As time moved on, there was no way the world wouldn’t, it seemed like the training session between the two was being split more & more often by reports brought by Cheshire’s servants. A fact that made it clear to the goddess that their enemies wouldn’t wait for her to be ready. The world outside the orphanage growing increasingly chaotic - likely somewhat due to her appearance then subsequent vanishing act that no doubt sowed mass hysteria among the masses.

Though that was only proof that she needed to work harder. She had already been assured that there was essentially nothing she could teach the little black cat, instead she was constantly learning just by being near her, thus it made sense to share her ability with the fickle feline. Specifically her divinity.

The infinite.

No matter how smart the cat is, her intelligence clearly being a league above anyone Alice has ever met other than her unci, a divinity like hers was not easy to understand. While there were certainly those that one could understand at a glance - such as those that simply control an attribute like fire - hers was more theoretical thus complex. There was no way that-

“So your divinity is the abstract concept of a limitless & endless expansion which includes but is not limited to the conceptualization of evolution. This includes one's ability to adapt, change and even just grow through training. Like what we have been doing?”

Alice could only look on gormlessly for quite some time; she only gave a brief and rather scattered explanation yet the way Cheshire described it actually helped her gain deeper insights.

In other words the cat figured out things that not even she knew about herself!

It was that shock that made her overlook the usual expression of Cheshire - the cat holding her chin as a faint light came into her eyes. Stroking her chins as she quickly got lost in theorising what the divinity could mean for reality as a whole. There were many things she couldn’t know due to a limit in resources, however, learning about “the infinite” opened up a whole can of shrimp.

She was never one to keep her smile to herself so it wasn’t exactly a shock that she was unable to hold her laugh to herself. This finally brought the shell shocked dragoness back to the world of the living - if just to give the little black cat a judging look. Cheshire didn’t care about that as she looked towards her shadow with that iconic smile of hers for a moment before turning back to Alice.

“Well you told me about your ability so I’ll tell you mine nyahaha~!”

So saying as she raised a hand to have her shadow move to Alice’s at a rate that made the goddess jump but not react quickly enough to avoid.

As soon as the shadows touched she felt her mind take a back seat to a scene in front of her; a shocking scene of a single girl fighting against nature itself. Climbing up an impossibly high cliff with clothing that barely was covering her well developed body even when they were in prime condition. Her flesh red from the cold of the cold blizzard that constantly threatened to eat her whole and leave nothing left for anyone to ever find nor mourn over.

What no doubt made the cold worse was that her hair seemed to have been hastily cut with a blunt utensil and so left her ears completely unguarded. As for where her hair went? In her arms were three little newborn oni girls wrapped up in all the cloth she could spare in addition to the same azure hair that once fell down her back. Instead, on her back, an older woman was carefully wrapped up to prevent her from falling from the girl's back as she climbed up the rocky surface.

Her hands were bloody & frostbitten with there not being a second that she didn’t shiver. Still the girl (that seemed to not even be past her teens) continued to climb without so much as a change of expression nor a slither of despair in her eyes. Out of the 5 individuals it only took a glance to see that the one in the worst situation was the blue haired girl…

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Yet she refused to give up.

From above the sounds of dragons roaring could be heard however the only glances she gave to their shadows was not of fear but disdain. Eventually a group of young dragons, seemingly not connected to those flying above, came over to watch the ‘show’. Laughing at the pitiful scene of a dumb mortal whore actually trying to climb up the mountain and in such a condition.

She did not pay them any mind though. That was until she reached a relatively flat areas when one got too close and reached a claw out to one of the babies. She turned to them only to remove a wooden pike from her back - expertly ramming it through the dragon's eye with no hesitation. To the shock of those hatchlings who were just mocking her as some simple entertainment earlier.

Being the arrogant beings they were… They turned tail and ran with their wailing cries echoing throughout the mountains. Before it could catch the attention of those above she kicked the baby dragon's corpse from the cliff without any hesitation - despite such a body being nothing short of a life altering treasure for a weak human.

That event seemed to take a lot of her barely present energy.

Nevertheless she stopped her swaying body with her “spear” while not taking more than a second to catch her breath hitherto containing her arduous climb.

When Alice came back to herself, she was obviously quite distorted, shaking her confusion aside to look towards the cat who was grinning like she had just played a prank. Thankfully she wasn’t too interested in leaving the goddess hanging. Soon raising her little head up to the sky while her ears twitched proudly as she went on to speak… The dragoness was slightly distracted though.

“-So I used my ability to pass information to create the scene of that Azure girl carrying Violet and their mother up the mountain. Getting a live update thanks to a little corvid with a similar skill. Now, I hope you have been paying attention, because I believe it is time I test you by having you defeat the blue haired girl to prove that you’re capable enough to help~!”

Fortunately she clued back in at around the time that Cheshire was giving her instructions for her supposed “coming of age” ceremony.

Hearing that she was meant to fight that sickly prostitute did leave her a little confused since it should hardly be a difficult task. Even if she had managed to kill a hatchling; there was a large difference between the hatchling she barely managed to kill and the deep sea dragoness. Not to mention that her situation was only getting progressively worse as they went on with no end in sight for the poor human.

“Where is this human girl then?”

Unfortunately she did not have enough energy to view the entire planet yetI. Then again she also couldn’t teleport so she would need to work on both of those. At least if she wanted to do anything in order to do anything in a timely manner.

Her hopes of doing this task in a punctual fashion was also dashed as the cat shook her head while wagging a finger at her as if she were chastising a naughty child. That iconic cheshire grin making the goddess’ ears unconsciously glow golden under her lilac hair. Thankfully nobody saw that, not even the cat, as the cheeky kitty continued on with that smug expression of hers.

“Afraid it would not be much of a test if I just went ahead and told you all the answers to you problems my dear little disciple chehehehihi~!”

That made the goddess’ glowing ears face as she pouted but decided not to say anything else…