With his runic tattoos changed to the Lantern Element’s energy, it only took Ryuk a little less than an hour to be able to use all of the elements in the book, something that alarmed him quite a bit.
Sitting with his back against the sofa, a spectral lantern could be seen in his hands.
His left gripped it by the handle, and where the candle ought to be burned, a blazing white light.
Reaching his right hand out to the candle’s side, he watched as motes of white light shifted out of the lantern’s chimney.
The second they were out, they first conjured into a round ball before quickly changing, soon forming a massive one-meter-tall sword of pure white flames within Ryuk’s grasp.
"The Lightblade," he muttered beneath his breath, swinging the sword around him a couple of times.
Flames trailed through the air, a truly beautiful sight, but the space around him didn’t cut like a sharp blade would have.
In fact, it didn’t even seem like the blade was passing through the air at all, like it was... unreal?
’Weird,’ he muttered to himself, then switched to the next technique.
The blade converged once more, returning into a ball, and then the ball reshaped, spreading out all over.
Quickly, it formed a dome that covered Ryuk completely, keeping him housed inside.
"The Lantern Wall, huh?"
’I thought it should be like a straight wall and not a dome.’
"YESSSSSSS!"
"YESSSSSSS!"
"FINAAAALLLYY!"
The loud, excited shouts made him turn away from the dome to look at the front.
Right now, Zaffre could be seen jumping around excitedly, a wide grin plastered across her face.
Ryuk turned to look at the TV, and the score surprised him a bit.
It was 50 points under Iris’ name, and 1 point under Zaffre’s name.
It seemed low, but compared to the last time, when the score was 1070 to 0, it was clearly a massive growth.
Iris didn’t seem that sad. She dropped the gamepad, picked up a chocolate bar, and crawled over to Ryuk.
When she reached the dome, she paused, her hand reaching out cautiously—but when it touched, Ryuk watched her fingers simply phase through like it wasn’t there at all.
The little girl didn’t think too much of it and quickly crawled inside, jumping onto his chest.
"50 to 1, huh? Seems like someone’s a fast learner," Ryuk voiced out, watching with an eye roll as Zaffre pumped up her chest.
"Of course, fast learning is only the base expectation of a Mighty Zaffre Kraken." she boasted, trying to act nonchalant, though her words were practically dripping with pride.
She noticed the barrier surrounding Ryuk’s figure and walked forward toward it, curiosity in her eyes.
"Oh, what’s this?" she asked, reaching her hands forward under Ryuk’s silent stare. The second she touched it,
"YOWWW!"
She yelped, jerking her arms away from the barrier like one electrocuted.
Zaffre looked down at her arms and noticed motes of white flame quickly burning along them. She managed to blow them off once at the shoulder.
But then, her hands weren’t the same anymore.
In the place where her arms ought to be were two dangling tentacles.
The flames had burned away her transformation, revealing her true state.
’Oh, so that’s what it does, huh?’ Ryuk thought, an almost evil smirk of realization forming on his face.
Zaffre noticed the evil smirk and flung the game controller toward his head.
"You evil thing!" she shrieked.
Ryuk caught the gamepad before it could slam into his face.
"Sorry. I was just testing it out," he replied, which only earned a scoff from Zaffre, who ignored him and tried to change her tentacles back into normal human arms.
But a frown quickly settled on her face.
"Why is it so slow?" She muttered under her breath.
’Even though Zaffre’s form really isn’t an illusion but a copy, the Lantern flame still burned away and revealed the true state of her arms, which were the tentacles.’
’But not only that, it makes it harder for her to get back into that form after being burned by it.’
’That should be quite helpful in a fight against annoying transformations,’ he thought to himself.
After exactly ten minutes, Zaffre was finally able to regain her arms, and naturally, Ryuk stopped using the Lantern Element.
A problem occurred after, though, as he noticed the Lantern flame core on the grimoire’s front cover had visibly reduced to just a tiny lump, showing its deterioration in essence.
’So... touching an energy core to copy it also drains away the essence?’ Ryuk realized, returning the grimoire back to his shop space.
’I guess I’ll just have to find a much bigger Lantern essence core if I plan on using the elements.’
But then, out of the corner of his eyes, a sudden surge of rainbow light caught his attention.
He turned and found himself to be the source.
All of his tattoos were rippling with rainbow light, only to dim a moment later, then switch back in the next moment.
He looked at Iris in his arms and watched her poking him again and again, seemingly taking joy in watching his tattoo colors shift from rainbow to purple.
"Stop that, rabbit head," he said, ruffling her hair as she pouted coquettishly.
"How did you even do that anyway?" Zaffre called from behind the glass.
She was in the opposite lab, working on the computer, but right now she was staring at him, confused and curious.
"Do what?" Ryuk asked.
"Your tattoos. Like, Iris touches you, and you turn into that rainbow energy around her hair?"
"Are your tattoos capable of copying essence energy, or do they steal a little bit of it?"
"How does it even work?"
"What energy is your main one?"
She fired off a flurry of questions, revealing to Ryuk that she had probably been holding them back for a while.
He opened his lips to give some explanation, but paused at the last second, an idea entering his mind.
"Hmmm, how about a deal, Zaffre?"