"Don't worry — now that you're with me, I'll naturally see to it that you're well taken care of."
Li Fei delivered the scoundrel's promise with perfect nonchalance.
"Mm."
Sasha kept her eyes demurely downcast, kneeling at her side, carefully trimming her nails.
When she had ascended to become the Witch of Depravity, her hair and nails had both grown several centimeters longer. The hair was fine — but the nails absolutely had to go. The courtesan queen recalled that the vampire PR consultant Isabella had once gotten a manicure, and had been branded a "pillow princess" ever since.
"All right, remember to tell me when the witch sickness flares up."
Li Fei withdrew her hand and turned it over, examining her fingertips — soft, rosy, luminous, without a single rough edge. Satisfied, she gave the self-styled fairy's head a fond ruffle.
She rose and leaned on the windowsill with both hands, seemingly gazing vacantly at the night view outside — but in reality she was browsing the dazzling array of battle-qi and true-qi cultivation manuals in the System Shop.
After all this time, Li Fei had come to notice that the Shop's inventory, vast as it seemed — as though one could exchange for anything in the world — did in fact have blind spots.
Spells, for instance, only came in their "base versions." Mid-to-high Sequence mages had long since learned to fine-tune spell models, or even devise entirely original ones — which meant the variants of even a first-tier Fireball alone numbered in the tens of thousands: the [Nicole-Version Fireball], the [Bai Mengtian-Version Fireball], and so on. Yet in the System Shop, one could only ever purchase the knowledge tome or spell crystal for plain [Fireball].
This led Li Fei to a conjecture that touched on the very origin of the System itself — perhaps Miss System was not some unfathomable being that transcended all existence, but rather something more akin to a created artifact: a lineage inheritance, or a wish-granting ritual?
And yet, what manner of supremely great being would it take to create such a miracle? The closest thing to a divine-tier creation Li Fei had ever encountered was the Lady of Ruin's wish-granting ritual — but compared to the System, that ritual seemed positively "modest" and "crude."
But if the System truly came from his — or their — hands, then the origins of everything in the System Shop were worth pondering deeply… And the restriction to base versions alone might well be a deliberate measure to conceal its makers' identities…
Li Fei shook her head, deciding not to trouble herself any further with questions so distant as "I might merely be a vessel cultivated by some deity, destined to have my body snatched someday." She turned her attention back to the manuals for the seven most expensive cultivation arts — asking others for help and demanding material goods outright were two very different things, and especially when it came to cultivation methods, which had always been jealously guarded secrets, asking for them openly would look absolutely terrible. The courtesan queen, who knew the difference between a single good meal and meals for life, preferred to spend a little Wealth.
After repeated comparisons, Li Fei eliminated four candidates and found herself unable to decide between the final three.
"Dragon-Elephant Prajña Art"
"Nine Revolutions Arcane Art"
"Furnace Battle-Qi"
Two true-qi cultivation arts, one battle-qi cultivation art.
The textbooks had covered the differences between true qi and battle qi. Cultivating true qi was the process of transforming from a "mortal" into an "immortal": at the foundation stage, one nurtured the qi and blood and tempered flesh, muscle, and bone; at the intermediate stage, one opened up the Governing and Conception Vessels, the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, and eventually the subtlest channels throughout the body; at a profound level of attainment, one had to exchange blood, exchange marrow, and assault the acupuncture points, striving to go a step further beyond a hundred feet of progress. In short, the mainstream philosophy of true-qi cultivation treated the human body as an infinite cosmos, developing its ultimate potential through every avenue — meridians, acupoints, and more.
Perhaps it was precisely because the true-qi cultivation system, with its emphasis on the human body, had flourished on the Eastern Continent, that the Great Shang Dynasty had formed its human-supremacist ideology. Any sentient creature other than humans was deemed a "barbarian" — the imperial court, under the banner of "sweeping away demons and monsters, eradicating evil spirits and fiends," would launch bloody crackdowns on merfolk, fox spirits, and other races at the slightest provocation. Only those tribes that meekly submitted and paid tribute year after year could earn a small corner of peace.
