Millennium Witch

Dugrabi remained silent, deciding to play the role of a taciturn old horse. How could a horse talk to a person? It could only work hard and swallow all its sorrows.

"What do you want?" Yvette asked helplessly; she really wasn't good at coaxing children. Although this black dragon was almost 100 years old, considering that dragons could live for 2000 years, proportionally it was only about the age of a five-year-old child.

Dugrabi was somewhat tempted; now seemed like a good opportunity to ask to become his apprentice, and this third-rate wild god might agree. But when he thought of that sleepless, cold, and hungry winter night, his emotions surged again, and he turned his head away, remaining silent.

Yvette waited a while longer, but seeing that the black dragon still didn't react, she decided to give up for now—rationally speaking, now didn't seem like a good time to communicate.

She had the copper sheet open the iron gate so that Dugrabi could go in and rest at any time, and then she began to think about the exploration plan for Cooks.

First and foremost, safety must be ensured. The mysterious spider woman was able to shatter the magical barrier of the magic mech with a single blow, meaning that her current magical defenses are also highly likely to be breached. If she doesn't want to rely on hardened tentacles for defense all the time, then she must find a way to increase the defensive capabilities of her crimson armor.

This was certainly achievable. In the last month of her dream, her mastery of the engine was still very rudimentary, practically that of a complete novice. Although she had roughly completed the upgrades to the specifications and structure of the four elemental spells of ice, fire, wind, and thunder, as well as the three physical spells of Crimson Armor, Muscle Unlimited, and Regeneration Pump, it was, after all, a hasty upgrade, and she was a beginner in the field of engines, so the results were bound to be far from ideal.

She had taken this into account, so during the upgrade process, she basically only upgraded the architecture, leaving a large area of ​​the details under the architecture blank, waiting for her to continue to ponder and fill in.

Now she can finally fill in these contents according to her current needs.

……

Time, like the misty snow outside the valley, drifted away quietly. In the blink of an eye, Yvette had stayed in Cooks for more than three months.

During this period, she focused her energy on improving and fine-tuning the Crimson Armor. Under the 10 specification limit, the defensive power has a limit, so her main direction of improvement is the overlapping spell, that is, to apply the same spell to the body twice at once, so as to achieve an effect that exceeds the current specification.

In elemental spells, this isn't difficult; it's just adding another rune ring. But in self-enhancing continuous spells, this is the effect that only a special 10-level structure can achieve, which is one of the reasons why Yvette insisted on upgrading the structure in the first place.

She even plans to design a layering technique specifically to assist in the nesting of dolls, which can be barely achieved with a 10 specification. If this layering technique can be successfully developed, she will have four layers of nesting dolls, at which point the safety factor should be very considerable.

Of course, the cost was a much higher mana consumption, but fortunately, as a nature mage with over two thousand mana points, such a cost was not unbearable for her.

Meanwhile, Bingyu and Dugrabi gradually got used to local life.

Among them, Bingyu's ability to integrate is undoubtedly outstanding. As a genuine mechanical race member and a new generation of magical puppets in the Sky Kingdom, her experiences along the way provided her with all sorts of topics to talk about, and in just a few days, she became a prominent figure here.

Dugrabi, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. Perhaps because of its ferocious appearance, resembling a mutated creature, and its inability to communicate, few golems dared to approach it. In addition, it itself was very disdainful of these broken metal alchemical creations and often pretended to breathe air to scare away the golems that approached, which led most of the kingdom's residents to keep their distance from it.

However, there was an exception: a mechanical girl named Jasmine, through her tireless efforts, managed to become somewhat familiar with Dugrabi. Although their communication was limited to physical interaction, after several attempts to scare the little tin man away failed, he gave up and would occasionally allow Jasmine to clean his back, which he couldn't reach.

……

Time flies, years pass silently, and in the midst of a peaceful life, winter snow once again covers the valley, and a year has passed just like that.

During this time, thanks to the air-raid shelters where the mountain whales passed by, nothing dangerous happened in the kingdom. Bingyu remembered the local residents' advice and dared not approach Cux, instead carrying out archaeological work in the surrounding towns and villages.

Dugrabi simply did nothing—dragons are a uniquely gifted race; as long as they eat normally, their magic will naturally grow with age, and they will automatically awaken dragon language magic when they reach a certain level, without needing to make any effort.

What it does most often is go out for a stroll with the magical puppet child Jasmine and several other child puppets, to look at the mines left behind by human civilization in the vicinity, or to gaze at the skeletons of collapsed human buildings in the distance.

