62

A pair of lips pushing against my own wakes me up, I wrap my arms around the body laying on top of me. rolling over to put the body under me I open my eyes and break the kiss.

"Good morning Athena." she wraps her arms around me as she nuzzles her head against my chest.

"Morning Nova." she yawns and I roll off her. "want to sleep all day?" looking toward the crack in the curtain I can roughly tell that it's close to midday.

"We already almost have, I need to visit dark shadow empire today. I didn't respond yet but I got a summons from Catherine that she left open showing that she is prepared for me to visit." Athena bites my arm before kissing her way up to my neck, stopping when she gets to my chin she rolls away from me and drags the covers over herself.

"Ok, I want to sleep more anyway so just be careful." letting out another yawn she snuggles into the blanket.

"Alright, I will be home later." she nods and does a small little wave.

"Bye Nova, if you come back while I am still sleeping feel free to join me." I stand up and head to the bathroom to get a real shower in before I leave.

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As I arrive in a new location I look around and notice it's a very high-end office of some sort. I spot a great demon looking at me while sitting in a chair with a bit of an annoyed expression. she stands up after schooling her expression and approaches me.

"I am guessing you are Nova?" I nod assuming Catherine left her to wait for me, which is a tad worrying since it's been a few hours since the summoning. I am sure the first impression for this lady of me has plummeted for making her wait but nothing I can do about it. it would be an act of blasphemy and not the good kind to part with Athena's soft body at the drop of a hat. that and she seems some kind of servant so I might never see her again.

"Yes I am Nova." she nods and hands me a badge in the shape of a blackbird.

"Her majesty instructed me to give this to you and then let you know to come and find her. not sure how you will find her since to my knowledge you have never been here but good luck I am late already." not wasting another moment she quickly walks away, I look at the little phoenix badge and pin it to my shirt.

"Alright then." I pulse my demonic energy and feel another source of it a good distance away, looking at the window to my left I stroll out it and fall from it. with a quick shift, my wings come out, all three pairs and I quickly make my way to where she is.

The architecture of this palace is very different from anything I have seen yet, it has a lot of smooth edges to everything and instead of squared walls, it's all circular. it has a nice appearance and is very fantasy-like with white marble and black stone accenting it. some beautiful plants decorate the area and there are even some stained glass-looking designs in some windows. I jet past some guards and they don't even flinch making me think they have some way of detecting the badge and it has some kind of clearance. that or she needs some new guards because they could have passed for statues.

Arriving at a massive tower that I feel her demonic energy in I land on a windowsill, before I can open it by manipulating the metal it slides up on its own. I grab the sides of the window as I let my wings retreat and I lift myself with just my arms and lower my lower body through the window. as I drop into the room I find it to have a few occupants and one of them is glaring at me and another is appraising.

A male is the one appraising and a female is the one glaring, ignoring them I turn to see Catherine on a comfy-looking throne. this is some kind of room meant for a few people, it's small for one and only has a small door leading in and a few windows. isn't a room for showing off to guests and not much decoration to show off status.

"Hey Catherine." I wave and smile as I approach her, her lips tug up in amusement as she looks over at the female who is now red in anger. the older man has his brows raised before they lower and he smiles wide.

"Hello Nova, this is my uncle Franz he has always been someone I trusted and has looked out for me all my life." the old man's smile returns after just leaving and he nods toward me. "and this is Tara, she can be considered my only friend." I feign being hit in the chest and hold it with both hands.

"Only friend?" Tara and Franz look dumbfounded, and not from my act but from Catherine's response.

"I think we jumped right past friends." I pause not expecting her to admit such a thing Infront of others, I know she said she wanted to marry but I didn't expect her to already tell people on her end. breaking the awkward silence that descended Franz coughs and offers his hand, I grab it and he grips it tightly.

"It's nice to meet you, Nova, I admittedly don't know much about you but if my niece approves then so do I." if possible I think I spotted a blush on Catherine's face momentarily, Tara marches up and also holds out her hand.

"It is VERY nice to meet you on such SHORT notice Nova, I am just so THRILLED that her majesty has decided to take a CONSORT." she attempts to squeeze my hand off but doesn't even crease my skin, I set my free hand on her head and ruffle her hair.

