Of course, she didn't refuse. Arien was too proud to demean herself with such a rejection. Straightening her back with the most independent expression possible, she authoritatively took Raven by the elbow as if it was genuinely her initiative. With measured and graceful strides, she led the man inside.

Her first gesture signaled to Rimus, her deputy in the guild, that today's exam was over. With her second gesture, she couldn't resist sending a suggestive sign to Miranda, who had yet to rise and was still hiding behind an overturned table. Arien's demeanor demonstrated that everything was happening strictly according to her will and desire. But inside, she felt shattered. More precisely, shocked.

Organizing this exam, she assumed that she could lose in a magical duel, be defeated by one of the local masters. Especially when she raised the admission bar for the test from Steel to Wootz. Regardless of how she mocked the local "inepts" in her circle, Arien did not consider Ain's residents fools, dumb, or incapable in magic. It's just that her exam was incredibly inconvenient for the locals due to the large distance from the shore to the island where the old tower stood. This distance served as an almost insurmountable barrier for the city's residents and its guests. And it was not due to a lack of talent on their part, but solely to local specifics. On the Metal Coil of the Spiral of Elevation, Ain's mages specialize in powerful, fast, but close-range spells. It's reasonable and pragmatic on their part, as it allows them to be most effectively utilized in dungeon clearing. The locals only start studying something genuinely long-range in their magical arsenal on the Precious Coil, preparing for an expedition to the Inverted Towers of Pentapolis. Nevertheless, Arien understood that she might encounter a prodigy or an aristocrat who had been studying magic since infancy and who also possessed secret magical Techniques. She was morally prepared to lose to a local genius but not an earthling! Not to someone like her, not to someone who entered this world at the same time as her. Especially to lose like this! Overwhelmingly! Hopelessly!

How could this Raven conjure something so powerful?! Unbelievably destructive! She didn't understand it and now felt that she lost not so much a magical battle as a battle of wits.

Without uttering a word, she led the earthling to her room. Deliberately unhurried, she locked the door and activated noise protection charms. Then, very quickly, she stripped naked, pretending to be completely unembarrassed by this man's presence.

However, this boor didn't even look at her! Even as she slowed her undressing and leisurely removed her blouse, he was more engrossed in examining her notes scattered messily across the table by the window. For some reason, this particular detail, his genuine indifference to her beautiful body - and she knew she was attractive, having driven men mad more than once - stung her perhaps even more than her defeat in the magical duel.

After undressing, she lay on the bed, threw a sheet over herself, and demonstratively assumed a starfish pose.

As an experienced woman, Arien knew perfectly well how to destroy a man in her bed. To morally subdue him! If she failed to win the magical duel, she would make his victory as uncomfortable for him as possible, and do so simply and effectively.

'I'll just lay here like a log!' She smirked to herself. 'No matter what he does or how hard he tries, I'll cynically and humiliatingly comment on all his actions!'

This plan of pure feminine revenge restored Arien's self-confidence. And when Raven, having torn himself away from the notes, turned towards her, removing his shirt, she smiled with outward warmth and chirped in a tender voice:

"I hope you're as talented in bed as you are in magic. Don't disappoint me, famous Raven."

Raven didn't respond to these words. Silently, he undressed and lay down next to her, directly over the sheet that covered her. He placed his head on his hand and began to look intently at her face, an unexplainable pain visible in his eyes, ignoring the contours of her body barely concealed by the thin sheet.

All the sarcastic comments she had prepared got stuck in her throat under his gaze.

The man in her bed didn't move for almost five minutes, an eternity by Arien's internal clock! Then his hand slowly rose, and he ran the tips of his fingers across her cheek. It was almost a weightless touch, but for some reason, the girl froze, like a rabbit before a python, afraid even to breathe. The pads of his fingers moved to her cheekbone as if tracing its line. They proceeded, touched the tip of her ear, and instantly recoiled.

She looked at him, not understanding. He was not afraid; he was confident in himself, and this definitely was not a sexual prelude – she understood that much. It was an unintelligible gesture to her, a gesture from which a wave of light shiver ran down her spine for some reason.

He stared at his palm for almost a minute as if it weren't his own, and then his hand slipped under the sheet.

'Well, here it starts!' A slightly panicked thought flashed through the girl's head.

