Chapter 15  : Hidden Path

[Name: Shiro

Race: Snow Girl (Evolution Criteria yet to be met)

Level: 23

Class: Snow Girl★, Nanomancer

HP: 4800/4800

MP: 2500/9300

STR: 35 -> 45 (+30)

VIT: 40 (+50)

INT: 110 (+90)

AGI: 80 -> 90 (+25)

DEX: 35 -> 50 (+20)

DEF: 10 (+45)

Unassigned Points: 0

Balance: 124,500 USD

Equipment (Tap to Display)

Skills –

Snow Girl ★:

Tier 2 Ice magic, Passive Regeneration, Blessed by Ice, Snow Magic, Faded Snow Movement, Cold Aura.

Nanomancer:

Dagger Creation, Nano Tech Engineering Tier 1.

Other:

Mini-map, Inspection, Disguise, Harden (Equipment), Lesser Fear (Equipment).]

In the 2 hours of constant killing, Shiro had managed to level up herself twice. The points she gained amounted to 40 while the passive point gain made her INT skyrocket.

As for equipment, most of them were green and only one was blue. The skill that came with it was Harden.

[Harden]

Harden’s your skin for increased defence.

+35 DEF and -20% damage taken -20% AGI.

Duration: 30 seconds.

Cooldown: 2 minutes.

She had replaced the old equipment that came with skills like Fire Spirits blessing as it would become ineffective once a person out levelled the equipment.

Throwing the D rank mana stone into her mouth, Shiro could already feel the difference between ranks.

She chewed with a blissful smile as she walked towards the obelisk. By the time she reached it, both her MP and HP had fully regenerated.

Hiding behind a rock, Shiro observed the boss.

The obelisk boss was a giant ant which measured roughly 3 meters in length and 1.5 meters in height. Blood red chitin which protected its body, four mandibles that opened in different directions and the metasoma/abdomen of the ant which pulsed with an ominous orange energy.

[Bombard Frag Ant LVL 23 – Elite]

HP: 38,000/38,000

MP: 45,000/45,000

"Che, why can’t my stats be as insane as you guys in the Dungeon ah?" Shiro said feeling slightly unfair that her stats were much lower than the Elite Bombard Frag Ant.

Observing the ant, Shiro could guess the basic weapon it possessed. The main weapon being the mandibles and the abdomen location on his rear. The abdomen would lay traps around the area when they fight.

These traps would act like landmines which exploded on impact.

Remembering what she read about the Bombard Frag Ant, Shiro understands that setting all of these mines off at the start would be the safest option. Especially since the explosions don’t affect the Ant itself.

’Exploding the mines would take too much on my MP since I’ll have to cover quite an area.’ Shiro thought as she made a dagger in her hands.

Twirling the dagger between her fingers, Shiro grinned.

’Therefore, the best option was to explode the newest mine it plants down and aggro it to my territory.’ Shiro thought as she threw the dagger towards the ceiling.

A pale blue light spread across the roof as Shiro smiled seeing her traps in place.

Flicker her wrist, she called the dagger back.

[MP: 120/2000]

Injecting more mana into the dagger, Shiro made a second dagger as she was ready to fight.

’Now!’ Shiro thought seeing the Ant laid another mine.

Throwing the dagger towards the mine, Shiro had already started to dash backwards in case of a chain reaction from the mines.

*BOOM!!!

The mine caused 2 other mines to blow up as smoke obscured her vision.

She could hear the legs of the Ant skitter across the ground as she recalled her dagger.

*KRRRRRR!!!!!

Bursting through the smoke, the Ant charged towards Shiro with its four mandibles opened wide ready to crush her.

Twisting her body, Shiro threw both daggers at the opening before flipping backwards.

As expected, the Ant closed its mouth causing the daggers to bounce off.

Shiro grinned as she clutched her hand causing the daggers to explode into two pillars of Ice. The pillars of Ice was formed in front of the Ant which blocked its path.

The Ant stumbled at the sudden obstacle.

Seeing the Ant stop in its tracks, Shiro activated the traps she set earlier.

*KSH KSH KSH KSH KSH KSH!!!

Several Ice spikes shot down from the ceiling as it formed a cage around the Ant. Some of the spikes struck the Ant’s body as it constructed a scaffold with the other spikes to reinforce the structural integrity.

*KRRRRR!!!!

The Ant cried out in anger when it felt the Ice locking down its movements.

"Sleep my child." Shiro grinned as the temperature dropped around her. Using her Snow Magic, the tunnels became a winter wonderland of ice and snow.

The Ant raged as it wanted to try keep itself active but despaired feeling its own movements become sluggish.

