A giant python coiled tightly around Li Fei, flicking out its crimson forked tongue, about to swallow her whole in one gulp.
"RUA!"
Li Fei struggled with all her might, wanting to slay the savage beast, yet she could never break free of its restraints; she could only watch helplessly as that bloody maw drew closer, the sweet, fishy stench wafting into her face leaving her whole body limp.
On the bed, the black-haired woman—her face full of sickness, pale and haggard—jolted awake from the nightmare.
Above her was an unfamiliar yet somewhat familiar ceiling; beneath her was a hard jade bed, warm and smooth yet carrying a hint of coolness.
—What happened?
Groggily, Li Fei twisted her body, wanting to sit up, only to find she couldn't move at all.
Looking down, she saw a dark cyan serpent's tail wrapped around her in overlapping layers, its scales as lustrous and beautiful as pearls and jade; the tail was broad, thick, and well-proportioned, at least four meters long, forcibly bundling the tall, slender Miss Top Courtesan into an Old Beijing chicken roll.
The scales felt like a mirror drizzled with honey—smooth and sticky, and a touch cool; beneath the layered scales was firm yet supple tail flesh, and even in a limp, relaxed state, one could feel its astonishing elasticity.
—Could I have been captured alive by some strange, bizarre creature? Gusha....
Li Fei's pupils quaked, and she subconsciously moved to muster her battle-qi and flee, but luckily she turned her head in time and saw wavy, blue-black curls.
Half-concealed by the thick, lovely hair was a mature, enchanting face, written all over with weariness—decadent and bewitching, yet mingled with faint threads of motherliness.
"You're awake."
Serpent-woman hostess Dasha's eyelids were half-lowered, warmth and indifference coexisting in the bright-yellow vertical pupils unique to serpents.
She swept back the long hair covering half her face, and as her plump red lips parted slightly, her forked serpent tongue brushed across Miss Top Courtesan's bloodless cheek; the tender, moist touch made Miss Top Courtesan shiver.
"Morning, darling."
Amid that languid voice, Li Fei came fully awake.
Li Fei stood before the full-length mirror, gazing at the 408 intertwining, interwoven patterns on her belly.
This was the fruit of a week of bitter cultivation.
She patted her belly, her haggard face unable to conceal that joy.
As long as she could maintain a daily ritual completion progress of 1/20, she would be able to advance to Sequence 7 within two weeks!
Aside from being a bit water-intensive, there was nothing wrong with it.
For others, "chugging water by the ton" is just an onomatopoeia, but this week Miss Top Courtesan really had drunk a ton of water! And that's not even counting the copious tonic soups and iced cola! Were it not for a Transcendent's constitution, she'd probably have wasted away within a couple of days.
On top of that, over these past two days she'd begun having nightmares; aside from plots of being captured alive by beast-eared girls, by fairies, by witches, and the like, she could also always glimpse a fleeting flash of sword-light, accompanied by a dull ache in all the fatal points across her body.
"Come, eat."
Dasha's gentle call came over, and at her words Li Fei obediently scooted closer.
This was the Serpent-women's den; besides Dasha, there were thirteen other Serpent-women.
They had no tables or chairs at mealtime; instead they sat in a circle on the floor, sharing one another's food, their long, nimble serpent tails making it convenient to fetch dishes.
"Worried it might not suit your taste, I prepared hot soup and bread for you."
Dasha handed Li Fei an earthenware jar of hot soup and bread slathered with jam.
This was where the merits of a mature, older woman showed—considerate, attentive, and caring—and here Miss Grace deserves a pointed reproach, for every time it was Li Fei who had to apply the eye drops for her instead!
"Thank you, big sister Dasha."
Li Fei thanked her sweetly, sitting at an angle and nestling against her to enjoy breakfast.
The Serpent-women, meanwhile, were enjoying all sorts of sashimi.
They liked raw food, but being a civilized race after all, they wouldn't do things like gnawing on a rabbit in a bloody mess, or swallowing a raw sheep or cow whole; they sliced fresh meat and seafood into sashimi, dipped it in soy sauce, then rolled it into their mouths with their forked serpent tongues—their movements unhurried and elegant.
Crunch, crunch, crunch...
Under the gentle gaze of a dozen-odd pairs of vertical pupils, Li Fei, like a rabbit nibbling a radish, took small bites of Serpent-woman scale tempura to round off her breakfast.
