Chapter 19: Lucius

When her stamina had recovered, Shiro stood up and made a sword.

She cut the queen's corpse as she looked for the mana stone.

However, the process took a lot longer for her to do as her right hand was completely useless right now.

Collecting the stone with much difficulties, Shiro threw it in her mouth as she decided to treat herself to a snack.

"[Collect]." She said as she sat down with a wall of ice behind her that supported her.

The loot was bountiful as she could see more than 4 pieces of blue gear. 1 being an accessory, 1 being a weapon and the last two being pieces of armour.

And these were the four that was helpful for her, it didn't include the ones that were bad for her. The armour was the average armour with the stats of a level 25 gear and no skills. The accessory and the weapon were the true prizes.

[A Queen's Dagger LVL 25 (Blue+)]

+45 Piercing

+35 Sharpness

+25 Critical Rate

+35 Critical Damage

Passive: Element Shift

Elemental Properties change depending on what elemental focused mana you insert into the weapon.

The dagger boasted an incredible piercing stat and the passive was very helpful as well. If she had any other elemental property apart from ice.

Holding the dagger in her left hand, Shiro examined the appearance.

Much like the Frag Ant Queen, the dagger had a white quartz colour. The guard had a rainbow pearlescent sheen as there was an orb in the middle. Right now the orb was greyed out as Shiro inserted her mana into the dagger.

*CRRR

The blade seemed to be covered with a layer of ice while the orb glowed with a neon blue. At the same time, the blade gained a +20 Ice damage.

"Heh~, that's pretty interesting." Shiro muttered and decided to try to insert her nano bots inside.

There was a visible reaction as the blade trembled and the orb shifted from grey to silver before turning back to grey. Shiro stopped seeing this. Any further and she may risk damaging the dagger as the nano bots were an artificial type of mana.

Now that she realised this, she just understood how absurd it was for an artificial class to join her through the afterlife.

Shaking her head of the existential questions, she checked her other drops since she couldn't be bothered to deal with the meaning of life. There isn't one, you drift along the currents of time. The end.

[Queen's Protection LVL 25 (Blue+) – Earring]

+40 INT

Skill: Mana Barrier

Funnels your MP into a barrier to stop attacks.

100MP = 50 Barrier HP

The earring is an amazing accessory with the skill Mana Barrier. However, she was primarily a run and gun type of combatant. Both figuratively and literally as it was her combat style with the Nanomancer class.

But the skill was handy to have around as it would help protect her from any sneak attacks.

Equipping the new equipment, this was her current stats.

[Name: Shiro (Weakened 9 days, 23hrs)

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

Level: 25

Class: Snow Girl★, Nanomancer

HP: 5700/5700 (True Value 8800)

MP: 13,300/13,300

STR: 65(+45)

VIT: 70 -> 80(+70)

INT: 160 (+140)

AGI: 120 (+55)

DEX: 90 -> 100(+40)

DEF: 20 (+105)

Unassigned Points: 0

Balance: 294,500 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), Mana Barrier.]

With the equipment boosting her INT to exactly 300 points, her MP surpassed 13k. Her health was currently only in the 5000's due to the adverse effects of her making a Tier 3 item with Tier 1 strength.

Shaking her head, Shiro realised she was a little too overconfident with this fight.

'I need to remould my mindset. I'm no longer the SSS class Nanomancer. I'm just a D class Snow Girl right now.' Shiro thought with a shake of her head.

Walking over to the obelisk that appeared in the centre of the room, Shiro teleported to the Teleport Shrine.

The time was 11:15pm and she had plenty of time before she would go to bed.

Pulling up her phone, Shiro decided to search up the technology in the current world. It was kind of hard as she could only use her left hand while the right arm was encased in ice to support it.

'Hmm…Huge Rail Guns, Cold Weapons, Fire Arms, Nukes… seems pretty basic.' Shiro thought, frowning at the choices she could see.

Naturally, she had no access to military information. But it wasn't hard to guess the technology from looking at what's available to the public.

With the knowledge she had from her past life, Shiro guessed she could probably propel the current technology by more than 10 years.

In her arsenal, she had a multitude of her 'lovelies' to be shown to the world.

Advanced coil guns, portable electromagnetic guns, Nano Tech armour, magnetic repulsion systems and much more. Her mind was like a trove of technology the current world would kill to obtain.

And naturally, she also knew how to turn someone else into a Nanomancer.

While she was browsing through the technology, she stopped seeing an interesting image.

The image was that of a giant mechanised armour. It was crimson red with neon orange segments. Weapons on both hands and 'wings' on the back.

