Chapter 192

Luna watched the planet spin below her, not blinking.

It had been too long since the last of the people who exited had done so from a new floor.

The first half of the cycle was about as promising as she could have dared to hope.

Eternal Darkness as a first floor was a good floor to get the children's feet wet, and allow them to pull ahead of the pack.

Genesis Cultivation was a counter to Matt and Aster, but Liz and especially Susanne would do fine on that floor, ensuring that the two more mana dependent fighters wouldn’t get screwed over. It also had a fantastic reward that would catapult her children into powerhouses with four Tiers of essence converted into Genesis Energy, even if they were only average before this floor. And they were anything but average.

Then came Back to Basics. Other than Opposite Day, it was simply the best floor to get after Genesis Cultivation.

It would shift however many Tiers of Genesis Energy they had earned down to the first Tiers of cultivation, making them fifteen percent stronger than their same Tier peers who only got Genesis Cultivation and thirty percent than people who got neither.

The theme reward they’d earn was certainly useful as well, giving them an excellent practical application of her lessons on internalizing an external Concept.

Liz and Matt each had promising strategies to draw upon, with Matt using the Daedalus Gambit common to people with enchanting experience, and Liz aiming more for a Fruits of Labor approach. That she didn’t want Mind cultivation made it much harder to actually utilize her alchemy to the full extent allowed by Minkalla, but Liz knew what she was doing.

With an already Internal concept, she’d get the most out of the theme reward amongst the four of her charges.

While it was the second half of Minkalla that was truly impactful, this cycle had the potential to be most excellent. This cycle would see lots of people flooding just for those first three floors alone.

But after that floor, no one had come out after having reached the fourth floor.

The walking fossils were usually the first to come out, and then throw themselves a party of the ages.

There were even businesses that catered to their exuberant whims upon getting their Concepts and breaking through to Tier 15.

Parties, orgies, feasts, and general extravagance were the name of the game, and they paid for it.

At least half of the Tier 14s who got their Concept on the fourth floor blew every mana stone they had saved up and earned in Minkalla upon exiting, just wanting to enjoy their immortality.

It usually meant that at least one team was usually out of that floor just a week or two after entering. Someone always got a lucky challenge room, a lucky boss fight, or even killed some other competitors that earned them enough Genesis Energy to leave the floor with the exit reward.

But not a single team had exited from the fourth floor in the last month and a half.

Not getting an answer was an answer in its own right, most of the time.

There was only one floor that outright prevented people from leaving like this.

Courtly Warfare.

It wasn't one of the floors Luna would have chosen for the children. The reward was fantastic, there was no denying that, but the timing of the floor was awful.

A fourth-floor Courtly Warfare would serve as a dam, allowing all the chaff to catch up to her charges and remove any advantage that their speed had earned them.

It wasn’t a problem. She knew that the kids would be fine, but not everyone else was so calm about the situation.

Zula Cortez, a Tier 39 from the Clans, had already blown her top at a Federation man that Luna didn’t know, simply for a snide comment. They were currently destroying a large portion of a small gas giant in the outer reaches of the star system.

Honestly, this place was a dump. All the major planets were cracked, if not outright destroyed, and the asteroid belt was scattered like flung sand in the outer system.

Luna suspected that Minkalla would be jumping to a new star system in the next dozen cycles or so, judging by the state of everything.

Letting her mind wander, Luna wondered what version of the courts they got. There were thousands of variations, with the courts and their outward appearances changing. Human courts were the best, as they lacked most of the magical abilities and advantages some of the more exotic factions had. Trying to make them hold a city when the monsters of the floor were earth golems was an exercise in futility, and could stall them for a year or more.

On the other end of the extreme, the elves were annoyingly accurate archers, and their moving cities could take months to track down as they migrated around the area that Minkalla created.

But still, it was the challenge that had been laid before them. The observers could do nothing but watch, and Luna could feel tempers running hot amongst the highest echelon of the Great Powers.

It was just a question of how long it took for one side to win, which at least meant as soon as anyone came out of Minkalla on the fourth floor, they would know that someone had won.

Luna blinked once as she refocused on Minkalla after checking someone who came out on the Sects planet. Third floor… useless to her.

Personally, she hated this part of a Minkalla run.

