Mila
Mila dodged the purple bolt, took a red bolt on the back of her dress, and then blocked one of the yellow bolts filled with kinetic force with Legacy of the Weaponsmaster's shield form. The resulting kinetic push knocked her out of the encirclement of the 20+ hovering robots and she landed lightly by controlling her body's qi.
She then used her new Law Egg of Hologram and control over her aura to create a projection of herself two meters to her right. It wasn't good enough to trick human eyes, but more than 80% of the robots fell for it.
Legacy of the Weaponsmaster then flowed into the form of two silver pistols in her hands and she enhanced it with her newly merged skill, Weapon Enhancement (Epic). Then she fired green energy bolts filled with the power of the Law Egg of Obfuscation and started taking out robots one by one, her Law infusion delaying the robots from noticing the attacks until it was too late.
Her all out use of Laws and control took out almost half of the robots before they managed to encircle her again, but that was enough. As she continued shooting, this time without wasting her concentration on empowering her attacks with a Law Egg, she activated her other two new skills as well. She used Material Strengthening (Rare) on her dress, allowing it to take even the more powerful purple bolts without letting any energy through, and used Artifact Activation (Rare) on her Earring of Focus, ever so slightly slowing down time to her senses.
For the next three seconds, even while dodging the robots' yellow, blue, and orange bolts, which her dress would not be able to properly block, she managed to shoot down eight more.
This left only four, all with mana shields around them, and none of her attacks were powerful enough to penetrate through.
Still, with only four left, dodging became easy and, while it took almost all her resources, with over a dozen shots to take down each, the last robot fell before she ran out of energy.
"You see your weakness, right?" Nana Xara looked on with an expression of disappointment.
"I have no offensive Law to empower my attacks. I know." Mila collapsed onto the floor and looked up at the ceiling.
They'd had this conversation four times already. The style Mila was developing relied on running, hiding, and then quick overwhelming attacks, but she was lacking in firepower. Both her Law Eggs were approaching middle grade, which, according to her readings in the city's library, was extremely impressive for only 40 days of training. Hell, her own amphitheater marked her as a B rank talent, which was the highest of everyone who had used its services.
Compared to Aalam, however, she felt useless. He had thirty Law Eggs now and over half of them were middle grade. Granted, that was apparently a record—which gave him extra stats as if he wasn't already overpowered enough—but she still couldn't help feeling superfluous by comparison.
Congratulations!
Your Law Egg of Obfuscation has advanced to middle grade.
Your soul is affected by your understanding of Law.
Agility + 2, Perception + 2, Magic +4, Spirit +2, Soul +2
Mila just groaned and Nana Xara started laughing.
"Come on. It's not that funny." Mila got up and glared at the woman, her body, despite being only a soul, extremely sore.
"You're wrong about that." Nana Xara smiled at her. "People like you are the classic butt of jokes in the cultivation world.
"There is this one story about the rise of a famous archlich, a master of the Law of Death. The first Law Egg he gained was the Law Egg of Despair after his girlfriend of two years dumped him. Gaining a Law Egg while only G rank got him noticed by his local cultivation sect and he started dating one of the other disciples.
"He didn't advance much over the next year, however, so she dumped him, causing his Law Egg to advance to middle grade, resulting in a higher position. He then started dating the sect master's daughter, but he again barely advanced at all over the next year. When she inevitably dumped him as well, his Law Egg advanced to high grade."
Mila rolled her eyes. "Let me guess. He dated someone else and then his Law Egg advanced to peak grade?"
"No." Nana Xara changed her expression to look serious. "He decided dating wasn't for him and instead found a new hobby, necromancy. He turned his entire sect into zombies, then his world, then quite a few other worlds. He rose up to A rank and became one of the five heads of the Undead Empire. Last I checked, he had the third highest bounty of anyone in the Universe."
Nana Xara reached out her hand and placed it on Mila's shoulder in a concerned fashion, but she couldn't seem to hide the smile trying to break through her facade of sternness. "Don't give in to your sense of inferiority, Mila. Just because your boyfriend doesn't see you doesn't mean no one will."
