Chapter 753: So Much UP For Eggs? [Bonus - ]

Chapter 753: So Much UP For Eggs? [Bonus Chapter]

Rika let out a long shuddering breath that fluttered the hem of her dark tunic against her thighs.

’I’m grateful...’

The old chill that had touched her eyes melted under a sudden overwhelming warmth.

Her small pale fingers reached up and curled tenderly around the downy chest of the tiny golden hatchling perched on top of her black hair.

Sunny leaned into her touch with an affectionate sleepy chirp, nuzzled his sharp little beak against her knuckle and puffed out a fragrant plume of ember-smoke that drifted up toward the ceiling beams.

A deep radiant glow settled across Rika’s delicate face.

Her emerald eyes turned completely clear and shone with a devotion she made no effort to hide.

"Master..." she whispered, her voice trembling softly as she looked up from the floor. "You pulled me out of the cold... You gave me a home under your sky and a warm hearth in your hall, and now you’re laying a whole nursery at my knees... I’m so grateful... Really... My spirit’s open, Sunny’s fire is calm, and I’m ready to form a connection with them... I can start right now if you want me to."

Her small slender hands twitched eagerly toward the crackling azure shell of the Thunder Drakeling at the front of the cluster, and her breath caught in her throat with the raw instinctive hunger of the Goddess of Beasts ready to take back what she’d lost.

Silas reached down and set his broad palm on top of her dark head, just behind the dozing Phoenix chick.

He gave her a slow firm grounding pat and let his callused fingers stroke through her silky bangs.

"Calm down a bit, Rika," he chuckled, his dark blue eyes crinkling at the corners. "Don’t get ahead of yourself... You’re an ancient goddess, not an impatient pup at a meat counter. We’re not bonding with a single one until we see what these shells can actually become. If you’re building a brand-new army under my banner, we’re building one nobody can stop."

Rika blinked, and her small shoulders sagged into the comforting weight of his palm as her emerald eyes softened.

Silas straightened up and rolled his shoulders back as his mind turned to the System.

His gaze swept over the twelve dormant eggs sitting in their two neat rows on the woolen rug.

The crackling azure shell of the Thunder Drakeling hummed with tiny arcs of lightning.

The mist-wrapped egg of the Abyssal Shadow-Stalker breathed cold, the molten-gold egg of the Magma-Core Behemoth pulsed with volcanic heat, the emerald shell of the Void-Winged Roc thrummed with spatial wind and around them sat the eight other rare high-tier eggs they had grabbed from Selvane’s nursery in Central City.

He lifted his hand a little, ready to open the Upgrade screen.

’Fuck, I’m ready.’

He wanted to see what it would cost to take every one of them to the very peak of what they could become... SSS-Rank, or close to it. If Rika was going to bond with them, he wanted her to be overpowered.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

Before his fingers could trace the glowing blue glyphs in the air, a hurried set of footsteps echoed from the stone foyer on the ground floor, followed by a loud cheerful voice carrying up the stairwell.

"Lord Silas!"

The shout came clearly through the floorboards and the heavy door.

"I’ve arrived! I finished the wolf troughs and closed up the paddocks!" Reina called out, bright and energetic and a little out of breath from jogging up the hill path. "I washed all the sawdust off my arms! Are you still upstairs with our guest?!"

Silas paused and let his hand drop back to his hip as an amused lopsided smirk touched his lips.

He glanced down at Rika, whose dark eyebrows had arched in mild curiosity at the sound of the new voice.

"That’s Reina, our Beast Tamer," He explained. "She’s the one who raised those fluffy royal spiders, and she handles all the wolves without breaking a sweat... How would you feel about taking on a student, Rika?"

Rika stayed on her knees on the rug with her small hands resting flat in her lap, and she tilted her head thoughtfully to one side.

’A student...?’ she thought, her emerald eyes narrowing slightly as her ancient mind turned the idea over. ’A mortal handler from this young era... Mortals usually lean on iron collars and cages to bend beasts to their will. It’s crude and clumsy but Master brought her into his household. If she’s earned his trust, maybe her soul has the right kind of soil for the old ways.’

"If you want it, Master," Rika said, lifting her small chin with a touch of quiet pride. "I’ll take a look at her spirit and see if she’s worthy."

"Good..." Silas said with a nod.

He turned, crossed the room, grabbed the polished brass ring-handle with his left hand and swung the heavy door wide open into the hallway.

"Reina!" he called down the corridor, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe. "Up here! East wing!"

"Coming, my Lord!"

A pair of light quick boots took the stone stairs two at a time.

Within seconds Reina rounded the corner of the landing, slightly out of breath.

Her wavy ash-blonde hair was still pinned up in its loose practical bun with the carved bone hairpin, and she still wore her plain work linen and dark shorts, though she’d scrubbed the sawdust and feeding mash from her arms and face until her skin was clean and pink.

She hurried toward the doorway with her gray eyes wide in eager excitement, but the moment she stepped into the room, she froze dead in her tracks.

Standing beside the cluster of pulsing beast eggs was Rika.

The petite goddess had risen to her feet with her slender arms folded tightly over her chest.

Her glossy black hair framed a delicate pale face that showed no emotion at all, and the little golden hatchling on her crown stared straight ahead with unblinking bead-like eyes and let out another tiny puff of ember-smoke.

Reina stood rooted to the oak floorboards, her gray eyes going wide in complete bewilderment as she looked down at the petite figure.

’Wait...’ Reina thought, her mind tripping over what she was seeing. ’This is... the Goddess of Beasts? She... she’s shorter than me! Her wrists look as thin as willow twigs, and she’s got a fluffy little golden chick nesting in her bangs! I thought I was going to meet an eight-foot giant covered in scales and war scars!’

