After killing the Golden Hippo, the Witch Slaves once again collected the loot and presented it to Eva. After that, the whole group temporarily withdrew from this Field Zone, taking the lightspeed transport that was Luxia back to the Aether Hall.
Here, Eva brought the three women to the Anomaly Realm in the depths of the Aether Hall. This area was its own world that was connected to the outside, but the outside was not connected to it.
In other words, it could draw energy and whatever else was needed from the outside, but nothing outside could easily peer or detect what was happening within.
"You can freely Rank up now. I'll watch over your children in the meantime." Eva said as she took Rosella and Loki in one arm each. As for Rila, she skipped over to Eva and held onto her leg with a smile.
Hikari, Roma, and Zaine shared a look and nodded. They took deep breaths as they released their suppressed advancements, letting the change wash over them.
Immediately, not just torrents, but whole tsunamis of Worldly Energy was drawn from Vita City-State into their bodies as they were baptized by it. The amount of Worldly Energy drawn was directly equivalent to the State of Being and experience threshold an NPC had to pay.
With the three women having more than 1,000% - and Hikari even at 2,000% - one could just imagine. This was why Eva did not allow them to do this in the wild, as there would definitely not be enough Worldly Energy for them.
The only place on Cario Continent with 100% Worldly Energy concentration was Vita City-State, which was just one of the reasons why it was so intensely sought after.
Yet even with this, the 100% almost instantly dropped to 75%, and this was just the initial suction from these three! It was clear that had Eva not been wise enough to return, their Rank up would have been interrupted, causing no small trouble for them.
And the Worldly Energy concentration kept dropping too! From 75% to 73%, then to 71%, to 69% and lower. The greenish-blue energy continued to pour into their bodies like they were black holes.
At least, Zaine and Roma's absorption rate was understandable. Hikari though, was the real reason why Worldly Energy was disappearing, like a beast had taken a giant bite of the world around it.
Vitae appeared in the Anomaly Realm and had a distressed look. It wasn't as bad as when the kids were born, as those little beasts had sucked in Aetheric Energy, not mere Worldly Energy.
Eva turned to Vitae and asked: "Will there be enough energy for them?"
Vitae nodded. "Even if they kept this up for a week, there would be enough. All the Aether Hall has to do is convert some of the ambient Aetheric Energy down."
"As the current concentration is 25%, just 1% of it converted down would yield 1000% Worldly Energy. So the madams are free to absorb as they please."
Eva nodded. "Good, you have worked hard."
Vitae shook his head. "It is my duty and my joy. If you don't mind Empress, I shall take my leave."
Eva waved her hand amiably as the Aetheric Lifeform disappeared, retraining her focus onto the three mothers. She noticed that their absorption rate had not died down.
In fact, it was like they had heard Vitae's words, reassuring them that they wouldn't cause Draco or his City-State any problems, so they opened the tap and let the wave rush in.
As such, their rates of suction rather increased by about 50%, startling Eva slightly. She realized she had greatly underestimated the potential of these three women.
Even if she got a Divine Class, they would be no weaker than her at the same Rank. What was truly fearsome was that they were all romantically involved with the same man, and utterly devoted to him as well.
If all four of them, She, Hikari, Roma, and Zaine were to team up with Draco at their prime, they could easily fight Rank 3 monsters and even challenge Rank 4 enemies to a strong extent.
To Eva, this was an absolutely impossible and bizarre concept. When she had reached Rank 4 Shadow Assassin Empress in the previous timeline, there was no way for an enemy at Rank 2 - or five of them - to even stand in her presence for long, much less fight her.
Yet in this timeline, she would be doing the same to someone else in the future. Still though, all of this depended on just how big the changes these three women would undergo by the time their Rank up was complete.
Loki, Rosella, and Rila watched all of this with incredibly fascinated expressions. The amount of energy swirling about here was so thick that it was visible, so the amazing and ambient lights wowed the three kids.
It was like watching a more active version of the aurora borealis. At such a tender age, it was of course natural their little minds would be completely enraptured by such a thing.
Soon, the rampant absorption slowed down. The first to show this sign was Zaine, as the amount she took in became lower and lower until it was just a steady trickle.
Next was Roma after 5 minutes and Hikari after a whole 30 minutes. Once they reach this stage, their auras began to undergo subtle changes.
Zaine's body flashed with a bright blue outline, slight sparks shooting out from her body of the same color. This surprised Eva, as she assumed Zaine was a purely mental magic caster.
However, it seemed that the succubus had awoken a lightning element affinity of sorts. That was certainly interesting to note, so Eva kept that in mind.
Next was Roma, as her body flashed with a dark green glow. Her hair rose up on its own, and this time, it began to move about like it was alive, biting and snapping at the air.
Along with that, the single green gem she had on her chest was absorbed into her body and emerged on her shoulder as two separate gems. This made Eva and Rila's eyes sharpen.
