6: artifacts part 1

Adore had just woken up from her slumber surrounded by her mice. She was a little nervous about what today may hold for her and how the events will play out. She had a total of two meteirls and one common beast to fight.

It was going to be a really hard time for Adore, especially when it came to finding any type of metals. She had to go into mines and caves to find them, and each of those places have a slew of common and undead creatures. But she should be fine as long as she ventured into only low 1-tier caves.

Which wasn't hard to decipher from other-tier caves and mines. She just had to use her now high mana sense to detect the mana signatures of the beasts in the caves. And she had Twyla whose sensory abilities were of the highest caliber when it came to mana or any of her senses.

The upside of this is that caves have chests with lots of treasures and sorts of things to boost her arsenal. She could even find spellbooks. The reason why this is possible is that the goddess of this realm puts blessings on caves and various other places and things for people and creatures to reap the rewards from.

Why she does this is unknown, but people have their beliefs and ideas of why. Unfortunately or fortunately, Adore did not care. She just wanted to take and reap the rewards. She could care less as to why they're there to begin with and whatever deep meaning is behind it. She just wanted to be stronger so her mice could be safe and protected.

After a while of thinking about these things and going over the order in which she would collect the things she needed, she would collect them and be on her way. But not before spending some more time with her mice and feeding herself. Even though her mice didn't need food, she still fed them as well. She felt bad just eating in their face and believed that to be rude. So she made extra of what she was eating and fed all three of her now 4-foot-tall mice.

"Thank you master." all the mice replied in unison.

"No problem my little babes and when you finish, I have some questions i have for y'all once your all done." said adore

The mice were curious about what Adore wanted to know from them, so they began to gobble down their food with anticipation. Adore sat there watching with a flushed face. This was such an adorable sight to Adore. She loved watching her mice eat. The way their cheeks filled up with food, puffing up before they swallowed, was the cutest thing in the world to her. The big, adorable mice soon finished their food and looked at their master with their cute little faces, waiting for what Adore had to say.

"What gluttons you all are, y'all ate your food so fast." Adore said jokingly.

"Sorry master I didn't mean to offend you it will never happen again please forgive me." Said Robby

"Yes, me to master. Punish me please, I deserve punishment for my sins." Said alice dramatically.

"Come on y'all calm down master was obviously joking. Get you selves together, master wishes to ask us something." said Twyla in a stern voice.

" Where sorry master please forgive us" said Alice and Robby in unison with puppy dog eyes.

"Oh please I was never offended don't apologize. Said Adore while rubing the two mice head.

Adore was actually taken aback by the way her mice were acting. Despite the big smile on her face, she wondered if that was just their personality or if they really saw her as some crazy tyrant, ready to punish them as soon as they fell out of line. And if so, what had she done to make them feel that way? She thought she always treated them kindly and nicely, so she didn't understand.

"Truly do you all see me as some craze tyrant. what did i do to give off that impression? said Adore with a look of melancholy.

"No of course not master, we wouldn't be able to live with out you." Said alice.

"Yeah master she's right, but we are a little sad you don't trust us to fight with you. said Robby 

"Robby!!" SaidTwyla.

"No his fine I want you all to be honest with me, don't feel afraid to voice you opinions. I love you all like a mother and don't won't you to feel offend by anything I do."

"oh no master I would never feel offend by what you ask of me. I just want to help you sometimes, we have magic we all specialize in naturaly as mystical beast and are capable of defeating any 1-tier common beast. Said Robby.

"Yes master. I specialize in light magic hence the golden fur and I'm very capable." said Alice.

"Twyla. Do you feel this way as well?" Said Adore.

"Yes master. I understand you want us to to be safe but, I don't belive any 1-tier common beast could harm us." respond Twyla with her head down and in a low voice.

"I'm sorry you all, and I promise once I become a dark magus, you'll be able to fight to your hearts contant, but I have to become strong enough to protect you and myself first. You all are significantly stronger then me despite being the same mana level as me and I wanna bridge that gap first. So I can't have y'all helping for my own well being." Adore said in a comforting voice.

"Ok master. They all said this in unison with cute little pouty faces.