However brave Arien tried to be, she was a little scared now. She had experienced "sex for practical reasons" before. Once, she had intentionally seduced an investor so his fund would subsidize the equipment for her laboratory. She knew how to be passive or actively passionate in bed, as the situation required. But now she was confused because this insufferable Raven was behaving very strangely, and it was impossible to understand him. Arien always needed to be in control, even in bed. Even when she surrendered to her feelings, it was only after a conscious decision. Her decision! But to have control, one needed to understand the person beside them, even if just superficially.

But now...

Now, she didn't have the slightest understanding.

She braced herself for his touch on her breast, belly, or thighs. Instead, he touched her palm and gently, but with a strength she couldn't counter, pulled her hand out from under the sheet. He raised her palm to his lips and touched the tips of her fingers with his dry lips, which seemed even rougher than his palm, each in turn. It wasn't a kiss, just a touch. Weightless. Barely perceptible.

Then his lips moved across her palm and down to her wrist.

Arien's heart skipped a beat.

He didn't bite into her hand like a vampire craving blood. He didn't start licking her skin like an adolescent who had finally got hold of a woman's body. These were the same barely perceptible touches. Touches and a heavy yet calm breath, burning the thin skin of her wrist with heat.

Arien's head spun a bit. She had just met this man, yet somehow, he had found her weakness. Arien's thin skin on the wrist, where the pulse is felt, was incredibly sensitive. And not only did he find this spot, but he also acted so delicately, so tenderly, so weightlessly, yet held her hand with such strength that she couldn't pull away.

'I am a log! I am a log! I am a log!' Arien chanted in her mind, finding herself melting under his strong male breath on her hand.

Suddenly, he let her hand go and slid his head under the sheet. The girl froze like a frightened cat, but instead of finally making a crude advance on her, Raven rubbed his coarse hairstyle against her stomach, causing an unbearable ticklish sensation. Arien laughed involuntarily. This laughter, like a spell, knocked off all the arousal that was beginning to awaken in her. Yet, it also relaxed her. It released her inner restraints. She felt how tense her legs had been all this time, almost cramping, and now that tension was gone.

Responding to her laughter with a light smile, Raven hugged her tightly and, turning, made sure she was on the top.

Yet again, he didn't let go or start groping her. Instead, he placed his palms on her cheeks and began to examine her face. There was so much warmth, so much unfathomable admiration in his gaze that she momentarily lost herself, drowning in his eyes. She even missed the moment when he leaned in to kiss her. She flinched at the last second, but he again defied her expectations. His lips didn't seize hers in a greedy kiss; instead, he gently touched her cheek.

And again, this touch felt more like a mirage, so airy it seemed…

Arien genuinely tried to play the log. With all her might. But her strength lasted only a short while. It seemed that this Raven knew all her weaknesses, all the secrets of her body - even those of which she herself was unaware. In less than half an hour, unnoticed by herself, she ended up on top. And it was of her own accord, without the slightest coercion.

She had never experienced what happened to her that evening and half the night in her entire life. Perhaps it was due to her Affinity with Nature? Or maybe the Mithril Body, which made earthlings almost indefatigable? Or maybe Raven was just a brilliant lover?

That night, Arien asked herself no questions. For the first time since she had been in this world, her mind switched off, stopped keeping everything under control and calculating. And it was such a pleasant, all-encompassing feeling that even the sexual pleasures couldn't compete with it. She surrendered to the Will of the Affinity with Nature, dissolved herself in it. She floated on its full-flowing river, and in this sail, she was led by an experienced helmsman.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

However, at the moment, she wasn't thinking about how experienced one needed to be in bed to guess all a woman's weaknesses the first time. And even when she fell asleep under the watching crescent of the Night Sister, she wasn't thinking. And in this "non-thinking" lay the main charm of this night, its enchantment, and the indescribable relief it brought to Arien's mind, tormented by the constant tension of recent weeks...

When Arien opened her eyes, the sun was already cheerfully peeking through the window, brightly illuminating the work desk. 'It dawned about two hours ago,' noted the girl, still not fully awake, and sweetly stretched, sprawling out on the bed with a light crunch.

It was the first time she had really slept well since she was unwillingly brought into this world. She confessed to no one, but sleep had long become a real torture for her. The moment she lay down, she was tormented by unclear yet very vivid, all-senses-invoking images. Every night, plunging into sleep, she died over and over again. Three different but repetitively recurring deaths. In the first dream, she was always burning, failing to control her magic. In the second, her body was crushed by the stone blocks of some labyrinth, as if taken from the screens of Indiana Jones movies. In the third, something enormous, taller and bulkier than her by two or three times, hacked her to pieces while laughing unhumanly horribly.

