Yvette never would have imagined that this evolution would put her to sleep for a full two hundred years in one go.

When the gray cocoon’s shell disintegrated and she lay on the ground, slowly opening her eyes, the first thing she noticed was the mana core within her body: her total mana had reached a hefty 24,000.

However, once she’d hit 10,000 mana, the rune density of the core had already maxed out, and the mana pressure no longer rose.

So the current increase was purely the “blue bar” getting longer—the core’s volume had simply more than doubled.

That made Yvette wonder: if, someday, she ground out her mana core to even more absurd numbers by sheer time…would it end up bulging right out of her chest?

Of course, her mana core was still smaller than a fingernail. To be palpable even through her chest—at a meager increase of forty-two points a year—that would take, what, a million years at least.

Next, Yvette began checking her new abilities.

First, her tentacles had changed appearance again—now pure black, seemingly able to absorb light. Even in sunshine, they reflected nothing. Visually, they were almost identical to Lianna Renee’s Shadow-Tendrils.

Second, the current Shadow-Tendrils had been greatly enhanced in function. Besides hitting harder, the key new effect was that they could devour and digest a target’s memory substrate.

Compared with using soul magic to obtain memories, Shadow-Tendrils added an absorption-and-conversion step, transmuting the memory substrate into purer, readable information. That avoided direct contact with the target’s memories, preventing personality contamination.

Yvette was very pleased—but then discovered that memory-devouring wasn’t the main point of this evolution.

Because she found that her Detached Tendril had gained a new effect—“position swap”!

Yes!

She could now swap places directly with any Detached Tendril—distance ignored!

That made it far more than a simple life-saver. From now on, whether venturing to the Silvermirror Continent, contacting the God of Machines, or taking her true body to the Radiant Continent—there would be no obstacles. Go when she wished, return when she wished!

The only catch was the cost: one transfer burned 10,000 aberrant mana, and carrying cargo added extra by mass.

Even so, she was thoroughly satisfied.

With the addition of spatial swapping, Yvette gave the Detached Tendril a new name: “Flesh-and-Blood Waymark.”

As for how to use it: first, allocate 500,000 aberrant mana to leave a long-term Flesh-and-Blood Waymark mother-body on Ish Island.

Then, whenever she needed to “swap,” have the mother-body split off a secondary waymark with only a trickle of aberrant mana.

That way, if the secondary was sent out and lost to danger, she wouldn’t feel a thing.

After confirming the plan was sound, she executed it at once, placing a Flesh-and-Blood Waymark mother-body—like a black snake—underground. Her aberrant mana for the true body plunged to 700,000.

With that done, she relaxed. After a moment’s thought, she headed outside the manor, intending to see how her long-term plans from two centuries ago had fared.

In those plans, the Central District was essentially to become a materials-and-engineering hub to meet her needs. From runic pharmaceutics to magitech engineering, down to daily necessities—it covered the lot. But her own consumption was tiny, so most materials were piled up in warehouse clusters—making warehouses the most numerous facility on site.

After a circuit confirming everything was developing smoothly, she returned to the manor. No sooner had she pushed open the villa door than a shadow lunged at her.

She reflexively raised a hand and clamped the shadow by the throat. With a squeak, it flailed in her grip, gasping in pain, “Master—it’s—me—”

“What are you doing here?” Yvette released her. Abella’s neck was slender—warm and slick; squeezing it was like wringing the neck of a big goose.

“I waited for you for two hundred years, Master!!” Abella gazed up at her, eyes brimming, seized her hand and rubbed it against her cheek—melodrama laid on thick—and deftly doubled the misery in her own telling.

Honestly, pulling those faces with that icy stunner visage was a bit of a mismatch—but thinking of how she used to be, it somehow made sense.

Yvette considered, then said firmly, “I don’t believe you.”

“Huh?” Abella blinked—then burst into a wail. “It’s true!!” She clung to Yvette’s arm and wouldn’t let go, adding, “Without me, this old house would’ve collapsed!”

“How? The load-bearing structure has magical protection, and the skeleton servitors do maintenance. Don’t try to fool me.” Yvette still didn’t buy it.

She remembered: the last time Abella waited a hundred years, it was purely because she couldn’t leave—basically doing time here. Now she was a commander-level powerhouse. So long as she didn’t run into the King of the Ocean Depths, what ordinary aberrant would dare block her return to the Blacktide Continent?

Besides, during Yvette’s second evolution—three hundred years ago—this one hadn’t shown up to keep her company. She’d been out there playing queen, free as a bird.

Not that Yvette held grudges—she just had a very good memory.

“It really is true, Master. When I came, the floorboards were all rotten. Every plank—I replaced it for you. And these cabinets…” Abella began listing, one by one, all the work she’d done to repair and maintain the manor and villa—patching this bit of roof, removing that patch of mold—reeling them off as easily as reciting a menu.

Yvette thought, The skeletons could do all that too—their thresholds are just higher. You beat them to it, fine, that’s some contribution. But how do you remember it so clearly—did you write yourself a script?

Then she said, “But I still don’t believe you.”

Abella cried even louder—without actually shedding tears—rested her face on Yvette’s shoulder, and lamented, “Boo-hoo-hoo—it’s all true—your old servant has only you in her heart—how can you treat me like this—”

Yvette said, “My guess is you only show up shortly before I wake—to put on a performance. And you wouldn’t come to me for nothing. You must want something.”

“!!”

With her thoughts nailed exactly, Abella felt an arrow to the chest and was left speechless. A second later, though, her gaze dimmed, and a genuine sadness crept in.

She admitted that at first she had indeed meant to put on a show—and had indeed inflated the ‘hundred years’—but the fact that she’d kept vigil here for a century was also true. Now it felt like her efforts had been wiped away.

She let go of her master’s arm, turned her face aside, and muttered, “Ha…you caught me. Nothing gets past you. I did only come in the last few months, and I just happened to catch your awakening—so very lucky.”

Yvette glanced at her, words on the tip of her tongue. The manor’s surveillance didn’t archive for two centuries; it auto-purged every fifty years. Only major danger events would be logged separately by the master AI. And if Abella had been here all along, nothing worth logging would have happened anyway.

Nor was she sure whether Abella had simply slipped into Best Actress mode—just switching to a different style of performance.

Thus, the reunion conversation trailed off into nothing.

But it wasn’t over. In the days that followed, Yvette suddenly realized her maid seemed to be giving her the silent treatment.