Finally, on a cold morning, Yvette, who had long stayed in her RV or air-raid shelter and never stepped outside, pushed open the door and stretched lazily at the silhouette of Cooks City, which was shrouded in mist and appeared and disappeared like a mirage outside the valley.

"Finally finished," she thought, "I finally have four layers of crimson armor for protection."

With such defensive capabilities, it shouldn't be possible for that mysterious spider woman to shatter them all in one strike, right? And given a window of opportunity, she can recast the spell to stack the four layers of protection back up, thus avoiding fatal damage.

Should we set off tonight? Head to the mysterious downtown of Cooks? Gather some intelligence?

She was somewhat tempted, but soon, gazing at the snowy landscape before her, some scattered, unpleasant memories began to surface in her mind.

No, we're not prepared enough. Who knows what monsters or secrets are lurking in that place? Even the God of Machines' chosen ones suffered heavy injuries; how can we be careless?

Moreover, the four-layer protection has not been tested in actual combat, so who knows if there might be any hidden bugs?

Just in case, let's also perfect the most powerful lightning element spell. We already have the ultimate four-layer protection, now we should have the ultimate four-stage lightning.

It's not too late to explore again next year when both offensive and defensive capabilities are met.

Chapter 72 Spider Woman

Three years later.

It was a snowy morning when Yvette got out of bed and walked through the long corridor. She saw that the air-raid shelter was quiet, except for a black dragon lying in a pile of grass in the corner, occasionally making even breathing sounds.

It's about four in the morning, just as dawn is breaking. The puppets all have training rules that mimic human sleep, so none of them are awake yet. It's the perfect time for her to sneak out alone and begin her first exploration of Kux.

Pushing open the stone door of the air-raid shelter and inhaling the cold air, Yvette felt her drowsiness dissipate slightly. She turned to look down the snow-covered slope outside the valley floor, the exploration goal she had set when she first arrived four years ago. She was somewhat surprised that the start of her first exploration had been delayed for so long.

Fortunately, everyone here is a long-lived species. Four years is enough time for a human to finish a university, but for everyone here, including the dragons, it's not too bad.

Moreover, these four years have been quite fulfilling for her. It's been a very long time since she's been so fully dedicated to optimizing surgical techniques.

After all, even with optimization work, a technique of the 10 specification would often require a team of dozens of people working day and night for half a year to complete during the early civilization period.

She single-handedly optimized seven techniques in four years, something that even in the Origin Civilization, no one would believe.

However, there are still some shortcomings in its application. After reaching the 10 level, the operability and variability of the techniques have increased significantly. What I need to improve next is probably my combat experience...

Thinking about all this, Yvette walked down the snow slope. She didn't bring the alloy battle blade, because as a low-end military-grade weapon, its power was far inferior to that of the spell, only its durability was acceptable. She planned to keep the knife as a lasting souvenir.

Her main purpose in exploring Cooks was not to wreak havoc or to uncover all the secrets of the city in one go.

She wanted to gather some intelligence first, and if possible, she would come more often to replenish her mana through meditation. Safety was paramount in all of this.

Using the wind element, she flew to the outskirts of the city and looked at the city shrouded in white mist from afar. Yvette indeed felt the atmosphere described in the mission log of the divine benefactor.

There were no deformed creatures, nor any living beings. Rooftops, streets, and crooked billboards were all covered with a thick white blanket of snow. In the boundless silence, even the howling of the wind through the broken walls and ruins seemed to have frozen.

She landed at an empty street corner, her feet treading on the breeze, and moved at a pace that was neither too fast nor too slow, traversing the surrounding town and community, and approaching the city center.

After advancing about 20 kilometers, as the city center gradually came into view, a mutant finally emerged from the shadows and attacked her, firing an ice shard. Yvette, intending to test the Crimson Armor's defensive capabilities, neither dodged nor evaded, but instead raised her hand to grab it, shattering the ice shard in an instant.

"This aberration's attack power isn't high enough..." Yvette said with some regret. Looking up, she saw a humanoid aberration. It looked somewhat like a zombie dug out of the frozen ground, hunched over, its skin clinging to its bones, exposing some flesh, and with a purplish-red pustules on its head. Despite being only a first-tier aberration, it could condense ice shards for attacks; it certainly had some strength.

But the most powerful one was yet to come. After discovering that its attacks had no effect, the mutant seemed to be enraged. Dozens of ice shards rapidly formed around it and bombarded Yvette.

This mindless barrage of firepower made her see a bit of her past self in this mutant.

With a whoosh, countless icicles struck Yvette, creating shimmering icy mist, but had no effect whatsoever, seemingly only adding a special effect. She then raised her hand and snapped her fingers lightly, and a ball of flame exploded out of thin air on the mutant, burning it to ashes.

