Although Forus' soul got severely injured by the act of ruthlessly burning a part of her soul away to repel the soul of Ocelia, with the help of her new background, the Coruscare Family, she could recover her soul to its prime and strengthened it to become compatible further with the body of the first-ranked sorcerer.
However, even if she could quickly heal her soul, she had to slowly request the potions to avoid arousing unwanted attention and suspicion, making her recovery process to take a longer time than necessary.
After missing the best period to get rid of Ocelia, who was in Forus' previous body, she had already given up on continued to pursue the task. Now that Falsus Nomen got the full attention of the Steel Cauldron, the security around him would become the annoying pest that followed him everywhere, not giving her any chance to assassinate him.
The Coruscare Family couldn't bear to offend the Steel Cauldron whose influence extended throughout the entire Mountain Union, having many smaller bases within almost every big city. The leader of the family, which currently had the power of the second-ranked sorcerer, wouldn't be able to withstand the wrath of the Steel Cauldron, whose leader was a third-ranked sorcerer.
The only way to safely eradicate this dormant problem was to quickly strengthen her soul to the point that she could suppress the soul inside Falsus Nomen and made it her loyal slave using the connection of the string of fate as the battlefield.
Even then, Forus still didn't wish to connect herself with Ocelia, due to the mysteriousness of the Ring of Recollection, she didn't want to get trapped inside the unreal illusion while she competed with Ocelia in the contest of the souls. If Ocelia had unexpectedly discovered a new function of the Ring of Recollection and set a trap and waited for Forus to fall in, she would at least get expelled from this incredible body and at worst became a permanent slave of Ocelia instead.
Despite the intention to ruin and enslave Ocelia, who knew almost all of Forus' secrets, she still maintained her outward appearance of a caring and gentle mistress who occasionally went to see Falsus Nomen, the genius at the arts of alchemy, expressing her interest in his body and soul, acting like an innocent maiden who had fallen in love.
Each time she visited Falsus Nomen, she would send a tiny part of her sorcery energy to help him cultivate his sorcery base. Naturally, the sorcery energy she sent to Falsus had got tampered with and contained some lines of dialogues, using it as a mean to silently communicate and helping each other becoming more powerful for the sake of getting rid of each other at the end.
Responding to Ocelia's visit, Falsus would sometimes gift Ocelia some mid-quality potions, expressing his admiration towards the mistress of the Coruscare Family. The medicines also contained a mark of information buried inside, using them as the mask to conceal the secret conversation.
From this type of communication, both Forus and Ocelia had benefitted from the previous calamity by a large margin. Since the moment they knew that they had very little chance to finish each other off, they immediately sought for compromisation and tried their best to race against each other. If any of them misstepped even once, the other might took that moment of failure and boosted themselves up, completely suppressed the one who failed first.
Perhaps the significant losses that Forus had were the loss of the control over Death Aura and the powerful body that got specially created by the grey soul. The feminine body of Ocelia Coruscare, whose power was at the first-ranked sorcerer, was just a little stronger than the figure of Forus, whose power was merely at the third-layer sorcerer apprentice.
Even if Forus could train her new body with Death Aura, its power would drop down and would wake a much longer time than with her original body. The original foundation of Forus had got created by the mysterious grey soul to become compatible with the Death Aura, while Ocelia's body was just a regular body without any enhancement from the mysterious forces.
Forus' only oversight was that she forgot to destroy the Ring of Recollection before she transferred her soul with the help of the string of fate. However, in that moment of life and death, there wasn't enough time to carefully plan everything without any mistakes. Just for Forus to successfully take over Ocelia's body, he had probably exhausted all of his luck.
However, with benefits came problems, after taking a tremendous risk and successfully won the bet between life and death, taking over the body of Ocelia, the issue that related to the mysteriousness of the soul and consciousness began to show itself.
As Forus' soul began to unite with her new body, the lingering emotions and dispositions that existed within the female body also began to fuse with Forus' personality, subtly changing her temperament. Although the dominant emotion and personality still belonged to Forus' emotions, the changed in her temperament was undeniable.
The feeling of intimacy and love towards Ocelia Coruscare started to take root within Forus, making her felt warming sensation every time their eyes met. Forus also began to sub-consciously talk and acted as Ocelia without any thoughts, slowly becoming the genuine mistress of the sorcerer family.
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She knew that the process of merging the two to become one was unavoidable and resigned herself to her fate, as she was confident enough to control her emotions not to affect her rationality. Although she would feel excited and yearn to be with Ocelia, Forus would never do anything rash.
"Mistress, your requested black tea is ready." The same old butler gently knocked the door before opened it and brought in the black tea full of rich fragrance.
After sensing the silent approval of his mistress, the butler slowly walked towards Forus-in-Ocelia as he professionally lifted the jar full of black tea and skillfully poured it into the lustrous cup. The scene of a matured maiden casually drinking the freshly-prepared tea while admiring the surrounding scenery of nature would ease one's mind and warm one's heart.
