When Zoey open her eyes more than thirty hours later, significant changes had taken place inside her inner world. Her essence lake had expanded and deepened by a considerable margin. The young crystalline tree in the center of the lake had grown even taller, it's trunk now too thick for her to wrap her arms around. The beautiful crystalline branches stretched out over the lake and reflected the light of her twin Heritage's that shone from the depths. Other than that the sky and the grassy fields that surrounded the lake and stretched out to the horizon showed no significant changes.

Zoe stretched then embraced Viridi who had been patiently waiting for her. Her big friend purred happily and rubbed her big head against Zoey, thankful that she was back.

Now that the rank up process was complete Zoey felt stronger. It was hard to quantify how strong she was without a proper test, but both her and Viridi had definitely become more powerful. On top of that, Zoey and Viridi now had access to some new abilities. She opened up her interface to take a look.

[ZOEY: Rank 4

[INNATE TALENTS:

[1. DARK STAR RUNIC BLOOD

[ABILITIES:

[a. Transformation: Trigger Unknown

[b. Ability Assimilation

[c. Ice Venom Rune

[d. Null Field Rune

[e. Mittra Regen Rune

[f. Shadow Blade Rune

[g. *Modified* Ice Armor Control Rune

[h. *NEW* Moon Web Rune

[i. *NEW* Gravity Rune

[2. AETHER ENGINEER

[a. *Modified* Able to design, fabricate, modify and repair items from aether magic. Adding matter to construct will reduce design cost.

There had been some significant changes to her abilities, so Zoey opened them up one by one to check their changes.

[Ice Armor Control Rune: Allows for the creation and manipulation of Ice Armor. Includes but is not limited to armor and weaponry.

The ability that had been extracted from the Cold Pike essence stones had merged with her Ice Armor rune giving her additional functions from that rune. Zoey modified her array with the updated Ice Armor rune and gave it a test. She discovered that she was able to form Ice Armor plates at will on her body. Before it had only been a frosty shimmer that appeared on her clothing when the rune was active, now the ice actually took physical form. Seeing her doing it, Viridi also gave it a try and instantly transformed herself into a dangerous looking, ice armored panther. The ice plates that appeared on her body overlapped naturally and looked almost like Viridi was born with them.

Aside from just creating the armor, Zoey and Viridi quickly discovered that they were able to form extremely sharp ice blades and spikes on the surface of the Ice Armor at will. This would give them another offensive tool if an enemy got too close.

Done with that ability, Zoey moved on to the next one.

[Moon Web Rune: Allows for the creation and manipulation of Moon Webbing, an extremely strong and restrictive type of webbing.

This one was interesting to Zoey as the Moon Spider Web was initially described as poisonous, but her ability had no such feature. Maybe it was all for the better. Poison could have some unintended effects if not handled carefully. That aside, Zoey was a bit at a loss on how to implement the Moon Web rune. Viridi on the other hand instantly used the rune and completely covered both of them in Moon Webbing, making a considerable mess in the process. Thankfully, the rune allowed Viridi to disperse the webbing, releasing them both from the self-inflicted imprisonment.

Zoey decided that Viridi could have fun with that rune herself. She would figure out a way to use it effectively later.

Zoey looked on to the last new ability, the Gravity rune.

[Gravity Rune: When applied to a target, this rune allows one to reduce or increase the gravity affecting the target and the area around the target.

This rune was pretty self-explanatory even though it still confused Zoey how it was possible. In the universe she was from, gravity manipulation was impossible, even by the most advanced races and tech in that universe. But here in this universe, it was apparently a simple thing to affect gravity with the application of magic. It truly was a strange thing.

Zoey and Viridi tested this rune as well and were able to reduce the gravity to the point where they were floating around the cave almost weightless! Both of them had some fun for a few minutes bouncing around, and Zoey found herself laughing at Viridi as she tried to twist her body around while floating through the air.

When Zoey tested the ability further, she was able to determine that the rune was unable to completely eliminate gravity, only able to reduce it to micro gravity levels. On the other end of the spectrum, when she applied the Gravity rune to herself and turned it up as high as she could, she was completely immobilized and held flat to the floor. Even when she exerted all her strength, she could not move a muscle. Even Viridi with her considerable physical strength could only inch across the floor when the Gravity rune was applied to her at max strength.

Once she was done testing the Gravity rune, Zoey took a look at the changes that had been made to her Aether Engineer ability as well. The change here only seemed to be that all the abilities were consolidated into one. She would have to check later if anything else had changed there.

Finally, there was her Heritage and elemental information.

[HERITAGE AND ELEMENTAL AFFINITY INFO

[HERITAGE| Dark Star Runic Heritage: Tier Unknown | Gaia Human: Tier 3 Harmonic

[ELEMENTAL AFFINITY| Cold: Harmonization 50% | Dark: Harmonization 50% | Gravitation: Harmonization 10%

The changes here were mostly her Dark and Cold harmonization levels going up and finally the unknown element properly showing up! Gravitation harmonization was now showing on her interface. Zoey was not sure how Gravitation was classified as an element, but the rules in this universe were different, so she might as well roll with it.

Well, Zoey and Viridi were now Rank 4 and had a few new abilities as well. Zoey had to do some modifications to her gear, but after that, they would be ready to leave the cave and head back to town.