Chapter 23: Enhance Armament

After cooking the dinner, Shiro went outside for a while. As for Kal'tsit, she did some maintenance to her stuff.

'Heh. I saw her ears twitch!' He thought. 'She really chose not to enjoy her life...'

It was during their dinner did he notice that slight change. If not for him being a Circle Magician, he wouldn't have noticed that. It only proved that her taste buds are fed up with those MREs.

Recalling his panel, Shiro planned ahead on what to do with his future points.

[Shiro]

Realm: 1st Rank Circle Magician (+)/ 9th Rank Aura Knight (+)

Soul Points: 2,009

Attributes:

Physique: 29

Dexterity: 28

Wisdom: 38 (+130)

Unlocked Special Attributes:

Aura: 33

Mana: 45 (+130)

Originum: 41

Charm: 100 (MAX)

Luck: 89

Control: 100 (MAX)

Willpower: 100 (MAX)

Acquired Masteries:

Arts Mastery (Expert--76%), Gun Mastery (Expert--99%), Apothecary (Expert--65%), Riding (Expert--23%), Cooking (Expert--45%), Blade Mastery (Expert--99%), Tech Master (Proficient--78%), Bow Mastery (Expert--99%), Explosions Master (Proficient--32%), Mechanic (Expert--33%), Surgeon (Proficient--89%), Shield Mastery (Expert--99%), Negotiation Master (Expert--30%), Demonic Arts (Proficient--10%), Investment Master (Master--79%)

Looking at it, he decided to focus more on his Knight job for now. As to why, it has something to do with his memories.

When he became a Circle Magician, all theoretical knowledge related to it was 'unlocked'. To be honest, he had only consolidated one-tenth of it right due to the sheer amount of it. His knowledge regarding runes became more abundant as well.

Moreover, when he integrated his knowledge regarding weapons with his acquired masteries, it strangely grew up until the limit of Expert rank.

Though, Acquired Masteries doesn't show all of his masteries. But still, fusing those bits of knowledge actually made his proficiency rise by a large amount.

"Who would've expected that Zouken Matou's mastery lied in investment."

When he saw Zouken Matou's mastery chance, he thought that he'll get something related to magecraft, but no, what he got are 3 Master rank Masteries, in which one of them is Worm Magecraft.

However, it serves no use to him, which led to him choosing Investment Master instead.

"No more stealing money. Investment, huh. This might be fu-"

His monologue was stopped abruptly as he sensed a familiar presence in the high priest's house. It might be not as intense as before, but he's confident that its the presence of that alien god from earlier.

Instinctively, he used Reinforcement in his legs and arms as he ran to the house, all the while bringing the [Fragrant Olive Sword]. Though, he has to say that without Aura and Reinforcement, he might have a bigger trouble wielding it.

After all, its descriptive 'heavy enough' is an understatement! Before weight adjustment, it weighed thousands of kilograms. Only when he lowered it to 800kg did he finally wield it normally.

Now, he truly understood the meaning behind Ultra Rare. Each of the items bearing this rank simply had no limits! Everything depends on the user himself.

"It's hot!"

Holding the doorknob, Shiro's hand instantly got scalded.

"It's not a normal heat..!"

Breaking the door open, he saw the high priest carrying a bucket of water, though it didn't help much.

"Shiro! A stranger we saved suddenly summoned out flames!"

"Wait a sec."

Doing the calculation in his mind, a few magic circles appeared behind him. They glowed in blue hue before the entire room was slowly turned into ice. However, the red flame kept fighting back.

As if not wanting to lose, it became even stronger.

Pulling the parrot beside him, Shiro scanned the place, looking for the location of that stranger.

"What happened?"

"We saved a stranger wrapped in flames earlier. We brought her here since letting her stay unconscious in this place is dangerous."

"Okay, where is she?"

"There."

Pointing his beak towards what was presumed to be a room, the high priest replied. Hearing this, Shiro rushed to that place while holding a strangely glowing card that emitted clock phantoms.

Kicking yet another door down, he finally saw the appearance of the stranger.

