Chapter 136 - Scouting The Slums P2: Unknown Solution

Resisting the urge to charge into the room, Shiro ignored the image she had just seen and started to search the computer for important doc.u.ments.

However, there was nothing of use.

Clicking her tongue, Shiro stood up and entered the rift. Controlling her body so that she fell through the floor, she landed in the first underground bas.e.m.e.nt in this building.

Crouching down, she looked around her to make sure that the coast was clear.

The bas.e.m.e.nt was dimly lit with several crates lined up with codes painted on the side.

'According to the schedule, all of these are supposed to be shipped tomorrow.' Shiro thought.

Making a filter in her face mask in case of chemicals, she carefully opened one of the crates. Inside laid several layers of test tubes that were surrounded with padding.

The test tubes contained a clear blue liquid while a metal stand kept all the test tubes upright.

'Hmm… could this be the drug?' She thought with a frown. Grabbing one of the test tubes, Shiro inspected it.

[Unknown Solution]

A never before seen solution that may or may not be harmful.

'Why is something that belongs to the Ivory Cobra here in the territory of the Ice Fangs?' She thought with suspicion. The worst part of this was that the ice fangs seem to be in the dark about this.

'Seems like there are rats in the Ice Fangs that sold the faction out to the Ivory Cobra.'  

Holding the test tube in her left hand, Shiro flexed her right hand as several strands of metal started to twine together.

After a short moment, she created a chemical analyser that should allow her to see what the drug's effects were.

While she let the machine scan the drug, Shiro started to look around the bas.e.m.e.nt but only found test tubes containing the clear blue liquid and nothing else.

Furrowing her brows, Shiro wondered what they were going to do with such a large supply of the drugs.

*Ding~

A soft ringing sound rang out, informing Shiro about the contents of the liquid.

Reading its effects, Shiro frowned.

'Has effects of increasing a person's power greatly but in return, will amplify their thirst for battle. Side effects can vary with the most common being an insatiable thirst for more of the same drug. If they aren't provided the drug within 10 hours time, they will begin to rampage with severe cases of muscle swelling and boils that will appear randomly through the body. If not given the drug in 24 hours, they will claw themselves to death from the pain.'

"Users below level 50 will NOT be able to resist the side effects." Shiro muttered with a frown.

Taking a deep breath, Shiro wondered about what she should do. The main problem was the fact that there were tons more of this drug and she didn't know where they were produced and nor did she know about the other locations where they're hiding the drug.

Not only that, she didn't even know if this was the only drug type they had. There could be other variants.

'I should see what's in the second bas.e.m.e.nt first.' Shiro thought to herself. She had an idea of how she could stop this but she needed more evidence first.

Making a phone, she took a picture of the entire bas.e.m.e.nt along with the drugs.

Her idea was to gather enough evidence so that she could force the government to make a move. If they didn't, she'll publish the evidence along with a recording of the effects on a test subject. That way, she could force the adventurers to make a move along with the 3 big families.

Making her way to the second bas.e.m.e.nt, she saw that there were more of the same drug.

'Thankfully the drug isn't diffusible through the air. Otherwise, it would be on the level of a Tier 4 disaster when placed in a low level city like this one.' Shiro thought in relief. Thankfully, the drug's effects disappear when dispersed in the air.

Entering the rift, Shiro jumped out of the building one go before reappearing in the sky.

Glancing down at the slums, she narrowed her eyes since there were a lot of buildings she needed to scour through before she has enough evidence. Not only that, she was going to make a digital map of the area.

Tracing her finger in the air, she created a laptop whilst falling. Landing with two soft taps, Shiro made a drone and threw it up into the air.

A map was slowly being constructed on the laptop with her current building coloured red. The other buildings were coloured in a slightly translated blue that concreted against the red.

She was going to construct a map so that when she does pass on the information, they'll be able to close in on it as quick as possible.

Naturally, with the size of the slums, she would need several days to explore the entirety of the area. Which is why she wasn't going to give them the full map. She was going to force them to attack the entirety of the slums to make sure the drug is contained.

There was the chance that the government will use the drug instead. However, it wasn't her problem since it will give the other governments a wake up call to be more thorough with their selections in case of corruption.

She wasn't a strategist so she didn't have all the answers. But in theory, this would be better than letting the slums keep this dangerous drug.

Shiro spent the next few hours looking through buildings from all three factions and managed to dig up some dirt on all three.

Ivory cobra are responsible for the dangerous drugs and had managed to sink their teeth into the territories of the other factions. She didn't know how, but around 5% of the ice fangs were taken over while the jade sharks were worse with 15% being taken.

To make matters worse, no one knew about this. They still think the buildings are under their control but the reality of the situation was different.

However, the Ivory Cobra wasn't the only one acting with large plans. The Ice Fangs had been developing themselves in other towns nearby so their manpower were constantly expanding. Especially in the town of Huckston. The faction had practically taken over the town at this point. And with that, they've started to set up a dark alliance of sorts with a mysterious backer who none of the lower echelons knew about.

As for Jade Sharks, they had been sneaking strong adventurers from overseas to help them combat the Ice Fangs.

With all three making big moves in the dark, the government would have no other choice apart from eradicating them.

