The morning sunlight always carried a piercing quality.
When that beam of golden light filtered through the gaps in the curtains, stubbornly crept up the edge of the bed, and finally came to rest on the girl’s tranquil sleeping face, a new day was declared to have begun.
Helos didn’t linger in bed as she usually did.
Perhaps it was because she had slept too soundly the night before, or perhaps it was that inexplicable surge of vitality stirring within her. She regained consciousness in a daze before her biological clock even went off.
The girl felt her eyelids were heavy, as if they were glued together.
She instinctively rubbed against the soft pillow, letting out a satisfied hum, then slowly opened her eyes one bit at a time.
However, the first thing that came into view wasn’t the ceiling, nor was it that somewhat outdated crystal chandelier.
It was a large face so pale it was almost translucent, with a very strange expression on it.
That face was floating directly above her, less than 4 inches from the tip of her nose.
Those hollow, lifeless eyes were staring at her intently, as if studying some rare alchemical material.
Helos had no psychological preparation, no warning whatsoever.
“Whaa—!”
A miserable shriek instantly pierced the morning stillness.
Helos instinctively shot up from the bed. Her body exploded with astonishing reaction speed under the stimulation of adrenaline. She sat bolt upright like a spring compressed to its absolute limit.
According to the laws of physics, a violent collision was inevitable.
However, the expected dull thud of foreheads colliding never came, nor was there any dizzying pain.
Helos only felt a bone-chilling cold instantly penetrate her scalp and slide down along her spine.
Her head passed straight through that large face floating in midair, as if plunging through a layer of icy mist.
“T-Teacher?!”
Helos scrambled backward using both hands and feet until her back pressed tightly against the cold headboard before stopping.
She stared in shock at the ghost that was slowly re-forming in midair, her heart pounding wildly in her chest.
“What are you doing?! Is it fun scaring people first thing in the morning?! You scared me half to death! I thought I hadn’t even woken up yet and was already seeing my ancestors!”
Facing her disciple’s accusation, Sylvia showed not a trace of remorse.
She slowly turned around in the air, her waterfall of pale purple hair scattering wildly.
She didn’t answer Helos’s question. Instead, she used that piercing gaze that seemed capable of seeing through souls to scrutinize the girl huddled in the corner of the bed from head to toe.
That look made Helos intensely uncomfortable, like being stripped naked and thrown onto an autopsy table.
Sylvia finally spoke. Her voice still carried that lazy tone, but now there was an undeniable hint of oddity and confusion in it.
“Girl.”
She drifted closer, her nose twitching slightly as if sniffing some residual aura in the air.
“What did you do… in secret last night?”
“What?”
Helos was stunned.
Her brain was still in the chaotic state of just booting up, clearly unable to keep up with the Grand Magus’s leaps of logic.
“What do you mean what did I do? I was just sleeping!”
Sylvia let out a cold laugh and extended a pale finger, waving it in front of Helos’s face.
“Sleeping?”
“Don’t lie to me. I’m a ghost. I’m more sensitive to changes in souls and bodies than anyone.”
“Your aura has changed.”
Sylvia narrowed her eyes.
“Last night before bed, you were still a dry little thing like a green bean. Now, after one night’s sleep, you suddenly have this… how should I put it… a ‘seductive aura’ that’s annoying just to look at?”
“S-Seductive aura?!”
The corner of Helos’s mouth twitched.
“Teacher, if you don’t know how to use words, you don’t have to use them. What do you mean seductive aura? I call this natural beauty, thank you very much!”
Sylvia waved her hand impatiently.
“Less lip.”
She ignored Helos’s protest and moved closer again.
She circled around Helos twice, even flying a full loop around the girl’s body.
Finally, her gaze came to rest on a very particular spot.
Helos’s chest.
“Tsk.”
Sylvia let out an unreadable click of her tongue.
The next second, this Grand Magus who never operated according to conventional logic suddenly extended her ice-cold hand.
Smack!
A crisp sound rang through the room.
Sylvia actually slapped the girl’s chest, covered in silk pajamas, without the slightest hesitation.
Although she was a spiritual body and couldn’t cause actual physical damage.
But that sensation transmitted through the soul level—that stimulation of having what felt like a thousand-year glacier suddenly pressed against her skin—still triggered an extremely intense reaction in Helos.
“Ah…”
A breathy moan, so seductive it could practically squeeze out water, escaped unbidden from the depths of Helos’s throat.
The sound was brief, yet it carried an indescribable magnetism and allure.
Like a tiny hook, effortlessly capable of tugging at the most primal desires hidden deep in one’s heart.
The room instantly fell into dead silence.
Helos clapped her hand over her mouth.
Her pupils quaked as she looked at Sylvia in terror, then at her own hand.
‘That sound just now… did it really come from my own mouth?’
‘Impossible! Absolutely impossible!’
‘I’m Helos! The iron-blooded true man who’s determined to become the strongest alchemist!’
‘How could I possibly make a sound like… like the heroine of some unspeakable novel?!’
‘Something’s wrong! This is definitely wrong!’
“W-What the hell is this?!”
Helos felt her cheeks burn instantly. The shame was ten times more intense than what she’d felt last night.
She even wanted to crawl into a crack in the floor.
But Sylvia’s focus was clearly elsewhere.
She withdrew her hand, looked at her own translucent palm, then looked at Helos’s flushed face.