Both of them knew that these Ultima Sunt gems were extremely special and definitely had a deeper as well as more important use, but they were unable to discover anything.
Even the gods who created this race knew little about them except the fact that they had endless growth potential and that they were extremely dangerous to all organisms of the world.
It seemed that Ranking up had affected Roma's Ultima Sunt bloodline in some way. However, it wasn't like Zaine where what she gained was obvious to see, so they would have to wait to learn what changed.
As for Hikari, hers was more… abstract. Her body shone with a creamy white glow, and Eva could feel the aura of creation on her. How she knew this was because the normally blank Anomaly Realm began sprouting flowers and trees starting from where Hikari stood.
It was like a small island was being terraformed into existence, and this sight stunned the children into silence. Eva was only a little better, as her expression became solemn.
She rejoiced in her decision to bring them here. If they had done this even in the Aether Hall, there would have been no way to suppress these effects.
It was as bad as opening Divine Chests. Unless one was in a super mini small world, the ensuing fanfare would light up a whole continent at the least.
There were no other visible changes to Hikari's outline, and the aura of creation became stable once the small island she made in this barren area reached 100 meters in size.
The other two also emulated this stability. With their eyes closed and their focus locked into their own changes, Eva and the children waited idly for about 2 hours before everything came to an end.
The fanfare that came with these magnificent women Ranking up subsided as they simultaneously opened their eyes then gazed at each other. Even though they were focused on their changes, they still had some awareness of the outside world.
They then turned to Eva and walked up to her, their excitement as well as satisfaction from their Rank up barely concealed on their faces. Eva also smiled before handing Rosella and Loki back to their mothers, while Rila hopped into Hikari's embrace.
"We've succeeded, Eldest Sis." Roma reported with a bright smile.
"En, I never doubted you three. So, tell me what exactly changed about you guys." Eva replied with a light smile.
Roma decided to go first. "Well, I can now multicast my Mystic Arts. I can now also use instant casts for more spells, and I can manually cast more difficult spells much faster."
"Erm, and I can also use beguilement techniques too."
Zaine's eyes flashed with a pleasant surprise. "That's excellent! Another enchantress in our circle is practically perfect!"
Roma smiled gently and nodded. She knew that Zaine felt estranged since she was of a species that attracted intense s.e.x.u.a.l interest, but thankfully, Roma as a Gypsy was actually also the same.
Her Charm passive skill was a far weaker version of Zaine's Seduction passive skill. It was this same passive skill that Draco inadvertently used to tempt the empress of the Godmar Divine Empire.
Roma usually kept it off because she had very little use for it. With her new Rank up, her suppressed Gypsy characteristics had risen to the fore, with one or two beguilement and confusion techniques emerging.
Zaine smirked and reported her own changes. "When I was Ranking up, I felt the need to diversify my power, so I manually re-routed some energy to awaken a special element to my mental energy, of which I chose lightning for its offensive, defensive and supportive power across the board."
Zaine crossed her arms and felt smug, but her face became slightly unnatural when she saw that the others were looking at her like some kind of monster.
Eva was the most stunned of them all. She had never heard of an NPC taking control of their own Rank up procedures and using it to unlock more power. As should be expected, most of it was automatic, their upgrade handled by the AI.
Then again, it did balance out. After all in terms of State of Being, Zaine fell greatly short of Hikari and significantly short of Roma. However, she more than made up for it with her unique abilities and her intelligence.
Eva turned to Hikari next. The White Dragoness seemed hesitant to speak, and Eva raised an eyebrow. Could it be that Hikari felt her improvements fell short of Zaine or Roma? And therefore, she felt suppressed by it?
With her personality, that was extremely likely. As such, Eva spoke out to reassure her.
"Don't worry, Hikari. No matter what changes you manifested, it is still perfect in our eyes and Draco's. Just share it with us so we know how to synchronize our skills together in combat."
Hikari was surprised by this, then gazed at Roma and Zaine, who also smiled supportively. They might have reached the same conclusion as Eva, or at least understood her hidden meaning from her words.
Hikari blushed and lowered her head. "Okay, then I'll show you…"
Saying this, she took a deep breath and a white light emerged from her form. The energy she exuded alone caused the kind expressions of Eva and co to change greatly, and their hearts shook.
Hikari drew in unholy amounts of Worldly Energy and focused it together in one spot. Her hands seemed to move like a clay shaper, directly molding this energy with ease.
When she was done, this energy solidified to form a short and attributeless dagger that shone with a sharp gleam.
Hikari held it clumsily, as she had no idea how to even properly wield weapons, but her knowledge of them came from the hours she watched Draco forge back when he needed her healing to make Epic items.
Hikari then spoke: "Now, if there are enough time and energy, I can create some small inanimate objects."