t.i.tle: Faction Recruitment

For the next two days, s.h.i.+ro spent her time sparring with Lisandra and Yin. In this time, she had also gotten used to her new body and was surprised at how much her combat prowess had increased by. However, her combat prowess what not the only thing that was increasing. Her bank balance was also increasing due to the sale of her Humiliation items in the faction.

Almost every disciple wanted one since the fact that it can help protect one's life was truly a must have. Plus, it was also an a.s.s accessory so they didn't need to worry about removing a ring or a necklace.

Not to mention, from the description of the item, they might even survive a low ranked B grade attack. Such a feature was a must have when they're challenging high level dungeons since accidents were p.r.o.ne to happen.

Many would rather keep their life than their shame in times of need.

Meanwhile in the training room…

"d.a.m.n, mum, I know you cla.s.sed up but why is the upgrade so big?!" Lisandra asked with fatigue.

Shrugging her shoulders, s.h.i.+ro only smiled.

*BOOM!!!

Swiping her hand, she blocked one of Yin's fire b.a.l.l.s easily.

"Tch." Clicking her tongue in annoyance, Yin struggled to land a single hit on s.h.i.+ro.

"Yin your intent is too obvious. Try to hide it a little, or disperse it as much as you can." s.h.i.+ro called out while readying her sword.

Gesturing for Lisandra to attack her, s.h.i.+ro stayed on the defensive. After all, going offensive against Lisandra would just be bullying her.

"Here I come." Lisandra said seriously as she spread her wings and flew towards s.h.i.+ro.

*CLANG!

Parrying her sword with ease, s.h.i.+ro flicked her wrist and broke her guard.

"What did I say about the initiative? Make sure you're the first one to break the guard. If you're going to focus on attack, don't make it half a.s.sed against an opponent like me." s.h.i.+ro explained.

Lisandra only nodded her head before summoning another sword.

After making a contract with s.h.i.+ro, Lisandra had discovered that her own system had undergone an upgrade. She now had her own inventory and didn't need to use storage items.

Due to this upgrade, she started to experiment with how she could incorporate it into her own fighting style.

Twisting her body, Lisandra slashed her second sword toward s.h.i.+ro. Before s.h.i.+ro could even parry it, Lisandra put away her sword.

*Clang!

With a quick twist of her wrist, she used her first sword to parry s.h.i.+ro's before summoning the second sword once more.

"Mn, not bad." s.h.i.+ro praised since what Lisandra just did wasn't easy. The problem with using the inventory in combat is that most people can't set the location correctly and would either A, summon the sword out of reach or B, harm themselves instead.

While Lisandra's stunt seemed easy, she had actually calculated the speed of her hand, the angle and the position before successfully summoning her sword into her hand to continue her swing.

However, to s.h.i.+ro, it was nothing but a small trick.

Casually drawing a line in the air with her spare hand, s.h.i.+ro conjured up a small ice rod to block to sword.

*CRACK!

Holding their position for a moment, the two pushed at each other and jumped back lightly.

"Yin, where were you then? You could have a.s.sisted your sister." s.h.i.+ro called out.

"But I might hit her." Yin frowned. With the way s.h.i.+ro had moved, it was hard for Yin to launch the attack confidently since the chance of hitting Lisandra was high.

If this had happened in a real fight, she would be in a tough situation. She couldn't fire her attack since the chances of friendly fire was high and yet, she couldn't just do nothing either since that would mean she is leaving her teammate to fight by themselves. Increasing the danger to the party.

"You need to be confident in your mana control. Otherwise, you'll be useless in a team fight." s.h.i.+ro laid the harsh truth on Yin.

"Plus, since we're going to be together, you'll just become a hindrance if you don't improve."

"Urg." Flinching slightly from the criticism, Yin knew that s.h.i.+ro was correct in her a.s.sumptions.

"When have you seen a phoenix with good control!? We always just destroy everything." Yin pouted as she tried to defend herself. She didn't want to seem useless since she is a phoenix after all.

