When Hera walked into Deakoshara again, it was raining, which was perfect for her to test the effects of the poison resistance set she got. To use the last piece of gear, the jeweled poison. She requested a belt with an empty slot which was very easy to get. In addition to a cut mana stone in the shape of a feather, courtesy of the harpy queen. That rock could store about 12 million mana. This was smaller than Hera's own mana pool. And her Empress core had already passed that. Reaching over 15 million mana.
She was also a long way from reaching the 56 million mana, which would allow her to add a new court member in the near future, but she wasn't entirely sure if she was going to do that. Then again, it would just increase the cost of the next addition, but that was something for her to think about later, likely even after the next time she was going to swap out her court members.
Right now, the empress was taking the weirdest shower rain that she ever took. Not because she was rubbing her tail on the large pools formed on the ground, but because this was a poison rain. Something supposed to kill anyone who was standing for long enough in it. Yet, she was completely fine. She needed the extra poison resistance that came with her new set of items, the ones she spent so long trying to get. But thanks to that, she was able to enjoy this feeling without a worry.
Lurize was by her side, doing the same. Just smiling under his helmet while taking in all the droplets of poison that fell from the sky. It was quite peaceful, especially since it made the entire forest become quiet, almost as if every single thing that lived here was trying to hide from the poisonous rain.
Lurize and Hera were the only two people who could enjoy this, who could move around and breathe it, or at least some of the only two people they had seen so far who could do that kind of thing. Not just saying that others were not trying. Shane had also come around to test if she could withstand the poison rain with her own set, which she could to a certain extent.
The addition of the set item did not make her completely immune to the poison rain as it did to Hera and Lurize, but it did reduce it enough that a regeneration enchantment she knew how to use could handle the rest.
But it wasn't something pleasant to do. She had to boost her own recovery abilities so she could heal faster, or, in this case, withstand the damage being caused by the constant rain of poison without dying. She had tested this before and the enchanter could stay in the rain for about 1 hour and her regeneration enchantment would still keep up with the amount of damage she was taking.
It would be torture as she felt her entire body being consumed by the poison while actively trying to recover from all the damage, but she could do it. However, after an hour, the poison buildup became too strong, as there was too much poison inside her body to properly heal and the damage it would cause would start to increase considerably.
Although, time wasn't really the issue here, but how toxic the poison was. While that was true for Shane, the Empress couldn't feel anything, even after staying in the pouring rain for over 2 hours. She became drenched from head to toe with even her clothes, which were the same clothes she was going to use for the actual travel, were completely dyed in green thanks to the rain, and she was just doing fine.
Better than that, she was feeling refreshed with every droplet that hit her body. She was entirely sure it was due to her affinity with poison or the way that her specific type of poison could even buff her stats, but there was something going on that made this feel like the best hot springs that she ever felt, even if the poison was rather cold.
Once she was confident enough that the poison wouldn't be a bother, the empress went back to her private room and took a shower to prepare for the journey ahead. It wasn't strictly necessary, but it was more something that she wanted to do since she had no idea how long it would take before she was able to have a nice, warm shower again.
She got dressed in the new set of gear that she had. A long-sleeved shirt made to increase the defenses of her scales. A pair of drake scale pants which also synergized with her scales, increasing their own defenses and taking on some of the elemental properties of Hera herself, and a cloak that could keep her warm even in very cold nights or keep her cold if the environment was too hot. In addition to a pair of boots that allowed her to glide through pretty much any surface, as long as the height difference between steps wouldn't be more than four centimeters. Basically, as long as she was not climbing actual stairs, she would be able to glide through the floor and use her same combat style.
She didn't get this set of gear for free. It was a gift from Typhera and Nereus. The harpy queen wanted to get something as a thank you for her participation in the event, and after the triton's little experiments, Nereus was also requested by the council to join in on the payment for this set of equipment since it seemed like he had more than enough money to spare. The sovereign took his punishment in stride and changed the cloak that Typhera wanted to give to Hera first. Instead of going for something that could help her during a fight, they made sure that their Hera afterwards would always be comfortable no matter the situation.
In addition, they also gave her a smaller version of the inflatable tent that her previous team was using. This one could fit in a single disc about the size of a coaster and have her set up a full two-people tent with not just the same benefits as Hera's old one but also a water filtration system, a way to heat up water. Although there was not an actual shower to use. And more robust defensive mechanisms in case of a monster attack. Basically, it was a version made for explorers who were going to unknown wilds, places that no one has gone before and no one was able to figure out what was going on, which was perfect for what Hera wanted to use it for.
