123 Deep Underground (I)
Upon hearing this, Lilith’s eyes lit up, filled with cat-like excitement and curiosity.
She walked toward Wang Yue and said, “I remember now. Your Mystic Art is a precision type, which is perfect for crafting delicate items.”
“Mm-hmm,” Wang Yue nodded repeatedly, looking at her with an expectant gaze.
“Hmph, how utterly shameless. You were dumped just yesterday, yet here you are today, crawling back so brazenly?” Lilith crossed her arms, her tone mocking.
“If that’s what you think, then I’m leaving.” Wang Yue turned and walked away.
Lilith was slightly taken aback. She chased after her, shouting:
“I’m not seeing you out!”
Finally, she didn’t forget to let out an arrogant snort to show she didn’t care in the slightest.
Wang Yue cared even less. After all, her ‘Puppet’ was the only one of its kind, and she held the core technology. She marched off happily with a goose-step.
Lilith stared at her retreating figure, her hand rising and falling as she stomped her foot in frustration. Grinding her small teeth, she was absolutely incensed.
Wang Yue walked a short distance before suddenly coming to a halt. She turned her head back, flashing a playful smile.
At the sight of that pure and joyful smile, Lilith’s entire body trembled, and her heart felt as though it were about to melt.
“Damn it… why is she so cute…”
She closed her eyes, her fists clenched and her emotions in disarray, completely unable to resist the other’s charm.
By the time she opened her eyes, Wang Yue had already returned to the entrance of the silver jewelry shop, shamelessly taking the blueprints from her hands to flip through them.
They were all Gothic designs—darkly beautiful, ornate, and intricate. They actually suited the blonde loli quite well.
Having finished looking through them, Wang Yue tapped the drawings against the surface to realign them and asked:
“Do you like Gothic-style clothing?”
“Don’t think playing dumb will get you off the hook!” Lilith shouted, feigning anger, but she was the first to burst into laughter. She quickly covered her face with the back of her hand and said with mock seriousness, “I haven’t forgiven you for that yet!”
“That’s why I’m here to help,” Wang Yue flicked the design sketches. “Besides these, let me make some clothes and dresses for you. The tailors and silversmiths in the Quicksand Lowlands can’t meet your requirements, but I can. Craftsmanship beyond the master level—I can satisfy your every fantasy.”
“Then… then it’ll depend on your performance!”
Lilith’s attitude remained firm, though she didn’t harbor much resentment; she was just feeling a bit awkward. After all, the Principal had orchestrated the entire affair from start to finish; Wang Yue’s only fault was failing to tell her the truth in time. But when she put herself in Wang Yue’s shoes, she realized that if their roles were reversed, she not only would have kept silent, but she would have acted even more ruthlessly.
By comparison, Wang Yue hadn’t taken advantage of her situation, which instead gave her a sense of warmth.
“Take a look at this,” Lilith said, pulling a bound blueprint of seven or eight pages from her handbag and handing it over. Her voice had changed as she asked expectantly, “Can you make this?”
Wang Yue took it and flipped it open. Whoa, it was an incredibly complex Gothic gown.
Black silk served as the foundation, inlaid with deep blue and deep purple organza. Sharp, aesthetic patterns unfolded in layers along the cinched waistline.
Appliqués of black organza in the silhouettes of flying birds and thorns decorated the piece, while openwork lace offered glimpses of snow-white skin, paired with patterned black lace stockings…
The signature at the bottom read ‘The Thornbird,’ and the designer—Lulu’anna.
“You actually managed to get the blueprints from her?” Wang Yue was slightly surprised.
“During the last Class Competition, to convince me to defect… ah, I accidentally let that slip.”
“So she was the one who planned it.”
Wang Yue didn’t take it to heart; after all, the matter was already behind her. After purchasing the silk and silver ingots, she brought them back to the academy workshop to begin crafting, as the facility was fully equipped with tools and machinery.
‘Adorning Lilith’ held a low priority on the mission list, falling under the least important entertainment category.
The top priority mission now was to use the ‘Chameleon Key’ to uncover the secrets of Balor Academy.
Like other witches, Wang Yue possessed an insatiable curiosity; even without instructions from the Church, she would have done everything in her power to delve deep into the academy’s underground to investigate.
The night was deep and silent.
Wang Yue suddenly opened her eyes and scrambled out of bed.
Ever since she could use Neural Partitioning for rotational rest, sleep no longer served a practical purpose for her; it was merely for physical and mental relaxation.
Taking off her clothes, she inserted the Chameleon Key into her palm and turned it. After the transformation, she darted out the window in a flash. Since she slept on a separate small bed on the balcony, she didn’t have to worry about her roommates discovering she was gone. With her four limbs moving rapidly, she scurried down from the second floor as smoothly as a gecko scaling a wall.
Then, a large transparent chameleon dashed through Balor Academy in the dead of night.
At this hour, the students were all sleeping soundly in their dormitories, and few people were out and about.
The academy teachers occasionally held salons and small tea parties late at night, hosted in lavishly decorated parlors or small gardens with flower fountains.
For example, in the northwest corner of the academy, there was a greenhouse garden known as the ‘Glass White Cube.’ Dimly lit and elegantly appointed, it was filled with tropical plants of bizarre shapes and gaudy, seductive colors. A black stone path crossed a shallow pool, leading to a screen wall inlaid with an oil painting at the far end of the conservatory.
The teachers were fond of hosting tea parties in the ‘Glass White Cube.’
Wang Yue had visited once, but unable to bear the heavy, cloying scent of pollen, she had quickly departed.
The place she was headed was quite the opposite: the Cold Spring Garden, where Lilith had once retreated to lick her wounds in solitude.
Deserted and desolate, it was the perfect spot for excavation. At the sight of the familiar ruins, the moment Lilith had leaned down to kiss her flashed back into Wang Yue’s mind. As her fingertips brushed against her lips, it felt as if Lilith’s icy touch and ethereal, chilling fragrance still lingered there.
Opening her mouth, she pulled out the wand hidden between her teeth and cheek with a wet pop, trailing a mess of mucus with it. She prepared to cast a Witchcraft spell to dissolve the soil and rock, intending to burrow directly underground. Then she reconsidered; that would be too reckless. It was better to be cautious.
Wang Yue pondered for a moment, first calling upon Biheze’s power. Her Chameleon form shared a high affinity with the Gecko False God; as the divine power surged in, eyeballs manifested on the pads of her fingers. Peering through the ground, she discovered that unlike the typical foundations of buildings filled with gravel and soil, this garden was constructed by leveling the bedrock with Witchcraft and then overlaying it with exquisitely carved marble tiles. A brilliant idea occurred to her.
She came before the Shell Fountain and used witchcraft to alter the internal structure of the white marble sculpture, allowing it to split into four sections from the center and creating a secret chamber beneath it.
Indeed, it was just like what Salazar Slytherin had done at Hogwarts all those years ago.
Drawing upon the power of the cat goddess Bastet, Wang Yue crafted a mechanism activated by Sphinxian.
The accessories included a small statuette of the Cat Goddess and graphic reliefs for calling upon her power.
As long as one spoke Sphinxian to the hidden cat-head relief on the Shell Fountain, the secret chamber would open.
Wang Yue descended the steps into the secret chamber. The bedrock of the four walls had been compressed by magic into dense slabs with a shimmering glaze, their texture resembling flame-treated stone.
She intended to forge a passage straight down from this point, digging until she unearthed the secret location.
