SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 695: An Evening of Her Own

The evenveil jade was beautiful, and Seraphine did not want it.

Leon had watched her test it for most of an hour in the medicine court. The pale green disc sat beside the dawnspar, with a thread of her spiritual energy running through both. Across the bench, the court’s specialist studied a formation plate whose reading had scarcely wavered.

”An excellent result, Senior Brother Leon,” the woman said. ”Evenveil is one of our most reliable stabilizers for dual-affinity condensation.” She turned the plate toward Seraphine. ”How does the return feel?”

”Slow.”

The specialist checked the reading again. ”Show me.”

Seraphine withdrew her energy and fed it through faster, beginning with lightning before cutting sharply into light. The return remained smooth, but Leon felt the small hesitation before it answered her.

”There,” Seraphine said. ”If I commit to a lightning strike and need light in the follow-through, that’s a delay I have to account for.”

”You could compensate.”

”I could. I’d rather see whether I need to.”

The specialist considered her for a moment, then reached for the catalogue.

Leon leaned back, smiling into his tea. He had expected to spend the morning listening to prices. Watching Seraphine make someone reconsider a faultless reading was considerably more interesting.

They tested five more candidates over the next two days. The Palace had all of them in stock, along with several the specialist dismissed after seeing Seraphine’s requirements.

Vyra arranged the requisition through the household’s contribution account, leaving Leon little to do except accompany Seraphine and occasionally offer an opinion. She asked for it twice. Both times, she listened carefully and chose something else.

He liked that more than he expected.

The second stabilizer had the same hesitation as the evenveil. The third favored light slightly, a difference Seraphine noticed before the formation plate settled.

”Perhaps one part in forty,” she said. ”It isn’t much, but I’d have to keep correcting it. Does the bias increase under compression?”

The specialist brought out its testing record. It did.

They put it aside.

The fourth responded quickly until Seraphine reversed the sequence, when it tried to settle her energy back into its previous pattern. The fifth was excellent at maintaining a steady release. Leon suggested it might be worth keeping for comparison, and Seraphine agreed, though she doubted she would choose it.

”For someone holding a defensive technique, perhaps,” she said. ”I change direction too often.”

The sixth was tracewire silver, an unimpressive coil of gray metal with a brighter seam running through it.

Seraphine’s first test produced a less even reading than the jade. On her second, she changed the order of her affinities twice. The return followed her both times.

Leon set down his cup.

”Better?” he asked.

”Much.” She repeated the transition, then deliberately slowed it. ”It isn’t trying to choose a pace for me.”

The specialist watched another cycle before speaking.

”Its stability margin is narrower. You’ll have to establish the timing yourself before condensation.”

”That’s work I can do,” Seraphine said.

”Then do it at several densities. A good result here isn’t permission to skip the difficult part.”

Seraphine nodded, already looking toward the testing array. ”May I try a higher compression?”

They stayed until the specialist lit the lamps.

When Seraphine paused to rest, the woman brought her water and asked which test had felt most natural. They compared the result with the fifth candidate instead of simply discarding its records. Leon watched Seraphine point out the difference, pleased that the conversation had become a discussion between two people who took her requirements seriously.

By then, Seraphine had a page of measurements, a provisional preparation schedule, and the silver wrapped in a cloth she checked twice before placing it beside the dawnspar’s case.

At the door, a clerk offered Leon the remaining test instructions.

”Give those to her,” he said. ”She’s the one doing the work.”

Seraphine accepted them with a small bow. ”Thank you, Young Master.”

She maintained the proper distance on the walk home, though once, when the road bent out of sight of the court, Leon caught her looking down at the case with a smile she had apparently forgotten to hide.

That evening, Seraphine found him in the protected inner residence with a book open across his knees.

”I’d like tonight,” she said.

Leon looked up. ”Tonight?”

”With you. Before I begin.” She folded her arms, then seemed to think better of it and let them fall. ”Ira’s at the western platform. Vyra has finished with the accounts, and Loriel knows not to come looking for us.”

He closed the book, keeping a finger between its pages out of habit. Seraphine glanced at his hand.

”Were you planning to finish that?”

”Not anymore.”

That earned him the smile he had seen on the road.

She crossed to his chair and took the book from him, placing it on the table before settling beside him. For a while she said nothing. Her shoulder pressed against his, and he rested his hand over hers.

”I thought I’d be nervous,” she admitted.

”About seclusion?”

”About choosing everything myself. The crystal, the stabilizer, how I want the Core to work.” She rubbed a thumb over his knuckles. ”Mostly, I keep wanting to start.”

Leon knew that feeling well enough. He also knew what happened when it persuaded him to ignore food, sleep, and anyone knocking on his door.

”Then why wait until tomorrow?” he asked.

Seraphine turned toward him. ”Because I’d like tonight.”

”Right. I deserved that.”

She laughed softly and leaned in to kiss him.

He had meant to tell her that he was pleased she had disagreed with him at the medicine court. With her hand against his cheek, it suddenly seemed a strange thing to bring up. He kissed her back instead, drawing her closer until she stopped smiling long enough to complain that the chair was too narrow.

”You chose it,” Leon said.

”I’m choosing somewhere else.”

She stood and held out her hand. He let her lead him into the adjoining room, leaving the book where she had put it.