Chapter 182

The sight Dalia created as she leaned over the table 'carelessly' as she put together a plate for me was beautiful even without factoring the way her dress failed against the attraction of the gravity. And the way her breasts continued to defy that attraction determinedly just enhanced the view further, competed by a momentary glimpse of her nipples, beautifully hard in anticipation.

Even as I enjoyed the sight, however, a stab of annoyance remained.

After all, with her level low enough to give me that dreaded notification once more, there was no additional experience to make the moment even sweeter.

I kept my mouth shut, ignoring that annoyance as I did my best to look dominated under her alluring assault.

Instead, I focused on the next issue. I had no idea about the exact skill configuration she had, which meant I had no idea exactly how accurate her observation was to catch the truth behind my actions. And since I was at a point that didn't require taking any big risks, I decided to act conservatively. Not that I expected her to actually succeed in her observations, as there was a limit to the number of skills she could take, and if her level was low enough, she could hardly get enough observation skills in place to catch me.

Not with the number of skills she already had to optimize her seduction capability.

"T-thank you," I stammered as she put the plate in front of me — and giving an even more impressive glimpse of her cleavage in the process. My mouth gaping, I did my best to give her the reaction she was working for, thoroughly enjoying being on the other side of such a radical seduction attempt.

As she pulled back, she dragged her finger 'accidentally' over my hand, unaware that she had given me the opportunity to slip a single point of mana into her body by doing so, giving me the opportunity I was looking for to examine her soul space safely.

A single point of mana wasn't enough to get a complete understanding, but since I was unaware of just how many magical talents she possessed at the moment, I decided to stay on the safe side.

And it turned out to be a smart thing to do, because her current skill set was roughly divided into three distinct categories.

The first group was, quite predictably, seduction, which didn't come as a surprise thanks to her already displayed abilities. The second category was geared for magical ability, mostly Arcana with some enchanting support, making me glad that I didn't get too aggressive to analyze her soul space. The combination of magical skills she had would work well to catch a magical flare, especially combined with her remaining skills.

The last category was enhanced observation. Though, surprisingly, that part was not as strong as I expected considering her objective, leaving her very capable of catching magical tricks, but less capable of catching the mundane tricks.

Interesting, I thought. Maybe she was convinced that she had already seen my secrets. Or maybe, was more afraid of me using a magical trick on her. Yet, that thought wasn't enough to prevent a momentary frown, because that wasn't enough to explain her choice.

The limited observation, along with her magical focus, was certainly suspicious, leaving me with one important question.

Why she had decided to maintain such a high level of magical ability? Her still being afraid of me was an option, but it was certainly not enough. It was the case, she would have maintained at least one weapon skill and some physical stats to prevent a more direct attack, yet those were completely absent.

Another change in the already complicated game her boss was playing, enough to make me tense.

Yet, as I watched Delia taking the chair nearest to me, I decided to leave that question to a different time. It was impossible to get an answer to every single question, after all.

Luckily, the way she crossed her legs, enhancing her already impressive slit even further to was beautiful enough to compensate for the mission-related annoyance.

I let my gaze fall on the amazing length of her legs, enjoying the delicious sight, happy that the role I was playing allowed me to do so without bothering to hide my gaze. She threw a dismissive yet amused glare my way, thinking I was too distracted with her legs to notice it.

How amusing, I thought, enjoying her silence as I took the first bite from the delicious breakfast spread that had been prepared for me. "Amazing," I said after swallowing.

"I'm happy to hear that," she answered with a teasing slowness. The soft giggle that followed showed she had no intention of hiding that teasing intention.

Not that it was possible to hide that intention in the first place.

She said nothing to follow her words while I enjoyed the food, the fork occasionally freezing in place when she shuffled slightly to give an even better view of her beautiful body, the impressions enhanced further by her seduction-based skills.

Since I was supposed to be shocked by her beauty too much to actually speak, I said nothing else, not that it was too much of a problem with the perfect view of her entire leg peeking through the slit of her dress.

The contrast of her flawless skin against the crimson dress was simply mesmerizing.

My gaze danced between her amazing cleavage and her stunning legs, curves battling with smoothness, occasionally straying higher to get a glimpse of her slender neck.

