Chapter 113
Sylas stopped talking. A goodnight kiss was too tempting, but chatting with Xerath also brought a long-lasting and intense joy. It was really hard to decide.
"But don't you need to stay awake?"
"I have been involved in intense and lengthy thinking work for over thirty years. Occasional drowsiness doesn't have a serious impact on me."
Sylas looked at her eagerly, while the archmage hardened his heart and refused to talk to her. They stood there silently for about a minute, until Sylas quickly made the choice that the archmage expected, "I choose the goodnight kiss."
After saying that, her cheeks turned red with just these three simple words. She had been thinking about the goodnight kiss for three days, so much so that she had many fantasies about it. It was about to happen now, as she stared at the soft and moist lips in front of her, imagining how it would feel when they landed on her forehead.
How does the forehead even feel? Her lips must taste really soft... Her breathing became rapid with this imagined illusion, and her warm breath brushed against Xerath's neck.
The archmage lowered her eyelids slightly.
She lay a bit higher than Sylas and slowly leaned in, watching her fluttering eyelashes and her eyes trying to lift but unable to. Suddenly, there was an unspoken awkwardness.
She should have avoided being in that state, but she was stubbornly thinking of using something to tempt herself to sleep.
Some kind of pain that she had felt before spread through her limbs, and a strange thought rose to the surface, but she forcefully extinguished it.
- If she lifted her head, she could kiss her lips...
- No, without a doubt, you can't do that.
Her thoughts fiercely bounced between these two ideas, to the point where even a few grains of sand felt like a long time. During this time, the little beast curled up in front of her made a gesture to save their relationship.
She closed her eyes, tightly closed her eyes in nervousness.
Xerath let out a gentle sigh and kissed her forehead.
This goodnight kiss was lighter and shorter than all the previous ones. Especially compared to the one Xerath gave her on the night she returned to the mage tower. Compared to that, that kiss was deep and long, and when their lips separated from her forehead, she even had a illusion: as if Xerath was reluctant to leave.
But this kiss, light as a feather brush, was enough to make her heart skip, her breathing quicken, and her heart race. She didn't dare let Xerath notice any of the shameful changes, let alone tell her.
She kept her eyes closed, afraid to open them. She could feel Xerath's gray eyes staring at her, which made her even more reluctant to open her eyes. She had to stay silent and still, it was so uncomfortable.
But this was exactly how insomnia was treated. The forced calmness made her heart rate slow down, and her breathing became slower too. Eventually, she fell into a sleep state, just before sunrise.
When the sun rose, Xerath piled Earth Child to the east, keeping Sylas in the shade. Virgil, on the other hand, had already woken up and eagerly came out of the tent, running over to Xerath.
The archmage stayed awake and knew that the water lord steward hadn't disappeared all night.
"Hey, hey, did you chat all night?"
"Not the whole night."
"Oh, it's so adorable, archmage. How do you manage to handle it?"
The archmage's eyes only half opened, he glanced at Virgil and the golden light between his fingers slowly rolled, forming a gesture for "silence". Virgil quickly raised his hands.
"Don't wake her up," the archmage said as he slowly stood up, carefully covering Sylas with the fur, and then he pulled Virgil away before speaking. "You woke up quite early."
"I've always been like this. The little beast really loves you, they always want to be with you."
"Of course, I am her teacher, and I will be her role model for a long time."
"She really seems to like you."
Xerath glanced at him and said, "Exactly, as an adult, her role model, and a teacher, I can't let this love go to waste. Virgil, I have a... I have an idea. In prose, it is often said that the constant battle of conflicting viewpoints within oneself can be compared to angels and demons. You are particularly like that demon, growing up, becoming ugly, and then coming to the mortal realm to cause trouble."
Virgil, feeling the silver-grey gaze piercing through him, exaggeratedly dodged and protested, "What do you mean by 'becoming ugly'?!"
"Literal meaning."
After they finished their morning grooming, packed their belongings, Xerath summoned a new Earth Child to take on a new burden, and Virgil willingly went to the nearby pioneering camp to find food. After a while, he came back with a cloth bag.
"Make do with this, my old friend." He opened the cloth bag, revealing several cooked root vegetables that smelled delicious, along with two boiled eggs. "Don't dislike it, there's more food at the camp, but it's either difficult to carry or too greasy. I was worried you wouldn't eat it."
"These are great, thank you."
"When do you plan to wake her up?"
