Making her way back, s.h.i.+ro stretched her body.

{Why did you leave that other candidate?} Nimue asked curiously since she thought that s.h.i.+ro would have finished the job.

'There wasn't any need for me to kill her. If anything, it's more beneficial to leave her alone so that when we see her again, the party can get some exp from her death. If not for the fact that the controller annoyed me, I wouldn't have made a move personally.' s.h.i.+ro shrugged.

{True. She really p.i.s.sed you off huh? You actually chased her from the central region all the way to the north to kill her.} Nimue chuckled.

'Mn, anyways, the girls should have made it back to the party. Hopefully, my little act didn't scare them too much. If they decide to surrender it would be pretty annoying since they're walking bags of EXP.' s.h.i.+ro replied as Nimue laughed.

{Yikes how cruel. Despite all of their efforts in getting stronger, you casually refer to them as walking bags of EXP. The fact that you're not kidding is rather disturbing. I remember when you used to do everything as low key as you could.} Nimue shrugged.

'Of course, with my personality, do you honestly think I'd keep things hidden for long? I'm strong enough to not hold back anymore.' s.h.i.+ro replied since she knew that the main reason for hiding her strength before was because of her monster status along with the fact that she was too weak. If they discovered the power of her nan.o.bots while she was weak, she would have been taken away due to her powers. Perhaps even experimented on once more.

However, since she was able to survive the initial 'growing stage' she could now live without too much worry. Of course, with the new age coming up, she had to be more careful but for now, she could live freely without worry. If things stayed like this, she wouldn't mind it at all.

Making her way back to one of the city's that they had conquered, s.h.i.+ro was just in time to see Helion giving the party a few new pieces of equipment.

"Oh s.h.i.+ro's back. How was your little excursion in looking for the controller?" Madison asked with a happy smile.

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"As usual. They're dead, I'm not. Though I must say, you're looking pretty happy did something good happen?" s.h.i.+ro asked with a smile.

"Fufu~ You noticed?" Madison grinned while showing off her armour.

"Helion made me a growth type armour like yours and it has high magic resistance. It is also Black ranked!" Madison smiled with joy as s.h.i.+ro nodded her head.

"My my, this treatment is rather biased isn't it? We got armour that only lasts for 5 levels but Madi is actually getting a growth type equipment. Is there something you need to tell us Helion?" Lyrica glanced towards Helion with a smug smile.

*COUGH!

"I didn't have enough resources to make more sets." Helion said as the party knew it was an excuse.

"What happened to the 'I'm working on something for you' that you said to Madi a while ago?" Silvia giggled while sitting on the sofa next to Chen Yu.

Hearing this, Helion couldn't help but blush.

"Fufu leave the poor guy alone. I'm sure you and Madison have plenty to talk about when you're alone." Aarim grinned as Madison looked down with an embarra.s.sed blush.

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"Alright alright enough teasing. We'll finish everything tomorrow and Madi will be the only candidate left. That way, she will automatically become the queen once the new age starts." s.h.i.+ro smiled as the party calmed down.

All of the teasing stopped and they had serious expressions on their face.

"Is there anything else we need to prepare?" Helion asked as he had already given everyone their new armour with the magic resistance. In a fight, they should be able to hold their own quite nicely.

"Not much other than make sure you're ready. I won't interfere much unless absolutely needed so I'll give you all the information I have collected. Ranks 1, 2 and 3 are still pretty much mysteries since we only know that rank one can turn anything he touches to ash. I'll give you each a tablet now and it'll give you information on candidates ranked 4 to 10. 9 has been eliminated so you don't need to worry about her." s.h.i.+ro said while creating the tablets.

"Rank 10 Asphil, in the rumours, it's stated that she does not use weapons at all nor does she 'cast' any magic. She relies on her bare hands and they're sharp like swords. Her physical capabilities are on the higher end and her defences are rather peculiar. It seems like she works with s.p.a.ce since she can stop attacks near her by collapsing the area where the attack is and dismiss it entirely. The only downside to this is that her defences have a cooldown of sorts depending on what kind of attack she cancels.

"Rank 8, Fellia. She is a weapon master that is specialised in using hidden weapons such as wires, daggers and so on but do not underestimate this since she can ignore most of the armour that her enemies wear. Her wires can cut through armour like b.u.t.ter and her daggers can be thrown at incredible speeds. Her magic is limited but it's mostly used to buff herself with a few minor spells that can help her attack from range.

"Rank 7, Quinrad. A king candidate and a berserker. However, compared to normal berserkers, he is more magic orientated as he is able to use magic to fight while charging forth like a force of nature. Don't underestimate him."

Continuing to talk about the candidates while everyone looked at their information, s.h.i.+ro gave them a brief lesson on how they should prepare against a few of the spells. Of course, she didn't tell them exactly how to fight them since doing so would be babying them too much.

Once she was done with her small lecture, the party double checked everything to make sure that they were ready.

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Making a car, s.h.i.+ro started to drive towards the northern border.

While this was happening, the remaining candidates were sitting in Nostic's castle with a serious expression. From the information that they had gathered, Priscera had been killed and Asphil deserted. With two candidates gone, it was just 8 of them against the entire party. Their initial plan was to isolate them and deal with them one by one but now that their numbers were on the lower side, it was going to be hard unless they used some artefacts meant for s.h.i.+ro on the party instead.

"What should we do?" The rank 5 candidate, Saresha asked with a frown.

"Nothing. There isn't anything we can do right now other than try to get as many artefacts as we can. There isn't a way for us to get strong in a short period of time so we can only hope that Nostic reaches tier 6 quickly. He's already been in there for a while now so it should end soon." Rank 3, Lynnri sighed as they were running out of options.

"Tch, if Priscera wasn't too hasty in provoking her then things would have been fine. Even if the cowards made their way here they could still be used as distractions without converting them. I don't know what Asphil saw that caused her to desert but honestly at this point we might have no choice but to surrender if we want to live or fight it out. And the odds of the second option succeeding is much lower." Rank 8, Fellia replied while scratching her head.

Hearing this the candidates stayed silent before Rank 3 coughed lightly.

"Don't think about it for now. Just focus on gathering the artefacts. If we play our cards carefully, we won't have to fight the white haired one if we managed to procure the black ranked artefact. Once we do, we can seal her away and not fight her but Nostic will be sacrificed. But considering that it's a one for one trade off, it's not that bad." Wyslia, the rank 3 queen candidate, reminded as the other candidates seemed to calm own for a moment.

"I've managed to track its location but obtaining it is proving to be quite difficult." Saresha replied as Wyslia nodded her head.

"Just try to get it as soon as possible. Since they've conquered the central region, I can say that they're probably making their way here now." Wyslia narrowed her eyes as Saresha nodded before leaving the hall so that she could personally try to obtain that artefact.

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Instructing the other candidates on a few tasks that they should do, Wyslia sat down and glanced out the window. Even though she said all of that, the chances of success was less than 10%. Most of them will probably die by tomorrow, closing her eyes, she could only sigh at her fate.