As could be expected, the three women gazed at Hikari with red eyes. Steam came out of their nostrils as they stared at her greedily, as if they wanted to capture her and lock her in a bas.e.m.e.nt.
Hikari saw this reaction and her neck shrank in fear. She tossed the dagger aside and tried to flee, but the three didn't let her off, immediately apprehending her with ease.
With tears threatening to spill from her eyes, Hikari begged for her life. "Big Sister Eva, Sister Roma, Sister Zaine… please let me off, okay? I promise to give you some benefits in the future."
Hearing this, the three women shared a look and laughed. Eva then rubbed Hikari's back gently. "We were just playing around, there's no point in coveting you. You do not belong to us, but to Draco, and we belong to him as well. We are one family, so what is the use of such things?"
Hearing this, Hikari nodded with a smile. Of course she knew they were playing. Even if she could create whole planets, these three were not weak either, and they definitely would not harm her in any way with how tight their bonds were.
Zaine rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Truly, White Dragons are a magnificent species. Being able to harness the purest Creation Energy and mold the very essence of the world to form authentic items… too powerful."
Roma nodded. "Even if you can only make small items, don't underestimate the value of it. It only took you 3 seconds to make this dagger, so in a day you can make around 28,800 of such daggers provided you have enough energy."
Eva finished their explanation: "So even if the daggers are common steel, this is not something that anyone else can emulate. Even Draco wouldn't be able to pump out so many of such items as cost-effectively as you can."
Hikari agreed. Unlike most White Dragons who were sheltered during their training, she had a lot more worldly experience. She had been brought around by Eva and Draco, as well as had the two of them teach her many things.
Around 30,000 normal daggers per day sounded mediocre compared to the fancy and overpowered items Draco could make, but it should not be underestimated.
Even on earth, it was hard to equip almost 30,000 people with simple yet extremely high-quality weapons for no cost whatsoever. Then, there was the fact that Boundless' world had trillions of species, so no matter how much Hikari could output, it still wouldn't be enough.
And this was assuming that all she could make was common attributeless daggers. Clearly, that was not her limit, as she said she could make any small item.
In this game world, were the only small items daggers? No! Many items fell into that category, especially consumables and ornamental ones. So now, it was up to them to discover Hikari's limit.
Seemingly understanding what they wanted to know, Hikari began summoning Worldly Energy rampantly. This time though, it took her 10 minutes to produce a single bottle of golden liquid.
One could hear the hearts of Eva, Roma, and Zaine pounding rapidly as they inspected it.
｢Angel's Kiss – Consumable
Rank: Epic (100% effectiveness)
Effect: Restore 100% Health, Mana, Stamina, and Focus. Increase Health, Mana, Stamina and Focus regeneration by 50% for 1 hour.｣
When they saw this, they all had different reactions. Zaine's eyes simply became red as tears threatened to leak from her eyes. She kept mumbling under her breath, saying: "Treasure, what a treasure… Treasure, what a treasure" as she gazed at Hikari.
Roma's hair rose up and began swaying about chaotically. Her expression kept changing, ranging from excitement to shock, to happiness and then to pride. She was proud to have such an outstanding sister and happy that their Morningstar clan would become unparalleled under heaven.
Eva though, had her lips twitch imperceptibly as she gazed at the potion. Her breathing was relatively stable, but her mind was not so. She too was having chaotic thoughts, but she was able to suppress it.
Eva suddenly understood why in every generation, there were so few Black Dragons and White Dragons, the number of each never passing 5 in total across the whole universe.
If too many were allowed to exist, forget about balance, the very fabric of the world would not be able to hold up. This was Hikari at just Rank 2, so what kind of stuff could she do/create at Rank 7?
However, the three calmed down when they noticed how haggard Hikari looked after creating this. They naturally understood that no matter the ability, it would always have a price.
The more powerful the ability, the higher the toll. An ability like this that threatened the very fabric of reality would not be so easy to play around with.
"Hikari, how many of these can you make a day?" Eva asked solemnly.
Hikari took a deep breath and spoke extremely tiredly: "Not a day… maybe once a week. I don't think I can move even a wisp of Worldly Energy until I rest for that long."
Eva, Zaine, and Roma had bitter expressions. Naturally, things could not be so easy and straight forward. However, having Hikari became practically incapacitated for 1 whole week was a bit heavy.
Eva understood that this was directly related to her Spirit stat. She had consistently drawn in swathes of Worldly Energy for a whole 10 minutes, so she had burned herself out.
Even with 345 points in the stat, she could not yet summon wind and rain. In fact, Eva surmised that a normal White Dragon would not be able to even produce an Epic item like this at Rank 2 with how the AI haphazardly allocated stats.
Hikari had the best allocation for a White Dragon, so she could do so, but it came at a steep cost. Thinking like this, Eva spoke: "Well, let's head to the master bedroom to rest. We'll continue our adventure after you recover."
Hikari lowered her head and agreed. She felt that her enthusiasm to show her limits had directly ruined Eva's plans, so she did feel very bad about it.
Eva though, wasn't bothered and continually comforted Hikari gently, raising the spirits of the White Dragoness. It wasn't that big a deal, and Eva needed to spend some time checking up on the guild during this downtime anyway.
As for using the Angel's Kiss potion to restore Hikari… heh. If she could think about it, could the AI miss such a thing? If this issue could be resolve by a mere potion, then what would be the point of creating this limitation in the first place?
