"So, let's see if I get this right. If one of your blades dies, or it's like, broken, it takes four days for it to recover? But if you dismiss it at the right moment, you can call it back again without any delay. Is that it?" Laika asked.

"That's about it. But it seems like how long it takes for a blade to recover depends on how much mana I used to summon them. Lurize, for instance, would take 5 days instead of 4…. Damn, was that real or just special effects? That one must have hurt," Hera was on the floor, sitting in front of the couch. Daskka and the guides were seated above her while watching an old martial arts movie.

"I don't know. That one seems real. You can see the sparks flying from the lights. Can you go back a little? I think we can see the actor shaking his hands after leaving that kiosk," Nina asked, but Hera just passed her tablet to her. The Kobold played with the player a bit until the moment she was looking for appeared on the screen, "There. Can you see the people running to help him? I don't think that was part of the script."

"Oh shit, you're right!" Laika gasped, paying attention to the movie again.

"You know… that voice is familiar. Are there any other big movies that the actor did, honey?" a raccoon wearing a pair of jeans, booty shorts, and a red and white flannel shirt tied in front to show some nonexistent cleavage spoke in a heavy southern accent while tapping Hera's shoulder.

"He does a lot of martial arts movies, Ms. Jaquelyn. The ones more serious are mostly in Chinese, and those in English are more comedy-like. He had that one where he was an immigrant and met a cowboy, one he was a cop in L.A. and stuff like that," Hera explained, focusing on the movie again.

"No, no, no. It was someone else. I clearly remember a man wearing a blue shirt. And please, call me Jackie, sweetheart."

"I think you're talking about the animated series. There's something with like the Chinese horoscope, and medallions or something like that?" Nina turned to the side.

Laika quickly pulled up a holographic screen and searched for the cartoon they were talking about, "Is this it?"

Jackie nodded, "That's the one! Thank you kindly. I wonder why they stopped making that show. I don't remember if it ended."

"I don't know either," Hera replied after thinking for a moment. She remembered the cartoon, but she had never watched the last episode.

Daskka jumped from the couch and landed on Hera's lap, closing her eyes. It was already really late. Hera was only here in her private room to talk to the guides, and tomorrow, she would finally reach Boothudurn again. It was odd, even if the dwarven city was her home for only a year, a time considerably smaller than any of the other places she lived in, going back felt like going back home from a vacation. For the first time in her life, she wasn't dreading going to a place where people knew her. Her father would be there, her friends, the dwarves, and Silah. Even if they were fighting, Hera still loved her girlfriend very much.

"Guys, do you mind if we leave it here for tonight? Daskka is tired, and so am I. Not to mention I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow," Hera turned to the three guides behind her.

"Well, of course, honey. We forget that you need sleep. That kind of thing happens with age. If you let us, we would stay here for a week," Jackie laughed and jumped down from the couch, grabbing her cowboy hat that was on the side.

Laika nodded, "That's true. And thanks for hosting girls' night. It's been a while since I did something like that."

"Me too. And I'll see if Talpa wants to come next time," Nina got up from the couch.

"Hey. Don't worry. I enjoy your company very much. I just asked because I still haven't heard from her. I mean, there was that first message, and then that was it," Hera felt bad about that. She never wanted to make Nina sad by bringing up her sister.

"Don't worry, I know you don't tell me anything by that. And for what's worth, we are doing better, just not great," Nina sighed.

"I'm glad. I know how hard things have been for you because of the fight," Hera wanted to give the Kobold a hug, but she couldn't find an opening to do so.

Hera walked the guides to the door and sent them off before going to take a bath. She let Daskka sleep on the bed like she was getting used to doing. The reason why Hera was using her private room instead of a hotel was that currently, there were no rooms available in the hotels in the area. They only managed to find a single room with a single bed, and since Hera had an alternative, Alex was the one to stay in the room. If they wanted it, they could have both come here to sleep. Hera was able to edit her room to have either a king-size bed or two single beds. However, they've been sleeping in the same room for over a month already and both of them wanted some time to themselves. That also helped Hera talk to the guides without worrying about giving you an excuse as to why she was going alone in her private room.

While lying in the tub, she did a mental check of what she had learned about the legacy. She could control her blades at a fair distance, and she could be daisy chaining them to increase the range of control; however, doing that hindered their abilities. If she attached all the blades to Yarnball, she could use different mana reinforcements in the blades, but that was very mana hungry. It wasn't like how she wielded the weapon herself. Turning on and off at a moment's notice to save mana was a very complicated thing to do with her blades.

Another thing she learned was that each blade took some time to recover after being destroyed. Also, that didn't have a scale. They were either destroyed, and they would need time to recover, or they were fine and could be summoned again at any point. Lastly, and this was something that Hera was really excited about, if she attached a string from Yarnball in her glove and then to each other blades, all of her weapons would have to fire buff given by the gloves. Since the string could pass through objects, she wouldn't have to worry about accidentally making her blades wrap around random obstacles, but she had yet to figure out how to not have her own movement hindering her court while they were all connected.

After finishing her bath, Hera started cleaning up her room. Even if all the dirt and garbage would be tossed out when she came out of the room, she had come to realize that if there were some people around the doorway she had used, that would cause some problems. Hera didn't mind that. There was something therapeutic about cleaning up your room after the party. Well, that was considering a small party she just had with a few guides. If he was anything bigger than that, the feeling would probably change.

