There is Something Wrong with This Game

[Archades Ruins]

After leaving Dalmagna Blacksmith, Hecate immediately changed her equipment back to before.

It couldn't be helped, as the previous equipment had some fatal drawbacks which was very detrimental to gameplay in exchange for the benefits of increased EXP and proficiency gain.

The Morgream Cloth prevented the use of items, skills, and spells, making Hecate unable to even activate the Return Crystal. Apart from that, the Training Bracelets and Training Shackles also heavy and made her unable to wear rings and shoes.

After she changed her equipment back, she activated the Return Crystal and teleported back to her workshop.

The first thing Hecate did after appearing in the workshop was check the item she had just gotten.

It was a character card she obtained from fulfilling Dalmagna's favorability points.

Character cards are objects that allow people, both Players and Natives, to use the skills of the person listed on the card. Usually these cards are obtained by fulfilling certain criteria, such as favorability points, quest rewards, and so on. Only Native can be listed on the character card, while Players cannot, but both Players and Natives can use character cards.

Of course, character cards are not permanent and have a limit on the number of uses. If the number of uses reaches this limit, the card will be destroyed.

"Nice! Finally I was able to get this after nearly 2 years there."

As Hecate predicted, Dalmagna's trust in her was quite high and she would be able to get full favorability after the quest just now was completed.

It wasn't easy to get Dalmagna's favorability points, because he seems to have a prejudice that causes him to not fully trust Humans. From this aspect, Hecate, who chooses her race as a Human, has a disadvantage. Fortunately, he still had a soft side towards children, and Hecate's loli appearance seemed to help tie things together.

Even so, it still took her almost 2 years to get to this point.

The character card will record one random skill of the character listed at the time this card was obtained. As for what skill will be recorded on the card, that depends on luck.

But, looking at the skill description on the card, it seemed that the skill recorded was the jackpot.

'Isn't this the highest evolution of racial skills of the Dwarf race? And wow, it's already Lv10!'

Hecate recalled Shuna's Dwarf racial skill.

If she remembered correctly, Shuna's initial racial skill was called Novice Craftsmanship. This racial skill can of course be upgraded and Shuna did just that, and after undergoing some evolution, her skill is now called Skilled Craftsmanship.

It didn't take too much time to think that Master Craftsmanship was the advanced evolution of Skilled Craftsmanship. With this skill, whatever item she made would have an increased level of rarity and durability, as well as requiring less time and materials.

What Hecate didn't know was that this was exactly the real reason why Dalmagna preferred to hand over his mantle to Shuna, who was a fellow Dwarf and had the possibility to evolve her racial skill to the master level.

"Pity, it can only be used 8 times."

Hecate put the item in storage and closed the window.

Maybe there would be a time when she would use that item in the future.

♠♠♠

Meanwhile, the wall repairing process has been completed and the barrier management menu can be accessed again.

Hecate used the Fast Travel skill to teleport to the Save-Crystal in the repaired fortress wall, and sure enough, the wall was now as good as new. Of course, the section that appeared new was only the portion of the wall that had been repaired. Meanwhile, the unrepaired portion retained their original state, overrun with plant roots and bearing the weathered marks of time.

Unexpectedly, the repaired section of the wall did not include the formation lines that Hecate constructed using mycelium previously. This resulted in a strange appearance, where the repaired section of the fortress wall turned into a mixed structure of stone blocks with the middle part being a line of purple magic formations that showed an eccentric mycelium pattern.

"Well, it's just a minor issue. As long as it works well, it's not a big problem."

Hecate shook her head and didn't bother with the matter anymore.

She then glanced at the city ruins beneath the walls from above.

Maybe because this place was the point where the wall was breached, there were no intact buildings within the viewing radius. Almost all of the buildings were razed to the ground and now they are all overgrown with bushes.

The bushes there weren't just ordinary bushes, but rather carnivorous plant monsters, which could be seen from the red bars that appeared occasionally every few distances, above the large, conspicuous flowers. These flowers continue to emit bursts of poisonous air which then turn into toxic mist.

[⁂][Florizoa - Lv119~] (×??)

[⁂][Mutated Florizoa - Lv133~] (×??)

It was this mist that caused Hecate difficulties when she first entered the ruins of this city.

Luckily, she discovered a secret underground passage that eventually led her to the palace ruins, where she now operates her workshop. And now, because Hecate already had a necklace that gave her immunity to poison, this mist was no longer a problem for her.

However, for other people who didn't have poison immunity, this poisonous mist was almost deadly, making this place unfit to live in. It seemed that the task of gathering people for this territory's population would not be possible.

"It's a pity, if it weren't for this, I would have asked Grim to give me some <del>slaves</del> "two-legged sheep" to serve as <del>serfs</del> "workers" in my workshop."

Hecate was a little disappointed but didn't dwell too much about it.

Not far from each flower, there stood one or two, towering clay-like structures with unknown purpose and unknown composition. Maybe because it was daytime so the vision was clearer than last night and she could see those structures more clearly.

These towering structures were made of unknown materials, and from a quick estimate, they ranged from 2 to 10 meters in height, some are taller than the fortress walls where Hecate currently stood, and some are not. From there emerged many creatures that looked like wasps or bees, but with very large sizes.

[⁂][Mystshade Hornet - Lv120~] (×???)

[⁂][Mutated Mystshade Hornet - Lv137~] (×??)

From here it can be seen that these structures were, in fact, their nests.