Hmm... Although it can use spells, its combat power is probably not even at the third stage, more like a 2.5-tier level. Even so, it's still quite special, considering that in other cities, this kind of mutant would probably just be a roadside fodder...

She was secretly surprised and continued forward, during which she was attacked by a few scattered aberrant creatures. But whether humanoid or beast-like, these first-tier aberrant creatures were all at least at the third stage in terms of combat power.

So, after walking only 10 kilometers, she hunted down more than 10 aberrations with the combat power of the third stage, which was almost equivalent to killing 10 Nest Masters. Fortunately, the process was almost all instant kills, and the swift and decisive attacks reduced a lot of magic consumption, preventing her from repeating the same mistakes in certain situations.

She also set some rules for herself, such as having to retreat unconditionally when her magic power is below one-third, and never using her Black Eye ability unless absolutely necessary.

Under these self-imposed constraints, she became even more meticulous in controlling her mana consumption.

About an hour later, as she finally approached the city center, a cold voice rang out from a building diagonally above her: "Who are you?"

Yvette looked up and saw a slender figure standing on the spire of a church building diagonally above, looking down at her. The figure was dressed in trendy, modern clothing, and if you removed the non-human parts from her body, she might look like a pretty high school girl.

Unfortunately, the eight spider legs and six red dot-like eyes ruined the beauty. If nothing unexpected happens, this should be the spider woman mentioned in the Divine Grace mission report.

After waiting a while, seeing Yvette looking at her calmly without saying a word, the Spider Woman asked again, "This is the territory of the King of the Sea. Which monarch are you under? Who gave you permission to trespass like this?"

King of the Sky and Sea? Monarch? Is this a power structure within the high-level aberration variant?

The former is probably a more advanced, aberrant title, while the latter is called "Monarch"... Is this a rank, or a status?

Yvette was surprised that she could gather so much more information about the aberration in just one encounter, but she was puzzled as to why the Spider Woman didn't attack her immediately after she had fought her way in.

Is it because they are afraid that there might be "someone" behind them?

"Who are you?" Yvette asked.

“I asked you first,” the Spider Woman said.

“My name is Ice Rain, and I’m a member of the Mechanical Race,” Yvette said.

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

“Alright.” Yvette was a little disappointed. It seemed that the higher-level aberrations were much smarter than mechanical puppets, and they saw through her flawless disguise at a glance. She decided to change her story. “Actually, I am a wild aberration. I don’t know anything.”

"Are you provoking me?" The Spider Woman's tone grew even colder. "You've performed at least four or five times in terms of 'promotion,' and you haven't sensed it? Telling such an obviously fabricated lie..."

Sensing? Sensing what? Could it be that the aberration gains some special information during its advancement phase, the so-called "promotion"?

Yvette said, "I'm not lying to you, I don't know anything. Can you teach me?"

"It's alright, no need," the Spider Woman said coldly. "Anyway, you're going to die soon, just be more careful in your next life."

After saying this, the spider woman slightly exerted force on the spider legs behind her, turning her into a dark shadow and rushing in front of Yvette in an instant. She then unleashed a strange black energy from her hand, which looked like a special spell composed of some unknown element.

Yvette, who had been preparing for this battle for years, was already waiting for it. She enveloped herself in wind element and clashed with the Spider Woman in the snow-covered ruins of the city. With each contact, three of her four layers of crimson armor would be shattered, only to be quickly replenished.

Her attack methods have become much more diverse than before. Sometimes she uses flames to forge flaming blades in her hands to strike, and other times she unleashes leaping lightning, which is then intercepted by the Spider Woman's black magic shield.

Countless magical elements spread across the street like rising and falling tides, washing over everything. Black, unknown elements were mixed in, like some kind of corrosive poison. Many ordinary elements that originally belonged to ice, fire, wind, and thunder would quickly turn black and then dissipate on the spot after coming into contact with these black elements, like the embers after a raging fire.

On the silent streets, smoke from explosion after explosion spread out, mingling with snow powder to form a black haze. The sounds of explosions rose and fell, but were quickly swallowed up by the cold wind.

Whether it was a few minutes or a dozen minutes, this thrilling contest came to an end as the two separated at the same time.

Shockingly, despite the fierce battle that left the streets in ruins and the snow covered with scorch marks and potholes, both men were completely unharmed, their clothes untouched, with only a thin mist of white vapor condensing from their breath in the cold air.

"You are indeed very strong. You are a fifth-stage aberration?" Yvette stood on a pointed building, looking down at the Spider Woman below, her black skirt fluttering in the cold wind.

