92 A silent companion

He stood there, hiding behind the shadow of a big tree, watching the mistress moving here and there, tinkering something. As soon as he saw the devilish grin on her face, he could feel goosebumps break out from the nape of his neck to the end of his spine. Talk about crazy, but it felt like she's brewing something really, really bad and it would cause a major headache to his Lord. That made him wanted to watch her even closer.

One of a must skill that each of the Shadow must have: Star eyes, comes quite handy in this case. It gave him clear view and the ability to see far away. But even while activating that skill, he had hard time to see it clearly. The mistress had been too energetic, jumping here and there while laughing- almost look like a lunatic.

It was right then, something shines really bright and shot high up to the dark red sky.

One big bud, plop out from the tip of the sturdy branch-like root. The bud slowly bloom into one big and beautiful flower, spreading its sparkling and shining gold-like petals. The flower slowly bow down as soon as the mistress raised her hand. She touch the petals gently while smiling.

As if the monsters had sense new intruders in their territory, flying monsters came and squaking loudly, circling around the mountain. The mistress smile widely, looking at those monsters. He read her lips from far and gathered what she said:

"time to hunt"

Her hands glow, touching the root, and it started to glow even brighter, like a beacon..

the middle of the flower suddenly turn hideous, big mouth with a two lines of fangs can be seen from far.

It blew out some mist or dust?? It blew around the flying monsters that came circling around their mountain. And slowly one by one, drop like a log and instantly, die. By die, he means- while dropping from that altitude, the whole body rots instantly and by the time it reach the ground it had become a piles of bones. His jaw dropped, and he couldnt believe what he just saw.

"What the hell is that thing? Is it a monster? A spirits? Tools?" His brain couldn't process what had just happened in front of him. He knew the origin of that flower and seen it in action. What he was seeing right now was far cry than what it was before. It almost as if the thing is alive..

No human can create monster. One can tame monsters, but creating.. that is under a jurisdiction of a god. And he knew the mistress can be kinda overpowering sometimes but he was sure she is not some kind of a god.. so who is she really?

His train of thoughts stopped right there when the flower open its mouth again and spitting out black balls around them. It drops on the ground with a loud bang. But it didnt stay like that for a long time. The moment it sense something crawls near it, its either shoot out thorny roots and instantly stab it. Or explode and leave a huge mess of carcasses around it.

Chaotic and Carnage. That what it was. That definitely stopped any kind of curiosity inside him that egging him to go near the place in order to watch it closely.

"This might works! It can help me when I need to retreat when facing stronger enemy and also, deal high damage. Now.. that settle, what's next.. ah yeah.. a shield!" Was what he caught from reading the mistress lips.

He look with disbelief at the mistress. She had just spend a huge amount of mana to grow that thing. Because really, anything that manifest that big equal to larger mana consumption, thats how the logic of mana works. And she wanted to proceed next to tinker another one and shield at that??!! Does the mistress know the first rule of living is 'Never ever let your mana goes empty'. It will make the mana storage inside imbalance and can be fatal.

Once the mana storage detected imbalance inside our body, all the opening channels will start to swell and explode one by one.. that will spell the end of a person. That is how they were taught on how to 'complete' their mission with dignity. If any of them were ever caught by the enemy, they would forcefully eject their mana out until its empty and self destruct along with anything around them.

**************

Iiana was sitting on a large rock. She was still drawing her idea on a flat rock with a small broken piece of rock that she found lying around. She wanted a shield that she can operate with only one time activation, that can be use while she's moving. It can also be used by putting it on someone or something to protect them.

Why? Because her mana had limitation. She need something to tip the scale when in life and death situation. What if someone without mana needed it? What if she fought an enemy far stronger than her and needed time to recuperate or block enemy attack but had completely depleted her resources? Barrier is nice but you need constant consumption of mana each time activating it..

For now, let's call it Operation Shield 1.0. Iiana nodded with satisfaction. Then first thing first, she need to find something that remotely impossible in these barren and nightmarishly land-indestructible a material. What a bummer. First obstacle and its already making her feel dejected.

She open her inventory and keep on sliding it down to see what she scrapped off along her journey until now. She was hoping that it will give her some idea. If it was at earth, she would definitely pick diamond or... hold on.. she thought...

She remembered reading about something before she died and that gave her amazing idea. The idea starts to formed as she saw something similar that reminded her to what she had read before.

Nacre.

The scientists had nominated Nacre The toughest material in the world. Or to be more precise... In the earth world. She found it rather unique with its iridescent and rainbow like color. It was tough, yet captivates anyone to look into it more closely.

One of her inventory menu box shows a skin that resemble with Nacre, iridescent traits. And when she click on the box to get more information about it:

Thousand years old Draka Skin- Grade SSS

•iridescent

•ability to change color and texture

•toughest material that required at least both level Grandmaster of Smith & armorer.

•????????

•????????????

"When did I pick this?" Iiana tried hard to remember it but she seems to forget. As far as she knew, she didn't kill any monster type called Draka. Which made her want to know what is draka..

She open her menu and find more information about it.

"Tutorial mode"

Again with its jazz, asked Iiana in writing

'what can I help you with today'

"Search for Draka information"

'Information found'

Locked. No access due to lower mastery and level.

"Show me the picture of draka"

And again..

There's no picture of it, only a shadow.

'Locked. No access to items above SS'

She can't seems to see Anything above SS level materials, monsters and so on.. which sucks.

"Are you kidding me? How the heck Would I know with just a tiny splotch of gray around? Even the information is non-accessible." She quickly tamp down her frustration and thought the brighter side of it.

"At least I got a draka skin in my hand. And... would you lookie here... I'm at grandmaster level for smithing & armorer." She smiled.

She hummed away, planning how to use it by organizing her thoughts. All the while, another person who was watching her from far almost coughed blood, after reading what came out from her lips.