Chapter 279: Grand Runemaster
Her chest was noticeably bigger... her breasts swelling against her white arcanist robes to an eye-popping voluminous size that gave her a far more shapely hourglass figure.
Her waist was noticeably slimmer, her hips flared out in a perfect sweeping curve, and her entire posture radiated an effortless grace that belied her previous timidness.
But that wasn’t the only thing.
Her physical body felt lighter than it ever had in her entire life.
She felt as though she was no longer bound by the gravitational pull of the world, practically floating on the edge of spatial wind currents.
A sudden unexpected wave of anxious panic touched her heart. This new form was so divine that it frightened her.
’I’m... I’m a bit scared...’ Aeli thought with her heart hammering wildly against her ribs as she looked at her transformed body.
Seeking an escape from the reflective isolation, Aeli extended her pale hand, lightly tapping her palm against the inner wall of the reflective dome.
CRACK!
The second her skin made contact with the surface, a web of glowing fractures spider-webbed across the mirror.
The entire dome shattered into a million sparkling starlight fragments, dissolving into the air like cosmic rain.
"Hah!"
Aeli snapped her eyes open, taking a sudden deep gulp of air as reality violently slammed back into focus.
She was standing inside the Keep’s top-floor office.
Silas was standing directly in front of her, his broad hands resting firmly on her shoulders, shaking her gently as his golden-ringed eyes scanned her face with genuine protective concern.
"Aeli? Aeli, hey," Silas called out as he looked at her. "Are you okay?"
Aeli blinked her luminous cosmic eyes, looking into Silas’s handsome sharp face.
The sight of her Lord instantly grounded her frantic mind, and a wave of tearful gratitude flooded her chest.
"I... I am fine, My Lord," Aeli stammered out, her voice trembling with emotion as she bowed her head deeply before him. "Thank you... thank you so much for this incredible gift—"
SNIFF!
Before Aeli could complete her sentence of gratitude, a sudden foul odor entered her newly sensitive nostrils.
Aeli froze.
Her long elven ears twitched violently, her nose crinkling in disgust as a wave of pure stench hit her senses like a physical hammer.
"Ugh!" Aeli gasped, covering her nose with her sleeve as her eyes watered. "What... what smells that badly?!"
Standing on the other side of the mahogany desk, Silas and Rowenna looked at her with helpless sympathetic expressions.
Silas gestured downward with his hand, offering a dry smile. "Aeli... look down at yourself."
Aeli looked down at her own body and let out a high-pitched horrified shriek that echoed off the office walls.
"EEEEEK!"
Covering her pristine starlight-blonde skin and her white arcanist robes were dense, thick, tar-like blobs of black physical impurities.
During her evolution to S-Rank, the Gold Core mana had forcefully purged every single trace of metabolic toxin, residual mana blockages, and cellular waste from her body.
Because her elven lineage possessed centuries of accumulated magical residue, the amount of black sludge ejected from her pores was vastly greater than the impurities that had come off Tasmin and Brida combined.
The foul sulfurous stench wafted through the office, completely overpowering the room.
"I-I AM SO SORRY, MY LORD!" Aeli squeaked out in mortified embarrassment, her face exploding into a red flush. "I APOLOGIZE FOR THIS FOUL SMELL! PLEASE EXCUSE ME!"
FLASH!
Without waiting for a single word of response, Aeli panicked, triggered her short-range spatial teleportation, and vanished from the office in a frantic burst of silver-gold light, sprinting toward the Keep’s bathroom at high speed.
Silas stood behind his desk, holding his breath for a second until the lingering air currents cleared the room of the foul odor.
But before her presence had completely faded from his range, Silas had already pulled up her updated system status sheet to inspect the results of his 300 UP investment.
