Kaiser of the New World

Time.

It was only after Kai got chained in this cell that he realised that he had been taking the concept of time for granted.

It was a sort of staple for his mind. People liked to know what time it was, what time of day it was, it was kind of like being assured they were actually living.

But in this cell, with no proper light and no way to tell the time, Kai really didn't know what to think.

It felt like a couple of hours had passed, but he couldn't be sure. For all he knew it could have only been twenty minutes.

But still, Kai felt strangely peaceful. This was the first time in his life where he had done... nothing.

Even when he was trapped in the white room he still had some options of what to do because he wasn't chained up, here he didn't have any of that freedom.

While he was leaning back against the wall, Kai heard footsteps approaching from the left of his cell. Sitting up, he watched as a guard approached the bars at the front of his cell with a tray of food.

The guard was wearing a set of silver armour and had a helmet covering their face, they also had a scabbard and sword attached to their hip.

The tray of food in their hands was rather thin, not really the average shape of a tray. It was also made of ice, making Kai kind of confused. The guard then placed the tray on the ice floor and pushed it in between two of the ice bars, making Kai realise why the tray was that thin.

The guard didn't say anything, they simply walked away after the food had been delivered.

Looking down at the tray by his feet, Kai help but sigh. Sitting on the tray was a couple of pieces of bread with bits of mold on them, a bowl of some strange broth and another bowl of drinking water.

Kai always thought that those prison stories were exaggerated, being fed moldy bread and all that, but now he was learning that they were in fact true.

He had never eaten moldy bread before, well, not on purpose anyway, there had been a couple of times where he had eaten some accidently, but he always threw it out after.

But now... this was his dinner.

Managing to grab the edge of the ice tray with his free hand, Kai pulled it towards him and picked up one of the pieces of bread. He dipped it into the strange broth before taking a bite of it.

It was not nice, to say the least.

Mentally preparing himself, Kai continued to eat the meal until it was all gone.

However, Kai had to gag as he felt something break in his mouth after biting into a piece of bread, something hard.

Spitting it out onto the tray, Kai saw the remnants of some strange glass fade away into the air inside the mush, like it had never been there to begin with.

"What the fuck?"

Confused, Kai thought that maybe Anastasia had put something in his food to put him under her hex again, but no, he knew now from looking back that to activate her hex she had to initiate physical contact, that's why she had been so handsy with him in his first few days here.

Patting his head, touching his cheek, feeling his thigh, all of that was what had added together to enchant Kai, each instance slowly building up the hex until he couldn't resist it anymore.

So it couldn't have been Anastasia, but-

Kai groaned as he felt a headache coming on. It wasn't as bad as the pain from the collar, but it wasn't nice either.

Images flashed in his mind, making him close his eyes and try to take deep breaths. It was like he was seeing the past again, remembering what had happened to him.

When the headache was gone, he couldn't actually remember what he had seen. It was like he had seen his memories, but he couldn't remember what memories he had seen.

He then downed the bowl of water to try and get rid of the foul taste lingering in his mouth. It worked, to some degree.

Why does weird stuff always happen to me?

Leaning back against the not so comfy wall of ice, Kai let out another sigh. The reason he had stalled testing another one of his skills was because of the fact the cooldown got worse each time, but it was also because he had no idea when a guard could show up, and he didn't want to get caught doing anything.

But now that the guard had left he knew that he had a while to test some things before they would show up again.

There were a couple of things that Kai wanted to test as quickly as possible. Between summoning items or using skills, he was hoping that Anastasia would have slipped up somewhere and he would be able to find some sort of loophole.

Any set of his armour would be nice to summon, preferably his tunic because it offered some resistance to the cold. Although he could probably just summon his new bodysuit and transform it into a thick winter coat combined with some other pieces of warm clothing. But Kai didn't know which would be better for his current situation, a tunic that had the power to offer resistance to the cold, or a couple of pieces of clothing that were warm in general.

Telepathy was also something that he wanted to test. If it ended up working then he could probably wake up Umbra.

And there was also his Innate Ability. Anastasia made it sound like the collar was mainly made to counter this, but it was just so versatile that there had to be some sort of loophole.

If what he had been told about whatever creature he fused with relying on the situation he was in, then maybe there was something that specialised in breaking out of prisons made of ice?

...

Maybe not.

And even if none of those worked, there was something that Kai could go back to that could maybe, just maybe help him break free.

Statshifting.

He hadn't done it in a while, so he might be a little rusty, but he was 99% certain that he would still be able to do it even with his collar on.

Anastasia had said that the first thing she had asked Kai was to say what all his skills, items and Innate Ability did. She then asked if he had seen anything strange, which Kai wasn't sure what he could have possibly said, it probably wouldn't be good if he had said that he had met The Ever-changing. Maybe if he was lucky she might have just thought that he was crazy or imagining it.

But the thing it, Statshifting fell into none of those categories. It wasn't a skill or part of his Innate Ability, and it wasn't tied to an item. If Kai had to guess, he would say it was probably linked to his bloodline.

Kai froze.

It was then that he started realising his possible loopholes.

Anastasia had only asked for his skills, Innate Ability and items, but that left a lot that she hadn't asked about.

His Class, was one of a kind and definitely special. She must have assumed that he just had a basic class like warrior or swordsman or something a little more flashy but not worth wasting her time finding out.

His Bloodline, which might be the key to him getting out of here if he really could change something with Statshifting. Kai was a little lucky with this one, having a Bloodline must have been kind of rare since Anastasia hadn't even bothered to ask, assuming he was 100% Human.

Contract of Artemis, she had asked about the skills he had and what they were able to do, but she hadn't asked had he actually contracted anything, so she presumably had no idea about the wolf living in his shadow and all the skills she possessed.

Those three things, those three things were how he was going to escape. If he found a way to combine all of them then his chances of escape would skyrocket.

Especially his Bloodline and Class. Kai felt that he had barely scraped the surface of Statshifting, he was the first to ever do it after all, knew the limits?

Hell, while he was speculating, who was limiting it to just Statshifting? Maybe if he got proficient enough then he would be able to alter his skills, or maybe even the items that were residing in his soul.

Or maybe even his Innate Ability? If he was able to even just give himself a list of Otherwordly Creatures he could fuse with and not have it rely completely on Luck or have him rely on Umbra, then...

Kai grinned.

Suddenly, the thought of him escaping didn't seem so far fetched. In fact, it actually seemed kind of... plausible.

However, even he knew that he was jumping the gun. First of all, he he had to actually test did Statshifting work. If it didn't, then Kai could kiss his chances of escape goodbye.

But there was something else that Kai wanted to deal with before he attempted to Statshift, and that was a method to deal with the cold.

However, instead of attempting to summon one of his items, Kai tried something different.

He tried to use Soul Flame.