Chapter 128 - Ocean Heart Scales

*BANG BANG BANG BANG!

Slashing the four swords against the rock solid body of the monster, Shiro frowned when she realised that the swords were slightly weakened right now and couldn't do as much damage as it should.

Elemental Shift: Metal.

Shifting the element of the sword to metal for increase sharpness, attack and the added bonus of ignore defence. Glowing with a silver aura, the swords radiated the feeling of danger even for Shiro.

"Go!" She commanded coldly as she flicked her hand towards the boss.

Two of the swords joined together at the pommel and started to rotate in a clockwise motion.

*BZZZ!!!

Cutting through the boss's arm like a saw, the two swords created an opening for her to attack.

Shiro narrowed her eyes before swimming towards The arm. Since the arm was only recently destroyed, that means the structural integrity of the boss's body around that area would be a lot weaker.

Yin Style Phantom Arts: 3rd Phantom + 4th Phantom!

Combining the two phantoms, one of which allowed her to shift all of the momentum into a certain area and another that ignored defences to attack the internals, Shiro grabbed the two spare swords and twisted her body in order to maximise the amount of momentum she could output.

*BANG BANG!

The collision of the swords with the boss pushed Shiro back as she had to wave her arms and legs around to quickly stabilise herself.

However, the boss didn't allow that luxury. The trident, which the boss wielded in his spare hand, stabbed towards her without mercy.

*K RRRR!!!

With a single burst of killing intent, Shiro not only caused the boss to pause for a slight moment, but also froze the water around her. The trident would have pierced her body if not for the fact that she had ice helping her out.

'Isn't this boss a little too difficult for a level 44? If it wasn't for the fact that I had my monster title, I might have been done for.' Shiro thought with a frown.

Thawing the ice, she quickly swam away from the area and started to circle around the boss.

"Since there is no one else but me and you, I'm free to do whatever I want." Shiro muttered with a cold glare.

Frozen Hell: Frozen Slumber!

Once again, Shiro gathered mana into her palms, creating six huge magic circles to surround the boss.

"Freeze."

Oddly enough, she was able to clasp her hands without much trouble. The result of which caused the boss to freeze into a giant ice cube before shattering apart.

Upon defeating the boss, Shiro saw a magic circle expand out beneath her. The same one that had teleported here in the first place.

She allowed herself to be teleported as bright lights overwhelmed her vision.

Learning from her previous mistake of letting her guard down after leaving the trial, which resulted in a hammer being slammed against her head, Shiro grabbed two swords to protect herself.

"Hm… Seems like I'm the first one." She muttered once she saw that no one else had returned yet.

*Click

Returning her swords into their necklace form, Shiro froze herself into an ice cube in order to activate her passive – Ice Field Affinity.

'Might as well regenerate some MP while I wait for the others.' She thought to herself.

However, not too long after, she saw Aarim appear back in her spot.

"Aiya, seems like I was a little slower than y-…and you're an ice Cube." Aarim couldn't help but mutter when she saw Shiro in a fetal position inside an ice cube.

Shiro only shrugged her shoulders slightly since her MP was still being regenerated.

While it was great that she had 460k worth of MP, it was also a downside. Her regeneration simply couldn't keep up.

With factors such as her broken links which use more MP per spell along with her Monster title that increases her MP exponentially, her regeneration that's only tailored to the average MP usage couldn't keep up.

"But I have to say, you are quite powerful when compared to the average ice mage." Aarim smiled slightly as she swam next to Shiro.

"I've seen a lot of people in my life that started out in New York and I have to say, you are by far one of the strongest. Not only in magical power but also combat experience. Really makes one wonder where you popped out from." She continued which caused Shiro to narrow her eyes.

"And to make matters more unbelievable, you do all of this with a set of damage mana links am I right? Hell, I don't even think damaged could be used to describe them. How about…"

"Broken?" Aarim asked, making eye contact with Shiro.

Shiro could feel her heart pound a little but kept a firm gaze. Even if Aarim knew about her broken links, if it went down to it, she would take measures to keep her secret safe.

"Ai, don't look at me that way. Hahaha. I'm just rather curious about how you could be this powerful even with a set of broken links." Aarim chuckled before break eye contact.

"The only reason as to why I know it's not damaged an instead broken is because my links had been damaged previously. My mana fluctuation back then, when compared to your current fluctuation, were like a stable bridge. Every time you use any type of spell, especially your strongest spells, I can feel the turbulence underneath all of that. If I didn't see you use that large scale magic earlier when we met up with one of the other parties, I would have never figured out that you had such a condition to your body."

'She can sense the minute turbulence in one's mana?!' Shiro thought in shock. There were few classes that had this capability and each of them was hard to level up.

However, there was only one that required a person to have this kind of mastery over mana at such an early stage.

'She's aiming to class up into a Source Mage.' Shiro thought in surprise.

Source Mages could class up into a Mage Saintess. They were by far one of the strongest mage classes one could get. And while she didn't know about the class up requirements, she remembers her old party members in the hero's party telling her about how difficult it was to become a Mage Saintess.

"Honestly, I should have noticed earlier." Aarim shook her head.

"From what I've gathered, you've probably bought the rights to the mana springs to try fixing your broken links right? Hmm… seeing your expression I'm guessing I'm correct."

"Now then. I have some good news and bad news. Good news is that you're correct in using the mana springs first. If you had used some medicine before the springs, it would have only caused you to permanently fix your links in a messed-up state. Links would be connected to the wrong paths and eventually blow itself up.