Her pale face was deeply furrowed, her gaze filled with envy, jealousy… and confusion.
“It’s actually real?”
Sylvia murmured to herself.
“Just one night.”
She pointed at Helos’s chest, her tone filled with disbelief.
“How did it develop this noticeably?”
“It wasn’t like there was nothing before, but it was at the level of a small steamed bun. But now… this feel, this bounce… it’s clearly a whole size bigger!”
“And what’s with this luster radiating from the inside out? Did you secretly take some breast-enhancing alchemical potion behind my back?”
“Huh?!”
Helos was completely dumbfounded.
She looked at Sylvia’s envious, jealous, almost frantic expression, then instinctively glanced down at her own body.
Beneath the thin layer of silk, the originally slightly immature curves now really did seem to…
The collar of her pajamas was a bit loose.
…Fuller than before?
It wasn’t just a matter of size.
Her skin had become fairer and more delicate, radiating a warm, pearl-like luster.
Her collarbone lines had become more elegant, and even her fingertips carried a faint pinkish tint.
Her entire being was like a flower bud that had suddenly blossomed overnight, radiating a breathtaking beauty.
It seemed like…
…Maybe…
…It really had gotten bigger?
‘Hehe.’
An extremely ill-timed silly laugh suddenly appeared at the corner of Helos’s mouth.
‘Bigger is better after all!’
‘Even if it’s on my own body, it’s still a great achievement worth celebrating!’
‘Wait! What am I grinning about?!’
Helos snapped back to reality and slapped herself hard.
‘Why was my first reaction happiness?!’
She took a deep breath and forcefully suppressed that inappropriate little thrill in her heart.
‘I need to stay calm. Calm.’
‘This sudden change in my body can’t be a coincidence.’
‘Last night I didn’t eat anything strange, nor did I do any strange exercises.’
‘Except…’
Helos slowly opened her mouth wide.
‘If there was one major event last night that could have changed my body, it could only be that one thing.’
‘That is… unlocking the 【Branch of Glamour Alchemy】.’
‘Could this be the so-called “hidden bonus”?’
Helos analyzed frantically in her mind.
‘The core of the Phantom Arts is “charm” and “interference.”‘
‘If 【Charm Eye】 is an active skill, then could this change in my body be a passive skill?’
‘By subtly modifying the host’s body, making the host more perfect, more attractive, thereby increasing the success rate of charm skills?’
‘Just like the physical enhancement that came with unlocking the 【Branch of Courage Alchemy】?’
‘If that’s the case… then isn’t this alchemy way too thoughtful?!’
‘This is practically a divine skill that every woman dreams of!’
‘Of course, I’m an exception here. Yeah, an exception.’
‘But the problem is…’
‘How am I supposed to explain this to Sylvia?!’
‘Am I supposed to say to her:’
‘【Oh, Teacher, actually it’s because last night I was thinking about Julius so intensely that I accidentally awakened an alchemy that can make me prettier and bustier?】’
‘This is way too embarrassing!’
‘If that sharp-tongued female ghost found out, I’d never be able to hold my head up in front of her for the rest of my life!’
“W-Well… actually…”
Helos stammered, her eyes darting around.
“Maybe… maybe it’s because the food has been too good lately? Julius’s cooking is pretty nourishing?”
“Heh.”
Sylvia rolled her eyes.
“Do you take me for a fool? You grew like this from one meal? Eat two more and you’ll burst out of your clothes?”
She floated back into midair. Although her gaze still carried some suspicion, she seemed too lazy to dig deeper into the matter.
After all, for a ghost who was already dead, no matter how much a living person’s body changed, it had nothing to do with her.
Sylvia waved her hand, and her expression suddenly turned serious.
“Forget it. Whatever you ate.”
The playful atmosphere vanished in an instant.
She looked down at Helos from above, those hollow eyes flickering with a faint cold light.
“Girl, about the changes to your body, those are secondary.”
Sylvia said in a low voice.
“I came out this time mainly for another matter.”
“Another matter?”
Helos was about to breathe a sigh of relief, but her heart shot back up at those words.
“What is it? Did I snore and bother you last night?”
“…You sleep very quietly.”
Sylvia shot her a speechless look, then re-composed her expression.
“Do you still remember what I told you before? About that power inside you—that ‘curse of silence’—which was in a ‘dormant’ state for some reason?”
“Hm? I remember.”
Helos nodded.
That was the diagnosis Sylvia had given when she first began teaching her.
Because the “curse of silence” was dormant, she couldn’t control it actively and could only passively utilize the aura it leaked out.
That was precisely why she had to undergo that grueling series of perception special training.
“What about it?”
She asked.
Sylvia, whose face was always so confident, now actually showed a rare hint of hesitation and confusion.
She reached out and scratched her long hair, as if organizing her thoughts.
“This matter… it’s a bit complicated to explain. I can’t really explain the principle to you, since I’ve never seen this situation before either.”
She floated in front of Helos, extended her finger, and once again pointed at Helos’s heart.
“Just now, around the moment before you woke up.”
“I felt a fluctuation.”
She looked at Helos’s gradually widening eyes and said word by word:
“…A very clear, very intense awakening signal.”
Sylvia’s voice grew low and grave.
“I don’t know what stimulated it.”
“But I can feel it now.”
“That power inside you… it seems like…”
“It suddenly awakened.”