Chapter 146

When I finally woke up, half an hour before the dawn, I was exhausted, and my mouth was dry as a desert.

Though, considering four naked women was snuggling against my body, spent after a very long night where we had gone through all the interesting permutations five people achieve without any scrap of clothing between us.

The perfect way to relax after a close call with the disaster, and certainly well-earned.

Though, I decided even as I stretched my agility to the limits as I tried to slide out of their delicious hug without waking them up, they certainly earned their rest.

Admittedly, I earned my rest even more, not only making sure that I satisfied four beauties burning with desire — though, to be fair, I did have their assistance in more than one combination — but also leveling them up to the limit.

Titania was exempt from that benefit, as her level was still higher than mine, though only two levels remained between us.

Which also meant I was about to lose my most convenient direct experience source, but that was unfortunately inevitable.

I had made sure to elevate Helga and Cornelia to Level twenty-two, though Marianne was only able to reach Level nineteen, an unfortunate consequence of her incomplete Companion Process. It wasn’t as urgent considering she was going to stay at the school, while Helga and Cornelia would leave for her family estate at the first opportunity, but still...

Treating my girls as equally as I could manage was only fair.

I dressed quickly and left the room, no matter how much I wanted to stay with them.

I had an important meeting with the headmistress.

Slipping out of the city to create an elemental mount had been trivial at this point. As I felt the chilly touch of the morning weather on my face — I hadn’t blocked it intentionally, to properly wake up — my mind shifted into more important issues.

Namely, the threat provided by the mysterious Eternals. Until I discovered Zokras’ final trick, I had assumed that their presence had been an incidental part of this siege, trying to score some easy victories for whatever they had in mind by supporting Zokras.

But Zokras’ latest decoy had put a different spin on the things, especially since I had no idea just how committed Zokras had been to the siege in the first place.

He was obviously trying to destroy the school, of course, as some of his plans were perfect until they were unraveled by me, a factor that he could not have planned for in any shape or form. However, that didn’t actually mean his main focus was against the school. Maybe it was a decoy from the beginning.

Which meant that I had never met with his real body, not even in his base — though, the real body was a complicated concept for a lich in the first place. When I first met him, I wasn’t strong enough to properly assess his capabilities, nor my focus was on there.

I was too busy trying to escape his death knights.

The anger he displayed as I destroyed his death knights was certainly genuine, though that wasn’t very surprising. Even if the attack was a decoy against the organization, he had to commit a majority of his assets — at least, the known ones — for his sacrifice to be convincing. He, without a doubt, hoped to save at least some of those Death Knights for future use.

The same was true for the magical ability he had displayed. His actual strength was definitely higher than his revealed strength.

Though, it was complicated. If I was approximating the organization’s abilities correctly, it was difficult to hide things from them.

Which meant one good news and one bad news for me. Good news, even if Zokras had been using a decoy from the beginning, I had seen enough to get a good understanding of his power. Enough that I shouldn’t be worried about him trying to target me directly.

And considering he was trying to hide his survival, he wouldn’t have bothered with a pointless act like targeting Cornelia and Helga, shouting his survival.

Bad news that, even with everything I had discovered about the Eternals, I might have been underestimating their power and their reach. Zokras spending a decade of effort just to frame his death — albeit while achieving some other objectives, most likely stealing that dark Divine Spark the headmistress using for an extremely expensive concealment source, maybe even taking down the headmistress at the same time — told a lot about their strength.

Once again I was facing an enemy that over-classed me significantly.

“Damn,” I murmured, letting the wild winds devour my annoyed gasp. With the undead threat resolved, I was hoping that my desperate need to get even stronger would have disappeared.

With a shrug, I dispelled the elemental mount and sneaked into the school. I had more important things than theorizing about the definite existence of the spies and their possible intentions.

Like, another meeting with the headmistress.

[Level: 31 Experience: 493210 / 496000

Strength: 46 Charisma: 63

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 6324 / 6324 Mana: 7750 / 7750 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Arcana [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [100/100]

Expert Speech [75/75]

Expert Craft [75/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (1/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 22/26]

[Helga - Level 22/26]