"It's nice to meet MY LOVELY Catherine's FRIEND as well, I look forward to MANY future visits and getting along together." I mock her attempt to try and belittle me, not aggressively since it's her attempt to prod at my personality. I don't remember how old Catherine is but should be at least two hundred plus and she never has been with a man so she probably got blindsided and is trying to wrap her head around it. "nice to meet Catherine's uncle as well." I make sure to include her uncle even though his negligence is what allowed blood fall to get a foothold in this empire's military. he married his daughter off to Broc and got him a general position, he's not a bad guy by any means though it was an attempt to pull the Leviathan family in to use them for the good of the empire. he just underestimated them in the long run, good thing I am here and will chop his head off after baiting him out.

"You two done grandstanding?" Catherine asks as she leans back in her seat and reminds me of a certain Nord. Tara back up and stands beside her almost defensively and Franz turns and bows.

"Your majesty I will take my leave, I will try to talk my son-in-law out of whatever foolish lockdown he is doing and get to the bottom of his actions. it was nice meeting you Nova." as he turns to leave he looks at me once more with a quick nod and heads out.

"Your serious about this Catherine?" once Franz is out of the room Tara's attitude changes and goes to a more neutral look surprising me. she pulled one over on me and I am not even mad, she seems kind of like a by-the-book kind of girl.

"Yes I am Tara, don't make it seem like he has a choice he might try to run away." she playfully responds as she stands up and motions to follow her. "come on let's talk somewhere else, I was just meeting Franz in here." she presses a stone button on a wall and it shifts revealing a tunnel and we walk in as it closes behind us and also lights up a path.

"Wow, that's kind of cool, to be honest." I reach up and drag my hand across the glowing ceiling as we head deeper into the passage.

"You were right about the ears, they look kind of cute." she whispers to Catherine as they walk beside each other. I pick up the pace and get beside Catherine before grabbing her hand, she shakes her head helplessly as I swing our joined hands to rub it in Tara's face. the woman in question snorts and looks away as she smiles.

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"And here we are." a wall slides open and we step out into a wide room, looking outside a window I see a garden and then spot some artwork on the walls. "that one is my mom." she says as we walk past a painting that is of a woman sitting and she does indeed resemble Catherine.

"This one is?" I ask as we walk past a painting of a bright sun.

"The sun that is in the human world." makes me want to find a human who is visiting and steal their space seed so I can go and have the ability to go back and forth. I haven't felt sunshine on my skin in quite a while, one of the little things that seem much bigger when you don't have it anymore. "you hungry?" she asks as we stop at an intersection.

"Kind of, I didn't eat when I woke up." Tara nods as she takes a left and Catherine goes right and I follow her.

"Tara will quickly make something, let's start with the teleportation lessons, and then we can go retrieve the mask." agreeing we make our way to some massive doors.

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"So, let me get this straight. you first imagine the destination hence why you have to have been there before, and then you desire to go there and with the magic circle acting as a focus of the magic it teleports you vast distances." I nod after hearing her simplify it to its baser elements, she poked at a sore spot for me, I have realized the stupidity that I have fallen into of over-relying on the systems knowledge. in the original system the MC of the world had slowly given more control at each level and pulled back on the effects it had and made the user more manually active things.

And this whole time I have been just using the copy-paste spell knowledge I bought that was most likely meant to teach different ways to get certain effects and open me up to ideas. I haven't been super dumb with it and I have manually made some traits work through circles that weren't a part of the base info but in reality, I have been slacking. I mean there are a million different things I could be doing with imagination-based magic and yet I have been using it like puzzle pieces to get certain results.

Soon I need to start practicing all-natural homemade magic spells with a circle as a focus to make different results happen. I need to put behind me the reliance on the copy-paste knowledge the system sold me.

Catherine holds up her hand and completes a circle that is similar to my silver one but hers is black. beneath her, a circle soon rises and she disappears, she returns after a minute with some sand in her hand and lets it slowly blow out.

"That's devil magic huh?" I shifted awkwardly as she made it looks simple as pie but in my defense, she has hundreds of years on me in experience with this fantasy kind of stuff. "there are quite a few things this opens up for me to try." she paces back and forth while crossing her arms under her breast, I take a bite of the sandwich Tara brought for me before she left. it only took Catherine ten minutes to learn this and that's because of my awkward explanation which hopefully didn't raise any flags in her mind. I should be able to teach somewhat well since I should have also been taught at one point, but in reality, I had just downloaded it.