does, then there's simply no way she'd be as strong as she was.

There's that and the fact that this was one of the benefits of her bloodline and also her being a progenitor.

Mira stared at the massive jug of blood in front of her for a bit longer, feeling a sudden urge to devour and absorb it right then and there, but she managed to stop herself from doing so. Although the benefits would be massive if she were to absorb it right now, they would be even more significant if she used this blood to form her Core. She didn't know how it would be better for her to wait or what kind of benefits she'd get from waiting, but she knew they'd be significant.

Mira stared at it for a bit longer before commanding the F.LD.I.L to put it in her Storage Space.

It wouldn't be long before she'd be able to put that Blood Essence to good use…

"How much time is left until my two years are up?" Mira asked seemingly nobody, but she knew The Guardian was listening.

Sure enough, a voice resounded in her head a second after she asked that.

"You have around 160 days left until your two years are up." The Guardian said before going silent.

Mira didn't say anything after she heard that number, but she would be lying if she said she wasn't nervous after hearing what the Guardian said.

That's only a little more than five months left! Five months to complete two trials! Just that last one took her roughly five months, and now she has to complete two of them within that time frame?!

Unfortunately, complaining about it won't solve anything. In fact, that's the worst thing she can do at this moment, as every second counts.

Right now, she has to decide which trial to do next, but Mira has long decided which one she needs to do next.

She figured it would be best to choose the Samsara Dogwood Tree trial next. She felt like this trial, in particular, had a set amount of time that she'd be in it. Just from the name of the item alone, Mira could make a few guesses as to what this trial will be about, and all of these guesses led her to believe that no matter how long she was in the trial, only a set amount of time will pass in the outside world.

Well, it's not like it really matters which trial she actually picks first. She still has to do her best either way, and if she doesn't finish in time even after doing her best, then she can only say that she wasn't fated for this Core Formation Recipe…

At least that's what Mira wished she could say. In reality, she would be fucking pissed if she wasn't able to form that Core after spending so much time and effort in trying to do it.

So, without wasting any more time, Mira mentally accepted the trial for the [Samsara Dogwood Tree].

Immediately, the F.LD.I.L dragged her consciousness out of her body and sent it inside the trial world.

***

Mira's consciousness was placed inside a sapling in the trial world, but the strange part was that Mira couldn't think or do anything. The only thing she could do was, well, be a tree.

She couldn't try to determine the trial's goal, and she couldn't look for any solutions to get out of her current predicament; hell, she couldn't even formulate any thoughts.

All she could do was follow the instincts of a tree. She spread her roots in search of more water and nutrients. She moved her branches so the leaves could absorb more sunlight and used these nutrients to promote her growth, but this was all she could do.

Time quickly passed, and soon 200 years went by, yet Mira still couldn't formulate any thoughts. In fact, she didn't even know that she couldn't formulate any thoughts. All she knew was that she was a tree and needed to grow.

However, after those 200 years, the tree Mira was in withered and died, but this wasn't the end for Mira.

Throughout the tree's life, it dropped many seeds, and as the tree died, Mira's consciousness was quickly transferred into one of those seeds.

Then, she went through the same exact process again. She absorbed the nutrients around her, grew up, and died around 150 years later.

This process kept repeating itself over and over again for thousands of years. Mira went through countless cycles of life and death for what seemed like hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years, until one day, something extraordinary happened.

All this time, Mira's consciousness has occupied the offspring of the same tree she started in. There wasn't anything special about this tree. No heaven-defying fruits, no incredibly long life, it didn't gain sentience, nor was its wood very strong. It was just an ordinary tree.

However, the only thing special about this specific tree was that whenever it died, a new tree would sprout in the exact same place, and Mira's consciousness would always be in these trees without fail.

So, whether it was because these seeds had Mira's consciousness inside them or something else, after so many years of death and rebirth, the tree began to change.

However, this wasn't something that could just happen in a few years. No, the change happened slowly over another countless cycles of death and rebirth.

Slowly, the leaves on the trees began to change, where half of the leaves would be white while the other half would be black, and a mysterious power started surrounding the trees.

After another few hundred thousand years, the tree had finished its change and became something else entirely. Now, instead of the tree dying and another seed taking the dead tree's place, it would revert itself back into a seed and regrow from there when the tree reaches the end of its life.

After the tree's transformation, it continued to undergo countless more deaths and rebirths, although this time, saying that the tree died wouldn't necessarily be accurate.

After another unknown amount of time, the tree trunk started to turn a different color. Now, instead of brown, the trunk was turning into a yellowish color.

It wasn't until another few hundred thousand years that the tree trunk had completed its transformation.

Once it finished its transformation, Mira's consciousness was suddenly taken out of the tree and placed back inside her real body. Yet, strangely enough, Mira's body remained unresponsive…