Chapter 16: [Hundred Blade Frag Ant]

Landing softly, Shiro breath out a wave of cold mist as the snowfall lightened up before stopping completely.

[MP: 3400/9300]

Her MP usage wasn't too extreme as the main catalyst for the blizzard was her passive Cold Aura.

As a seasoned veteran in combat, she could control the amount of bloodlust she exhibited. By pushing the limit of her bloodthirst, she could actively freeze her surroundings without using MP and instead, make it more efficient to use her Ice magic.

Iris was watching in awe, taking in every little detail.

"How... did you do that?" Iris asked, trying to figure out what she did.

"I exhibited some of my bloodlust in order to make my passive Cold Aura freeze everything without using MP." Shiro replied, kicking the fragments of the chest away, Shiro was disappointed that there were no mana stone to harvest.

"What is bloodlust?" Iris asked, floating over to Shiro

"Hmmm~ Think of it as a mental pressure you can exert on your enemies after you have killed enough things and people. The more you kill the stronger your bloodlust will be." Shiro replied, collecting the body. Iris was deep in thought.

"[Collect]"

"Oh my, well isn't this something..." Shiro muttered seeing the loot.

It wasn't that the loot was bountiful. It was just a single key.

[Tier 2 Trial Key]

A key to access the Tier 2 trial – [Silvermoon Keep]

Recommended Level: 40

This was a concept Shiro was unfamiliar with. There had never been a mention or a rumor about Trial Key's back in her previous life. An unfamiliar concept means undiscovered adventurers.

And undiscovered adventures mean undiscovered opportunities.

"What's a trial key?" Iris asked

"No idea"

Storing the key away in her inventory, Shiro had a smile plastered on her face as just thinking about the mystery of this key made her giddy.

"With that being said, I should probably enter when I'm level 45 or something." Shiro muttered since the recommended level could potentially mean the minimum level needed to survive. Barely.

Looking around as they now had the time to inspect their surroundings in much greater detail, Shiro saw that there was another room connected to the room she was in.

Walking through the crack in the walls to reach the room, she saw the location update once more.

[Trickster's Abode]

"Trickster's Abode? The thing had a house?!" Shiro muttered.

"Dang, at least its not homeless?" Iris replied

Walking through the cave walls, they eventually found the abode as Shiro was surprised at what she saw.

A clear stream circled a small island in the center of the cave. From the island, a simple wooden bridge was present to connect the tunnel and the island together.

A single lone cabin stood atop the island as it gave Shiro a feeling of loneliness.

Illuminated by glowing stalactites, the scenery almost looked mystic. Iris looked at the scenery a bit more as Shiro walked over to the door of the cabin.

"The cabin seems to have been here for a long time..." Shiro said, seeing all of the dust that had gathered over time.

"This place is pretty... I bet it would cost alot to live here." Iris commented, enamored by the veiw.

"Not really, we are still inside of a dungeon after all" Shiro reminded as she opened the door

Shiro coughed slightly from all the dust.

The interior was simple. A bookshelf and a rocking chair. Besides the rocking chair, was a small table.

A decorated book laid on top of the table as it seemed like a grimoire of sorts. A grimoire was a book that contains a skill and most often than none, a tale.

Picking up the book, Shiro opened it to give it a quick read.

[Grimoire of the Broken]

In life, I was a genius. A master of disguise.

There was no one who I couldn't fool.

Yet, because of this talent, I had lost sight of myself. Trapped in a myriad of personalities that had become too real for me to forget.

In my struggle of multiple personalities, someone gave me light. No matter the personality, she accepted them.

Only one thing became a common factor amongst my thoughts. My love for her.

But who knew she was the princess of the royal family?

Her family hated me, who was but a trickster, a clown suffering from his own talents.

Afraid that their daughter was tricked by me, they interrogated me.

Oh, how laughable. My talent who broke me internally was fixed by her. Yet, it was her family who broke me once more.

Same question different answers.

That was the interrogation in its simplest form. No personality agreed with the other as the answers I gave was nothing but a jumbled mess.

Disgusted with me, they banished me to this Dungeon without her knowledge. She must think I abandoned her...

Trapped in a dungeon that she doesn't even know existed; I wait for my time to come.

To whoever reads this, I hope that you may find it in you fulfil a dead man's wish and pass on my message to my love.

There is only one thing in my life that will never change. My love for you.

The Trickster, The Broken

Saul Rundall

"..." Shiro was speechless.

