Maria had locked herself inside of her chambers so that she could go through all of the rewards she obtained from successfully finishing all of her ongoing quests. First of all, she had obtained 7 Faction Surprise Boxes which she needed to open. 5 of those faction boxes dropped a few dungeon-related items and they were Upgrade Scrolls that directly gave her dungeon upgrade nodes for her units and constructs.
[Unit ATK UP Lv.1], [Unit DEF UP Lv.2], [Unit HP Buff Lv.1], and [Touch of Midas Lv.1], were the 4 unit research scrolls she obtained from the 5 mystery boxes.
The Faction Surprise Box gave her a construct development scroll and it was called [Magic Pillar]. It was apparently a device she could build and install inside of her dungeon for defensive purposes. The device was a sort of sentry gun in the form of a pillar that fired [Magic Missiles] at nearby enemies. It wasn’t something anyone in the game had seen in a dungeon before, so if Maria installed it inside her dungeon, it could likely catch the players off guard at the right moment.
Name: Magic Pillar Level: 1 M.ATK: 100 ~ 200
DEF: 100
M. DEF: 200
A. SPD: 3 seconds
Durability: 10,000 Level-Up Requirement: Reinforced Armor Lv.1, Magic Circuit Lv.1 Description: Fires [Magic Missiles] at all targets within range. It can only be placed on surfaces that are made of stone material or better. Upgrade options: [Flame Pillar], [Ice Pillar], [Thunder Pillar], or [Finer Magic Pillar] Note** Once a particular [Magic Pillar] is upgraded, it cannot be reversed or changed!
It was the first time Maria saw what a construct was, so she immediately used the scroll and obtained the [Magic Pillar] defensive device which she started installing in a few areas throughout her castle. The changes on the 1st through 3rd floors were reflected in her Instance Dungeon only after she updated the preset and waited 24 hours.
For now, Maria wasn’t going to update the Instance Dungeon just yet until she leveled up the [Magic Pillars] a bit more. At level 1, the damage was just way too weak, so what she did was immediately unlock the required [Construct Research] nodes, [Reinforced Armor] and [Magic Circuit] before upgrading them.
Maria had so much Faction Currency after completing her quests that she didn’t have to worry about money at all. She immediately bought all of the available research nodes after using her dungeon-related scrolls and immediately spent her money on leveling them all up to level 1.
Now here comes the problem. From level 1 to level 2, the time needed for completion was actually 24 hours, so she had to be very careful on what to pick next to level up because there was a maximum of 2 research slots she could use for all of the dungeon research options.
Since Maria wanted to upgrade her [Magic Pillar], she naturally had to use the two slots for her [Construct Research] on [Reinforced Armor Lv. 2] and [Magic Circuit Lv. 2]. As for the 2 slots for her [Unit Research and Development], she chose [Unit ATK UP Lv. 2], and [Touch of Midas Lv. 2].
It was always better to have more Unit ATK power and more gold flowing into her pockets, so she just went with them as the research nodes didn’t really seem too urgent to upgrade. She was quite lucky that the DEF UP node was already at level 2 thanks to the scroll she obtained. She had become so immersed in reading all of the Dungeon upgrade nodes and arranging a few small things in her dungeon that time went by rather quickly for Maria without her noticing it because she was being so focused. Once she sorted everything out, she quickly continued on to inspect her other quest rewards.
The two remaining Faction Surprise Boxes only gave her some rare materials and faction currency, so she didn’t need to dwell on those for too long. The next item on the list that was still related to her dungeon was the [Heroic Soldier Recruitment Scroll], which allowed her to recruit a Hero-rank Unit for her dungeon. She already had a few of these Hero-rank Units because she had used her subordinates and the soldiers from her personnel army to fill in the ranks of her dungeon, so she didn’t need to use the item right away.