All her power, and nothing to do with it.

Infuriating.

***

Matt watched as the now defeated cultivators of Spring were brought out of the city and then separated.

He and the other people who had earned hundreds of captives were sitting around and motioning for their victims to be brought to their own areas.

It wasn’t a perfect system, and a few of the people that his team had defeated were claimed by other teams, but it worked well enough that no one complained about a little loss in Genesis Energy.

Thinking of Genesis Energy, Matt looked to where Susanne was trying to get one of the captives to release their own reserves of Genesis Energy. The man had put a quarter of his Genesis Energy into the ring, but then refused to give the rest of it.

Susanne had an interesting method of persuasion. She just repeatedly tapped the man on the head with her greatsword in a slow but steady rhythm.

It wasn’t an attack, but it also wasn't a pleasant massage on a sunny beach.

The cultivator in question was old, and was clearly at the peak of Tier 14, meaning they didn’t have their own Concept to protect them from her Concept battering their spirit directly.

Matt was content to watch the man, if only to see how long he could hold out, but Bradley lost his patience and walked over, slinging an arm over Susanne’s shoulder and guiding her away.

“Silver, you need more finesse in things like this. Watch how I do it.”

Turning back, Bradley sat down on the snow-covered ground and shot the man a friendly smile.

“Hey, there, friend. Got yourself into a pickle?” As the man just glared at him, Bradley nodded as if he had responded verbally. “A shit show if ever there is one, but buddy, you are looking at this the wrong way. You didn’t lose. You won! And you won big.”

Hearing that, everyone within a few dozen feet turned to shoot the man incredulous looks that ranged from hostile to bewildered.

Bradley laughed with a cocky grin plastered on his face. “I'm serious. You don't believe me, but let me explain.” Pointing at the older man, he said, “You don't want to give up your Genesis Energy because you need it to form your Concept on the way out of this floor.”

His eyes swept the rest of the captives and added, “Most of you are in this situation. Or, at least half of you. But believe me, this is perfect for everyone. A win-win. This is the fourth floor, and it's Courtly Warfare. You geriatrics should be thanking the Tier 50s for your luck.”

There was some grumbling, but Bradley spoke over it. “Really, you should. Think about it for a second. The Fae courts will endlessly make new soldiers, meaning, once we leave, you can resume the war and not have to deal with all us frontrunners. At that point, you can fight in the battles that happen and easily earn enough Genesis Energy to leave here with your Concepts. We don't want to have to kill you. Some of you are Empire and Guilders. I’d love to give you all special treatment, but you chose Spring, and we beat Spring. There is a cost to losing, after all. Let's not make that cost death.”

As the captives started to relax, Bradley stood up and clapped. “See, this is a good thing for you guys! A little Genesis Energy lost today, but when we leave, you’ll have the run of the place.”

Having said that, his face went blank, and his eyes started to glow brighter, like fresh molten metal had broken through the cooling surface to show the ire of a forge.

“But if you fuck with our victory, all of the representatives have agreed to execute the lot of you. We can't be having people trying to slow us down. Play nice until we leave, and do what you want after that.”

Despite the coldness of Winter that the captives were feeling, they all started to sweat as Bradley flexed his Concept.

Tuning back to Susanne, he smiled. “See? That's how you deal with people.”

Susanne looked to the cowed people and then back to Bradley before saying, “Why say so many words when only a few will do?”

Bradley looked stumped on how to respond to that, but ended up chuckling and speaking to them directly through AI. “Queen, you are an odd duck, that's for sure.”

They shifted, preparing for combat, only stayed by the complete lack of concern Bradley displayed.

With a head nod, he gestured to the side and spoke with them away from the prisoners.

“Everyone pretty much knows. Only so many assholes with great-fuck-off-swords made from their Concepts running around. Kinda makes it obvious who you are.”

Jill, his wife, walked up to their group and added while nodding at Matt. “And you’d be Quill, right? You’re just too good at rune stuff, and with you making some kind of special Winter construct in the background… some kind of soldier spawner? Don’t know how you do it, but yeah. Probably wouldn’t have quite put it together without Queen though. Lots of enchanters running around, you know…”

“Personally, I don’t think you’re Quill. My wife just really wants to be working with two or even more celebrities, with Yellow really being Torch and Blue as Queen’s secret bond,” Bradley picked up smoothly where Jill trailed off, earning himself a playful swat. “The other representatives have already spread that info and will one hundred percent try to take advantage of it on the lower floors. I don’t think anyone was expecting you this cycle, and it was only word of mouth on the moon that led us to even suspect that you’re her, so you shouldn’t have to deal with any specially-trained death squads coming after you. But a good number may well change their targets or go after you once they do finish their assignment.”

