Chapter 111 - Orange Grade Equipment

[Ascendant Dream (Orange) Matches The Owner's Level – Current level: 43]

+1000 Attack

+1000 Sharpness

+800 Attack Speed

+600 Ignore Defence

+600 Critical Chance

+500 Auto Guard

+30% Elemental Damage

+200% Self Repair Rate

Skills:

Elemental Shift (Lightning, Shadow, Ice, Metal) 

Changes the elemental properties of the weapon. Each element brings a corresponding benefit.

Lightning: +300 Lightning damage, +200% damage against Spirit Type enemies.

Shadow: +300 Mana Drain, +200 Ignore Defence.

Ice: +300 Ice damage, increase rate of freezing, +20% of stun.

Metal: +500 Sharpness, +200 Attack, +200 ignore defence.

Cost: 1,000 MP/second and 5,000 MP to switch elements.

Duration: N/A

Cool Down: N/A

Bound: Shiro

Widening her eyes in shock, she couldn't believe that these swords were able to evolve into Orange grade equipment after being bound with her. Not only that, but these blades also had outrageous stats that could even shame her Harbinger's Song. That being said, the stronger she got, the more powerful her nanotech would be.

Her hand cannons would then evolve into higher grade equipment as well. But as it stood, the Ascendant Dream would be helping her out for a long time.

Before she knew it, she was already back at the underground tomb where she had placed her hand on the coffin. Looking at the Ascendant Dream that was floating around her, Shiro wasn't surprised at the fact that they had experienced a few changes to their appearance.

Previously, they looked like plain long swords that an average soldier would equip. However, now they looked like meticulously designed treasures.

Each of the blades where slightly narrower than the average sword and several runes could be seen etched into the face of the blade that gave it an ancient immortal treasure kind of aura.

The guards were black in colour but had a slight purple shine to the metal. Like the guard, the handles were of the same quality except for the fact that there were neon blue lines running along the handle and into a crystal orb, located at the sword's pommel. 

Curious to test out the skill, Element Shift, she activated the Lightning mode first.

*BOOM!

All four floating swords crackled with lightning before calming down.

Raising an eyebrow, Shiro saw that their appearances underwent small changes. The runes now glowed a neon yellow colour and the edges of the blade were coated with lightning. As for the orb, it had been dyed with a mix of blue and yellow.

The lightning would flicker off the swords before striking against the ground. However, when they approached Shiro, they would flicker in excitement before wrapping around her hand. 

Shiro couldn't help but chuckle lightly when she saw the behaviour of the lightning.

After observing the first Elemental Shift, she then changed it to shadow.

The lightning fizzled out as an ominous black mist started to roll off the guard of the sword with no clear signs of where it was coming from. The swords had a black and purple energy coating the sides of the blades.

Looking at the four swords that instantly transformed into demonic swords, she raised an eyebrow as she observed the changes.

Similar things happened with the Ice and Metal elements. Ice was sky blue and Metal was silver.

However, following which was the problem of storing the blades. It was a hassle to take the blades out one by one before a fight along with the fact that it would be hard to react to an ambush.

Furrowing her brows, Shiro glanced at the blades and decided to stop supplying mana to the blades.

Once they lost their supply of mana, the blades transformed into orbs of light that shot towards her neck. When the light died down, Shiro could see a necklace that had four swords attached to it. Each of the swords where a miniature version of themselves.

"Well, that takes care of that." Shiro muttered while holding the necklace.

After a short moment, Shiro shrugged her shoulders and looked for anything else that she could claim from this tomb.

Unfortunately, no matter what she did, the other coffin's couldn't be opened and there was nothing else she could find even after 30 minutes of searching the tomb.

Shaking her head with pity, Shiro looked for a way out.

[Intent to leave detected. As the Trials have ended, would user like to leave? Y/N]

Tapping yes, she felt her vision flash. Furrowing her brows for a short moment, she noticed that she was back at the spot she was when she left for the trials.

"Shiro you're back."

Looking at Lyrica who sat on the tree with her elbows on her knees and her hands to her chin, Shiro nodded her head.

[How long was I away for?]

"Hmm, about 30 minutes give or take." Lyrica replied.

'30 minutes? So it is kind of like the dungeons where the time flow is different on the inside.

"So did you manage to get the sword?" Lyrica asked with curiosity.

[Yeah, it's right here.]

Snapping her fingers, Shiro inserted mana into the swords, turning them into an orb of light.

*Ping~

A soft shattering sound could be heard as the orbs shattered to show four floating swords that hovered around Shiro. Lyrica almost couldn't keep herself on the tree since she could feel a slight amount of pressure from the blades.

"You actually passed!" Lyrica said surprised since she knew how hard it was to control the blades.

[Yeah, there was a small trick needed but otherwise, it wasn't too difficult.]

"Heh… What rank are those swords? I could feel a sense of pressure when you brought them out." Lyrica asked as she jumped off the tree and landed beside her.

[Same as your pendant. Orange.]

"PFF Orange?!!" Lyrica cried out in shock. Orange equipment wasn't like cabbage that could just be picked up and yet, in the span of a day after she showed them her orange grade pendant, Shiro found a piece of orange grade equipment.

"But I thought it was a purple plus grade? How did it become an orange grade item?"

[Not sure, probably something to do with compatibility. At the final test, I got higher than 90% compatibility so that might be one of the reasons.] Shiro shrugged whilst transforming the swords back to their necklace form.

