Jace appeared behind Catherine's manor in a blind spot that he had already mapped out beforehand.
He removed the Polymath Ring from his finger and shoved it into his pocket.
As it turned out, now that he was a Sequence 6, he could safely use the ring for over forty minutes without the imminent risk of mental retardation.
This was absolutely great for him, as it meant he could actively use and experiment with its borrowed abilities far more frequently.
He looked up at the balcony of the bedroom and snapped his fingers.
A tiny spark of flame immediately manifested on the balcony railing.
Just as the spark was right on the verge of extinguishing, it expanded rapidly into a burst of bright fire as Jace stepped out from the center of the flames.
The bedroom was empty. Catherine wasn't here, which was something what Jace had expected, as he knew that the woman would most likely be working in her study.
So, he walked out of the bedroom and stepped into the hallway.
There were a few maids walking around the corridors doing their daily chores, but Jace quickly cast an Illusion over himself and walked past them silently.
When he stood directly before the door of the study room, a idea suddenly popped into his mind.
Knock, knock.
"Madam, Jace Liebert is here to see you," Jace said.
However, he had actively manipulated his vocal cords, changing his voice to perfectly mimic a woman's—Catherine's personal assistant, to be precise.
"Just come in, Jace," Catherine said loudly.
Jace heard her muffled voice travel clearly through the wooden door.
He raised an eyebrow in surprise. 'How did she know?' he wondered to himself as he opened the door and entered the room.
Catherine, as usual, was sitting gracefully at her desk with her reading glasses on, holding a pen in her hand and writing diligently on a sheet of paper.
She looked up at him, and Jace could intuitively feel that she had already turned on her Spirit Vision and was inspecting him.
"My assistant is on leave for a few days," she replied directly to Jace's previous unspoken thought, her eyes continuing to inspect his state.
Jace sighed inwardly. 'That's what happens when you don't prepare,' he thought as he realized the reason he had been found out so easily.
'Perhaps I should have said that in a generic maid's voice instead.'
Catherine, meanwhile smiled beautifully. "You are a Sequence 6 now," she said, a hint of genuine surprise in her voice.
Jace smiled back. "I am," he said.
"Is changing your voice one of your new abilities?" she asked, a little spark of excitement noticeable in her tone.
"Don't tell me..." she continued as her expression suddenly turned deeply thoughtful.
"What?" Jace asked, walking around the room and casually sitting down on the couch.
"...A few years ago, I heard something about a pathway that allowed its Beyonders to completely alter their physical appearance," she said as she stood up from her chair.
She leaned down to pick up what seemed like a beautiful wooden box alongside a smaller cardboard box. With the boxes held securely in her hands, she walked around the desk and walked toward him.
Catherine continued, "Later, I tried to searched for a mystical artifact that allowed one to change their appearance... I almost managed to acquire it, but someone else ultimately beat me to it at the auction," she said, a brief hint of lingering regret flashing in her eyes.
She placed the boxes down on the coffee table before the couch. Standing right before him, she suddenly turned and sat down directly on his lap sideways, wrapping her arms smoothly around his neck.
Jace took in her pleasant scent for a moment. He held her waist softly with one hand, while resting his other hand firmly on her thigh to hold her securely against him.
Catherine's beautiful face was now incredibly near his own.
"So?... Is that your true power for Sequence 6? To freely change your appearance and take on other people's forms?" she asked softly, her lips hovering right near his eyes.
"Yes," Jace replied softly.
It had been over two full months since he had last been truly intimate with Catherine, and now she was intentionally teasing him.
She was literally wiggling her butt sensually against his crotch with a seductive smile, deliberately trying to get a physical reaction out of him.
Unlike the times when Catherine dressed revealingly specifically for Jace, she was currently wearing her usual gray-colored day dress, which was tailored in an conservative style.
But that didn't stop Jace from instantly turning hard, as he already knew the magnificent treasures hidden beneath those layers of clothes.
But he wasn't going to give her the easy satisfaction of winning this game.
Using his powers of Faceless's control over his own body, he focused his mind and manually forced his hard 'tool' to turn completely soft! And yes, he could actually do that now; he could also freely increase or decrease its overall size (no comments).
Seeing that Jace was clearly using some trick to hide 'himself' from her, Catherine smiled with deep amusement. However, she stopped teasing him further and simply sat quietly on his lap.
"What's in the boxes?" Jace asked, consciously moving to change the unspoken subject in the room.
"Ah, yes." Catherine removed her hands from around Jace's neck. Remaining seated on his lap, she reached down, opened the wooden box resting on the table, and pulled out a small, distinct box from within it.
She brought the box forward and presented it to Jace. The small red box, once again, looked exactly like a standard box meant for an engagement ring.
Jace let out a theatrical sigh. "Catherine, I know you like me, but I'm still too young. You might have to wait for m—"
Catherine rolled her eyes playfully and slapped the back of his head. "Open it," she commanded.
"Okay," Jace said meekly, immediately doing exactly what he was told.
As he opened the red box, he saw a silverish-red ring resting inside.
There were simple, elegant floral patterns carved onto the metal, but the patterns were visibly mismatched due to a sharp line running straight through the middle vertically, separating the ring into two distinct halves.
But this was exactly what he had wanted.
He slid it onto his finger, but he didn't feel any immediate spiritual effect.
Then, he held the half of the ring with his other fingers and turned it. The floral patterns on the ring instantly aligned perfectly, and Jace felt a sudden surge of connection; now he could actively use its abilities.
Catherine, who was watching his expressions closely while he inspected the artifact, said, "The physical appearance is exactly as you explained in your letter. That's the manual turning-on mechanism that you requested."
Jace smiled. It was true. He had decided it would be much better if the artifact was a ring, but he didn't want it to function like the Polymath Ring, where he would be forced to constantly wear and remove it for every single use.
Now, with this custom 'Prometheus' ring, he could always keep it securely on his finger and simply turn it whenever he wanted to use it.
"The core abilities are focused entirely on 'Decryption' and 'Theft,' just as you specified. The side effect of using 'Decryption' is that if you use it continuously for more than ten minutes, your mind will become completely dull, and you'll start forgetting basic things," Catherine explained.
Jace nodded seriously as he turned the ring half-way back around, clicking it off.
Catherine continued, "As for the 'Theft' ability, one or two of your own existing powers will be suppressed while using depending on the specific type of power you choose to steal with it. But fortunately for you, you can freely choose which of your own powers to suppress."
Oh, that was...