Dark Lord in Chains 93 (Patreon)

“I have my own training to focus on, but continue working on your task, and don’t forget that I’ll be watching you from a corner, assessing your performance,” I said. I even cast a spell to assess her posture for each role. 

Hardly the most accurate measurement, but good enough for her skill level with my observation, while still allowing me to focus on my experiments. 

“But—“ she started, but a simple raised hand and a shake of my head had been enough to sufficiently silence her. Amusingly, rather than frustrating her, it put a soft smile on her, showing that, rather than pointless indirect platitudes of Lancelot and the rest of her party, she preferred a more direct approach. 

I nodded and walked away, toward the beautiful Phoenix that was lying under a tree, her glow once again spreading around without the tablecloth to cover her whole body. 

I prepared myself for an explosion, the Shield already in my hand as I stood in front of her and send a dash of healing energy through her body, not sure how she would react after the way she had fallen asleep.

It turned out to be rather unnecessary, but not in a way I could predict. 

Healing spells were a subset of spells that was designed to ignore the natural resistance of the target to work, mostly by aligning with the natural responses of the body. A tricky job, one that worked better based on the competency of the healer. 

It was also the reason master healers like Aria were particularly prized even for the injuries that could be healed by the other healer. 

In comparison, my healing spells were extremely rough, hence my surprise when my magic slipped through Cinder’s resistances without the slightest resistance and worked to wake her up. And, since I didn’t suddenly gain an epiphany to increase my healing capabilities, the answer for the sudden change was clear. 

Whatever the transformation was, it completely removed her natural resistance toward me, making my spells would be extremely effective on her. 

Both helpful and harmful ones. 

Interesting. 

However, it needed to be factored in carefully, as evidenced by the current moment. My simple spell to wake her gently was extremely effective on her, making her wake up with a gasp. 

Luckily, even then, rather than the blast I feared, she just gasped in fear. “What is it, problems?” she asked, genuinely concerned. 

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” I said as I sat next to her and caressed her flaming hair, enjoying the way the flames tickled my palm, while she looked around, noticing we were not in the city anymore. 

“Where are we?” she said as she glanced around, calming down under my touch. Interestingly, without even noticing, she pressed her body against mine, snuggling to my chest reflexively. 

Her taming seemed to work better than I expected. 

“We’re in a small private spot, a good place to do some training.” 

“Training?” she asked dazedly. 

I chuckled, amused that she still seemed to be groggy enough to remember the reason. “Not a huge thing, but I thought that, after that fateful transformation, you might want to test your capabilities. But maybe I’m wrong?” 

Her eyes widened. “Transformation,” she gasped in shock. “How did we —“ she tried to continue, but I recognized the telltale signs of a growing panic attack, and leaned down to capture her lips. 

The invasion of my tongue worked wonders to handle her shock, though not without replacing it with other things, as I noticed her silver dress rapidly shrinking once more, reducing to mere panties. 

And this time, without the slightest intervention from my side.  

“Someone’s feeling frisky,” I said as I dragged my fingers over her breast, chuckling as I imagined how different her reaction might have been if I wasn’t there when she woke up. 

She was not exactly an expert at managing her emotions, and the transformation clearly didn’t help her in that aspect.

“As much as I enjoy your beautiful lips,” a minute later, pulling back with no small regret, I pulled her on my lap as I did so. “We need to do some training to make sure we can compensate for the changes,” I said. 

“W-what, why?” she said, seemingly shocked. “Transformation is a beneficial transformation, no need for immediate training.” I barely held back my chuckle as I realized the urgency in her tone. She had clearly wanted to attain her so-called complete transformation for a long time, with considerable pressure from her family if her name was any indicator. 

Yet, finally attaining her biggest desire, she was less interested in testing that, and more interested in continuing our carnal distraction. 

How amazingly cute.  