He looked to Matt, Liz, and Aster. “Careful out there. Queen has an Ascender sized target painted on her back. I don't think anyone will attack you on this floor, but just about everyone not from the Guilds or Empire will probably be after you as soon as we move on.”

Matt nodded back to the couple and was turning away when Jill spoke up. “If you want, you can join us for some extra protection, but I don't know how much it will help. We know there’s at least one hunter-killer team with our name on it. Our manager told us that the Empire got wind of the Sects training up some Tier 14’s to counter us. You might get caught up in that if you stick with us, fair warning.”

Matt turned back to quickly consult with his team, and then said, “We appreciate the offer, but we’ll stick to going at it alone, though if you fall into trouble, we don’t mind helping. Any hit squad will find us a little harder to counter directly.”

Bradley winked at Matt with a smile. “Thanks, White. Back at you, but at minimum, I suggest you come to the fifth floor with us as a group. If someone gets lucky and lands near you, you might get screwed.”

Liz accepted that for them. “We can agree to that. Too many people would just slow us all down after all.”

With that, they parted to continue extorting Genesis Energy from their prisoners of war.

While they waited, Matt dipped into the rumor mill of particularly powerful Spring groups. Apparently, there was one team of ten Tier 12s who had killed their way out of an encirclement of fifty before vanishing into the forest.

It took most of a day, but they were finally able to move on. That is, until they hit a snag.

Or rather, two snags.

The first was the human factions disagreeing on if they should pursue Fall or Summer next. Those advocating for Summer, including Aster, argued that they were much closer to their capital, and the forces of Winter would be able to hit them before they’d be ready. Those who wanted them to pursue Fall, including Matt, argued that letting Fall have more time to prepare, and potentially strike at Winter’s capital city and supply lines while they were on the far side of the floor, was just begging for problems.

The second and more pressing problem was the fact that Primus flatly refused to leave Spring until the remaining Spring forces were taken care of, which meant that they would have to push out on their own without the Fae army if they wanted to leave anytime soon.

When they asked him exactly what they were waiting for, he would only say ‘the occupying force’ and not elaborate, leaving them unable to make concrete plans.

But they were still unwilling to move on without the support of the army, nor were they willing to just languish and do nothing for the week it would take the occupying force to arrive.

It took nearly a day of arguing for the representatives to come to an agreement, but eventually, the Fall advocates won out on the basis that they would already lose much of their momentum thanks to the Fae refusing to move on. So, roughly half of the cultivators would range ahead to take out some of their closer forts, hopefully speeding up their future advance.

To ensure an actual split of their forces, anyone who wanted to leave needed to find someone willing to stay on their behalf. In the end, Matt and Susanne decided to stay in the city while Liz and Aster went out ahead. The hope was that Aster, with her Title, would help spread Winter at a fast enough pace that the two of them could go solo, allowing Liz to not hold back and earn a Title of her own.

With half the humans gone, Matt mostly relaxed, unleashing absurd amounts of mana into the air to further empower Winter. He also got back to making more scouting towers to act as information gathering hubs, as well as ways to pass messages across longer ranges.

In the end, they sat on their hands for nearly a week until the occupying force came.

Out of the forest, a troop of soldiers led by a dozen lieutenants came out, guarding a number of Fae civilians.

As they got closer and Matt was able to see them, he realized who they were. Fae nobles. Or whatever their equivalents were. Dressed in finer clothes, they walked through the snowy forest as if it belonged to them.

They radiated arrogance and superiority even from a few miles away.

Matt made a note to not interact with them at all during their stay, but had to resist a laugh as Bradley cursed, seeing what he was going to have to deal with.

Even his own wife ribbed him on the way out. “Don’t sell yourself into Fae servitude. I won't be able to bail you out of that one.”

His raised finger was his only response.

