The story of the black silk female knight

In a fit of extreme rage, the battle-hardened cryptid shattered all ten layers of elemental shields with a single tongue strike.

If it weren't for Tia, who had been watching over Harry the whole time, using a spatial linking technique to teleport him from his original spot to another location, Harry would have been killed by the battle-hardened dungeon monster's tongue, just like the two Red Cloud adventurers who died at the beginning.

Meludina's dazzling sword dance, which could even instantly kill Valensa, didn't have much effect.

Although the cave monsters are humanoid monsters, their aesthetic sense is completely different from that of humans. They have absolutely no interest in human beauties who are hairless and have two eyes.

Even though Melody's sword dance was incredibly alluring, with every movement making one's blood boil, it couldn't hold the battle-hardened crypt monster in place for even half a second. Instead, it left Valensa momentarily dazed.

But the one who played a decisive role in turning this battle from a fake leveling-up session into a real leveling-up battle was Melody.

After being beaten up several times by the four of them, she discovered that every time the battle-hardened crypt monster used its gravity and repulsion-like spell, it would widen its large one-eyed stare and bring all targets of the ability into its field of vision.

It was the afternoon when the sun was at its strongest, so Melody had a brilliant idea. She used the rhinestones on her white bodysuit to manipulate the reflection of sunlight and developed a new trick on the spot.

With Valensa and Tia watching over her, it wouldn't be a big problem even if she failed. So Melody was very bold and used the new skill she had just come up with without even testing it.

As the battle-hardened crypt monster widened its single eye once again, attempting to unleash its repulsive force to sweep away the swarm of Thousand Leaf Grass clones around it, Melody leaped into the air.

Her curvaceous body twisted in mid-air into a rather elegant yet strange pose, causing the diamonds on her diamond-encrusted white bodysuit to reflect sunlight at a very peculiar angle, making the brightness of the sunlight overlap and explode in the direction of the battle-hardened cave monster, the one-eyed giant.

"Flash Sword Dance!"

Perhaps to make a deeper impression on herself and make it easier to activate the new skill, Melody even shouted out the name of the new move while twisting her body in mid-air.

However, if we were to name this move based on its effects, it would actually be more appropriate to call it "Flashbang Sword Dance".

And the effect is very good.

Gaaah!

The battle-hardened cryptid let out its second scream since the start of the battle; the first was when Valensa blasted its arm apart with a solar ray.

Melody's humanoid flashbang not only successfully interrupted the Tempered Crypt Fiend's spell-like ability, but also caused its large one-eyed monster to bleed even more and close up completely.

opportunity!

The other three seized the opportunity created by Melody and launched a fierce attack together.

Thousand Leaf Grass swiftly stabbed her two short swords into the body of the battle-hardened cave monster. Although the long hair blocked each stab and prevented them from penetrating deeply, Thousand Leaf Grass's blades were coated with poison.

Harry even abandoned stacking shields and cast spells with both hands simultaneously. With one hand, he fired a barrage of fireballs at the battle-hardened cryptid, while with the other hand, he pointed at Giru and gave Giru a wind-type buff.

Using the wind's momentum, Giru raised his massive, door-like two-handed sword and slammed it down on the head of the battle-hardened dungeon monster.

Chapter 143 Returning to the Capital

After Melody sealed the giant one-eyed monster's ability to use gravity and repulsion magic with a humanoid flashbang, the situation finally turned around.

Although the battle-hardened cryptid's long black tongue is still very ferocious, and can often leave the four of them in a state of near-fatal injury, Valensa and Tia always manage to save their friends at crucial moments and provide divine healing.

Meanwhile, the battle-hardened cave monster was constantly stabbed with poisoned daggers, bombarded with various fire-based spells that ignited its long hair, and violently smashed by a massive sword as big as a door.

Every time he tries to use a spell-like ability to turn the tide of battle, he is inevitably blinded by the intense sunlight emanating from the diamond particles on Melody's body, which nearly blinds his large one-eyed man.

It couldn't run away, and it couldn't fight back. The poison inside its body was causing all the attributes of the battle-hardened cave monster to continue to decline.

Even so, the battle-hardened cave monster did not give up. With its fast and powerful black tongue, it fought against Chiba, Melody, Gil, and Harry for two whole hours before finally being poisoned into a daze by Chiba, burned all over by Harry, and blinded by Melody. Finally, it was killed by Gil, who had been charging up for a long time, with a door-sized greatsword.