She is a Sarkaz with long red hair reaching below her waist. Contrasting with her black battle dress, she has milky white skin, indicating a healthy hue. However, black crystals can be slightly seen somewhere within her left arm.

On her hands is a massive two-handed sword, with its blade being orange-gold while its cross guard up to its pummel maintained a shiny-black color.

"She's.. strange."

Looking at her manic eyes, Shiro felt that she's not herself right now. From what he knew, Alien Gods in Romani's world are almost the same as lovecraftian gods, in which Kuroneko explained them as something horrible.

One of their known characteristics is mental pollution that makes the target crazy.

The sound of the blade scraping to the ground resounded in this room before she ran into Shiro, attempting to slice him in half.

"More aura..!"

Unexpectedly, he also ran at her, gathering enough momentum to clash with the giant sword. He readied a stance as he held his sword across his left side.

He also activated [Demonic Arts], making his attributes increase to more than 100. Black crystals started appearing randomly on his body, though. It only took an instant for these crystals to appear in his neck, arms, and so on.

As the two swords nearly clashed, Shiro changed the angle of his sword by a bit, forcing the stranger's sword to slide on his blade. It missed, which in turn gave him an opportunity to slash at her back diagonally.

Seeing this, the stranger instantly stabbed her sword to the ground as she used it as a support to dodge his incoming strike. Magma then slowly flew out of the ground, all the while craters formed all around her direction.

At this point, the house crumbled, exposing the two of them in the gentle moonlight.

"Tsk..!"

Shiro used a rune spell to condense a block of air, using it as a foothold to avoid those incoming magma. He had no choice but to use it as it can be cast even faster now that he's a Circle Magician.

He formed another batch of magic circles behind him, summoning earth spears after her.

However, the stranger pulled her sword out of the ground before she stabbed it back. This move summoned a much stronger eruption of magma to the ground.

It assimilated and melted with the earth spears as she dodged the remaining spears at her direction.

After this attack, Shiro landed to the ground softly using the mix of his own footwork techniques and the Lightness Technique that he got from the random spins.

"Without the mana from my circuits, I can only use its first form. Even so..."

Holding his sword above his head, he chanted one syntaxes after another. The stranger, who shouted angrily, tried to come closer at him, only to be distracted by the few blue jewels that Shiro threw out using his mental power.

When it came close to her, it produced an explosion while making the surroundings colder.

As the dust cleared out, she is seen stabbing the sword in the ground for the third time. Still, some parts of her right arm is inflicted with coldness due to the direct impact that she suffered.

Though, it didn't last as the heat emitted by her giant sword is enough to offset it.

"I'm finally fucking done." Shiro annoyingly complained as he said, "Enhance Armament!"

Command Prompts appeared on the blade of his sword as they transformed.

The blade of his sword turned into golden flowers, forming a sharp contrast to the night sky. They emitted the scent of an osmanthus tree as they caught the attention of the awake Tiacuhs in many villages.

"Beautiful..."

"...What are those?"

"Flowers..?"

Though, Shiro didn't have any time to think about that as faced the grip of his sword towards the stranger. At the same time, the flowers went after the direction where the grip is pointed at.

The flowers soon dropped into her direction. With each petal weighing a lot, it soon caused a giant crater as it dropped to the ground. As the stranger got covered by them, Shiro couldn't see the situation for a while.

As the dust and the flowers flew up the sky, the stranger's situation got revealed. She was knocked out unconscious with cut wounds all over her body.

Seeing this, Shiro retracted the flowers back into its blade form.

"Phew... If this didn't work, I would've used 'them' and the time card as a last resort."

He thought that he could use this time to measure the power of his UR sword, thus he opted for it. However, he still has his reality marbles that was unlocked after using his Latent Potential Accessor that revealed his origins and the Reality Marble Awakening Chances.

No matter how strong that sword is, its wielder is weaker. That's what he saw through his own judgement and mental power, making him aim for her body instead of that sword.

Walking towards the stranger, Shiro tensed up and prepared for another fight.