Irina is taking note of all the potential resources she finds on the map given to her by her young master, although she has already found important things like the great energy stone vein and some other mines, like one of iron and another of copper, in reality in these two months she has only managed to analyze 20%, though well it's not like she could find all the resources anyway, that would require specialized people.
At this moment she is noting down a small group of energy trees without offensive capability, they are called crimson oaks and their quality ranges between mortal grade 1 and grade 3, when she finishes marking the zone on her map and puts it away preparing to go to the next point of interest, one of the many abandoned villages in this area. It's understandable that there are so many, even cities, after all the Leechwald forest is one of the lost territories during the war with the sect of a thousand poisons, although despite being so huge it only represents 20% of that lost territory.
She sighs in pity for so many lives that were lost, at least the sect of a thousand poisons lost the war and was exterminated by the poison hunters of the mortal races union, but she soon will not have time to think about that because sensing something dangerous approaching, she grabs her twin swords, the blood queens given by her young master, and counterattacks a shadow sending it flying in another direction.
When Irina sees it, she realizes it is an ice lynx, just like the fire wolf. These creatures are born without cultivation and when they reach adulthood they attain elemental realm grade 9 and have the capacity and talent to reach the earthly regent realm. She is a little surprised, according to her young master in this forest there are only elemental realms grade 1 to 9, and although it is true that the ruler of the forest left, since her young master saw him, this type of beast should not appear so soon.
Irina quickly takes the initiative, but the ice lynx is not going to stay still watching how it gets killed. Both accelerate quickly and when they are about to clash head-on, she moves to the side and slashes the flank with her sword.
But the lynx is not stupid, energy beasts before the spiritual palace realm mostly have intelligence far inferior to a human, but still they are smarter than a common animal, with intelligence of a child between 7 and 10. This lynx quickly uses one of its abilities, ice armor, to block part of the damage, the twin blood queen barely manages to cut the surface of the beast's thick skin, absorbing part of the creature's blood.
The ice lynx quickly invokes another ability, ice lances, and sharp-shaped ice shards fly in Irina's direction. The lynx immediately launches another ability, icy leap, and with it another ability, this time one exclusive to its race, ice lynx bite.
Irina, who has just dodged the icicles, places her swords to the side blocking those powerful fangs by barely a few millimeters, but she is not stupid, this is her chance. Using one of the five abilities possessed by the swords made by Feicui Long she says: "Twin Blood Queens' Slash!"
The swords release a bloody energy in the lynx's mouth, injuring it severely and sending it flying, Irina quickly pursues and then says: "Blood Tide!" the swords then glow again with a blood-red color and launch waves of bloody energy.
This hits the lynx who has just landed. The heavily injured lynx wants to get up and flee but Irina quickly stabs one of the swords into its skull and says: "Sorry but I don't think you're going to make it."
The blood queen devours the beast's blood with devotion, this is the third ability, Blood Devour, it allows the twin swords to increase their power and quality by absorbing blood, which are growth-type, that is to say their quality and power increase with that of the user or by devouring other artifacts, materials of their attribute or materials like metals, wood, etc., depending on what they are made of, or also energy clusters like energy stones, energy crystals, etc.
After devouring the blood, a celestial light shines on the swords, this is the fourth ability, called Celestial Sovereign's Mind Rune and its function is to disperse all negative feelings and emotions left behind by those who die, whether by the user or another person in the blood so that it does not affect the user nor generate a bloodthirst nor a blood demon or devil, it also protects the user from these negative powers.
As for the last one, Irina only sighs, this ability is the strangest she has seen in her life, it is called Blood's Call, it turns the swords into blood and summons them always to their owner regardless of the distance, but besides that they can enter the host's body to burn the accumulated blood preventing the owner from burning her own. This does not reduce the swords' power nor the host's because what gets burned is the blood they absorbed but have not yet processed.
…
7 days have passed. Irina is grateful that her young master gives her so many spatial storage bags to carry and even a spatial storage sack, because in total, the 6 bags and the sack are full of energy beast corpses. The worst part is that even though she avoids danger as much as she can by using techniques like making a fire underground, cleaning her tracks, and so on, it almost seems like the energy beasts appear out of nowhere. If it weren't for Kagetsume and the 10 watcher golems that the young master also lets her contract, she wouldn't be able to sleep peacefully.