Maria decided to stow the scroll away for now and move on to the 3 remaining items on the list, the [Jewel of Power], [Origin Blood Arts Tablet], and the [Vampire Duke’s Sigil].
The first article, the [Jewel of Power]. When Maria saw the beautiful red jewel in her hand, she thoughtfully began tapping her chin after taking a closer look at it and realizing that it was very familiar in shape. Her eyes flashed in realization as she quickly took out an item that she had only been using as a cosmetic accessory until now, the [Crown of the Dire].
Item Name: Crown of the Dire Level: 128 (Level increases according to user's level) Rank: Epic Category: Unique Faction Accessory DEF: 200 +5% All Stats (Locked)
+5 LCK (Locked)
+50% EXP Gain (Locked)
+50% Drop Rate (Locked) Description: The first player faction's crown, it is a unique existence that can grant a player or an NPC authority over the Dire. There is currently only 1 jewel on this crown so many of its options have been locked
The red jewel in her hand had the same shape as the jewel that was currently mounted on the crown that she had obtained quite a long time ago. Although she never used it on a daily basis, she would always wear the crown whenever she had a meeting with her subordinates or was forced to attend a formal gathering in her nation because it was her symbol of authority and status.
The crown was delegated as a piece of ordinary jewelry that was used on occasion because all of its stats were sealed since not just any jewel could be mounted onto it and since she never found the correct jewels to use, Maria stopped thinking about it. She never would've guessed that the first jewel she found was something that came as a reward from an extremely high-ranked quest.
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*DING*
The [Jewel of Power] can be mounted onto the [Crown of the Dire]! Would you like to mount the jewel? Y/N
"Yes sa~"
*DING*
You have unlocked a portion of the crown's power! Crown of the Dire's item window has been updated!
Item Name: Crown of the Dire Level: 128 (Level increases according to user's level) Rank: Epic Category: Unique Faction Accessory DEF: 1000
M.DEF: 1000 +5% All Stats
+5 LCK
+50% EXP Gain (Locked)
+50% Drop Rate (Locked) Item Skill: Transform - Can transform according to the user's will Description: The first player faction's crown, it is a unique existence that can grant a player or an NPC authority over the Dire. There is currently 2 jewels on this crown, the Jewel of Beginnings and the Jewel of Power. Currently, it is not in its complete state, so a portion of its options are still locked
After Maria had mounted the [Jewel of Power] onto the [Crown of the Dire], it had changed and became shinier than before and some options as well as an item skill had been unlocked. First off, the 2 most important options, the 5 percent increase to all of her stats and the 5 additional LCK, had finally been unlocked which made the previously useless item usable now.
"Awesome!"
The item's skill wasn't anything too fancy. It just changed the form of the crown to whatever shape Maria wanted and she immediately used it to change its shape and make it look similar to her horns. Now, she wore the crown over her horns and after looking at herself in the mirror, she nodded with a smile since it made the 'spikes' on her head look more beautiful and less scary.
Maria didn't really care too much about the status increase the crown provided her. She was only concerned if it made her look even prettier or not and thankfully, the crown didn't disappoint. After she was satisfied admiring herself in the mirror, she finally turned her attention to the next item.
The next item on the list was the [Origin Blood Arts Tablet], which basically held a long list of vampire-race abilities and Blood Art skills. Unfortunately, because she wasn’t a true vampire despite, ironically enough, being the vampires' [Blood Empress], she couldn’t learn some of the more advanced vampire-race abilities since it required her to be a purebred in order to use them. However, she could still learn the other Blood Art skills that didn't require her to be a pureblood. There was a limited number of skills she could learn, so Maria only picked the two most advanced Blood Art skills that she could learn, the [Blood Ray] skill and the [Crimson Wave] skill.
Now came the last item, the [Vampire Duke’s Sigil]. This sigil was naturally the item that a vampire needed in order to promote themselves from Marquess-rank to Duke-rank and at the moment, Maria didn't know who to give it to. Originally, this should've gone to Alexa, but since she had already plundered a previous Vampire Duke of their sigil, she no longer needed it.
