[Ruins of Archades Imperial Palace: West Corridor - 1F]

That very night, the previously nameless ruins experienced yet another upheaval.

A small, masked cloaked figure dashed through the corridor full of meat and maggots with a lance-shaped flame in hand, slaughtering countless spiders in its path.

PSHAAW! PSHAAW! PSHAAW! PSHAAW! PSHAAW!!

-614200! -614200! -595300 -614200! -614200!

The spiders were not given a chance to scream, nor did they have the chance to feel pain or fear.

Because, the cloaked figure only needed one strike to kill each spider. With every swing, anything that touched the flame lance was instantly disintegrated into ash.

The lance had originally came from the Fire Lance spell, which was contained within the Superior Lunar Wand. Or to be precisely, from the Death Mage's Soul Essence that was inside the Superior Lunar Wand.

With Extremity of Primary Elements (+100%), Overspell (+57%), 10 Ignis rings (+400%), Superior Earring of Wisdom (+20%), and 400+ INT, this spell can undoubtedly cause tremendous damage to enemies.

However, the cloaked figure used the spell not as a projectile, but as a melee weapon, which also caused 125 STR to take effect. In addition, one of the effects of the Orc Hero's Soul Essence inside the Superior Saintess Necklace, which provided an additional 100% increase in melee damage. And then, the 50 LUK also gives a decent critical rate.

It was simply a killing machine.

"This is amazing, she's more overpowered than I expected." (distorted voice)

Not far away, an invisible figure stood in the path full of spider corpses.

Most of them had some missing body parts, as those parts had turned to dust. It could be seen that the cloaked figure had great control over being able to destroy only the enemy's vital parts, leaving the rest intact.

And the cloaked figure was of course, Hecate's newly created mana clone.

Hecate, who drank a bottle of Improved Invisibility Potion, silently controlled the clone with her mind while remaining invisible, safe from the monsters' attention.

This bottle was one of the items that Hecate bought from Nerkia City's Auction Hall.

Surprisingly enough, during her absence, Grim made a breakthrough with his alchemy skills. Even though there were still flaws, at least the potion no longer restricted the user from casting spells, which was great news for Hecate.

And it seems her connection with the clone doesn't involve any mana at all. So, by using the clone as a proxy, Hecate could basically cast any spell she wanted. The remaining tiny flaws in the potion became nothing to Hecate.

Hecate silently decided that when she returned to Brynhild Fort, she would buy these potions in bulk.

"But it seems, there is no need to use Overspell at all." (distorted voice)

Although the Overspell skill increases spell power by 57%, it also causes MP consumption to increase by 114%.

Apart from that, the Superior Earring of Wisdom which provides an additional 20% boost also has the disadvantage of increasing MP consumption by another 50%.

This causes the clone's MP upkeep to increase drastically. Not to mention that maintaining the fire lance also requires MP, as can be seen from the clone's HP bar which decreases rapidly every minute.

Currently, this was the second time Hecate has recast the clone, as the previous clone only lasted around 10 minutes before disappeared.

After this, it would be the third.

And for each time she casts the clone, Hecate had to waste a lot of Condensed Hi-Ether bottles, as her MP regeneration couldn't keep up with the cost, even with Heart of Mana activated.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, the cloaked figure started to become transparent, before disappearing entirely.

'Okay then, it's decided. No more Overspell...'

And so, Hecate deactivated the Overspell skill, and then recasting the third clone. She had not taken off the earrings because they had become one of her equipment sets, and removing them would only reduce her stats.

Hecate's invisibility flickered during the process and her figure reappeared.

However, it was not a problem since the clone had been successfully cast. Then, a few moments later her figure turned invisible again, while the clone dashed towards the crowd of monsters.

PSHAAW! PSHAAW! PSHAAW! PSHAAW! PSHAAW!!

-551200! -476700! -551200! -485300 -551200!

Without the Overspell skill, naturally the clone's DPS was somewhat reduced. However, it was still more than enough to produce the same results.

Hecate couldn't help but let out an evil laugh.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!" (distorted voice)

She also did not forget to activate Hero's(?) Roar, which was one of her intention in the first place.

But of course, just as she thought, it wasn't her loli voice that came out, but the voice that was distorted by the Superior Mask of Serenity.

"MORE!! FEEL THE POWER OF DESTRUCTION, YOU FILTHY INSECTS!!" (distorted voice)

The roar echoed through the corridor, to the point where it was impossible to determine the source of the sound. And upon hearing this roar, the spiders trembled, and even maggots started to fall from the wall of flesh where they were gnawing at.