A place like Loxibrook — where elemental creatures roamed the streets, fairies fluttered everywhere, races of every imaginable variety flowed in endless streams through the avenues, and females of different species even carried children together in a "multicultural" sort of city — would, on the Eastern Continent, be suppressed at least three hundred and sixty times a year. The great Confucian scholars' spittle alone could drown the city walls.
Clearly, this "those not of our kind are of alien hearts" ideology was also one of the sparks that had ignited the wars between the two continents — even after a thousand years of peace, that wily fox Margaret still had to disguise herself whenever she went east to visit the… ahem, to travel, so she wouldn't accidentally reveal her fox tail and draw trouble from the court's Demon-Suppression Bureau.
One could easily imagine the attitude a thousand years ago.
Back then, the soldiers of the Eastern Continent had stepped off their ships and looked around — wow, monsters and strange beasts everywhere! And what were those bird-people with wings growing from their backs?
And then the young angels, who had been curiously sizing up the black-haired, black-eyed visitors, became battlefield trophies and military merit.
And so that inconclusive, cloud-shrouded war broke out.
As for battle qi…
Three words to sum it up: RAAAWR RAAAWR RAAAWR.
Two words: URAAAA.
One word: CHARGE.
After a lengthy hesitation, Li Fei finally reached her decision.
— Sure, I may look like a human.
And I do feel like a human on the inside.
— But I'm not entirely human anymore!
— Besides, being a witch is not just a class and a lineage — it's also a race…
Heaven only knows whether my acupoints and meridians have shifted out of place.
— Anyway, there's no going back. Farewell, my human self □.
Her Wealth plummeted like a receding tide, dropping from 47,673 all the way down to 36,675.
Li Fei purchased the manuals for the first two tiers of Furnace Battle-Qi in one go, only stopping short before the staggering price of the third.
"So expensive… Spells really are the better deal — a hundred coins won't cheat you, a hundred coins won't deceive you."
Li Fei mused, rubbing her temples.
Perhaps because same-tier spell models were roughly comparable in precision, complexity, and stability, knowledge tomes for various spells — at least at the lower Sequences — showed almost no price variation.
But body techniques and combat skills were a different story entirely. The gap in ingenuity between third-rate trash and peerless divine arts was already a chasm from the very first step, which sent the prices diverging wildly.
Furnace Battle-Qi was obviously the finest of the fine, the pinnacle of the pinnacle — the very first tier was priced at 999 Wealth, and the second at 9,999… Don't let the body technique Cloud Dragon Fold's first tier price of 5,000 fool you — that 5,000 was the price for direct instillation and immediate mastery! If you only purchased the cultivation manual for Cloud Dragon Fold, it cost a mere 500.
What's more, battle qi couldn't even be mastered by spending Wealth — it could only be learned using the far more precious and scarce Potential Points.
"System — add it."
With the sudden expenditure of Potential Points, a vortex of battle qi materialized within Li Fei's body. Like a ceaselessly spinning furnace, blazing and refined battle qi surged up from the vortex like signal fires, swiftly filling her entire body, nourishing her physique until the qi and blood throughout her felt on the verge of boiling.
Yet the eye-watering price tag of 99,999 for the third tier of Furnace Battle-Qi diluted the joy of her steadily growing power, casting a faint shadow between Li Fei's brows.
Higher-tier battle qi, higher-tier knowledge tomes, and the expenses of customizing her witch class…
"Make money." The two words loomed large in her heart.
"I need to find a way to improve my Aptitude."
After roughly estimating the terrifying resources she would need to expend on the Transcendent path ahead, Li Fei pushed open the window with a dark expression, her murmured words scattered by the night wind: "If I can master spells through my own ability, the Wealth pressure will ease up considerably… and it would also reduce my dependence on the System to some degree."
Another morning arrived.
The Sensitivity Aura had finally leveled up.
The previous night, pressed by financial concerns, she had abandoned her plans to take the day off and dutifully gone to the tavern for her shift; after clocking out, she had given full consideration to the fact that she would have no chance to play hide-and-seek for the next half month at least… and so the young mistress had swept up four fairies in one go, Sasha and Ram included.
