11. The first war.

With this pace, they continue deeper into the dungeon, each group growing in both size and difficulty, even for silver and her cannons, the armor on the abyssal wolves are more complete, and some have defensive abilities now granting the entire group with a massive defense buff, many getting within feet of the turret bases as they continue trekking forward, the asari,unbeknownst to silver, is using a special recording crystal to record her combat, even though she isn't a top powerhouse yet, for her level, she is nothing short of being a dragon amonst wolves. Eventually, after spending the majority of a day, fighting a huge number, exceeding the number from all of silver's previous dungeons, beast counts, they reach the boss, a gigantic wolf, trapped in a dark red crystal, floating in the heart of the realm, the rarest defeated boss, in all dungeons of the same level. As everyone in the group enter's, the crystal starts cracking, with an audible egg cracking like sound, echoing throughout the huge dungeon. After a few moments, the crystal finally shattered, releasing Fenrir, a dark smoke like aura, surrounds him, standing at more than 10 feet tall, and glowing red eyes, its no wonder this wolf earned a name from myths.With this though, signals the battle of the boss fight, without hesitation or confusion the wolf pounces at the group, aproaching rapidly,pushing its levels agility to the extreme. The battle commences, and without fazing from the wolf's approach, Silver summons her turret's bombarding the boss immediately, buying time for her team to react and push forward, some engaging in melee combat, an archer hangs back in the protrction of silvers turrets, followed with a preist as they buff the team and support from a distance, silver being the battle maniac she is, sheds all civility in her gaze, her face twisting into a feral grin as she dashes forward, her own speed making quite the scene as she darts into melee ranged, ignoring the fact that she only has one arm, throwing a heavy punch at the wolf, the momentum carrying a huge force in the gauntlet, as the blow strikes the wolfs side, an explosion happens, amplifying the attack ten fold, causing a deep burn and setting the wolf on fire in a deep purple mana, having been modifying and crafting a new recipe for the cartidges, making the explosion use mana powder to cause the opponent to catch fire and burn with mana flames, a flame that does not require oxygen, or any outside source of combustion except for her initial mana supply to burn. An effective trick, setting the wolf ablaze, not able to do much damage, but every bit helps in this fight. The wolf turns arounf giving silver, a very human like 'HOW DARE YOU' stare before focusing her the rest of the fight from this moment on. After Her and her team fight the boss for nearly three hours, the boss is finally on its last leg, but most of the team has sustained varying degrees of injuries, despite having a healer. Silver having accumulated the most of the group, acting as both tank and damage this fight, her blood covering the majority of her armor, and piece of one ear having been blown off from one of the bosses many high damage skills, though healing, its very slow to regrow after the mana burn of the attack. With her turrets surprisingly having maintained consistent fire throughout the fight, despitw not leveling up to replinesh or stopping to regenerate her limited mana pool, thoroughly impressing the asari delegates, though a few of the guards looking a bit disheveled with char marks on their armor though avi seems without a mark, with both the longevity, but the sheer resilience displayed, the rest of the team is above average but nothing more than uncommon compared to the amount of damage both taken and given by silver. With a growl of seething hatred, the wolf attacks silver with everything it has at once, burning its monster core up in order to detonate itself on silver, its final hoorah against her. Silver seeing this instinctively reaches out with her own vicious and feral like sound, clenching her fist as the mana inside the beast explodes, but...something happens that the asari, and her team cant even fathom, silver's mana is devouring the violent mana energy thats doing its best to kill her. Though she is feeling the pain of being slowly torn apart as she is absorbing this violent mana, it converts into her own, to devour even more of this mana. Over the course of a few minutes, silver's condition worsens, some bones on her arm showing, her chest slowly being ripped apart now, but the huge ball of mana is far smaller, nearly gone by now, consumed and converted into mana, something silver didnt even know she could do. Just as the last of the energy is absorbed from the ball, Silver collapses where she stands, only to hear a single notification sound from her system, though distinctly not the level up jingle she is used to.The healer runs over quickly using their innate talent to heal silver, though it seems less effective than on the others, confusing the healer, only those with really high stats or high levels would be slow, but silver should be the lowest in the group. 'why is she healing so slow? does she just have an insanely high stat value?is that why her turrets are so strong?what is she?' the healer thinks to herself, confused at the anomaly, eventually, silver regains her strength, not quite fully healed, but her ear is now intact, but hairless for now, and new scars can be seen all over her body, still pinkish in color showing the stage of healing currently. "thanks, I needed the top off..." silver says nonchalantly, as if someone gave her coffee when she was tired instead of healing her from knocking on deaths door a bit too eagerly. "what was that you just did? how are you even alive?!" avi asks when she makes it over, astonished to see silver in much better health than she shouldve been after the boss quite literally attempted to nuke her into oblivion. "honestly i have no idea, had a feeling that if i tossed my mana at it, id have a chance to survive, turns out it saved my life, as for what it did or does, not a clue, I will check it out later though for sure." She replies, confusion also covering her face, though one can tell that it cost her a lot to do what she did, looking quite pale even after being healed. "we will stay in touch, I have things to discuss with the royal family before I can make any decisions, though be prepared to renegotiate." Avi says before slipping her business card into silvers chest vestment, making silver feel a bit awkward at the intimate choice made by avi, before watching the asari delegate walk away talking vividly amongst themselves. "anyway, good job guys, and as promised even the boss loot is yours...if there is any, I should head on out..." silver states before tiredly climbing to her feet and leaving ignoring the attempts to get her on thier squad permenantly or get more raids with her, or just chatter, feeling drained to the limit after this dungeon and showing off heavily in front of the asari, a race of craftmen, and alchemists, known for their love of natural flowing engravings, a personal favorite for collectible figurines, such as her wolf figurine much akin to fenrir in a way.

