Elder Blanche's Secret Hobby

The formation for the second trial had been set up.

Level 1 magical beast stones were laid out in a circle with lines running between them so that they formed a systematic structure.

Evenly spaced out between those stones were the Elders of the Sapling Sword Sect. Once they received the signal, they would begin pouring their qi into the formation.

Inside the formation, the successful participants were all sitting in a lotus position nervously waiting for Elder Marvin's description of the formation to end and for the second trial to start.

"Consuming a grand total of 100 level 2 magical beast cores, we at the Sapling-"

He droned on about the scale of the formation, its rarity, and how many resources it consumed.

"It's incredible…" Yeon muttered.

"I-it is, isn't tith… Ahem, I've never experienced such a large-scale formation before," Mia said from beside him.

'Ah, she bit her tongue,' thought everyone.

Her face was still flushed from earlier, but she was trying her best to seem calm. But her stuttering and biting her tongue were a dead giveaway even without her cute rosy cheeks.

Yeon and Emily had taken Mia aside to inform her of what Rueben Fastilla had meant by the word 'bed', and on learning what it meant, she couldn't properly look Yeon in his eyes.

"It's certainly only something a large sect could pull off. Who else could afford to use 14 Elders alongside 100 level 2 beast cores? Not to mention that the most important talisman that activates this formation is a Mortal grade treasure. It's 4 entire grades above poor."

Yeon nodded his head in agreement.

"It's incredibly inefficient for what it does."

To his statement, Emily could only let out a soft "Oh…"

'That's what he meant,' she thought.

From the other side of the formation, a pair of chilling blue eyes were staring at the trio casually talking.

The people around him were uncomfortable with the tension he was creating, but the trio themselves were fine.

"Mia…" Emily called out to her.

Mia tilted her head like a curious dog who was waiting for her owner to continue, a habit of hers that Yeon and Emily both found adorable.

They could practically see a question mark popping above her head.

"Are you sure that… No, that isn't quite right. You wouldn't have said that if you weren't sure," Emily muttered more to herself rather than to Mia.

"Why did you want everyone to 'know' that all three of us were together?" Emily nuanced her question so that she didn't let slip that they weren't all together.

Since everyone knew that they were all 'together', there wasn't any point in waiting to ask.

But Emily's questioning eyes showed that really, rather than there being no point in waiting, it was more so that she just couldn't wait. Even if everyone around her was secretly listening in, the damage to their reputation couldn't get any worse.

She had essentially let all pretences go.

"Well…" Mia pouted her lips out before sucking them back in.

She repeated this a few times as she tried to overcome her embarrassment.

"I-Is it wrong for me to want everyone to 'know' that we're, uhmmm, t-together?"

Poof! Her entire face flushed beet red.

If she weren't sitting in the lotus position, she surely would have been abashedly playing with her hands as she shuffled her feet.

Her words were like an arrow to their hearts. Yeon and Mia shared the same reaction as their mouths hidden behind their veils opened in disbelief.

It was Emily who responded first.

"D-does that mean you like, ah no, uhmmm."

But she couldn't find the right words to hide her real question in front of the crowd of intrusive spectators.

Her thoughts were rapidly descending into disarray.

"So, you were happy with that arrangement?" Yeon asked, unable to hide his curiosity.

He had been sure that Mia's affection was reserved for Emily alone, but maybe this cute and bubbly girl was more adventurous and daring in love than she seemed.

Mia broke out of the lotus position to hit Yeon's arm.

It didn't hurt but he felt his heart squeezing.

"W-W-What are you asking in front of everyone?!"

A cute reaction from a cute girl.

A lovely reaction from a lovely girl.

But her jiggling bosom as she hit Yeon certainly held the full charm of an adult.

"M-M-Mia and Yeon…Yeon and Mia."

Emily's mouth opened slightly as she looked up to the sky.

Not a single cloud in sight, the weather was beautiful.

Yeon watched Emily amusedly as her very soul was sucked out of her body. She was like a deflating balloon as her energy rapidly left her body.

***

"Those three are being exceptionally busy," commented Elder Blanche.

She had followed her Sect Master here expecting to see a pathetic excuse of entertainment but had been fed something surprisingly high in quality.

As a stoic woman who had never properly interacted with the opposite sex, she disliked men in general with their lustful gazes and idiotic intentions.

But this impassive ice beauty had a secret hobby of collecting romance novels, something that was secret to even Sect Master Reina.

If anything, the secret was guarded particularly closely against the Fairy Empress in fear of the teasing that would continue for centuries if she were to find out.

"Especially that boy," the Fairy Empress added. She was in a good mood after their interaction and everything he did was entertaining.