Despite the immediate, tangible improvements across her various attributes, and despite Furnace Battle-Qi making her qi and blood more vigorous, the Fairy Mother was ultimately outnumbered — her body weight had dropped several jin in a single night.
The one saving grace was that the drop in her combat power wasn't as severe as expected. She still retained eighty percent of her peak Red Dust Immortal capacity, otherwise… heh heh.
The haggard-faced young mistress steadied herself against the wall as she emerged, chugged down an enormous bowl of broth in rapid gulps, then leaned on her daughter-in-law's shoulder as they flew off toward school.
…
"Congratulations, congratulations."
In the bright morning sunlight, Irena's deep blue eyes were as lively as ever. "You've advanced to Sequence 8."
"Oh, it's nothing, really."
Li Fei curved her lips into a smile.
"But… why does it feel like the aftereffects of your soul damage have gotten worse?" Irena's expression turned suspicious almost immediately. "When your Sequence advances, even the soul should undergo a transformation…"
"Heaven is jealous of my talents."
Li Fei shrugged helplessly, looping her arm around Irena's neck. "Smile for me."
Click.
Both girls' smiling faces were captured on the phone screen.
"This object is really quite remarkable."
Irena leaned in for a closer look — and the courtesan queen's plan to change the subject succeeded without a hitch.
"Heh heh."
Li Fei smiled and saved the photo into an unnamed folder.
She had a good habit of organizing her photo albums — pictures of different subjects were sorted neatly into separate folders, each one password-locked.
For instance, the incriminating evidence that Poker Face had left behind in Folded Space D-07 had been neatly compiled by Li Fei into a locked folder titled: "Lady Zhihua Is In Seclusion".
If she hadn't had the wholesome habit of routinely tidying her photo album and clearing her chat history, Li Fei might have ended up six feet under long before any dump truck ever reached her — heh heh.
"Oh right, what is Saya up to?"
Li Fei asked suddenly.
"Hmm… sleeping in, probably?"
Irena considered briefly before replying.
"Perfect."
Li Fei nodded and started tapping away at her phone.
Irena glanced sideways and saw that Li Fei was renaming a folder, typing in the words: "Miss Saya Is Sleeping In".
Since the phone had been modified with magic, it had gained the Common Tongue of the Order Alignment as an additional language option, which meant Irena could read the text on screen.
"Hm?"
Irena tapped her lips with one index finger, a look of curiosity crossing her face.
Smartphones weren't all that complicated to operate — with the Gray Witch's intelligence, a quick look was enough to pick up the basic functions.
Like a curious cat extending its tail to poke at something interesting, Irena prodded the folder now renamed "Miss Saya Is Sleeping In" with her fingertip, then entered the password she had just watched Li Fei type in from memory — and suddenly a flood of photos materialized on the screen.
The folder was filled entirely with photos of a sweet, adorable gray-haired beauty and a breathtakingly gorgeous black-haired beauty pressed close together — the two utterly intimate, engaged in all manner of suggestive activities.
Irena couldn't help but cover her mouth, letting out a soft gasp, as she pointed at the black-haired woman:
"Who is this?"
"That's your dearest little sister — me."
And who is this other one?
"That's your dearest big sister — you."
"But… isn't this folder named Saya? Where is Saya?"
"Miss Saya is sleeping in."
Li Fei said with complete seriousness.
Two seconds later, Irena caught the peculiar humor of it and burst out laughing quite uncharitably.
"Oh, by the way, Irena-sis — before the tournament starts I'll be doing a training camp with my teammates… would you be willing to come spar with us for a couple of days?"
Seizing the moment while Irena was in high spirits, Li Fei made her request, placing special emphasis on the word "sis."
The training camp would last at least half a month, so she couldn't keep shearing the same sheep — the courtesan queen had decided to spread her net wide and rope in several people, each sparring for a day or two.
"Leave it to me."
Irena straightened her modest frame and agreed readily.
