Anime Magic Card Era

Chapter 125: Chapter 124: Waifu, I Choose You!

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Waifu?

Luke nearly blurted the word out loud at the sight of the otherworldly enchantress in front of him. She bore an almost ninety-nine percent resemblance to a particular silver-haired heroine from Fate, the gentle, ethereal beauty that half the fandom had affectionately claimed as their wife, and that he remembered vividly from his previous life.

Fortunately, he caught himself at the last moment, biting the word back. Reflexively addressing a total stranger, who happened to be the terrifying Region Governor, as "wife" would have been a spectacular way to end his life. And he knew, after all, that the enchantress before him was absolutely not that character.

Meanwhile, Lilith Crescent was studying Luke in turn.

In person, he was younger and more striking than he’d appeared on the monitoring feed. Not that such things mattered to Lilith. Compared to externals, she cared far more about Luke’s interior, or more precisely, about the talent he’d put on display.

That, he’d already demonstrated during the exam.

Luke’s realm, however, did give Lilith a small surprise. During the exam, their attention had been on his performance rather than his realm level.

Eight-Star Leader Realm.

To Lilith, who stood at the Undying Realm, an Eight-Star Leader was negligibly weak. Forget Leader; Monarch, King, Sovereign, Master, even Immortal, all of them looked much the same in the eyes of someone at the Undying Realm.

But for a candidate who’d just finished taking the entrance exam, an Eight-Star Leader Realm was decidedly abnormal. If Lilith recalled correctly, Selene had passed her own exam at roughly Five-Star Leader Realm, somewhat stronger than this year’s Elise Hargrove and Iris Dawnford. Compared to Luke at Eight-Star Leader, though, even Selene’s past self came up short. The gap in stars was, in itself, a measure of the gap in talent.

"Ahem." Seeing Luke frozen in place, Victor couldn’t help clearing his throat, a flicker of worry in his eyes. He was concerned about how Luke’s reaction looked to Lilith.

The prompt brought Luke back to himself, and with his composure restored, he finally settled on the most direct possible read of the phrase running through his mind. The woman in front of him was, beyond any doubt, a stunning creature.

It was also at that moment that Luke noticed the slightly innocent-looking young woman standing behind the enchantress. Her own beauty exceeded even Elise and the other young women from the exam, comfortably at the dream-goddess, universal-crush tier. And yet, standing in the enchantress’s shadow, she was rendered colorless by comparison.

At least it isn’t Illya standing behind her, Luke thought with some relief, or I’d genuinely start to wonder if I’d woken up inside the Fate universe.

"Luke, let me make some introductions." Once everyone had filed in and taken their seats, Victor, ever attuned to the occasion, began the formalities. "This is our Eastern Region’s Governor. The Night Empress, Lilith Crescent."

Victor’s standing here wasn’t the lowest in the room, but introductions of this sort still fell to him, and he didn’t dare voice any complaint about it. The moment he spoke, however, he watched a name capable of shaking the entire Eastern Region land on Luke, and saw Luke’s eyes widen in response.

The Night Empress.

As an Eastern Region Card Master, Luke could hardly fail to know of the Governor, Lilith. He simply hadn’t expected this peerlessly beautiful woman, who bore such a striking resemblance to a silver-haired Fate heroine, to be the only publicly known Undying Realm powerhouse in the entire Eastern Region.

More than that, he hadn’t expected to encounter the Region Governor so soon.

"And this is Selene Dawnford, the Lady Dawnford, Lilith’s sole personal student, and an instructor at Celestial Academy." Compared to Lilith, Selene’s introduction carried far less impact, but her identity was nonetheless extremely prestigious in the eyes of ordinary people.

"Honestly, this lineup gave me a bit of a fright," Luke said, drawing a breath and gradually settling back into calm. "May I ask why Lady Lilith has sought me out?"

With the Eastern Region’s Governor present, Victor’s role from here would amount to little more than that of an introducer.