Reina had seen her before and she was tall but she never expected her to be like this, Rika on the other hand... didn’t say a single word.

Her emerald eyes simply narrowed into two sharp cold slits of ancient light.

THUUUUM!

Without moving a single muscle, Rika let out the tiniest fraction of her divine presence.

The air in the doorway dropped twenty degrees in an instant and grew heavy with the phantom smell of blood as a weight descended upon the room.

’G-gah!’

Reina’s breath caught in her throat with a sharp choked gasp.

Her knees buckled violently and her boots slid across the floorboards.

She threw both hands out and barely caught herself on the rough wooden doorframe before she fell flat on her face with her chest heaving as if the room had run out of air.

Her pupils shrank to pinpricks and cold sweat broke out across her forehead as every instinct in her body screamed at her to throw herself on the floor and bare her throat to the ruler of the wild.

Yet through the paralyzing shock, Reina forced her trembling head up.

She looked at the tiny girl standing among the eggs, and a breathless awestruck smile broke across her pale lips.

"By the stars..." she wheezed, her voice shaking like a leaf. "That’s... that’s the real thing..."

Silas stepped past her, caught the heavy door with his left hand and shut it with a firm solid thud.

"Alright, Rika, that’s enough," he said, rolling his eyes as he walked between them. "Don’t go terrifying my people before you even learn her name..."

He reached out and set his palm right on top of Rika’s head, just behind the sleeping Phoenix chick, and gave her dark hair a vigorous affectionate pat.

PET, PET, PET!

The suffocating ancient aura vanished like mist under a blowtorch!

"Heeyyyyyaaa-aaahn~!"

A soft high-pitched squeak came straight out of the Goddess of Beasts... like a tiny cat getting scratched in exactly the right spot.

Her shoulders slumped at once, her emerald eyes half closed in blissful surrender as she leaned her whole head into Silas’s palm and let out a steady vibrating purr that made her small chest shudder.

Reina stared with her jaw hanging open as she peeled herself off the doorframe.

The terrifying woman had turned into a docile kitten in less than two seconds flat.

Silas pulled his hand back with a chuckle.

Rika lingered against his knuckles for half a second longer before she caught herself, cleared her throat with a soft cough and tried to smooth down her bangs with an aloof dignified frown.

"Reina, this is Rika, the Goddess of Beasts," Silas said, gesturing between them. "And the little guy on her head is Sunny... Rika, this is Reina... She runs the paddocks and hatched the royal spiders."

Reina dipped into a deep respectful bow with her hands pressed flat against her thighs.

"It’s an honor to meet you, Lady Rika. If you’re willing to teach me, I swear on the bond of my pack I’ll work until my hands bleed to learn."

Rika folded her arms over her chest again and reclaimed her regal posture, though a faint blush still lingered on her cheeks from the head pats.

"Your spirit has some courage, mortal. You felt my presence and you didn’t run... We’ll see if your mind can keep up with the old ways."

Silas turned his attention back to the twelve eggs on the rug as he focused his mind, and his dark blue eyes settled on the cluster.

’System,’ he called out inside his head, the gold rings in his irises flaring with quiet intent. ’How much UP will it take to push all twelve of these eggs straight to SSS-Rank?’

He studied the shells and felt the faint dormant heartbeats under the hard outer layers.

’We’ll give her this many eggs first...’ he reasoned, a confident smirk touching his lips. ’Eleven of these hatching at SSS-Rank will make her an army all on their own... Plus Reina’s getting one egg out of this batch too. That means her very first beast will be an SSS-Rank one, and that’ll make her pretty strong too.’

PING!

The translucent blue window flared into being in front of his eyes, bold golden script scrolling across the middle of his vision.

[Absolute Upgrade System: Batch Ascension]

[Targets: 12x Rare Beast Eggs]

[Target Rank: SSS-Rank]

[Cost: 20,000 UP]

[Current Balance: 98,450 UP]

[Y / N]

Silas froze and his breath caught as the five-digit cost sank in.

Gulp!

’Twenty thousand...?’ he thought, a cold sweat breaking out across the back of his neck. ’Isn’t that a bit too costly...? That’s a massive chunk of what I’ve got left! Twenty thousand could do a lot of goddamn things!’

He stared at the glowing numbers, his jaw working as he weighed the sheer size of the investment.

’No, hold on,’ he corrected himself, taking a slow steady breath as common sense came back. ’Think about what this actually is, This isn’t reinforcing some steel plates... This is taking twelve beasts all the way to SSS-Rank before they’ve even cracked their shells... An S-Rank beast egg alone would go for millions if not billions of Spirit Credits in Central City and start a war between noble houses while an SSS-Rank beast is a walking catastrophe.’

He let out a dry relieved chuckle through his nose and sent a silent wave of thanks to his own past self.

’Thank God I went for eggs back in Selvane’s nursery,’ he thought, shivering at the alternative. ’What if I’d bought fully grown beasts instead? How much UP would it have cost to push those all the way up...? Fifty thousand? A hundred thousand each? Doing it at the egg stage is a steal even if I don’t like the cost.’

His dark blue eyes hardened with quiet resolve.

Behind him the room had gone very still.

Reina had stopped breathing with both hands clamped over her mouth.

Rika had gone up on her tiptoes, her emerald eyes darting from his raised hand to the glowing window she couldn’t see and back again.

Even Sunny had stopped preening and sat frozen on her head with one tiny wing still half lifted.

Silas lifted one finger to the glowing [Y].

"Confirm," he said. "Spend it."