Shiro started to explain to Lyrica about the test and she could only smile bitterly. Forget about the later parts, she didn't even manage to get the swords to float.

Not too long after, Madison joined them for a small chat.

"So what's our plan for now?" Madison asked.

[I'm thinking of holding everything off for a short while. The slum lords are becoming a little unruly since they are kidnapping more and more women from this campsite. While I'm not too sure about what's happening, we should try to protect the people around us for now until the danger passes.]

"Hmm, I agree. A lot of the mothers have given up being adventurers while the kids don't know how to fight. When pitting them against the people in the slums who are used to killing, it's an obvious outcome. The other adventurers can only do so much so we should try to help as much as we can." Madison replied.

"True. But we should also level up when we can since our levels are a little on the low side right now." Lyrica reminded Madison.

"Shiro is fine since she is able to beat level 50's anyways but we're not the same. We got two choices. Level up or increase our battle senses. The more viable option is to level up since we haven't experienced battles like them. Not only that, but they'll most likely resort to dirty tactics." Lyrica continued as Shiro nodded in approval.

The only reason as to why she could kill the level 50's was due to her cheat like class, her monster title and her previous lifetimes worth of battle experience.

But that wasn't the same case for Lyrica and Madison. Even though their levels had shot through the roof after they got to know her, they were still students. It was a similar case to giving a child a gun. While they could kill a person with ease, it was also easier for the enemy to snatch the gun from the child.

Lyrica and Madison had the level and firepower but not the experience.

[You two should go to a dungeon as much as you can for 3 days while I protect this campsite. I want you to level up and gain experience at the same time. The best way to do this is to fight a group of enemies. That way, you'll be forced to keep an eye on your surroundings constantly and keep tabs on all of the monsters.] Shiro suggested.

"Wait… but all the dungeons are basically 5 levels higher than us." Lyrica said as she glanced at Shiro. However, she paled slightly when she saw her soft smile that didn't take no for an answer.

Madison only patted Lyrica's shoulder.

'Feel the pain of when you only watched me tank a boss!!!' Madison cried out on the inside as she still held a small grudge over that. Before she had her Demon Knight class, the best way for training Shiro gave her was to tank a boss by herself when she wasn't even level 20.

[Go, I'll protect this camp while you do the dungeons. But I need to warn you about the alleyways. Try to avoid them if you can. A few people from the slums tried to kidnap me when I passed the alleys.]

"Eh? What happened?" Lyrica asked as she wondered about what happened.

[If something bad happened I won't be here talking to you. That being said, what do you think happened to them?] Shiro grinned.

"Died?"

[Died.] Shiro nodded, confirming her guess.

"Hais… I pity them." Lyrica sighed with a shake of her head. Why did they have to commit crimes? If they just cleared dungeons like normal people, they would have been fine. And yet, they had to try kidnap Shiro as well. And from her knowledge, Shiro may as well be the world's most dangerous 13 year old.

[Don't pity the stupid or you won't have time to think of anything else.] Shiro replied with a roll of her eyes. There were so many people in life who did dumb things even though they knew the consequences. It was to the point that if she walked for 10 minutes in any city, she would be guaranteed to run into a small group of idiots that courted death over stupid choices on more than one occasion.

"I suppose." Lyrica shrugged since she wasn't wrong. With the addition of dungeons in their lives, they could choose to be upstanding if they wanted to and yet, they still chose to be bandits. If they wanted to blame anyone, they could only blame themselves.

"So tomorrow me and Lyrica will be going to the dungeon while you'll be back here looking after the camp?" Madison asked.

[Yeah, just enter the dungeon without worries. I'll just be here guarding the camp. Hmm, though I may step out a few times since I have a few things to do. I got this thing called a trial key, not sure if you two know what it is, but basically it will level me up a bit more. That and also the fact that I have won the permission to access this place called the mana springs which is under the jurisdiction of the top family in Cairosa. They haven't given me a strict time for when I should enter but I believe that it shouldn't take too long.] Shiro replied having typed out a huge paragraph.

Taking a short moment to read the paragraph, the duo nodded in understanding.

"I heard that the Mana Springs will help reinforce and rejuvenate your mana links. Could it be that you want to take a dip to see if you're able to heal your mana links?" Lyrica asked.

[Yup.] Shiro nodded.

However, all of this was news to Madison since she didn't know that Shiro's mana links were damaged.

All she knew was that the mana links were essentially the second heart to mages. The moment the mana link is damaged or broken, the life of that mage is basically over.

"Hold up, your mana links are broken?! When?! How?!" Madison asked with shock.

[I don't know. I just woke up with damaged mana links.] Shiro shrugged her shoulders.

"So this whole time from when you were just in your level 20's till now, you were fighting with this kind of limitation?!" Madison widened her eyes in disbelief.

[Aside from the fact that skills take more MP and that the spells I cast can't be too strong, I'm pretty much fine. Though if I don't fix this sooner or later, I don't think I'll be able to step into C class.] Shiro sighed.

There were still some time for the New York monster purge to finish so she was wondering about when Nan Tian would get her the phoenix rebirth type pill.

'Hmm… I can't believe I'm thinking this but I hope Nan Tian comes back soon. The sooner he comes back, the sooner I can get the pill for my mana links.' Shiro thought with a sigh.