[Proceed to title up? Yes / No]
Looking at the system tab, Shiro grinned with anticipation. But before she could title up, she wanted to find a secluded location first.
The slums had a lot of empty buildings so Shiro decided to make a makeshift room for now. A place for her to experiment with the Source Change Runes along with upgrading a new weapon for Lyrica.
Following her mental map of the slums, Shiro arrived at an old dilapidated building. The walls were on the verge of crumbling but the overall structural integrity of the building stood strong.
She jumped through a gap in the walls as she ventured deeper into the building.
When she first found this abandoned building, she had thought it was probably a gathering place or a secret entrance to the trade routes. But to her slight annoyance, the building was literally just an abandoned building.
After a while of exploring the interior of the building, she found a suitable room and cleaned it up a little.
Constructing a simple table with what she had on hand, Shiro laid the three runes on it.
"Little Yin, I'm going to be experimenting for a little while. You go off by the side for a bit ok?" Shiro asked.
*Chirp
Yin only stuck out her wing as she gestured for Shiro to give her a few snacks.
"Alright alright, here take them." She smiled and handed Yin a few D ranked mana stones.
Nodding in satisfaction, Yin flew out of her hood and laid her body a little further away from her.
Making a chair for her to sit on, she shuffled closer to the table.
The first thing she needed to do was to upgrade her title.
Pressing the Yes button, Shiro widened her eyes as she felt something flow through her mind. Frowning slightly at the feeling, Shiro realised that it was amplified bloodl.u.s.t. However, compared to her own bloodl.u.s.t and killing intent, this was akin to a small droplet.
Scoffing slightly, Shiro immediately dispelled the bloodl.u.s.t that tried to influence her mind.
[Title upgrade: Beginner Monster -> Intermediate Monster.]
[Intermediate Monster (0/50 Humans killed)]
Stat points are now worth 210% of the original value.
Before: 1 VIT = 50 HP, After: 1 VIT = 105 HP.
"Hmm… The Intermediate Monster title makes it so that a single stat point is now worth 210%. Previously it was double or 200%. Next title should increase it to around 225%." Shiro muttered seeing the change in value.
"With each subsequent title up, the blood l.u.s.t I feel would probably increase as well. Hmm… not too bad I suppose since I can control it easily."
Checking her stats, she nodded with satisfaction at the slight increase.
[Name: Shiro
Race: Snow Girl (Evolution Criteria yet to be met)
Title: Shadow Empress, Intermediate Monster (0/50 Humans Killed), Fratricide
Level: 37
Class: Snow Girl★★★, Nanomancer
HP: 117,480/117,480
MP: 170,500/170,500
STR: 660 (+110)
VIT: 760 (+95)
INT: 1000 (+240)
AGI: 730 (+120)
DEX: 750 (+70)
DEF: 300 (+100)
= Title Bonus
Unassigned Points: 0
Attunements:
Ice – Tier 2
Lightning – Tier 1
Metal – Tier 0
Shadow – Tier 0
Balance: 11,100,490 USD
Equipment (Tap to Display)
Skills –
Snow Girl ★★★:
Tier 2 Ice magic, Passive Regeneration, Blessed by Ice, Snow Magic, Faded Snow Movement, Cold Aura, Icy Touch, Icy Breath. Ice Field Affinity
Nanomancer:
Dagger Creation, Nano Tech Engineering Tier 1, Sword Creation, Bow Creation, Heavy Weapon Creation, Shield Creation, Armour Creation.
Other:
Mini-map, Inspection, Disguise, Mana Barrier.
Shared Skills (Yin):
Shadow Buff (Tier 1), Ice Chain (Tier 1), Shadow Cloak (Tier 1), Shadow Talon (Tier 1), Rift Walker (Tier 1), Absorption/Redirection (Tier 1).]
With her new title, her MP had reached the 170k mark.
By her estimate, a few more levels and she should be able to make the most basic nano tech hand cannon.
The hand cannon had much more firepower and penetration capabilities than a nano tech pistol making them one of her go to weapons of choice.