“As much as I want to continue that,” I whispered into her ear even as I brought my hands up, squeezing her breasts roughly before letting my hands settle on her stomach, which earned a beautiful moan from her. “We have to make sure our control is up to snuff before focusing  back on entertainment.” 

“Do we have to?” she whispered, soft enough to be barely heard. 

I chuckled at her sudden assault of cuteness. “Yes, but you’ll have a reward if you work well enough.” 

Just like that, she had a smile on her face once more. “What do you want to test first?” she asked immediately, her enthusiasm renewed. 

“Well,  let’s start with something simple,” I said as I raised my finger, and cast a flame spell. Before the transformation, it would have created a simple tongue of fire, barely half the size of my thumb. 

Instead, a small bonfire appeared on my finger, one that raged aggressively, bigger than my palm. Worse, the more I tried to suppress it, the stronger it raged. 

Then, I raised my other hand, and cast a simple air spell which, unlike the fire, worked just as it was supposed to. 

Of course, I made sure that none of the new fiery aspects of my mana touched the air spell, but it was impossible to do the same for the flame spell. The contrast it created was incredible, but the loss of control didn’t bother me. 

Not when compared to the great potential power-up. 

“You can’t control the living fire like that!” she gasped as she looked at the flame dancing on my finger. 

“And, how do I control it,” I said even as I dispersed the air spell on my other hand, realizing the contrast was not necessary for her. And since it was empty, there was no harm putting that on her breast once more, squeezing hard enough to earn a beautiful gasp. 

“First…” she started, stopping for a moan as I gently squeezed her breasts. “You need to understand the nature of the living fire.” 

“Enlighten me, then, beautiful,” I whispered, which hardly helped her to gather her wits, nor the kiss that followed, lingering on her neck. “Is living fire a different name for a phoenix fire?” 

“It’s not!” she gasped, looking scandalized. “How dare you say that!” 

“Calm down, and tell me why did you give such a reaction.” 

“You can’t call living fire phoenix fire when it’s the living fire that created phoenixes in the first place,” she gasped. 

“Interesting topic, but let’s start with how it interacts with the spells without going about its history,” I said, realizing that I had stumbled upon a weird topic, one that strongly reminded me of religion if her excessive reaction was any indicator… 

Fascinating topic, certainly, but not something I wanted to focus on while there were bigger priorities I had to deal with. 

Priorities such as the applied benefits of the new transformation, and more importantly, the dangerous pitfalls. 

Cinder looked a bit miffed at the dismissal of the topic, but she still started explaining. “The first thing about the living fire is the way to control it,” she started. “It’s not like normal mana, where you direct it and demand obedience. The more you control it, the more it will rebel. You need to surrender to it, gently requesting assistance while feeding it with energy.” 

I was lucky that she was on my lap, and not just because she was squirming softly as she explained, turning the boring class into something fascinating. No, I was glad, because she didn’t see my frown as I listened. 

Letting mana flow freely already contrasted with my personality, and it was only worse when the magical substance in question showed semi-sentient traits. I had no doubt that the results were impressive, but sometimes, results weren’t all that mattered.

As many of my enemies found out. 

“Why don’t you give me a sample then, sweetie,” I said. While the passive effect of flame dancing on her body would have been enough as a sample, there was no harm in some additional examples before starting dangerous experimentation. 

Especially when facing such a dangerous topic. 

What I requested was a rather intimate thing from her, one that was arguably more intimate than sex. I was asking her to allow me to observe the way her mana formed into a spell, directly with my own mana. 

Dangerous, and not just due to potential betrayal from me — which would have been devastating. No, even the slightest mistake from my end would ruin her. 

Yet, she didn’t even blink before she started casting her spell, and she even did it slowly enough for me to observe the process. Yet, as I watched her casting, I tensed more and more. 

Because it seemed that her explanation about surrendering to it was not an exaggeration. It might even be classified as an understatement. 

And, that worked pretty much against my whole being, making repeating that a challenging affair. 

I needed to decide what to do next.