[Lyrica you take the lead. How would you exit this situation without my help?]
"Hmm… I would take the time to kill every assassin and secure a resting zone for the moment. Get our stamina back before continuing." Lyrica said as Shiro only smiled.
The correct answer would have been to retreat. If they didn't have her, they would have party wiped and died right there.
[Lyrica. That would have led to everyone dying.]
"Huh? What do you mean?" Lyrica was puzzled.
[Look outside. How many more assassins do you think there are? If not for my blizzard, do you think they'll give you guys room to regain stamina?] Shiro asked as Lyrica paused in understanding.
'If Shiro wasn't here, we wouldn't even have the time to breathe. Entering deeper would only lead to death. Everyone is under levelled and Shiro is the only high level. Without her, there no hope…' Lyrica thought as she smiled bitterly.
"The correct answer was we should have left and regrouped a little, right?" Lyrica said.
[Indeed. But since our main goal is to level up, you guys regain your stamina. I haven't killed them yet, just put them into stasis.] Shiro typed out as they sat down.
After recovering, Shiro waved her hands and the blizzard started to fade away.
[Kill them now before they unfreeze.]
Lyrica only nodded as she dashed towards a group of frozen assassins.
Twirling the dual ended poison blade, she smashed two before twisting her body and smashed another one.
Madison was shocked seeing how eager Lyrica was to get EXP through killing the assassins. Running to kill an assassin, she didn't want to be left out.
[Contributions]
Shiro – 32%
Lyrica – 29%
Madison – 18%
July – 13%
Karol – 8%
The loot received from the assassins were distributed but Shiro didn't get anything useful. None of them were blacksmiths or alchemists so she just recycled the miscellaneous items.
Resting up for a moment, they walked towards the temple at a leisurely pace.
The reason why Shiro picked the Shadow Temple for the Dungeon to level up Lyrica in was due to the temple in the middle.
It is the Shadow Trial Temple.
The Shadow Trial Temple gave a few scenarios and challenged to the party entering the temple. If they succeed in the challenges, they were granted a boost in EXP. If completed to a good degree, they were guaranteed a level up. A great degree was roughly a level and a 20% boost into the next level.
An amazing degree gave almost 2 levels and finally, the perfect degree gave a treasure and 2 levels.
Naturally, one would think about entering the Dungeon when they're higher level to gain more experience. But, the challenges increase in difficulty dramatically the higher level you are. Which is why Shiro's main goal was for Lyrica to level up in the temple.
There were 5 challenges as each one represented a stat in one's status board except for health.
Strength Challenge, Mana Challenge, Speed Challenge, Dexterity Challenge and Defence Challenge.
Each challenge had a boss one had to defeat in the respective category.
This is when it was recommended for one to be a lower level. The lower level you are, the easier the bosses will be and the easier it was to defeat them.
When challenging the trials, they'll enter separate rooms and won't see each other's progress.
Thankfully, the danger of death didn't appear here as the only dangerous area was the start area.
Entering the dungeon, they were greeted with a pit of black fire and 6 challenge doors next to the black fire.
The strength door had the carving of a muscular arm. The mana trial had a magic circle. The speed trial had a carving of a pair of boots. Dexterity a pair or hands and the defence had a shield.
[Which trial do you want to enter?] Shiro asked.
"Let's do them from left to right. So Strength trial first." Lyrica said pointing at the strength trial.
"No. I'd say we do the defence trial first. Do it while we aren't fatigued yet." Madison disagreed.
Lyrica frowned as she had her own reason to choose strength.
"If we do strength, we have our full power to complete it. There aren't any guarantees for the defence trial. We should get what we can, WHILE we can." Lyrica argued back.
"But if we do the defence now, we'll be able to at least complete one of each. While not being able to gain a good result from a single door, we can get a decent result from all the doors."
'So Madison is more of a person who focuses on the wider goal, while Lyrica is a person who focuses more on a single goal.' Shiro thought with interest.
'That meaning Lyrica is better off being the solo teammate that is highly reliable, while Madison is the leader who focuses on the group status rather than a single person.'
"Shiro! What do you think we should do?" Lyrica asked as they couldn't come to an agreement.
[You want my opinion? Then I would say focus on the single rather than overall.] Shiro shrugged.
Choosing the overall good was and never will be a task for her. No matter her power, her control, she'll rather focus on those who have her favour. Lyrica being the first one in this world to gain her favour.
"Che." Madison clicked her tongue in annoyance while Lyrica beamed happily.
Walking up the strength door, they placed their palms on the cold stone.
[Do you wish to take the Strength Test of the Shadow Temple?]
Clicking yes, they were teleported to another room.
The light was blinding as Shiro was forced to use her left hand to cover her eyes.
When she opened then once more, she found that she was within a medieval castle. large pillars supported the ceiling as she could see golden chandeliers hanging from the roof. A red carpet was laid out before her and she wasn't alone.
To her left, a beast with 2 pairs of arms, void purple muscles, golden eyes, two crescent horns with a scaled spine and tail.
To her right, a delicate looking female with light blue hair, pointed ears, golden eyes, standing at roughly 5ft 8, she was a beauty.
[As the first monster to enter the Shadow Temples, you have given permission to attempt the Dungeon Story: Kingdom's survival.]
"Kingdom's survival?..." Shiro mutter.