"By going to the springs, it should have reorganised your links. This will allow the recovery of the links to be smoother. As to why I know, heh, well it's because I've attended a guest lecture from one of the professors that came from the largest cities. He specialises in research on the body conditions of mages and he had researched about broken links back then. I took the class since my links were damaged back then and he managed to help me fix them." Aarim smiled.

"Now here is the bad news. For you to fix something like the broken links, you would need a full body refresh. I've heard that in the front lines, there is a type of medicine called Phoenix Rebirth Pills. Each one is expensive but they would break down and reconstruct your body slowly. The cheapest pill is only a 1% rebirth.

"Even the 1% rebirth pill is hard to buy due to how expensive they are and the rarity of the materials used to make the pill. Trying to save up for buying a single pill could take years of constant dungeon exploration." Aarim sighed slightly.

"And to make things worse, you'll need a 100% body rebirth for your links to be completely healed.

"I don't think you can fix your links for the rest of your life." She said with some pity in her eyes.

'So she was just worried.' Shiro thought as she realised why Aarim was pointing this out to her.

Smiling slightly, she shook her head since Nan Tian was already getting her the 2% rebirth pill.

Even though it was just 2%, it should be just enough for her to push her attunement into Tier 3, which is a guaranteed requirement to enter the next class.

Though there would certainly be side effects to pushing her attunements up like that. 2% was just a leeway for her to give it a final forceful push before her body gives in. Even if she does enter Tier 3, she'll be weakened for a while.

"Seems like you have a plan." Aarim asked with a raised eyebrow.

Seeing Shiro nod, Aarim sighed in relief.

She was a little worried since it would have been a shame for someone like Shiro to have her potential wasted due to mana links.

"Well since you have your own plan, just call for me if you need any help, because I had damaged links before, I know about the pain." Aarim offered.

"Ah also, don't worry about your little friends knowing about your broken links. I've set the channel to private right now so they won't hear anything."

After a few more moments of Aarim essentially talking to herself, they saw two magic circles flash as both Lyrica and Madison appeared.

"Gah! That was such an annoying boss fight!" Lyrica complained as she didn't have the same kind of manoeuvrability in the water. Therefore, she couldn't output her full power. She had to even use a few of her life saving tools that Shiro gave her. Naturally, she saved her Elven Saint Blessing for last since it had a 5 day cool down.

"I was kinda ok with the boss. It was just annoying that it kept moving around. We were basically playing chase." Madison said since she was able to use her attack knight to deal large amounts of damage.

"Since we've all passed the test, let's get our loot." Aarim smiled.

Leading the party through another set of open doors, they saw an opening in the ground.

"Down here. We'll swim down for a little bit before we enter a no water area. Be careful and don't land face first. It's there where we'll have the choice between two items each and we have to pick one." She called out whilst diving down.

After swimming down for a little while, they arrived at the no water zone as Aarim had explained.

Quickly flipping her body before they entered the zone, Shiro managed to land on her feet without any problem. She took off her helmet and loosened her hair since it was quite stuffy for her to keep the helmet on at all times.

"There should be a window in the corner of your peripherals. Click that and the choice for rewards should appear in front of you." Aarim said as she was currently pushing the empty space in front of her, presumably operating the system.

Following her instructions, Shiro tapped the flashing icon as two items appeared in front of her.

'Hmm… One's a blue ranked dagger and the other is an item called Ocean Heart Scale. I doubt Aarim wants the dagger so Ocean heart Scale it is.' Shiro thought to herself before selecting the Ocean Heart Scale.

Checking her inventory, she saw a giant scale that switched between neon blue and royal blue.

[I presume you wanted the Ocean Heart Scale?] Shiro typed out. Due to the fact that they were in the no water zone, she could use her phone without problem.

"Mn, not quite. But it is still helpful." Aarim replied.

That was all Shiro needed to hear as she took out the scale and threw it to Aarim.

"Thanks."

Lyrica and Madison had the same items since the other option weren't as enticing. Expressing her thanks for the three materials, Aarim stored them away in her inventory.

However, before she could even lead them into the next area, they heard several splashes and a new party of adventurers landed behind them.

"Woah… Boss! Take a look at these chicks!" A person shouted out, drawing the attention of the 'boss' of the party.

Shiro only gave the party a cold glance before looking away.

All of them were level 50 and easy prey for her. She can take care of them in a few minutes if she so wished.

However, the same couldn't be said for Lyrica and Madison. Seeing their levels, they paled slightly before covering their bodies a little.

Frowning slightly at their blatant stares, the duo made eye contact with Aarim and Shiro before nodding slightly.

"It seems like you guys are a little busy with loot collection. Our party of four will head off first." Aarim smiled as she distracted the party whilst Shiro gathered mana into her palms. A small magic circle appeared out of sight.

"Hahaha, it's fine. We can go together." The boss said as he tried to seem friendly. However, all of them knew that he was akin to a wolf in sheep's clothing.

"No it's fine. Let's go girls." Aarim called out with no intention of playing around with him.

Watching the girls walk away, the boss frowned before walking towards them.

*BANG BANG BANG BANG!

Several ice pillars slammed down in front of him with power that would seriously injure him.

Looking at Shiro, who was glaring at him coldly, he couldn't help but feel fear for the amount of killing intent that was radiating off of her body right now.

"Hmph." Shiro scoffed before turning around and walking away. They had one warning shot before she went all out to kill them. If they didn't take her warning shot seriously, she would gladly show them the repercussions.