"Well that's some bad instructions, who the hell does this thing even want the message to be passed onto?" Iris said, having come inside a minute ago

"Yeah no way we are doing that, We have no idea who she is, how to find her, or why this exists"

When a Dungeon resets, a total wipe should occur. Monster's, items, everything. So for this place to exist was strange in and of itself.

And to top it all off, this Saul Rundall gave her a wild goose chase, he never once mentioned the name of that princess.

"Everyone has a love story or two, but I'm afraid you won't get your wish." Shiro apologized as she flipped to the end of the book.

[Learn Talent: Trickster?]

"A talent?" Shiro muttered. She was somewhat expecting a skill but not a talent. The difference between a talent and a skill was the talent being more natural, more powerful and more efficient.

It requires less MP and it gives you a title. Naturally, there are double sided talents like what Saul Rundall had suggested in his tale.

Shiro could guess that the Trickster talent would develop a split personality should one abuse it too much.

[Talent: Trickster]

All disguise, misdirection and stealth related skills are 70% more effective.

Title: Trickster

Passive – Perfect Actor

Act in the manner of anyone, fictional or real, without flaws.

Curse: Broken

Over time, Perfect Actor would develop a split personality inside you.

"Not worth it." Shiro concluded. Recycling the book, Shiro scanned the books on the bookshelf.

"Don't wanna end up like that guy" Iris commented, glancing back at where the Trickster was

However, she sighed in disappointment when she realized they had nothing important.

Walking out of the cabin, they made their way back to the obelisk, Iris suffering the entire tunnel

'I guess in the end, it was an ok trip.' Shiro thought as her best harvest was probably the key to the [Silvermoon Keep].

Tapping the second floor on the obelisk, her body was teleported away.

*CLANG CLANG!

The moment she was teleported, Shiro felt killing intent and Iris Fazed, summoning her two daggers

Looking above them, they could see two ants with blades for arms.

"Wow, so hasty to kill us so soon." Shiro grinned at the challenge.

"Too bad I'm faster than you!" Iris taunted, having already teleported above the ants and stabbed her daggers into two of their heads. They went through, it seems as Shiro levels up Iris also gets stronger.

Shiro easily ducked and dodged the other ants, 5 ants in total it seems. She quickly just made a little Ice platform to watch Iris dispatch the rest.

Iris landed on the floor as the ants quickly changed targets, she turned her daggers into shortswords, parrying the blades of the one in front before fazing and quickly getting behind it.

The shortswords in her hands were now gone as she grinned and said

"Thanks for agreeing to test something for me!"

She then snapped her fingers as 3 blades protruded out of the ground, killing the 3 ants. Although it seems the power was limited to what she could output.

"Nice~ can you summon them inside of their bodies?" Shiro asked casually, still watching from her ice throne in the air.

"I don't think so, anyways I have to deal with these guys." Iris replied, turning around to an army of floating eyes crawling towards her.

[Bladed Frag Ant Drone LVL 24]

[Bladed Frag Ant Drone LVL 23]

[Bladed Frag Ant Drone LVL 25]

…

Iris smiled, making her dual short swords again before dashing into the fray, she swiftly slashed at the first ant, decapitating it as she swiftly spun around and used the momentum to follow up with another slash. A spike from the ground killed an ant that tried to attack her from behind.

It was interesting to watch, Iris gaining more and more power as she got faster and faster, though she was a bit inefficient. She cut an ant in half before following up with a kick at another ant, the fazing through the third ants attack that one was killed with a spike as Iris stabbed through the fourth. Her attacks didn't get rid of enough ants at once to get through the horde very quickly though.

However after that she fazed and flew up with a frown

"I'm not being very efficient here… not fast enough." Iris muttered, The ants got confused at suddenly losing their target

"Shiro do you have any ideas?" Iris asked. The ants focused their attention on Shiro chilling on her ice thrown instead sense they lost Iris

"From what I'm seeing you aren't actually that proficient in using the weapons. Your technique is off." Shiro replied as the ants tried to climb the ice, stabbing their blades into the ice, however Shiro just made a block of ice that killed all the climbing ants as it fell.

"Also weapons like short swords and daggers aren't meant for big amounts of enemies, why don't you try to do some more things with your holographic creation?" Shiro asked, the ants decided to just wait it out, concluding Shiro cant stay up there forever.

"My holographic creation…and proficiency... thanks Shiro!"

Iris got an idea, she fazed, falling down onto the crowd on ants that immediately noticed her. She made a holographic platform beneath her that fell and crushed all the ants underneath. Her wings grew bigger, actually connecting to her body. 