Due to the fact that its primary physiology resembles that of an ant, when the temperature decreases, the Bombard Frag Ant would enter a hibernation phase.

Giving Shiro one last glare, the ant collapsed under its own weight and entered deep hibernation.

"Heheh~ One shouldn’t always fight a hard battle. Fighting smart is just as important." Shiro smiled and walked over to the ant.

[HP: 31,250/38,000]

Its HP was decreasing every second as Shiro made sure it was encased in ice.

Placing her palm on the Ice, Shiro started to control the ice so it slowly cut away at the ant’s head.

The more she cut into the skull, the faster the HP of the ant dropped until the brain was in sight.

Without a single shred of mercy, Shiro controlled the ice to destroy the brain, killing the Bombard Frag Ant with it not even being able to retaliate.

Dismissing the ice, Shiro reached towards the heart of the Ant and pulled out the D rank mana stone. Storing the stone away, she collected her loot.

To her disappointment, everything the Ant dropped were miscellaneous items and equipment that were worse than what she had on.

"Can’t you at least give me something I can use?" Shiro muttered kicking at the spot where the Ant had died.

Recycling everything, she proceeded towards the obelisk.

However, something grabbed her attention as her hand paused just before touching the obelisk.

Walking behind the obelisk, Shiro crouched down and found a hole of sorts. The hole could probably fit a young adult of a modest build as Shiro’s interest was peaked.

Stepping back slightly, Shiro sat down and brought up her tablet.

Searching the information she downloaded for the Frag Ant’s burrow, she saw that a few people discovered this path but never reached the end.

Contemplating on whether or not she should enter, Shiro eventually decided to enter since the max level of this Dungeon was 25.

The Dungeon’s adhere to a strict rule and unless the Dungeon’s mutate, no monster’s of higher level will be spawned.

Climbing into the hole without much difficulty, Shiro continued to traverse the hidden path.

As she went along, the path seemed to have started to shrink as an adult would have difficulties entering.

Shiro didn’t have any problems entering since her physiology was that of a young teen. The further she went, the narrower the paths became. Eventually, she had to crawl to proceed through the tunnel.

’Maybe I should turn back...’ Shiro thought as this may just be a meaningless hole.

However, her instinct told her that there was definitely something to be gained at the end of this.

Some Dungeons had a feature where there would be hidden paths. Hidden paths were hard to traverse but gave bountiful rewards.

Shiro knew this path would be hard for any adult to enter and would be impossible for any young teen to enter either. This was due to the fact that the adult was too big and the teen would probably die before entering the tunnel.

A single Frag Ant would have the prowess to kill the teen even if he/she sought refuge in the tunnels.

Since her physical body had no correlation to her age, she had managed to fit both the criteria of strength and a small build.

Continuing her crawl through the hole, Shiro only felt her frown deepen as she had been crawling for a little too long now.

’Work smart work hard. Since you want to test my patience, I’ll show you what I can do.’ Shiro thought as her fingers pressed down on the walls of the hole.

"Fuuuu....." She let out a breath of cold mist as the hole started to freeze.

Using the skill, Faded Snow Movement, Shiro increased her speed to the maximum and started to slide through the hole.

Her speed started to pick up as she continuously built up her momentum using the ice to give her a push.

After what seemed to be an hour of high speed sliding, Shiro felt the surroundings shift slightly as it was getting brighter.

Making two daggers, Shiro plunged them into the side of the walls to slow her down.

*CRRRR!!!!!!!

The sound of metal dragging across the rocks assaulted Shiro’s ears causing her to flinch slightly.

However, she had achieved her desired effect since she slowed down to a complete stop.

Panting slightly from the amount of strength she exerted, Shiro made her way to the opening of the hole.

Climbing out, her eyes widened to see where she was at.

It was something akin to the inside of a cathedral except that it had no seats. An interior designed with a combination of quartz and gold.

Pillars etched with the carvings of holy animals and angles supported the ceilings.

On the ceilings, a heavenly scenery was painted with fine details in every corner.

On the floor, a symmetrical pattern was tiled as it swirled towards a single chest that laid in the middle of the room.

’Why would something like this exist? Hardly anyone would be able to see this.’ Shiro thought with a frown.

"[Location]"

[Tomb of the Holy Dragon Emperor]

"Tomb of the Holy Dragon Emperor?" She muttered as she looked around and observed the room.

Her eye twinkled as she understood the situation.

Walking over to the pillars, Shiro placed her hand onto one of the carvings.

The material was cool to the touch even for someone like Shiro who is a Snow Girl.

