Inside a certain mansion in the Central District of Joviacht, the naked silhouette of an elegant lady could be seen through a white, silk curtain draped over her bed.
"Kalli, come here," commanded the lady.
A thin, young mimic was roughly pushed forward by a bearded butler whose frowning, bushy eyebrows could rival a foresty ravine. He quickly exited through the large double doors and left the young mimic alone with the strange silhouette.
Kish.
Two long tongues shot out from between the linen and wrapped themselves around his supple wooden frame. A third tongue slipped through the small opening in his lid and entwined around his tiny tongue, which hung limply without resistance. He was pulled onto the bed forcefully.
Slender fingers slid up his smooth thighs and slowly unlocked the small latch hiding his sacred wood. She released his tongue and licked her wet lips as she brought them closer and closer to his small rod. Licking off the droplet of sticky pre-cum hanging from the tip, she pleasured him until his rod stood firm to her liking.
It was time... she stood up and seductively slid down her black laced panties, which parted from her lower lips with a moist strand of divine water connecting the two. Lowering herself, she wetted the tip of his rod further with her own juices, which dripped from her wet pussy as she trembled with excitement.
Ecstasy overwhelmed her senses as his wood filled her, and she tightened her lower lips while rotating her hips slowly. She grabbed her own breasts and pinched herself on the nipples, sending ripples of pleasure throughout her body. Her lust was on the verge of exploding upon seeing his deadpan eyes, just as lifeless as the slaves that came before him.
Splurt. Slap!
"You ungrateful little bitch!" The woman shrieked. "You don't finish until I tell you that you can finish. I ought to have your fucking little dick cut off--"
Bang!
"My lady, your guests have arrived," the butler, who had just opened the door to the room, bowed with one hand placed diagonally over his chest.
"Chet--... Get out!" The woman threw Kalli onto the floor. The boy scrambled to his feet, bowed, and ran out the door towards the servants' quarters.
"You too, Sebastian," she said, motioning to her butler. "I have to freshen up. Tell them I'll join them for dinner in fifteen minutes."
"Yes, my lady," he said, exiting the room.
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"My Lady Chantelle, don't you look stunning today!" A middle-aged, female mimic wearing a vibrant one-piece dress, and way too many pieces of jewelry, complimented the owner of the mansion at the dinner table. This woman, Sue, was one of over two hundred nobles in Joviacht, and was a business partner of Chantelle's for several years. They were the Kingdom's largest provider in the slave market, bringing between 100-150 new goods each month for the nobles throughout the Kingdom.
Today's topic was on the recent rise of cannibalistic cults that had been formed recently. For Chantelle and Sue, this was a brilliant opportunity to expand their market to include meal slaves. That's why they brought twenty nobles to convince them to invest in their business.
"Please Sue, you flatter me. I apologize for the delay; I was preoccupied with a prior engagement," Chantelle responded.
"And thank you all for coming this evening for this important event. As you all know, there is a terrible crisis on our hands... our Kingdom is undergoing a terrible predicament, and we all have to play our parts in its revitalization," she addressed the other nobles in the room. "We have a plan to help mitigate this problem, which I will discuss after dinner. Please enjoy my home's signature Manamoo dish, freshly cut from the subdungeon located underneath my villa."
With a clap of her hands, servants poured out from the main door carrying plates of rich, juicy steaks and goblets of the finest blood-wine.
"Have you heard of the minor rebellions starting in the Slime Kingdom? Terrible, ain't it," a male noble pipped up in the middle of the dinner clamboring. "I hear they be messing with their own defense force with dung bombs and crude things like that."
"I don't understand it," the male opposite him said, ripping off a piece of his steak with his 280 teeth. "Why are they suddenly popping up all over the place? I heard their Kingdom was docile like a country farm."
"They says it's because of The Morana Incident. People haven't been too happy with the government, innit. How they handled the situation. A big fat load of bullshit, that's what I think. Coming down on the vampires like that, and splitting off their troops to find their people? That's taking soldiers away from their families, and it's no way to fucking treat your bloody citizens."
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"I'm tempted to help these rebels, you hear? I bet they'll pay a decent price for some proper weaponry, that's what Iffink."
"I couldn't agree with you more," the man leaned in closer to whisper, "There's a group that's targeting this market already. I'll get you in on it, if you can provide the necessary funding."
"I wouldn't have it any other way."
Beneath the clatter of plates and utensils, a young boy hugged himself to sleep in the darkness of the servants' quarters, begging for oblivion to take him.
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The reasons for why I suggested training are twofold.
First, I wanted to scope out how capable Liz was, especially since she was a soldier by profession. I still don't trust her, and have no intention of doing so. I think she has a hidden agenda, but I can't figure out what it is. All I know is that right now, she could definitely be valuable to us, especially with that void ring. And regardless of whether we take her with us, it'd be useful to know her physical and magical abilities.
Second, it gave me an opportunity to get Bell into the habit of training regularly. This is particularly important because he's an anomaly. Usually, someone who's developed a mana core also has a solid foundation, like how a soldier has stabilizers to support his muscles. Without stabilizers, complex movements or maneovers would be difficult if not impossible. It might even be dangerous.
