7/3 664 16:29 (Summer, Night)
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It was two days later.
She already mastered the change in the rules that she lived throught.
It was, after all, only natural for her to easily master herself.
The funny thing is that, even with the loss of the stats, she was actually stronger than before.
However, the more important thing was that, after her circle of Mana Forging, Recovery of Mana while studying and training both her Regeneration and Blood Gift, training with her various combat Skills, drinking tasty blood to recover faster and Mana forging again, it finally happened.
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It was finally time to start in earnest.
Before such, however, she needed to Cast a Spell in specific and so she went to the inner garden of the Mansion.
She Casted a Mana Shape: Bow and then a Mana Shape: Arrow.
She prepared to fire it, but before that, she used her new D-Rank Skill, Mana Forge on the Arrow with, not the No Attribute Sorcery Stat Enhancement, but the No Attribute Sorcery Mana Burst.
The result was an Arrow that, once within a target, released a burst of Mana, destroying it.
She went back to the Vampire who had a complicated expression on his face, asking for the next step for the creation of her own Unique Arma.
"Very well. Let's get you started for it right away."
Having said that, Edgar guided her back towards the hidden laboratory to an empty bowl.
He then took a sphere of Orichalcum with a 1 cm radius out of his Dimensional Ring and indicated her to near it.
"The next step is simple. You need to personally activate this Magic Item with your own Mana and keep it active as long as you can. It will consume i every second and it will be completed when it will have absorbed 250.000% of your total Mana. Additionally, you will need to fill this bowl with your blood at the start of every session and it will need to be higher that this ammount. At least, that was the situation before the change in rules." He indicated towards the line that marked the minimum ammount of blood.
Her expression, that became more and more deadpan as the explanation proceeded, showed what she thought about it.
"Is it really worth it? Because, frankly, I doubt it can be worth the effort."
"Well, it is the minimum ammount of Orichalcum you can use and so it is the maximum difficulty, but I suppose if it is too difficult for you…"
"You can not manipulate me so easily. The challenge is not my problem with this procedure, my problem is if all of this is worth the ammount of time it will consume when I could simply train and hunt down enemies to kill and grow stronger."
"I'm sorry to say, but it is. It will give you a perfect armament that will grow stronger with you for the rest of your life."
"Fine, whatever. Let's start already."
She neared the bowl before he placed the sphere of Orichalcum in the center of the bowl and so she cut her palm causing her blood to slowly fill it.
Upon this, Edgar jumped back, covering his nose and eyes and turning his back to her, leaving the room and leaving a Ghoul behind to speak with her in his stead.
She rolled her eyes before, once enough blood mixed with her own Vital Energy was accumulated in the bowl, starting to power it with her own Mana, the crimson liquid starting to slowly boil and concentrating, needing to continue filling it as the power agonizingly slowly condensed within the Orichalcum.
It was terribly boring work.
Finally, after a little more than two minutes, she ran empty of Mana and so the first session concluded, with the remaining blood slowly evaporating in a red mist.
She sighed exhausted.
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7/10 11:39 (Summer, Day)
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It was a good seven days later, but finally she succeeded.
After seven days of expending all of her own Mana, regaining it while studying as much as she could with Edgar's help and finally expending her Mana all over again, she was done.
And her prize was now before her, a small pearl two centimeters of radius, that looked now like a sphere made of liquid darkness that was somehow perfectly solid.
She took it and looked through it finding it to be, somehow, transparent in the right angle while from another being like an hole on reality.
She smiled before opening her mouth and swallowing it whole.
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Her smile, growing even further at this message, exploded in laughter as she freely expressed her relief at being finally done.
She was finally done!
After a whole 7 minutes of laugher, she finally stopped.
"I'm not doing something like that ever again. At least not for months."
"Well, you certainly shouldn't need to anytime soon, but just in case…"
Without any hesitation he took the bowl and inserted it in the ring too before, after thinking about it a while, inserting most of the room in along with it.
A sigh escaped her as she decided to activate her new Skill, forming a glove covering her right hand.
This glove was principally made of a black scale-like material, had a circle made of Orichalcum on the center of it, both in the palm and the back of the hand with details in platinum around them connecting with a bracelet made of the same material around her wrist.
"Quite small to be armor, isn't it?"
"Well, after all, it grows with both its own Skill Rank and your Unique Skill Rank, so… it will grow, I suppose. At E-Rank the effect is passive and always active, but at higher Ranks it will need to be active. At even higher Ranks, it will have a further transformation to activate."
He indicated towards his own Unique Arma, a pair of glasses with the lenses made of a small layer of Orichalcum and a frame composed of a dark and opaque material.