Since her little vampire sister didn't need it and no one else among her subordinates was qualified or even had any use for it, Maria decided to store the sigil away for now. Perhaps in the future, a promising subordinate might appear who will be worthy of the Vampire Duke's sigil.
Speaking about vampire dukes, after Alexa finished assimilating the sigil currently in her possession, Maria would have 4 Vampire Dukes in total. It was quite intriguing that Elizabeth still held the rank of Blood Queen instead of being demoted to a Vampire Duke or Vampire Marquess, but nevertheless, she was under Maria, who was the Blood Empress. This was rather fortunate because this allowed Elizabeth to retain her powers as a Blood Queen, making her just a bit stronger than the Vampire Dukes.
She no longer had the Demon Sword Garm anymore, so she wouldn’t be able to display the overwhelming power she had when Maria and her party first encountered her, but that was alright. As long as she had powerful, loyal subordinates by her side, Maria was happy. After putting away the rewards she didn't have any immediate use for, Maria finally finished tallying up her quest rewards.
She exited the Ancestral Blood Hall after finalizing everything and accumulated a total of 54 EXP buff stacks, which gave her a 54% increase to her EXP gain for the next 6 hours. Noticing that 54 in-game hours had gone by, Maria realized that she had spent more time in the hall than she had originally intended.
“Oh no! I forgot about my plan to rebuild the city!”
Making so many small and fine adjustments to her dungeon after receiving her quest rewards had taken up more of her time than she expected. Maria quickly rushed out and went to the first floor after contacting Ash and her other subordinates to gather at the castle immediately. They all dropped whatever they were doing and returned to the castle a few minutes later to greet their Empress.
“Your Highness, what do you need from us?” Elizabeth asked.
She was currently the highest-ranking Vampire in the room and, since their race strictly followed a hierarchy, only she was the one that was currently allowed to address Maria, while the others had to remain silent until Maria allowed them to speak. If this was in a private situation, it was without a doubt that Ash would’ve been the one to greet her, but since they were in a public area, they needed to follow the hierarchy to set an example for Maria's other subordinates.
“I was too immersed with my own things for the past few days and now that I've finished, I came to ask about the city’s rebuilding.”
“You do not need to worry about that, Your Highness,” Elizabeth said before further reporting, “The plans have started according to the schedule that you have set. All of the previous residents have been moved away and are living in District Baobhan or have decided to relocate elsewhere, while Sir Dwarfsong has already begun tearing down District Dracul.”
“Ah, that’s a relief. Good job,” Maria said. Good thing, all of her people were very competent. This made it so that she didn't need to worry about anything, which was a relief.
“The district is still being deconstructed so it will take some time before the reconstruction starts. Is there anything that Your Highness would like to ask of us until then?”
“No, that is all, but I do have to address the matter of rewarding my people now,” Maria said. She stretched her hand out and a thick scroll appeared in her hand. “Bring all of the people marked in this list to the hall. They’ve contributed a great deal to the war and deserve to be personally rewarded by me.”
Elizabeth went up and took the document Maria had pulled out from her [Book Keeping Inventory]. It was quite an extensive list and Elizabeth was surprised that Maria was able to list out so many people and even remembered all of their contributions so detailedly. The system had been monitoring all of her subordinates’ progress and contributions, so she could just pull out all the names from there even though she didn’t specifically know any of those people on her list.
The next few days were going to be busy for her since she’d have to reward over a few thousand people, but that was fine. She needed to clearly show everyone that she was the type of person who took care of her subordinates and didn't only see them as tools she could use to meet her ends.
“Ash, step up. You’ll be the one at my side announcing the people’s contribution as we hand them their rewards," Maria said.
Seeing that it was finally his time to do something, Ash stood up and replied, “Yes, Your Highness.”