Chapter 34: Dragon Enchantment

Adonis’s vision went white.

Suddenly, he’s back in the workshop.

"I get it now..."

He looked around the place and could see more than the worried people staring at him, he could see runes. Hundreds of them floated in his vision like fireflies. And more than that, he could understand their nature.

"I think I can inscribe the runes."

He turned to the others and jerked back uncomfortably.

Mariella was staring at him with her mouth slightly open. Geles had gone completely still with eyes as big and round as her glasses. Even Garm, who’d been grumbling in the corner, had stopped mid-curse.

Prussia was staring at him with the biggest, brightest smile he’d ever seen on her face. She looked like one of those fangirls you’d see at pop music concerts.

Prussia smiling... how unsettling.

"Uhm..." Adonis shifted uneasily. "What’s wrong?"

Mariella pointed at him, just mumbling unintelligibly.

"I’ll handle this, Milady!" Geles ran around the workshop like a headless chicken, grabbed a small hand mirror from her tool kit, and shoved it in Adonis’s face.

"Huh?"

He looked at himself and stopped breathing.

He had long ivory hair and celestial indigo eyes that looked like a dragon’s. Under his eyes were dark purple runes arranged like dragon scales. On his right hand and forearm were dark purple dragon runes that started at the back of his hand as a coiled dragon sigil, then spiraled up his forearm in intricate patterns that pulsed faintly.

"What... is this?"

[The runic tattoo on the Host’s right arm acts as an exterior, physical circuit for the Host to safely channel the dragon’s power on demand.]

[Class Skill Evolution: Hand of God → Dragon Hand of God and the Host has also acquired some new skills.]

[Dragon Foresight] - Allows the Host to perceive the flow of mana and predict magical outcomes.

[Dragon Wisdom] - Grants the Host innate comprehension of all runic languages and magical theory.

Adonis was still very lost. He didn’t know what to say. Luckily, the system always knew what to say.

[Dragon Enchantment is an ancient magic art that allows a mortal to assimilate the essence of a dragon into their own being. This process alters the Host’s physical form, mana capacity, and magical aptitude.]

"... Right. Of course."

Adonis lowered the mirror and looked at the others.

Mariella’s face was bright red. She was gripping the edge of the workbench like she needed it to stay upright.

Geles was worse. Her pointed ears had turned pink, and she was holding the mirror so high it was covering most of her face. But he could still see the tomato-red blush spreading down her neck.

Prussia was still smiling at him. With a smile that big, she was a completely different person to him.

Adonis understood why Prussia and Mariella were reacting this way. Prussia loved dragons. Mariella... well, she loved him. Or at least, she loved the idea of him.

But Geles? He’d assumed she wasn’t attracted to him. She was an elf. In the novel, cross-race relationships were rare. Elves typically married elves. Dwarves married dwarves. Humans married humans.

So why was she blushing? He looked at his reflection again.

"... Fumu, is that so?"

His mana had increased from assimilating with Alpis which also meant his looks had, too. He was already the most beautiful man in the kingdom. Now he looked like something crafted by the gods themselves... if, he didn’t already.

’Jeez. As if I wasn’t handsome enough.’

Still... he touched the runes under his eyes.

’I don’t like these.’

[Ding! Mariella has developed +25 affection for Host!]

[Ding! Prussia has developed +10 affection for Host!]

[Ding! Geles has developed +25 affection for Host!]

Adonis looked at the red-faced ladies and said nothing.

From the corner of the workshop, Garm scratched his bushy white beard.

"Am I missing something here?"

Everyone ignored him.

"I mean, I get why you’re all staring. The lad looks different. But as a dwarf, the only thing that’ll ever be attractive to me is my stout wife back home. So can we solve this or no?"

Adonis snapped his fingers.

"Oh! That!"

He turned to the runes sketched on the parchment and instantly grasped them via [Dragon Wisdom]. The runes went from being obscure symbols to becoming a language he could read as easily as he read webnovels.

’It all makes sense now!’

He used [Dragon Foresight].

[Sub-Skill: Runic Eye of Foresight]

Suddenly, he could see the runes in three dimensions. He could build them in his mind, break them down, rearrange them, optimize them. He could see the flaws in Geles’s original design and how to fix them!