Naturally, if she wanted her favourite weapon which consisted of four Hyper Rail Cannons, two S.S.P.B Gatling Cannons and two rows of Type-A Rocket Missile launchers, she'll have to wait much longer.
This combination could allow her to wipe the city of New York off the face of the earth in a few short moments.
Setting aside her power fantasy from her previous life, she focused on the runes in front of her.
Shiro closed her eyes as she dug up a few old memories about the runes.
'To make use of these runes, I need to wire the mana of each rune to a certain element to create an Element Change Rune. Not only that, I need to then interconnect the Element Change Runes to each other so that when I equip it onto a weapon, I'll be able to switch between three elemental properties.' Shiro thought as she pulled out the elemental crystals she collected from the Miner's Cavern dungeon run.
Since she didn't have any other elemental sources on her at this moment, these crystals would do for now.
'I have Fire, Wind, Lightning and Water elemental crystals. Since the boss probably already had the earth element, it didn't need the earth element crystal. I'll keep it with fire and wind for now.' Shiro thought as she already had ice and lightning.
She wasn't going to waste her precious runes on elements she already had.
The only problem was the fire element. As a snow girl, she could potentially harm herself more than harm the opponent should she use the fire element.
'I should probably make an accessory that gives me fire resistance.' She thought while taking out the elemental crystals for both fire and wind.
One was red while the other was green.
She decided to give the wind element a try first as it was going to be the easier one of the two.
Laying the crystals in a pentagram around the rune, Shiro created a pair of glasses that will help her during this.
She flexed her fingers as mana scalpels appeared in her hands. She needed to make sure she first rewired the crystals before attempting to connect them to the rune.
While she had seen this done by others before, she had never tried to do it herself.
Calming herself down so that her hands were steady, Shiro controlled the glasses to zoom in on certain parts of the crystals. Flipping the lenses, Shiro could see the mana current that surged through the crystal with better clarity.
'I need to make sure I don't sever the current. Reduce the number of pathways while keeping the loop.' Shiro thought as she moved her scalpel over the crystal.
The scalpel phased through the surface of the crystal and touched one of the mana pathways.
Carefully severing it, Shiro was about to move onto the next one when the crystal blew up.
'&£$%&!!!!' Cursing in her mind, Shiro grabbed another crystal.
'With one of the pathways severed, the current would be too much for the other pathways to handle. So I need to simultaneously enlarge the main pathway while severing the others that I don't need. If I enlarge the pathway before I sever the others, the current would be too weak and might stop altogether. I need to do them both at the same time.'
This time, Shiro used her left hand to enlarge the main pathway while the right would sever the unneeded ones.
Sweat dripped off her forehead as she was concentrating on carefully enlarging the main pathway.
After 10 minutes of extreme focus and delicate actions, Shiro leaned back and sighed in relief.
"Urg… What a pain." Shiro muttered as the stress of needing to enlarge the pathways whilst severing the others was huge. The main pathway couldn't be too large or too small while each severing of the unneeded pathways made it so that she had to adjust the main one as well.
However, if the refiners of her past life saw that she was able to succeed in making a single mana pathway in the crystal on her second attempt, they would be shocked. Even intermediate refiners needed more than five attempts to succeed when working with unfamiliar objects.
Yet Shiro did it on her second try.
Looking at the elemental crystal that now only had one main pathway, Shiro smiled in satisfaction.
With one down, she needed to repeat this step four more times.
###
Meanwhile, Nan Tian had a frown on his face as he realised the possibility behind the Black Monarchy knowing that he was there.
"For them to set up this kind of trap… Huan er, do you think a rat had appeared in the higher ranks of the sect?" Nan Tian asked with a frown behind his mask.
"Impossible. To become a higher ranking member we need to sign a harsh contract. The punishment is too severe." Huan Er replied.
"Yes, but it isn't impossible to bypass. You've seen how they changed the ritual. Someone must have been able to create a loophole in the contract that won't punish whoever leaked the information. Or else the elders would have found out already." Nan Tian replied with a shake of his head.
