"For the ritual, you need to be unconscious. You understand, secret techniques and all that." I addressed my teacher.
"I've thought so from the start. Don't worry, I'm not against it." Nodding to me, she pulled a mattress from her spatial pocket and lay down on it. A couple seconds after a small flash of poisonous mana, Gu Daiyu passed out.
Watching the gorilla in the dress hanging from chains and the beautiful girl lying defenseless before me in her still-torn outfit from our battle, I surveyed the dungeon surroundings and once again realized my life had veered off somewhere wrong. Well, at least I'm alive, so I'll break through. Not the first time.
Extracting the Magical Calamity talent from Gu Daiyu was harder than I thought. It was much more aggressive than what I usually work with, but my training in control from extracting souls from stars proved useful again, and I painfully extracted the talent from her body.
In my hand, it looked like a shimmering purple-shaded orb of light where everything moved very chaotically. I suspect this chaos is why Magical Calamities unleash powerful magical bursts on emotions or in tense moments. Apparently, only at the Curse Level does this chaos turn to order.
Approaching Wan Yayu, I first dispersed her water and poison elements' Cultivation to the Initial level of the first stage, then finally implanted her former teacher's talent into her. It merged smoothly, apparently the presence of a poison element is the only condition for sustaining it.
And of course, as soon as the talent fully merged with Wan Yayu, a cloud of unpleasantly smelling poisonous gas spread from her, which in proper concentration could kill a weak Pack Chieftain. As I thought, the talent adjusts to the bearer's power, and she can't release poison at Gu Daiyu's level.
To finish the operation, I did one last thing: a strong spiritual strike destroyed the suspended girl's mind, leaving her only basic instincts so her body could function normally.
Of course, by genre laws, she should escape in the future, master this talent even better than Gu Daiyu herself, restore her Cultivation and more, then come to take revenge so my teacher and I could overcome her. My mentor might even die at the end for our victory.
Action, drama, adventure, extra book volume. But I avoided all that by simply breaking this gorilla's mind. I have no desire to chase her later and spend energy on a tough fight. So the worst that can happen to her now is Gu Daiyu forgetting to feed her and she starves to death, taking the Magical Calamity talent to the grave. But I always have the Gate of Babylon from parallel worlds as replacement, so screw material loss—safety first.
Turning to look at the defenseless, unconscious Gu Daiyu, who looked stunning—especially in her revealing torn dress—I simply couldn't resist one obvious action...
The teacher of one interworld traveler awakens.
Coming to on the mattress, Gu Daiyu noticed Mu Bai sitting on a chair next to her, holding a strangely shaped cigarette and horribly unprofessionally pretending to smoke. Her uncle, the Emperor of China, usually smoked like forests in a fire, so she knew how it's really done and didn't understand why this suddenly appeared man in her life was pretending to be a smoker at all.
She didn't understand much else about her new...Employer? Student? Friend? Partner? As always, the truth was probably somewhere in between. But one thing she knew for sure: Mu Bai really didn't want to harm her. Someone would realize that after he didn't kill her post-battle.
But she only fully trusted him now, sensing those familiar waves of poison from her former student with her senses—only much weaker than from herself. Apparently, her partner's words were true, and this wasn't a scary disease as she and all her acquaintances thought, but just an extremely strong magical talent.
Mu Bai... Just a riddle of a man for her. He came from nowhere and voluntarily tried to become her student—something no one in their right mind had ever done. Or out of it, honestly. Not believing him, she attacked but met worthy resistance to her shock, and at the end, when she thought she'd won, fell for this rascal's strange trick—whose secret she still didn't understand—and lost.
She woke to her pleasant surprise alive and, starting a talk with her former opponent, truly understood he just wanted to learn from her. And amusingly, he knew nothing about the island situation or her, which amused and appealed to her.
At court, before awakening magic, her identity was inseparable from the "Emperor's Niece" label; after, from "Cursed Witch." It was nice realizing such a strong, talented mage respected and knew her only for her own achievements—that wins you over. And mainly, this guy was terrible at keeping a straight face, though he tried hard, so his words' truthfulness was almost unquestionable.
Word by word, she told him about her "illness," which he asked to examine, claiming knowledge of the Parthenon Goddess's methods... She grew more interested in this guy's personality, especially after his later proposals.
Strangely, Mu Bai really diagnosed what she was "sick" with and offered solutions, one of which she chose. Though she was very curious where he'd get a Land Fruit for her poison element breakthrough. Even her uncle couldn't just take such a thing from the treasury at will. It was a strategically vital resource in social and military spheres.
With it, you could build a city holding off nearly all monster attacks or create the world's strongest mage! Giving it to her just for training and research data was very wasteful... Or this guy believed she was worth it, which flattered her greatly. Not every day you're valued like a whole city.
In short, despite knowing almost nothing about her new friend except that he was important enough for Land Fruit access, knew Parthenon Goddess methods, and understood her condition better than Forbidden City scholars, she now trusted him greatly. And for the gifted life, she'd continue trusting unless he gave strong reason otherwise.
"You're finally awake—how do you feel?" He asked in a strange tone.
It reminded her of the Knowledge Keeper in the Imperial Palace, who constantly teased courtiers with phrases only he understood, leaving them unsure whether to take offense or accept the incomprehensible compliment. Apparently, Mu Bai was playing out a scene only he got. Well, whatever—let the child amuse itself. As an experienced "mommy," she wouldn't interrupt the kid's games.
Instead of answering, Gu Daiyu summoned her magic and cast a High-level poison element spell, then immediately canceled it. Glancing at Mu Bai, she said:
"What did you do to me while I slept? My control shouldn't have risen this much after talent removal. I definitely didn't spend that much power suppressing it." She squinted suspiciously. Actually, she was just curious with no bad suspicions, but seeing Mu Bai liked playing to the audience, it wasn't hard to play along.
"Oh, you noticed already? Well, I looked at you—so fragile and defenseless, and mainly unconscious before me—and couldn't hold back. You're weak now; after losing the talent, any schoolkid could beat you, so I fitted you with a new one instead of the old: control improvement. It should help in research too." Smiling innocently, Mu Bai openly teased her, making her eyebrow twitch—not playfully anymore.
"Ooo, I'm glad you're caring for me so already. As reward, I'll start your training now. The lesson's called 'Try Not to Become a Gorilla and Get an Aphrodisiac Charge'!" Smiling predatorily, Gu Daiyu used her new improved control and chased her new student up the stairs with spells. No need to ruin the prison for her new test subject.
Watching Mu Bai rage with a sincere smile and stick out his tongue during sparring, Gu Daiyu involuntarily smiled too—she hadn't communicated so sincerely with anyone in ages. Watching genuine happy emotions in someone close is always pleasant. But that wouldn't stop her from using a couple tricky attacks she'd held back last fight due to carelessness. She'd show this rascal who the teacher was here!