Jace smiled warmly. "I got it."
Nyx was, of course, talking about one of the main ingredients that he had obtained from Mr. A's gathering.
Just as Jace said that, the black cat hopped from the ground to the table, and then straight onto Jace.
"Oh!" Jace caught her in his arms with a chuckle and started petting her. Nyx leaned into his touch while purring loudly,
"meow~...".
After knowing each other for months, both Jace and Nyx had gotten much closer to one another.
In fact, he had even asked her to conduct therapy sessions for him, but that didn't really work out well for him because Nyx still lacked human understanding, partly because she treated cats and rats more than humans.
Jace removed his reading glasses with one hand and set them on the table.
"Let's go, I'll brew you the potion," he said as he got up while holding Nyx and started heading for the basement.
While he was happy with his and Nyx's close relationship, he was still worried about something.
It was Nyx, of course. She... had a bad habit of playing with her food—food meaning rats and various other bugs.
These days, she rarely ate the cat food he bought her.
At first thought, it seemed normal for a cat to play with its food, as that was within their nature. But Nyx was not a mundane cat; she was a Beyonder, and a Sequence 7 at that, so such things should be beneath her. Instead, she seemed to take some amusement in it.
...Her behavior was somewhat... creepy as well.
But Jace knew the reason for it, and it was partly because of him.
The reason was Edward Lane—the psychopath. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
You see, a Beyonder characteristic has a mental imprint on it from its predecessor—whom, in this case, Jace had killed.
Jace had always known about this imprint thing. It was one of the reasons why Jace hadn't used Edward's characteristic to make a potion for Sarah, opting for pure ingredients instead because he didn't want her to become a psychopath.
Nyx, on the other hand, was a cat, so Jace hadn't thought it would affect her since Edward himself was a human. So, he had concocted the potion for her. It was only now he realized that, more than human—Edward was a monster.
But regardless, the imprint left on a characteristic shouldn't affect a Beyonder that much, especially for lower sequences, but it had likely affected Nyx because she was a cat and a young one at that.
While walking, he looked down at Nyx in his arms and caressed her head.
'I'll fix this, Nyx.'
There were a few ways to get rid of such imprints. The first was to purify it; the second was to treat it with the help of a Psychiatrist, which Nyx already was, so he would have to talk to her about that.
But he wasn't too worried, as such mental imprints faded with time. Besides, Nyx was now going to advance to Sequence 6, so she would likely be able to solve the problem herself.
A moment later, he stood before the iron door of the basement. He opened the door that led down through the stairs.
Just as he opened it, Nyx eagerly jumped down from his arms and disappeared swiftly into the dark basement.
Jace shook his head and walked down the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he brought his hand near the wall and turned a valve on a steam pipe, which lit up the room with yellowish lamps.
In the basement, he saw Nyx sitting on the table with the chemistry apparatus on it, looking at him with her green, slitted eyes.
Jace smiled, as walked near the study table on the left side, and pulled out the potion ingredients from the drawer.
One of the main ingredients he had bought yesterday; the other he had already gotten from Catherine. So, now only the concoction remained.
He walked over to the table where Nyx sat and started the process. For now, he was glad that he could actually brew the potion in proper equipment rather than his old Tupperware.
—
Several minutes later, both Nyx and Jace sat in the living room.
On the table before them was a small glass beaker containing the potion. The potion itself was... translucent and colorless, with an occasional whirlpool swimming around within it.
Jace was ready. He had the healing glove on his hand and the Polymath ring on his finger, prepared to placate Nyx just as she had done for him in the past.
Nyx was on the table, sitting right before the beaker of potion. She picked it up with both her paws and poured the potion into her mouth!
——
Two days later, it was Saturday.
The advancement for Nyx was hard, but she got through it, and now she was a sequence 6 Hypnotist.
Jace was sitting before the dressing table in his bedroom. He wore nothing but a bathrobe, as he had just gotten out of the bath.
As he looked in the mirror, his body became smaller, and his face turned feminine—a little innocent and pretty. His chest swelled slightly, and his black hair grew longer, falling over his shoulders.
Now, what sat before the mirror was not Jace, but a pretty young woman.
Today, it was time for his—or rather, Ellen's—meeting with Sarah.
It was a possibility that Sarah just might figure something out, but there was a big chance she wouldn't, so Jace decided to go through with it and meet her.
He moved his hands, which were now thin and dainty like those of a girl, and picked up some cosmetics from the dressing table.
He had bought them long ago for purposes just like this.
He put on some powder and a thin line of eyeliner, a soft blush on his cheeks, and a soft red lipstick. He did it all with a practiced hand, as if he had done it a hundred times before.
After the makeup and hair were done, he got up, removed his robe, and put on female undergarments.
Wearing a bra still felt quite weird, but after taking on many faces and appearances of women, he understood why they were necessary. After all, having two lumps of flesh hanging from your chest felt even more uncomfortable without support.
Regardless, he donned a green lacy dress with the grace of a woman, wore a white bonnet over his hair, and picked up a lady's purse.
And he was ready.
Jace wore the Polymath ring and disappeared from the room.
Soon, he appeared in an alleyway. He looked around while removing his ring. Seeing that no one was around, he walked out of the alley and onto the street.
On the street, he felt several male gazes lingering on him, but he only felt disgusted by them.
'Gods! Women have it hard,' he thought as he continued walking toward Sarah's building.