Waiting in her room for the party to return from their dungeon clear, Shiro started on trying to upgrade her attunements to tier 4. Starting with Astral Ice, since itâs her strongest element by far, she furrowed her brows when she noticed that regardless of what she did, she was not able to budge the threshold at all.
âHmm... maybe itâs something to do with how much mana Iâm controlling right now?â She mused to herself.
With her links only repaired by 7%, moving large bodies of mana was very difficult unless she wanted to strain her links to the point where they threaten to break.
She had done this several times already and each time she did it, her body would be under intense pain. If not for her great tolerance, she would barely be able to move during those moments.
Shaking her head, the best she could do for now was to start cultivating her other attunements. By sitting down and directing the mana to enhance each individual island, sheâll be able to bring up the elementâs effectiveness.
Continuing this process for a few hours, the party had finally returned.
"Welcome back." Shiro greeted with a smile.
"Mn, whereâs Iziuel?" Lyrica asked curiously.
"Ah donât worry about her. Iâve made sure that sheâs in a safe place to recover right now. Anyways, it seems like you lot have been quite productive today. Your levels have grown quite nicely." Shiro chuckled.
[Lisandra LVL 100 Soul Bound Arch Angel]
[Yin LVL 82 Dark Star Calamity]
[Silvia LVL 75 Healing Saint]
[Lyrica LVL 72 Ascended Blade Dancer]
[Madison LVL 72 Demonic Shield Berserker]
[Chen Yu LVL 73 Phantom Blade]
[Aarim LVL 70 Apocalyptic Battle Mage}
Everyone in the party had now reached at least level 70 or above. With this, theyâll be able to challenge higher level dungeons without too many problems.
"Well we would be higher level should we have taken advantage of Lisandraâs level but that way, we wouldnât get any experience. We just made sure that we chose dungeons with lots of monsters that tend to overwhelm adventurers so that we can prepare ourselves for when that happens." Lyrica replied while sitting down on a chair.
"I see. Thatâs good then. I would come with you lot but itâs as you said, my presence would make the dungeon a little too easy." Shiro sighed.
As much as she enjoys increasing her level, itâs come to a point where it would be bad for her to join up with the party. While their levels will grow exponentially, their experiences wouldnât match their level.
If a situation like that was to occur, it would be quite dangerous for their future.
"Donât worry about it. We understand. I suppose we can party up together for raids since theyâre almost impossible to do alone." Lyrica suggested.
"That is very true. By the way Yin, I got a little favour to ask of you." Shiro said while turning to Yin with a âharmlessâ smile.
Feeling that something was wrong, Yin backed off slowly.
"What do you want mum? You donât usually ask me for a favour." Yin inquired with suspicion.
"Oh itâs nothing much. You know how Iâve made sure to feed you plenty of food for a long time ow yeah? How about you do mum a favour and give me a little bit of your blood. Not much, only a few bottles." Shiro grinned.
"PFT! Few bottles!? This babyâs body is delicate ah!" Yin protested as she tried to turn around and run.
However, Shiro only flexed her fingers and summoned ice chains that cancelled out Yinâs spells.
"Now be a good darling and stay still. Itâll hurt more if you struggle." She chuckled and made an ice dagger.
"GAH! Abuse! Damn it donât watch and help me!" Yin called out to the party who only turn their heads.
"Sorry sis, youâre on your own for this. Iâm sure mum has a good reason for taking your blood." Lisandra smiled softly.
"If she wanted a little thatâs fine but she wants BOTTLES! I SAY BOTTLES YOU HEAR ME!" Yin shouted out only to be silenced when Shiro covered her mouth.
"Shhhh.... Itâll be over soon." Shiro smiled and pulled out a needle.
"I canât help but feel like we need to call child services or something like that." Madison raised an eyebrow in humour.
"Nah itâs not child services. Since Yin is a phoenix, wouldnât you need the animal services instead?" Lyrica smiled.
