ganqing

Noah had already made progress in slowing the flow of his mana and his bodily functions, and the headband was helping. His heart dropped to one beat a minute, and he all but stopped breathing. Typically, such a state would be fatal, but the more he slowed down his mana, the more he could forestall damage. Without mana flowing, his cells would stop processing nourishment and oxygen, but they wouldn’t wither and die, for the molecular processes of cell death were also halted. Caught in a near-perfect state of suspended animation, his physical senses operated at the lowest possible level, and he became more attuned to the flow of mana around him, sharpening his spirit senses.

“Can you really blame me?” Daddy asked with a chuckle, squeezing her in his arms and kissing her cheek. “Although to be perfectly fair, there was actually a bit more to it, before the event itself. I'd come across some of the internet porn she'd been reading, when I had to use her computer. Bestiality, daddy-daughter incest, and rape fantasy, mostly. I tried not to think too much of it, just normal teenage curiosity, or so I'd mostly convinced myself. But when I accidentally walked in on her and Bruce, and saw she'd chosen to make at least some of those fantasies a reality... well, I just couldn't resist! I just had to try her out for myself, after they were done!”

This wasn’t simply water magic; it was water magic and alchemy combined. Normally, alchemy couldn’t be applied to living tissue, as the mana produced by organisms interfered with the magic, but this potent combination allowed Phune’s magic to overcome that restriction. Noah couldn’t help but wonder where Phune had acquired such magic. Since it was written in his grimoire rather than an intuitive ability, either he figured out the formula himself, or someone else did. Whoever it was, did they have any idea what kind of threshold they were on? The surface they had just scratched?