***

Liz smiled as she looked upon the fortification in the distance. With Aster’s Title, just the two of them could spread Winter at an appreciable rate, and so, they’d served as their own group. Without multiple competing interests, they could be far more decisive and fast-moving than most of the larger bands, and it was paying off nicely.

She still hadn’t gotten a Title, but she was hopeful that she might receive one by the time they attacked the next city. At the very minimum, she wanted some kind of bonus power like Aster and Matt had.

Being solo had its own advantages, namely that she could shamelessly cheat. Such as with their compass, which ate an essence stone and began unerringly pointing to the most valuable thing nearby.

It ended up being a Glimmering Snow Lily, which Aster snapped up to help her bloodline cultivation. The next most valuable thing, however, turned out to be exactly what she wanted.

A Fall fort.

Aster’s presence ended up being a bit of a hindrance there, as they needed to keep moving to avoid their presence being given away too soon, but after an hour of scouting, she believed that she understood the makeup of the fort. There were three lieutenants, fifteen sergeants, and seventy five privates with no apparent cultivators to her eyes. There was always the possibility that they were in hiding, but she doubted it. That was too passive a play for anyone who made it this deep into Minkalla this quickly.

It would be inconvenient to sneak up slowly, especially with no clear approaches to use.

Besides, that would be boring.

Arrows and rays of decaying magic flew from the wall as she began her attack, but the former were blown off-course by Aster, and the latter were given orbs of blood to waste their energy on. A single arrow managed to get blown back on course, but it struck her outer armor, penetrating far enough that she could tell it had hit her second layer of defenses. Then, blood flowed, rearranging itself and spitting the arrow back out as the wound healed.

[Blood Crystal Armor] was already in some ways an improvement over its base form, with her ability to dismiss and reconjure sections rather than the full thing, but its upgrade meant that it would automatically repair itself from her blood. With her glove, she had more than enough material to work with. Most spatial storages would sever the connection she had to ‘her’ blood, but the growth item provided a swimming pool full of blood for her armor to keep itself in top form.

She couldn’t wait to upgrade the glove at the end of this floor, and find out what else it had in store for her.

As she approached the wall, she pulled on her blood once again, forcing it into a specific, familiar form with the help of [Blood Copy], and a few components held against her skin by an internal band of ingredients. Windleaf and whipcord vine, bonded by shrinking violets. It was rudimentary, but she couldn’t do anything too complex on the fly, and this served just fine as a long-jump potion.

Strength flooded her limbs, and the air buoyed her up, letting her easily clear the thirty-foot outer walls.

She’d had to move [Blood Whip] into her outer spirit, making it impractical as an actual weapon, but it was still strong enough to grab a crenellation and swing into the wall. They’d tried to stop her, of course, but using her Concept on her blood meant trying to dispel her control over the skill was a taller order than the mere footsoldiers manning the wall could manage. It wasn’t quite comparable to trying to directly attack the blood that was inside her body, but it was close.

A sudden gust of wind nearly sent her tumbling in the moments before she touched down, but Aster pushed back, freezing the mage responsible and pushing her back to the right spot. It still caused her to land harder than she would have liked, and only an emergency push with [Blood Manipulation] kept her from falling prone. That blood was quickly put to good use, lashing out and knocking off a half-dozen Fae footsoldiers to the ground below. They’d be back soon enough, but getting rid of them allowed her to focus on the sergeant that was currently attacking her.

A [Blood Bubble] deflected his opening blow, and her responding [Blood Bullet] was blocked by the Fae sergeant’s raised shield.

He closed the distance with a [Mana Charge], which Aster slowed down to a veritable crawl, allowing Liz to easily dodge the skill and follow up on the opening with a [Blood Slowing Shot].

The Fae stopped, freezing long enough for Liz to use her blood iron to morph her spear into a serrated glaive and strike out, calling on her glove to unleash a supercharged [Blood Cleave]. Even her glove didn’t have enough for a tidal wave on its own, but the blood-empowered blade effortlessly chopped the soldier in half, adding its blood to her attack and carrying on down the wall, slaying a whole row of Fae and sending their Genesis Energy to her.