Fighting to the death against such a highly skilled, battle-hardened monster will indeed greatly improve one's abilities.

Melody, Gillu, and Harry all benefited greatly, and their experience in fighting against stronger opponents with perfect teamwork increased significantly.

Qianyecao, who had already touched the edge of the Lighthouse level during her intensive training over the summer vacation, reaped the greatest rewards. Although she did not break through on the spot, it was almost the same as gaining enough experience and completing the breakthrough task. After returning to school, she could go into seclusion for a few days to integrate her gains and insights and become the third genius among her classmates to enter the Lighthouse level.

In the later stages of the battle, when the four of them were already able to reliably defeat the Tempered-class Crypt Fiend, Valensa, who no longer needed to intervene frequently, took the time to heal the three Lighthouse-class Red Cloud adventurers who had been initially defeated by the Tempered-class Crypt Fiend.

Valensa picked up both the female elemental mage and the female warrior. Both of them were in pretty bad shape; one's clothes were completely melted, and the other was beaten so badly that she urinated on herself.

Valensa not only healed their injuries with healing magic, but also lent them two sets of clothes so they could change into them after washing themselves clean with water-attribute magic crystals.

Although both of them had brought their own spare clothes, they were all in their spatial storage items. However, their spatial storage items were destroyed in the battle just now by the combination of gravity and turning matter into mud, so they could only borrow Valensa's clothes to wear.

As for the male thief hanging in the tree, Valensa didn't actually want to discriminate against him, but the way his clothes had melted off was too much for a pure young girl to bear.

To maintain her image as a pure and innocent noble lady, Valensa hesitated for a moment before deciding not to rescue the male thief herself. Instead, she covered his eyes under the tree and cast a few healing spells on him, leaving him hanging there.

With repeated use in actual combat, Valensa's healing magic has improved significantly. While she is still somewhat behind professional healing priests like Asashi, who have practiced on her boyfriends since childhood, her healing magic is still much more effective than alchemical potions.

Lighthouse-level adventurers are not inherently weak. After receiving divine healing and rest, the three Red Cloud adventurers who had been defeated regained some of their fighting strength.

The male thief jumped down from the tree, borrowed a piece of clothing from the corpse of his companion who had been killed by the battle-hardened dungeon monster at the beginning, and then joined the female warrior and the female elemental mage to help the male warrior and the other Red Cloud adventurers fight the remaining dungeon monsters.

The adventurers, who were forming a tight defensive formation, failed to break through after a long siege. The veteran-level monsters, on whom they had placed high hopes, were being repeatedly beaten and had no hope of escape. The morale of the other four Lighthouse-level and more than twenty Pearl-level monsters quickly collapsed.

With the addition of female warriors, male thieves, and female elemental mages, these cave monsters fled underground after leaving behind the corpses of several Pearl-level individuals.

The somewhat dangerous attack on the return trip has now come to a complete end.

The adventurers of the Red Cloud Adventurer Group were deeply moved that Valensa had personally dealt with the enemy without deducting any commission.

If this were a more domineering nobleman, they would likely have worked for nothing for three days, received a severe scolding from the nobleman, and had to pay a sum of money as compensation for the sacrifice of their companion.

Valensa's attitude and behavior were so friendly that the Red Cloud Adventurers reciprocated.

They used a formal contract to indicate that they owed Valencia a favor.

Unlike the empty promises Valensa made in her previous life, in this world, favors made with formal contracts can be used as bargaining chips, and they are quite valuable.

In this raid by the legendary dungeon monster, Valensa practically saved the lives of everyone in the Red Cloud Adventurer's Team and also restored the team's reputation.

Because Valencia was the employer, she could have easily abandoned the hired adventurers to buy time to escape when attacked... Afterwards, she wouldn't have been condemned at all; people would only think that the tragedy was caused by the Red Cloud Adventure Team's incompetence.

This was a very significant favor, and the Red Cloud Adventurer Group readily agreed, with the vice-captain, a male warrior, personally signing the contract.

The contract clearly states that this is a "life-saving" level favor, meaning that whenever Valensa needs the Red Cloud Adventurer Group's help, the group must assist her, even if it means risking her life.

Even if Valensa herself doesn't need this favor, her descendants can, as long as the Red Cloud Adventurers' Guild still exists.