"Yes but if you don't change, improvements won't appear." s.h.i.+ro replied while clas.h.i.+ng with Lisandra.

"I'll give you an exercise to fix this in a moment."

"Alright."

After sparring with Lisandra for a while longer, s.h.i.+ro walked over to Yin.

"So what I want you to do is guide your flame through a maze. However, you cannot touch the walls or else the maze will extinguish your fire. There are several levels with the first one being rather easy."

Flicking her wrist, s.h.i.+ro built a nanomachine maze that was roughly 10 meters by 10 meters. Each of the pa.s.sageways where equal in width and there were lots of forked paths. Not only did Yin need to control her fire to not hit the walls, she also needed to guide it through the maze.

"I'll show you a demonstration first ok?" s.h.i.+ro suggested. As a 'teacher' she wanted to show that it was possible before handing it off to her 'student' to attempt. After all, it was easy to run your mouth off about a hard task.

Clicking her fingers, s.h.i.+ro conjured up a spar of Dark Star Element and flicked it into the maze.

"Now here is the catch. You need to keep the fire at the start or else the exit would not open. You can't make two sparks either since the maze will detect it and extinguish your flame. You need to mold the fire into a different shape and have it travel through the maze." She smiled.

Flexing her fingers slightly, the flame started to stretch and move through the maze like a snake.

Looking at s.h.i.+ro's control over her mana and the fire, Yin couldn't help but wonder who was the phoenix here. It was clear that s.h.i.+ro was much better at using fire than her.

Finis.h.i.+ng the maze in record speed, s.h.i.+ro created a new maze before gesturing for Yin to attempt the same.

"It shouldn't be that hard." Yin looked at the maze in suspicion before creating her own spark.

Flicking it into the maze, she started to frown when she realised her fire was about to explode.

Exerting her control over it, she barely managed to have it stabilize at the start of the maze. However, she didn't attempt to stretch its shape since she was already struggling for it to keep its shape.

Leaving Yin to try clear the maze, s.h.i.+ro had a small smile on her face.

She understood Yin's problem since her Dark Star element was a very volatile element. It was similar to what had happened to her nan.o.bots when she first got them. They would always threaten to expand rapidly and consume everything until nothing else remained. If she wasn't careful, it would easily damage her teammate.

This was when the scientists came up with this exercise to have her improve on her control.

'I have to admit, while the scientists are a.s.sholes, they're pretty d.a.m.n good at what they do.' s.h.i.+ro thought to herself.

"Alright Lisa, you ready for more?"

"No."

"I'll take that as a yes, now come on." s.h.i.+ro grinned.

On the day of the faction recruitment event, s.h.i.+ro could see the disciples clearly eager to join in the event.

Small stalls were put up that sold information on new recruits along with items that can help out with the disciple's performance. Naturally, she could even see some students reselling the Humiliation items that she sold since they're limited.

"Are you ready?" Natash asked while knocking on her door.

"Yeah, come in."

Opening the door, Natash saw s.h.i.+ro sitting by the window while her hair swayed slightly due to the wind.

Even though she was a woman herself, she couldn't help but feel a little attracted to s.h.i.+ro. That being said, the fact that she was a runway made her own womanly pride feel a little better.

"I know what you're thinking you know?" s.h.i.+ro said as her smile twitched a little.

Right now, even though she was happy about her cla.s.s up, the fact that any hint of a bosom had died was a sore point for her.

"*cough* I'm sure they'll grow. After all, you did mature after your cla.s.s up." Natash coughed in embarra.s.sment from having her thought's read.

"Anyways, shall we head to block A?" She smiled.

"Wait Block A?" s.h.i.+ro raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, we can't have all the disciples in one place now it'll be too hectic. We split all of our disciples into several groups and have them show off their prowess. Each block will have teachers to mark them down except for block A since that is where the elders are. All of the disciples here are the crème of the crop." Natash explained.