And not only does he have a mature core, but also he learns at an abnormally high speed. I thought that learning Chaos Field that quickly was a fluke possible because of the stress, but he used Shapeshift, an advanced class spell, without formal training. That requires a level of talent that I can't even begin to imagine.
Let's put his potential into perspective. A magician's strength can be said to be limited by how well they can use the three primary processes of all magic: initialization, conversion, and spatial manipulation. It goes without saying that practicing these three things improves magical output, casting speed and fine control, but they reach their limits before long. Everyone reaches this point, and it's not like we have magical pills that purify our mana to make it ten times stronger.
It's more accurate to say that a magician's power is limited by another factor: the most important of them all, knowledge.
His talent allows him to absorb knowledge, integrate it, and gain new knowledge from preexisting knowledge. Moreover, whatever his ability is... that photogenic memory skill? It's a cheat, I tell you. A cheat! It takes months or years to properly conceptualize and manipulate Manifestation Vectors, and yet he was able to do it on his first try.
Was God always this unfair?
In any case, talent without guidance is riding a manamoo without proper technique. He might be able to get far, but he'd eventually fall off and get trampled to death. Mana poisoning and exhaustion are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how much doodoo he could get himself into with improper mana control.
...
Not like I care! He just seemed so pitiful that I couldn't help but help him, you know?! I mean, other than when he was being reliable earlier? Kind of? Ugh, I feel my brain getting cancer.
'ONE THOUSAND MORE RAPID MANA CONVERSIONS!' I commanded. Ah, that felt better.
'Why suddenly--' Bell complained.
'NO TALKING BACK. TWO THOUSAND MORE!'
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'No more... Please...' I collapsed in Liz's basement. To my surprise, Liz had her own magic-reinforced training facility in her own home. A present from her grandfather, according to her. Over the past two weeks, I'm sure she resented having such a convenient facility as much as I did.
It was already approaching the end of our training, and we were utterly exhausted. Day and night, Coffee drilled the tenants of Intermediate Class Void Magic into us until we were having nightmares about training within nightmares of us collapsing from training.
The foundational skill was Split Conversion, the ability to convert mana into multiple different streams simultaneously. Void magic specifically co-manipulated Absorption, Chaos, and Manifestation, and learning to summon all three types of mana was like trying to write legibly with both hands and your mouth at the same time.
The two branching spells from Split Conversion were Rift and Macro.
Rift was a transient spell that opened a portal to the Void Matrix, created by surrounding compact Absorption mana with a multiple, separate layers of Chaos mana. The light fraction of the Chaos mana duality was absorbed and condensed by the Absorption mana, ultimately forming an oily, fluidic portal surrounded by empty Chaos mana shells that could be manipulated to open and close the Void Matrix.
Macro, on the other hand, created a miniature container around a ball of Chaos mana using Manifestation Vectors. Strangely, this entrapped the mana. At Coffee's instruction, I let go of my direct control over my Chaos mana, but found that it remained in that form without having to consciously guide it. I could even move it around as long as it was contained.
The combination of these two skills resulted in the final Intermediate Class Void Spell, Jux. Jux created two Rifts controlled and connected via Macro. It was possible to move an object through one Rift and out the other, but complexity of the object determined how much mana it consumed. Living objects were out of the question, and transporting a simple glass bottle consumed half my mana.
'I second the motion! Bell, let's go take a bath together~' Liz plopped her voluptuous breasts on top of my head whild kneeling, and tried to pick me up as I flailed around in a desperate attempt to escape. Bathing with Liz was a terrible idea; her body was pretty bomb, but her personality was a turn-off. Unfortunately, I didn't stand a chance against Liz's physical strength, her being both a fully grown adult and MSG officer.
Or is what the old me would say.
In half a second, I blasted her with a compressed ball of Chaos mana and slipped through her arms. Casting a Chaos Field around my body, I macro'ed four additional balls of Chaos mana, each with a different frequency in case Liz casted a counter-field to restore her perception. As I suspected, that's exactly what Liz began to do, except that every time she made progress, I attacked her with a different macro and changed Chaos frequencies. Moments later, Liz began to show signs of exhaustion.
'How do you feel?' I jeered.
'What *huff* did you do? *huff*' Liz panted, still concentrating greatly on trying to dispell the Chaos Field.
'Pretty simple, actually. I placed two macros of Absorption mana on your back. Your counter-field was your own undoing,' I explained, releasing the hidden macros that I had planted during the initial clash.
'You really don't want to take a bath with me, huh,' Liz said dejectedly, mumbling something about cute and evil.
'I guess you two can go for longer?' Coffee cracked her knuckles.
''NO!'' Liz and I screamed.
'Then I officially announce you two graduates of Coffee's first ever, Special Training Hell of Unspeakable Nightmares and More.'
''Woot!'' We cheered. I was actually a little excited to test out my new abilities, and we had planned the perfect setting for it.
'Tonight, we begin Operation Moo. Target: Joviacht's largest mansion, Ville da Chantellon, and its subdungeon, the Great Manamoo Caverns.'