"Wait until she wakes up by herself, shh, speak softly."
Virgil shrugged.
Hyectra simply placed her in a "shell," even though it got quite sandy on one side, she tried to cover Sylas as much as possible. Xerath whispered beside her, "I envy her, I haven't ever slept on a water bed."
The water lord wouldn't have enough power to maintain its form in the mortal realm if the mage fell asleep. The solitary archmage couldn't sleep on a water bed by themselves, so it wasn't possible to have such a treat.
The water lord shifted its features to the side and gently said, "Next time, you can request Leunen to provide water bed service. It would be honored to do so."
In order not to wake Sylas up, the archmage and Virgil walked together, while all the Earth children who made loud noises followed far behind. Honestly, Virgil had a lot of views on this situation. Xerath's treatment of the little creature was definitely more than just doting. He really needed someone to talk to about his opinions now.
The archmage had once accused him of being a polluter, but clearly, it was the archmage who was the source of pollution with the little creature. There were many actions between the two of them that were unbearable to witness. Virgil had a lot to say about this. If it were any other two people, Virgil could have joined in the whole way (after all, it was an unwritten tradition among adventurers). But the archmage forbade him from talking about anything related to that. It was like building a dam and forcibly stopping the water from flowing. It would eventually overflow!
The archmage still accompanied the moving water ball, her entire body covered by a loose white robe, with a glimpse of a metallic skirt at the hem. Under the skirt were legs covered in gray-white stockings.
"Did you use 'elemental walking'? I feel like you didn't get stuck in the sand."
"Virgil, think a little, 'elemental walking' doesn't work on flesh and blood creatures."
"Why is that..."
"Of course it's 'light as a feather'. Do you want it? I can add a wind shield for you, guaranteed to make you fly."
Virgil looked quite jealous, "Mages are so convenient."
"If you had asked me to write your paper back then, you could be doing it now."
"Are there mages who can't summon a water lord?"
"Yes, there are quite a few." Not only are there mages without water lords, but also mages without towers, mages who can't afford to buy a tower (usually young people) can work for other mages while saving money for their own tower, or simply a group of people can buy one together.
"The quality of mages these days is really mixed. I really don't understand these people. Clearly, they weren't destined for this path, so why do they have to become mages?" Meanwhile, Virgil has successfully transitioned into a Demon Hunter, not only traveling across the continent, enjoying life day and night, but also making a fortune by capturing pets.
Xerath glanced at him, seemingly wanting to say a lot, but apparently, talking too much might wake up Sylas, and arguing with Virgil was not as important as the little beast's sleep.
The two of them stared at each other, silently exchanging sarcasm. Suddenly, Virgil chuckled and said, "I am no longer jealous of the magician." He then turned his head and ran in another direction, while faint murmurs came from far away.
Gradually, the outline of a horse appeared in the gray sandstorm, distorted by the turbulent air currents on the desert surface due to being close to the ground. It was Dvořák, and it had arrived at the rendezvous point as planned.
Virgil came back riding Pegasus, and Xerath decisively raised "Endless" to prevent Virgil, riding on the neighing Pegasus, from getting close. Dvořák spread its wings, and the archmage quickly wrote "Soaring into the Sky" with his hands, causing Dvořák... maybe to crash into it, or maybe to turn back by stepping on the wall.
However, Sylas woke up. Maybe it was too bright? the archmage guessed. She walked back to the water bed transformed by the water lord and asked, "Awake?"
Sylas nodded in confusion. The light of the sky refracted through the blue water waves, creating shimmering reflections. It was this that gradually awakened her from her sleep. She saw herself hanging not far from the sandy ground, with everything around her moving.
She also saw Xerath's legs swinging alternately, faintly visible between the spacious robe and the edge of the metal skirt. She stared here, lost in thought, until Xerath approached and called her name.
Only then did she lift her eyes and look at Xerath through the inner wall of the water sphere. Her face looked distorted under the refraction of the water. But Sylas kept looking at the archmage until the water sphere stopped, and Xerath looked outside through the irregular opening that Hyectra had specially opened for her.
Sylas suddenly sat up and stammered, "Teacher, te-teacher, I... um... didn't mean to oversleep..."
"It's still early, it's not yet time for us to wake up in the tower."
"Um...did you...did you not sleep?" The answer was obvious, otherwise she wouldn't have been wrapped in fur inside the giant water bubble.
