95-96

That class ended smoothly enough, with us fighting another round against some more classmates, who were both rather unskilled fighters.

Leone managed to force one to submit, while I 'killed' the other, making our score 1-1-1, since we 'tied' Draka and Poshka, lost to Countess Aurim and Greselda, and beat this group.

After that last win, Anput continued to tease Leone, and the Vampire seemed rather flustered by whatever the Jackalkin whispered into her ears, making her go crimson.

Jahi also seemed rather amused by it, as she would slip in between the two and whisper something to both, making them both blush heavily.

Following them out of the Academy, I enjoyed watching them flirt with one another, the pink and blush atmosphere making my heart warm as Jahi chuckled, Anput giggled, and Leone grew more and more flustered.

Reaching the cottage, I entered the kitchen and started prepping for dinner, putting some meat into a broth and letting it soak inside the herb mixture before moving towards the table.

Anput and Jahi had made their way quickly into the backyard, informing me that they would be training for the rest of the day, and that I was welcome to join them.

As for Leone, she was sitting at the table already, her head buried in a book as she furiously scribbled down some notes.

Sitting beside her, I peered at her book and notes, wondering what she was reading with such fervor.

Seeing the complicated theorems and ritual circles on the page, I nodded as I quickly worked out there use, realizing she was still studying her summoning circles.

Not wanting to disturb her, I grabbed one of the many basic cloths I had beside myself and went to work, wanting to continue to build my foundations with enchanting.

At this point I was adding not only the cleaning enchantment, but also a durability enchantment as well, pushing myself to place two enchantments on the same item, while also attempting to keep the cloth in one piece.

It wasn't the most complicated, but I was still new to the whole enchanting process, so I wanted to get this down to a tee before moving onwards.

~~~

Anput PoV

Standing across from Jahi, I readied my wooden blade as I stared at her, my head full of thoughts.

Before the encounter with Lord Pele, I had thought myself to be rather strong, but that fight humbled me incredibly quickly.

The three other women I was in love with had done much more than I had; Leone was the one who killed the damn Draconas, Kat fought against it herself, and Jahi managed to wound it a few times.

Me?

I had been blocked by a damn sword the entire time, and the one chance I had to wound it meant nothing.

Once it revealed its true power, I had been rendered obsolete in that fight; I was being pushed back by a blade that the Draconas wasn't even wielding itself!

I needed to hone my skills more; I needed to get strong enough to not only protect myself, but to protect them.

My magic was that of the Metal Element, which meant that I could control my blade; not in the normal sense of using my wrist and arm to move it with precision, but in the sense that I could manipulate the metal itself, to lengthen or shorten it, to turn it blunt or sharpen it…

Not only that, but I had Earth and Fire Magic; I could utilize them more to strengthen myself, apply burns to my enemies…

However, what I needed desperately right this moment was to reacquaint myself with the basics; to ignore all the fancy parries, pivots, blocks and slashes I used now, and instead work on the fundamentals of swordplay.

And, it seemed that Jahi had the same idea; she was staring at the blade in her hand with a frown, her amethyst eyes narrowed.

We both needed to smoothen out our rough edges, because a storm was coming our way; one that we've made worse with our own actions.

I don't regret that, nor will I ever regret it; Jillian crossed a line with Kat, and I plan on making her pay for that.

Which is why I needed to improve more.

Why Jahi needed to improve more.

Nodding to one another, we silently lowered ourselves into our stances, our blades held in basic positions before launching ourselves forwards, Jahi swinging her blade downwards while I brought mine up to block her blade.

Tilting my body slightly, I allowed her sword to slide off of mine, and with that moment of freedom, I flicked my wrist towards her side, attempting to land a solid blow against her muscled side.

However, Jahi used the bottom of her hilt to stop my blade, surprising me.

Swiping her hand forwards, Jahi tried to grab my collar, only to grunt as I ducked and slammed my head into her midriff, forcing her back a few steps.

Taking a few steps back myself, I twirled my blade as I waited for her to ready herself again, watching as the tall Demoness gently rubbed her stomach.

"That was a good hit, Anput…"

Smiling at me, Jahi continued to feel her stomach before flickering towards me, making me grunt as I desperately blocked her heavy swing.

Putting her weight onto the blade, she grinned down at me as I tried desperately to keep her from striking me.

Planting my feet into the soft, grainy sand below us, I grunted again as I tried pushing back, only to cough as Jahi slammed her knee into stomach, chuckling as she said "Payback~"

Glaring at her, I stumbled away and took in a deep breath, my eyes watery from the sudden pain.

Blinking, I grit my teeth and charged towards her, holding my blade in two hands.

Thrusting towards her chest, I followed my blade as she parried it, using the momentum to twist and land a slash across her broad back.

Hearing her grunt, I ducked underneath her backhanded swing and stabbed upwards, the wooden blade stopping an inch shy of her throat.

Smirking at me, she stepped back, and we both reset our stances.

"One, you. Not bad, Anput…"

Of course, what followed was a much harsher spar than earlier, as the Demoness gradually took, and expanded, the lead between us.

She had gotten stronger than me, and my speed was no longer working as well as it used to before.

However, I wasn't discouraged; I knew that the woman before me was a monster who would eventually reach the same level as her parents, who are two of the most respected and feared women in this Empire, following the Empress.

So, even if the final score was 12-18, I was happy to have managed to keep some of our matches close, and was proud of myself for catching her off guard a few times.

Though, I was more happy with what followed after those thirty matches, but I could recall little more than the pure pleasure that my Demoness provided to me that night.