Eva understood that trying to be a smartass might not often end up with useful results, but negative ones. If the solution was obvious, it was usually not the right solution, especially when it came to very complex and heavily monitored scenarios like this.
Pushing this out of her mind, Eva decided to check the stat sheets of the three beauties to get a handle on their new skills.
｢Name: Roma – Rank 2 Mystic Channeler
Level: 50
Exp: 0%
NPC Str: 10
NPC Dex: 10
NPC End: 10
NPC Int: 200
NPC Spr: 65
NPC Cha: 10
NPC Lck: 10
Active Skills: Necrotic Hands, Malevolent Spirit, Cruel Beast Summoning, Evil Curse, Life Steal, Divination, Sinister Shot, Dark Resurrection.
Passive Skills: Charm, Insight, Foresight, Flexibility, Illusion, Confusion.｣
Roma had gone from a Mystic Servant to a Mystic Channeler. Her stats hadn't increased – obviously – but as she said, she had gained some new skills. These were abilities Roma had actually used before but had to manually cast.
Not only that, but all her current skills had been strengthened, with longer durations, shorter cooldowns, and stronger effects. Eva checked them all out one by one to see the changes.
｢Necrotic Hands – Active skill
Effect: Summon a plethora of arms from the earth that trap an enemy and apply damage over time on the target.
Duration: 1 minute
Cooldown: 1.5 minutes.｣
｢Malevolent Spirit – Active skill
Effect: Summon an intangible soul that infiltrates the minds and bodies of others, dealing 20% mental damage per second.
Duration: 10 seconds
Cooldown: 30 minutes｣
｢Cruel Beast Summoning – Active skill
Effect: Call forth the apparition of a Cruel Beast, which can attack and defend for the duration of its existence.
Duration: 30 seconds
Cooldown: 10 minutes｣
｢Evil Curse – Active skill
Effect: Place a painful curse on an enemy which applies a random negative status effect.
Duration: 1 minute
Cooldown: 4 minutes｣
｢Life Steal – Active skill
Effect: Place a life steal status effect on an enemy, which is unblockable. Life Steal restores 60% of damage dealt to the caster and any designated beneficiaries.
Duration: 6 minutes
Cooldown: 9 minutes｣
｢Divination – Active skill
Effect: Attempt to pry into the heavens to achieve foresight into certain events. NPCs face penalties for using this skill, but Immortal Adventurers are absolved from this, but at the same time, are immune to this.
Note 1: Can only be used outside of combat
Cooldown: 6 days｣
｢Sinister Shot – Active skill
Effect: Fire a concentrated beam of Mystic Energy that deals 500% Mystic Damage to a single target.
Cooldown: 1 day｣
｢Dark Resurrection – Active skill
Effect: Bring back any dead ally at full health with invulnerability.
Note 1: Ally must be within 150 meters of you
Note 2: Invulnerability lasts for 5 seconds. After that, ally goes into a weakened state for 6 days.
Note 3: No rank or species cap. As long as the target is assessed to be an ally, they can be revived.
Cooldown: 28 days｣
｢Charm – Passive skill
Effect: Those of the opposite s.e.x, as well as those who are s.e.x.u.a.lly oriented towards you, will be extremely enthralled by you.｣
｢Insight – Passive skill
Effect: You are able to acquire new knowledge and techniques four times faster when learning from someone else, and thrice as fast when creating it yourself.｣
｢Foresight – Passive skill
Effect: You are able to perceive danger in combat 1 second before it occurs.｣
｢Flexibility – Passive skill
Effect: Your body is malleable to the extreme.｣
｢Illusion – Passive skill
Effect: Weak-minded enemies will be drawn into an illusion when looking at you. You are consciously able to create illusions, but they are effective based on circ.u.mstance.｣
｢Confusion – Passive skill
Effect: Through the power of your native dances, enemies are pulled into a trance by the movement of your body. Can also be used to speed up the restoration of mental stamina for allies.｣
Necrotic Hands had gone from a duration of 30 seconds to 1 minute and the cooldown had reduced from 2 minutes to 1.5 minutes.
Evil Curse had its duration stay the same, but the cooldown had reduced from 5 minutes to 4. Also, the description changed, now stating that not just any curse would be cast, but a painful one. In essence, no more <Starved> or <Thirsty> statuses anymore.
Life Steal had an increased duration of 6 minutes from the former 5, and the cooldown had reduced from 10 minutes to 9. Also, the healed amount per hit had increased from 50% to 60%.
Divination's cooldown had reduced by 1 day, going from 1 week to 6 days. Since Roma didn't even bother to use it due to the penalties, it was pretty much her most useless skill.
Dark Resurrection's range had increased from 100 meters to 150, the weakened state penalty had been reduced from 1 week to 6 days but the cooldown remained the same.
Charm, Illusion, and Flexibility manifested no visible changes. Maybe they had been strengthened, but there was no direct way to display this except through action.
Insight's learning speeds had increased. When learning from someone else had gone from 3 times speed to 4 times speed. When learning by oneself had gone from 2 times speed to 3 times speed.
Foresight's precognition time had gone from 0.5 seconds to 1 second now. Even though it was still very little, as long as Roma kept growing, it would grow as well.
And then, there were the three new active skills and 1 passive skill that made Eva realize that Roma's Rank up could no longer be described as simple.