"Hou~ What about my friends then? Lyrica, Madison and Silvia." s.h.i.+ro asked.

"Those three are in Block G I believe." Natash replied.

"Is that so. We'll if I see them later, the change in improvement should be much higher. I'll keep it a surprise for now." s.h.i.+ro chuckled lightly before standing up.

"Are you not going to wear something else?" Natash asked, seeing s.h.i.+ro in a simple plain black dress.

"Why? Should I?" s.h.i.+ro asked while looking down on her outfit. She had pulled this one out to wear since it was simple to the eye. Nothing fancy.

"Well I'm sure your face will get you tonnes of points but come on, this is your first official appearance as an elder. You should dress up a little." Natash grinned.

"Hou~ Then I'm guessing you have something in mind?" s.h.i.+ro raised an eyebrow. She could see how eager Natash was at the prospect of dressing her up.

"Well since you know what I want, should I take that as a yes?" Natash chuckled while pulling out several dresses.

"I don't know how you have my size but yes, go ahead." s.h.i.+ro nodded.

"It's called having several sets of clothes and multiple sizes to choose from."

"I'm sure you'll get along with another friend of mine back in New York. She loves to make clothes and do photoshoots." s.h.i.+ro smiled.

"I look forward to meeting them then. But right now, let's get you dressed up."

After a while of going through different outfits, they settled with a braided sleeveless black dress that reached her thigh. A pair of black tights and black boots. On top of this, she wore a long jacket that reached her ankles. The jacket was decorated with white highlights and a belt.

On the back of the jacket was naturally the faction emblem to show her allegiance.

"Wow." Natash clapped her hands and couldn't help but whistle at s.h.i.+ro's new look.

"You should wear this outside more often to let the other factions know that we have a top notch beauty in our faction. They'll get jealous." Natash grinned.

"Well I was kind of thinking that this emblem will stop them from bugging me with offers to join their guild or something." s.h.i.+ro shrugged.

"Mn, if we get you some pads, I can guarantee that they'll give you plenty of offers hahaha."

"Oi."

"Alright alright, I'll stop joking about your runway now. Let's go to Block A!" Natash grinned as she quickly jogged out of the room.

Sighing slightly, s.h.i.+ro looked towards Yin and Lisandra.

"Come you two, let's go."

Arriving at the location, s.h.i.+ro could hear countless whisper's directing at her about her daughters. From what she could hear, most of them were wondering about her age, when she had the daughters and who the father was. 

Naturally, s.h.i.+ro ignored them all.

Walking up to the three chairs set up at the front of the room, she sat down with Yin and Lisandra standing beside her. 

However, she noticed that despite Lisandra looking the same as she did, no one recognised her.

'Strange.' s.h.i.+ro thought to herself in suspicion. She didn't know if it was due to her taking Lisandra out of the quest or the fact that the system had interfered. Either way, it was good for her. 

Glancing at Natash and Talius, who were sitting on the other seats, she noticed that Freya wasn't here.

"Where's Freya?" s.h.i.+ro asked curiously.

"She's in the head office. She doesn't appear for these kinds of events." Natash replied with a smile before turning to the ma.s.s of disciples in the room.

"Everyone quite!" She called out.

Once she was sure that everyone was quiet, Natash looked towards Talius and nodded her head.

"By now, everyone should have been given a number. We'll have a random number generator match you up with someone else and you'll show off your true skills. Those who attain a rank above 50 will be rewarded with items and equipment. Those who reach top 10 will be allowed to pick any item from the treasury. In addition to this, I believe that quite a few of you were discontent with our new guest elder hence there will be a chance for you to challenge her later." Talius explained as s.h.i.+ro smiled lightly.

From what she could see, the highest level adventurer within the best recruits was level 56.

'Should be easy enough.' She thought to herself since she could even kill level 60+ enemies never mind level 56's.

"Now that you know the reward, let the event start!"