~~~

Leone PoV

Closing the book, I sighed as I pinched the bridge of my nose, my head throbbing from reading thousands upon thousands of words, understanding complex magic theories, and developing my own ritual circles to attempt to further improve my understanding of Summoning Magic.

Sadly, the topic was one of the few lesser known branches of magic, and the research done for it was sparse.

I had lucked out when Mother provided me this book from her personal library, but no matter how I scrounged around the rest of the Capital and Academy, there was nothing even remotely similar to this book.

If I continued studying this book today I would drive myself insane; every new answer I got only opened up two or three new questions, ones that required more research and more understanding of the material before me.

Instead, I would rather turn my attention to another important aspect of my training; control.

Even if I managed to understand the tome before me, I would need immense control over a large quantity of mana in order to utilize any of my findings.

Currently, my mana was akin to a keg; a normal person had a buckets worth of mana.

The tattoo on my chest was what had expanded my core and allowed me to take in more mana, but I would need even more than that.

There were a few… taboo magics I could explore, but for now, I needed to focus on controlling this 'keg' of mana.

Only when my control caught up with my capacity would I continue onwards, and I needed someone equally adept at utilizing their mana for what I wanted to do next.

Glancing to the side, I stared at the beautiful sight of a concentrating Kat, her amber eyes focusing intently on the cloth before her.

Remaining silent, I traced over her gentle features, my heart quickening as she pursed those plump lips of hers.

Recalling how soft they felt on my own, I licked my lips before glancing further down, my eyes raking over her sinful body.

Maybe…

Kat PoV

Since it was our off day, I was sitting opposite of Leone, who had asked me to help her train.

Recalling last night, I was skeptical as to whether her 'training' was an excuse to be alone together or if she really had an idea in mind to train.

However, taking in the serious appearance of the Vampire sitting before me, I chased those thoughts from my mind, focusing my attention entirely on her pale features.

Taking a deep breath, Leone stared me in the eyes and started speaking, her voice low.

"I came across a method to help practice mana control, but it requires two people with not only opposite elements, but also incredible control on their own. I've hit a block in my training, and I think the next best thing for me to do is to fine tune my control as much as I possibly can. Will you help me?"

Pursing my lips, I asked "What exactly is it? And if you need my water mana, this won't really work; my mana's fused together almost completely, and it takes a lot of effort to separate them inside my body now…"

Shaking her head, Leone's crimson eyes flared, and she said "Your ice will be fine; after all, my fire isn't exactly… normal anymore. Now, as for the method itself, it's rather… unique…"

Seeing her cheeks redden slightly, I narrowed my eyes and gestured for her to continue.

"Well… you see, I… we need to entwine our opposite mana and create a circuit between us, where we revolve the mana between each other. This not only improves our control, since we'll be constantly managing the movement of our mana streams, but it can also… temper our mana, since they'll be constantly beside a stream of mana that they are the opposite of…"

This was sounding a whole lot like-

? "It's a technique from the Tian Dynasty, and if I recall correctly, its name is… Dual… Dual Cultivation? Something odd like that…"

Oh for the love of…

Sighing slightly, I stared at her before asking "Where'd you find this again? What book?"

Frowning, Leone stroked her chin as she stared off to the side, her brow scrunched as she tried to recall where.

Bringing her fist down onto her palm, she said "I found it in Mom's personal library; she told me it was an effective way to strengthen yourself!"

Giving her a disbelieving stare, I wondered if my own mind was tainted from my last life or if it was just different here.

Dual Cultivation…

That oh so lauded way of increasing ones strenght by delving into carnal pleasure with someone of the opposite sex or with an opposite element; usually yin and yang, but there were a few like Leone and I, using fire and water or other opposites to practice.

A good chunk of any 'Dual Cultivation' was done via sex, but there were those rare cases where it was just a way to… temper your energy by exposing it to its opposite; yin to yang, water to fire, earth to lightning…

Which made me wonder how deeply Leone had read that book…

Sighing, I pinched the bridge of my nose before giving her a smile.

