Leveling through Lust

While I created the storage the headmistress requested I had a tense expression, and that was not just a fake expression I wore to trick her about the difficulty of the challenge.

I wanted to mislead her, but that was not the reason for my true tenseness. I was tense because, even at the moment, I wasn't entirely sure the path I had chosen was the right one, and I revealed the correct level of information to her.

As I created the storage, the mana I used to construct it carried little Tantric mana.

Or, more accurately, it didn't carry the Tantric effect. It was hard to describe the effect of Tantric on mana, because it didn't work like the other natures, like elemental or arcana, which just transformed the pure mana into corresponding nature directly.

It took me a long time to understand but Tantric didn't just transform but somehow elevated the intensity of mana — though even that was an inaccurate definition, just the best way I was able to pin the process down.

It was not just a merger like one achieved by merging light and elemental magics. That process, while being extremely explosive, was much easier to understand. It was just that merging different natures, requiring a lot of power to suppress the necessary conflict between them.

Different natures, but the same hierarchy of existence.

The hierarchy of existence was certainly a difficult concept, but one that I wasn't sure I understood correctly. I certainly didn't remember reading it in a book or talking to someone about such a concept. Of course, such instinctual understanding was not entirely unfamiliar. I had received many skills, and every single one of them came bundled with such deep and integrated understanding.

And, that left me with another interesting conundrum. Which skill was responsible for that information?

I was inclined to believe that it was Tantric responsible for this portion.

After all, not only it was about how Tantric was different from other skills — a fact that was getting clear more and more as time passed – but also that realization came after I have just improved Tantric twice in a row, making it my first grandmaster skill. So, assuming Tantric was the origin of that information was reasonable.

However, under the circumstances, assuming something was true because it was reasonable and fit together well with other circumstantial evidence might be dangerous, leading me to a tunnel of misunderstanding.

After all, we were living in an apocalyptic world that was built over ruins of a battle that included gods in destroyed planes.

Logic was not a rule but a luxury.

Luckily, identifying the source of that scrap of information was not exactly a priority with everything going on.

And, deciding on where Tantric fell under this hierarchy was much easier. It was clearly higher than ordinary mana, and belonged to some group as the divine spark. And even, considering its great effect on the divine spark, even on that scale, it clearly ranked high.

Though, if I asked the headmistress, I had a feeling that I would receive a different classification.

I still remembered her calling the presumed source of the fake companion node I created to trick her as the Degenerate — though, whether she was referring to another user like me or someone that might be compared to her God needed to be clarified.

Ultimately, lack of information was the problem I faced constantly, making it difficult decision whether to reveal the full extent of Tantric's effects or keep it hidden.

So, I decided to play it conservatively. I used only a minuscule amount of Tantric effect as I created the storage, just enough to contain the divine spark successfully while also adding a subtle calming effect, but nothing else. Because, ultimately, it was better to be on the safe side when it came to such matters, especially when dealing with someone like the headmistress, who was yet to earn the privilege of my trust.

Still, even if the effect was subdued compared to its full potential, it was a great improvement over the last display, enough to show that, without a doubt, my mana was superior when it came to containing the divine spark.

And, while my mind was busy with the tangent of Tantric and how it compared to other mana natures and divine sparks, the headmistress was busy examining the effects of my storage, making a note of the improvement. Seeing the expression of astonishment on her face, impossible to be hidden despite her best efforts — not that her best efforts were particularly difficult to unravel when it come to subterfuge — suggesting that, even my conservative choice was already pushing the limits of credibility.

Dealing with the divine spark might be even harder than I had assumed despite my best efforts to put a safety margin on the concept.

“How…” she murmured as she continued to examine the storage, poking with her own to get a better sense of what was going on, only to fail spectacularly.

I wasn’t surprised by her failure to understand its source. I was the one that cast the spell, which gave me a considerably better insight into the process behind it, and even then, it took several hours of repeated experimentation to understand the reason for the Divine Spark’s reaction.

When she glanced at me, her suspicion was clear, but unlike the previous time, I was more prepared for that. “Any idea why it’s able to contain it successfully this ?” I asked, throwing the problem back to her, like it was something I expected her to know.

“Probably a unique reaction as the power of the Divine Spark is getting settled on your body,” she said, trying to sound certain, but she was not a sufficiently good liar to reflect that — or the fact that she was trying to mislead me intentionally.