These dreams never repeated exactly, but every damn night she saw them in various versions, differing only in details. Therefore, the girl, whenever possible, always preferred to sleep alone. Ideally - in a separate room, so no one could hear her groans or see the terror in her eyes in the mornings.

These nightmares were so draining that Arien began to notice her mind faltering from the constant internal tension. The intellect, which she, without false modesty, quite objectively, was proud of, began to make mistakes. Commit miscalculations. She found herself more irritable; unprovoked anger and mood swings became her constant companions.

And the previous evening was a vivid proof of that. In her normal state, Ariel Marchal would never have allowed the situation that unfolded on the last day of the exam. Had she been in her right mind, she would have immediately calculated Om Rallizor's motivation and outsmarted this sly aristocrat. She would have quenched the conflict in the bud and even profited from it, as had happened in her life more than once.

That night, she had no dreams. Absolutely none. And it was such a relief that for the first time in a month and a half, opening her eyes in her bed, Arien smiled.

Moreover, her Core was surprisingly calm. Her Affinity with Nature, which every day demanded various and yet very lewd things from her, seemed to have fallen asleep. Like a yard cat that had gorged on cream, getting to the treat and stuffing its stomach to the brim.

Without lifting her head from the pillow, the girl looked out the window. A few clouds were leisurely and calmly floating across the sky as if in tune with her mood.

Arien's mind was clear and sharp this morning. It felt as if a well-worn and somewhat "beat-up" car had finally been taken care of, with the oil changed, the engine cleaned, and the tires pumped. Or extra RAM was added to a computer, and the system was reinstalled.

Raising herself on her elbow, Arien looked around her room. As she had thought, besides her, there was no one else in the room. Raven had long gone. She even vaguely remembered him leaving when she woke up for a second at night and turned over to the other side.

Raven...

Crow...

A puzzling man.

Even now, with rested - as if cleansed of all the excess - brains, she couldn't understand him. Neither him himself, nor his motives, nor even his desires.

She always liked strong, self-confident men. It can be said that she had a weakness for such a type. At the same time, a man's appearance almost did not matter to her. Except, of course, for the hands. A man with ugly or unkempt hands could never end up in her bed. Never.

At least, never until last night.

A shudder ran through Arien. Just yesterday, she almost gave herself to that aristocrat. If it weren't for Miranda's mocking and even somewhat contemptuous gaze, for the first time in her life, she would have ignored the hands of the man with whom she wanted to share a bed.

A bed... To share...

These words made the girl reach for the bedside table and grab a bottle with a semi-transparent liquid. Despite remembering Raven being careful, she certainly didn't want to risk getting pregnant, even accidentally. Her Core shuddered discontentedly when the thick, cloyingly sweet liquid, viscous like syrup, flowed down her throat. But, to her slight surprise, nothing followed that mild tremor. She thought her Affinity with Nature would react much more strongly, even violently, to the intake of a contraceptive alchemical potion. But the Affinity seemed to be in a state of semi-slumber, soothed and satiated, so nothing followed the surface quivering of the Core.

Grimacing at the excessive sweetness, the girl lightly jumped to her feet and drank from a carafe of clean water. Then, she threw a sheet over herself and sat on the edge of the bed.

Arien's thoughts returned to Raven. It was something he had in abundance - the kind of confidence that attracted her. It wasn't just confidence but an extreme belief in himself. Even she, who was never modest about her own abilities and successes, was nowhere near his level of self-assurance. The girl involuntarily compared the nighttime visitor to a locomotive. Not a man, but an armored train, pushing down a path visible only to him. Stand in his way, try to stop him, and you'll be swept aside and smeared thin, your intestines winding around the wheel pairs. Nevertheless, Raven was certainly no fanatic. Fanatics don't have such clear and rational gazes.

Most importantly, his confidence was evidently well-founded. How he outplayed her at her own game! The girl couldn't help but admire, recalling what she saw when she turned around at the shore. All that was left of the old tower was a heated pile of ruins. By local standards, accomplishing something like that on a Metal Coil without artifacts of unprecedented power was simply impossible. Once, during her early days on Ain, she witnessed a formal duel between two Ruby mages and could compare. What Raven achieved was something extraordinary and impossible, even for the Ruby Step of the Spiral.