She pulled her [Bloody Cleave] back, reclaiming the blood and flattening a portion of it into a thin sheet for Aster to freeze. She didn’t resist the flash freeze, and instead leaned into it as much as she could, helping Aster freeze then [Shatter] the plane of blood. It sent a spray of frozen blood shards into the faces of the Fae behind them, and Aster pulled the red ice into a blender-like blizzard.

The rest of Liz’s blood was recalled, forming a pulsating ring of red that surrounded her and provided her plenty of material. The new Fae blood needed to be filtered through her Talent before it counted as ‘hers’, and her Concept could work on it, but that was hardly an issue when her glove could act as an easy medium. As soon as she had enough, a pair of [Blood Chakram]s spun themselves into existence, followed by a few [Blood Sprites] to feast on the remains.

She checked her mana. Seventy percent was good enough. Once it hit fifty, she’d [Blood Sacrifice] it back up to nearly full.

Little sparrows made from blood began to multiply and flock, darting from corpse to corpse. Her armor intercepted another arrow, spitting it out after a moment had passed, and Liz turned to see the source of the shot. Another Fae sergeant, this one an archer, was shooting at her from the courtyard below.

Leaving Aster to finish clearing out the wall, Liz crashed down into the main fortress like an avenging, bloody comet. A [Blood Chakram] materialized above each of her hands, and the unstoppable, spinning disks of destruction began carving bloody paths through the Fae too slow to dodge, forcing the rest to try and avoid them. Her sparrows feasted well, turning what would have otherwise been survivable wounds into inevitable death.

The archer was still shooting at her, taking chunks out of her armor with each shot, but as she closed the distance between them, she recalled a steady stream of [Blood Sprites] to repair it.

Then, he was close, and a [Blood Chakram] forced the Fae archer to stop shooting as he dodged her construct, putting him in the path of a just conjured [Blood Spear]. That broke the sergeant spirit, and she finished him off with a [Cracked Blood Drain], leaving behind a desiccated corpse within seconds.

The burst of strength and blood she earned from that was amplified with a [Blood Charge], rushing her forward and at a more traditionally-armed Fae lieutenant. He met her attack with his own, burning through most of her strength boost in a single, overpowering strike. The impact forced her to reflexively use [Blood Ragdoll] to avoid whiplash as her charge was met, blocked, and reversed in a single blow.

[Ragdoll] normally worked by preventing any motion from the caster and translating any force or attack on them into movement, rendering them very difficult to harm, but the skill also didn’t wear off until a substantial amount of time had passed after the last intercepted attack. [Blood Ragdoll] worked similarly, but instead of preventing her entire body from moving, it sent her blood into chaos, with everything bouncing around with very little regard to how fluids were supposed to flow. At Tier 11, that chaos wouldn’t be lethal for a good few minutes, and even then, she could use [Blood Manipulation] to prolong it all the more.

It did make a lot of her blood skills, namely any which used her blood, borderline unusable, but she could manage.

A [Water Whip] shot from her outstretched hand, connecting to the Fae lieutenant, and in the instant before it broke from his resistance, she reversed course and flew towards his head once more, spear-first.

That broke through its armor, and as the first drops of blood flew, she seized them and the opening her strike provided to [Cracked Blood Drain] the Fae to death.

It made for such a nice finishing move, it was a pity that it was only a single target.

She landed on the ground and immediately bounced off of it, with [Blood Ragdoll] still in full effect. A quick AI message to Aster took care of that though, and the fox sent a few gusts of wind her way to guide Liz back to the wall. Aster had turned the Fae soldiers to popsicles and was slowly draining their life, spreading Winter as she did so. Already, snow was beginning to fall right outside the fort’s walls.

With Aster covering her, it only took Liz a few seconds to steady her blood, running [Blood Endurance] and [Bloody Lesser Regeneration] to end the [Blood Ragdoll] effect, and then she was back into the fray. The [Blood Sprites] had served their purpose, and she allowed the spell to collapse, instead focusing on calling every drop of blood that she had access to and wasn’t otherwise needed in her body. A massive [Blood Tidal Wave] rushed out, eliminating the chaff and staggering the other lieutenant still in the fight, a Fae armed with a pair of daggers like a rogue.

Daggers could be deadly with the right skills, and the Fae almost certainly had the full package. Still, there was only so much they could do to a giant elemental, and as [Hungering Blood] and her returned blood wave fed into her golem armor, she recast [Blood Crystal Armor], allowing the crystals to propagate to the much larger mass of blood surrounding her.