'Hmm, the back seems to be composed of several mana propulsion systems which give it flight. The parts connecting the mech like muscle might be crystallised mana fibres. The joins are controlled by a piston system and the mech seems to be highly flexible…' Shiro thought, looking for some similar concepts.

'I can probably recreate this. While the world may be lacking in the technology to flesh out concepts, I most certainly can.

The energy used to power the system would be the natural mana conversion generator.

The skeleton of the mech can be reinforced nano tech rods, these rods are many times heavier than desired but the durability makes up for that.

The muscles can be composed of light nano tech fibres twined with crystallised mana fibre. This would give it the flexibility and the durability it needs.

The armour can just be the light nano tech plating and finally, the control system will be the nerve sensory system.' She thought mapping out a blueprint of the mech in her mind.

The nerve sensory system is a device that connects to your neck. It is situated on the nape as it would detect what the user wants to do through the synaptic cleft and transfer it as an action to the mech. One would normally use this when combined with floating mana blades but Shiro thinks this fits a giant robot better.

As a giant robot, there will always be an innate delay from the console to the extremities of the mech. With the nerve sensory system, she can shrink this delay down many times so make the mech more efficient.

Though that being said, making the mech is another matter in and of itself.

She has two options for making the mech.

A: Assembly through small premade parts.

B: Total assembly.

As the names suggested, the first part is making the mech through several premade parts. The main problem with this is the storage she would need as well as the time needed to assemble the mech.

As for B, she would need a ludicrous amount of mana to create and assemble everything at once.

The benefits would be that she can create the mech anytime she wants, but her concentration but be stable. This is due to the fact that she needs to envision the entire blueprint and not make a single mistake. A small mistake could lead to the entire mech collapsing on itself making it a waste of mana.

However, baby steps first. Thinking about mechs at this stage was nothing but a pipe dream. She could barely sustain her expenditure when using a nano craft sword never mind a giant hundred-meter mech.

However, from what she could guess, her next unlocks for the Nanomancer class are;

Bow Creation, Heavy Weapon Creation, Defence Creation, Armour Creation and Firearm Creation.

As for what's after Firearm Creation, it was the more technologically advanced weapons such as the Rail Gun.

'If I guess correctly, then I'll probably unlock the Bow Creation around the 30,000 MP mark. The bow needs me to create the Nano Tech Fibres so the expenditure will be huge.' Shiro thought.

However, the Nano Tech Fibres allow for her to output much more medium ranged potential as the penetrative capabilities of a bow was unmatched until she unlocks Firearm Creation.

Breathing out some cold mist, Shiro tilted her head back.

"I have my work cut out for me…" She muttered with a small smile. Progressing through the levels and unlocking everything slowly excited her.

When she was experimented on to become a Nanomancer, her level was over 200 without her being able to experience levelling up a level by level. She just shot to level 200 straight away when the experiment finished.

Now that she can experience the growth process she missed out on, the feeling was enjoyable. That moment when you level up, when you find a piece of better equipment, when you have to figure your way out of a fight, when you defeat something you couldn't before and when you surpass your limits. She adored these feelings of growth.

As she was thinking to herself, her quiet and peaceful aura was mystifying.

Walking slowly, Shiro made sure not to increase the pain she felt from her right arm.

*BAM!

A man crashed into her from her right side as Shiro took a sharp breath of pain.

Gritting her teeth, sweat started to fall.

Looking at the person who crashed into her, Shiro frowned.

It was a man as he had void black hair and crimson eyes. He was around half a head taller than her and quite handsome at that as well.

His body was covered with cuts as blood flowed continuously.

'Strange person.' Shiro thought as she was about to walk away but felt a hand grab the back of her neck.

'*******!!!!!!' Shiro cursed as this was just making the pain in her arm worse than what it already was.

"You're my hostage for now. Please bear with it as I'll return your freedom once the danger has cleared." He said quickly as his voice was deep and alluring.

Or at least what would have been alluring to others, but Shiro just found the voice to be infuriating.

[Lucius LVL 50 – Shadow Walker]

Lucius put strength into his legs as he leapt over a building and onto the roof.

Gritting her teeth, Shiro push strength into her lower body as she flipped upwards with him still grabbing onto her.

Her left palm aimed at his head while a torrent of snow and cold air covered him.

Lucius frowned when he felt killing intent but realised the temperature was dropping dramatically.

His movements were being dulled whilst frost started to coagulate on his body.

Quickly letting go of the girl, he stumbled back in surprise. Even if he was injured