Mage And Wolf
Chapter 153

Chapter 153: Chapter 153

Finally I’m on to blending the Blooming Lotus and Divine Dragon styles. This just is actually proving to be much easier than I expected. Just keep both styles in mind and do what feels right is the basic premise of the blending. Using the more flowing style of the Blooming Lotus to move between attacks, adding the solidified energy enhancements of the Divine Dragon style to the Blooming Lotus style kicks and flips. Somehow, it just makes sense.

Elder Po has left me alone to work on it all this week, so his preferences and input don’t affect my attempt to form my first personalized techniques. The great test will come on the tenth day of practicing the blending technique, when I will be putting it to use against another disciple, so Elder Po can decide if I’ve made an improvement and give guidance on where to take it from there.

My days aren’t all Martial arts training though. I’ve been nominated to make two meals a day for Karl and Elders Song, Ming and Po, as well as Sect Master Sun whose nose is incredible. He was walking by the pond and realized that the cooking coming from Elder Song’s library was not normal cooking. I’m not sure even my Lycan senses could achieve that.

At this point, I’ve gone through almost all the recipes in the introduction to cooking book I was gifted back in Houston. Once I get through learning the last few I’ll have to bribe Elder Song into giving me an apprentices training book.

My Lycan instincts are going a bit haywire lately, spending too much time cultivating in Karl’s lap has convinced my body that we’re mates, so every few hours that I train, my hormones intrude with an increasing urge to go see him. I’ve heard every cultivator must overcome their own tribulations to gain enlightenment between Core Formation and Immortality, but this is just becoming ridiculous. Seriously, I make all his meals, spend every night next to him, and still my body has decided I’m not paying him enough attention.

Elder Ming is also becoming impatient with my training. Who knew that waiting a mere month for me to stabilize my learning of the new technique before returning to alchemy lessons would be so stressful for her?

Today is a big day for her though. An old friend found an excellent hand drawn likeness of her when she first reached Core Formation at age Twenty One. She’s young, hopeful, her hair is perfect, not a split end or miscut strand. There are no signs of age, no laugh lines around her eyes, just a cheerful young alchemist celebrating one of the great accomplishments of her cultivating life.

That is the appearance she has chosen to use with the Cursed Polymorphism Pill. The dress she’s wearing in the photo is short and sleeveless, so I’ve got a lot to work with, and a pretty exact idea of her 3 sizes at the time. All I will need to do is fill in the blanks, picture a perfectly flat tummy, as she clearly had, add flawless skin but keep the tattoo on her arm and bring it back to its original vibrancy as she requested.

It takes me three whole hours to get the mental image right, and let me say, it’s an odd experience putting that much focus on the appearance of another woman’s nude body. I place the pill in her mouth and trickle energy into it, activating the effect and beginning the shaping process. Twenty minutes later it is perfect, I stop channeling the energy that is keeping the pill active and the effect finalizes in her body, leaving a flawless young women in front of me where a kindly Matron was a few hours earlier.

"Well, what do you think? Did I get everything right?" I ask and Elder Ming slowly turns to admire herself in the full length mirror.

"I don’t think I looked this good the first time around. I definitely wasn’t this perky, but I do believe you got the sizes perfect. Maybe just a little extra on the backside, but that’s nothing to complain about if it’s never going to sag." Elder Ming’s voice is steady and authoritarian, but I can see her eyes are glistening. I think I’ll leave her a second Pill, in case something happens to this form in the future.

She gets dressed in her Elders robes and we go down to show off her refreshed appearance to Song and Po.

"Very good. That’s exactly how I remember you looking, Ming. Did she get the tattoo right?" Elder Po asks.

"You tell me, you’re the one that did it." Elder Ming laughs, pulling her collar aside to show her upper arm. The original tattoo had bled out and faded past blue almost to invisibility with age. But between the photo and a color drawing of what it was intended to look like, I think I got it pretty close.

"It’s exactly right. She even left the little wiggle in the lines on the cauldrons handle, where I sneezed while doing the tattoo." Elder Po laughs.

After breakfast the next morning, training is delayed. Elder Ming has alchemy lessons with the younger disciples, and both me and Po have decided we simply must see their faces when she first enters the room, looking forty years younger than she did yesterday.

It’s well worth it. Half the class doesn’t even recognize her, and many more are intrigued by the newfound sway in her walk as she enters.

"Good morning disciples. I see not all of you have your materials prepared on time. Get them. Now." Her no nonsense teaching demeanor hasn’t changed at all, but her voice has.

I didn’t know what she sounded like in her youth, so I went with a similar looking friend from my pack, who has Gentle and Lyrical voice that really goes well with her appearance. The effect is a bit disconcerting in this particular case. She sounds so kind, but the words don’t match her tone. I guess it’ll just take a while to get used to using her serious voice with a newly reshaped body.

"I thought the students would be the best part, but Ming’s voice, when she’s trying to bark orders but doesn’t have the same centuries of hoarseness behind it is so much better." Elder Po chuckles softly. "Now, off to train before she catches us."

The next few days are a blur. Between the combined forms reaching the point I wanted and watching everyone’s reactions to Elder Ming, it’s all just one big happy memory in my mind. The look she gives off, with the agelessness effect of her Immortal Realm cultivation, is that of eternal virility. That twenty something indeterminate age that screams young wife. And she’s had more than a few offers to become exactly that, minus the actually being young.

"Is it everything you dreamed of?" Elder Song asks her with a teasing grin.

"That and more. Though the children hitting on me will get old fast."

I laugh, because the so called children she’s talking about are the Inner Sect Disciples, mostly between sixty and a hundred fifty years old, though their cultivation has slowed their aging process.

"A bit different being a young teacher than it was the first time around when your face was disfigured, right?" Sect Master Sun smiles. "You’ll just have to get used to it. That pill is no joke, and since it was used on you, you can’t undo it yourself."

"And since I used it on someone else, I no longer have any attachment to undo it." I add and they both look at me in shock.

"What would you have done if there was a mistake?" Song asks, his curiosity at a peak.

"Made another pill and tried again." I shrug and he laughs.

"I knew you were the one behind those pills." Sect Master Sun says suggestively.

"If you need them, I can arrange the creation of more, but it will cost you Sect Master. If they’re for yourself, don’t bother, the white beard makes you look distinguished and Sect Masterly." Is that a word? If not it is now.

"No, for the Divine Fist Sect Master. He’s always looking for a permanent solution to his cursed appearance." the Sect Master says.

"His looks perfectly match his disgusting personality though. You should leave him that way. Maybe it will make him a better person." I suggest, while Elder Song bursts into raucous laughter.

"That’s what the curse was supposed to do. His appearance matches his personality. He used to be a stunning young man, his looks pulling in all the women, until he got the wrong one and she had a Demon curse him to look as ugly as his heart is." Sect Master Sun explains, raising his voice to be heard over Song’s laughter. Sounds like the sort of thing a Witch would do, and they’d think that was a demon’s work too.

"If that’s the case, this is going to be an extremely expensive pill, Sect Master." Karl laughs, looking at my sour expression. "He could beg her to break the curse, it’s generally within the abilities of a High Priestess. But he would have to be honestly repentant for the actions that got him cursed in the first place."

"If that’s the condition, it will never happen. He gets uglier every year." Elder Song stops laughing to inform Karl. "Is there any dessert? All that laughter worked up an appetite."