Iris dashed toward the group of ants, stabbing her two shortswords into two of their heads before immediately fazeing

She jumped up and created a big pillar right in the center of the group, landing on it and fazeing again

"Up here you stupid ants!" She taunted, creating holographic spikes that stabbed through the body of any ant that tried to climb the pillar.

Once there was a good amount of ants surrounding her pillar, Iris crouched down and touched the holographic pillar

She closed her eyes and concentrated, as the same type of runes she had written on the Nanotech growth infuser appeared on the pillar. However there was only one word written all over it.

[̇ᒷ/i!|:ᒍ↸ᒷ]

"Explode" Iris muttered, opening her eyes again and quickly teleporting away from the pillar

The pillar exploded, killing a large amount of the group almost instantaneously

"Finally! I'm not too good for crowd control but I can handle this much!" Iris grinned at the smaller numbers and summoned her two holographic daggers again.

Shiro was watching with curiosity, mentally taking notes on what Iris needed to improve on. Though She did kill one ant and copy its mana signal onto a nanotech chip.

...

[Name: Shiro

Race: Snow Girl (Evolution Criteria yet to be met)

Level: 24

Class: Snow Girl★, Nanomancer

HP: 5650/7300

MP: 2800/11,300

STR: 45 -> 55(+35)

VIT: 50 -> 60 (+60)

INT: 130 (+100)

AGI: 100 (+45)

DEX: 60 (+30)

DEF: 10 (+65)

Unassigned Points: 0

Balance: 231,900 USD

Equipment (Tap to Display)

Skills –

Snow Girl ★:

Tier 2 Ice magic, Passive Regeneration, Blessed by Ice, Snow Magic, Faded Snow Movement, Cold Aura.

Nanomancer:

Dagger Creation, Nano Tech Engineering Tier 1, Sword Creation.

Other:

Mini-map, Inspection, Disguise, Harden (Equipment), Lesser Fear (Equipment), Sensory (Equipment).]

Linked To-Iris

After a while, Iris finally killed the hoard. Her stamina wasn't the best so she was painting slightly and fazed back to her ghosty form, sitting on the ground.

As Iris took a rest, Shiro checked her status.

"Good job kid, we leveled up" Shiro complemented.

The level ups rewarded Shiro with MP passing the 10,000 threshold.

Just seeing the 5-digit MP count made her smile with glee as she was a step closer to regaining her former strength. When she does, she can explore this unknown world without much trouble.

As a result of the 5-digit MP count, Shiro had managed to unlock her Sword Creation for the Nanomancer class. The damage value of the sword would be much higher than the daggers, but she would no longer have the option in throwing the weapon as a catalyst.

However, it was ok because it made up for her less than desired close quarts combat power.

Switching between dagger and sword will help cover both long and short range.

The final benefit she got from the horde was equipment. Replacing some of her old equipment, Shiro gained a new skill from the new replacements.

[Sensory – Passive]

Natural senses are heightened slightly.

It wasn't a massive boost, but it was welcomed since it helped her perceive her surroundings better.

"Wow~ you're leeching off all my work" Iris pouted

"Hey your the one who wanted a chance to fight" Shiro replied with a grin.

Shiro waited for Iris to recover before they started to make their way towards the obelisk.

A few Bladed Frag Ant Drones wanted to ambush them but failed. They were, in essence, cannon fodder. Without a giant army to swarm the person, they were easy to kill.

Funnily enough, the closer they went towards the obelisk, the fewer times they got ambushed.

It was weird since the Dungeon ecosystem was mostly correct 9 times out of 10. For an anomaly like this to happen must mean the obelisk guardian is that of a foreign species or that it cannibalizes which inflicts fear towards the drone.

From what Shiro read about this Dungeon; The obelisk guardian was a boss called [Hundred Blade Frag Ant]. Since it's the same species it the most likely situation was cannibalism.

*Crrrrrrrrr....

The scraping of the blades against the ground could be heard faintly as Shiro and Iris knew they were getting close.

Stepping forward slowly, Shiro observed the [Hundred Blade Frag Ant] as Iris floated up to it.

[Hundred Blade Frag Ant LVL 25 – Elite]

HP:80,000/80,000

MP: 20,000/20,000

As its name suggested, it looked as if it had a hundred blades acting as legs. Measuring 8 meters long and only 1 meter tall. It was armoured with void black chitin with two short antennas and a visible jaw.

"..."

"..."

"Shiro... Is that an ant...?" Iris asked, floating back down to Shiro

"Like hell that's an ant! That's a fucking millipede!"