I have a block of ice. I have super chilled ice and essence of warmth. I have a faelora icy cave or whatever
These cost me 520 tokens
So how do I use them?

well, if you want to make an icy cave faelora, then you'd use that, but if you want a different sculpting theme, you'd have to get the frost essence for it.
When you have a frost essence for a theme you want, you click the ice block that you have in your pallet (or pay to fill a new pallet with ice) to pull up its menu, where you can choose to apply said frost essence.

Once the fressence is applied, it will start to progress its growth- every 30-35-ish minutes, if will get a Condition (one of Frosted, Cracked, or Melting) (unless it already has a Condition), and someone can click the sculpture and choose to apply the correct Agent to fix it (gentle warmth, block of ice, or super chilled ice respectively)
If it has an Agent applied within the hour of it getting the condition, it will increase in a Quality stage (out of Normal, Good, Great, and Perfect)- if it doesn't have the agent applied within that timeframe it will drop one Quality stage for every additional hour it is untended (stopping at Normal)

The sculpt will progress at low speed on its own, but will get a slight boost when an Agent is applied, and for each tier of Quality it will get faster progression speed as well as additional stuff- including points towards the Bonuses (with regular and fableds, bonus 1/2 is stats (increase of 10 points per stat, I think?), bonus 2/2 is an extra carried trait.


You can additionally click the sculpture and choose to apply other things, such as gender additive items (to pick if the resultant sylesti will be either male or female), stat boosters (can be done 4 times max, increasing 5 points per stat per boost), trait additive (for regular+fabled themes, lesser ice giving 1 trait, greater gives 2, and exceptional gives 3. these do not stack, though you can replace a lower tier with a higher tier), trait slot pickers (can't select a specific trait, but can decide trait slot. caps relative to number of traits the sculpt will have), and if it will have hiddens under the visible traits

But I can't use the ice I already have?! How do I put it in the pallet to begin with!? :c

You click on one of the wooden pallets and will get a prompt to purchase and Ice Block for 5k gold
Note that an Ice Block is different from a Block of Ice- being that an ice block is not an item


Pallet


Ice Block, an object which you unlock by clicking a pallet and paying the 5k fee
It is this that you can click to add a frost essence to start a sculpture


Block of Ice, item used for fixing the Cracked condition in sculpts

aw but then I would have to use pretty much all money I've ever gotten in this game (TT^TT)

It's pretty easy to make gold, especially during a festival, where a single round of the fest zone picking up chests and such can net you like, 20k+ gold (each chest gives about, what, 1200 gold?, and there's some 30+ chests spawned in at one time)

Do you know how to set up mission pets to do missions?

Would you like help with your team build? Things like what equips go to what element, what elements do what best, good proficiency setup?
(this would also help you progress far enough in the plot fast, to reach sanctuary of saerielle and be able to unlock your third party slot)