Chapter 86 | Cliffhanger[Hard]
Chapter 86: 86 | Cliffhanger[Hard]
Natasha’s excitement was immediately crushed by his next thought.
[No. This is wrong. I already have Emma. I’m sorry, Emma. I’m just a lustful piece of shit who can’t even control his eyes around his own master.]
’So he does see me as a woman, but he’s holding back because of Emma.’ A small smile formed on her face despite the sting.
She had been overestimating his feelings for Emma this whole time. While she felt bad for her student, this meant her chances weren’t nearly as low as she thought.
She wanted to turn around and tell him that he didn’t need to feel sorry, that she wanted him to look at her, and that she picked this outfit for no other reason than to keep his eyes on her.
But she held herself back.
’I can’t show my feelings before he shows his.’ Natasha’s eyes turned firm.
Her plan was to make him fall for her first and let him take the initiative while she just "played along."
She would only reveal everything after their relationship reached a point of no return.
’Dante, I’m sorry for making you feel like a piece of shit.’ She apologized silently in her heart.
’But just wait. I’ll make you forget that guilt soon enough.’
"Now then, let’s move on to the important part." She grabbed an old book from the shelf and walked toward his bench.
Under his confused gaze, she sat down right beside him with her thigh pressing against his. She placed the book between them and leaned forward to open it, her tie swinging loose as the blouse pulled tight across her chest.
The top button was fighting for its life and from where Dante was sitting, he could see everything it was trying to hold back.
"This part is very important, so pay close attention." She said, her lips curving into a slow smile.
’I thought she would back off after hearing Emma’s name but she actually doubled down.’ Dante swallowed as his eyes moved from her lips, stealing a quick glance at her cleavage before forcing them down to the book. ’Is this really the same master I know?’
When his eyes finally landed on the pages, his surprise was genuine. Two pages painted in white and black, with the words Aether and Nether written in opposite colors.
’Aether and Nether? This is something new.’
’He’s finally paying some attention.’ Natasha had a smile on her lips, but a part of her was actually disappointed that his focus had shifted from her to the book.
"Master, what are Aether and Nether?" Dante asked with a eager look in his eyes.
"As I said before, mana is the fundamental energy that exists in everything." Natasha repeated with a small smile, knowing full well he hadn’t been listening earlier. "But mana isn’t just one thing."
"All mana is made up of these two." She placed her finger on the page between the two words. "Aether and Nether."
"Aether is light, warmth, and day. Nether is darkness, cold, and night. Think of them like the sun and the moon. One isn’t better than the other. They take turns and together they make a complete cycle."
"Neither one is good or evil. A world with only Aether would be an endless burning day and a world with only Nether would be frozen in darkness forever."
"The reason anything exists at all is because both of them are in BALANCE." She said as her finger traced through the center of the book.
"So they’re two halves of the same thing." Dante nodded with some understanding.
"Now, here’s the part nobody teaches." She continued, turning the page.
A single tree was drawn in the center with its trunk sitting right on the divide. Two branches spread outward, one into the white side and the other into the black. Element names were written on the leaves.
"Every element that awakeners use isn’t a separate type of energy."
"They’re all leaves on the same tree." She leaned forward slightly to point at the illustration, her tie swinging with the movement. "They just grow on different sides."
Dante’s eyes followed her finger with some struggle.
"Fire, lightning, light, wind." Her finger traced along the leaves on the white branch. "These grow from Aether."
She moved to the other side. "Ice, shadow, poison. These grow from Nether."
’Ice falls under Nether...’ Dante noted quietly. That meant Emma’s Frozen Spirit Bloodline was under Nether Branch.
"When a person awakens, their body naturally resonates with one of these elements. That’s their affinity."
"But When mana enters the body, it comes in as a whole. Both Aether and Nether together." She paused to make sure he was following. He nodded so she continued.
"A fire user’s body can only process the Aether side and convert it into fire. The Nether half that came in with it gets expelled like waste."
What made it worse was that mana techniques actually deepened this problem.
They were designed to sharpen a cultivator’s connection to one side while completely blocking the other. The stronger the technique, the more one-sided it became.
This was the truth behind the entire mana cultivation system. Something that even the biggest organizations didn’t fully understand.
"But Eden’s Gate did." Natasha spoke with a mysterious smile and closed the book.
But Dante’s eyes weren’t on her this time.
They were on the cover.
A lone figure sat beneath the tree, absorbing the mana falling from both branches at once.
"Master, you mean?" He looked at her with some shock in his eyes.
Everything was finally making sense to him. How Natasha without any bloodline was able to get rid of the Kingsleys who were the family of dragons.
’If this is true, Eden’s Gate’s mana technique might be the strongest in the world.’
"That’s right." Natasha leaned back on the bench, propping her head up with one hand and a confident smile on her face.
She looked effortlessly cool in that moment, like a woman who knew exactly how powerful she was.
But her cool image didn’t last long.
The top button on her blouse, the one that had been fighting for its life since the lesson started, finally lost the war.
It popped off and shot straight into Dante’s forehead.
"Ow, Master, why did you hit me?" He rubbed his forehead with his eyes shut. But when he opened them, his mind went completely blank.
The button was now rolling on the floor. And without it, everything it had been struggling to contain was now on full display.