‘What’s happening?!’ Max cried inwardly in panic.
He first thought he was having his bloodline backlash but soon dismissed the thought because unlike before, he hadn’t used up all of his bloodline energy, much less his bloodline source.
Then he noticed something–although what was happening was similar to the bloodline backlash… It was something completely different.
When he had the backlash, his lust was magnified several fold and it was overwhelming his mind. Whereas now, although his lust had spiked, it wasn’t trying to overwhelm him. Also, there was something else that was different…
He was feeling an intense desire to take possession of this simple looking lady and make her his. It was as if he had become a beast and she was a delectable, and irresistible prey.
Not wanting them to notice his abnormality, he did his best to suppress this overwhelming urge but Riva, being a Five Star Mage, still noticed something was up with him and asked.
“You alright?”
“Yeah.” Max nodded before peeling his eyes off the lady in front of him and snapped them shut, not caring what they would think about it.
The moment he closed his eyes, he felt his bloodline calm down albeit a little.
Riva raised her brows at his rude behavior but recalling how she had been treating him, she chose to ignore it and looked at the lady who respectfully bowed to her in greeting.
“Greetings, Elder Riva.”
Then despite the fact Max had closed his eyes, and was seemingly trying to ignore her existence, she politely greeted him, “Hello sir.”
Max planned to ignore her until Riva was done explaining to her, but when he heard her greet him, his heart fluttered and unwittingly, he opened his eyes.
‘How troublesome!’ Sighing in frustration, he met her gaze–the moment he did, his bloodline again became violent–and returned the greeting with the best gentlemanly smile he could muster in his current situation.
“Hello milady! It’s very nice to meet you.”
The lady gave him a kind smile before returning her gaze to Riva, “May I ask what order you have for me, Elder Riva?”
Riva looked at Max, who had closed his eyes once again, strangely. Then a knowing smile appeared on her lips. ‘So you can become flustered too? How cute!’
She glanced at the lady and introduced him, “You see Sera, Mr. Max here is our family’s honored guest. He has some very special abilities that he can use to heal the destroyed magic foundations. He had just helped Sophie recover and will soon heal her completely.”
Seraphina Fuller, or Sera as Riva called her, was an orphan of a branch of the Fuller family. Her parents had been poor, so they didn’t leave her anything. Due to that, from a young age, she started working as a servant to earn a living.
Though she earned enough to get by, she never had enough resources nor time to focus on cultivation. Due to her weakness and because she was very timid and kindhearted, she became a target of bullying from kids of her age but it was still manageable.
However, when she turned twelve, and her body started maturing, things took a turn for the worse.
Despite the limited nutrition, she started developing into a beautiful girl. The young neighborhood boys became infatuated with her and the girls became jealous.
The boys would approach her, treat her well but when she rejected their advances, they would become angry, and even though they didn’t do anything drastic to her thanks to the family’s rules, they bullied her to tears every time.
Girls. on the other hand, treated her even worse. Not only would they bully her every time they saw her, they would also beat her. She couldn’t even avoid them because she had to go work in their homes to earn a living.
Then one day, when she was working in the house of one of her girl bullies, she accidently broke an old vase.
The girl got angry and beat her so badly that she was bleeding all over. Then, as if that was not enough, she wanted to burn her face with her fire magic.
Fortunately, Riva, coincidentally flying over the area, noticed this and immediately stopped her.
After she enquired about the situation, she found out that the boy that girl loved liked Sera. Angry, she orchestrated the plan to put the brittle old vase in a place that it would fall off when Sera cleaned the area. Then she would use it as an excuse and beat her into a half dead state and burn her face, effectively removing her from their love triangle.
Hearing this and seeing Sera’s condition, Riva became so angry that she wanted to obliterate the girl because the thing she hated the most were people who did such things in love rivalry due to her own experience when she was young.
Despite her anger though, she knew Sera should be the one to decide how the girl was to be punished but to her surprise, when she asked her, Sera decided to let the matter go.
She clearly remembered the conversation she had with her then.
‘Are you afraid her family will act against you later?’ She had asked.
With a calm look, Sera had shaken her head and said, “No. I’m not afraid of that. I just don’t want to punish her. She is already suffering enough.”
“Suffering from what?” She had asked out of curiosity.
‘From jealousy, anger and hate. She can never be happy because of these and will eventually suffer. She will suffer so much that my suffering will pale in comparison.’ Sera had said, ‘That’s why I don’t want to punish her. She is too pitiful for me to do that.’
That day, that 12 year old girl had given Riva a new perspective of life and gave closure from some things that had been holding her from focusing on more important things.
A day later, she had Sera investigated. Realizing how she had no family and how much she was suffering, she decided to give her a better life. However, when she went to bring her to her mansion, Sera had said she wouldn’t take anything for free and would instead work as her servant.
Riva relented and little Sera started working as a gardener.
After that, Riva got busy and it was only after a month that she met her again. When she saw him, she was shocked because Sera had gone from an ordinary person to a peak Two Star Mage with dual elements awakened in just one month. Furthermore, her mana core was incomparably pure and solid.
After realizing how talented she was, Riva started guiding her along with Sophie and her son, Uriel. Under her guidance, she showed even better talent and in just half an year, she broke through and became a Three Star Mage.
Riva was ecstatic and wanted to take her as her disciple before the Grand Elders found out about her talent and snatched her away.
But before she could do that, she was sent on another month-long mission.
During that month, she was constantly worried that when she returned, a Grand Elder would have made Sera their disciple. When she returned, she was relieved to realize her worries were unfounded.
But when she met Sera again, all her relief and excitement vanished because she noticed Sera seemed to have aged a lot more than she should have in a mere month and her body had become frail.
When she checked her body, wanting to find what could have caused this, she was devastated.
The 10 Bonus Chapter Mass release between 10-15 November!