But she also wants to thank the young lord for these twin swords she is now looking at and cleaning a little, because while they don't get stained with blood, they do get dirty with mud and sludge. Because it has to be admitted, at first, even though they are of great value, she underestimates them a little. But from the moment she sees 5 abilities, she is stunned… her frozen golden eagle bow is a relic from her family and in its current form it only possesses 5 abilities!
Of course, a clarification is needed since that's ignoring the ones it has sealed, because being of growth type and with spirit, when binding to a new owner it drops back to the level of mortal quality grade 1 – mortal rank – beginner stage, so it loses power and quality, almost like starting a cultivator's cultivation from scratch. Although, the hardness and resistance of the materials or the artifact itself do not decrease. The artifact is originally of mythical quality level – grade 3 – supreme rank – advanced stage, equivalent to the peak of the epic realm and possesses 25 abilities.
But even so, those 5 abilities at the beginning of the swords are an immensely great achievement. Even though she doesn't know much about refinement-smithing and inscriptions, she can say that, because in her 26 years as a mercenary, she has seen several rare growth-type artifacts and even those with powerful weapons or other artifacts that start as grade 9 and reduce in grade after bonding, are happy just to have one single ability, if they have one at all. Having 2 is reason enough to jump for joy and 3 is the crème de la crème, almost like winning the lottery.
In fact, without exaggerating, even those of the earthly palace level grade 3 only have 1 guaranteed ability and range between 1 to 2. Those of earthly level – grade 3 only have 2 guaranteed and range between 2 to 4. The grade 6 ones of the same level that can have 3 guaranteed range between 3 to 5, while grade 9 ones can have 4 abilities and range between 4 to 7. Beyond that, she doesn't know more because she hasn't seen them but has heard that the sovereign level ones grade 3,6,9 go from 7 to 10, 11 to 15, 16 to 21.
Now, it's true that even if there are many abilities, many are passive and don't change much or only slightly increase the weapon's strength. In fact, after the spiritual palace level grade 3, they drop from the 35 they are theoretically supposed to have at mythical level grade 9, down to 3 or 5 again, but that's because many of those abilities contain sub-abilities or extra capacities or partial passives.
For her, perhaps the greatest achievement of these swords is that they are made without rare materials like energy minerals, woods, beast parts, monsters, etc., and instead use bloody black iron, a fairly weak and common energy alloy. Using an energy metal of mortal level grade 1 and blood of energy creatures and without using the core of a rare creature or cultivator, all their abilities are made with pure artifact refinement-smithing and inscription mastery. Even the light consciousness without personality that growth-type weapons without spirit have is much more advanced, almost as if someone else's personality has been imitated...
Irina sighs, full of curiosity, gratitude, and melancholy. With such a treasure in the hands of a slave, what kind of madman gives something like this and on top of that calls it an experiment...
Irina doesn't know that she guesses many things right. Feicui Long indeed makes the consciousness by imitating someone else's personality, from a pair of twin girls he once met. The same goes for the abilities, except for the mental rune. But at the same time, he really is mad. This experiment takes a full 2 months to complete through trial and error, just to produce a single pair, and he gives it away just like that.
But Irina soon notices something strange thanks to the watcher golems she starts using after the surprise attack from the Ice Lynx. She quickly jumps from branch to branch among the trees, seeing how the place she was in just now fills with two or three fire wolves followed by flame wolves, all adults, accompanied by ember wolves and blaze wolves, two different species. But that's not strange. Fire wolves, although they live in packs, tend to use these other two wolf types as their lackeys so they don't waste their own pack's energy unnecessarily.
Irina refrains from attacking, since these wolves, although supposedly in adverse conditions, are actually in their favorite hunting season. In winter, many beasts or energy beings that use the secondary element of ice energy come out, prey that is normally weak to their attacks.
After a while, the wolves leave after not finding anything. When she is about to come down after 15 minutes... she hears something coming from behind her. They are careless footsteps, as if they are not afraid of being discovered or people ignorant of the dangers of a forest in winter.
She realizes they are 3 to 5 separated humans walking cautiously. She can't identify them because they are hiding, covering their faces and anything else that could serve that purpose. The funny part is that she expects real experts, but they are all normal elemental realms. Still, she waits to see what happens.
