Chapter 174

In my place, someone else might have spent several days interrogating Janelor carefully, creating a very comprehensive plan before finally challenging the angel with two Divine Sparks and one of the strongest factions in the Empire under her control.

Yet, I stood at the entrance of the headmistress’ tower, knocking recklessly without her summons, and it wasn’t just the — justified — confidence of my abilities to create a strategy quickly.

No, I was pushed by past knowledge.

I didn’t know if it was paranoia, or it was some kind of sixth sense I developed after handling several disasters in quick succession, but I could feel another disaster in the distance.

Maybe it would be the Eternals, discovering Janelor’s hideout, maybe it would be the Princess and her secrets proving more dangerous than the headmistress and the school could handle, maybe it would be Helga and Cornelia managing to put themselves in danger, forcing me to save them.

I had no idea which one of them would actually result in a crisis, but I didn’t trust my luck enough to avoid all of those triggers. So, the sooner I started working on the headmistress, the sooner I could fix her misunderstanding about my employment status...

After knocking on the door several times, I had received a message from the headmistress, and I responded by saying it was very urgent.

I still waited five minutes before the door opened. “Come to my room,” her voice echoed, and I started climbing the spiral stairs.

Her room contained the full range of decorations it had when I had visited to receive the blessing of light, interesting considering they were not out when I had sneaked into her room and watched her purification ritual. She must have put them on hurriedly to maintain the same impression.

The slight dampness of her hair, no doubt lay forgotten as she hurriedly put on her armor, confirmed that I had stumbled on her in the middle of her cleansing ritual.

Pity, she didn’t invite me in immediately. I would have loved to watch her.

“What’s the emergency?” she asked, her expression as stiff as her voice, no doubt ready to bring out her fury if my interruption was unmerited.

“I have managed to get the dragon drunk,” I said.

“That’s it,” she said, her frown tightening as she looked at me. “That’s what you interrupted me for,” she added, her wings glowing as I felt her light magic flare, her aura of power blanketing the room, reminding me that she was not someone to be dismissed.

Luckily, she was quick to clamp on it. She didn’t have the luxury of using her powers casually, not if she didn’t want her Divine Spark to go out of control — an even bigger problem than I had initially estimated if her deal with Janelor was any indicator.

“She has loose lips when drunk, especially when speaking to a servant, and she had mentioned a couple of ways of suppressing the effects of Divine Sparks,” I said, then took a step back, like I was about to leave. “But if you don’t treat this as an emergency, we can talk about it during our next meeting.”

“Stop!” she gasped, her magic flaring once again, but this time with a chaotic feeling. “How do you know I need that urgently.”

“The dragon mentioned it, of course, while gloating about an unfortunate fate,” I answered. She looked at me suspiciously. “I told you, she has loose lips.”

“That ...” she started, only for her to swallow what was without a doubt an insult, her anger clear in her tone. Her anger was understandable, considering she had accepted every single request of Janelor, yet she still blabbed about her secrets.

Secrets that revealed her deadly vulnerabilities.

She was not unjustified in her anger. Janelor spilled those secrets when she was drunk, though she was drunk of pleasure rather than alcohol. I didn’t even know whether alcohol had that effect on the dragons, though luckily, the headmistress didn’t question me about that part, busy thinking more important aspects.

Like whether this mysterious technique slipped from a dragon’s drunk lips could actually help her control the Divine Spark.

A nonexistent one, of course, as I needed an excuse to poke and prod around the headmistress’ own reservoir, in the hopes of stealing substantially more than I could during her transfers, hoping to discover something in the process.

“What’s the technique?” she asked after a long pause, which didn’t surprise me, not with the risks she was facing.

“She had mentioned several containment strategies, and one of those containment strategies was good enough to store the divine spark in your body, isolated from everything else,” I said as raised my hand, and a complicated, three-dimensional structure appeared in front of her, a variant of the little internal trap I used to store some of the Divine Spark after I had stolen from her.

“As you wish,” I said as I nodded respectfully before leaving, hoping that the nuggets of information I had revealed to her would be enough to lit a fire under her...

[Level: 32 Experience: 499110 / 528000

Strength: 46 Charisma: 63

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 6528 / 6528 Mana: 7960 / 8000 ]

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]

Master Craft [77/100]

Expert Speech [75/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (1/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 22/26]

[Helga - Level 22/26]