[Name]: Aeliana
[Title]: Starlight Arcanist -> Astrea Archon Of The Stars
[Rank]: S-Rank
[Level]: 30 (EXP: 0/30000)
[Loyalty]: 100 (Diehard / Love)
[Vitality]: 1000
[Mana]: 5500 / 5500
[Active & Passive Skills]:
[Astrea Starlight Cascade]: Summons an orbital rain of hyper-compressed, celestial starlight beams. Clears massive troop formations, vaporizes defense barriers, and bypasses physical armor. (Cost: 400 Mana/cast)
[Spatial Constellation Drift]: Passively dissolves her physical weight into microscopic spatial folds and wind currents. Allows floating/hovering mobility, boosts evasion by 80%, and grants short-range instantaneous spatial blinks. (Passive)
[Celestial Star-Ward Domain]: Expands a 200-meter radiant perimeter of astral mana. Passively detects all stealthed units, reduces enemy magic resistance by 30%, and provides continuous high-yield mana regeneration to allied casters. (Cost: 150 Mana/minute)
[Supernova Impact]: Compresses stellar mana into a single point and detonates it upon impact, freezing surrounding terrain in absolute-zero frost while releasing an explosive cosmic shockwave. (Cost: 350 Mana/cast)
[Space Compression]: Compresses space itself into a singular point, crushing physical matter and distorting incoming kinetic attacks. (Cost: 500 Mana/cast)
[Ice Creation]: As long as there is mana in the air, the user is able to create ice out of it. (Cost: 10 Mana/cast)
[Long Distance Teleportation]: With the help of spatial currents, the user is able to teleport over long distances. (Cost: 100 Mana/cast)
Silas stared at the glowing blue holographic screen, swallowing hard as he took in the astronomical numbers and skill descriptions.
’5,500 Mana... Space Compression... Long Distance Teleportation...’ Silas calculated in his mind, his eyes widening slightly. ’And there are a bit more spells there...’
She had truly become a powerhouse.
The utility, mobility, and destructive output packed into her new skill set were surprising, to say the least.
’It’s quite surprising...’ Silas thought, leaning back slightly in his leather chair. ’...but does all of this matter? No, Aeli will still be my secretary at the end of the day.’
No matter how terrifying her combat stats became, her core role in his administration remained unchanged.
She was still his primary officer, his scheduler, and his trusted companion.
However, Silas was genuinely interested in what the hell "Astrea Archon Of The Stars" actually meant conceptually.
He invoked his system interface, submitting a direct query to clarify the title’s lore.
’System, what does Astrea Archon Of The Stars mean?’ Silas asked mentally.
A sleek blue text box popped up in his vision, delivering a remarkably vague response.
[System Query Processing...]
[System Response: After research, the title ’Astrea Archon Of The Stars’ denotes one chosen by the stars.]
[Note: If the Host wishes to know more, the Host is strongly advised to go read a book in the Library instead of bothering the system interface.]
Silas’s jaw twitched.
He stared at the blue text box in total deadpan disbelief.
’Is this system being classy all of a sudden?’ Silas thought, rolling his golden-ringed eyes. ’Telling me to go read a book? Unbelievable...’
Silas dismissed the sassy system notification with a flick of his wrist, turning his attention back to the remaining woman in the office.
Rowenna was still standing near the mahogany desk.
She took a step forward, lowering her upper body into a deep, respectful bow before him.
"My Lord..." Rowenna spoke softly, her blue eyes looking up at him with an extraordinarily earnest weight. "...I humbly ask that you focus your attention on me too."
Silas looked at her bowing figure, noticing the subtle tension in her shoulders and the slight trembling of her fingers against her dark skirt.
In truth, Rowenna had been trying her absolute hardest for days to get her Lord’s attention.
But Silas always seemed to be focused primarily on Aeliana.
Rowenna knew why... Aeliana had won that battle a while ago, granting her the right to accompany Silas into the Secret Realm.
Rowenna couldn’t help but think that if she herself had gotten to enter the Secret Realm too, she would have been just as close to him as the elven arcanist was.
She wanted that same closeness and that same level of trust.
Silas looked at the quiet runic caster with a warm gentle expression softening his sharp features.
"Rowenna," Silas called out smoothly. "Come closer."
Rowenna blinked her blue eyes, raising her head.
She hesitantly stepped up to the edge of the mahogany desk, lowering her head slightly as she stood before him.