Leaving the dungeon, silver climbs in her car before looking at her status, seeing the new messages, the first says. [CONGRATULATIONS HOST TO SUCCESSFULLY AWAKENING A NEW FUNCTION OF YOUR CLASS, NEW FUNCTION: MANA DEVOUR..FUNCTION DETAILS, DIRECTLY DEVOUR ANY MANA AROUND THE HOST, FORCEFULLY CONVERTING IT INTO YOUR OWN, THE MORE MANA ABSORBED THE LARGER THE PERMANENT MANA INCREASE] 'wait, what?!' Silver's eyes go wide before quickly checking her status.

name: Silver Hailstorm

class: Arcana Machina

level: 21

stats.

Str: 46 (39)

AG: 80 (72)

DEX: 45 (42)

Int: 75

Mana:1600 (990)

'Holy shit! a massive increase! thats like...10 levels worth of mana! and I can further increase it?! fuck yes' now pumped up despite the exhaustion, Silver can't help but smile comfortably, her arm is just that much closer, the itch for more power ever present. Silver checks the other notification. [Congratulations Host on gaining combat experience and inspiration! Congratulations on recieving a class advancement.]

1. all turrets +1

2. all turrets => elite towers

3.shield wall +1

4. self deployment blueprint +1

seeing her options, she is debating, all options are extremely good, and with a potential beast tide war, more turrets is a firepower buff, but increases mana consumption significantly. She still hasn't figured out what the self deployment blueprint is. With an impulsive shrug, silver chooses the the deployment blueprint.

checking what this does in her skill panel.

SKILLS.

MK. 3 TURRET

MK. 2 ARTILLERY TURRET

MANA DEVOUR LVL. 1

SELF DEPLOYMENT LVL. 1

clicking on self deployment, its information panel shows up.

[Self deployment, allows the host to save a construct and use mana to summon it, will convert all fuel sources, ammunition sources, or energy sources to mana]

