The Mage of Primordial Chaos

The first thing I noticed after being teleported was the raging snowstorm. It was clearly a lot stronger than it had been just now, and by the looks of it...

"Ugh... are we on top of a mountain?!" Xiang Peng shouted through the storm, unable to see.

"Tch..." I quickly cast a spell to ease the situation a bit.

Level One Wind Magic - Wind Barrier.

I set up a wind barrier in the direction the snow was coming from, and it helped - though not by much.

"Looks like we got the short end of the stick, huh?" Feng Mian said, quickly ducking behind the wall I had set up. The other girls immediately followed suit. Thanks to my Chaos amplifying ability, the wall I had conjectured was big enough to cover all ten of us.

"For now, we should work on getting down from here," Yu An Yan said. "There's no way we'll be able to do anything in this weather. It's freezing."

"Everyone who has Sky Magic, fly down on your own. I'll carry the rest down one by one," I suggested.

Amane tilted her head. "Nya, bwut what if there's a map piece up here?"

"Not all of us need to be up here for that," Obsidia replied. "The whole point of us being in large groups of ten people is so that we know how to assign roles and distribute tasks according to each member's strengths and weaknesses."

"I agree," Lan Xiao Su added. "The people with Sky Magic can return back up here to search."

Qing Yue shivered and wrapped my cloak around her tighter. "W-When are we going to go?"

"Right now," I answered, before promptly picking her up in a princess carry. I was prioritizing her because she was vulnerable to the cold.

Yu An Yan, Xiang Peng, Mei Gui, and I all took off into the air, casting Flight on ourselves. We descended down the mountain as fast as we could. It was quite a long way down, but we managed to get there in a little over a minute. Upon landing, I set Qing Yue down and immediately moved to go back up again.

"Xuan Kai, I can help carry someone too," Xiang Peng suggested, and I nodded.

"Sure, come along."

She gave a thumbs-up and took off into the air with me. She was a soldier, so her muscle strength wasn't to be doubted. In fact, she was probably stronger than me in terms of arm muscles alone.

The two of us headed up and brought down the remaining girls in pairs. Once we were all down, we began exploring around. We seemed to be in an alpine forest of some sort. Of course, all the leaves had fallen, and snow had accumulated on the branches. Still, it seemed to be a forest of some sort, given the thick trunks. It was also still snowing down here, but a lot weaker. The temperature was now manageable despite the relatively thin clothes we were wearing.

"I wonder, where is this place?" Feng Mian asked as we walked. "It's February already, no? It's rare to see such heavy snowfall still."

"Hm... The North or South Pole, maybe?" Qing Yue shrugged.

"No, I don't think the North Pole has any mountains... as for the south pole, it doesn't actually snow a lot there, if I remember correctly, right?" Yu An Yan said.

I nodded. "I don't think it's either of those places. In fact... I don't think this is a real place on the planet at all."

"Hm? Then, where is this?" Lan Xiao Su asked, confused.

"I assume it's similar to the places within those portals at the Library of Infinite Beginnings. Y'know, where we fight the Gatekeepers, just on a much greater scale in terms of size," I replied.

"Huh, I see. That's interesting," Feng Mian murmured. "But to manifest one of this size, that's gotta take some really powerful Space Magic, right?"

"Definitely," Xiang Peng replied. "But the ones who are hosting this event are the IMF. I wouldn't be too surprised if they could make a full-on alternate reality of the world using Space Magic."

After a short while of walking, we came across what looked to be a wooden house.

"Hm? What's this?"

Naturally, we immediately went closer to it to check it out.

I made a move to enter through the non-existent door, but Mei Gui pulled on my arm. "Master, this could be dangerous."

I nodded. "I know. Don't worry about it."

Hearing my words, she let go of my arm, and I cautiously entered the building. Inside was a bed, a table, and most importantly, a closed chest.

Level One Poison Magic - Detect Poison.

Running this detection spell on the whole room, I sighed in relief as nothing came up. Then, moving closer to the chest, I opened it slowly. Luckily, no spikes shot out of it or anything of the sort. Even if something did, I was confident I would be able to dodge it, given all the practice I got in Count Draculus's death castle a while back.

Inside the chest were clothes - winter vestments, to be particular. Two coats, four mittens, and even two pairs of snow pants. After running another Detect Poison on these articles, I took everything out and threw them towards the door, where Mei Gui and the other girls caught them. At the very bottom were three two pairs of boots. I took them out as well but didn't throw them at the girls this time for obvious reasons.

Once I took everything, I immediately left the house.

"None of the stuff there is poisoned," I said. "I checked already."

"That's great! We'll have proper clothing made for this weather at last!" Qing Yue cheered. Naturally, she was the most excited one about this discovery since she had always been afraid of the cold.

"There's only enough here for two people though... " Feng Mian murmured, slightly dejected.

"That's fine. Not everyone needs a full set," I replied. "We can split things up. For example, if we give people a glove each, that's enough to accommodate four people instead of just two."

"I see. Then, how're we going to split this?" Yu An Yan asked. "Personally, I'm fine. I don't feel cold at all."

"... I am fine as well..." Yu An Xue added quietly. "I have... an Ice Element affinity..."

"In that case, I'm alright without anything too," Feng Mian said. "Just like An Xue, I have an Ice Element affinity."

"Well... for starters, I want to give Qing Yue a full set," I said overprotectively. "She's the most vulnerable to the cold out of all of us here. Any objections?"

Everyone shook their heads... with the exception of the person in question.

"H-Huh? But that's unfair to everyone else!" Qing Yue cried.

"Relax, Qing Yue. You're sensitive to the cold, so it only makes sense you need a full set. Don't worry, we're perfectly alright," Lan Xiao Su comforted. "It would be a different story if we were still on top of that mountain, but now that we're down here, especially with this forest surrounding us, it's a lot less cold and manageable."

"B-But..." she looked like she still wanted to argue, but met with the stern gazes of the other girls, she eventually succumbed. "Alright then. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Big Brother Xuan Kai!"

She gratefully accepted the set we offered her, taking off my cloak and handing it back to me. Then, as I put my own cloak back on, she slipped on the coat. She then went inside the house and sat on the bed, taking off her shoes and putting on the snow pants, before finally putting on the boots.

After several minutes, she came out, slipping on the mittens and putting on the coat's hood. "All set!"

I smiled. "Alright. Now, as for the rest of these..."

"Master, I do not need anything because I am unaffected by the cold," Mei Gui said stoically. "Besides, I am already wearing a cloak."

"I see... I already have this cloak too, that's good enough," I muttered. "Amane, are you fine?"

"E-Eh? Nya... yeah, I'm fwine!"

She certainly didn't look fine. She hadn't been talking at all, and had been hugging herself until I called her out just now.

"Most demihumans are sensitive to the cold," Obsidia explained.

"W-Wha, n-nya! She's lying!"

There you have it. I sighed. "Take the coat, Amane."

"I-I already said, it's fwine!"

"Are you going to take it yourself or are you going to make me forcefully put it on you?"

Faced with these words, she had no choice but to succumb and took the coat from my hands gratefully.

"S-Sowwy, Xuwan Kwai..."

"What are you apologizing for?" I chuckled.

After that, I distributed the snow pants to Lan Xiao Su, who had been wearing fairly thin pants; the mittens to Yu An Xue, whose hands were getting red from the cold, and the boots to Mei Gui, whose shoes weren't the best.

With that settled, we continued past the cabin and continued exploring the forest.

For the record, I looked everywhere inside the house for a white container - there was no map piece.