Seeing the floating of the rune crystals, Lucius was surprised. He had not thought of them acting like this.

"Hmm… didn't expect the density of these rune crystals to be lower than that of oil. But is this the same for all rune crystals or just these?" Lucius muttered to himself.

He pushed aside his thoughts for now and focused on the task at hand. Once the Rune beast crystals were added, most of the preparation was done and he only needed to wait for the user to appear.

Lucius closed the metal box and waited for Arius.

~CREAK~

The second door of the inner hall was opened and a masked Arius could be seen behind it. 

"There you are," Lucius spoke.

"Weren't we going to meet at night?" Arius questioned.

"We were, but the situation changed. Plus, I was able to set up things much earlier than I thought. So it's not really a problem, anyway." Lucius answered.

Upon hearing this, it did make sense to Arius that getting the upgrade done earlier might be better anyway. He nodded his head and walked to the table.

"So how do we do this?" Arius questioned.

"You just need to drop some blood in the slit at the top of the metal box. After that, the process should be pretty much automatic." Lucius answered.

Arius furrowed his brows underneath the mask and wondered if there was more to this. The box was closed and he could not see what was inside it which was also a choice on Lucius's end.

He decided to take this opportunity to keep it a bit more mysterious. While he could have done this before even coming here, there were still restrictions on the upgrades. If he made this 'mixture' or set it up beforehand, there was only a certain time limit to which it could be used.

If it went beyond that time limit, the quality of the mixture would only start to degrade and the results of that were unknown to him. Lucius didn't really want to try that out right now and decided he would test it out when he was free in the future.

It was not like he had the extra resources to waste like that, either. 

'For now, this will have to do… I'll keep it mysterious for as long as possible. The less others know about the exact process, the better.' Lucius thought to himself.

"Will there be any problems? You know doing this is strange for me." Arius finally asked.

This was something Lucius had already expected him to ask and smirked below his mask. Any sensible person would ask what was inside the box or if it was safe or not. It was basic self preservation and there was little Lucius could do for it other than assurance.

"You may feel some pain and discomfort at once but it should stabilize on its own as your new gift adapts to your body," Lucius replied.

Arius felt a bit better upon hearing this. If Lucius had told him that there were no risks, Arius would have actually been a lot more suspicious and might not even had tried it. But after heartening honest words, he felt it was worthy to attempt it.

"Alright… may Etara bless me…" Arius muttered to himself.

Arius then took out a small knife from his belt and cut his left thumb before placing it over the opening of the metal box. Although, Lucius had kept another knife ready on the table, Arius would much rather use his own known knife, which he knew was safe, rather than the one on the table which could be drugged or poisoned.

Lucius internally approved of this action of Arius and found the man to be even better by his standards.

'He definitely knows how to be cautious…' Lucius thought to himself.

From the cut Arius had made on his thumb, blood dripped down into the metal boxed. Hidden to the eyes of everyone, the blood touched the rune beast crystals that were floating on top of the oil.

When they touched one of the rune beast crystals, it seemed to release a faint wave of energy that was not sensible to anyone. The energy met the other rune beast crystal and all of them were attracted towards each other.

More blood dripped on it, and the rune beast crystal started to melt. They were like a block of ice melting, yet when they met the Rock nut oil in the box, they easily mixed. Once that happened, the Aether crystals activated and started to infuse Aether into the mixture.

Like a spark meeting fuel, the entire mixture showed a rapid and volatile reaction, changing into a gaseous form that quickly rushed into the hand of Arius. 

Arius, who for the first five seconds felt nothing, felt as if lightning was rushing through his body. It entered from his left hand and directly rushed to his heart, making it throb like thunder before moving to the rest of his body.

He felt both pain and a strange sense of comfort from this as the energy started spreading more and more. He felt as if the inside of his body was melting and melding with the energy.

The Aether within his body started to rise at a rapid pace. The speed was far quicker than any Aether crystal that he had used and he felt like he may even explode. Then the total pressure he had on him made it so that he could not move at all and neither could he speak.

To Lucius and Kiana, it was as if Arius was frozen, or perhaps even paralyzed. This made Lucius narrow his eyes, as he had not seen a reaction like this before.

'This is a bit different. Kiana and Neta had directly fainted while this man seems to be having a paralytic state instead…' Lucius thought to himself.

He then tried to use the mark of obedience he had on Arius to sense the condition of his body.