She finally broke down and started grinning again. "Though I might not want to see you anymore if you don't get a destructive Law Egg soon. You're a potential apprentice of the Yin Yang Sage, not a future destroyer of galaxies." Nana Xara patted Mila's shoulders a couple times. "Not that you could destroy galaxies by hiding and making illusions."
There was a real lesson in there, hidden behind all the snark, about how getting a middle grade Law Egg in G rank was quite impressive and she shouldn't feel down about herself. An early grade Law Egg was the minimum requirement to advance to E rank, not F, and she was already far ahead of the game.
Mila just wasn't sure if that hidden lesson was intentional.
"You're underestimating my mysterious ways now, aren't you." Nana Xara narrowed her eyes. "You have five hours until the next challenge. I would suggest going to see your boyfriend. He's just accomplished the second requirement of your quest."
Nana Xara's expression then quickly became jovial again. "He also has some new toys for you to play with."
Mila just stared at the woman for a second, wondering if she'd be quite as happy-go-lucky if she were an ancient being given a second chance at life or if there was just something wrong with her teacher. Then she quickly ran away before Nana Xara could react to reading her aura.
* * *
"So, we have five hours. What have you got?" Mila asked, feigning more joviality than she actually felt as she entered into Aalam's craft room.
Thankfully, he seemed in a good mood, as he jumped up from where he was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room when she came in. "So much. Let me show you."
Aalam walked over to a black metallic briefcase of a type Mila recognized, as it was what Aalam's auction house used for smaller items, then he brought it over to her and opened it, a table rising from the room's floor for him to place it on.
Inside were three items. First was what looked like a cloak made of shadows, feeling extremely light as she picked it up.
Cloak of Shadows (G-Rare)
The masterpiece of an unremarkable E rank apprentice tailor. This cloak uses thread of the Wraith spider as its main material and greatly boosts concealment when worn, especially in the presence of deep shadows.
Effects: Boosts concealment from all natural senses and slightly boosts concealment from supernatural senses, auto-repair
Requirements: A shadow-based Law Egg
It didn't seem like it would be too restrictive, which was good, and it had the auto-repair feature, so Mila would most certainly make use of it. With her now middle grade Law Egg of Obfuscation, she might even be able to hide from some E rank senses, which would be useful given what Aalam had told her about the challenge they would be entering.
Even more useful was the second item, a black belt to be worn from her left shoulder to her right waist with five built in pockets. It was an uncommon grade artifact with enchantments to protect whatever was put into the pockets, but it had been modified by Aalam as each of its five pockets now had one of their 29 bags of holding seamlessly sewn into it, allowing for easy access to the main types of artifacts Aalam had been building over the last several weeks.
The item to get her heart racing, however, was the last one, a simple wooden ring, as Mila only belatedly noticed Aalam wearing a similar artifact on his right ring finger.
Paired Ring of Telepathy (G-Rare)
A wooden ring created by a Treant craftsman for his lover. When worn, this artifact allows for telepathic communication with the wearer of its pair.
Effects: Telepathic communication with the wearer of this artifact's pair within 5 km
Requirements: None
Aalam didn't seem to see the potential implications of giving her a ring, however, and he just waited expectantly for her to put all three artifacts on, so she did, putting the ring on her right ring finger like he had instead of the traditional left.
There had been an auction the day before and Aalam, as the owner of the auction house, had been able to give bidding rules to one of the auction house's puppets to bid for him on any artifacts he wanted. So, as the richest man in the tutorial even without having gone on any of the tutorial's optional challenges, he'd won everything he wanted quite easily, except for a couple of crafting materials which had sold for well beyond what they were worth.
Aalam was also wearing a bandolier similar to hers, and he had on a shield necklace like the one she'd been wearing since day one as well, but otherwise he hadn't bought himself anything new.
What was new was what was in the second briefcase Aalam placed on the table and opened, one side filled with vials of red, blue, or purple liquids and the other with talismans, sheets of cloth or animal hide with carved on symbols.