If she were given the choice to attend this trial again, she would most definitely return to enjoy the abundance of interesting things that gravitated towards Yeon.

"He attacks an Elder to help his little lovers pass, gives a great soliloquy and makes up a sob story to convince the crowd to let him avoid disqualification. Then a powerful, noble, gracious, and unbelievably sexy woman comes in to rescue the damsel in distress when his plan fails."

"Sect Master, there's something wrong with the description about the woma-"

"And then it turns out that one of his little lover's betrothed is here, and of course, it's the man who placed first in the trials. His little lover with black hair had run away from home! How exciting!"

The Fairy Empress picked up a few grapes and put them in her mouth. Due to her constantly snacking on them, the large plate had been nearly finished.

She rang a little bell, and an Inner Disciple from the Sapling Sword Sect entered the room.

"Ethan Frome, Inner Disciple of th-"

"More grapes," she cut him off.

She would much rather hear the juicy tidbits of information that were being passed around between the trio. She also enjoyed how they tactfully ignored the passionate glare from Rueben Fastilla.

"I will have that sorted immediately, Fairy Empress."

The Inner disciple left the room with his head still bowed. He didn't have the confidence to not stare at any forbidden curves if he were to raise his head.

One mistake and his head would roll off.

Once he had left the room, the two continued their conversation. If they had to be here and watch the trial, they might as well enjoy it.

"What makes you think that his story is made up, Sect Master Reina?" she asked, "His story made perfect sense and even the woman mentioned, Elia Ashford, is famous for her upright nature and kindness."

"It just is. That guy with that background? No way. My instincts are never wrong, and they're telling me that right now, that he's hiding secrets. Mountains upon mountains of secrets…"

She thought back to his sinister and novel killing intent.

It was not known to many, but killing intent was an application of the Dao of Death.

It was possible to utilize the Dao as long as you had a tiny bit of comprehension of it even without being compatible with it.

That tiny comprehension was what gave birth to the so-called 'killing intent'.

Only one person was ever recorded as being compatible with that Dao, and she had been banished into the Abyss long before even Reina herself was born.

The Blind Witch of Death.

She was said to have beauty that was unparalleled to anyone of that era.

A genius in the art of 'witchcraft' and Dao comprehension with an equally exceptional control of qi.

But her true fame lay in her claim to madness.

It was said that her use of Death Dao eroded her sanity and the stories of horrific crimes that followed her name were endless.

Her most famous characteristic, and something everyone knew about the Blind Witch of Death, was her most defining sin.

She would use her ethereal beauty to seduce and love women.

A Yin-eater.

This was an unforgivable crime that went against the teachings of the Heavens and the Earth.

Yin and Yang exist in harmony, that much was obvious to even the most stupid of commoner children.

Some even said that rather than her use of Death Dao, it was the accumulation of Yin in her soul that drove her insane.

Reina was woken from her thoughts as Elder Blanche peppered in her thoughts as commentary. She was much more interested in the drama than the Fairy Empress had expected.

"I have a feeling that those three aren't even lovers…" She touched her chin pensively, much like an old sage would stroke his beard.

"It doesn't make sense. Why didn't he intervene from the start if that were the case? It seems more like a lie that the veiled girl, Emily, said that was then supported by her two friends."

Even without Sect Master Reina answering back, she continued her analyses. Her intelligence and logic were fueling her hobby as she dug deeper into the truth.

"On the assumption that those three are just close friends, then that Mia girl seems to be the most suspicious of the three. She had no reason to join the fray but was the most willing when it came down to it."

"Kaka! My Eira, since when were you this talkative?" She laughed at her friend whose curiosity was flaming despite her icy and disinterested voice.

"Sect Master Reina, I am simply searching for the truth. In a world of falsehoods, it is our obligation as rational beings that we live without being blinded by it."

"Kaka! What a fancy way of saying that you're being nosy. You haven't even noticed that the second trial is already underway."

"…" her mouth was open as she realized that the Fairy Empress wasn't lying, "ahem, it seems so."

There were multiple screens above the participants to show the illusion world that they were fighting in.

They all covered different areas of the ongoing battle while highlighting the more interesting participants.

The level of fighting displayed by them was so beneath her that it was like the entire 'warzone' seemed like a kid's playground.

One of the participants chosen to be highlighted was Yeon.

She watched him dance among the waves of imaginary magical beasts in the illusion world conjured by the formation.

But the more she watched, the more she settled down from her previously joking attitude into a more serious one.

She was no longer just casually watching them as the Fairy Empress' eyes took on a cold and piercing glint.