After signing the contract and collecting the corpse of the battle-hardened cave monster, Valensa and her group embarked on their return journey once again.

There's no need to hike hundreds of kilometers on the return trip. Tia has spatial coordinates in the capital, so after leaving the Mawsmora Basin, you can just find a relatively safe place and teleport directly as a group.

Back at the War Academy, Chiba, Melody, Gil, and Harry, who had fought a fierce battle against the battle-hardened dungeon monster, all chose to go into seclusion for training. They wanted to seize the time to turn the gains and insights from this battle into tangible improvements in their strength, and they could also try to break through the Lighthouse.

Chiba should be fine. After her seclusion ends, she will become a Lighthouse-level Exorcist Ninja, and she will most likely challenge Valensa again with full confidence.

Melody and her group are a bit weaker, but it's not impossible for them to have good luck or a burst of inspiration.

Valensa and Tia didn't rest immediately. They just took a shower in Tia's dormitory and then borrowed the underground laboratory of the succubus teacher, Murasaki, and took out the corpse of the battle-hardened dungeon monster.

In addition to dissecting and extracting materials, they also wanted to refine the corpse into a soul crystal.

Chapter 144 Harvest

In the alchemy of crafting weapons and equipment, there is a school of thought that refines the body parts of powerful monsters used in combat into weapons suitable for human use, allowing humans to wield the power of those powerful monsters.

This is also one of the oldest schools of alchemy, because before humans had systematic cultivation methods and weapon forging techniques, they could only use the body parts of powerful monsters as weapons, imitate the attack methods of these monsters, and fight other monsters to gain a living space.

Just like Xingyiquan, a martial art in Valensa's previous life that specifically imitated the fighting techniques of animals.

However, as time progressed and diaries accumulated, ancient martial arts became less effective in actual combat than modern fighting techniques that emphasize speed, ruthlessness, and precision. Similarly, ancient weapon crafting methods were not as effective as those using highly refined ores and powerful weapon enchantments.

After all, human civilization is constantly progressing. Unless there is an extinction-level epochal break like the Eve civilization and the current civilization, modern technology is always more advanced than ancient technology. The kind of setting in cultivation novels where each generation is weaker than the last, and you have to raid tombs and do archaeology to become stronger, actually has no logic.

However, this only applies to most normal situations.

Just as Valencia's ancient martial arts skills in her past life allowed her to easily defeat modern combat techniques, weapons and equipment crafted from superior monster materials are also better than the current mainstream mineral + enchanted products.

For example, the famous dragon tooth, even after only simple polishing, can make a weapon that far surpasses most so-called high-quality enchanted equipment in terms of sharpness.

The same goes for the battle-hardened cryptid; its large single eye and long black tongue were quite impressive, and Valensa and Tia took a liking to it.

What Tia had her eye for was that large single eye that could use both gravity and repulsion.

While ordinary crypt monster mutants can also fire various curse rays with their large one-eyed eyes, Tia's own magical traps can achieve the same effect, or even be more effective, so she doesn't care about them.

However, even among all monsters, those with magical abilities to manipulate gravity and repulsion are extremely rare, and almost all of them are monster lords of the Radiant rank or higher.

It's likely that there are only a handful of monsters below the Radiant rank with such powerful magical abilities, so Tia plans to use that large single eye to forge a short staff for self-defense.

As a spellcaster, you can never have too many ways to prevent warrior-types from getting close. And the repulsive force of an epic-level cryptid can even repel Valensa, the unchanging goddess of evil, which is quite formidable.

Keep in mind that Valensa had activated [Ceremony Armor: Dark Lightning Armor] and enhanced her attributes with mental power... In this state, it would be arrogant to say that the female knight's charge was the strongest among her peers, but it would not be an exaggeration to say that she could crush other knights of the same level.

Modern alchemy can also be enhanced with auxiliary materials, making the short staff more likely to be stronger than that of a battle-hardened crypt monster when manipulating gravity and repulsion... With this, Tia can say that she no longer needs to be afraid of being approached by warriors of the same level.

My mage has mastered Shinra Tensei, how are you, a mere melee fighter, going to fight me?

Tia was really looking forward to her new equipment.

Valensa chose the long black tongue of the battle-hardened cryptid, enjoying the process of crafting equipment alongside Tia, and was indeed quite satisfied with the long black tongue.

That long black tongue not only held its own against high-quality enchanted weapons, but also seemed to have a strong anti-magic effect.