The red vials were qi recovery potions he'd bought at the auction, the blue mana recovery potions, and the purple for psyforce recovery. As all the items in the briefcase were for her, there were about four times the number of qi recovering potions as the other two types and all the talismans either didn't require a Law Egg or, for four of them, would work with one or both of the Law Eggs she had.
She quickly emptied the briefcase into the bags of holding on her shoulder belt and then Aalam excitedly brought out one last briefcase, and this one had a variety of colored potions, seventeen in total, but of only four types, as well as twenty of what looked like grenades.
Antidote for Creeping Death (G-Common)
An antidote for the poison Creeping Death, a creation of the genius craftsman Aalam Alvaro when he was only G rank himself, modeled on the Theories of the Yin Yang Sage
Effects: An antidote for the poison Creeping Death
Requirements: None
Antidote for Last Breath (G-Common)
An antidote for the poison Last Breath, a creation of the genius craftsman Aalam Alvaro when he was only G rank himself
Effects: An antidote for the poison Last Breath
Requirements: None
Antidote for Heat Death (G-Common)
An antidote for the poison Heat Death, a creation of the genius craftsman Aalam Alvaro when he was only G rank himself
Effects: An antidote for the poison Heat Death
Requirements: None
Antidote for Wintery Grave (G-Common)
An antidote for the poison Wintery Grave, a creation of the genius craftsman Aalam Alvaro when he was only G rank himself
Effects: An antidote for the poison Wintery Grave
Requirements: None
Void Bomb (G-Common)
A grenade which uses spatial, fire, and death Laws to create a contained fiery explosion, a creation of the genius craftsman Aalam Alvaro when he was only G rank himself
Effects: Two seconds after the pin is pulled, will explode in a fiery entropic explosion with a radius of 3 meters and a safe distance of 7 meters
Requirements: None
Mila didn't know about the poisons, as they most certainly required quite a few Laws she didn't have and could thus only be used by Aalam, but just the Void Bomb was in the upper tier of Common talismans she'd seen so far, and Aalam most certainly had better grenades for himself as well.
"What do you think, Ms. Bond?" Aalam joked and Mila found herself almost freezing mid putting her new grenades away.
"Beyond adequate, Q." Neither of them had watched more than a couple Bond movies and the one she remembered best didn't even have Q in it, so neither of them were directly quoting, but Aalam seemed to appreciate her use of a British accent and nothing went wrong.
"Want to see my masterpiece?" Aalam looked excited so Mila nodded and Aalam reached into his own bandolier and took out a grenade that, from the outside, looked almost exactly like a Void Bomb. When he let her touch it, however, Mila realized it almost certainly wasn't.
Minor Thermonuclear Mana Bomb (G-Epic)
A grenade making use of twelve middle grade Law Eggs—Gas, Liquid, Solid, Plasma, Matter, Fission, Fusion, Energy Storage, Order, 3 Dimensional Geometry, Molecular Deceleration, and Pause—as well as several high end ingredients to create a bomb capable of a contained thermonuclear explosion, a creation of the genius craftsman Aalam Alvaro when he was only G rank himself
Effects: 57 seconds after mana containing the power of the Law Eggs for Molecular Acceleration, Ionization, Vacuum, and Energy Transfer is inputted and the pin is removed, will explode with a large blast with the power to destroy a small city
Requirements: Law Eggs for Molecular Acceleration, Ionization, Vacuum, and Energy Transfer
As Aalam put away the nuclear bomb, Mila began to reconsider whether it was safe to leave him in his crafting room. Granted, she'd seen the materials he'd used to make the thing, and they were supposedly incredibly rare—though, according to her reading, not as rare as the materials for normal thermonuclear bombs—and he'd at least modified the triggering requirements to only respond to the Laws he himself had in a very specific order, so that was good. But Aalam had also been making poisons and she was pretty sure Creeping Death was a biological weapon at the same level as the nuke, while the protections on it were nowhere near as good.
An artifact being G rank just meant it could be activated with G rank mana, qi, or psyforce, and wasn't a direct representation of power, but Mila was starting to get scared as she realized Aalam thought he'd need such weapons in the Nightmare challenge they were about to enter yet, even with such weapons, Nana Xara still didn't like their chances of survival.