Night fell, and the mana moon climbed the sky, spilling clear moonlight.
By day, the Main Academy's dome was an ornate, elegant purple, but at night it looked just like the sky over the Enros Continent. No, not quite. The mages had only built a moon and couldn't be bothered to forge the stars.
"That was close…"
After a brief sparring session, Annesia went off alone to the Main Academy library, and Li Fei exhaled a puff of black smoke, still shaken.
The white-haired girl was the more accomplished of the two in life school magic, but Chaos school spells, famed for their killing power, paired perfectly with her Chaos Casting specialty. Triple chain lightning in your face out of nowhere? Who could take that?
Luckily, it was only a friendly bout to get into form and learn each other's rhythms. Li Fei hadn't worn her [Guardian Mage Robe], and Annesia had held back her mana output, so the junior took no real damage. She was just a little numb, a little scorched, and she'd almost leaked… tears. Tears, I mean.
"Let's go back. We'll talk a bit, then get some early rest. Plenty of energy and a good mood are important."
The blond teacher spoke softly.
"Mm-hm."
Li Fei answered meekly. "I'm going to take a walk. I'll be back in a little while."
Melodia nodded and went back to the villa alone.
Everyone had a distinctive way of steadying their mood. Annesia, for one, chose to read in the library and calm her mind, and Melodia assumed Li Fei's way was walking.
It wasn't.
After asking for directions, Li Fei strolled brazenly over to the dormitory district the Main Academy had set aside for the gifted mages who'd traveled far to undergo trials on Black Magic Deadly Isle.
Tok, tok, tok.
A woman of breathtaking beauty walked in the moonlight, her cold, pale skin brighter than the moon itself. Her graceful figure swayed, trailing fragrance, and her high heels tapped out an alluring, elegant melody, every step plucking at heartstrings.
She'd deliberately left her robe behind and wore only a pink off-the-shoulder miniskirt. The collarbones beneath her pale neck were delicate and lovely, and two thin straps looked ready to slip off her snow-soft shoulders at any moment. Her hanging arms were like willow branches, her bewitching long legs below the hem seemed to glimmer with specks of fluorescence, and even her slender, jade-carved ankles were captivating.
Now and then her gaze lingered on some stranger of a girl, her eyes bright and darting. Now and then she twirled the tips of her hair around a fingertip, and every frown and smile sent the scent of tea wafting out, stealing souls.
"Who is she?"
"Three minutes. I want all her information."
"That's the Spell Encyclopedia Lady from Loxibrook…"
"She's almost as good as Enlos's number-one beauty."
"…"
Amid the whispers, Li Fei released her charm without restraint. Her darting eyes were mist in a night forest, her swaying hair a flurry of snakes, and the lines of her parted lips were forbidden fruit made flesh. They drew countless dazzled, burning stares.
She seemed to be looking for someone. After one lap, she left, but the gentle sway of that lovely waist and the vivid red heels on the moon-dappled ground stayed in the young mages' minds and refused to leave.
They stood dazed for a long while before reluctantly turning away. A few of the hot-blooded ones simply had elf servants follow them back to their rooms.
Meanwhile, Li Fei wound this way and that until she found a quiet spot, ducked into a thicket, and came out again as pink-haired Miss Kaname Madoka, her outfit brand-new too.
The pink demon returned to the edge of the dormitory district.
"My lady, is there anything I can help you with?"
A beautiful elf servant approached to greet her.
"I have a few friends."
The pink demon put on a slightly bashful smile and fidgeted. "My friends say you can… help with some matters of daily life, and with certain emotional needs that are hard to put into words. They're facing a brutal trial tomorrow, but they can't sleep in a strange land. They need a warm embrace and some comfort."
"So, could you maybe…"
"I understand, my lady."
The elf servant said respectfully, "May I ask where your friends are staying?"
"Oh, I forgot to ask. We just got back from outside."
The pink demon stuck out her tongue. "But you can look it up, right? My friends are Melissa, Xavier… just the seven of them. Could you contact some colleagues, dress them up nicely, and have them go knock on their doors? Of course, they're rather shy, so please forgive them if you get turned away."
"Oh, right! They have a lot of stamina, so please send plenty of people, especially for Xavier. He needs ten."
"Yes, my lady."
The elf servant answered in a gentle voice with not the slightest wobble of emotion, then turned and left.
At the Main Academy, as long as a mage's order broke no rules, the shared mage servants obeyed unconditionally, reasonable or not. Arranging for elf beauties to visit the rooms of friends one had never met, to see to certain needs of daily life, for example.
Hope this works. Fei-men.
The pink demon prayed, then turned back into the Spell Encyclopedia Lady.