Lilith was, undeniably, the Eastern Region’s supreme powerhouse. But perhaps precisely because of that, because Lilith was so impossibly distant from ordinary people, Luke understood who she was without being reduced to speechless excitement. The most important point of all was that he hadn’t sought her out. She had come to his door personally.

"You don’t seem terribly surprised by my identity," Lilith said slowly, a thread of pride in her voice, carrying an almost coquettish lilt.

This really is a creature whose every fiber seems engineered for the undoing of men. Just the timbre of her voice was enough to eclipse every woman Luke had ever known.

What made it worse was that the manner of her speech wasn’t a deliberate affectation. It was as natural as an ordinary person’s casual conversation, with no difference between the two whatsoever. That was the genuinely dangerous part. Spend too long in conversation with her, and a person could easily lose themselves in it, and end up laying everything they had completely bare.

"It isn’t quite that," Luke said, shaking his head. "It’s only that the vast majority of people, myself included, exist at an enormous distance from Lady Lilith. So when one finally sees you in person, there’s a degree of detachment."

It was like Ashenvale, where everyone knew Victor was the City Lord, and where any tabloid rumor out of the Mansion would become fodder for the whole city’s idle conversation. But if one day, with no warning at all, the City Lord suddenly showed up at your door, and you discovered he looked much like an ordinary person, perhaps even a slightly greasy middle-aged man, what would you actually feel?

Lilith, of course, could not be associated with anything resembling a greasy middle-aged man. She belonged firmly to the category of timeless, breathtaking enchantress.

But the underlying principle held.

Seated off to the side, Victor abruptly felt a faint wave of malice drift past, and couldn’t help his bewilderment.

"A very unusual way of putting it." Lilith was briefly taken aback by Luke’s explanation, then quickly smiled. "People say that only seeing something with one’s own eyes produces a true impression. I didn’t expect it to come out of your mouth quite like that."

Her smile looked perfectly ordinary, and yet it still produced that sense of allure. Had she been an ordinary woman possessed of such nation-toppling beauty, her life might well have been miserable. Fortunately, Lilith was the Eastern Region’s Governor, and anyone foolish enough to entertain designs on her would, in all likelihood, be reduced to ash.

"I watched your performance during the exam," Lilith continued, cutting to the point after the light laugh. "You’re the only young person who, for the moment, I can’t see through."

Hearing Lilith rate Luke so highly, both Selene and Victor felt a jolt of inner shock.

"May I take that as a compliment?" Luke asked.

"That depends on how you choose to interpret it." There was something deeply intriguing in Lilith’s expression as her peach-blossom eyes met his, and she went straight for the heart of the matter. "Your talent is exceptionally high. It may well reach a height that most people couldn’t even comprehend."

Lilith didn’t care for roundabout phrasing. It was a confidence her Undying Realm strength afforded her.

Although Victor had largely guessed Lilith’s purpose before setting out, hearing her pose the question now still sent a surge of excitement through him.

A student of the Eastern Region’s Governor. Across all these years, only one such student had ever emerged, Selene Dawnford, and the upheaval it had caused had reverberated through the entire Ancient Kingdom.

If Ashenvale could produce a figure of that caliber as well, it would absolutely be a sparrow transformed into a phoenix. Compared to becoming Lilith’s student, even the title of Eastern Region exam champion seemed to lose some of its weight.

There was an exam every year, and a new champion every year. But a student of an Undying Realm Governor, counting Luke, amounted to only Selene before him. The two were not remotely the same magnitude.

As for refusal? Everyone present knew refusal was impossible. And Luke was no fool besides. If not for Lilith’s presence, Victor would already have leapt up and shouted his approval.

"Ahem. About that, Master. Is there a meeting gift?"

Just as Victor had been thinking, Luke didn’t refuse Lilith. It was his actual response that gave Victor a jolt.