Ascendant Path of a Lustful Vampire

Still, despite how much he believed he had on his plate, Caius was not about to get sucked into all that. He understood he had limitations and could not possibly learn it all now. It might take him eternity and he'd probably still be working his way towards completion of the 'wonders' of Blood Alchemy.

In any case, he had actually arrived at Lochxen quite early today. Earlier than ever even. He had simply gone right to Arlette's office and from there, into her private residence where he stayed until Class started.

Alchemy is both Theoretical and Practical. There are—for want of a better word—formulas involved that must be known and understood so it's not an art only meant to be done with an Alchemical Set. That said, refining remained the biggest part of the entire process. It was the culmination of everything. It was when you put learned theories and hypotheses to work and see if they hold merit.

Caius put all he had spent the night working on to work. He expended batch after batch of ingredients perfecting a technique that was so finicky, it basically refused to be perfected.

He didn't complete a Refinement in the hours he spent at Arlette's home and when school day truly began and he had to step away to head to class, he just let out a sigh.

"Terrible," he said, shaking his head.

Arlette's brows furrowed. The attempts were certainly not successful but they were far from terrible. Not as far as she is concerned anyway.

At the risk of sounding cocky, she was very accomplished at Alchemy. She had always had a talent for it. But Blood Alchemy had always been a whole other thing she didn't care for, particularly because of results like this.

You could do everything 'right' and still fail.

As far as she had seen, Caius was actually good at it so hearing him call his attempts 'Terrible' didn't quite sit well with her.

She had some of the manuals with her as well and while she might not have spent the entirety of her night reading through them as Caius had done—because she had certain other responsibilities like teaching for example—she was doing her own study into Blood Alchemy as well.

It was as she had told Caius, she had dabbled a little but never been all that interested in investing so much of her time—Time she was convinced would be wasted anyway—in it. This was mostly because she didn't have any real use for it and had no intention of doing deals with Vampires. Besides the one she already did as a member of 'Ophiuchus'.

But Caius was the exception, of course.

Now she was taking more of an active interest in it just so she could help his effort. Alchemy in general can be at times be restricted to Circles as certain quality/Strength of Mana can be vital to a refining process so, as he was, Caius was going to reach a wall and Arlette hoped to be able to supply the help he'd need at that point by taking steps to better understand Blood Alchemy alongside him.

Alas, even then, despite her decades of experience with normal Alchemy, she was still mystified watching him work.

Caius let out a sigh,

"Welp, I'll give it another go when I return. I have to get to class," he had told her then, already running late.

They shared a long kiss and she opened up the Portal Gate so it dropped him right at the Academy Corridor and left him only a few steps away from the classroom.

Caius brought all that to memory—besides Arlette's thoughts that he had not been privy to, of course—due to Kaya's question but didn't actually divulge the information.

They had a bit of chitchat then as the class continued, mostly causing Kaya to chuckle a few times and really have to try not to lose her composure and interrupt the ongoing lecture, and thus cause her face-flushing embarrassment.

The next class was Magi History and Caius, as usual looked forward to it. Not really because of the class, but because of the Professor who taught it. The ever-busty mother of one, Anne Gilligan.

When the Portal Gate appeared and the Professor walked in dressed in her usual style of shirt and pencil skirt showing off her ample curves in abundance, her black eyes, looked over her square spectacles as they almost immediately landed on Caius. She didn't have to search. He always sat in the same spot.

Usually, Anne would try not to look at him and only get pulled by some subconscious urge. Today though, she made the active, voluntary decision to look at him, eyeing that smirk of his that always made it seem as though they had a secret only the two of them knew.

Did they?

Anne wasn't sure but couldn't outright deny it either. Caius seemed to know so much about her—about her secret shame—that they just might share something.

With a flick of her wrist, she retrieved a stack of sheets from the Storage Ring on her finger. And, taking her eyes off Caius's face, she addressed the class as a whole.

"Your reports," she said regarding the stack of sheets she had with her,

"I've graded them. As I said last week, this will count toward your overall assessment for the semester."

With that, Anne Gilligan walked through the class, handing out the papers one at a time.

She knew all their names and faces in the few classes she had taken then thus far. She also knew where they were all seated because it wasn't only Caius who hardly ever changed seats. With that in mind, Anne had the sheets arranged just right and simply placed them on tables and moved away without having to confirm if she had gotten it right or not. And of course, she had.

She left Caius and Kaya for last.

When she approached them—the sweet mature scent of her wafting toward Caius's ever-receptive nose—she placed the last sheet she had with her on Kaya's table.

And then she nailed Caius with her black eyes, looking very serious and leaving no room to allow herself to be flustered as he seemed to just have the ability to do to her.

"We need to have a talk about your report, Mr. Von Helsing," she said in a serious tone of voice, "My office after Class."

She spoke in a stern tone that many in the class knew from having had it directed at them when they disappointed her. Usually by having failed to answer any of her questions correctly in class or maybe when caught conversing and not paying attention while she was lecturing.

Having known what sort of powerful effect that tone of Anne's tone was, Caius' classmates expected him to shrink in his seat and be awash with shame. It was the usual reaction, after all.

Alas, Caius simply smiled and nodded.

"Very well, Professor."

It wasn't that he was acting tough or that the tone didn't have an effect on him because it certainly did. Just not the sort of effect it had on the rest of his classmates. When faced with that tone, he felt giddy with success.

It was more or less what he had expected from her, after all.

Anne nodded once at that and turned away to return to the front of the class, kickstarting the lecture of the day by first pointing out the many errors she had detected in the reports she had graded and had now passed out.

"What was your score?" Caius asked Kaya gently, not taking his eyes off Professor Gilligan's round ass as it swayed rhythmically from side to side as she walked.

"'E'. Excellent," Kaya answered, looking at him with her brows furrowed.

"Of course," Caius said with a nod, his eyes still on the swaying backside ahead of him.

He wasn't surprised by Kaya's grade and didn't even think to check because he knew she wasn't lying. Much as Kaya allowed herself to be distracted by him in class, she had never fallen or been at any real risk of falling behind in her studies. She was quite the brainiac.