Every intelligent being had both reason and emotion. Li Fei's transcendent charm stirred the emotional side and, by subtle degrees, eroded the rational side. Those with weak willpower would probably lose their souls after a single glance at Miss Top Courtesan, unable to eat or sleep, thinking only of her. But gifted mages of at least Silver tier surely had decent self-discipline. They wouldn't fall at her feet after one fleeting glimpse, though stray fantasies were unavoidable.
And if, at a moment like that, beautiful elves came knocking with lowered eyes and meek compliance… that would put their resolve to a real test.
It was a throwaway move. If it worked, she'd weaken her opponents off the battlefield. If it failed, so what? She'd only taken a stroll.
Li Fei returned calmly to the teacher's villa, kicked off her heels, and flexed her soles, so white they looked crystalline and translucent. They curled and stretched a couple of times before settling on the carpet, and the silky texture of her Transcendent fur made her squint contentedly.
She walked straight into the bedroom and said softly:
"Can I sleep here tonight?"
"Sure."
The blond teacher, propped against the headboard, scooted over with feigned calm. "I'll get you another blanket."
"No need. I'll just squeeze in with you, Teacher."
Li Fei slipped off her skirt with ease. The delicate, lace-cutout underthings were light and breathable, and the black fabric against her snow-white skin made for a striking contrast on her tall, willowy frame.
With a soft creak as the mattress sank, Li Fei crawled up the bed on her knees, tilted her head, and rested it on Melodia's shoulder. Then she lifted it again and exhaled a breath of damp heat to blow a few strands of golden hair off that shoulder, and only then settled back down, satisfied. She hooked her arm through the blond teacher's as though it were the natural thing to do. Li Fei had deliberately slowed her movements, and her lips stayed exactly 1.5 centimeters from the skin of that shoulder, neither too reserved nor too frivolous. The ambiguity was just right.
"Teacher, are you hot?"
"Ah, no."
"Then why is your face red?"
"No teasing your teacher."
Melodia mumbled and looked away.
She couldn't lower her head, because the pressure on her left arm told her that would be rude. She didn't dare look left either, because the girl already had her chin on her shoulder, and her breath puffed against Melodia's ear when she spoke, sending a little current through her. If she turned left, their eyes would meet at a dangerous distance, and the danger was to her teacherly ethics, which were already hanging by a thread.
"Huh? No way."
Li Fei giggled a couple of times and answered in the coquettish tone of a little girlfriend.
The fact that people of weak resolve fell easily before Li Fei's beauty could be read the other way around, too. Even iron-willed gifted mages could firmly suppress the restless longing Miss Top Courtesan stirred with her charm. How much more so a mature woman who could already stand on her own, or even a high-Sequence being one might call great, a living miracle?
They simply didn't want to, and didn't have the heart. From the moment they met, they'd been inhaling the ever-thicker tea fragrance with curiosity, or admiration, or enjoyment. Even when tiny rootlets sprouted from the tea blossom's bud and wound gently around their ankles, they didn't mind, and they never cut off that pitiful, harmless little invasion with their willpower.
Only after the budding rookie hostess had bloomed into a Top Courtesan who outshone every rival did they wake as if from a dream and struggle to regain control. By then, thousands upon thousands of tea-flower rootlets had already climbed from their ankles to their whole bodies, and dense tendrils had even grown inside them, wrapping around their hearts and fusing with them. Separation was now impossible.
Lady Gnaea, who had saved Li Fei's life and changed the course of her fate, surely understood this best. She was one of the people who'd spent the most time with Miss Top Courtesan, and they'd met very early, so she'd inhaled enough tea fragrance to be beyond cure. The result: the owner of the Golden Tangerine Tavern, who had once raked in her sisters' hefty commissions with tears of gratitude on their part, had stumbled badly, and now lived day to day on lethal doses of Azure Mint.
Melodia wasn't faring much better. She was very nervous now.
A quiet, romantic night, alone in a room with a scantily dressed, forward, beautiful girl, sharing a single blanket. It was a heavy test of willpower.
But the Dean had been wrong about people before. Sure, the Dean had docked this blond teacher's ethics score into the negative three digits, and her handling of rewards and penalties for academic credits was admittedly questionable, but Melodia still had her ethics. She wouldn't commit an offense on the eve of the trial, so she steered the conversation to business.
"I watched you and Annesia spar just now. You're strong, unexpectedly strong. You could hold your own even against a mid-Sequence gifted mage. But…"
To avoid disturbing Li Fei's state of mind, Melodia dropped words like "crude" and put it delicately: "Your fighting style still has some flaws."
"Lady Chloe said the same thing."
Li Fei admitted her weak points frankly.