When she spoke once more, I had been enjoying the sight of her deep cleavage for quite a while. She had raised her arms to reach something, 'coincidentally' covering her cleavage for a moment, and I leaned deliberately to catch a better view.

"Sorry," she said with a growing smile. "I'm not in your way, am I?"

"Uh... No," I said, once again making a show of stammering like I had been just caught reaching for the cookie jar. Yet, I didn't stop staring at her body, showing her that the temptation of her body was stronger than the shame her words generated.

I was really curious about what was driving her to such a thing, so I did everything I could do other than actually saying to her directly I was hooked.

Yet, she kept her mouth shut, not taking the opportunity to mock me, which made me even more curious about what was the objective of this surprise breakfast. Why was she delaying it that much when I was giving her all the indications that I was ready to eat out of her hand?

And when she spoke, it wasn't to unravel that mystery. "Have you tried the honey pastries, they are truly delicious," she whispered even as she stood, preparing me on another plate.

Since when she sat down once more, she pulled her chair even closer, enough 'carelessly' to extend her hand to my lap, I assumed that pastries were just an excuse.

Her playful smile was masterful, naughty, yet with enough innocence mixed in to convince a lesser man that her touch might not mean what he thought it would, keeping things in suspense, which was more difficult to manage than it sounded.

It was too easy to look condescending while trying to give such a complicated impression.

I leaned forward even as I took a bite from the pastries they had picked for me, following it with a gulp of tea. And just as she said, they were delicious, but that wasn't all that.

They were also poisonous!

What an interesting choice, I thought even as I carefully flared my magic internally to grab the offending liquid that had been in the heart of the pastry, one that was only started working when it was combined with the touch of the tea, wrapping it safely, all without Delia noticing.

Despite the subtle web of magic that started spreading from her a few seconds later.

That magic, along with the subtle tightening of her face finally revealed the reason for her magical skill selection, at least partially. She wanted to make sure I had been affected by whatever poison she had fed to me.

Too bad for her she had woefully mistaken about the limits of my magical skills. I had managed to trick people that were much more competent than her magically, both in terms of level and skill focus, and in terms of magical dedication.

[-94 Mana]

I was able to shield the mana flare even as I cast a Biomancy spell, amused by the fact that she was unaware that she had tried to poison a Biomancy master, which was, arguably, an even worse attempt to poison a healer, like Marianne.

Not that Marianne would have a problem negating the effects of the poison, but I doubted she could compete with me in terms of analyzing the poison. So, by a flare of magic, not only I was able to block whatever plan Delia had by poisoning me, but also I would understand how the poison would exactly to destroy her plan even further.

I acted like there was nothing extraordinary going on as I took another pastry, once again followed by the tea to understand how it was working.

Luckily, it wasn't a deadly poison, which gave me a reason to hold back any aggressive response.

Although, not using a deadly poison wasn't a huge surprise. Even if they wanted to kill me, Poison was hardly a reliable tool to deal with anyone higher than level ten due to a combination of high HP — though due to low Constitution, mages were more vulnerable against such methods even in high levels.

Even for mages, however, there were very few poisons that could reliably kill a level twenty mage, especially ones that could be delivered without excruciating pain to warn about their presence.

Her lack of a reaction as I continued to eat calmly suggested that the poison she had used wasn't one of those destructive ones, confirming I had sufficient time to work on the poison.

For others, deciphering the nature of an unknown poison was difficult without any tools, I had two distinct advantages over other experts. One, my great magical abilities that included Biomancy, second, my high Constitution and HP, giving me the freedom to let the poison affect me slightly, testing the poison through its workings as well as its magical nature.

With that, before I even finished eating the second pastry, I was able to identify the nature of her trick, only to realize classifying it as the poison was pushing.

It was more accurate to define it as concentrated alcohol, mixed with some mild aphrodisiac, the dosage perfect to affect a caster with low Constitution and a high level.

The perfect combination to impair an already horny high-leveled mage's decision-making even further without turning collapsing them.

How interesting.

[Level: 32 Experience: 499110 / 528000

Strength: 46 Charisma: 63

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 6528 / 6528 Mana: 6720 / 8000 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Arcana [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [100/100]

Master Craft [77/100]

Expert Speech [75/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (0/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 22/26]

[Helga - Level 22/26]