Like so many rogue-types, the lieutenant was fast but lightly armored. It took three tries to grab it with [Blood Manipulation], but once she had it in her grasp, crushing the lieutenant in her empowered golem claws was trivial. The rush of Genesis Energy and Favor served as a surefire signal of success.

There was a lot more energy around her than she had anticipated, particularly coming from Aster. It took her a moment to recognize the pattern of energy, and realize that it meant one of her items was turning into a growth item.

Normally, Liz would be ecstatic about that, but it happening in the middle of a fight was awful timing, so she rushed over to assist the fox.

As it turned out, her assistance wasn’t needed.

It looked like Aster’s old pendant, which had previously only made an ice cream-flavored flying cloud, had gained the ability to create an extra pair of oversized snowflakes, each larger than Aster herself. They weren’t just decorative either.

Liz didn’t know what she expected, but the snowflakes flying out and cutting two sergeants in half like oversized shuriken wasn’t it.

Seeing Aster had things well in hand, she turned and crushed the final lieutenant before taking out the final few Fae.

Aster was sitting down when Liz rushed back over, and her tail was swishing the falling snow around her as her excitement bled over.

When Liz got close, she jumped up and landed on her flying cloud, which promptly sagged down to the ground.

“It converted! I'm the luckiest fox alive! Endless ice cream flavor at my Tier!”

Liz looked at the small snowflake shaped pendant that the fox proudly displayed.

Comparing the small snowflake to the giant blades of death they had turned into was a disorienting contrast, but Liz rolled with it. She had seen weirder growth items.

Holding out an arm, Liz said, “Hop on and let's go take over the core of this place.”

Together, they walked inside the keep to find the orb that powered the entire fortress. When they put hand and paw on it, their Favor flowed out of them before tainting the yellow orb a blue white.

More Favor than they put inside of it came back out, and Liz shivered as she felt her boon grow into something greater.

Mentally probing her boon, she understood the changes. “You are capable of controlling frozen blood with [Blood Manipulation], which functions as both blood and ice. Any ice and shadow powers are strengthened, and you resist damage from them. You are immune to the cold while in Winter’s service.”

Liz nodded appreciatively as she flexed her powers.

The boon felt like a cloak wrapping her Concept and spirit, less close than a natural treasure, but closer than an item. It was hers, but not truly a part of her

Not yet, at least.

When they left this floor, they could take the boons with them as long as they were on the winning side, at the cost of some Genesis Energy, as nothing was free from Minkalla. Still, as her first new ability, the ability to control frozen blood was quite nice.

Aster swooped down on her cloud, expanding the platform enough for Liz to fit. With the fort under their control, the anti-flying wards no longer impeded them, and they quickly soared into the sky.

Liz looked at the cloud beneath them and frowned. “It feels weird being on a Tier 11 item.”

Aster flicked her ears. “Yeah, I need to try to upgrade it to Tier 14. I needed to put a bunch of ice into the snowflakes for them to actually cut anything.”

“When we get out of here, we’ll figure out what we need to upgrade it. Those snowflake blades seem pretty good.”

Aster yipped. “Yup! Do you think we might have some upgrade materials in the crawlspace? Minkalla was too cheap in only upgrading it to my Tier.”

Liz shrugged. “We didn’t pack any, but we have gotten a lot of loot recently.” She let an evil smile creep over her mask. “And we have lots of prisoners we can tap for items. Those Tier 14s must have plenty of materials for us to test.”

Aster laughed, but before she could say something, a [Mana Bolt] tore through the cloud they were flying on and sent them tumbling. Aster caught them just in time, and started jerking them around to dodge the barrage of attacks.

Liz didn’t hesitate and emptied her glove, shaping it into a massive spear and using it as a combined shield and weapon as they plummeted from the sky. Aster poured mana into the construct, freezing it into a single mass of blood-ice to form a countermeasure to the ambush.

Tens of thousands of gallons of frozen blood hit the ground.

The resulting collision was overwhelming even to Tier 11 senses, but Liz could feel it as her frozen blood broke and shattered when it struck the ground, sending a shockwave of half-frozen ground in every direction. Accompanying it was a thousand fragments of frozen blood, ranging from needle-sized to as large as Liz herself.