"Are you full?"
Dasha's voice was still as mild as water, carrying a decadence languid to the bone, and on that foundation she skillfully blended the allure of a witch, a Serpent-woman, and a hostess with a warm, considerate nature.
"Mm-hmm."
Miss Top Courtesan nodded.
"Then... will you come visit again next time? This time I'm afraid I was a rather poor host."
Dasha said with a touch of apology: "The breakfast was too simple, and there was no soft bed suitable for a human either...."
"I'll definitely come again!"
Li Fei promised without the slightest hesitation.
The Serpent-women sisters were each lovely as flowers and the moon, with graceful figures—especially Dasha. She might not be the richest, nor the most beautiful, but she was absolutely the biggest! Big as in the 'great' of 'great capacity makes greatness'!
On top of that, her long, powerful serpent tail and her nimble, forked serpent tongue were undeniable bonus points; if Miss Top Courtesan were ever to write a "Loxibrook Orange Guide" in the future, the Serpent-women would surely earn a five-star rating.
—Keep it up, you big sisters who happen to be human!
Li Fei's eyes curved into crescent moons, when suddenly Dasha touched her belly.
She lowered her head curiously, only to find that Dasha had gotten a jar of cinnabar from somewhere; her moist fingertip curled up the dark-red pigment and left a mark on the Charm Mark that belonged to her.
"I just suddenly felt like doing this."
Dasha blinked, and the sudden mischief made her whole being radiant, like a pearl sealed away for years suddenly blooming with brilliance.
The other Serpent-women dragged their tails over as well, using their serpent tongues to scoop up the cinnabar, daubing and drawing on her lower belly, each covering it with a Charm Mark of her own.
They were practically treating Miss Top Courtesan's belly like Lady Kalida's pair of well-proportioned, fleshy long legs.
In the end, the coyly half-protesting Miss Top Courtesan took along fourteen Serpent-woman scales as a gift and bid them farewell.
In class, Li Fei propped up her cheek, swaying back and forth under her drowsiness.
Thud!
At last she couldn't hold on, and her forehead knocked against the desk with a loud sound.
The classroom fell silent at once, and everyone's gaze swung toward her in unison.
—Uh-oh, my good-student persona is about to collapse!
Li Fei snapped awake at once and opened her mouth to speak, when she heard Melodia's concerned voice come from the lectern:
"Classmate Li Fei, are you all right? Do you need me to have a Life-school instructor treat you?"
"Ah, it's nothing."
Li Fei shook her head and gave a soft chuckle: "It's merely the aftereffects of some soul damage, that's all."
Miss Angel of the Lone Isle's heroic feat of sacrificing herself to save others in Viranean was, at least within the Magic Academy, known to virtually everyone; as her classmates quietly gazed at Li Fei's frail, sickly face that stirred pity in all who saw it, they couldn't help but feel a surge of solemn respect.
Tormented by soul damage to the point of a bloodless face and pale lips, and yet still persisting in coming to class!
What kind of spirit was this?
This was probably why Miss Spell Encyclopedia always kept the phrase "three parts destiny, seven parts hard work" on her lips.
What they didn't realize was that, apart from her grind-king spirit, Li Fei's achievements today owed ninety percent to Miss System, and the remaining nine hundred percent to her sponsors.
"Class, I don't recommend cultivating while in poor condition; after all, doing so could lead to very terrible consequences."
Melodia's face was full of concern: "But soul damage is very hard to repair, especially for mid-to-low Sequence Transcendents."
"I think classmate Li Fei's perseverance and willpower are worthy of our emulation."
"Li Fei, fifty points added!"
Applause rose up; Li Fei pressed her lips into a tight line, her expression mixing modesty with bewilderment.
Seriously, Teacher?
Dozing off in class earns points too?
Snape would fall silent at the sight; Harry Potter would shed tears.
You... well done indeed!
Li Fei straightened her back, the special-admission brooch on her chest looking all the more vivid.
After class, the female classmates crowded around chattering; Li Fei handled them with effortless ease, bid them farewell a few minutes later, and walked alone toward the dean's office.
Seeing no one inside, Li Fei brewed herself a cup of black tea with practiced familiarity and sat on the sofa, waiting quietly.