These bees seem to have a mutualistic symbiosis with the demon flowers and are immune to their toxic mist. They gathered a substance resembling nectar from the flowers and reciprocated by nourishing the flowers with monster carcasses they tossed into the flower's mouth.

Apart from that, there are also several other diurnal monsters.

[⁂][Mystshade Cobros - Lv110~] (×???)

[⁂][Mystshade Mastif - Lv114~] (×???)

[⁂][Mystshade Lyzzardar - Lv115~] (×???)

[⁂][Lustron Sphere - Lv124~] (×??)

Hecate quietly observed their activities and looked at her own status screen. 

'There's still about 20 minutes before the EXP buff ends...'

The duration of the Super EXP Potion had not yet ended and it would be a waste to let it just end without doing anything. And coincidentally, there are a lot of EXP sources right in front of her now.

Naturally, she wouldn't let this opportunity to farm EXP slip away.

— +10 Superior Mask of Serenity equipped!

— +10 Superior Cloak of the Fallen equipped!

— Switch to Ignis set!

— Heart of Life, Heart of Mana activate!

— Mana Clone 01 deployed!

Hecate changed her appearance to Black Phantom and also materialized a clone, which automatically imitated this appearance. Of course, she also didn't forget to change her equipment element set to Ignis set, and reactivate her self buffs.

But she wasn't finished yet.

She consumed two Hi-Ether Potions and began to cast a certain spell. Her aim was to experiment using the spells listed in the so-called Territory Skills, starting with Megaflare first.

"Nib el Rimus har Arshevische Miksara <Hekate> ris Degolaris <Ignis>...." (Distorted Voice)

The usage of the spells in the Territory Skills was the same as the spells in the Skill Tree, in that she had to recite several paragraphs of incantations from an unknown language necessary to cast the spell. 

The spell Megaflare itself was a 3rd-tier spell with 3 paragraphs of incantations that needed to be recited in order to be invoked. There was no problem for Hecate to recite them because they were already included in the spell description window, so there was no need for Hecate to memorize them.

Of course, reciting the incantation was not the end; activating this spell also required gathering mana as fuel. The time needed to complete both tasks was referred to as the casting time.

Since the spell was a Territory Skill, the mana used was drawn from the Territory's MP Supply. However, the calculation of the spell's casting time and output was still based on Hecate's stats. With her current DEX, to cast this Megaflare Lv3 would take around... 25 minutes.

That would be too long, the EXP buff would already be gone by the time the spell finishes.

Without much choice, Hecate immediately touched the Save-Crystal.

She took out one DEX Potion and one Blessing Scroll from her storage. After she used those two items, now her casting time has been reduced to 18 minutes, almost enough until the end of the buff.

And for this 18 minutes, naturally she wasn't idle.

"Go! My beloved puppet! Cleanse this area for me." (Distorted Voice)

While waiting for the casting time to finish, she used the time to train herself to control her clone better.

Since the walls had been repaired, it was only fitting that the inner district should be cleared of monsters. After all, this area will be the main area for Hecate's activities. As for the other areas, she still doesn't care that much at the moment.

Using the thought command, she made the clone jump down and physically attack any nearby monsters using a materialized fire lance. Of course,with her current build, it was not surprising that every successful attack on any monster, regardless of race, would result in enormous damage.

-565500! -542300 -541590 -565500! -565500!

FSYAA! FSYAA! FSYAA! WRRSSS!! WRRSSSS!!

Countless roars and wails accompanied every step of the black-robed figure holding the flame lance.

Realizing that they couldn't win against this figure, most of the monsters immediately scattered to save themselves. The bees were very unlucky, even though they could escape individually, the nest could not. 

Unexpectedly, the nest was very flammable. Every nest that was hit by the clone's fire spear quickly burned, and somehow, due to an unknown chemical reaction, the fire was slightly yellowish-blue in color.

"Oh, those long, tall objects looks like glowing sticks now." (Distorted Voice)

And the most unlucky ones are those that can't be moved from their place, like plant monsters.

• • Hornet 1: Aaaahhhh! Help! <burns away>
  • Hornet 2: Mayday! Mayday! There's a dangerous figure attacking us! Requesting help!
    • Hornet 3: Oh no! Many of our brethren are still there!
    • Hornet 4: Forget it! This nest cannot be saved!
  • Florizoa 1: Aaaaahh!! It hurts! My petal is burning! 

Seeing the panicking monsters, Hecate felt distressed.

This distress was not because she felt empathy for them, but because chasing them was troublesome. But this wasn't a big deal, because Hecate's goal wasn't to hunt them, but just to practice controlling the movements of the clone better.

'Ugh, they scattered... It can't be helped, I'll just focus on practicing now.'

Thankfully the results of this practice are not small.

Now Hecate became more skilled at using thought commands and could carry out nested instructions. This allows Hecate to reduce the number of hotkeys needed to control her clones, by structuring her instructions with an if else format.

Shortly afterward, she created a new command to control the directional movement of her clone using a new hotkey.

Previously, the clone's control system required 4 hotkeys, namely forward, backward, turn left, and turn right. This was a tank control system, where Hecate controls the clone's movement relative to the clone's position. Hecate simply combined 4 hotkeys into one, similar to the analog button on a console controller from the console era.

This was all Hecate could do at this point as there wasn't enough time for her to experiment.

Perhaps the next step would be to change the control scheme to analog control, where she controls the clone's movement from her own perspective. But that was for later.

"The time has come..." (Distorted Voice)

Not long after, the 18 minute casting time was over.