Taking the elevator down, Shiro frowned slightly when they passed the level where she had dipped previously.
‘This isn’t right, shouldn’t we have reached the springs by now? Why are we going further down?’ She questioned in her mind.
“We seemed to be going down for quite a while now?” Shiro asked.
“Mn, I understand your concerns but don’t worry. Young Master Kier instructed me to take you to the purest part of the mana springs as the effects will be stronger. What you may not know is that the springs contain five levels with varying purities. The higher the purity, the more potent and effective the spring is to your body. Since you and the young master have agreed upon full access, naturally it means that you are eligible to enter the purest spring.” Gilbert smiled.
“Hou~ Is he not afraid of any accidents?” Shiro raised an eyebrow.
“Of course, he has his worries. But the mana springs are only useful within the premises of the mansion so even if you extract the springs, it would be useless to you.” He replied.
Shrugging her shoulders, Shiro stayed quiet since it was probably for the best. Otherwise, she might risk exposing herself.
Arriving at the lowest floor, Gilbert opened the elevator door.
*BOOM!!!!
A gust of wind blasted into the elevator as Shiro was shocked at the mana density.
It was akin to a tidal wave that wanted to fill up an empty cave. Just being in this kind of environment made Shiro feel relaxed as her body greedily absorbed the mana to reinforce itself.
The same thing was happening to Yin and Lisandra. Faint blue auras could be seen revolving around their bodies.
“I’m surprised Mr Gilbert. So this is what the mana springs is like at the highest purity.” Shiro smiled.
“Indeed.” Gilbert smiled but he too was shocked in his mind.
Normally, when one is exposed to such a dense area of mana in an instant, they’ll feel faint headed as their body would try to adapt to the density. Some may even faint due to this.
However, the three that were beside him weren’t affected at all. To make matters more shocking, they had already started to absorb the mana into their bodies to reinforce themselves. Even he had to continuously train from a young age in order to get used to the pressure.
For these three to be able to adapt this well, it must mean that they were either very adaptive or that they came from a prosperous family as well. There was no other explanation for this.
‘I’ll have to keep an eye on these three and report back to the young master.’ Gilbert thought as he associated the three girls to being part of a large family similar to Ospar.
What he didn’t know was that the three were able to adapt so quickly was due to the fact that they weren’t human.
Both Shiro and Yin were monsters and Lisandra was part of the Celestial Race. Not only that, after her class up, Shiro was more in tune with mana than she ever was.
“You will have a time limit of 3 hours in this spring. The towels and robes have been prepared by the side for you to use. We’ll be giving you a four-hour time gap so that you can get changed without any disturbances.” Gilbert said with a smile.
“Thank you.” Shiro smiled as she walked towards the springs.
She couldn’t wait to take a dip in the spring since her body was almost yearning for it. The feeling could be described as finding water in a desert.
Nodding his head, Gilbert walked back into the elevator since he was no longer needed here.
Once Shiro was sure that no one else was here apart from Yin and Lisandra, she set up a few traps just in case.
“Welp, time to enjoy the springs you two.” Shiro smiled while taking off her cloak.
Removing her face mask along with her entire outfit, she let down her hair and walked towards the edge.
“Wow, mum has a really nice figure huh?” Lisandra praised. Of course, she made sure to not mention anything that would subject her to punishment.
“Un, but ours isn’t any worse you know.” Yin pouted before taking off her own outfit too.
Looking at Yin, Lisandra couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.
‘Well since big sis is almost a copy of mum, she should have an alluring figure when she classes up next time.’ She thought to herself.
Taking off her outfit, she looked down at her own figure and nodded in satisfaction. While her bust wasn’t huge, it wasn’t tiny either. It was just within the grey zone where Shiro wouldn’t glare at her.
Ignoring the two, Shiro stepped into the lake and instantly felt the difference. Mana surged through her body like a gentle current, almost causing her to fall back since her body relaxed instantly.
Walking to the centre of the spring, Shiro sat down and closed her eyes. Sending her mind back into her mana realm, she saw the mana from the spring shift into the shape of a hand and started to try to connect her mana links together.
Unlike before, the hands didn’t try to force the links together. Instead, it opted for a gentler method.
Unfortunately, it didn’t have any way to secure the connection so it was wasted effort.
Shiro could feel the intent of the hands as they grew more frustrated.
“It’s no use. Just try to reinforce them if you can.” Shiro smiled.
Turning towards her, the hands paused for a moment before letting go of the links. Without the hands holding onto them, the mana links snapped back into place.
“Ouch, be gentle ok?” Shiro flinched slightly.
The hands seemed to glare in disdain which confused Shiro since they’re hands.
As if to answer her, several hands joined together and formed a semi translucent body.
“Well ain’t this interesting?” Shiro muttered in surprise.
{Tch, out of all the people I’ve seen, your links are the worse. What the hell even happened?} A feminine voice rang out in her mind as Shiro frowned.
{Don’t be alarmed my ‘queen’, I am the spirit of the mana springs given sentience by you.}
Shiro could clearly hear the disdain and sarcasm in her voice when she said queen.
“What do you mean queen and how did I give you sentience?” Shiro asked with a frown.
{Mystic Sylph Queen, ruler of the elemental spirits. Lower grade spirits within the queen’s vicinity will kneel down in awe while those on the verge of gaining sentience will get an extra boost. For those that have already gained sentience, they’ll be purified and have their innate potentials improved. But once the spirit desires to kill the queen, they will suffer from a backlash. For a class that’s supposed to bring us prosperity, I didn’t think it’ll end up in the hands of a little girl that’s not even a year old. Who the hell has heard of a 1 year old queen?} The spirit explained in annoyance.
“How do you know all of this if you have just gained sentience?” Shiro frowned.
{Tch, ever had a moment when it seemed like you magically knew how to use a skill or the such? That’s us either inheriting the knowledge from the generations before us or the system providing us with the knowledge. From the moment you entered the lowermost floor and gave me sentience, I gained knowledge about you. So can you answer me, how the hell did you mana links get so damaged? If I remember correctly, you also came before. But it was only at the highest level where the purity was at its lowest. At that time, your links were completely shattered.}
“I don’t know. Since you have gained knowledge about me and remember me from before, you should know that I was a snow girl previously right?”
{What about it?}
“Well snow girls are formed when mana changes the composition of a corpse that has lingering regrets or grudges. I suppose the host of this body before I took over as a snow girl had offended someone cruel as they had made sure to destroy every single one of my links. If not for the fact that I got lucky, I would have stayed as a D class monster with no way of levelling up.” Shiro shrugged. To this day, she still had no knowledge of who the host of her body was nor did she know about the person that killed the host.
{Hmm… I suppose that deserves some praise. Despite the fact that you took over a broken corpse, you still managed to gain this class within a year of your incarnation my queen. Forget it, I’ll reinforce whatever I can.} The spirit sighed.
“Thank you, I appreciate it.” Shiro smiled.
{It’s my duty as a spirit. We can’t have a broken queen now can we? Out of all the races, us spirits had been looked down upon the most. Tch, in our prime, who didn’t fear us because of our queen. Even the Treants look down on us now, what a joke!} The spirit seemed to bite her lower lip in annoyance.
“Can you explain in more detail? I’m quite curious about the relation between the spirits and the other races.”