"Pretty much," the Spider Woman said expressionlessly, then corrected, "After four 'promotions,' it's called 'Lord.'"

"What about the fourth stage?" Yvette thought of the Twin-Blade Demon, who used to call the fourth stage "Lord" when he was bragging.

"You really don't know anything?"

“I’ve lived on a remote island for many years and know nothing about the Aberrant society. Well, I haven’t received any of that ‘sensation’ you mentioned.” Yvette said, creating a white tentacle on her body to prove that she was indeed an “Aberrant.”

The Spider Woman remained silent for a moment, her voice as cold as ever: "But if you dare to trespass on the territory of the King of the Heavenly Sea, you will still die."

“Let’s talk about it next time.” Yvette shook her head. Her magic power was already close to the one-third warning line she had set for herself. In this battle, the Spider Woman’s performance was still unfathomable, seemingly in complete control. This made her somewhat wary, fearing that she might repeat some of the mistakes of the past.

After fighting for so long, enemy reinforcements should be arriving soon. Plus, this Spider Woman is incredibly strong; who knows what other tricks she might have up her sleeve… To be safe, we should retreat for now and come back later when we've replenished our mana…

With that thought in mind, she immediately transformed into a gust of wind, disappearing into the depths of the ruins at the street corner against the backdrop of swirling snow.

……

The snow is still falling.

Watching the enemy leave, the Spider Woman on the rooftop stood there expressionless, lost in thought.

Time passed in silence, and layers of snow covered the traces of the battle that had just taken place.

After a full ten minutes, having confirmed that the silver-haired girl was unlikely to suddenly turn around and attack, the Spider Woman took a deep breath, then swayed and spat out a mouthful of blood.

Chapter 73 Sparring

Carefully escaping Cooks, Yvette, for safety's sake, traversed the snow-covered mountains for a while, making sure she wasn't being followed, before heading to the valley town and arriving at the entrance of the air-raid shelter at the bottom of the valley.

It was still morning, but many of the puppets had already gotten up and greeted Yvette when they saw her.

Yvette nodded in acknowledgment. She had lived here for four years and wasn't particularly familiar with the local residents, rarely interacting with them. This wasn't because she discriminated against the machine race, but rather because she was inherently unsociable; to use a pet analogy, she was simply not affectionate towards people.

However, she was in a good mood today, her eyes unusually gentle. This was mainly due to her good morning's harvest; she had managed to escape unscathed from such a dangerous area, honed her combat skills, and even obtained some useful intelligence. She felt she had made tremendous progress.

Although the word "progress" sounds a bit strange on a scale of more than two hundred years, a person's growth is never measured by time, but by events.

Otherwise, Dugrabi, who is nearly a hundred years old, should have been a mature sage long ago. How could he still be a young dragon who would give others the silent treatment if he suffered a little grievance?

The last time she was in danger, and this time she risked her life, there were no other dangers in between, so it was a continuous series. And this time, she felt she had done very well, so it was normal for her to feel satisfied. Although no one else could know about this inner progress she had made, she could praise herself.

Speaking of which, the Spider Woman's fighting power is truly unfathomable. She fought the Spider Woman for so long, but she didn't see any fatigue or fear on the Spider Woman's face. On the contrary, her magic power was depleted to only one-third.

If we don't use the Black Eye ability and fight purely with mage skills, I'm afraid we won't have a sure chance of winning... Yvette is a little worried.

But the question is, what methods does she have to quickly improve her strength?

She pondered for a while and finally realized that there was only one way to go: to hone her combat skills and improve her fighting level.

And coincidentally, if Spider Woman had been stationed in Cooks for an extended period, she could have been a great sparring partner for her.

……

In the days that followed, Yvette would set off every two or three months to explore Cux.

Of course, she didn't always infiltrate the area guarded by the Spider Woman. Instead, she probed from various directions and confirmed some basic information.

Firstly, the aberrations of Cooks have all undergone special enhancements, making them far stronger than their normal counterparts. Therefore, we can only calculate the stage corresponding to their combat power, not their actual stage.

This is why when Yvette asked Spider Woman if she was a Stage 5 Aberration, her answer was an ambiguous "more or less".

Secondly, in the heart of Cooks, there are two more "lords" with the strength of the fifth stage, like Spider Woman.

One is a burly male humanoid, covered in scales, with a ferocious face that looks like a fish-man. His fighting style leans towards close-quarters combat, and he uses water magic for support.

The other was a gigantic mountain whale. Unlike other mountain whales, this one was far more powerful. It had a dense network of eyeballs on its body and could use all sorts of bizarre magical techniques.