Sovereign of the Ashes

Ever since parting ways with Feylis, Sein had yet to receive a direct reply from his grandmaster.

But he had already done everything he could. What happened next depended entirely on her deliberations.

“Wild Gorilla World... I remember that star domain being rather complicated. It’s flanked by two medium-sized civilizations—one leaning toward our Magus World and the other toward the Gallant Federation. Who would have thought that after the Clash of Civilizations erupted, that region would become one of the most chaotic hotspots?” Sein mused.

After leaving the Verdant Flame Fortress, Sein did not rush back to the Ashen Fortress. Instead, he took a detour to visit his mentor at the Verdant Spring Fortress.

As Feylis had advised, he really ought to visit his mentor more often. After all, he was a high-ranking mage who had emerged from the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring.

Upon arriving at Verdant Spring Fortress, Sein unexpectedly encountered several familiar faces.

One of them was Jessica, the demigod-level mage who served as dean of the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring Academy.

Years had passed, yet Jessica... remained unchanged.

Sein discreetly glanced at Master Jessica’s hips, thinking he had caught sight of some peculiar device hidden beneath her loose magic robes.

Now that he was a Rank Five mage, Jessica showed him sincere reverence and respect.

His achievements in the Clash of Civilizations had spread far and wide, at least throughout the Sanok Star Domain.

After all, he had led the Klytheran Legion to rescue countless knights and mages trapped across various planar battlefields.

Word spread quickly, and Sein’s reputation only grew.

Among low-ranking mages in particular, many held deep admiration for Master Sein’s character.

His encounter with Jessica had simply been a coincidence upon entering Verdant Spring Fortress.

Yet after Jessica passed him, Sein gradually slowed, then stopped. He pulled a vial from his robe, turned around, and walked back toward her.

Jessica was slightly surprised to see Master Sein return, but she maintained her calm and respectful demeanor.

Sein regarded the woman before him with quiet appreciation. He recalled how even Yuri might have struggled to withstand such a foreign object within her body at the demigod level. Jessica, however, appeared completely unaffected.

At the very least, she possessed remarkable endurance, Sein thought to himself.

“Master Jessica, are you still struggling with the same issue you had back then?” Sein asked.

The question was so sudden that Jessica froze, unsure how to respond.

Moments later, her face flushed crimson, then drained pale, as she tried—and failed—to maintain the composure she had shown earlier.

Perhaps because of her panic, her body began to tremble. The composed mage from moments before was gone; now she looked ready to fall apart.

Around the space fortress, knights and mages bustled past.

The constant movement only heightened Jessica’s loss of control.

Very few of them were mages of the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring. Most were knights and mages from other divine towers and knightly orders gathered on the Sanok Star Domain battlefield, and all of them were complete strangers to her.

Since most registered mages of the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring were dendromancers, the fortress marketplaces primarily sold healing potions.

And now that war had pretty much ended, the Sanok Star Domain had become a thriving trade hub.

Not just Magus World knights and mages, but even surviving extraplanar creatures of the alliance were scrambling to secure resources and better chances of survival.

A single potion crafted by a Magus World apothecary might, after several resales and markups, end up in the hands of a Rank Two or Rank Three creature from the alliance.

Magicoin flowed through all of it, proving its enormous value.

But back to the present, Jessica’s trembling grew worse as she realized that Sein might have discovered her secret.

Sein glanced around, then quietly formed a small protective barrier around them with elemental energy.

With his expert control, none of the surrounding mages or knights even noticed when the two of them vanished from their sight.

Inside the barrier, Jessica found herself alone with him and immediately relaxed.

Her legs gave out, and she collapsed to the ground.

A moment later, damp patches began spreading across the fabric of her robe.

Sein stared at her, stunned.

For a demigod-level mage, Jessica’s control was far weaker than he had expected.

But then again, even Kram, the Rank Four Klytheran fighter, had a similar reaction on Sein’s experimental table.

In truth, such physiological responses sometimes transcended life level.

As long as desire existed and the senses remained, anything was possible.

“I’ve made a fool of myself in front of Master Sein...” Jessica’s lips trembled slightly. She looked weak, yet her voice carried a strange sense of satisfaction, almost as if she had just experienced a guilty pleasure.

Sein had never encountered a case, or a fetish, quite like Jessica’s before.

To him, she was an exceptionally interesting subject of observation.

“This doesn’t seem to be your personality or preferences,” Sein commented, absently stroking his chin.

Jessica listened intently, though she was still feeling weak.

She used to hate this state of hers, yet every time, she found herself powerless to resist it.

Sein was right; this was not something she enjoyed. It was the result of an external influence.

Back when she was still Rank One or Rank Two, that influence had not caused any issues. If anything, it had accelerated her training and her pursuit of truth.

But once she reached Rank Three, the flaw started to grow more obvious, and it had become a major obstacle in her path to higher realms.

“Magus World rarely sees mages who master elemental powers of two conflicting attributes. Hydro and pyro, for example, are notoriously difficult to merge. But a very small number of gifted mages have managed to explore pyro–cryo fusion, just like my friend, who is now the Tower Master of Obliteration,” Sein said.

Jessica nodded. “Master Grimm, right? I have heard of him.”

Both Sein and Grimm were powerhouses who rose to prominence from the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring Academy.

Because of that, the academy often used them as shining examples to recruit new talent.

In a way, Sein and Grimm had massively boosted the academy’s reputation and helped bring in countless promising initiates.

Some prestigious magic families even traveled across star domains to send their younger generations to Lorianne’s academy, all in hopes of producing another Rank Four powerhouse one day.

Sein nodded. “Yes. Grimm pioneered obliteration magic by merging pyro and cryo elemental energies. It’s almost on par with my path of Ashes.”

“As for you, it seems you have fused pyro and dendro elemental powers. You’re a demigod-level mage now, so tell me... what sort of path has that fusion created for you?” Sein asked.

A flicker of confusion crossed Jessica’s eyes at first, then a look of dazed uncertainty.

“I... don’t know,” she murmured honestly.