Crouching down, Shiro tapped the symmetrical tiles with her knuckles.

"Hmmm...." Shiro narrowed her eyes as she looked around.

This was definitely not a Tomb of a Holy Dragon Emperor. A Tomb of a Holy Dragon Emperor wouldn’t include any cold materials. Especially not one that was so cold to the touch even for her.

A real tomb of the Holy Dragon Emperor would be lukewarm to red hot due to the materials used to craft its tomb. Even without hot materials, it would refuse to be cold materials as a substitute. The Holy Dragon would rather go without a tomb.

’Since this isn’t the real Holy Dragon Emperor’s Tomb, what is it.’ Shiro thought to herself.

The only thing left around was the chest which was situated in the middle of the room.

Narrowing her eyes, Shiro crouched down and placed both palms to the ground.

’Freeze!’

Ice spread out from her hands as it shot towards the chest.

Sensing danger, the chest opened up with arms extending out from the inside. Pushing against the pedestal, the chest dodged the ice.

[Den of the Trickster]

’I knew it.’ Shiro thought, seeing the updated location. The previous cathedral disappeared as the surroundings were illuminated but a blue glow. Crystals hung from the cave ceiling as the tip of the crystal was the source of the blue glow.

Scattered around the ground were several dried up husks of ants and human skeletons. The weirdest thing was why human skeletons remained here even after the Dungeon wipe.

’The adventurer’s probably died to the trickster.’ Shiro thought as this would most likely be why no one had recorded this on the net.

[The Trickster LVL 25 – (Elite)]

The Trickster was the next step up from a Mimic, but it still looked like a normal adorned chest.

However, when opened, two sickly thin arms would crawl out from inside. The inside of the chest resembled the mouth of a worm. With row upon rows of teeth, saliva could be seen dripping constantly. Four disgusting tongues could be seen as the tongues themselves seem like they were constructed with a multitude of tongues due to the grooves.

Thankfully she realised sooner that this was a trap. Or else, the moment the Trickster grabbed hold of her, she wouldn’t be able to escape its grasp. Naturally, she could then just freeze it.

However, higher level Tricksters were known to cancel out your skills when in close proximity of their mouth so Shiro would rather not risk that unless she was backed into a corner.

Flicking her fingers upwards, several Ice pillars shot up from around the Trickster as scaffolds started to construct themselves.

The Trickster trembled slightly before it erupted into a mass of flesh.

With the chest as the source, a giant mutilated worm-like being could be seen extending out of it. 6 unnaturally long arms with 5 joints thrashed around as it destroyed the Ice. It’s body had no skin as it was just muscle and teeth. It measured to around 4.5 meters in length and had a diameter of 2 meters.

’This one already knows the skill flesh puppet?’ Shiro thought with a frown.

Flesh Puppet was a rare skill that a very select few of the Tricksters were known to have. At the cost of its HP, a fleshy puppet was summoned to help it battle. The longer the flesh puppet was activated, the more HP was drained.

"You’re only just a huge target." Shiro said as her pupils glowed a menacing blue.

A blizzard started to form as Ice spread out with her being the centre. The snow fall increased as it eventually encompassed the entire room.

With the snow blocking the sight, the overall temperature hid Shiro from the Trickster’s senses.

*IRRRREEEEE!!

The flesh puppet screamed out as one of its arms was pierced by a dagger.

Turning the head towards the dagger, the teeth on his body twitched as it sensed danger.

*BOOM!

The dagger exploded into a mass of ice causing the Trickster to stumble from the force and use its arms to stabilise itself.

Two floating blue lights tracked it down as another dagger hit the face and exploded.

*KSHHHH!!!

The Trickster was enraged as the flesh puppet shrank its body down before expanding out with teeth extending for several meters.

Shiro frowned seeing this as two of the teeth that extended outwards had almost hit her. If not for Faded Snow Movement that turned a portion of her body to snow and mist, it would have pierced her left shoulder and right thigh.

Moving towards the Trickster, Shiro narrowed her eyes as she dodged the teeth strikes.

Mana started to gather at her palms as the sheer amount of mana she was gathering became visible to the eye.

’Focus and explode.’ Shiro thought as she was within touching distance of the flesh puppet.

*BOOOMMM!!!!!

A giant explosion of ice fanned out as it cut the flesh puppet in two before freezing the bisected part of the puppet.

The chest shivered seeing the puppet die as Shiro didn’t give it the chance to escape.

Her two eyes glowed menacingly above the chest while she summoned a Ice spear and pierced the chest.

Twisting the spear, the tip enlarged like a blowfish as a multitude of ice spikes penetrated and destroyed the Trickster.