Before the cup of tea was even half-empty, the cultured, elegant gray-haired woman pushed the door open and walked in; strolling leisurely toward her desk, she said unhurriedly: "Classmate Li Fei, do you have something to report?"
"I do."
Li Fei walked up giggling, casually pulled out a blank form, and after some scribbling and editing, a brand-new "Marriage Application Form" was produced.
Miss Special-Admission wrote her own name in the spouse column, then pointed at the blank space.
"Your Excellency the Dean... could you sign right here?"
"Hmm... let me think about it."
After taking her seat, Nicole leisurely folded the form and tucked it into her bosom.
Li Fei seized the moment to straddle her lap, wrapping an arm around her neck and breathing softly like orchid-scent beside Nicole's ear:
"Then... how about we have a premarital physical exam?"
"That works too."
Nicole's eyes brimmed with a smile: "As it happens, I just bought some new black tea."
After the warm mother-daughter routine, Li Fei buttoned up her clothes while asking:
"Mama, when will my gold-grade brooch come through?"
"It'll take some more time."
Nicole dabbed her mouth with a handkerchief and said, still not quite satisfied: "After all, cases of advancing to gold-grade student just two months after enrollment are extremely rare."
"All right."
Li Fei shrugged: "I want to redeem ten grams of Deep-Sea Diamond Shards."
These past few days Miss Witch's life had been very full; besides intensively completing the Ascension Ritual, she'd also made a trip to the War Academy and, with her special-admission privileges, redeemed a vial of the Sequence 8 [Dispatch Officer] secret medicine, to win over Yusura.
Advancing to [Dispatch Officer] required mastering the dual-school transcendent knowledge of Combat and Nobility—the old fellow was, after all, a ruthless figure who had conquered a Folded Space of his own, so it didn't surprise Li Fei that he could walk a dual-school path; she'd simply assumed Yusura would choose Combat and War.
Apart from that, the materials needed for the secret medicine were being gathered in an orderly fashion.
Relying on connections and money, the materials were nearly all collected; the Serpent-woman scales especially had been obtained in surplus quantity this very morning, leaving only the last item—Deep-Sea Diamond Shards. This was a rather rare thing that couldn't be bought on short notice, and she was reluctant to redeem it with Witch Points or Wealth Points, so Li Fei intended to dip into her study credits.
"Planning to set up a ritual? Or about to advance to Sequence 7?"
Nicole opened her palm upward, and a small, ceaselessly rotating cross-section of space appeared; she reached in and rummaged about, then drew out a deep-blue diamond precisely cut to ten grams:
"Here—forty-five credits per gram. You have 5,315 credits left."
"Almost at Sequence 7. My class is a secret."
Li Fei took the diamond with both hands and carefully tucked it into the embroidered pouch Lady Zhihua had knitted for her, her heartbeat quickening of its own accord.
With the last material gathered, Sequence 7 was only a matter of time.
She had to put in more effort!
In order to charge toward Sequence 7 in a fuller state, Li Fei leaned in, hooked both arms around Lady Nicole, pressed her chest against her arm, swayed her body about, and hinted in a coquettish, syrupy voice:
"Th-that... I feel like my body hasn't been quite well lately...."
After being beaten black and blue by Yusura earlier, Nicole had fed her a drop of Water of Life; that feeling of vitality surging within, of wanting to rack up a hundred Charm Marks all at once, remained vivid in her memory to this day.
Nicole lightly rapped her forehead: "The Water of Life only grants the effects of extending lifespan and improving constitution upon the first drink; if you use it merely to replenish water, that would be far too wasteful."
Her Excellency the Dean put emphasis on the words "replenish water," clearly well aware of what Li Fei had been up to these days—the soul-damage aftereffects might fool others, but they couldn't dupe her.
"Hmph."
Although Mama Nicole made a good point, Li Fei still pursed her lips and turned her head away in a sulk.
In fact, the ever-tactful Miss Top Courtesan had no real intention of directly demanding something so precious; she just wanted to act spoiled, waiting for Nicole to coax her, so she could properly savor a bit of motherly love.
Nicole smiled without a word and, as if performing a magic trick, produced two small wine cups and set them on the desk.
Then she lifted a wine flask that looked rugged and steeped in age, and unhurriedly filled the cups.
This was a treasured vintage she'd won from War Academy Dean Barrett in the exchange match, with the wager being "whether the Mage Girls Squad could take the championship."