"Well, I will see in the future, now… I waited way too much, it's time to kill something."
Edgar sighed before smiling wryly.
"I suppose so. Thanks for your patience."
At this words a smug smile was on her face.
He sighed before nodding towards a nearby Ghoul who started guiding her towards the previous carriage.
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7/10 12:30 (Summer, Day)
They found themselves before the cave they already explored finding only a couple of Goblins at E-Rank there comunicating between themselves.
She didn't hesitate to end the fight before it could even begin.
"Hard Strike"
Before they could even react she moved and punched one of them straight in their back, her hand coated in red energy, releasing a Mana Burst and knocking it outside of the fight for the foreseeable future instantly before, a Mana Bow Forged with Stats Enhancement in her right hand clad in her Unique Armament and a Mana Arrow Mana Forged with Mana Burst her left hand, she turned towards the other Goblin, before releasing her Arrow, itself clad in red energy.
"Fast Shot."
The Goblin could not even react before being hit by her Arrow, the explosion destroying its head and leaving it to slowly regenerate.
She took the now headless Goblin and thrusted her fangs in its neck drawing in its blood and its Soul before doing the same with the other one.
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And finally she gained another Innate Skill.
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The next step was even simpler.
100 Magicules condensed in her new Innate Skill increasing her power even more and the Goblin that was trying to sneak attack her was stabbed in its heart with a Mana Sword in her left hand, before the weapon was Dispelled and a second Mana Sword in her right hand was swung, severing the top of its head to then bringing its neck towards herself and finally killing it too.
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She smiled before moving on, there were no more Goblins in the area and so she moved back towards the carriage, the Goblin's corpses being burned behind her.
"The ammount of magicules I gained is even lower than before and, even if only slightly, they are actually stonger, even if it doesn't seem like it considering so am I... Hm, what is the next place?"
"…In this Island, the Miasma is particularly scarce, so there is a low number of Monsters and their Rank is in average low. Not only that, but before and after Red Moons, Monsters are hunted as much as possible to render the place the safest it can be. Most Monsters, 10 days after a Red Moon are extinct only to be reborn from Miasma at a basic level, later. But there should be a Monster that would function as a proper challenge for you. A challenge that could kill you even if you are carefull."
"Hoh? Now I am interested. What is it?"
"It originally was a Mad Bear at E-Rank that increased in Rank during this Red Moon gaining a defensive Innate Skill. It additionally Evolved recently."
"I see. What is it's Rank, D or C?"
"D-Rank, for now at least. If it was actually an active threat an emergency Hunt would be called to subjugate it. However, with the fact that the rules changed, its power may be too much for you."
"Hoh? Now, I am curious. The new rules render everything easier, both in direct power and in growth speed, both throught training and living. The fact that in ten 10 days, it was able to reach from a new D-Rank to almost C-Rank is already impressive. However, they also render everything less bound from the rules of Rank."
Silence stretched between them before, with a sigh, he continued, his eyes closed, as they started the journey towards her new target.
"I want you to be D-Rank before you leave the Island."
"Makes sense. What is my next destination once I leave?"
"I must know nothing about it. Do not tell me nor anyone else within this island. You just need to choose a Port that isn't in the nation of Astrar. That is the nation where the Iriblades are now. I will give you a magical item to hide your presence and you will take a boat that would go in a port there, the moment travels throught seas will restart."
"I see. Very well. I will choose my next step alone in my room once we are done here."
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7/10 15:13 (Summer, Sunset)
As the Sun was slowly falling behind the horizon, Luna found herself before her target, a beast that, as they already knew, was not a Mad Bear anymore, but was instead a type of four-legger Drake covered in dark brown scales, without any horns nor wings, that surpassed three meters in height at the shoulder, two meters and a half in width and a length of over five meters.
Even with it being with four paws on the ground, it was almost double her own height with her needing to look up to meet its eyes.
As she beholded her first real opponent, she smiled, a savage glint in her eyes as she opened and closed her hands ready to at any moment start Shaping a weapon.
The two beings that enjoyed the blessing of a Red Moon within the small island were preparing to start the battle of their lifes up to this point.
As laugher escaped the Lunarian, her right hand clad by her own Unique Arma and transparent shapes materializing within it, and the mouth of the Earth Drake started glowing of a red light, magma cooling in lava starting to fall, drop by drop, from its mouth as it roared in challenge; the two started their fight, an almost solid sphere of lava meeting in the middle of the twenty five meters between them with a Mana Arrow enchanted with Mana Burst, the two projectile exploding, as the two were running in to kill and devour their opponent.