Adonis activated the dragon rune on his right hand.

It’s called a Dragon Gate. He picked up the composite shaft with his left hand and held it steady. Then, with his right hand, he began to inscribe.

Geles’s eyes went wide.

"Amazing... he’s doing it..."

She watched, transfixed, as Adonis’s fingers moved across the metal. He was using pure mana, channeled through the dragon gate on his hand.

Crafting four runes consecutively!

An enchanter’s power is measured in rune layers. Rune layers are gated by class rank.

Iron = 1 layer.

Bronze = 3 layers.

Copper = about 5 to 8 layers.

Silver = 15 to 20 layers.

Gold = 30 to 40 layers.

Platinum = 50+ layers.

That’s a skill ceiling. It measures how much complexity a human mind can hold and inscribe at once. Not how much raw mana is available.

Dragon Enchantment breaks the second variable without touching the first.

Assimilating with Alpis didn’t make Adonis a better enchanter. It made him an enchanter with a dragon god’s mana reserve, a dragon god’s rune-literacy, and a second brain doing quality control.

It took him four hours to complete the array.

When he was done, the shaft gleamed with intricate patterns, seven layers of runes all interlocked. But it was still far from complete. He had to do the same thing to the focusing claws for the head of the spear.

Adonis set the shaft down and stretched out, yawning.

"Wow. That was really stressful."

He turned around and the three ladies were right in his space with big eyes and bright smiles faced up at him.

... Mhm~ was all they said.

"Uhm."

Then, he realized he’d been inscribing runes in total silence for four hours and these ladies just patiently watched him look handsome while doing it.

Garm, who was not bewitched by the dragon look, had gone to take a dump hours ago. He wouldn’t be back anytime soon.

Adonis awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

"Are you guys... alright?"

They nodded with their fangirl smiles.

Adonis sighed miserably.

’How long is this form gonna last?’

...

Half an hour later, Adonis was sitting on his bed, back to his normal handsome self.

Alpis was very exhausted from doing an assimilation on the very first day she hatched, so she was sleeping curled up on his lap while he stroked her long, soft hair.

Purr... purr... we’re the sounds she made.

Right now he was keeping himself busy with the task board in his vision. He didn’t have much to deal with anymore, but that was about quantity, not quality.

Task 1: Get the focusing claws and link them to the hybrid rune system on the shaft.

Task 2: Charm Prussia. [It’s been going well so far. Current Affection Level: 60.]

Task 3: Charm Mariella into proposing to him.

Task 3 was the real problem.

It was the only way their engagement would hold any weight. If Mariella proposed, the Duke of Soron would have to accept his daughter’s choice, even if she chose a nobody. If it was the other way around, the duchy itself would reject his proposal.

Adonis dubiously rubbed his chin.

’How do I charm a woman who’s only attracted to being treated like crap?’

Huuuu, seems too difficult.

A tiny finger poked his chest.

He looked down and Alpis is mumbling in her sleep.

"Master... keep touching... Alpis..."

Adonis smiled and kept stroking her hair.

---

Later that night, Adonis stepped out of bed.

He needed to take a leak. He grabbed his oil lamp and shuffled toward the door, still half-asleep.

That’s when he saw Geles sneaking out of the girls’ room with a book clutched to her chest.

"Geles?"

"KYAAAAHH!"

The elven woman shrieked and threw the book.

... Thud, it landed on the floor.

Geles’s face went pale, then red, then pale again.

"P-, P-, Prince Adonis! I... I can explain!"

Adonis looked at the book, then back at her.

"Geles."

"Please don’t look at that!"

He looked anyway.

It was Mariella’s diary.

Geles’s face turned the color of a ripe tomato.

"Waaah! I’m a shameless and worthless person! I have no right to be reading Milady’s diary! I was just curious! I wanted to know what she’s hiding! I swear I won’t do it again if you don’t tell Lady Mariella! Please!"

She was about to drop to her knees when Adonis picked her up. He looked at her with an unusually serious face.

"Geles."

"Y-, Yes...?"

"Can I read this with you?"

The diary of the craziest woman he knew.