Either way, this would be great training; be it the pure kind of Dual Cultivation, or the one that I was thinking of…

"Alright! Here, we put our hands together like this… then we need to…"

Leone placed her palms against mine and left her fingers sprawled out, before she said "Well, we need to start small, because this could be… dangerous. After all, we're injecting mana into the others body, and since we're opposites, we need to be really careful…"

Nodding, I recalled my experience with rampant mana inside my pathways, making me shiver slightly.

Unless we dumped a lot of mana into one another we wouldn't die, but I can only imagine the pain that we might feel should we fail.

"I'll start by pushing enough mana for a basic sphere circle into your body, and you need to attach an equal amount of mana onto that strand, revolve it around your pathways, and send it back to me, where I'll do the same thing. Since we're just starting off, I'll keep the amount the same, but in the future, we'll add more mana the further along we go. Okay?"

"Yeah… let's get started."

Closing my eyes, I felt my right palm warm up as Leone circulated her mana, only to groan slightly as that warmth entered my body.

It very quickly turned from a warmth to a searing heat, and I grit my teeth as it made it's way towards my core.

Before it could enter, I mirrored the droplet of searing lava-like mana and coated it with my glacial ice, instantly noticing the heat dissipating.

Making sure my ice didn't encapsulate and douse the fire mana, I carefully guided it through my body before pushing it towards my right palm, where I sent it into Leone's body.

The Vampire gasped as she felt my frozen mana enter her, and I waited for it to come back to my right palm.

We sat there for who knows how long alternating control of that droplet, and after a few dozen rotations Leone stopped, melting my mana inside her body.

Releasing my palm, she stared at me for a few moments, her lips pursed as she said "I can't really tell a difference… but that was just a small amount of mana…"

Nodding, I suggested "We should double the amount, before adding a droplet each rotation, stopping when it reaches… hmm… I think around triple the cost for a bullet spell?"

"Alright… here, I'll start again…"

Rejoining our hands together, I accepted her mana and matched it, before adding an extra drop of my own mana to it.

Pushing it into her right palm, I heard her gasp again, before it eventually returned to my right palm.

The searing heat was worse than before, but it was swiftly countered by my ice, leaving me feeling comfortable again.

We continued on until we had the designated amount which was warm for me and cool for Leone, so not unbearable, just… weird.

With that spells worth of mana alternating between us, I found that it was growing easier to guide this blob of unfamiliar, mixed mana around my body, and when we finished we both stared at the other, curious frowns on our faces.

Getting up, I moved a few steps away and traced out the runes needed for an ice bullet, noticing instantly how it was just a few milliseconds quicker to activate than before.

Of course, that could be my mind playing tricks on me, but considering the ease at which I could activate spell after spell, I was confident that this was a fruitful gain on my end.

As for Leone…

Still sitting on the ground where we 'Dual Cultivated', the Vampire was deathly silent, her body completely still.

However, after a few moments her mana flared, and I shuddered at the raw amount pouring from her body.

My eyes widened as I 'saw' the red shimmer around her pale skin, and for a moment it felt like a raging inferno sat before.

Very quickly that feeling melted away, and Leone brought her mana under control, her eyes opening.

Staring down at her hands, she grinned as she swiftly traced a few runes in the air, and my eyes widened even more as I saw what appeared.

What should have been a simple, small sphere of fire was now instead a roaring sun, the heat battering the space around us.

Feeling a few hairs on my arms singe from the blaze before me, I coated my body in a thin sheen of ice, instantly sighing in relief at the now all to familiar cold of my mana.

Clenching her fist, Leone snuffed out her giant ball of flames, turning our courtyard back into a dim, cool place.

Her grin was still wide, and I swear I saw a hint of madness in those crimson orbs of hers.

However, a moment later Jahi and Anput burst from the house, looking around in worry.

"What the hell was that?!"

Hearing Jahi's sharp tone, Leone's grin faded, and she gave the Demoness a weak smile as she said "S-Sorry… that was me…"

The Demoness and Jackalkin stared at the Vampire in surprise, and Jahi eventually turned to me, her amethyst eyes unbelieving.

Giving her a nod, I said "Leone managed to control more of her mana, and well… yeah."

The two women stared at Leone with wide eyes, before Jahi simply shook her head and turned around, muttering "Not dealing with this. Nope. Nuh-uh…"

Anput just nodded, following behind Jahi as she went back inside.

Leone was silent, a pout on her face before she shuffled over to me.

Rolling my eyes, I gently stroked the back of her head and brought her face down to my chest, comforting her.

We stood like that for a few moments before she murmured "There… was another part of that book…"

—

I'll get that lemon out either later tonight or tomorrow…

And for those wanting more group play, I'll be doing that in ten-ish chapters or so, after another set of normal chapters, so stay tuned~

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