"Forget it. Have the reinforcements come yet? I don't think the executives of the factions can deal with the final boss. I can't make a move either or else I'll help the boss."
"They said that they'll need roughly 2 days to arrive."
"2 days… Tell them to hurry up." Nan Tian said as he turned towards the battle that is being waged in New York right now.
The high level executives of each faction was fighting to clear out the horde while the final boss was being drawn away by the highest level members. While they couldn't kill the boss, drawing it away and staying alive was still achievable.
"Tsk." Nan Tian clicked his tongue in annoyance as he wasn't able to help out at all. He couldn't even help kill the lowest level monsters or else he'll boost their power up.
###
"Fuuu…" Breathing out heavily, Shiro looked at the five crystals in front of her in satisfaction.
During this, she had gone through a total of 15 elemental crystals since she had failed in refining a few of them. Her success rate averaged around 30% which was much higher than what a beginner should have.
'Now that these are done, I should start linking them up to the Source Change stone.'
This step was easier since she just needed to attach the crystal's mana pathway to the rune's mana pathway.
During this, she needed to make sure that the efficiency and power wasn't reduced or else the elemental boost to the rune would be almost negligible.
Placing one of the crystals above the rune, Shiro narrowed her eyes as her scalpel was ready to open up a pathway to link both objects to each other.
Carving out the pathways with delicate movements, Shiro was able to have less trouble with these as she already had practice with the elemental crystals.
Once she had carved out the pathway, she connected both the crystal and the rune together.
*Ping!
The crystal shattered apart as it was absorbed into the rune. Examining the pathway, Shiro sighed in relief when she saw that it retained roughly 75% efficiency.
"Not bad I suppose." She muttered as she had wanted at least an 80% efficiency from the transfer.
However, if the refiners were to hear her once more, they would have needed to control the urge to smack her on the back of the head. Having a 75% efficiency, not even two hours after first attempting refinement, was insane.
Proceeding to refine the other elemental crystals into the rune, Shiro didn't realise the sun had already set.
[Wind Elemental Change Rune (Purple)]
Allows a weapon or armour to change to Wind Affinity. Effects are not permanent and can be turned off.
May be applied and removed for a total of 5 times.
Durability: 5/5
Seeing the finished rune, Shiro couldn't stop a smile from forming as she felt a little giddy inside. Just a little.
"Since I can use this rune five times, I should probably buy a proper weapon." She thought out loud as she knew it would be a waste to combine it with her nanotech weapons.
Her nanotech weapons were disposable, the rune was not.
Sadly, she hadn't kept any decent weapons around since she recycled them all for their skills.
'Seems like I'll have to buy myself a decent weapon during the auction.' Shiro thought to herself as she stood up.
Stretching her body, Shiro felt the stiffness of her muscles and realised that she must have sat down for a long time.
"Come on Little Yin, we're leaving." Shiro called out as Little Yin flew over to her hood.
*Chirp~
Pointing at her mouth, Yin gestured for Shiro to feed her again.
"Again? I do wonder where all those mana stones I'm feeding you are going. Level up quicker and pay off this huge debt you owe me ah. Hahaha." Shiro laughed lightly whilst giving Yin her food.
Giving herself a few mana stones as well, Shiro sighed as she looked at her current stock of mana stones.
'I should probably stock up on D ranked mana stones again. Perhaps I should go challenge a level 40 dungeon tomorrow solo to maximise my profits.' Shiro thought to herself as she exited the building.
"It's already night?" She muttered out seeing the dark sky.
Shaking her head, she made her way back to the tent.
"Ah Shiro you're back." Lyrica said as the other kids perked up.
"Welcome back Shiro-nee!"
"Welcome back!"
"Shiro! Welcome back!
Kanae, Sophie and Lia called out as she rushed towards Shiro.
They jumped into her embrace as Lyrica could only look at them with jealousy.
'They're only kids.' She chanted to herself as she tried her best to ignore them.
Playing around with the kids for a little while, Shiro went to sleep with Kanae and Lyrica on either side of her.
They were rather adamant about being next to her which surprised Shiro but she decided to allow it since it wasn't much trouble for her
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