Chapter 215

“Be careful,” she murmured as I grabbed her hand. Her voice was steady, but it was impossible for her to hide her tenseness from me successfully.

“Don’t worry, boss,” I said, putting enough focus on the last word, enough to make it a mocking statement. Any other time, she would have reacted that badly, but this time, she didn’t even notice that, her attention on my fingers.

It was not hard to understand her. I was yet to learn the full details, but it was clear that she had spent a considerable portion of the last two centuries locked in the tower, and even the possibility of getting free from that was not so inconsiderable.

I was careful as I used Tantric to slowly imbue Arcana energy in a manner subtle enough that she wouldn’t notice, and started building a temporary container in her finger, paying attention to do so extra stable.

I considered deliberately failing a couple times before succeeding to further undersell my abilities. I would have probably done so without the presence of the princess and Janelor, their presence giving me a sense of pressure.

Both were enemies of the Eternals to a certain degree, though even without them, it was clear that the Eternals weren’t exactly a friendly organization, evidenced by the way they tried to use Zokras to take the school down.

After I completed it, she started circling her mana, once again using her clumsy mana flow to store Divine Spark into the storage, not too different from the way she used to create my Light node.

I would have been annoyed, if it didn’t give me even more chance to steal Divine Spark.

Most of the Divine Spark I stole, I just pushed into my body, cleansing through Tantric before letting my body absorb it — since the effectiveness of it helping me to level up getting lower and lower, I decided to prioritize absorption over letting the System devour it.

The next time, I would try to steal some from the Princess, to see whether the difference in Divine Spark would help.

The process took a long, and the waiting after that took even longer, so I decided to leverage the pause for something productive. I already had my mana inside her, and she was conveniently distracted to examine the performance of the storage I created.

Perfect time for some experimentation.

I started to examine the relationship between the Divine Spark and her body, to see why she was failing to absorb it.

As I carefully examined her state, I soon realized that was not entirely correct. The best way to describe her status was halfway successful — as otherwise, she would have long died due to side effects regardless of the impact.

Though, the deeper I dug, the more I respected her solution. The simplest way to describe her trick was to create a giant Light Node for herself, compressing most of the Light Spark into an immobile mess, allowing her to survive despite a half-complete process.

Of course, the actuality wasn’t as simple, as the Divine Spark was clearly resisting being compressed to such a degree, so she couldn’t just compress the Spark completely and continue to use her mana.

She had to maintain a subtle balance of letting it liquify to get rid of the pressure, circling through her body before solidifying it into a node once more — while using Darkness Spark to suppress the process.

All the while, the way she had used the spark was diametrically opposed to mine, as even halfway successful, it was clear that she wanted to let it dance in her body freely. My trick was far more similar to Janelor’s trick, though using transformed Divine Spark rather than Mana.

I didn’t attempt to steal the Darkness Spark, as unlike the abundance of Light Spark she was suffering, she clearly had much less, enough that the disappearance of it might actually be successful.

Curious, I created a very small probe of pure mana, one that displayed the full capability of Tantric Node.

As I did so, I could feel my competency in Tantric rising, but I received no notification from the System, the partial block working excellently.

[-14 Mana]

The transformation itself might be complete, but the amount of mana was small enough to avoid her attention, especially with the presence of the other, and I watched the process as it moved through her body.

It didn’t take long for me to notice something very important. It occasionally collided with slivers of Light Spark, only for them to disappear almost immediately. At first, it made me frown, as while Tantric was able to purify the Divine Spark, it was certainly not an instantaneous process, not even for a sliver.

I turned my full focus into the process. I realized what was going on at the fifth occurrence.

Before I could absorb Light Divine Spark, I needed to purify it completely, stripping it of its nature — or transforming it into Tantric nature, but that was not a question I was yet to answer — before my body could accept it.

Yet, the same didn’t apply to the headmistress, who was already halfway merged with Light Spark, with their nature mostly aligned. A simple touch of Tantric effect was enough to soften the rigidity of the Divine Spark, which then allowed it to merge with her properly.

As it merged with her, I understood why she was having trouble describing the interaction between Divine Spark and the gods. It directly merged into her body just like my featureless Divine Spark did, but unlike my featureless one, it also imposed its nature on the Headmistress, enhancing the nature of her light more.

After some thinking, I decided to avoid that for a while. Instead, I stood up, catching her eye. “You’re still very tense,” I said. “Do you want me to work on your shoulders? It’ll be a bit exhausting for me magically, but you clearly need a proper massage.”

—————

[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000

Strength: 46 Charisma: 63

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 7334 / 7334 Mana: 9000 / 9000 ]

SKILLS

Grandmaster Tantric [114/140]

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]