Margaux

“Slowly. It should be like a gentle river passing through the plains, rather than a raging river in the mountains,” said Leopold.

The young man is training me in the circulation of mana, which is part of mana control, and it is hard. It had been five days since I had started, and I didn’t feel I had made any progress.

Now I could understand why my daughter had sounded so frustrated with her letters.

I am frustrated, but I am also ten times more excited. I am learning the magic finally; a thing I have not dreamed of.

I have been practicing every day, and I am not the only one doing that. Nearly everyone is trying their hardest.

Practicing at every chance, studying at every moment.

It had only been a week since they had started learning and everybody understood the reality.

It won’t be easy casting a spell, but not a single one is willing to give up. Even under Professor Aldridge, who is an extremely demanding teacher.

He didn’t use bad words or shout, but speak in such a way that makes you want to achieve what he said and if you didn’t, then you would want to give up.

He speaks in such a way that you want to achieve what he said, not for himself, but for yourself. The price of not doing that is too big when the dream is on the line.

No wonder so many people leave his class, and academies have terminated his contract.

The girls, on the other hand, are enjoying this pressure.

Before coming here, their self-worth was nothing. Now they are learning to love themselves by learning the things they love.

They love magic a lot; some seemed to have become obsessed with it.

“Take slower, even slower,” advised Leopold gently.

I am circulating the mana slowly as I could. The pace is slower than that of the snail, but it is not enough.

He needs me to go even slower than it.

It is hard, so much so that my whole body had become sweaty, from brow to back, but I am not giving up, especially when I am enjoying this privileged of personal teacher.

Being a madam gives me a certain privileged, one of which is one-on-one guidance whenever I wish. I feel bad about it, but it is necessary, seeing I have more responsibilities, which gives me much less time than the other girls.

The only one who is enjoying the same privilege is Andrea; she is the assistant madam and the only one of the three with mage talent.

The young woman also seemed to be naturally talented. In less than a week, she had done what I am trying to do.

If anyone comes close to her, then it would be a second assistant of Carla. That teen elf-blood girl Elah had also accomplished it yesterday.

Half an hour passed, and I am feeling so tired that I wanted to give up.

The practice is extremely tiring; it hadn’t been an hour and I feel like I would collapse on the floor if someone had so much tapped me.

Minutes passed, and I pushed all my will into slowing the mana down, even further.

“Good Madam Carla, you have reached it! Now maintain this flow,” said Leopold excitedly.

I finally slowed the flow of mana. It was so slow that it didn’t feel like it was moving at all.

Now, I have to maintain this slow speed, which is a great challenge in itself, but I have no choice.

Every second is a challenge, but I maintained it while taking even breaths, as I have been taught. This is the easiest of the mana control exercises. If I couldn’t even achieve it, then I could forget about the others.

“Good, you can let go now, Madam Carla,” said Leopold, and I immediately let go. Letting the mana disperse into my body.

“You have done great, Madam Carla. If you continue with this, you will master the first mana control exercise and we will move it to the second.”

All I could do was nod at his encouraging words. I am so tired that I couldn’t even speak; he understands it as he got up and cast a Clean on me, before walking out.

I am grateful for the spell, even when my cheeks reddened, seeing the grime that fell around me.

If it was not for the spell, I would have needed to shower, and I already showered.

I stayed in my place for a second before walking out of the room.

The whole left wing of the underground first floor had been converted into a learning space for the girls.

As Mage Aldridge refused to teach in rooms above. He said the girls shouldn’t learn in the same space they work in; it will be distracting. They needed a clean blank space that didn’t arise any memories.

We needed to shift the girls to the lower floors; some of them were quite angry at this change.

They followed the orders with grumblings, and now we have enough space.

Though Master Silver is building more rooms underground. We only have five spare rooms now. They will be soon occupied by the girls, leveling up to Lv. 20.

Not to mention, Master Silver had been planning to bring more girls.

Now that the establishment has achieved full capacity; it is time to work on our next target. Turning the establishment into a day/night brothel.

Most brothels are day/night. Like our direct competitor is on the other side of the road.

These underground rooms are temporary as in a few months, we will move into our permanent accommodation. This huge underground space will be used for a different purpose.

I looked at the surrounding rooms; each one is for a different purpose. From teaching, meditation, practice, and other things. This had become a restricted space, only the girls with mage talent and teachers could enter inside.

Master Silver, Carla, and Assistant Madams are the exceptions to that.

I nodded at Stana, who was standing guard with four guards at the entrance before walking toward the right wing, where my office and suite were.

“Madam Margaux, Madam Carla is waiting inside your office,” informed my assistant, Laura.

The teen is sitting in front of my office with a small table.

“When did she come?” I asked, “Four minutes ago,” she said, looking at the small clock in front of her.

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I nodded and opened my door and entered the door of my office and walked inside. As Laura had said, Carla was waiting.

