Novel Full 304 304 She Did It
The guards rushed over when they saw the Headmistress collapse, then stopped suddenly when they realized that she was in the middle of an advancement to the Second Rank.
None of them had seen anything like it before. The compression of the aura, the overwhelming sense of power, and the change in the feeling of her aura were incredible.
No Witch could miss that sensation, but it was a very delicate time for the Headmistress and not something usually done in a public setting where any number of things could interfere.
With Wolfe’s added mana, the chances of failure were much lower than during a more natural advancement attempt, but this was a monumental occasion for them, as she would be the first Witch of her generation and not the younger generation to break through that boundary.
It didn’t take the Headmistress nearly as long to recover from her advancement since her process had occurred on its own and wasn’t the direct result of Wolfe stretching her mana veins and forcibly flooding her with mana as it had been for the others.
Instead of being nearly comatose on the ground, she was shaking out her clothing less than a minute later and giving a sheepish look to the Noxus Elder, who was holding her in his tattooed arms.
“Sorry about that. I wasn’t expecting such a profound moment after a simple nudge from Wolfe.” She stammered while looking at the muscular arms which were wrapped around her.
She wasn’t really the boy-chasing sort and wasn’t a young woman to be feeling her heart flutter at a touch, but the Noxus Elder was a functional Magi, and he was doing his best to pour a trickle of mana into her to stabilize her aura, which gave his embrace a warm and comforting feeling that made the older Witch feel like the protagonist in a romance novel who had just found her fated mate.
Once they straightened themselves out, Wolfe took the chance to cleanse and tweak the Mana flows of the Elder, allowing much more mana to enter his nascent Mana Focus and sending him on his way to becoming a capable Magi.
The others in the family had clearly been working on it, but he wasn’t one of the Noxus Elders that could use mana before they had intervened, and they had only been able to make small gains with their limited skills.
Wolfe really did have to spend some time with these Elders before they left and teach them the tricks of the trade so that they could fix each other and the Nerve Gas damage to the Witches around the Fortress City.
It would help build loyalty, and it would increase the number of trustworthy witches in the city, so there was no real downside to it, only advantages for the Noxus Family.
That was the real reason that the Advisor had chosen this team. Even a few lessons with Wolfe would be a life-changing experience for them and for the entire Family once they returned and relayed the knowledge to the others.
The witches all rushed forward to congratulate the Headmistress once she started looking like she had recovered enough, and suddenly the small table in the corner became a much more crowded area.
“Headmistress, look at you go. One interaction with our favourite Demon, and you reached the Second Rank. That’s definitely a new record, so you must have been one of the most powerful Witches in the Coven.” Someone was congratulating her.
“Indeed I was. Until Mary and Reiko advanced, there weren’t many who would have questioned that I was the most powerful Witch in Morgana Coven. Now, I suppose I’m back in the running again.” She laughed.
“Will you keep running the Academy now? Or will you be retiring to the Coven Council? You’re here on their behalf, right?” Someone else asked.
“I won’t be giving up my Academy for those greedy politicians to take over. I will keep running it as long as I have it in me.” She declared proudly.
“That could be a while now. You’re looking younger by the second.” Mary informed her with a smirk and then held up a mirror.
The faded hair was slowly darkening, and her age-lined face was regaining a bit of its smoothness as the full effects of her increased attunement to nature began to take effect on her body, returning her to where the world thought that she should be at her age.
Now, she was not a young woman by any meaning of the word, and the process was already slowing as she returned to middle-aged, but with that much of an improvement, she would likely have most of another century in her before she would have to give up running the Academy.
That meant four or possibly five generations of witches after this one would call her Headmistress, and it would be her policies guiding education for the foreseeable future, barring direct interference from the Coven Council.
There had been much less of that since Reiko took over, as the Council was in chaos and didn’t have the energy to bother with her students, but after the chaos of the Draft, she was extra diligent about protecting them and had formed a number of new strategies to prevent such an incident from ever occurring again.
“Headmistress, you should stay a while. We are having a Festival, and we can celebrate your advancement on the day of the full moon.” Ella suggested.
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“I believe that you are right. A few days isn’t nearly enough for this visit. We will have to stay a while and really learn about Forest Grove and how things are here.” Peach agreed.
“Oh, oh! You can summon your second Familiar on the day when the moon and sun are both up at the same time.” One of the new girls from the trade with Myrrh Coven shouted.
They had all been looking forward to it since that was the day when they could summon their first Familiar and really begin their path of growth beyond the small amount of aura that they were gaining from living here. It was going to be quite the celebration.