"Mistress, your favourite alchemist, Falsus Nomen, has requested me to deliver this gift to you. He wishes to see you again." It was no secret that Ocelia Coruscare was interested in the talented alchemist, Falsus Nomen, whose skills could rival some master of alchemy. The Coruscare Family also expressed their approval of the relationship by silently turned blind eyes towards the matter and secretly supported the two.
After all, having connections were essential for the survival and the continuance of the sorcerer family. It would greatly help pave the way of the rise of the Coruscare Family if the next leader of the family had an intimate relationship with one of the exceptional talent of a significant association.
"Tell him to wait for me. I would visit him soon." Receiving the gift, which was unquestionably the potions and the secret message, Forus listened to the reports of the general situation of the city before dismissing the butler.
"Seeing you desperate truly warm my heart." Forus giggled lovingly, seemingly enjoying the thought of the nervous expression that Ocelia might be having. After all, with Ocelia's experience, he would have already noticed the unusual characteristics of his new body.
The fact that Ocelia couldn't advance his sorcery cultivation by using the traditional method would send him into a panic, but, given the intellect of Ocelia, he would have long figured out that Forus was holding the crucial step to ascend towards the first-ranked sorcerer.
Regarding the information about the mysterious entity and the detail cultivation method about the Death Aura, Forus could deduce that something had interfered with the transferred memory and erased the detail regarding these taboo subjects, probably the mysterious entity itself.
Even with the memory of Forus Ander, Ocelia Coruscare couldn't be able to create the next step of cultivation method by himself. Although the lingering emotions and dispositions that existed in Forus' previous body would merge with Ocelia's real personality, it wouldn't cause Ocelia to become a copy of Forus. After all, Ocelia's personality was the dominant force.
That only left Ocelia-in-Forus with one choice, to establish a deal with Forus-in-Ocelia, to trade for something at the equal value. Because of this, Ocelia had been trying to express his sincere by gifting Forus some middle-grade potions that were good for sorcery cultivation, especially regarding the path of the flame.
After a long period of silence, Ocelia started to get desperate, and in the end, requested to see Forus face-to-face.
Seeing this reaction caused Forus to smile gently, feeling proud of herself. To let the other take the initiative to approach her would make her have the upper hand in the transaction. The one who showed their interest first would naturally get exploited by the more secretive one.
However, Forus also needed to analyse this transaction thoughtfully with cautious. If she pushed her deal too far and accidentally crossed the boundary, Ocelia might do something that would be disastrous to both of them out of his recklessness. If she didn't do anything and pretended not to acknowledge this, Ocelia might also try to search for the answer himself, exposing the extraordinary body in the face of the danger.
Regarding her previous body, Forus Ander would try her best to seize it, while subduing the soul of Ocelia into her submission, making Ocelia her property forever. Not only it would satisfy the tender sensation that she had got from fusing with Ocelia, but the extraordinary physique that could manipulate Death Aura was a notch better than the ordinary feminine form.
If not for the gloomy threat of becoming enslaved by Ocelia and the crisis of Lord Phasma's appearance, Forus would gladly live inside her first body and continued to struggle against fate. Now that Falsus had entered the Steel Cauldron, it would be a matter of time before he could deduce the method to break through accurately and became the first-ranked sorcerer.
However, such was fate and destiny, one could not force the result and could only silently comply while one was weak. Only those with unearthly power could shape their lives and led their journeys. Those who couldn't reach the top were destinated to fall and became a pile of ashes, paving ways for the next generations.
After clearing her mind from those thoughtless matters, Forus gently lifted the present that Ocelia had sent to her before slowly unwarped it while humming her tone, acting like a relaxed lady who was excited to open her gift.
Seeing several middle-quality potions, Forus smiled faintly before rapidly using them to maintain her sorcery cultivation further. After getting this new feminine body, Forus could once again use the regular potions to improve her sorcery cultivation and finally be able to train in traditional cultivation method.
Although it seemed that Ocelia was desperate and practically giving out Forus free potions and the likes, Ocelia had only given Forus the remedies for healing injuries and increasing cultivation energy, and not any of the medicines that could enhance the power of the soul or purify the sorcery power within her body.
Even with the help of these potions, Forus would never be able to break through into the peak of the first-ranked sorcerer, let alone the mighty second-ranked sorcerer. Ocelia had also made sure that Forus wouldn't find a way to enhance her soul to increase her chance and suppressing and enslaving Ocelia when they fought for control over other's body again.
The feeling of increasing one's sorcery was addicting for the body of Ocelia. Forus could feel the burning sensation of the flaming particle that flew through her vein, making her body turned hot and exciting. It was the opposite of how Forus cultivated her first body, which involved rotting her flesh and skin with Death Aura before using it to invade the blood and inner organs, slowly and painfully strengthening the entire body.