After that Adore put them all in her soul soul space after showering them in affection for a few minutes.she then got up and got ready to leave. She got her things together and went over her spells for a while, before making her way out the door.

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 Adore had been walking for a few hours, and fought a few monsters along the way, tiil she finally wasn't far from a cave good enough for her to explore. This was the third one. The two before was either to high of a tier-cave or void of what she needed. She waited a while to replenish her mana before she made it into a cave, where she would most likely have to fight a few enemy's in, before she found any silver and metals of any sourts, so she took her time. Once she was fully replenished she made her way into the cave.

It wasn't to bad of a cave size wise witch surprised her sense it wasn't that high of a cave in Tier with the highest mana signature in the cave being a high grade 1-tier (common beast). The cave entrance area was 12 metters wide an 3 meeters high. There was no beast in this part of the cave or treasures of any sourts so she dicided to go deeper.

"Wow it's really big in here." Said Twyla.

"I guess." Said alice

"Well it is a nice size but it's not huge." Said Adore.

Adore made her way deeper into the cave, and as she went further, the width of the cave decreased. She eventually came across some goblins making their way down the cave. She was cautious but not too worried. Goblins are intelligent life forms that live in settlements and cities along with humans and other races. However, people could be tricky and could have ill intent towards others, so she remained a bit vigilant. However, the goblins just walked past her, too consumed with their conversation to pay her any attention

She actually found them quite adorable, they where about 4-foot tall, green with very smooth young faces, that made it hard to pin point there age she assumed they where around her age are a little older. They had spatial bags, and weapons sheathed on their backs, and small little clothing, on with and insignias on there chest the shape of a sword indicating they where from a guild, witch was basically just free Lance work that payed nice but not as much as registered knights, and mages. they talked in a language she didn't understand, but she assumed they must also know the common language, so she turned around and tried to get there attention.

"Hey can i ask you two a question?" asked Adore

"Um sure." Said one of the goblins.

"Ok do you know if theres any silver in here." Asked Adore

"Oh yeah of course, they're is a few different types of metal in this cave, including gold we actually colleted some are selves but we left a good amount. You should be able to find what you're looking for no problem." said the goblin.

"Watch out though there's still a few mid, and high grade 1-tierd beast. Be safe in there." Said the other goblin

"I will, thank you. "said Adore.

After their brief conversation, Adore tried to take a look at their mana levels since they seemed to have run into some high-grade 1 tier beast and appeared very relaxed for people who had just finished a fight. However, she noticed they didn't have any mana - not one drop. Adore then realized they must be knights. Though she couldn't gauge their strength without a revealing spell or sensory object, which she didn't have at the time, she noted to herself to look into acquiring such tools. She never knew when she'll have to fight a knight one day, and knowing how strong they were would be ideal in that scenario.

"Wow! Those men were really strong. They had over 1000 aura points, so they wouldn't have any problem dealing with 2nd-tier and maybe low-rank, low-grade 3rd-tier beasts." said Twyla.

"Wait, can you see how many aura points they have?" asked Adore

"Yeah. It's because of my lineage. I believe some mystical beasts with strong lineages have natural sensory abilities. Some non-mystical beasts do as well, but it's not as common."said Twyla.

Adore was going to ask a little more before she ran into a giant spider with huge chelicerae. It was about five feet tall, and it was ugly. Luckily, it wasn't a high grade, but it definitely wasn't low either. Adore jumped back a few feet and started to form a runic pattern around her mouth before she said.

"Water spike"

A 2-meter water spear formed over her head and shot at the spider with full force.

SWISH! Boom!

The spider tapped the ground lightly as its legs glowed with a brown hue and runes formed on the ground. A wall of earth burst from the ground and blocked the water spike. The force of the spear caused the water to burst, breaking the earth wall in the process.

"Aqua manipulation"

Adore gained control of the water from her former water spike that was now burst into thousands of droplets of water surrounding the spider before....

"Water spike"

The droplets of water then turned into spears in a split second, surrounding the spider before crashing into its body. Immediately, the spider screeched in pain. Before Adore cancel the spell, leaving it covered in water from head to toe, the spider rushed at Adore while drenched in water.