'But what constitutes a construct?' Silver ponders on this matter for a time, experimenting at home for the next few days with varying weapons and armor. After a few days, her father enters the workshop, used to silver's single minded focus on things making her miss meals. when he enters, and sees dozens of weapons, armor pieces, and old gifts from the captains and generals who use their business, he sees a grungy looking silver, slumped over a desk, black grease staining her hair and ears, the soft sounds of her mumbling to herself over a current piece, a crossbow, stepping over to his daughter all while thinking. 'what has she gotten into her thick head now?and what made her go through her collection?' he chooses to not mention it, some things are just meant to be left alone. Tapping her shoulder to announce himself to her. "sil hun, you wanna join your mother and me for breakfast?maybe take a break for awhile and come back to...whatever this is." he says taking another confused and curious look around. Slowly, as if a light is turning up or engine starting, life fills silver's eyes, bringing her back from her study. "um, yea sure, I can eat!" Silver answers, a bit famished, but always a glutton anyway, stands up slowly her body showing signs of fatigue.After eating with the family, and telling them her troubles, her brilliant mother and business manager mentioned visiting the dwarves, afterall they are natural craftsmen, born with divine capabilities in the arts of forging, though a minority are warriors, no one can look down on them for their strength. So with that recommendation, silver strolls through the blacksmith lane, talking to every blacksmith, regardless of race, on what a construct is, with many opinions bouncing back and forth on so many theories,eventually, silver winds up at one of the highest regarded blacksmiths' and craftsman in the city, Farrady smithy. "Hello? Mr. Farrady? I have a few questions If you wouldn't mind answering as best you can?" Silver asks hopefully, hoping her cute stature will win a few points from the rough looking dwarf with a metal name tag pinned to his coveralls stating his name, Farrady. "whats the question? stop wastin' ma time, dontcha see I am busy?" Farrady replies in an irritated tone. "alright, ahem...what do you think a construct is? is it just a weapon? armor? what can a construct be?" The dwarf grows still, remaining silent as he stares deeply at silver, after a few moments the man walks into the back, At first silver thought she had insulted him with such a question, but a minute later, he returns holding an ancient wooden box, with ornate patterns, swirling around the box is bits of mana both felt and seen. "A construct is something made with a felt intent...in short its been given a soul..." The man replies setting the box down and opening it, revealing a set of beautiful dwarven daggers, both matching except for the colors around the edges, one holds a dark red tint while the other is dark blue, radiating their own mana, as if trying to show their vitality to the world. "To make a construct one must understand both mana and where it is coming from, many know one, or the other but never use it in crafting, its considered taboo, afterall...you are creating life in a sense, these are my personal constructs, made nearly twenty years ago by mine own hands...why did you come here asking about constructs?..." the man asks softly after he finishes explaining. " you see, i gained a skill that allows me to save, and then summon a construct, but nothing i have tried can be saved, the mana either destroys it in the process or refuses it outright." nodding his head in understanding. "yes yes, the ones that broke were vessels that couldve been, the ones that refused are just regular weapons, you need a true construct then..." nodding her head with a deep frown. "so it seems, but, I don't know if any craftsmen will be willing to make a construct to my specs or not." " the issue isnt willingness, but capability, only a few craftsmen make constructs at all, and they dont make it publicly known, you look like a good kid, so I'll let you in on the secrets I know, but constructs as a whole is still full of mysteries, each one is special and different." "would you be willing to make one for me? Cost is no issue, and if anything can be a construct I have something in mind?" At first the man opens his mouth to refuse, but stops midway, thinking on it for awhile. "Tell me lil missy...are you that new adventurer who has been using turrets to fight?" with a beaming smile of pride and her two ears perking up at this. "why yes I am, and soon not just turrets maybe." Silver sets her adventurer ID on the table for him to examine. With this, he agrees to the request, and they talk for hours on what silver has asked to be made, with the promise that once successful it will be sent to her one way or another. Leaving, Silver sighs sadly as she leaves, not able to increase her strength yet, nor level up as quickly, it disappoints silver. 'what I would give to hunt in a trillion plus strong beast tide...the experience alone would be tens of times more than these lousy dungeons...even shared...' With that, silver takes a few days off dungeon raiding and focuses on going to the gym, pushing her limits and increasing her strengths foundation, maybe not building more attribute points but making each point carry more weight for her is never a bad thing.

