William scrolled past the System messages that notified him of each free upgrade, thankful that the process wasn't painful at all, nor was there any visible change to his body. It seemed the System was actively suppressing the side-effects of the upgrades so that Riyald wouldn't notice anything odd.
-Knowledge of the Blessing Element greatly improved: Conditions met for three free upgrades...
-Knowledge of the Death Element greatly improved: Conditions met for three free upgrades...
-Knowledge of the Necromancy Element improved: Conditions met for a free upgrade...
The System messages continued over the next few hours, making William even more eager to listen to Riyald's teachings. He had to admit that his Master was very good at explaining the difficult topics, which seemed out of his reach before.
By the end of the lesson, all of his William's Elements that were E and D-Rank were directly improved by two or three levels to B-Rank, while the C-Rank Elements improved by one Rank.
Riyald's understanding of the Seal Element was minimal, but after he and William spent an hour testing the properties of Seal Mana, even that had improved to B-Rank.
His greatest improvement was to the Time Element, which Riyald had studied thoroughly throughout his life.
Not only had the man found a loophole for creating Arrays with many Magic Affinities including the Time Affinity, but he had also managed to create multiple experimental Artifacts that affected the flow of time, which was why time in the Gravitas Ruins flowed four times more quickly than the outside.
With Riyald's help, William's Time Affinity rose from the measly E-Rank all the way to A-Rank, saving him thousands of Potential Points. The lesson as a whole had saved William tens of thousands of Potential Points, making him eternally grateful to his Master.
While his Illusion Affinity and Order Affinity remained at their low ranks, William wasn't bothered. Every time he thought about upgrading the Order Affinity, which was the only Mythical-level Magic he knew, the hairs on the back of his neck would stand up.
For some reason, William felt that if he upgraded the Order Affinity, he would die.
Whether that was at the hands of another or just the side effects from the upgrade, he did not know. Either way, William wouldn't try it until he was confident in his survival.
As usual, the System wasn't helpful in identifying the problem. When William asked, it requested an astonishing one trillion Potential Points, which was the most he had ever seen other than the one time he made the System angry and it overcharged him every time he used the Ask Function.
"I hope this has been helpful to you, Disciple William." Riyald said with an amiable smile. His wrinkly face reminded William of a friendly grandpa that you would only see at family reunions, but William knew the man was anything but innocent.
William gave his Master a bow, "Thank you for your teachings, Master."
Riyald nodded in satisfaction, "It's quite late now, and we have remained here much longer than I initially planned. Meet with me the same time next week. If your progress is sufficient on the Wind Dial, I may have you assist me with one of my experiments."
William bade Riyald farewell and started heading back to his room down the corridor. Just a few dozen meters before William reached his usual door, the Artifact Spirit stopped him.
"Disciple William, it's good to see you." the Spirit said as if he hadn't been peeping on William the entire week.
William gave a slight bow, "You too, Sir Reynolds. Is something the matter?"
"Well...yes and no. Your snake seems to have grown quite big and can barely fit into your room. I was going to speak with Master about it, but he's too busy."
William remembered the ten-meter-long snake that was resting in his room, suddenly wishing he was still as small as before, where he could wrap around William's arm and sleep all day.
"He is a bit larger than before, isn't he?"
"Yes..." the Artifact Spirit said, "since you're good with Arrays and have the Space Element, I was hoping you'd fix this problem."
"Can I?" William became slightly excited.
To be honest, William had also felt that his room was quite small, considering the amount of space he needed to both create an Artifact and store Atticus. If he wanted to keep his sanity, an upgrade to the size of his room was required.
William asked Sir Reynolds about some of the specifics, then opted to create a brand-new room right next to the other one. He didn't want to risk editing the other room and hurt Atticus or damage the disassembled Wind Dial, so this was the next best option.
Not to mention there was plenty of area in the corridor, so William was sure that Riyald wouldn't mind.
He got to work immediately, creating many runes of Spatial Expansion and stacking them into improved Perfect Runes.
He didn't use Complete Runes here, not because he didn't trust Riyald who probably already knew, but because they were too difficult and would turn a task that should only take a few minutes into an entire night.
Perfect Runes were nothing to sneeze at, and since his Space Affinity was A-Rank, William could easily weave it into one of the Runes he had seen many times before in the Guild, Array Hall, or Alchemy Hall from various cities and in the Sect.
William continued to add more Arrays to the mix, improving the stability of the space inside and adding a few extra functions that would limit the amount of peeping that Sir Reynolds could perform.
He didn't want Riyald or Sir Reynolds to notice what he had done, so William opted to set the concealment functions to activate only during late hours of the night and only for an hour at a time.
He knew that if Riyald was hellbent on taking away William's privacy, the old man would notice this right away, but it was worth trying. This way he could at least enjoy a little privacy every now and then for a bath or whatnot.
William finished creating the infrastructure for the room, expanding its size to forty thousand square meters. The ceiling stretched sixty meters high, and the floor was made of a grey brick that was actually heated and would never feel cold to the touch. Thɪs chapter is updated by NoveI[F]ire.net
Rather than a room, it was more like a house fit for giants, but it was exactly what William wanted. He added a few walls here and there to slightly reduce how large the room looked, then put in some standard decorative and functional items.
William spent half an hour on the bed, opting to make it as comfortable as possible, then added a large bathtub out of stone that could withstand high heats. William decided that sometime in the future he needed to find a liquid that was hot enough for him to bathe in while comfortable at the same time.
A lava bath just wasn't viable, nor did it smell great.
When William finished, he opened a set of double doors to lead back into the corridor, then opened up the door to his other room and called for Atticus to come outside.
The long snake slithered over to William, its purple scales shining vibrantly. Atticus raised his head and opened his mouth to release a light-hearted hiss.
"Welcome back, Masssster William."