CH484 Siphon Rune's Spatial Upgrade

***

A week after first explaining his plan that night, Alex had Zora seated on a makeshift tattoo bed in the Sanctuary space, ready to put it into action.

"Like I told you last week, we'll be working in four phases," Alex said.

"The first phase will be expanding and strengthening the storage space of your Siphon Rune Tattoo. I'll be using a new direct spatial method I acquired recently, so the resulting space will be larger, more durable, and with far better confinement than the current iteration."

"The second phase will be connecting the Siphon Rune to the major mana pathway running through the nearest Nirvana Marking cluster, so it can siphon off the bulk of the Yin energy produced by the markings the moment it enters your pathway."

He paused, then revealed—almost excitedly—

"As luck would have it, during my simulations, I discovered that all Yin energy produced in your body must cycle through this major pathway. That means the Siphon Rune will be able to do more work than I originally intended."

"It also meant I had to reinforce the rune tattoo more than I planned," he admitted, "but it'll be worth it… as long as everything goes the way it should."

"When things go as planned," Zora corrected calmly.

"Yes, ma'am. When things go as planned," Alex repeated with a smile.

He continued, "For the third phase, I'll build the runic pathway that will connect the Siphon Rune Tattoo to your new rune tattoo—the Spell Enhancement Tattoo—so you can actually draw on the produced and confined Yin energy."

"The fourth phase will be the binding of the Spell Enhancement Rune Tattoo itself."

Alex looked at Zora. She gave him a firm nod of understanding.

"Once we're done," Alex continued, "most of the Yin energy in your body should be confined. You'll regain stronger control over your body and bloodline."

He grinned.

"And you'll no longer be a mere Ice Mage. You'll be a Yin Mage."

He exaggeratedly rubbed his chin.

"With that, I won't just prove the supremacy of my Rune-Tech again… I'll have created a brand-new ascension class—almost with a wave of my Rune Pen." He chuckled, winking at her.

Zora rolled her eyes at his attempt to lighten the mood—

Not that she needed calming down in the first place.

"Are you ready?" Alex asked.

Zora nodded. "Remove my clothes, right?"

Without waiting for his reply, she stripped off her clothes, leaving her torso bare.

Unlike the last time—when she'd still worn a bandeau—this time, she didn't bother with anything. She left herself completely exposed from the waist up, giving Alex a clear canvas.

Even after seeing her like this so many times, Alex still couldn't help being mesmerised.

He had to pause, draw a slow breath, and steady himself. Shaking the distracting thoughts out of his head, he forced his attention onto the task at hand and began mixing the rune ink.

Alex didn't notice the way his gaze lingered before he finally turned to the tools. But Zora did.

A soft smile tugged at her lips.

It was the same expression he'd worn when he first looked at her… and the same one he wore every single time.

The thought that he never truly 'got tired' of her body made her happier than she cared to admit—even to herself.

Another improvement compared to the last time he worked on Zora's Siphon Rune was that he now had an alchemist on his side. The ink concoction was of far better quality, and it took far less time to prepare.

Thanks to Eleanor's improved formula, Alex had more leeway with time, so he mixed and loaded multiple cartridges in one go. That way, once the tattooing began, he wouldn't need to break focus as often to prepare fresh batches.

Once he was done, Alex entered a fully concentrated state—one where nothing existed in his eyes except his work.

Just as he'd told Zora, his first step was to expand and strengthen the storage space of the Siphon Rune.

Staring at the rune, Alex almost couldn't help shaking his head.

In retrospect, the work had been… crude.

There'd been little deliberate planning to the storage space. It was as if he'd begged the world to create it for him, and simply prayed the world would answer.

Fortunately, it had.

The space had come into being.

But now, with his current understanding, looking back at it almost made him feel embarrassed.

Alex could already see multiple indications of decay along the confines—mostly due to the lack of proper spatial engineering during its construction, its reckless birth, and its unstable nature.

But most importantly, what little design it did have had been built to contain mana—and not Yin.

"Let's get to work."

Alex didn't repair the damage directly. Instead, he took advantage of the flaws—and the malleability they offered—to slip new runes into the construct's foundational structure.

Bit by bit, he transformed what had once been shoddy workmanship into something far more refined.

Something worthy of his current mastery.

This had been one of the hardest hurdles during the design phase.

Building a brand-new storage space from scratch was relatively easy.

But converting an existing rune structure—a tattoo, no less—came with brutal constraints. The kind that cost him herculean effort and more brain cells than he wanted to admit.

Fortunately, he'd found a way around it in the end.

The damage in the rune formation created gaps—small openings where he could insert new runic 'building blocks' into the Greater Rune's framework. However, the available space still wasn't enough to make the radical changes he needed.

So, Alex fell back on a more recent discovery.

Semi-Greater Runes.

Semi-Greater Runes were compressed clusters of runes, packed into a smaller form. They were on the verge of becoming full Greater Runes, but they lacked the final piece—an exact function and process to complete them.

In other words, they were incomplete Greater Runes.

And that made them perfect.

Alex compressed the runic code he needed into Semi-Greater Runes, then carefully slipped them into the gaps created by the Siphon Rune's damage.

Just as in the simulation, the result was seamless.

It wasn't obvious to the naked eye, but the older runes and the newly introduced Semi-Greater Runes synchronised flawlessly, producing the phenomenon Alex needed.

The runic foundation of the space anchored by the Siphon Rune shifted. They rearranged and stabilised themselves until the foundation settled into the new structure Alex had designed.

Alex quickly brought over the Voidheart Core, letting the crystalline heart release motes of Spatial Energy into the runic formation—fuel for the birth of the upgraded storage space.

An hour of painstaking work since beginning, Phase One was finally complete.

Only then did Alex realise his clothes were soaked through. Sweat clung to him so heavily it was practically dripping.

He hadn't even noticed that Zora had been wiping his forehead with a napkin using her free hand.

He'd been so deep in the microscopic world of runes that the larger macroscopic one had completely escaped his senses.

Still, he couldn't bring himself to care.

"Phase One is complete," he announced.

***

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