In the evening, Copper Skin and the other mechanical dolls in the kingdom went to great lengths to hold a welcome ceremony for their two distant guests. Aside from sitting together to recharge their magical energy from storage boxes, Yvette also witnessed various performances put on by the dolls, such as juggling beanbags in a clown-like manner or performing opera.
Although these performances were quite terrible from a human perspective—rigid movements, wooden line delivery, and beanbags occasionally landing on the audience— the dolls were undeniably happy. This joyful atmosphere had an infectious quality, lifting Yvette’s spirits considerably.
She felt that at least, as an audience member, the dolls’ laughter seemed genuine and not merely a compliance with their predetermined roles.
After the welcome ceremony ended, watching the busy dolls tidying up, Yvette felt as if she had forgotten something.
This feeling of confusion lingered until she had settled in her newly cleaned room prepared by Copper Skin for the night.
The next morning, as she stepped outside, she saw a black dragon covered in snow, tethered with a rope and curled up at the side of the trailer. That was when it finally dawned on her what she had forgotten.
In the hall of the air-raid shelter, she had seen a sealed iron door; if that door were opened, Dugrabi could come inside. But the welcome ceremony had drawn all her attention, and by the time it was over, she had completely forgotten that a black dragon was waiting outside in solitude, even neglecting to untie the rope to let it hunt for dinner.
“Sorry for the trouble,” Yvette said, walking over to release the rope.
Dugrabi didn’t know how to respond, turning its head away in silence.
Compared to the humiliation felt while pulling the cart, this sense of grievance was perhaps even stronger.
“I didn’t mean to,” Yvette said, standing next to it, looking at its frost-covered back, offering another apology.
Dugrabi remained silent, deciding to play the part of a taciturn old horse. Horses don’t talk to humans; they simply work hard and swallow all their grievances.
“What do you want?” Yvette said, feeling a bit exasperated. She really wasn’t good at comforting children. Although this black dragon was nearly a hundred years old, in terms of the 2000-year lifespan of dragons, it could very well be considered a five-year-old child.
Dugrabi felt a flicker of motivation; this seemed like a good opportunity to ask to be accepted as an apprentice. Perhaps this third-rate wild god would agree. But recalling last night’s restless, cold, and hungry winter night, its mood soured again. It turned its head, still not speaking.
Yvette waited a moment longer, but seeing the black dragon still unresponsive, she decided to give up for now. Rational analysis suggested that this wasn’t a good time for communication.
She asked Copper Skin to open the iron door so that Dugrabi could come in and rest whenever it wanted, and then turned her thoughts to exploring Cookes.
First and foremost, she needed to ensure safety. The mysterious Spider Woman’s ability to shatter the magical barrier of the magical machine soldier with a single blow indicated that her own defensive spells were also at high risk of being breached. If she didn’t want to rely on hardened tentacle defenses all the time, she needed to find ways to enhance the protective effectiveness of the Crimson Armor.
This was certainly achievable. During the last month in her dreams, she had been quite inexperienced with the engine, basically equivalent to a complete newbie. While she had roughly completed upgrades on the elemental magical techniques of ice, fire, wind, and thunder, as well as the specifications for the three physical techniques of Crimson Armor, Muscle Limit Break, and Regeneration Pump, the results were bound to be subpar due to the rushed enhancements and her inexperienced knowledge in the field of engines.
She was aware of this, which was why, during the upgrade process, she had basically only upgraded the structure, while leaving the details beneath the structure largely blank, awaiting her further refinement and filling in.
Now, she could finally fill in those details based on current needs.
Time flowed like the mist outside the valley, quietly dissipating, and before long, Yvette had been in Cookes for over three months.
During this time, she had focused primarily on improving and fine-tuning the Crimson Armor. Given the 100,000 specifications limitation, defensive capabilities had their limits, so she mainly worked on overlapping techniques, effectively layering the same technique onto herself twice to achieve effects beyond her current specifications.
In terms of elemental techniques, this was not difficult; it merely required adding an additional rune ring. But for continuous self-enhancement techniques, this required a special structure that could achieve the effects of the 100,000 specifications—one of the reasons Yvette had been adamant about upgrading the structure in the first place.
She even planned to design an auxiliary stacking technique that could barely fit within the 100,000 specifications. If this stacking technique could be successfully developed, it would mean she would have four layers of nested protections, significantly enhancing her safety. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝•𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾•𝘯𝘦𝘵
Of course, the cost would be a multiplied expenditure of magical energy, but fortunately, as a natural mage with over 2,000 magical energy points, such a cost was bearable for her.
Meanwhile, Ice Rain and Dugrabi were gradually adapting to the local living conditions.
First, Ice Rain’s ability to integrate was unquestionable; being a legitimate member of the mechanical tribe and a new generation magical doll of the Sky Kingdom, her experiences along the way provided a wealth of topics to draw upon. Within days, she became a figure of prominence in the kingdom.
As for Dugrabi, the mysterious and powerful beast, his situation was entirely different. Perhaps due to its intimidating appearance, resembling a powerful mutated creature, few dolls dared to approach him. Combined with his disdain for these rudimentary alchemical beings, he often pretended to snort to scare off nearby dolls, leading most of the kingdom’s residents to keep their distance.
However, one exception was a mechanical girl named Jasmine, who, through tireless effort, had become slightly familiar with Dugrabi. Although their communication was limited to body language, after several failed attempts to scare her away, Dugrabi eventually gave up and occasionally allowed Jasmine to clean his hard-to-reach back. Although he complained about it vocally, he appeared to enjoy it.
Time flew, and the quiet passage of time brought the second winter, blanketing the valley in snow once again; a whole year had passed just like that.
During this period, with the air-raid shelter shielding them from the passing Mountain Whales, no dangers befell the kingdom. Ice Rain also remembered the advice of the local residents and refrained from delving deep into Cookes. Instead, she chose to explore archaeological sites in nearby towns and communities, gradually covering the surrounding areas of Cookes.
Dugrabi did nothing in particular; as a member of a race endowed with remarkable abilities, as long as he ate normally, his magical energy would naturally grow with age. At some point, he would automatically awaken dragon-speech magic without any effort required.
Most of his days comprised wandering nearby with Jasmine and a few other mechanical dolls that had child-like designs, visiting the nearby remnants of human civilization, exploring old mines, or gazing at the collapsed skeletons of massive human structures in the distance.
Finally, after a year spent mostly confined within the trailer or air-raid shelter, Yvette ventured outside one clear morning to stretch as she gazed at the silhouette of Cookes, shrouded in mist and appearing like a mirage.
Finally completed, she thought, she now possessed a four-layer Crimson Armor for protection.
With such a defensive capability, the mysterious Spider Woman shouldn’t be able to shatter it in one blow, right? And as long as she could find a gap, she could re-cast her spells to layer the four layers of protection back up, avoiding fatal injuries.
Should she set off tonight? Perhaps to explore the mysteries of the city center in Cookes? To gather some intelligence?
She felt a flicker of temptation, but soon, as she gazed at the snowy landscape before her, fragmented and unpleasant memories began to surface in her mind.
No, her preparations were still not thorough enough. Who knew what kind of monsters or secrets were hidden in that place? Even the divine envoys under the mechanical god had suffered severe damage; how could she afford to be careless?
Moreover, the four-layer protection had yet to be tested in real combat. Who knew if hidden bugs would arise?
Just in case, she should refine the most lethal thunder elemental technique as well. With the extreme four-layer protection in place, she also needed extreme four stages of thunder.
Next year, when both her attack and defense methods met the conditions, she could explore without any delays.