Chapter 528 Athera

As time passed, Shiro managed to draft up a few decent prototypes despite the myriad of failed ones. These 5 prototypes gave her a similar feeling to when she used her other attunements such as the Void Star. Understanding that she needed to make sure they worked, Shiro started to test them out against a target and see if the 'element' could kill the target without brute force.

The first 3 were failures as she needed to destroy the armour of the target first. Shaking her head, she proceeded with the fourth prototype.

Looking at her soul sword that now had a metallic handle and guard, she took a deep breath and hoped that it would work.

The test subject in question was the armoured wyvern that boasted an impressive defensive stat. Its main skill was to reflect the damage it took back at the dealer, provided that the wyvern was alive of course and their fighting tactic was to fight a battle of attrition.

If she could bypass his armour and damage his internals without needing to brute force her way through, her prototype could be further developed.

Bringing her sword to her side, she narrowed her eyes and used the Takemikazuchi technique.

Lighting flickered along her body and into the blade as she dashed towards the subject in an instant.

Swiping her sword against his armour, she caused a faint white slash mark that did zero damage to him. However, excitement could be seen in her eyes as she immediately snapped her fingers.

*KRK!!!!

Breaking out of his body, several tendrils of nanobots could be seen devouring his flesh. With every piece of flesh devoured, more nanobots would take their place. Unless they wanted to severely harm themselves, the nanobots would eat every part of their body until they died.

"Ahhhhh!!!! Finallyyyyyy!!" Shiro cried out in happiness as she smiled in excitement. Since no one was here to see her do this, she didn't mind embarrassing herself like this. After all, she had finally got a working prototype that could act as her proxy for the element.

*Cough!

Shaking her head, she quickly calmed herself down since there was more for her to do. Unfortunately, she couldn't wipe the smile off her face as she proceeded to bring out more armoured wyverns. After all, she needed to make sure the prototype was consistent. It wouldn't be much of an attunement if it suddenly stopped working in the middle of a fight after all.

Testing it on 10 more armoured wyverns, Shiro's face started to hurt a little from how much she was smiling.

[You have achieved an incredible feat.]

[Nanotech Attunement Created.]

[Nanotech: A special attunement created by the only remaining Nanomancer. This element is specifically designed to ignore all kinds of defences through consuming and multiplying. If they have a mana barrier, the nanobots will consume the mana in order to multiply. If they have armour, the nanobots will slip through the armour and feast on the flesh.]

[Title Achieved.]

[Attunement Creator – Nanotech]

As the creator of the Nanotech attunement, you are able to control it at will. This attunement will ALWAYS be 1 tier above your actual tier. If you're tier 4, the attunement will be tier 5. If you're tier 5, it will be tier 6.

Reading the title description, Shiro couldn't help but raise her eyebrows.

'If this is true, then does it mean there's a chance for me to gain a tier 9 attunement if I reach tier 8 god?' Shiro thought with surprise. Should that be the case, she had essentially discovered a limit breaking skill that might let her reach the unknown domain of tier 9, if there is such a thing.

While in the midst of her daydream, she glanced towards the time she had left in the trial to make a new legacy and noticed that she only had 42 minutes left.

"Oh sh*t!"

Quickly grabbing her Soul Sword that was now enhanced with the Nanotech attunement, Shiro reached out for the mystery element orb.

Closing her eyes, she controlled her mana and tried to fuse the two together as they had similar properties.

However, with just 42 minutes left, it was not enough time for her to create the heaven defying sword that she had wanted.

[Time's up, the legacy shall now be created.]

[Nanotech Legacy (Exclusive to Nanomancer's)]

Whenever you attack with the sword, a 'stack' of nanobots will invade their system. Depending on how powerful they are, there's a chance for the nanobots to be destroyed by their mana. Weaker opponents only require one stack of nanobots to kill while those stronger or are larger, may be more than 50 stacks of nanobots.

[Due to this Legacy, Ataraxia will now experience an upgrade.]

[Ataraxia – Celestial Sword of Spirits (Red+) -> Athera – The Celestial Devourer (Black)]

Athera was similar to Ataraxia in terms of stats but it was the skills that truly set it apart. Especially it's named skill.

[Athera Activation Option 1]

Your sword enters a frenzy, desiring to consume all the enemies in your path. When you're near a 'meal' you experience the following effects.

+100% AGI, +80% STR, +80% DEX

Along with the effect: Tenacious Hunter

Once you make your mind on killing your enemy, a red tether will appear between you and them. Until you've killed them, this tether will not go away. When you're chasing the tethered target, you gain an additional 50% boost in speed. Upon killing the target, you obtain a portion of their highest stat.

Your enemies will suffer the following effects:

-30% AGI, -30% STR, -30% DEF

Along with the effect: Fear of the Hunter

Dread fills their mind as their doom approaches. Their movements become sluggish and their stamina will be used at a reckless pace. Their decision making is impaired as they fear your presence.

Cost: N/A

Duration: 10 Minutes

Cooldown: 2 hours

Backlash: You suffer from 60% Muscle Fatigue and a temporary decrease in all of your stats. (-30%)

[Athera Activation Option 2]

Your sword enters a frenzy as you're surrounded by enemies. So many meals but so little time. You can only eat so much so why don't we take a single lethal bite out of everything? When you're surrounded by more than 10 enemies, you receive the following effects:

+60% Damage Resistance, +60% VIT, + 60% AGI, + 60% Health Regeneration, +50% Life Steal, +50% Control Spell Resistance.

In addition to this, the values are increased depending on how many enemies you face. For every additional enemy after 10, they are increased by 0.1%.

Example: If you're facing 15 enemies, you receive +60.5% Damage resistance.

Cost: N/A

Duration: 1 hour

Cooldown: 5 hours

Backlash: You suffer from 80% Muscle Fatigue and a temporary decrease in all of your stats. (-60%)

Looking at both options, Shiro couldn't help but nod her head in appreciation. While she didn't make a sword that could just straight up ALT + F4 them from the system, this was a good alternative. Plus, there was also a second passive that worked well with her runes. One that reminded her of Yin.

[Gluttony]

For every enemy you kill, you store up a certain amount of 'Essence'. This essence can be used to replace the durability used when activating your Celestial Runes. A single point of essence is equal to 1% of durability. The more times you reach the maximum threshold of Essence, the higher this threshold becomes.

Example: If your maximum Essence is 10, after reaching that number multiple times, it will increase to 15.

Current Maximum Essence: 50

Stored Essence: 0

Thinking about this passive, if she was to reach 100 Maximum essences, she could essentially use the Lire rune twice using the sword.

Lire+: Increase Health Regen massively. The lower the current HP count, the higher the regeneration.

Secondary option: Sacrifice all durability to regenerate max HP.

With this, she has another charge of her emergency 'max health potion'. With how many health regenerations skills she had now, Grace, Lire+ and Rejuvenation, she was the textbook definition of a cat with nine lives. Just one that can f*ck your sh*t up, disappear if things get tough and generally a pain in the ass. Literally.

Shaking her head, she figured that it was about time for her to start expanding her influence when she leaves this place. First thing is to deal with the Shadow Temple and the next would be to confront her parents. After all, they must be worried about her safety since she didn't exactly leave on a good note when she left the house as Kuromi.

'Maybe I should take them out for a meal and apologise after showing them that I can also use Martial Arts to a good standard?' Shiro thought with a smile. Thinking back to her parents, a warm feeling started to appear in her heart as she couldn't wait to see them again.