###
After drawing some blood from Yin to fill up two bottles, that were only the size of her fingers, Shiro stored them away in her inventory.
Looking at Yin who was laying in the corner with a foetal position with tears in her eyes, Shiro could only shrug her shoulders and roll a few silver coins.
"Here, you can use them to get some food if you want."
"*Sniff* Youâre trying to bribe this baby but know this, it wonât work!" Yin scoffed and turned her head away.
Unfortunately for her, this would have been more convincing if not for that fact that her little greedy hands were slowly inching towards the coins.
"If thatâs the case I might as well recover the coins then. Theyâre quite precious you know? Each one is worth 100 billion USD so I assume you can get quite a feast with them." Shiro âsighedâ and flicked her finger.
Mana wrapped around the coins and started to fly towards Shiro.
However, before they could, Yin pounced on them and quickly pocketed them into her outfit.
"I said it wonât work but I never said I wonât accept them. I just wonât forgive you despite this tribute to me." Yin said righteously while trying to supress the grin that was spreading across her face from the thought of a banquet of everything she wanted to eat.
âI have the power of the food gods in my hands right now. I just need to leave the room then I can eat.â Yin thought to herself with a snicker.
Seeing Yin laugh to herself at the thought of food, Shiro suppressed her laugh and waved her hand.
"You can go get some food now as long as the restaurants are still open. Donât stay out too late though, Iâm pretty sure any random person on the streets could kick your ass right now. "
"Hmph, they donât dare. If they do, Iâll burn them to a crisp first." Yin replied, sticking out her tongue before dashing out of the room in a hurry. Since itâs in the evening that the party had returned, most of the places are closed. However, as she had spent a decent amount of time scouting out for where the best places to get food are, she knew which restaurants are still open and couldnât wait to get her hands on her banquet.
Ignoring Yin who was about to go on a food spree, Shiro talked to the party about their next actions.
###
The next day, Shiro waited till around 1pm before making her way to Keomiâs office. Since she had told her that the pills will arrive at around 2pm, arriving at 1pm would give them some time to talk.
Arriving at the office, she knocked on the door and waited for a moment.
"Come in." Keomiâs voice rang out.
"Yo." Shiro smiled and gave her a small wave.
"Ah big sis, youâre here a bit earlier than expected." Keomi smiled and put her pen down.
"Well I was thinking that I can use this time to talk for a bit. I want to know what kind of person I was before this whole memory loss thing happened." Shiro replied. Sitting down on the sofa, she pulled out her tea cut filled with some juice and crossed her legs.
"Hmm... where do you want me to start? Though I have to tell you, I donât know too much. It shames me to say this but we didnât really hang out together too much." Keomi scratched her blushed cheeks in embarrassment.
"Itâs fine. Just tell me what you know." Shiro smiled since she wasnât too surprised. The original Kuromi did inform her of their slightly distanced relationship after all.
"Hmm letâs start with hobbies then." Keomi smiled.
After talking for a while, Shiro wasnât too surprised that Keomi was an avid lover of great heights where she could just look down and enjoy the world.
âSo thatâs why I had a strange attraction to high places when I was still getting used to this body...â Shiro mused to herself.
*Knock knock knock
Hearing a knock on the door, Keomi understood that it must be the pills that Shiro needed.
"Come in." She called out.
Opening the door, the assistant bowed before informing them about the pills.
Handing the package over to Keomi, the assistant excused himself and left the room.
"Right then, these should be what you want. I tried to get some pills of a higher quality but I was only able to get a few." Keomi apologised.
"Donât worry. Iâm more than happy with the help youâve given me."
Opening the box, Shiro saw that there was 6 of the lowest grade pills along with 3 pills that seemed to be of higher quality.
[Slightly Weakened Phoenix Rebirth Pill â Red]
A pill that will refresh your body state by 4% due to its effects being weakened. (Max Refresh â 30%/100%)