During one of these training days, her phone rings, an unknown number. Answering silver starts her normal business speil. "Hailstorm mechanics, This is silver." not quite aware of who might be callimg when she hears a familiar voice on the other end. "Good to see you are still alive silver, it's avi, I do hope you remember me, we discussed your payment, and were a bit concerned about the military weapons, any chance we can negotiate on that and find something a bit more suitable? how about help with a prosthetic limb? we have several top grade craftsman who would love helping you make a few selections of such?" Avi getd right to the point, just to silver's liking, though the mention of a prosthetic limb makes her frown when she answers. " I already have a prosthetic in the works, rest assured, if not a weapon from the armory, how about substituting with say...3 scrolls of advancement?" silver asks, hoping to gain some serious firepower for what is to come, scrolls of advancent are rare drops from bosses allowing one to directly advance ones class without having to gain much experience, some princes and princess can be level one with the combat prowess of a level 50 with enough scrolls. The line grows quiet for some time before avi comes back on. "3 advancement scrolls and the rest of what you chose is acceptable." silver replies with an eager smile. "when do you want me there? I am ready any time!" avi giggles at the noticeable excitement from silver before replying. "there is a plane in your city, your name has been added to the list, so go to the airport and look for the asari staff, let them have your name, after that, itll be a few hours til you get here and everything will be further explained to you, but do have a heads up, you will have a different mission objective than the rest, but rest assured it is not without benefits, the current pay is the initial assessment." avi says before hanging up on silver, leaving her dumbfounded and slighted just a bit for being cliff hangered like that. 'why so mean to tease me and not share?!' With an angry huff, Silver sends a text ro her family before taking a trip to the airport, a huge landing strip currently filled with a half dozen cargo planes with asari techs milling around, already hundreds of mercenaries are here waiting in some capacity. Parking and after going through security, Silver arrives in front of an asari attendant with a tablet. "Hi, My name is Silver hailstorm, Recruitment for the beast tide?" She asks softly, not really having been much of a people person it's hard to regulate what attitude to approach with, another reason she jumps from team to team. The asari looks her up, frowning at first at the obvious disability, soon finding her name, and immediately his expression becomes much more amiable before leading her to a smaller aircraft, what seemz to be their version of elite transport at the moment. After getting settled and having to listen to not only lewd comments but also degrading ones about her missing arm. they take off, and after a few uneventful hours flying, they land, and everyone is led to a huge court yard, filled currently with thousands of mercenaries,the den of noise caused by all of them making silver's ear droop and throb, thankfully she doesn't have to wait long before a very tall by any standard, asari woman wearing a dress in the royal colors and a simple but beautiful crown, showing she is the queen, walks on stage, addressing the crowd, which quietens immediately, afterall, she is the one paying them. "thank you all for answering our call, it is not that we are in danger simply that with each day that our walls are closed is a day with lost trade, food shipments are delayed, and businesses run out of things, so we have asked all of you here to help cull the beast tide, and allow our troops a few hours rest, they have fought non stop for several days now, shortly all of you will be joining them and releaving a sectors troops for the next several hours, while some of you will have special assignments or regions of their own based on their ability to do so. so please, be patient and follow the commanders who ping your phone shortly." as she finishes speaking every phone in the area dings or vibrates at once, Silver also hears her phone, taking it out and reading over the text it reads as such. (report to the southwest wall, your first payment, and assignment are waiting, commanding officer, avi) Walking briskly towards that direction, the city unfamiliar, but easy enough to navigate.Arriving a half hour later in front of a familiar face but different uniform. "so you are a strategic military asset as well as envoy?" silver says as she approaches offering a curt handshake. "that and more, here is your early and just payment, I figured you would like to increase your strength as soon as possible for this fight" avi replies before handing over everything to silver, a smirk on her face the entire time, dumbfounding the few recruits who have just shown up at the fact that silver is already familiar with avi. "Thanks, and I wouldve asked for an early payment anyway, so its appreciated." Silver nods satisfied with how well avi predicted her needs. "so whats our assignment?" she asks only to hear avi reply looking directly at silver. "YOUR assignment, this entire sector of the wall will be under your protection for a minimum of 6 hours no less, and the rest are hear to give you a break or help any wounded troops." "hey! thats not fair we can fight too! what makes a one armed cat more capable than dozens of us?!" a furious voice sounds from the crowd, and without bothering to look, silver summons her turrets turning all guns to bare on the poor stupid soul. "keep talking and you'll find out." Avi says chuckling at the immediate display of force from silver. "take it out on the tide, theres plenty to kill" avi comforts silver before leading them up a set of stairs, the den of beasts and roars, and all sorts of loud explosions, gunshots, and screams increasing in volume with each step up to the short walls of the city, only a couple stories tall, far smaller than her own city, but usually enough for here. "are they fighting outside the wall or something? wouldnt it be better to fight from the top?" The annoying voice sounds out again behind them. "if everyone was a ranged fighter it would be perfect, and they are normally ranged fighters, but the bodies would stack up and eventually make a ramp for the beast tide to climb, now if you like living you would force them to die and create a second or even third wall to fight through, especially in such large numbers." Avi replies not bothering to look back at him. "Silver your objective is to target higher priority targets such as fliers and things that can take a beating without falling, as well as to create as much breathing room for the troops below as possible from the wall, the rest will join the ranks below." with that, Silver gets left at a low wall overlookong the huge battlefield, in front is a cleared area only twenty meters wide, all along the wall filled with tents, and military personel fighting the tide back,side the beasts looking much like a roiling sea in front of her, Silver starts grinning from ear ro ear, taking out the advancment scrolls, she tears one and selects the elite turret option, upgrading the damage of each turret slightly while further reducing mana drain, doing another, a new option unfolds, elite to veteran turrets, selecting that option, her turrets now have massive armor and tower more than 15 feet behind her with dark purple mana viens carved into intricate patterns along the body and weapons, looking formidable, silver breaks another seal, another now with this upgrade patb used up, a new options has shown up.

1. all turrets +1

2. mounted turret + 1

3.shield wall +1

4. Warcraft summoning [locked] Seeing the second and last option,the last being locked and cant be chosen, her interest is piqued to say the least, but with no other alternative, She selects mounted turret as her last advancement, with this, she summons everything, the artillery immediately roaring to life,firing deep into the masses. Ignoring the fight sulver examines her mounted turret, looking more like an antique than something usable, Silver unsummons it for now, letting her turrets go to town. Finding a seat on the ledge, she observes the battle, adjusting her turrets targeting from time to time, sometimes sniping some flying creatures, and like this, time passes...in her first war.