"Isn't this just plain boiled water?"
Li Fei glanced at the clear, transparent liquor, then leaned in for a sniff—she couldn't catch the faintest trace of an alcoholic scent.
"Locking in the wine's aroma is a profound and exquisite craft."
Nicole chuckled lightly: "Care to give it a try?"
"? But I swore I'd never touch a drop of alcohol... with only one exception."
"Oh?"
Nicole arched a brow.
"A cup-crossing nuptial toast."
Li Fei raised her cup, her smile blossoming like a flower.
"You... always manage to come up with some new trick."
The smile in Nicole's eyes deepened; with great interest she raised her wine, her plain-white fingertips gently threading through the crook of Li Fei's arm.
And so, in broad daylight, within the dignified and lofty dean's office, the mature, beautiful Dean and her underage student drank a cup-crossing nuptial toast.
Boom!
The wine slid down her throat and its aroma burst open; Li Fei felt that what she'd drunk was not wine but scalding magma, the blazing heat boiling within her body; for a moment she sweated like rain, the skin all over her body flushing red.
The slowly spinning battle-qi vortex instinctively began to accelerate, giving off a rumbling roar; the surging True Qi turned into a sharp gleam in her eyes, as if to rend the void itself.
With one cup down, Li Fei permanently gained 5% burst power, 3 points of Strength, and 1 point of Constitution; and her battle-qi rotation speed broke through the barrier in one stroke, rising to seventy revolutions per second.
"Ssss.... Wh-what wine is this?"
Scalding breath puffing from her mouth and nose, Li Fei asked, dumbfounded.
The carefully prepared secret formula from Lady Zhihua had only raised the Furnace Battle-Qi's maximum rotation speed by five revolutions—yet this single cup of wine doubled it outright?
"Drink it and you'll understand."
Nicole replied.
"Fine wine! Fine name!"
Li Fei raised the cup with both hands, lowered her head, and declared resoundingly: "Please, by all means, give me another cup."
Nicole was not stingy and filled it up for her again, but this time there was no attribute bonus.
"Heh——"
Li Fei exhaled a breath of hot air, feeling her body temperature had shot up to at least fifty degrees.
"That's enough; don't overindulge."
Nicole withdrew the flask and said gently.
"Mm-hmm."
Feeling the abundant energy within her and the pounding of her heartbeat, Li Fei looked itchingly out the window, planning to slip away.
However, Nicole spread a stack of newspapers out on the desk and said with an amiable expression:
"I hear... you intend to sell off your medals?"
Li Fei, a little tipsy now, glanced at the content of the report:
Miss Spell Encyclopedia is actually publicly auctioning off her equipment and medals—what on earth is going on? Everyone is surely familiar with the Magic Academy, but why would a new-generation genius of the Magic Academy be auctioning off equipment and medals so soon after the exchange match? Allow this humble editor to walk everyone through it.... You may all be quite shocked—why would Miss Spell Encyclopedia publicly auction her equipment and medals? But that's exactly how it is, and this humble editor was very shocked too.... And that's the whole matter of Miss Spell Encyclopedia publicly auctioning her equipment and medals; what are your thoughts, everyone? Feel free to submit your views and discuss it together with this humble editor!
At the same time, Nicole's voice drifted leisurely to her ear:
"Just a few days after the exchange match ended, the champion is already planning to sell off her 'comrades-in-arms' and her 'honor'.... This has led some people to question the Magic Academy's institutional failings—that it would drive such an outstanding student to such straits."
The gray-haired beauty's smile faintly took on signs of kindliness.
Clearly, if Miss Top Courtesan couldn't offer a reasonable explanation, then Her Excellency the Dean would likely move from courtesy to force and put righteousness above kin.
Li Fei sobered up at once and promised without the slightest hesitation:
"Don't worry—I'll have my own way of handling it when the time comes, and I will never bring shame upon my alma mater!"
"Very good."
Her Excellency Nicole nodded.
After walking out of the dean's office, Li Fei was still sweating; heat surged through her every limb and bone, and warmth spilled from every pore.
She hoisted up the barreled potions she'd left at the school gate, mounted her flying broom, and flew off toward someone else's Secret Garden without a backward glance.
—Hey there, you fairies, come do battle with your big sister Top Courtesan for another eight hundred rounds!
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