For the umpteenth time in these weeks, she realized again how little she knew about this new world for herself. Every day, she studied it. She gathered all the information she could reach. Yet, time and time again, Ain presented unexpected surprises.

As for the use of artifacts, Raven had not resorted to them. Arien knew that among the crowd of spectators, hidden under the magic of Illusion, the Sheriff of Katiyer sat every evening. Personally. A Warrior-Mage of the Valirium Rank of the Spiral. He would undoubtedly have tracked the use of an artifact capable of such destruction. Before the tests began, the girl had made a deal with him that he would monitor compliance with the exam conditions. And since Raven managed to destroy the tower without provoking the sheriff's intervention, he did so within the rules established by her and agreed upon with the city authorities.

She understood that Raven had duped her. But she didn't understand how. This slightly infuriated the girl. She quickly jumped out of bed and walked to the window. She wanted to look out and shout for the maid to bring her breakfast and clean water to the room, but then her gaze fell on the work desk, and the girl froze.

Her notes…

He had been rifling through her papers!

Or rather, not rifling, studying. And he even drew something on three out of the five sheets on which she tried to depict the scheme of Magevra's Ritual.

A wave of cold fury rose from the depths of her soul, rolling over her like a steamroller. Grabbing one of the sheets the night guest had ruined, she wanted to crumple it and throw it away. But at the last moment, her hand stopped. The girl unfolded the already crumpled sheet, placed it on the table, and smoothed it out.

Only a few straight lines were added to her drawings. More precisely, arrows.

"It can't be!"

She grabbed the rest of her notes and put them together, sweeping everything else off the table in the process.

"How?!" The same thought pounded in Arien's head over and over. "How?!"

Three sheets. Seven arrows connecting separate elements that seemed completely unrelated, and suddenly, the whole picture stood before her inner gaze. Clear and distinct.

"How? How did he manage to figure it out so quickly? And most importantly, understand?"

She had been wrestling with this puzzle for two weeks and hadn't come halfway to a solution! And he just glanced and, it seemed, immediately understood everything. Just as she did now. Understood everything. Or almost everything. One detail was still missing. It seemed trivial, but in magic, there are no unimportant trivialities. The entire ritual stood before Arien's eyes as if a picture in a 3D modeling program. Almost the entire thing. All that was left was to find out what material the hair tuft of that brush was made of, with which Magevra drew the ritual lines according to the frescoes of the forgotten temple. That part of the wall, which should have depicted the brush, was not preserved. On Earth, she would just try all the options and eventually choose the right one "by the scientific poking method." But that was on Earth. Here, an incorrectly performed Ritual of this power could simply kill. And she would burn, as she had already burned many times in her dreams.

For half an hour, Arien examined the records and concluded that Raven, having drawn the connections, had not made a mistake. With the deep intuition of a scientist and a mage, she saw the beauty and integrity of the scheme. Such integrity and harmony that couldn't be faked without a full understanding of the process.

Taking the sheets with the records, she spread them on the floor and stood on the bed to take another look, to capture everything at a glance. Barely had she done this when she noticed a small, palm-sized paper craft. An origami in the shape of a bird, which someone tried to make look like a raven, but hadn't quite succeeded.

However, why someone? There were very few options for who could have left it here. Actually, there was only one option.

Jumping off the bed, Arien picked up the unusually folded sheet and, noticing ink traces on it, unfolded it. With every word, every sentence she read, she boiled more and more.

This Raven was insufferable! No, formally, his letter was polite and even courteous, but between the lines, a slight mockery could be read. Just consider the three postscripts at the end:

"P.S. When you figure out the final chord of the Halves Transformation Ritual, and the question arises where to get the missing ingredient, contact me. A communication artifact is enclosed."

"P.P.S. For a mage like you, it's a bit strange not to know about such a type of spell as Core-Recorded spells. My advice is to explore this nuance."

"P.P.P.S. By the way, I almost forgot. When you ask the locals about Core-Recorded spells, be careful. The priests of the Pantheon can't stand even the slightest mention of this type of alchemical art. In some places, they might send the curious to the stake."

On the floor, behind the leg of the table, she found one element of the Binding Pair artifact. If one is destroyed, the second part immediately receives a signal about it. Apparently, this was the "communication artifact" that came with the letter.

The girl's first impulse was to throw the artifact sphere out the window or smash it. But Arien Marchal suppressed the anger that unexpectedly washed over her upon reading Raven's farewell note and didn't throw anything away...