The cloud of debris may have occluded everything to her sight, but she felt several spirits to their right, and the rush of Genesis Energy that came with killing cultivators from that direction.

Controlling frozen blood felt different from normal. Easier. Usually, she had to keep track of hundreds to thousands of individual blobs of blood, direct them all individually or in groups, and control what shape they had. It required a good amount of blood reserved for [Blood Cunning], just to keep track of anything complex, let alone direct it. With ice, there was none of that. There were just chunks of ice, and all she needed to do to move one was to move the entire chunk.

It was freeing.

A person-sized block of ice broke itself on an enemy, and Liz forced a few of the fragments into her enemy’s eyes. The rest, she whipped around like cannonballs, slamming them into her opponents and either sending them flying or just breaking them. She could feel Aster doing something similar, but more focused on the smaller splinters. Liz relinquished control of those, redoubling her attention onto the ice bludgeons until she was certain that everyone she could sense was at least wounded.

[Hungering Blood] loved those wounds. Plenty of small holes for blood to escape.

She recalled the frozen blood she was working with, interspersing it with the small tide of new blood that she’d just earned.

For the first time, she got a solid look at her opponents.

There weren’t many of them still upright. What had started as a group of twenty or thirty Fall cultivators had diminished to half a dozen still standing, all Tier 14 and none with Concepts.

The closest one to Liz was an older woman armed with two swords, mid-pounce. Despite the Tier difference, Liz felt no concern. Without a Concept, the woman had little protection from Liz’s [Bloodthorn Vine], and delivered a cut on her upper arm.

It still took a good push of willpower to break the woman’s spirit, but it was doable, and the woman’s eyes widened as her blood vessels ruptured into barbed wire, slicing through vitals and skin alike.

By the time she hit the ground, she looked more like a crimson thornbush than a woman. Without breaking stride, Liz exsanguinated her corpse and used [Blood Slowing Shot] on a hail of [Blood Bullets] to close the distance between herself and the surviving cultivators.

She was, alas, too late. Aster’s snowflakes had beaten her there, and had already decapitated the next two she had chosen as targets. The final three attackers looked like they were starting to run, but they weren’t even hard to kill.

That was just what they got for shooting them down as they flew off.

Liz stretched as the Genesis Energy flooded into her spirit, recalling her blood. Annoyingly, her glove would only accept liquid blood, so she was contemplating how best to melt the frozen chunks as she started going through the motions of looting the fresh corpses. She popped her garden orb out of her general purpose spatial ring to store a bundle of Ironthorn Vines, then noticed how her Genesis energy started to swirl and churn.

When it landed on her portable garden orb, she paused for a second. It wouldn’t be her first, second, or even third choice, but she wasn’t unhappy with it. Her spirit reached out and connected to the orb, probing for what it might be able to do.

After a moment, it clicked as the connection between her and the item solidified.

The first thing she noticed wasn’t an ‘official’ power of the orb, but that her new spiritual connection to it allowed her to use [Blood Copy] with any plant inside it, so long as she wasn’t too far from the orb.

Convenient, but that wasn’t the main event, though.

Where once it had been able to hold and grow any herbs she harvested, it now allowed her to advance time inside slightly for a small, but constant stream of mana.

She was mulling that information over when even more came to her. She would also be able to separate areas, to grow things under more specific conditions, which was quite the useful effect. Together, it meant she could have a theoretically unlimited source of herbs and could experiment with them.

While neither effect was unique, they were useful and sought after, especially the time dilation effect. It was theoretically possible to do the same with a high Tier spatial ring, but it would be far, far more expensive, as everything the plants needed would have to be created by spells, whereas her orb handled it automatically.

It was why farming was done inside rifts and not enlarged spaces. It was too expensive to do inside a ring.

“So, next fort?”

“After we finish looting these guys! And after you tell me what your new item does!”

Liz surveyed the bloody battleground surrounding them, with its slowly-melting chunks of blood ice and the mangled corpses of the fools who tried to attack them. Well, their mistake turned into her new growth item.

Who knew, maybe the next large battle would bring with it another upgrade to her boon or her gear.

She certainly had a lot of those coming soon.