The noon sun was a branding iron, pressed hard against the barren dirt of the outpost. Sylvie's gasps were ragged, each breath thick with dry dust and the acrid scent of charred wood from the distant treeline.
She was pressing a "Mana-Suppressing Stone" above her head. The hundred-pound slab of obsidian, its edges worn smooth, reflected a cold, dead light under the sun. Its rough surface ground against her palms, drawing beads of scarlet blood that smeared against the dark rock. A single drop of sweat rolled from her brow, tracing a path down a face beautiful enough to drive the Capital to madness, before disappearing into the collar of a gown now missing half its hem.
Lu Cen sat nearby in the shadows, yellowed "Magic-Breaker Schematics" spread across his knees. He didn't look at Sylvie's breathtaking form; his eyes were those of an engineer analyzing a complex machine destined for overhaul.
"Ten more. Plant your feet. Unless you want to lose the earth's feedback," Lu Cen's voice was a low rasp, cutting through the heavy silence of the afternoon.
Sylvie gritted her teeth. her arms were flushed a vivid, pained red, veins bulging beneath her porcelain skin. As the Rose of the Empire, she was more accustomed to the elegant weight of a wand than lugging rocks like a common serf.
I will not fall before this barbarian, she vowed silently.
But during her next rep, her numb shoulder muscles gave a slight, involuntary twitch. As the stone began to tilt toward her head, a flicker of pale blue light sparked deep within her eyes. She secretly funneled a sliver of mana.
Minor Levitation.
The weight of the stone instantly lightened by thirty percent, allowing her to finish the motion smoothly.
"You think gravity is that easily fooled?" Lu Cen didn't even look up, yet his tone made the temperature in the clearing plummet.
[System Notification: Illegal mana leak captured.]
[Warning: Teaching target is attempting to evade physical labor via "Anti-Gravity Algorithms."]
[Feedback: Interference with the gravitational field detected. Suggest executing "Physical Balance Reset" command.]
Before Sylvie could utter an excuse, Lu Cen was beside her in a blur. He didn't push the stone; instead, he snatched a second, even heavier Mana-Suppressing Stone from the ground and slammed it directly on top of the one she was holding.
BOOM!
The dull, heavy impact momentarily shattered Sylvie's hearing. The weight doubled instantly. The terrifying pressure surged through her spine and hammered straight into the ground.
"Lu Cen! You—!" Sylvie shrieked. Her knees, already at their limit, buckled with a sickening crack.
The "Minor Levitation" spell she took such pride in popped like a pricked balloon before that absolute physical force. Lu Cen pressed his hand against the top of the stones, the silver gear-etched patterns beneath his finger bone whirring violently.
"Here, only muscle contraction is real. Magic... is nothing but a coward's cheat."
Sylvie finally collapsed. The sheer weight slammed her into the mud, kicking up a halo of grey dust. Just as she was about to lose consciousness, Lu Cen felt a bizarre, numbing sensation crawl up his spine—a "resonance."
[System Notification: Severe emotional fluctuations detected in teaching target (Anger/Humiliation: 85%).]
[Physical Resonance achieved: Host granted "Synchronized Stamina Infusion."]
[Stamina XP +500! Strength +1.]
Lu Cen was surprised to find that the more Sylvie resisted this physical agony, the more hungrily the "black hole" within him devoured energy. The gains from "torturing a mage" were several times higher than if he were moving the stones alone.
Sylvie lay limp in the slush, sweat and tears carving muddy tracks across her face.
"Why... why must a man like you torment me in such a savage way?" She reached out weakly, trying to push away Lu Cen's mountain-like shadow. In the struggle, her fingernails accidentally grazed Lu Cen's bare, iron-hard chest.
Lu Cen didn't flinch.
Sylvie froze. She looked down at her fingertips. There was no red blood. Only a smear of faint, metallic silver-gray liquid. The color shimmered with an eerie, cold light under the sun—neither blood nor any fluid a human should possess.
"Your blood..." Sylvie's voice trembled, losing its melody. "What are you?"
Lu Cen lowered his gaze, watching the silver scratch on his chest heal almost instantly.
"I am the only answer that allows 'high-borns' like you to survive in this crumbling world."
He extended his rawhide-wrapped left index finger and pressed it gently against Sylvie's trembling collarbone. At his icy touch, the mana raging within her didn't just calm; it went dead, suppressed by a deeper, physical magnetic field. It was the feeling of a drowning person suddenly grasping a piece of rusted, yet solid, iron.
"Don't look at my blood," Lu Cen whispered, silver fire dancing in his pupils. "Look over there."
Sylvie followed his gaze. At the edge of the mist surrounding the outpost sat a broken staff. Reflected in the crystal tip was a purple mark that chilled her to the bone.
It was the monitoring seal of Archmage Cedric.
"He's been watching us the whole time," Lu Cen sneered. He squeezed his right hand, snapping the remains of the staff into splinters.
A tiny blue crystal popped out from the staff's core. The moment it landed in Lu Cen's palm, the System spoke again:
[Godly Evolution Core Material detected. Stamina Synchronization increased to 8%!]
[Warning: Heterogeneous maternal factor detected! Reverse infiltration of "Sanctification Ritual" in progress...]
Lu Cen's expression shifted violently. He felt a desire he had never known before rising from the base of his spine. It wasn't slaughter. It was... a craving for Sylvie's body.
Like a precision machine that had finally found its missing part.