Even though it was impossible to distinguish their facial expression, their gesture was enough to tell that they were terrified. It was a primal fear that was ingrained to their very soul.

And immobile spiders are easy targets for the clone to cut down.

♠♠♠

 

 

[Brynhild Fort]

It was already late at night in both real life and the game. Despite that, there were Players who were still logged in at this time. They are generally nocturnal people who prefer to be active at night.

Shuna was one of those people.

After completing all of her college duties during the day, she took a nap to prepare for the nightly bustle of the fort later.

The atmosphere in the fort at night was no less busy than the atmosphere during the day. On the contrary, every day of Brynhild Fort's nightlife was like a festival.

Lots of stalls here and there, selling various odd items of various categories. The streets are filled with colorful lights from spells conjured by Wizards and Witches. Music produced by incomprehensible instruments can be heard in various places.

Shuna likes this atmosphere very much.

"Old man, 10 Minotaurus Spicy Skewer please, as always." (Shuna)

"Ai yo! Wait a moment... Okay, here is it." (Seller)

"Thanks, old man!" (Shuna)

And so she handed out 5 to exchange for 10 Minotaurus Spicy Skewers.

The skewer meat was made from Minotaurus Meat which is almost equivalent to Wagyu Beef, and is perfect to be eaten with a bottle of Coldsnake Blood Cocktail.

It was Shuna's favorite snacks.

There are no health consequences from drinking alcohol in the game, except for some bad statuses, such as Drunk, Dizzy, and sometimes Poison. But even so, those bad statuses could easily be removed with Cleric's skill, Cure.

Shuna was about to enjoy her snacks, but suddenly a regional announcement appeared.

It was a congratulatory message for someone she knew for successfully upgrading equipment to +10

"What? Hecate-chan did?"

Shuna was quite surprised, but at the same time she also congratulated Hecate in her heart.

As a guildmate, and also a fellow disciple of Dalmagna, she was quite proud with Hecate's success as if it were her own. But at the same time, she also felt envy.

"If only that was my name there..."

It was her aspiration to be the first Blacksmith to successfully upgrading an equipment to +10. But it seems, she had been overtaken by her junior disciple.

As she knew, the upgrade success rate would start to decrease from +5 and above. And a failed upgrade will inherently destroy the equipment, unless the Reinforcing Stone used is from the Cash Shop. But even then, there was no guarantee that the upgrade would be successful.

This was why equipment with an upgrade level of +5 and above was expensive.

The more upgrade level, the more expensive it will be.

It was said that the Blacksmith Upgrade skill would increase the success rate. But even so, no one in the Rosenweil Kingdom had managed to upgrade equipment to +10, while 2 or 3 people managed to do so in the Gemmerio Empire.

Hecate was the first in the Rosenweil Kingdom.

And at the same time, people on the streets also talking about this.

• • "Wait, is that our Hecate-chan there?"
    • "It seems so... Way to go, Hecate-chan!"
    • "A +10 equipment appeared on our Kingdom!"
  • "Finally, she returned..."
  • "Yeahoo!! Now we will be freed from Rena-sama's substance X!"

Even in the forums there was a lot of talk about Hecate.

But while they were still immersed in their talk, the announcement continued again.

From the initial excitement now turned into bewilderment.

"Wait, what's going on?" (Shuna)

Suddenly, a bunch of +10 upgrade congratulatory messages popped up and each one was still addressed at Hecate alone. What does this mean?

If it was just one success, it was understandable. Two? still understandable.

But more than ten? Was Hecate cheating?

But when she recalled Hecate's adorable face, that kind of thinking was immediately dispelled.

'No, Hecate-chan is a very kind(?) girl, she definitely wouldn't do that. Also, even though she's a little socially awkward, she's a hard worker and a serious person.'

That was a biased judgment, based on Hecate's cute appearance.

Also, it's impossible to cheat in this game, because everything was monitored by AI 24/7 non-stop. Even notorious hackers were unable to do anything to tamper with game data and were caught instead.

But then, another explanation was needed.

'I see... Most likely, it was related to her quest...'

Shuna still remembered that Hecate had a unique quest, issued by their Blacksmith mentor, Dalmagna himself. Hecate had indeed asked permission to leave because of this matter before. And when Shuna asked Dalmagna about this, he confirmed.

She didn't know what quest Hecate was on, but she was convinced that the previous message was related to that.

And this conviction made her feel complicated.

"I became master's disciple early on, but why did master entrust the quest to her first?"

Shuna didn't know what this feeling was, but the skewers didn't seem to taste good anymore.