The five men then speak without holding back at all: "Ah, squad leader, do we really have to do this? If the barony people notice us, they'll kill us. The Krötenheim county is a sworn enemy of the Skylion, and they currently have more troops than we do. If it weren't for our fortresses, they would've dared attack us already, so coming here to explore the situation to see if we can steal this forest is a deadly risk."
The man in front responds: "There's nothing we can do, we just have to be cautious. The reports say they saw the image of the ruins disappear in the sky. Everyone thinks that means the ruler of the forest, that dragon, has left. We're not the only ones who sent troops. Kaltstein county, Falkenburg viscounty, Tannenwald barony, Silberthal county, Heligheim viscounty, and lastly Rotenberg viscounty did too. If they realize it first and take this territory, we'll be left behind, so it's better to risk it than to possibly lose this territory."
One of the men on the sides says: "However, this environment really is hostile. We've encountered several beasts in elemental realm grade 5 and 6. If it weren't for the leader, we'd be dead."
Irina hears this and quickly draws her frozen golden eagle bow. She doesn't feel hatred toward them, nor does she even know Krötenheim county, much less feels anything toward the Skylion barony, but even so, she has to kill them because they will get in the way of her young master's objective and the development of her new village to which she belongs.
So with that in mind, she grabs three arrows from her quiver. Even though her bow is mixed and capable of using energy as arrows, the reason she doesn't use them is because they might draw more attention. Even though her bow, being of such high quality, is capable of greatly reducing that, she prefers not to risk it and uses the arrows made by Marianne at her request.
Quickly, she sharpens her aim and with the three arrows held in the same hand she uses to pull the string, she fires each of the three arrows in rapid succession at the three men in the rear. Each arrow flies at an incredible speed in a straight line.
The first of them pierces the throat from behind of the man on the left side. At the same time, the man closest to him turns his head, and the second arrow also pierces his throat, but this time from the side. The one on the right doesn't notice anything strange when he turns around and the arrow pierces his eye.
Irina has just killed three elemental realms, two grade 5 and one grade 6, the three weakest in the group. Only the grade 7 on the left side and the grade 9 on the right remain. Irina signals Kagetsume, who quickly reacts. This is the advantage of a civilized type. Although not as powerful as a wild type or as overwhelming in power and intelligence as a leader type, the civilized type has intelligence equal to or slightly below or above human.
The grade 9 squad leader senses something strange and his instincts make him draw his sword and shield as he shouts: "Quick, we're under atta—"
Before he can finish his sentence, Kagetsume appears and says: "Prepare to die, foolish human, by the hand of this ancient goddess!" Kagetsume immediately uses Deep Darkness Shot.
The squad leader blocks the pitch-black projectile with his shield but is strongly pushed back. He realizes the danger and curses his luck under his breath: "Damn it, a beast of elemental realm grade 9 – advanced stage, on top of that a super rare variant. Not only did I have the bad luck to be assigned here, but I run into this…"
Kagetsume doesn't give him time to think, because she immediately uses Black Steel Feather Rain. Hundreds of black shots and flashes shoot out from her feathers like arrows. The captain pours his energy into his shield, which is a grade 2 artifact, and projects the energy shield.
Then Kagetsume appears in front of him and says: "I'm sorry, you can only blame yourself for being an obstacle in the path of this goddess." Kagetsume activates her Deep Darkness Obsidian Heart and immediately uses Obsidian Piercing Rain.
Hundreds of obsidian fragments fly out, piercing the squad leader. Even so, he hasn't died, stubbornly remaining on his feet. Kagetsume sighs when she sees this and lunges with her claws, piercing the leader's skull and killing him, then saying: "I'll end your suffering…"
The other member who hears the noise tries to go help, but it's too late because Irina, who has come down from the tree, is behind him and cuts him from behind with her twin swords, ending the life of this poor bastard.
Then she throws the pieces of the fragmented formation to protect herself and hide everything. Irina then organizes the bodies inside and takes their spatial bags and any artifacts that might be useful. Obviously, she absorbs the blood of these individuals and begins checking the armors and spatial bags.
In the bags there are some useful things and the corpses of a few beasts. As for the armors, they almost make her depressed. They are literally ordinary mortal armors, not even a grade 1 artifact, which shows they were sent knowing they might die. The only artifacts are then the weapons and the captain's shield. What a bunch of poor bastards.
But more important are the journals, the letters, and the maps, so after setting up an underground campfire to prepare her food, she sets herself to reading, ignoring the five corpses a few meters inside the formation...