Nanomancer Reborn - I've Become A Snow Girl?

After leaving the mansion, the older Shiro did a bit of grocery shopping and put them away in her inventory which confused Shiro a little since in her mind, the inventory was tied together with the system.

However, after thinking about it for a bit, she realised she could probably do the same back in her own time with a bit of space manipulation since she had access to the rift.

Once her shopping was done, the older Shiro made a portal back to her house and placed the groceries into the fridge.

"Right then. First things first, we need to figure out which domain/anchor we want to be targeting. The Lightning Queen has quite a few places under her belt so we'll need to pick carefully. We'll need a few disguises too since most of her domains are filled with demi humans." The older Shiro smiled as she walked upstairs to her wardrobe and pulled out some fake beast ears and tails.

"Wait we're cosplaying?" Shiro raised her eyebrows.

"Of course. They'll figure out if we're using disguises after all. This is one of the easier options don't worry. However, it's also risky since they'll be quite pissed the moment they find out that these ears are fake." The older Shiro chuckled softly.

"I see…. So we're walking on thinner rope that we already are huh?" Shiro's smile twitched.

"Don't worry about it. Everything is okay." The older Shiro reassured, but it only served to further increase Shiro's stress.

'Is this what everyone else felt like when they had to deal with me? Damn…' She thought to herself as the older Shiro placed a pair of snow white fox ears on her.

"Ara, that's quite cute huh? If you had blue eyes instead it might bump up the cute factor." The older Shiro raised her eyebrow with a smile.

"Hm? What do you mean by that? Now that I think of it, I haven't seen what my third daughter looks like now have I?" Shiro paused before trying to look for a mirror.

Finding herself a small mirror by the side, she tried her best to walk over before examining herself.

Much like herself, Tia retained her snow white hair and delicate features. However, her eyes were different. The outside of her iris was lined with gold while the inside was filled with a beautiful ruby, making her eyes look like jewels.

"Wait, if Tia's eyes are slightly gold, does that mean I get together with Lil' Tian in the future?" Shiro asked.

"Maybe, maybe not. A few others get gold eyes as well later you know? Anyways, stop inquiring about my beloved already ok? We need to figure out a good tail for you to match the ears." The older Shiro shrugged it off as Shiro could tell that she wasn't lying.

"Fine fine. I'll figure it out myself when I get back then." Shiro sighed.

After spending a while to go through all the fake demi human parts, they found the perfect tail to match the ears that her older self had picked up.

Looking at herself in the mirror once more, Shiro had to admit that Tia looked quite cute as a fox girl. As for older self, let's just say she looked quite seductive as a fox woman.

"Like what you see?" The older Shiro smiled as she did a slight pose.

"It's not too bad." Shiro admitted with a smile.

"Alright. Let's go look for a good place to attack should the fight begin."

Walking over to the computer terminals, the older Shiro brought up a map of a few domains and anchors that the Lightning Queen owned.

"As you can see, most of her domains are located near mountainous areas since she has control over lightning. This also means that her subordinates are empowered by the natural advantage so you cannot take them at face value. They have an ability where they can channel lightning through their body's and become supercharged. In this state, their overall defences weaken but they become quite hard to pinpoint due to their speed. It's quite tough even for me unless I activate one of my berserk skills."

"Hmm… I see. Are you able to classify them into levels? Since the system is gone and all, how do you determine their strength?" Shiro asked.

"Through mana quality inside their bodies. You see, even after the system is gone, you can still detect mana through your own senses. Warrior had a harder time compared to mages but they could accomplish it to some degree. This made people hesitant to fight as they could accidently annoy someone much stronger than them. However, this made it so that people who were able to hide their mana could spring a surprise attack with ease and kill people." The older Shiro shook her head.

"I'm guessing they made a job like... sensor? Or something similar so that they can find out those that are hiding their powers."

"Yup you guessed it. And guess what? Aarim is pretty f*cking good at sensing people's true strengths. When she finally got used to sensing mana, she almost passed out from sensing mine haha."

"Don't mention that like it's nothing." Shiro said with a twitching smile.

"Well it is nothing. After all, we were already doing that despite the system making it easier. You see, we had an innate talent for sensing mana. However, for everyone else, the system was a natural helper. It made it easier for people to get stronger. A mage without the system may need years before they could even sense the mana while the system exposed people to mana since they were young, allowing them to become experts as teens. Hence why everyone's pissed at me for taking that guiding hand away. Unless you are born with an innate sense for mana, you have to spend years to even become 'level 10'. I've essentially crippled the human race in the new age."

"Do you regret it?" Shiro asked.

"Regret? No I don't. But I won't tell you the reason since it may change your choice and trust me, even though I don't regret it, I always think about what could change if I chose the other option." The older Shiro shook her head.

Seeing this, Shiro only nodded her head and respected her choices.

"Anyways, enough about the depressing subject. We've got a few choices for domains and anchors that we can infiltrate. I'll go with anchors first since they're the end goal. There are three small anchors that we can potentially go for. The West Indri Anchor located in the Indri mountain range, the Gortin Anchor located near the Gortin Thunder Valley and finally, the Raminia Anchor located in the Raminia Islands. They're roughly the same in terms of difficulty but it's probably best if we ignore the West Indri Anchor and the Gortin anchor since the area around those anchors is advantageous to them. However, it's nothing we can't overcome." The older Shiro explained.

"I'm guessing the Raminia Anchor is what we should go for then since it's on an island."

"Not quite. I said that it's an island but it's not near water. It's a collection of floating islands that hands above a giant chasm."

". . .So all of them are quite tough then."

"Yup. Never said it was easy now did I?" The older Shiro raised her eyebrows.

"No you did not. *Sigh…* So which one should we go for? After all, I won't be able to provide much help at the time of combat." Shiro asked.

"Considering the situation around each anchor, it's probably best that we go for Gortin since there's a period of time where the lightning fades from the Thunder Valley. Though when the lightning returns, it's twice as strong so we'll need to work fast if we were to choose Gortin. Raminia is a little annoying since it's always in the sky but should anything go wrong, we can hide in the chasm and escape through that way. Indri is a definite no go since the mountain range is dangerous even before the Lightning Queen took over but it has the weakest guardian out of the three anchors. Considering our manpower, I say we probably have the best chance of success with Gortin."

"Really? I think Indri is probably easier though. Since you said that it has the weakest guardian, you should be able to deal with him quite easily." Shiro raised her eyebrow.

"It's not the guardian that I'm afraid of. It's the big ass Kirin that lives there that I'm worried about. He's made a contract with the Lightning Queen so he'll give her a certain amount of help. Unless he leaves the mountain range, I can't do much about it." The older Shiro shook her head.

"Then if you suppose Misu can draw the Kirin away, we can get the anchor without any problems then?" Shiro narrowed her eyes.

Thinking about it for a moment, the older Shiro grinned.

"If the Kirin's gone, I can definitely tear the guardian a new one twice over and take the anchor."