"Did you say something my liege?" The woman asked as Shiro looked over.
"Ah, nothing." She replied.
[Story Quest: Kingdom's survival.
You are the ruler of the Yin Kingdom of the east. To your left is your life companion, the void beast. To your right is your servant, Fei Ling. Forces prepared to invade your kingdom as you have to think your way out of this.]
Story quest. An unfamiliar concept that she had learnt about in her time in the school.
Certain Dungeons contain a story quest where the adventurer is able to partake in the quest. The quests have different objectives as the adventurer had to complete the main one.
Doing so will grant the adventurer bountiful rewards while failing did no harm except for a drop in level.
Shiro's mind worked fast as acting awkward could decrease your credibility in the situation.
"Fei Ling, can you tell me about the current situation?" Shiro said with a stern face. Her appearance was still the same so it was a little odd due to her tone. However, Fei Ling didn't seem to notice.
"My liege, we have the Thunder King and his army of 500 thousand approaching with an estimated time of 3 days. The fire queen with her army of 200 thousand in 4 days. The beast kingdom with 10 thousand strong monsters in 2 days and the ocean king blocking out escape through the sea as of this moment." Fei Ling replied.
"How many capable men do we have?" Shiro asked.
"Currently, we have 100 thousand capable warriors ready to lay their lives down for the Yin kingdom."
"I see…" Shiro muttered.
"Tell me which direction the enemies are coming from."
"Thunder king from the north, Fire queen from the east, Beast kingdom from the west and the ocean king from the south."
'Hmm… the situation is bad for trying to tough it out. The most dangerous is the Thunder King then the Fire Queen. I need to try turn her favour around with enough firepower to defeat the Thunder King. However, not only do I need my own bargaining chip, but I also need to resolve an issue of why they target this kingdom.' Shiro thought.
She was able to quickly adapt to the quest as her motto had always been to revolve around being flexible.
"Fei Ling, why did they target my kingdom again. This stress has gotten to me." Shiro said massaging her eyes.
"My liege, they target us because of your treasure, did you forget?"
"Do remind me. I have a treasury of items; I don't know each and every one of them." Shiro shrugged.
"It is an item called the fabricator. We inject mana and it ejects items. Though the items must be detailed and fully imagined by the user. If a single piece of mistake occurs, the item is destroyed."
'Fabricator…. For something sounding like that, the mana to material conversion has to be small. Therefore to make the most out of it, I must make something small but powerful….' Shiro though.
She had an idea for a weapon to help them out but whether or not the fabricator can create it was another problem.
"Take me to the fabricator, I want to check something." Shiro said as Fei Ling nodded.
Stepping out of the throne room from what it seemed, they walked towards the treasury with the void beast behind them.
Curious, Shiro decided to open her status board.
[Temporary Status]
HP: 1,400,000/1,400,000
MP: 5,000,000/5,000,000
She frowned a little seeing her stats as just an HP bar and MP bar.
However, if what she planned can be made, then the HP and MP could just be ignored.
She wasn't going to fight her way out of a hopeless situation if she could have a hopeful situation.
Arriving at the treasury, Fei Ling brought out an orb.
The orb itself was coloured silver in colour and it was the size of a football.
[Fabricator (Red)]
Can make anything as long as it has the mana and the necessary knowledge.
'Hmm…' Shiro thought as she decided to test out something.
Closing her eyes, she started to imagine a pistol.
The frame, the recoil spring, the slider, the barrel, trigger, the hammer, extractor, the loader, the grip and so on.
The visualisation of the pistol became clearer as the orb shun with a silver glow.
Fei Ling stood by the side as she watched Shiro use the fabricator.
[Fabrication complete.]
Product = Simple Pistol – MP cost = 3,000,000
Opening her eyes once more, Shiro frowned seeing the insane MP cost. Due to the fact that she was fabricating the pistol out of pure mana, it takes more MP to solidify into a suitable frame.
"Fei Ling. How much mana are we able to extract from our residents?" Shiro asked.
"I do not know, but definitely above 50 million should we include our fighting force. Though if we were to use them as well, I'm not sure if they can protect the kingdom to their full potential." Fei Ling replied understanding that Shiro wanted to use their mana.
"Do we have anything to store that mana if we extract them? If we do, go set up a public donation under the pretence of donating a little mana to help save the kingdom." Shiro ordered. This situation itself seemed fun as Shiro wanted to see if she could truly complete the quest using an unorthodox method.
First, she needed a few important parts to this. A reactor, a primer, a compressor, a remote and the shell.
The reactor must be highly reactive and she needed a compressor to condense down the energy.
Getting a general blueprint in her mind, Shiro started to focus on the fabricator.
'From the inside out, the first part is the core. A hollowed sphere of reactive material, followed by the explosive compressor. Inside the hollowed sphere, I also need to add another distributor to get the reaction needed from the core.
Outside of the core, I need more compressors before finally finishing with the receiver what will help detonate all of this.' Shiro thought closing her eyes.
The fabricator glowed a silver light before it recorded the blueprint successfully.
Shiro grinned seeing this.
She had no need for an army, no need for complicated relations to survive. Not if she had this on her side as the tipping point for this war.
She won't be the one seeking them out, they'll be the one begging her to stop.
[Fabrication Complete]
Product = Remotely Activated Atomic Mana Pulse Bomb – MP cost = 100,000,000