"Freeze"

SEEEHSHHH!

The spider was frozen solid, immediately halting it in its tracks, bringing it to a still with ease in seconds. Adore then started to form runes around her mouth, taking her time before...

"Shatter"

The spider burst into small fragments of ice, covering the area in a white cast, almost as if it had snowed.

Mira then took a minute to catch her breath. She gave herself a second for her mana to regenerate, and after 10 minutes of waiting, she was ready to go. She made her way deeper into the cave before she finally ran into some silver along with some iron as well.

Unfortunately, she didn't see any gold, and she didn't care to look. She had more to do, and she believed wasting any more time in the cave would take up the rest of her day and not leave her any time to make her way to a lake and collect its water and the horned fish that lived in it.

"Water spike"

"Aqua control"

Adore used the water from her water spike to form a pickaxe and cast freeze on it so she could use it to mine the metal. She smashed away at the wall of rock until she had finally broken free the metal she wanted.

She repeated the process for a while until she had more than she needed because she never knew when she would need more of these materials again. After long and continuous hours of mining, she made her way out of the cave and to the nearest lake, which was no more than an hour away. Lucky for her, that was going to be her last destination since spear horn fish were lake water beasts and she would most likely see one there since they were very common.

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 Adore had finally made it to the lake and was currently collecting some water and being on the lookout for the spear horn fish. She saw a few, but all of them were only low-grade, and she needed a mid-grade tier spearfish. She searched, waited, and waited before starting to get impatient. She wondered if maybe this lake didn't have a mid-grade fish of any species. So she decided to leave for the next nearest lake she had seen the last time she went out this far, which was no longer than 20 minutes away. She threw the lake water in her bag and was on her way.

After a 20-minute uneventful walk, she made it to the next lake and began setting up for the spearfish. From what she had read about them, they really liked to eat gumgum fish, which was just a really fat, juicy fish that wasn't as common as spearfish, but it was also not uncommon, just hard to come by. But she had plenty of them in her lab at home, so she didn't have to look for any. She cast aqua control and encased it in a ball of water, placed it in the water, and held it in one spot.

She waited a while until she saw a spearfish start to creep up on the fish. As soon as she saw it, she encased it in a ball of water and pulled it out. As soon as she did, the spearfish's horn glowed, and the water surrounding it dispersed, setting it free from the ball of water that was surrounding it. Then it shot the dispersed water at her like bullets.

"water skin"

A thick layer of water formed around Adore's body like armor as she directed mana to her legs and began dodging as many as she could while making her way towards the spearfish that was now floating mid-air, shooting water bullets at her.

"ice sword"

A ice sword formed in her hand, and she immediately began using it to deflect some of the bullets while closing the distance between her and the spearfish.

"Below zero"

A light blue orb that glowed with a blue hue and radiated an intense cold aura around it formed in front of her head and shot a big beam of cold energy at the spearfish.

SHESSSSH!!!!

The floating fish sensed this beam coming and shot a dark blue beam from its horn in the center of its head, clashing the energy beam into the opposing one, and with a big ,

BOOM!!!

the two attacks cancelled each other out. As soon as this happened, the barrage of bullets came to a halt, and Adore used the opportunity to pounce on the fish. She channeled mana into her sword and slashed it vertically, sending a crescent-shaped energy blast at the fish. It immediately shot a beam from its horn, and a puff of smoke was produced due to the collision of the two beams.

SLASH!

Adore used the smoke as a smoke screen to hide her movement so that she could sneak on the side of it and slice its head off. Once she did, the fish fell to the ground. Adore crashed to the floor in relief. She didn't expect the fish to be so smart and put up such a hard fight. She assumed that fish were highly intelligent beasts and that she would never underestimate them again. She then threw the fish in her spatial bag and went home for the day. She was tired, so she summoned Robby from her soul space and rode him home.

Once she made it back, she didn't even think about assembling the artifact. She was too tired. She let all her mice out of her soul space and gave them affection to ease the tension. She did this for about 20 minutes, and the mice thoroughly enjoyed it before she made it to her bed with her mice and instantly passed out.