"Sis, you're the best…"
Just as the two were cozying up together, an angry voice reached them, growing louder as it approached.
"Let go of her!!"
That voice, carrying a slight youthful edge, was highly distinctive — even Li Fei could identify it effortlessly. It was Saya.
Li Fei turned around, and in the blink of an eye, she spotted a pretty, dainty girl in black thigh-high stockings standing before the two of them.
She had sprinted over so fast that her short black hair was slightly disheveled, like a ruffled cat's fur. She glared at Li Fei with wary, hostile eyes, grinding her teeth.
"No."
Li Fei smiled serenely and shook her head, wrapping both arms around Irena's shoulders even more firmly.
After all, what could possibly be more entertaining than brazenly flaunting it to someone's face and savoring the victim's jealous expression?
"Irena and I are already married — you're not allowed to do that!"
Saya declared loudly.
"We are not, Saya…"
Irena's mouth twitched, and she politely objected.
"It doesn't matter."
Li Fei ignored Irena's faint protest, her smile undiminished. "I'm not here to break you two up. I'm here to join you."
"Impossible!"
Saya puffed out her cheeks and declared with absolute resolve: "There cannot be two suns in the sky — Irena is the only sun in my heart."
"Oh? Is that so."
Li Fei decided it was time to give her a little lesson. She lightly bit her lower lip, pinched her mage robe with her fingertips, and lifted the hem ever so slightly.
Common mage robes came in two main styles. The first was Irena's type — resembling a cape, covering the shoulders and back, but from the front revealing an immaculate white blouse adorned with lace trim, a light silk ribbon tied into a bow at the collar, and beneath a chic short skirt, a pair of slender, snow-fair legs. This style was by far the most popular among students — after all, for young and lively boys and girls, aesthetics was an extremely important attribute.
The second type was cloak-style. Melodia's everyday robe fell into this category — though hers was a short version, revealing her long boots and the lower half of her full, shapely thighs wrapped in flesh-toned stockings. Li Fei's Guardian Mage Robe was also cloak-style, but the long version — covering everything from the neck down so thoroughly that only her snow-fair fingertips peeked out from the sleeves, essentially functioning as a Charisma -2 debuff. The upside was equally obvious: more fabric meant more comprehensive protection, and it could also channel more powerful forces.
Generally speaking, female students who chose the long cloak-style robe were nine times out of ten the academic type — so absorbed in studying spells that they paid little attention to their appearance, inevitably wearing thick trousers or tights underneath.
But when Li Fei lifted her robe, what was revealed was semi-transparent black full-body stockings, hugging her slender, well-proportioned calves in smooth, taut, graceful curves — with a snag or two in the fabric, letting glimpses of fair skin show through. It formed a startling contrast against the prim and conservative outer appearance — rather like a stern, cool, unsmiling female CEO who, beneath her impeccably buttoned suit trousers, was secretly wearing sheer pantyhose.
Paired with the shy yet alluring lip-bite, even a straight girl couldn't hold out.
"Mm-ugh…"
After spacing out for several seconds, Saya firmly clamped both hands over her nose to keep the warm liquid from trickling out.
"My, you're blushing."
Li Fei giggled and let the "hem" fall back into place.
Transcendents had remarkably resolute willpower, and Saya's feelings for Irena were obsessive to the point of pathology — nearly five hundred points of Charisma alone wasn't quite enough to shake that kind of devotion.
However, the courtesan queen had risen to prominence among a sea of glamorous and beguiling PR professionals within a mere month of her debut, carving out the title of "courtesan queen" — perhaps in a straight fight of equal power, a battle-hardened warrior could easily outclass Li Fei; but the courtesan queen's caliber was not empty boasting either. She had breathtaking natural talent in the arts of flirtation and the tea ceremony. With nearly five hundred points of Charisma and her full power unleashed, even against someone with eight hundred points of Charisma, she might not necessarily come out behind.
"That's quite enough."
In the end, Li Fei obediently followed Irena — who had produced her staff with a benign smile — straight into the dean's office.
____
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