I had been at the Wall for eight days. During that time, I had tried to decipher the runes in the Wall, but I couldn't understand any of them. The only word I knew was "death." After a few days, I gave up on deciphering them and turned my attention to how the Wall had been built, but I hadn't made much progress there either.
The Wall was a ritual of such an advanced level that I couldn't even sense what elements it was made of. I could only sense how arcane power flowed inside it and where that power came from.
It carried mana to every corner of the Wall, like blood flowing through the body's veins, and this flow of mana had a rhythm, like a heart pumping blood through the body.
Every few seconds, a surge of mana spread throughout the Wall through what I could only call mana channels. Thanks to this magical heartbeat, the Wall had stood tall for eight thousand years. Strangely, although the Wall was clearly made of ice, I couldn't sense any ice element inside it.
So I didn't know what the Wall was made of or how it was constructed. It was like knowing that the human body had a circulatory system without understanding the structure of its bones, muscles, and skin.
I couldn't say this research had been useless. Watching mana move through such a massive structure had improved my control over my own mana. As a result, my maximum mana had increased by 25 points, and I now had 175 mana. Another benefit was that each of my buffs had either grown stronger or lasted longer.
I also knew exactly where the Wall's energy came from. Magic lines or ley lines, whatever you wanted to call them.
The Wall cut off these magic lines' passage south, so it had to be destroyed before magic could truly return to Westeros.
The main magic line should have spanned all of Westeros, but instead it powered the Wall. If the connections between the weirwood trees were thin veins, this magic network was like Westeros's carotid artery. Seeing this, I thought it was one of the major reasons magic had died out on this continent, and I thought the other major reason had to be the demise of the dragons.
Another thing I had gained was an improvement to the Verification function. Now I could learn entities' physical condition without fighting them or observing their movements.
All I had to do was send a wave of mana toward the entity I wanted to identify, and it worked like sonar. When the mana wave returned to me, I could clearly determine the creature's strength and speed. They no longer had a chance to hide their strength from me. Of course, this didn't work on creatures that were protected or had mana equal to or greater than mine.
Tomorrow I would head west to the other side of the Wall. I thought I had enough soul space to bond with another beast. I wanted to find a Shadowcat, wolf, or bear cub as my next companion. A Direwolf pup would be ideal, but they were rarer than diamonds.
The gates at the waypoints along the Wall only opened when Night's Watch soldiers went out on patrol. The same was true in the east, and getting past the Wall's eastern end was almost impossible because the Bay of Seals wasn't cold enough for the seawater to freeze; going around the Wall from the east was almost impossible.
My current campsite was between the castles of Icemark and Hoarfrost Hill. It was closer to Skull Bridge, the westernmost crossing; from now on, I could turn into a dog and easily cross to the other side of the Wall.
I continued training Bo to use magic every night, but the other familiars hadn't shown any magical abilities yet. I thought Erebus and Berus in particular wouldn't be able to cast spells.
First, they were both muscular fellows, and second, they had no mana hearts inside them, but they were both much stronger than they had been a month ago.
Berus in particular almost had the strength of an adult human. As for Im, because he had a mana heart, I hoped he would develop magical abilities too.
Since I would be setting out on my journey again tomorrow, I decided not to train today and to sleep for eight hours. I set out early the next morning.
Previously, I could only use Traceless Movement in the forest, and the spell was useless outside it.
Now I could use it anywhere. The only difference was that it wasn't as effective as it was in the forest. If I stepped on snow and mud in the forest, I could move forward without leaving any trace, and even if I walked on fifty centimeters of snow, I wouldn't sink into it. Outside the forest, however, this buff could only produce a third of its effect.
At present, the snow was thirty centimeters deep on average, but I only sank ten centimeters into it. The same was true when I buffed my horse. So weight had no effect. This buff would make the journey much easier and faster. I said it all the time, but I had to say it again. I loved magic.
After passing Skull Bridge, I continued north while sending Bo and Erebus's murder of crows out in every direction. I told them to look for large gray cats, giant wolves, and bears, but they hadn't found any yet. They had found plenty of wolves, but none were Direwolves, just ordinary wolves.
I walked along a stream for about five hours, while also using Promodynes (Find Animal) to search for Direwolves, Shadowcats, and bears.
I had expected the land north of the Wall to be full of wildlings, but although I had already spent nine hours north of the Wall, I hadn't encountered a single one. It was getting late, and I was beginning to feel tired. After finding something to eat, I created an earthen house and entered the training space to rest.
There were two differences between the lands north and south of the Wall. After spending a day here, I realized that winter south of the Wall wasn't a real winter. South of the Wall, the temperature was around minus five or ten degrees, while here it was at least minus twenty, if not lower. For the first time in my life, the snot running out of my nose froze into icicles. How could humans possibly live their entire lives here?