Internet Mage Professor-Chapter 93: My Secret

The twilight wind rustled through the canopy above, its cool breath casting dancing shadows along the cobbled path that wound back toward Nolan’s villa.

Behind him, Lirazel trailed like a scent of perfume—soft, cloying, and impossible to ignore. Her steps were light but purposeful, hips swaying in a rhythm older than this realm itself.

Her wings were folded neatly behind her, but even in silence, her presence exuded a sensual pressure that clung to the air like honeyed smoke.

"Master..." she purred, her voice low and melodic, the kind of voice meant for temptation, not conversation. "Why did you take those eggs?"

Nolan didn’t slow. He didn’t even glance back. But Lirazel’s tone sharpened, more insistent now.

"They’re useless. Completely useless. Empty vessels, devoid of promise. Mana-deficient. Life barely clinging by a thread. Why burden yourself with trash?"

She drew closer, her voice dropping to a whisper just above his shoulder. "We have a dungeon beneath your villa, don’t we? You created it from carved voidstone, inlaid with amplification arrays, insulated against divine detection. That place... it’s more than a dungeon, Master. It’s a Den. Our den."

Her voice became silk wrapped around steel. "In the deepest chamber, where the aether pools in molten spirals—that’s where we should be. Not wandering the city streets clutching dead eggs like some beast-crazed mortal."

She stepped in front of him now, walking backward, facing him, her smile coy and electric.

"If you want eggs... let me give you better ones. I’ve undergone seven purity rituals. My blood has been tempered with abyssal silver. My lineage was touched by the Moon Queen of the Tenth Realm. I’m compatible with more than thirty-nine races, and I’m fertile through all astral alignments. One single night with me, and we’ll have offspring blessed by both chaos and void. Beings that breathe spells instead of crying. Hatchlings that warp gravity as they crawl."

Nolan said nothing.

She pressed further, now walking beside him again, matching his stride.

"I can bear you a child whose first scream will rupture sound barriers. A clutch of draconic abominations, loyal only to you. The dungeon is ready. I’ve scented the bedding with crushed dreamflowers. I’ve reinforced the seals with blood promises. I’m ready, Master. Just one gesture, one night—"

"No," Nolan said flatly, finally cutting her off.

Lirazel blinked. "No?"

"You have no idea," he muttered. "This is better."

She stopped walking, wings twitching. "Better?"

Catching up again, she scowled faintly. "What do you mean, Master Nolan?"

"I mean what I said."

Lirazel exhaled through her nose. "Lower realm creatures are inferior. All of them. Their mana cores are like cracked pottery. Their instincts are dulled. Their evolution trees are so simple, it’s insulting. They are born flawed and they die pitiful. If one of them reaches the peak of Tier 5, it’s celebrated like a miracle. A miracle!"

Her arms stretched wide, voice swelling with disbelief. "In my realm, we slay Tier 5s in the womb for being too weak! A single Tier 3 from the higher realms, properly born, can decimate armies of these so-called ’Apex Beasts.’ Even a Feral Winglet—that’s a baby monster, mind you—fresh from the nest, would chew through this city’s strongest beast tamer like he was made of reeds."

Her lips curled into something between amusement and disgust. "These things you carry... They’re leftovers. Defects. What could possibly be better about this?" freewebnøvel.coɱ

Without a word, Nolan stopped and reached into his sling. Then, as casually as tossing away a stone, he flung the three eggs toward her.

"Take them."

Lirazel’s eyes widened. "Master! They’ll—"

"Catch."

Her reflexes kicked in, hands snatching the eggs from the air in a blur. She cradled them carefully, lips parted, heart fluttering for reasons she didn’t yet understand.

"Did you feel it?" Nolan asked.

"...Feel what?"

"Again."

Lirazel closed her eyes, extending her senses.

This time, she didn’t just brush the surface of their mana. She reached deeper, past the shell, past the fractured walls and dying auras. And then... she felt it.

A pulse.

It wasn’t strong. But it wasn’t natural either. A rhythm... like a whisper of synchronized pain. All three eggs throbbed together—weak, yes, but united. Not in decay. In defiance.

One flickered, and the others dimmed with it. A chain reaction.

"No..." she whispered.

As she processed it, one egg nearly slipped—but her body moved on instinct. She caught it midair again, cradling it softer than before, now with reverence.

"They’re... synchronized?" she murmured. "Connected... not just spiritually, but existentially..."

Suddenly, Lirazel’s eyes went wide, and she suddenly realized something about this familiar synchronization.

"No... This... This... can’t be!" she said. "This can’t be! This can’t be! It’s impossible that it was here. We are not supposed to sense them easily. How come I can?"

She looked at Nolan as if searching for an answer, but Nolan only said calmly, "I already found it. If you try to, you won’t, because your senses were sealed to detect these creatures, but me? I am not. So I can find them easily... and I don’t need my lifespans to be drained by you while creating an army..."

Lirazel only watched him, then turned her eyes back toward the egg in her embrace as if it were one of the most precious things she could ever hold.

Nolan watched, arms crossed.

"No wonder... no wonder they’re dying together," she said slowly.

Then she looked up, voice quieter now. "But Master Nolan, how did you know this?"

He didn’t answer.

She narrowed her eyes. "Master?"

Still nothing.

"Was it an ancient technique? No. No, these eggs are sealed. Shrouded. Even I barely sensed it. This kind of resonance is not something mortals of this realm can detect. Only those trained in... in inter-soul convergence theory—"

"Never mind," Nolan muttered.

She moved closer. "No, tell me. This isn’t something you should be able to detect, not unless you’ve trained in higher planar gestation theory. Not unless you’ve studied the womb-matrix resonance loops. That’s forbidden knowledge in the Twelfth Realm! Only broodmothers and ovacasters know how to sense something like this."

Nolan began walking again, pace steady.

Lirazel followed, now a touch more frantic.

"I’m serious, Master. How did you know? This is my domain. I’ve spent centuries understanding life energy. I studied under the Matron of Nethersilk. I’ve dissected living beasts mid-birth. I felt the sync only because I’ve cultivated that sense for over four hundred years. How could you—a mortal, a man of this realm—have possibly known?"

He said nothing.

Lirazel persisted. "Even my sisters couldn’t have noticed unless they were in their trance state. This isn’t something you stumble into. You knew it, you targeted them. This wasn’t a lucky gamble. You—"

"It’s my secret," Nolan said abruptly.

Her steps faltered. "Master..."

But he didn’t slow. She rushed after him again, now a step behind, arms still clutching the eggs.

"But even if you’ve made a pact with my mother—especially if you have—you still shouldn’t know this. Our contracts don’t include that kind of knowledge transmission. That’s ancestral. Blood-sealed. Guarded by curseworms."

Nolan’s jaw tightened.

She stepped in front of him again, blocking his path.

"You can’t know this," she insisted. "Even with soul integration, you can’t. Not unless you’ve seen what lies beneath the Cocoon Vaults. Not unless you’ve—"

Nolan met her eyes.

"As I said," he said firmly. "That’s my secret."

Lirazel opened her mouth—then closed it.

She took a step back, a flicker of wariness dancing across her face.

She didn’t ask again.