“How was the practice?” she asked as I entered my office. A smile appeared on my face at her question, but also guilt. Though not as much as the first day.

Carla doesn’t need my pity.

While she was disappointed, the first say seeing she doesn’t have a mage talent. She had gotten over it; mage talent is not everything, Master Silver doesn’t have it, but that doesn’t stop him from accomplishing great things.

“It was good. I had finally been able to practice the first mana control method, but it would take a few more days to get proficient in it,” I replied as I sat down.

“You have been working hard, you will be able to do it,” she said, and I smiled. This time, genuinely.

I have confidence that I would be able to do it, with some practice. I plan to snag an hour of practice before we open and will do some reading at night.

With three assistant madams helping me, I could get a few hours off during the night.

“So, what do you need?” I asked. Usually, we finish most of the business in her’s or Master Silver’s offices. She only came to the office when it was important and needed to be done quickly.

“Nothing, I was hoping you could come with me to Elese?” she said. “Sure, but we need to return soon; I need to practice for an hour before we open,” I replied.

“That won’t be a problem,” she said and got up.

Soon, we got out of my office and a minute later, out of the establishment. Without us saying anything, the driver brought the carriage.

We stepped into it, and soon we were out of the establishment.

“All five floors are nearly done,” said Carla, looking out of the window. I looked at the construction. The big round building had taken shape, and it was nearly done.

In the next week, they will be done with it, and only delicate work will remain.

“They did it quite fast,” I replied.

They are doing it very fast. Two and half months already passed and only two and a half months have remained. Mage Valentina had said it might take more, due to the increasing demands of Master Silver.

Little over ten minutes later, the carriage stopped in front of the warehouse, and we stepped out of it.

We walked through the gate of the warehouse and saw over seventy men and women working. Elese had gotten large orders from Namdar. From a friend of Master Silver, which made her hire more people.

We are not here for them.

We walked and soon appeared in front of the wall.

The warehouse is divided into two parts. What is behind us is the first part. It is the bigger one. The one in front is small but more important.

The guards standing opened the door for us and we entered inside.

The second section of the warehouse is much small. There are only eleven people working in it, including Elese, who is standing by the middle-aged woman, who is working on a large cloth on a big table.

All the people here are working on the orders from the establishment, making the dresses with magical threads.

Master Silver had ordered magical threat dresses for a lot of them. It is costing a lot, and both of us suggested we delay it, but he didn’t listen and ordered them; he wants the dresses ready in the next three months.

Three months later, all the girls will wear dresses of magical threads; not just madams.

“Carla, Margaux. You have come at on right time,” said Elese as she noticed us.

We moved closer, and she pulled out the dress from the table, and seeing it, our eyes couldn’t widen.

It is a purple dress, with wavy red ribbons designs. These ribbons shine as the light fell on them.

“It is amazing.” I praised and the smile on her face brightened up. “Good, because it is for you,” she said, surprising me also Carla.

“It is a not type of dress I wear,” I said. It is a skintight dress, it will show every part of the body and, most importantly, the cloth it is made of looks quite thin.

It will keep nothing to the imagination.

This is the kind of dress that Lola or Mena would prefer. They loved all the eyes on them.

“I have made this with you in mind. You will love it,” she said and looked at me. It is clear. She wants to wear it and she is not the only one, Carla is also giving me the same look.

“I don’t think. It will suit me,” I said.

“Wear it once. If don’t like it, I will not make you wear it again,” said Elese, and I hesitated. I am sure it will not suit me, but seeing their eyes, I couldn’t say no. Especially to Elese, who had made this for me.

“Fine, I will wear it,” I said and took the dress from her, and walked to the changing room.

It is not the first time I had tried the dresses here.

I closed the door of the changing room and removed my dress before wearing the purple dress, which is tighter than I had expected, but not in a constricting way.

I finished the dress and looked in the mirror and what I saw couldn’t help but shock me.

I saw my face, but nothing else seemed familiar.

I stared at a familiar person wearing the dress which I had not thought I would ever wear or even look good on me.

The Opposite is happening. The dress is looking good on me, more than I like to accept.

It is scandalous, but not obscene. It is not making me feel naked as I thought it would.

This dress had a grace that one wouldn’t expect from it. Wearing it, I feel confident when I should be feeling self-conscious.

I looked in the mirror for more than a minute before walking out of the changing room.

“Wow,” said Carla as I came out; she looked shocked as I had been when I looked in the mirror.

“It is looking better on you than I had imagined,” said Elese with a clear surprise in her eyes and attraction.

It is not just them, but the people working also looked up, and they were just staring.

Their eyes gave me confidence and I become more comfortable in the dress and thought of something, which would have shocked me a few minutes ago.

“I like the dress. I am going to keep it,” I said, bringing a big smile to Elese and Carla’s face.