Looking her map that had been highlighted with spots of red, Shiro started to add tags to all of them before compressing it into several info ch.i.p.s.

Looking at one of the patrol men that belonged to the Ivory Cobra's, she decided to take him for her experiments. Let them have a taste of their own medicine. Literally.

Jumping into the rift, she appeared beside him and knocked him out easily by backhanding the side of his head.

*BANG!

Slamming against the wall, the man dropped in a slump.

"I didn't kill him by accident did I?" Shiro muttered as she walked over to him and crouched down. Picking him up, she saw that he was still alive and sighed in relief.

Carrying him by the scruff of his neck, Shiro dragged him to her 'lab' that she had created in an abandoned building. Well, calling it a lab would be a push since it was just an empty room with some tables and chairs.

Throwing the man on the chair, Shiro pulled out a vial that contained the drug.

She snapped her fingers and created a camera to film the entire process.

Creating some wires that tired around the man's body, she started to tighten them to wake the man up.

"Arg! Huh?  Where am I?!" He cried out in a panic. When he saw Shiro in front of him, he was first in a daze.

However, before he can even continue to look at her, Shiro stabbed both his eyes with her fingers and gauged them out of his eye sockets.

"Hmph." Scoffing slightly, she flicked her hand and threw the eyes away.

"AHHH!!!!!" The man screamed in pain from having his eyes gouged out.

Grabbing his neck, Shiro stopped him from screaming and poured the drug in his mouth. His body convulsed a little before his veins started to bulge up.

Even though he was only level 35, his strength was almost comparable to the strength of a level 50. However, even though that was the case, he was easily restrained by Shiro's wires. All she needed to do was flex her fingers a little before he started to squirm in the chair.

He couldn't use his skills either since the wires were constantly devouring any mana he used to power a skill.

Turning on the recording, Shiro had 24 hours until the results of the experiment will show.

"I'll deposit the intel tomorrow when I got the recordings." She muttered as she set up several traps and locks around the place so that no one can disturb her experiment.

Furrowing her brows from the screaming in the background. Shiro flicked her hand and created a mouth gag that blocked out the sound.

Leaving her lab, Shiro made her way back to the tent. She will be training her spell casting and skill knowledge after all. The best way for this will be self study along with a small lecture with Aarim if possible. Since she could cast tier 3 magic with ease, she should be able to learn something from her.

###

Waking up early in the morning, Shiro saw both Lyrica and Madison back at the tent.

Smiling in relief, she left the tent and started to list out her skills that she could use in the trial.

"I could use my entire Snow Girl skill tree which consisted of; Tier 2 Ice Magic, Snow Magic, Faded Snow Movement, Cold Aura, Icy Touch, Icy Breath, Frozen Hell Series and Cold illusions. Others are passives. I also had access to all of Yin's Skills. Not to mention, Tier 2 lightning, Metal and Shadow Magic. While I do have my Nanomancer Skill Tree, the Shadow hardly uses it but I shouldn't cross it off the list either." Shiro mumbled to herself as she started to make a list in her mind.

She decided to categorize her magic into 3 sections. Offensive, Defensive and Synergistic.

Her best skills in the offensive category would be her Hand Cannon Creation, Lightning Magic, Icy Touch and Frozen Hell Series.

Defensive will be her Ice Magic, Armour Creation, Metal Magic, Absorption/Redirection (Yin) and Rift Walker (Yin).

While Absorption/Redirection was only at Tier 1, everything that will help her in the battle was welcome.

The final category was synergistic and it was one of the aspects where her shadow excelled at. In this category, she had included the skills: Cold Illusions, Ice Chains and Combust.

While Combust was a fire type skill, she was able to use it to create both the Fire of Life and the Azure Hell Fire.

Since her weakness was fire, her shadow's weakness should also be fire.

"Weakness huh?" She muttered.

However, her eyes slowly widened when she realised the possibly of an option she hadn't considered before.

Whatever she excelled at; her shadow also excelled at. Therefore, it also meant whatever her weakness were, are also her shadow's weakness.

And her greatest weakness that had plagued her mind…

"Mana Links…" She muttered in realisation.

Since her shadow's mana links were in the same condition, it meant that she can break them during the fight. The only question is how she was going to break the mana links.

There weren't many known ways to break mana links since most people would just kill the enemy unless they really wanted them to suffer.

However, even though she knew of the ways, she couldn't experiment with this idea right now. Otherwise her Shadow would also know of the final product of her experiments.

Her best bet was to finalise the skill and the theory inside the trial. That way, her shadow will be clueless about this.

But… If she fails this time, the next time she fought her shadow, it would only be annoyed due to the fact that her shadow will have access to the mana link breaker. Her next fight will be akin to an all or nothing situation.

Of course it was all possible due to the fact that she had rearranged her links with the help of the Mana Springs.

This gave her the chance to break them apart and the rampaging energy should devastate her shadow's body leaving her severely weakened.

Storing the idea in the corner of her mind for now, Shiro started to figure out ways she could combine her skills.

Unfortunately for her, her mind kept drifting back to the Mana Link idea.

"Urg…" Groaning in annoyance, Shiro sighed since the thought of being able to develop a mana link breaking skill made her want to finalise it as soon as possible.