Chapter 915 Shrines

Sitting in her command centre, Shiro glanced at the radar while wondering what she should do.

After her recent endeavour towards Astral Horizons, she could confidently say that there was no way she'll be able to survive against the dragon as she is right now.

If even a small puff of flame could kill her, she didn't want to think what would happen if that dragon got serious. Plus, for a high level being like that dragon, it would definitely have a few skills that could track her through dimensions so rift strider was most likely useless against it.

There was also the matter of trying to hurt it. While Silvanis could ignore armour, Shiro wasn't sure if she could even put a dent in its health.

Sighing out heavily, she leaned back on her chair and scratched her hair.

"Tch, so annoying. There was also the portal to the Beyond in the mountain too." She muttered with a frown since she had wanted to approach the portal if she could.

Shaking her head, she decided to send out drones for now. Without the access of Astral Horizons, even though her drones were still working in the tunnels, she'll need to find a better place to create her city.

The creation of the branch anchor needed to be in a place with abundant mana so that the quality of the anchor increases. Her own mana was used to contain and refine everything.

Furrowing her brows, Shiro tried to think of somewhere with lots of mana that she could access but nothing came to mind.

If she was to make an anchor randomly just so that she could make a city, it would be defenceless since most of the mana would be used to maintain the city and making sure that it could teleport like Asharia. If it couldn't, it would be easily cornered and destroyed.

'If it isn't a place like Astral Horizon's, I doubt I'll be able to make another city equal to Asharia.' Shiro muttered. While there is the possibility to make Asharia much stronger and bigger, it would need more power sources to maintain everything. Meaning she'd need Anchors close to the same quality as her main anchor. Both Madison and Isilia have transported their anchor to Asharia and since they were allied through contracts, they weren't in conflict.

All three anchors powered the city but the quality of the anchor she made on Astral Horizons was simply better than the other two. Madison's and Isilia's anchors made up for roughly 10 to 15% of the city's power while the rest was fuelled by the god grade anchor that generated a bit of divine energy.

Closing her eyes, Shiro wondered what they could do.

'If I had Madison and Isilia make branch anchors with me, I can probably power the city with three anchors working in synchronisation. The power output would be much lower but at least it can have some form of defence.' Shiro thought to herself.

Grabbing the keyboard, she ran some tests and gave a rough estimate on how much mana could be produced with three anchors.

After running through some tests, she couldn't help but sigh heavily.

Without a proper area to construct an anchor, the power output would only be enough to have one mech and three turrets all while maintaining the city along with the teleport function. It doesn't have as many features as Asharia but it'll also be able to camouflage itself if needed.

But the upside of this is that she didn't need to provide the mana herself. The city would be self sufficient even if it was a little on the weak side.

Though most of the power is supplied to the barrier since that was more important than the weapons or mechs. If she was to forget about the barrier, the city could power more than 20 turrets and a small group of mechs but it would also make the city weak to the point that a random hit could shatter it apart.

Rather than a weapon, the city was a place of protection.

'Three turrets is more than enough for defence. I'll get Madison and Isilia to give me a hand later today when they wake up.' Shiro thought while standing up.

With Estrella still sleeping and Lisandra trying her best to reach tier 6, Shiro didn't have much else to do other than setting up some shrines while the city made its way to Tokyo. With her drones scouting ahead of them, she'll be notified if there were any survivors on the road.

The drone will detect them through both mana and heat signature since many would hide their mana in fear of being spotted by monsters.

Thinking about the shrines, Shiro couldn't help but feel another headache arriving since it was quite embarrassing to the one making these shrines.

Just the thought of making a bunch of her statues in the pose of a merciful god gave her goosebumps. Though having a statue of her killing someone wasn't exactly pleasing either.

'Maybe I should ask some artists to help me.' Shiro thought to herself.

However, there was the option of letting the system do its thing and create the most suitable shrine.

Her skill could be activated in two ways.

The first was creating one herself and the second was blessing a shrine that has been made in her name.

In regard to the first option, she was only allowed to create a certain number of shrines per month before the counter is reset so that she couldn't just place shrines everywhere she wanted.

Thinking about it for a short moment, she teleported to the spirit platform and found a good spot near the central building.

Taking a deep breath, she glanced around to make sure no one was around.

'Damn… it's really embarrassing to make a shrine dedicated to yourself. It feels like I'm asking everyone to praise me.' Shiro's smile faltered as she shook her head.

Activating her skill, a tier 7 magic circle appeared in front of her as a building was slowly created.

There was only a single door but when she entered, she couldn't help but wince slightly.

Inside the building was a statue of her standing in her dress while raising her right hand towards the sky. Her expression was soft as Shiro could almost see tears rolling out.

The worst part was that she knew where this pose came from.

It was when she had said please for people to run away!

Feeling the urge to demolish the building immediately, Shiro wanted to curse at the system.

'Out of all the poses that you could have chosen, why this one?!?!'

Rubbing her arms, Shiro started to weigh the pros and cons to keeping this shrine around.

While there were a lot of pros such as increasing her faith generation, the cons to this was her humiliation.

Every time she sees one of these shrines she'll die on the inside.

Sensing someone approaching, Shiro coughed and recognised the signal to be Samuel.

"Your highness?" He called out curiously seeing Shiro standing in this shrine.

"Mn? What is it?" Shiro forced a smile while glancing back.

"Nothing. I was just curious at the surge of mana I sensed and saw this building. I was a bit curious as to what was inside so I can to investigate but it seems like I was worried for nothing-"

Pausing in his sentence, he saw the statue in the centre of the building.

". . ."

Seeing Samuel frozen in a mix of emotions, Shiro wanted to bury herself in a pit.

"What is this?..." He muttered.

"It's… fantastic! Which artisan created this masterpiece? It captures your benevolence perfectly! And they even picked the best pose too!" Samuel praised with an excited glint in his eyes.

Hiding her face, Shiro wanted to cry out in embarrassment right now.

"Ahaha I wonder who made this. By the time I arrived it was already here." Shiro replied while screaming in her mind.

"We should get him to commission more of these. I'm sure the others Will love it." Samuel encouraged as Shiro was hitting him mentally since it was already embarrassing to have one and he wanted more to be made!?

"How are you sure that the others would like it? I was actually planning on demolishing this." Shiro asked as she wanted to know his opinion on the matter.

"It seems like your highness doesn't know your own popularity. Quite a few of the younger spirits look at you like their idol and the merchants make quite a bit of money by selling toys that resemble your highness along with monsters that you have defeated. I'm sure the kids will love it to see your statue in the town centre!" Samuel replied as Shiro nodded her head.

Swallowing her embarrassment, Shiro forced a smile.

"Perhaps I should see if I can track down who made this statue and place it around the city then." She muttered.

"Definitely!"

###

After leaving, Shiro placed a few more shrines around the city while feigning ignorance. Once all the shrines were places, she went back to her room and screamed into her pillow.