Chapter 78

I sat on her desk while waiting for her to leave the bathroom, and started examining the books open on her desk. The books and her notes were about repairing spell structures and wards, validating my assumption about the reason for her exhaustion.

She didn’t neglect to send me a frustrated look as she opened the bathroom door and stepped into her bathroom, dressed in nothing but a towel, giving me a glimpse of her glistening skin before she cast a spell to slam the door close.

[+100 Experience]

I chuckled at her impotent anger, showing that the time she spent alone did little to regain her emotionless status. It was good news, allowing me to benchmark both the power and the recovery state of her light magic’s anti-emotion feature. And what I learned encouraged me further.

Pity I couldn’t miss her on the way to the meeting. I had no intention of revealing such an important freebie to the vaunted headmistress. Our playing field was sufficiently unequal before I started providing her with free cards. It was the same reason I didn’t bother Titania as she dressed, giving her some time to recover.

However, as I waited, I couldn’t help but feel panicked. The headmistress was a legendary figure, and the students barely encountered her, each encounter turning into an urban legend. Based on what I had searched, the last known student meeting occurred two decades ago, and left the student with constant nightmares for the rest of his life.

It was an interesting tale, though it was hard to guess whether it was correct or it was just another result of the mystery that surrounded her.

The gossip and tales about her were not a surprise. She was holding one of the most important posts known to mankind for significantly more than a century, but still managing to keep anything related to herself a mystery.

Including her political stance, powers, and even her appearance —not that I expected much from a crone that measured her life in centuries.

Even the thought of it was ridiculous.

Titania left her room almost half an hour later, and when she did so, her expression once again stiff as an iron plate. “Let’s go,” she said coldly, and I followed her, suppressing my desire to mess with her.

“Anything I should know about, before finally meeting the legendary headmistress?” I said.

“Just answer her questions truthfully, and don’t waste time,” Titania said. “And don’t think you can lie to her, you can’t,” she underlined.

“Really?” I said, feeling intrigued at her certainty. “Then, how comes there are traitors in the school without her noticing.”

“Politics,” Titania answered with absolute certainty, unaware that she had revealed important information to me. They knew the identity of the traitor.

How interesting.

Still, rather than pushing her on the subject, I decided to focus on her certainty about my eventual inability to lie. She might be talking about the insights generated by living long, but I had a feeling that it wasn’t something that simple. Maybe it was a skill like my Subterfuge, only about revealing the truth rather than hiding it, or maybe it was some kind of spell. Regardless, it was not something to be underestimated.

Honestly, I would have never taken the risk if I hadn’t already nominally allied with her accidentally when I saved Titania from the necromancers, and while I had secrets, they were not the kind that would come up easily.

Regardless, I could feel my heartbeat climbing up as we climbed the stairs of the central tower, which was the dedicated residence of the ruler of the school.

Then, Titania knocked on the door, a door that was glowing with magical wards. I wouldn’t like to try breaking it while the wards were active. “Come in,” called a voice from inside, rusty and cracking. Titania did so, giving me the first glimpse of the office of the headmistress.

And the first thing I noticed was darkness. The room was entirely too dark, from furniture to the walls, everything was in tones of black and dark brown, including the thick curtains, blocking the sunlight to leave a few flickering lights as the only source of light.

The sensation of darkness didn’t abate when we stepped in. Instead, it increased further. Without being blocked by the wards, her aura slammed against my magical senses immediately, which was just as dark as the decorations of her office.

Then I saw her.

She was sitting behind a huge desk, and the only reason I could tell she was a woman was her title. She was dressed in a black hooded cloak wrapped tight around her, revealing nothing but a lock of white hair peeking through. So mysterious, I thought even as I walked toward her in reluctant steps, even if something was tickling on the back of my head. To complete her looks, she had a huge hunch on her back, disfiguring her looks even further.

The dark accents of her room and her aura gave me a reason to second-think my visit. The only reason I didn’t beat a hasty retreat was the fact that she controlled Silver Spires, therefore had no reason to ally with the necromancers.

Titania didn’t look satisfied with the suggestion —which was telling considering her emotion-blocker was running at full power— but she still nodded. “Is there anything else?” she asked, and the headmistress shook her head.

She stood up and I immediately followed her, curious about the lack of interrogation, but feeling even more scared of the headmistress as a result. I had expected her to ask about my origins, leveraging her power position, but she hadn’t done so. So, she was either confident enough that she had got a handle of my abilities, therefore didn’t feel alert, or she already discovered more than I was aware, therefore staying calm about the subject.

Regardless of the reason, when I left the room, I was even more alert about the mystery of the headmistress...

[Level: 28 Experience: 386600 / 406000

Strength: 33 Charisma: 48

Precision: 30 Perception: 32

Agility: 30 Manipulation: 35

Speed: 29 Intelligence: 39

Endurance: 27 Wisdom: 38

HP: 4172 / 4172 Mana: 5297 / 5326 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [95/100]

Master Arcana [86/100]

Expert Speech [57/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (1/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 17/25]

[Helga - Level 13/17]