Whether it was the female elemental mage from the Red Cloud Adventurer Group or Harry, their elemental shields, which they had stacked up for half a day, were like newspaper shells in front of this long black tongue, and were shattered by a single tongue thrust.

Unfortunately, the long black tongue was too soft to be made into a spear or javelin, which would be most suitable as a weapon for breaking through defenses. Valensa decided to make it into a whip to fill her spare arsenal.

A cautious female knight can never have too many spare weapons.

With the help of the succubus teacher, Purple, Valensa and Tia successfully extracted the black tongue and large one-eyed creature from the tempered cryptid without causing any unnecessary damage to the materials.

As for crafting the equipment, Tia plans to do it herself... She has learned a lot of alchemy techniques from Friggia these past few days, and her theoretical knowledge has greatly improved. It's time to put it into practice.

Of course, to ensure that the very rare large single eye is not wasted, the actual refining of Tia is still planned to be done at the underground ruins, with Friggia helping to keep an eye on it, so that she can cover for any mistakes.

But that's something for tomorrow... Valensa and Tia just returned from the Maussmora Basin today, and they both want to rest at school for the night instead of going to the underground ruins.

So after extracting the materials, Tia skillfully drew a training circle on the ground and threw the corpse of the tempered cryptid onto it.

This was the simplistic method of refining soul crystals that the bald-headed principal taught Valensa, but Valensa still couldn't learn it. On the contrary, Tia learned it and became very proficient at it.

As the magical light of the training array shone brightly, the battle-hardened cave monster, who was about 1.8 meters tall and covered in long hair, was reduced to only a walnut-sized crystal in the world... and the final fate of this crystal was most likely to become food for some gluttonous evil god.

This was also the second asset Valensa had her eye on in the battle-hardened cryptids... their rich combat experience and outstanding fighting skills.

On paper, the battle-hardened Crypt Fiend's black tongue and large one-eyed magic-like abilities are indeed stronger than other Crypt Fiend variants, but not by much.

Valensa had imagined that if she were that battle-hardened crypt monster, she would definitely be in a tough fight against three Lighthouse-level Red Cloud adventurers.

Winning is likely possible, given how useful the abilities of gravity and repulsion are. A little trickery and combat wisdom would be incredibly effective. However, even if we win, it will be difficult, as monsters are at a significant disadvantage against adventurers.

In gaming terms, this means that the Monster unit is countered by the Adventurer unit.

However, the battle-hardened cave monster relied entirely on its combat skills, easily defeating the Red Cloud adventurers one against three despite the unfavorable elemental advantage.

It's safe to say that it's a battle-hardened individual that has experienced countless battles. If Valenza hadn't been able to overwhelm it in terms of raw strength, it would have been really difficult to defeat.

And now... heh heh.

Valensa tossed the walnut-sized soul crystal in her hand a couple of times, then licked her lips.

Your combat experience and skills are impressive; you're mine now.

Gaining experience and knowledge by consuming soul crystals has been used before, but it can easily cause mental breakdown in normal humans.

Even though Valensa had completely purified Tia's gray rat soul crystal with prayer and divine magic, Tia didn't dare to absorb it directly. Instead, she used it as an external portable hard drive.

Valensa didn't have that concern... Any soul was just food to the evil god.

Chapter 145 Goblin Fight

"Thank you, Teacher Zi."

"I'll bring some ingredients in a couple of days and cook you a delicious meal myself!"

After using the succubus purple's laboratory to complete the material extraction, Valensa and Tia politely expressed their gratitude and left the faculty dormitory area.

Instead of returning to their dormitories immediately, they found a relatively secluded and quiet corner on campus.

It's not a new way for fairies to fight at night, but rather that Valensa hasn't eaten the soul crystal crafted by the battle-hardened cave monster yet.

After learning how to manipulate magic from Friggia, Valensa was able to control her own evil god power like a bloodline sorcerer using spell-like abilities.

This makes her evil god mode more stable, greatly enhancing her combat power and duration, and she no longer has to risk losing control every time she consumes soul crystals.

Without having a powerful figure like Baldy or Sheila watch over her, Valensa directly put the Soul Crystal of the Battle-hardened Crypt Fiend into her mouth.

bang.

Although the Soul Crystal looks crisp like ice crystals and makes a crunchy sound when you bite into it, its actual taste is a bit like a pitted plum, sweet and sour, and very chewy.