When Hera finished putting all the trash in the bag, a notification popped up in front of her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Level Up

Current Level: 26

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hera Kingsley -- Role: Explorer Level: 26

Legacy: Court of Blades [Blades]

Stats:

Strength: 68 Endurance: 68

Agility: 68 Charisma: 68

Intelligence: 68 Luck: 68

Mana: 12012/45222

Remaining attribute points: 96

Skills:

Legacy:

Court Ruler, Courtship, Bestow Title

Passive:

Exponential Growth

Observe: Red sight 3

Treasure Map

Handaxe Combat 3, Chakram Combat 2, Wire Trap Style 2, Subtle Strike 3, Naga style 2

Dodge 2, Run 3, Improved Stamina 4, Flee 2, Jump 2

Mana Recovery 4, Mana sensitivity 2, Shaper of Mana, Reinforced Mana

Improved Regeneration 3

Ailment Mastery 3, Poison Mastery 2, Allergy Mastery 1

Earth resistance 1, Wind resistance 2, Water resistance 1, Sturdy Body 1

Naga poison 2

Nature connection 1

Silver Lining 2

Ancient language 5

Active:

All in 2

Inspect 2

Hide 3, Sneak Attack 3

Weapon Maintenance 2, Weapons Rebalance 2, Weapon break

Etching 2

Medical Reference 2, Identify Ailment 1

Green Thumb 2

Chain of Command 3

Role Skills:

Local Guide

Private Room, Meeting Room

Explorer's Assassinate

Explorer's Map

Hunter's Catalogue, Explorer's Hunt

Explorer's Research

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Holy hell. 96 Points?" Hera gasped while staring at her status window. She did a quick search, wondering how she got that many points, and it seemed like going to a new room would net her a bonus point. Considering that she crossed something close to 50 rooms, it made sense. Adding that to the 27 points she would get just for leveling up, she had an idea where most of her points came from, but there were still some with seemingly no explanation. Maybe your legacy gives her some extra points. She had no idea if people who got legacies would get a bonus or not. This was a problem with having a legacy. Everybody was very guarded about sharing information, so everything she knew or wanted to know had to be figured out by herself. Well, by herself and people she already knew had legacies, such as Shane and Ninelyn. She could probably ask them for some help to figure things out, but she wanted to tell her friends first. So far, Hera had avoided mentioning anything about the legacy to Helena, Blue, Bonnie, or even Silah, wanting to tell them personally about it. Either way, she wasn't going to complain about her bonus points.

She used her [Exponential Growth] skill to increase all her attributes to 74, leaving 8 points for the next level. It's been a long time since she had such a big increase in her stats at once. While she was staring at her status window, a voice came from under the covers.

"You…no…sleep?" it was Daskka. She was trying to speak more often about things unrelated to the legacy.

Hera walked towards the bed and carefully laid down and snuggled with the snake before closing her eyes to sleep. She was about 4 rooms away from Boothudurn, and if everything went well, she would be home by dinner time tomorrow.

Unfortunately, they only arrived in the middle of the night. It was 3 A.M. when Hera and Alex finally crossed the doorway. A couple of the dwarven guards who would be by the city entrance recognized the two and greeted them with big smiles, asking about what happened during their trip. Alex wasn't much in the mood for talking, but Hera obliged, telling a couple of short stories. She quickly changed the subject to ask if anything had happened in this city, and it seemed like everything was OK to a point. Some people from the guild were coming to the city regularly to perform inspections and ensure that everything was running smoothly, but the way they acted made some of the guards uncomfortable. That was also creating some tension with the council, but the guard didn't know much more about it.

After thanking them, the explorers headed out to their final destination, home. Oddly enough, this last leg of their journey, the 10 minutes it took them to walk from the doorway to their house, seemed to last ages. When they finally arrived, everyone was already asleep. Hera noticed some paperwork on the table and even an envelope with an official-looking stamp on top of it, but her sleepiness overcame her curiosity, and she headed back to her room on the second floor.

Hera and Alex slept in the next morning, waking up well past noon. Yet the moment one of them emerged from their room, they were met by the entire group waiting for them excitedly. What followed were a lot of hugs, greetings, and questions about what happened. Hera, who was the first to get up, told them about her legacy and about Kirouhebi. She also added some information about Alex's curse, which worried everyone. It was a good moment to discuss that without having to worry about Alex getting excited talking about it. About one hour later, the assassin was the one who came from the bedroom, and Hera finally received a message from Silah telling her that she was done with her work for the day and hoped they could meet and talk.

"Now that Alex is here, she will talk about what happened on the trip, and I'm going to see Silah," Hera quickly got up from the couch.

"You haven't seen her yet?" Blue had a surprised expression.

"No, we got here at 3 A.M. I wasn't going to wake her up then. I did send a message, but she only replied when I was sleeping, and now she's off work," Hera explained.

"That's fair. Oh, and don't forget to say hi to your dad later. Also…" Bonnie paused for a moment, "He and my mom are roommates for now."

Hera stopped in her tracks. She never considered the idea of her dad having a roommate, "That's… something to unpack. I'll deal with that later. I wanna see my girlfriend," she tabled that discussion for a different time just as she left the house.