“Really, then Titania should be able to do it as well?” I asked, doing my best to hide my smirk as I poked a hole in her explanation.

“Not … not really,” she answered, her speech slower as she tried to get herself time to find an explanation. “She’s not as good when it comes to wards and crafting,” she added quickly.

“If you say so,” I answered with a shrug, amused that she chose to explain that way rather than spinning something about the interaction between my companion node and the new one. It would have been much more believable as an excuse.

It would have been much closer to the truth as well, but that was not really the issue. I was more interested in the fact that she just ignored the possibility of assistance from the companion node, like it was not even possible.

Admittedly, even for me, it took a while to accept that Tantric had such potential, and unlike her, I already knew that Tantric was the gateway to many suspicious things, from helping others to increasing their level cap to giving more experience in addition to other, more mundane impact like a more fun time in bed and helping transfer mana more easily…

“Still, we need to study it more to make sure we understand its full implications,” she said, trying to look disinterested, only to fail miserably.

Trying to look casually disinterested was one of the things that inexperienced people fail miserably at, mostly because they misunderstood the complexity behind such a trick. That were many simple components to it, from how one positioned their hands to where their gaze pointed. They thought they knew, but the truth…

The hands were usually defined by a lack of action, standing unnaturally still at their sides or being busy with a trinket. The eyes, on the other hand, were either unnaturally still as they maintained eye contact lingering to the point of discomfort, or avoided that connection in the first place.

To her credit, the headmistress managed to show all these traits at the same time despite the supposedly contrasting nature of those moves, cycling through them with great speed.

It was amusing to see her relative competence of Subterfuge — at least one discounted the time she required to develop that — had fallen into pieces completely when she tried to tell a lie.

That, she clearly used very little in her long tenure.

How amusing…

“Try to create a storage in your finger,” she ordered, her explanation once again brief but her expression tight with concentration, unaware that she gave me another little decision challenge, especially with her deliberate wording. Creating mana storage inside a living being was significantly more difficult than doing it externally, and the cost of failure was much higher.

I was already using that trick for a long time, of course, but that didn’t mean it was safe to reveal that to her. Yet, looking at her enthusiastic expression, I decided to show her I could do it.

After all, it was what she needed to solve her problem, and the casualness of her question — one that I could read as genuine — showed that she expected me to succeed, making it a safe choice.

[-931 Mana]

“Here,” I said as I pointed my hand to her, and she channeled her magic through it, storing some Divine Spark inside. Pity I couldn’t just take it and leave, as consuming it would have been suspicious.

I let it go after five minutes, giving her sufficient time to observe. “Sounds simple enough,” I answered.

“Good, now to the next task,” she said, her voice colored with enthusiasm, which was incredible considering her usual subdued emotions.

“Whatever you wish to do, I have nothing else important to address other than paying another visit to Janelor, she asked me to bring breakfast, but if you’re okay with me delaying that…” I said, doing my best to sound casual. It was not true, of course, as rather than visiting Janelor, I wanted to go and dig the little secrets of the princess — the team that was spying on Marianne and Titania was enough to show that was more urgent than I expected.

Yet, it was clearly not something she would care about. Such political tricks were dangerous, but if there was one thing the deadly undead attack taught me, that the headmistress was too passive against the threats that the school faced. Even if she didn’t want to act, she had many tools she could have leveraged before Zokras and his merry band of undead could become a threat too difficult to handle. Only sheer luck — in my peculiar form — prevented Silver Spire from getting terribly damaged.

I had no reason to believe she would be more proactive against the growing political threat. Luckily, I had Janelor as the excuse to act however I wished. And, right now, I deliberately wanted to leave after showing her that my little storage trick was more effective than she expected.

“No, don’t delay that!” she said, her panic clear. After all, my storage trick was only a possible solution to her problems, and until she could make sure that it worked, she wouldn’t dare to make Janelor unhappy. “Go and handle her, then come back.”

“As you wish, milady,” I bowed, giving a little obedient bow, my mind already busy on how to leverage my newfound leverage…

[Level: 34 Experience: 591170 / 595000

Strength: 46 Charisma: 63

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 6936 / 6936 Mana: 8163 / 8500 ]

SKILLS

Grandmaster Tantric [112/120]

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Arcana [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [100/100]

Master Craft [85/100]

Expert Speech [75/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (0/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Titania - Level 35/38]

[Cornelia - Level 22/26]

[Helga - Level 22/26]

[Marianne - Level 21/29]