Silas stood up from his leather chair.
He leaned across the desk, reaching out with his broad hand to gently cup her jaw, and pressed a soft kiss directly onto her forehead.
Rowenna’s entire body went rock-rigid.
Her blue eyes widened to the size of saucers, her face exploding into a bright burning crimson flush as a wave of pure overwhelming warmth flooded her chest.
Her gloomy insecure demeanor vanished in a fraction of a second, completely replaced by a radiant, ecstatic glow.
Silas pulled back slightly, looking into her trembling blue eyes.
"Don’t ever feel less important, Rowenna. That’s not what you are to me."
Silas patted her head gently, adding with a confident warm smirk.
"Besides... after this upgrade... why don’t you come with me to see the outside Lord?"
Rowenna’s breath completely hitched in her throat!
"R-Really, My Lord?!" Rowenna blabbered out, her voice squeaking in breathless shock. "You... you want me to come with you to see Lord Sky?!"
At least that was the name Tasmin had told her.
Silas patted her head once more, offering a firm, reassuring nod.
"Really. I need my best Runic Arcanist by my side."
Rowenna stood there with her heart soaring straight to the clouds!
Deep down inside her soul, a quiet voice whispered that she probably didn’t deserve such incredible favor from her Sovereign Lord... but she accepted it with every fiber of her being.
’I won’t ever wash my forehead again for the rest of my life...’ Rowenna swore fiercely in her own mind.
Silas placed his broad palm flat against the top of her head, feeling the texture of her hair.
His golden-ringed eyes focused, his voice taking on a commanding weight.
"Would you like to get stronger, Rowenna?"
Rowenna raised her head, her blue eyes blazing with unshakeable loyalty and determination as she answered his question.
"I would, My Lord!"
Silas smiled.
PING!
He summoned his system interface, bringing up Rowenna’s evolution prompt.
[Would you like to upgrade Rowenna’s B-Rank [Runic Arcanist] to S-Rank [Grand Runemaster]?]
[Cost: 400 UP]
[Y / N]
Silas looked at the 400 UP cost.
For her case, the higher cost was completely understandable since she was making a massive two-tier leap directly from B-Rank to S-Rank.
Silas didn’t hesitate for a single second as he pressed his thumb against the glowing screen.
Silas pressed [Y]!
BOOM!
Once again, a blinding explosion of pure white mana erupted from Silas’s palm, instantly engulfing Rowenna’s entire body as her world turned completely white.
SWISH.
Rowenna blinked her eyes.
The blinding white light slowly receded, replaced by the quiet majestic atmosphere of a vast ancient room.
Rowenna looked around, her jaw dropping in total, speech-deprived bewilderment.
"Wha..." Rowenna muttered out loud, her voice echoing off distant walls. "Why the hell am I in a Library?!"
She was no longer standing in Silas’s office.
She was standing in the center of an ancient library filled with towering mahogany bookshelves stretching high into the air, packed to the brim with glowing, leather-bound books.
She had just been in her Lord’s presence a second ago... and next she was trapped in a strange room? What in the world was going on?
Regardless of her confusion, Rowenna took a few steps forward across the polished floorboards, calling out into the quiet space.
"Hello...?"
Her voice echoed repeatedly through the silent library, confirming that she was quite alone in this strange realm.
Rowenna caught sight of her reflection in a large, silver-framed mirror resting against a nearby pillar.
She stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the image in speechless shock.
"I... I look so different..." Rowenna whispered.
Her physical appearance was vastly different from how she looked normally.
Her hair was significantly longer, cascading down past her waist in lustrous, silky waves.
Her body figure was far better, taking on a stunning sculpted hourglass curve.
Her chest had expanded from a modest size to a heavy, eye-popping endowment that practically popped out of her arcanist robes.
She realized with a deep blush that she hadn’t even worn a bra underneath, allowing the sensitive shape of her nipples to show clearly through the fabric... yet, strangely, it felt extraordinarily comfortable against her skin.
This was how she had always wanted her body to be after all.