Chapter 86

When I left the headmistress’s office, it was still the nighttime, with at least two hours until dawn. So, I expected Oeyne to sleep. If it wasn’t for the impending visit of the mysterious oldest princess of the Empire, I might have refrained from waking her up, but that discussion already forced me to reveal some of my cards.

Compared to that, breaking her wards to visit her without permission was not a big deal.

The doors of the Hall of Craft was closed to the visitor during the night, but since they had many apprentices and servants bustling around to clean and to replenish their material stocks, I managed to sneak in without even skipping a step, as easy as I was entering my own room. Though, with my current abilities and the latest boost I received, breaking into Oeyne’s room only took a moment’s concentration, a complicated flaring of my mana enough to unravel her whole protection scheme.

[+1 Arcana]

[-16 Mana]

I was expecting to find a silent room, maybe with a soft snore if Oeyne had indulged in too much alcohol. Instead, I found her on the desk next to her forge, a huge pile of papers in front of her, with another pile of bottles next to her that rivaled the papers on the side. My eyes widened as I measured the size of the pile. No wonder she was feeling hungover in the mornings even with her supernatural endurance, if that was her casual consumption. She wasn’t drunk, as she was still clear-minded enough to work on her complicated smithing schemes —though double-checking them after sobering was likely a good idea.

I walked without bothering to hide, but she was far too focused on her task to notice me, even when I stood behind her and read her work over her shoulder.

[+2 Craft]

The notification surprised me quite a bit, so I decided to make a small game out of waiting, curious how long it would take for her to notice me. However, after a couple of minutes passed, I had to admit that it was very unlikely for her to notice me, at least not until she noticed my presence. However, the bigger disappointment came when I looked down at her cleavage to enjoy the other benefit of my position.

[Level Difference of five or more! No Experience]

I sighed disappointedly as I noticed that particular detail, as realized I had overgrown yet another source of experience. Yes, there was still the experience I could gain from the companion process, but I wasn’t willing to progress that with Oeyne yet, not until I could get a better handle of her relationship with the princess, and the possible implications of her visit. I had already pushed my luck too far by my trick with Titania, but at least, the headmistress needed me, enough to come up with an offer of empowerment —both to increase my value and to control me, but there was a general understanding between us.

At least, I hoped that was the case...

With the princess, things were a bit different. I didn’t know anything other than a few nuggets I had managed to extract from Oeyne and Titania, and neither was the embodiment of political awareness. Moreover, from what I understood, the princess’ position was weak enough to actually use my existence as a bargaining chip against her rivals —I still didn’t know how rare was my abilities to give extra powers or assess them directly. The headmistress also had them in some fashion, which meant they weren’t completely unique, but the headmistress was one of the most mysterious characters in the Empire, therefore not the best benchmark about the rarity of an ability.

Luckily, I had many ways of enjoying our time without triggering the process of the Companion Process further, and the simplest one was enjoying the look of her spectacular body.

Her caramel skin looked even better under the murky shadows of the room, illuminated by a solitary crystal on her desk and the ever-glowing coals of her forge, adding a flickering pink tint to her light brown skin, which made her look even more luscious. And considering how she looked like sex incarnate without paying the slightest attention to her clothing and posture thanks to her bountiful curves and perfect body, it was a considerable achievement.

Her current clothing also enhanced her sexiness quite a bit. As usual, she wasn’t exactly dressed to impress, rather, just wearing the stuff she wore when she slept in her lonesome. Thanks to her curves, however, a shirt old enough to lose most of its color, with several small burn marks littering revealing the glimpses of her more intimate parts of her body including her lack of a bra, worked like a wondrous piece of clothing rather than garbage only fit to be used as a rag.

The shorts that were responsible for covering her bountiful ass was in a better condition, but that didn’t affect her sexiness, especially since her shorts were both tiny enough to reveal her toned legs, and clingy enough to reveal the curves of her ass. The soft material looked comfortable, but without detracting it from her sexiness. So, splitting my attention between the schematics she was working on, and her body, wasn’t exactly a chore, even without the benefit of some extra experience.

[+7 Craft]

Still, I decided to act when the skill acquisition started to slow down, because the blueprints she was scribbling were too complicated to understand, especially since I didn’t know their ultimate aim. Still, from the details of the magical aspects, which I was very well-versed in, I could see many errors, some of which she managed to fix with each iteration, but only through making even more major changes.

If the smithing portions of the calculations were as riddled with the mistakes, no wonder I couldn’t understand what she was trying to do...

“How about if you link the secondary structures together directly-” I started, a smirk on my face, only for her to swing her arm in panic. Understandable, considering I had startled her completely.

Her punch flew threateningly, cutting through the air at a scary velocity even when she was unprepared. Her strength was not a joke. I had no doubt that if I let her hit a wall with minimal magical reinforcements, she would punch through, even when she was unprepared and poorly balanced.

Too bad that I had enough strength to catch the said threatening punch without flinching. Her expression of shock was beautiful, flaring at first because I caught her punch, only to burn even thicker when she realized my identity. “How have you been since we last met, Oeyne?” I said with a smirk, like the situation we were under was by any means normal.

“W-what are you doing here?” she whispered, shocked.

[Level: 30 Experience: 441500 / 465000

Strength: 36 Charisma: 51

Precision: 33 Perception: 35

Agility: 33 Manipulation: 38

Speed: 32 Intelligence: 42

Endurance: 30 Wisdom: 44

HP: 4920 / 4920 Mana: 6300 / 6300 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [97/100]

Master Arcana [91/100]

Expert Speech [68/75]

Advanced Craft [40/50]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (1/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 17/25]

[Helga - Level 13/17]