They also promised to help her get in contact with a few Crafters for when she needed to replace her blades. Hera had told the council some of the details of her legacy. Namely, the need to change her court members with some frequency. And she was getting closer to when she would need to do something like that. As usual, that was the part of her Legacy that Hera hated the most.
She understood it.
Of course she did, especially considering how much her blades were starting to affect her feelings. And not just that, but she was starting to struggle to tune out their voices at any moment where the entire court was out. The cacophony made things much more complicated, especially if she was trying to have them all behave.
Asking Daskka about it, Hera found out that was apparently going to happen every time. It was something her legacy would do with the blades. Once she had outgrown past the blade, the longer each individual blade stayed, the more they would interfere with everything else that Hera wanted to do. That is, if their attributes gained from her were below what they should be. When they were in the right attribute range, she didn't have to worry about that at all.
But still, after confirming that being in the rain wouldn't harm her and making sure that her supplies were safely secured in an enchanted bag to stop any kind of liquid from reaching them, Hera started her journey back to the lake. And while Lurize and Hera were the two people who were most comfortable being covered in rain, the rest of her blades also gained the benefits of the poison resistance that she had. Even though, to them, the poison rain wasn't as comfortable as it was to the two people who were basically one with that element.
She left the doorway while riding Nimbus and in record time, even with the rain, she reached the poison lake. That massive pool of green water that seemed to be poisoning everything it touched. Even the surrounding land was covered in that green tint. It was hard to tell if that was happening only because the ground was absorbing the liquid or if the earth itself had begun to become part of the lake somehow.
But once it was time to get in the water, the empress didn't go diving in on her own. Instead, Lurize stepped in first testing to see if the poison set was enough to protect them from that highly concentrated poison. He walked into the water, and at first, that seemed to work. He wasn't almost immediately affected by the poison as it happened last time. Unfortunately, their happiness was short-lived.
Hera understood that rushing him could cause problems, so she left Lurize with his feet underwater for about 20 minutes and that's when the truth revealed itself. He started to get hurt by the poison. Even with all the poison resistance gear they were using and their own version of the skill, this was still not enough to make them completely immune to the concentrated version of poison inside that lake.
He stepped out and went back into the palace to recover from the poison with Hera, leaving him for a few minutes just to be sure there would be no problems with his abilities after that small amount of damage taken by the Royal Tutor. Then, she pulled her Relic Ariadne, and asked a question, pumping all the 12 million points of mana that were in the mana stone she got.
"Show me in my map the location of whatever is making this lake be filled with poison if it is inside the lake."
Hera felt the mana rushing into her relic and the screen flickered for a moment before an arrow appeared. Just as she asked, there was a compass guiding her to the correct location and, by the looks of it, she had to actually swim into the lake to find it. The empress was honestly surprised by that since the way she phrased the question was terrible. She had prepared something else, but her court was talking too much, which distracted the Empress. But she wasn't about to look at a gift horse in the mouth and decided to call Livy so they could start setting up the plan.
They did their best to figure out where exactly the makeshift compass was pointing to, especially since it wasn't showing directly on Hera's treasure map. But it was hard to say, since the lake was so massive. Even on foot, it would probably take maybe an hour to cross from one side to the other, and that was only if the massive land in the center was the actual water side of the lake and not just an island inside of it.
The empress even tried a couple of other things. First using Ariadne once more, more specifically the actual [Echolocation] skill. But that resulted in nothing. The skill wasn't able to properly traverse underwater. Or at least, there was nothing so close to the surface that the mana pulse could reach.
Aside from that, she also had her court spread out as far as they could in the lake and then drop the [Blade Accords] the chains that wrapped around each individual blade, down into the water. Lastly, she triggered the pulse spell, hoping that maybe that would give her any semblance of an idea what was waiting for underneath the waters. But even then, there was nothing.
Either the skill couldn't find anything in the range that they had, the water, more specifically the poison, was too dense to allow for anything to go through, or the element created by this lake was interfering with the magic that Hera was trying to cast. Either way, it meant that the only thing that she could do was to plunge into the depths together with her court and hope for the best.
After a moment of psyching themselves up, Livy transformed into her sea serpent form while Hera climbed on top of her and activated the poison impermeability effect of the set, making sure that no poison could touch her body. Then, the two of them dove into the water, vanishing underneath the green liquid that covered the entire lake.