Between the pre-exchange-tournament training and the two academies' gold and silver brooches, Li Fei had already swallowed up teaching resources so rich that ordinary Transcendents couldn't begin to imagine them. She could easily approach high-Sequence powers like living gods on earth, receive personal instruction from the Magic Academy's Dean and the War Academy's Vice Dean, and even order around the she-devil among the Seven Supremes. But [Aptitude] and [Time] were shortcomings she couldn't make up in the short term, so her foundation wasn't solid enough.
"I'm not good at close combat myself, but I do know a thing or two about how succubi fight."
Melodia, Loxibrook's Chief Succubus Research Expert, slipped back into her work voice. "My guess is you carry at least three Dawn-grade items that greatly boost tail attributes, and that you put real effort into training and caring for your tail. Judging by its sheen and explosive power, you've been soaking it long-term in a specially made potion of at least Full Moon grade…"
The succubus expert guessed wrong, but it wasn't entirely her fault.
Li Fei did carry three Dawn-grade items, but the [True Sight Gem] gave no attribute bonus. Only the arm stockings [Succubus's Light Kiss] and the tail ring [Binding Love] strengthened the tail significantly.
Besides, Li Fei's tail wasn't an ordinary succubus tail but a Succubus Empress's tail, naturally more agile and powerful. Her advanced Furnace Battle-Qi and the all-attribute bonuses from the system were also very misleading, which was what threw Melodia's judgment off.
As for training and care…
Miss Tail really did work hard, but most of her effort went into things outside of battle. The two thousand-plus Charm Marks on Li Fei's abdomen were the reward for her diligence.
And of course, what it had been soaking in all that time wasn't a Full Moon-grade potion.
Li Fei seemed to recall something amusing. Her eyes curved, the corners of her lips lifted, and she praised her sweetly:
"You're right, Teacher!"
"I've also noticed that your tail's binding strength is especially formidable. It can crush a fourth-tier shield in no time."
Melodia went on laying out the conclusions of her observations.
This time she wasn't wrong. The tail ring alone provided a 100% bonus to tail binding strength. That was a terrifying ratio, and [Binding Love] lived up to its name.
"Mm-hm."
Li Fei nodded repeatedly, waiting for the rest.
"So haven't you felt that… your tail is a bit short?"
The blond teacher launched into the question-based teaching method.
"Mm… huh?"
That stung her pride a little. Back at the tavern, one of the witch sisters had once been complained about by Sir Larry's daughter for having "fingers and a tongue that are too short." In a fit of fury, she'd leaped without hesitation into the Meat Mountain and Tangerine Lake at the coven gathering to serve as the generator girl for a wish ritual. After earning enough Witch Points, she'd taken more than twenty days of leave in a row, and came back triumphant only after mastering a phantom limb spell and a Tentacle secret art.
Worth noting: both skills were low-rank and usually took only half a month to get started on, which proved that anger only hurt one's learning efficiency.
The moment Melodia finished speaking, Miss Tail popped out with a whoosh, baring her fangs and claws, swishing about in displeasure like an angry kitten.
The blond teacher caught her casually, and the warmth of her palm easily soothed Miss Tail's temper. "What's the longest your tail can stretch right now?"
"Three meters."
Li Fei puffed out her cheeks and answered truthfully.
"That's too short. At that length you have to get very close to wrap up an enemy, don't you?"
Melodia continued guiding Li Fei's thinking. "But if it were long enough, with the right spells and equipment you could use your tail to approach enemies unnoticed and strike suddenly. Whether you're binding, piercing, or whipping, attack range is a major factor in deciding a fight."
Li Fei thought about it for a moment, then asked earnestly:
"True. Three meters is worse than a long python, so I'm hemmed in during a fight. If an enemy is even slightly farther away, I can't reach them… So how long does Teacher think is enough?"
"If it retracts freely, then naturally the longer the better."
Melodia laughed softly. "But considering practical factors… I'd say at least ten meters. Of course, twenty meters might be the more reasonable number."
Ew, that's kind of weird.
Li Fei's eyelids fluttered.
The instant Miss Tail heard "twenty meters," she thought of throats, and her imagination leapt ahead by leaps and bounds, right at this very moment.
Then she was itching to try, her whole face wearing a "hurry up already" look, and even Miss Tail stirred restlessly and curled around Melodia's wrist to curry favor.
"When we get back, I'll look for some knowledge on succubus tail training, care, and combat for you."
The blond teacher spoke unhurriedly. "But if it's only the technique for lengthening the tail, I happen to know a bit, and it's simple to pick up. There's more than enough time tonight."
"Thank you, Teacher!"
Li Fei beamed and hugged her arm tight, so tight that her own chest felt a little squeezed. Surely that arm was returning a fair share of elastic potential energy in kind.
Judging by the soft hum from the blond teacher's nose, this round was a win-win.
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