Chapter 606 Piece of the Garden
Dashing through the rift, the two Shiro's arrived at the entrance of the building that contained the anchor.
Pushing open the door with an excited smile, the older Shiro looked around for the crystal.
Seeing that it wasn't on the first floor, she pressed her hand against the walls and sent her mana through the entire building.
Discovering the anchor in the floor below them, she couldn't be bothered and just punched a hole through the floor instead.
"Urg.. You brute." Shiro muttered seeing her older self's actions.
"Hush. It's fine, just think of it as a shortcut. After all, if you can scale up a building with ease, would you still use the stairs?" The older Shiro asked with a smile.
"YES!"
"Not important. What is important however, is this anchor." She shook her head.
Looking at the glowing crystal in front of her, the older Shiro waved her hand and summoned a few computers.
Connecting a few machines up to the anchor, she started to analyse the internal composition. Once she understood how it's made, she'll finally be able to claim her spot as an Empress.
While this was happening, Shiro decided to keep an eye on the report so that she could do the same when she got back to her own world.
"Ha? What the hell does this mean?" Shiro furrowed her brows in confusion. The readings of the anchor were rather weird as she couldn't understand what it was talking about.
"Mn? Let me have a look."
Walking over to Tia, the older Shiro furrowed her brows and read the report.
". . . The f*ck?"
"Wait a minute, give me a second to decode this." The older Shiro narrowed her eyes.
Sitting down, she started to tap away at the keyboard as multiple screens started to appear and disappear.
Waiting patiently, Shiro watched by the side.
While this was happening, the battle between Rakurth and the Kirin escalated in scale as they started to fire powerful spells towards one another. Should their spell miss, the surroundings would suffer their wrath.
Panic could be heard all over the city as the residents started to evacuate.
As the battle raged on, the analysis of the anchor soon became clear as both Shiro's couldn't believe what was in the anchor.
"A shard of the Garden…" Shiro muttered in surprise.
From her understanding, the Garden is the world that is chosen to undergo the age of demons and gods. If the anchor requires a shard of the Garden, it means that it required a piece of the destroyed world.
Therefore, if they wanted to create an anchor, they'd need a 'piece of Earth'. However, not any piece will do.
From the analysis, it seems like this is the piece that holds the world together and stops it from destroying itself. Which means that should their main anchor of Earth be destroyed, the world will be gone.
"Man, what a risk. If I die, the world is gone. If the anchor dies, the world is also gone. Plus, I don't even know where I can obtain a piece of the Garden to begin with." The older Shiro said with a forced smile.
"Damn… Do you think we can ask one of the queens for information about this?"
"Probably not. And even if they decide to tell us, they wouldn't know where it's stored since the system did it for them before remember? The fire queen told us that she received the anchor from the system so she didn't know where a piece of the garden was." The older Shiro reminded.
Clicking her tongue, Shiro thought about it for a moment before widening her eyes.
"Wait a minute! What if you grab the recordings of multiple anchors and look for a signature that is consistent between all of them. Find that signature and you can use it to track down the one in our world no?"
"That could work but do you even know how big the world is? The range of the scan would be limited." The older Shiro shook her head.
"What if you do it from space then?" Shiro grinned before pointing towards the stars.
"Get a scan of the entire world. Similar to how our tracking magic circle works, everything that has a similar signature to an anchor would be revealed. All you have to do after that is to filter through them and find the one that we need."
"That could work. And if you do it before the new age, then you can find it easily since there aren't that many anchors around the place…" The older Shiro widened her eyes.
"Memorise everything! Read through it and make sure you have a clear record of everything!" The older Shiro said as she quickly brought up all the information on anchors. Their main components, the method of creation and where you can find most of the components other than the Piece of the Garden.
Nodding her head, Shiro read through each report in detail.
Just as she finished the last report, she noticed a blinking sign near the edge of her sight line. It was a sign that she had not seen in a long time, one that belonged to the system notification.
[You have passed the trial – Vision of the Future.]
[Nyx – Greek Goddess of Night is pleased with your performance.]
[You have discovered the main components to an Anchor ahead of time.]
[Nyx shall bestow upon you the following rewards.]
-Sigil of Night
-Skill – Encroaching Darkness
-Primordial Enchantment Rune
-Sword Skill – Unseen Blade
Furrowing her brows, Shiro wasn't even able to read the descriptions of the rewards when she suddenly felt a hand cup her cheek.
Flipping her body up, she summoned Athera and aimed it towards the hand.
"Wow, so lively despite just having gone through a trial." A charming voice chuckled as the blade phased through her body.
"Who are you?" Shiro asked as she glanced around her. Seeing her party members still sleeping on the boat, she sighed in relief.
'Seems like I'm back.' She thought to herself.
"Who do you think? I'm Nyx, the Greek Goddess of Night. I have to say though, when other people go through the trial, they usually learn a skill they master in the future. But for you, you have actually obtained knowledge of the world shards or rather, the Piece of the Garden." Nyx smiled as she sat on the edge of the boat and crossed her legs.
"Wait so that wasn't the future?" Shiro furrowed her brows.
"Hmm… half and half. You see, that was ONE of the possible futures. And despite there being so many forks, you actually stepped on the one that granted you the most important knowledge. Congratulations." Nyx clapped her hands.
"What's your goal in showing all of this to me? I thought everyone was going to be enemies when the new age begins. Including gods." Shiro frowned.
"Well if you know about my background, you'll know that my identity is a little special compared to others. But let's just say that you've caught my interest. Just know that we can talk more when you come to Mount Olympus since this avatar's already running out of power. I must say, the system is pretty strict about meeting you. After all, even 'she' has her eyes on you so I suppose it's only normal. Have fun in this raid and I hope you don't take too long to come to Mount Olympus." Nyx winked as her figure melted into the darkness.
Furrowing her brows, Shiro dismissed her sword.
Thinking to herself for a moment, she eventually sighed and shook her head.
"I'll know more when I get to Mount Olympus." She muttered. Looking towards the Guide, she could see that he was still directing the boat.
"How long until the Judge?" Shiro asked as she just wanted to finish this raid so that she could think about everything that she had learned in the trial.
"We shall arrive once everyone wakes up."
"Mn." Nodding her head, she sat by the side and glanced towards her system to check the rewards.
[Sigil of Night]
A crest bestowed upon you by the Goddess of Night. Your powers shall increase depending on how much darkness is around you. In day, you shall receive no bonus to strength. When night arrives, your power will be doubled. In absolute darkness, your strength will quadruple.
You may also choose to invoke the Sigil's power as a domain skill but the Sigil will become useless for a month.
When activated, your opponents will suffer a drastic decrease in their strength for 1 minute.
Enemies higher tier than you will experience a 50% decrease to their stats while those weaker than you will become immobilised from fear.