Chapter 363: The Softness She Touched

Blood coursed through her veins. Pandora could faintly hear her own heartbeat in her ears.

That sensation of gradual growth, layered with the massage techniques Elsa had learned in her “Attendant” elective and refined through months of practice, was utterly intoxicating.

Over a year of bathing in the red moon’s light and taking experimental-grade Ashen Blood Draught had pushed her Witch’s bloodline forward considerably.

Every moonlit night, every dose of potion, nudged the bloodline one subtle step further.

It was like a tide, washing against the shore wave by wave. Each surge seemed insignificant on its own, but given time and accumulation, it would leave its mark.

Still, compared to her Rank-2 days, the growth rate had noticeably slowed.

The Ashen Blood Draught had only recently begun to fill that gap, but its overall effect still couldn’t surpass the influence of the red moon’s radiance.

In other words, despite having spent more than a year on this, the potion still lagged behind the red moon.

And by Pandora’s current assessment, for the foreseeable future, the potion would continue to lag behind the red moon.

The red moon’s light was some kind of... higher-order power, far beyond her present understanding.

Her potions, in the end, were merely crude imitations of that power—crafted with the skill of a Rank-3 Alchemist.

But that didn’t mean the potions were unimportant.

On the contrary. This was the first method Pandora had ever devised that could stimulate the Witch’s bloodline to grow.

A method that did not depend on the red moon.

If one day that thing in the sky stopped working... she could still push her bloodline forward.

It might be borrowing trouble, but... that red moon in the heavens seemed to possess a will of its own.

It chose to shine upon her. Perhaps not by coincidence.

And if one day, it chose to stop shining? What then?

Pandora came back to herself and opened her eyes. A veil of mist blurred her vision.

The hazy moisture hung beneath the lights, draping the entire bathroom like a thin gauze curtain.

A thought suddenly struck her.

Click.

The lights went out. The bathroom plunged into darkness.

Elsa sounded puzzled.

“My Lady?”

In the next second, an unfamiliar sensation crept across her back.

It was like velvet—like flowing water—brushing gently across her shoulder blades, then sliding slowly down along her spine.

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The touch carried a hint of coolness, but the moment it met her skin, it turned warm, as though it had taken on a life of its own.

A soft sound escaped Elsa’s lips.

“Mm...”

Her voice held a faint tremor—surprise, perhaps, but also a certain indescribable softness.

“Well? Elsa, how are my hands?”

Pandora’s soft laughter drifted out of the darkness.

Her voice was low, steeped in the moisture, laced with languor and a touch of pride.

If one looked closely, one could see shadows writhing within that darkness.

Shadow-stuff, drawn out like silk threads—pulled, twisted, braided, condensed—taking on a specific form in the empty air.

It was Umbral Weaving, a Rank-3 Wizardry Pandora had long since mastered.

Over the past year and more, her wizard’s mental strength had grown and her proficiency had deepened. The Art was now second nature.

She could control shadow with a degree of finesse far beyond what she’d once been capable of.

Not just to lacerate enemies—but even for this kind of delicate, caressing touch.

Every nuance of those shadow-hands perfectly mirrored Elsa’s own techniques. A near one-to-one replication.

The pressure, the angle, the trajectory, the rhythm...

All the little details Elsa had accumulated about Pandora’s body through day after day of devoted service—the shadow-hands reproduced them with unwavering fidelity.

And Elsa clearly recognized the growth in Pandora’s shadow manipulation.

After a brief pause, her voice steady once more but still carrying that faint tremor, she offered praise.

“My Lady... you’ve improved again.”

She spoke softly, then her tone shifted. “However—”

“Though your replication is near-perfect, massage, in truth, is an extremely targeted art.”

“For instance, your body, My Lady, and my body are quite different.”

“My massage techniques, therefore, are far more tailored to your body...”

The words had barely left her mouth when Pandora’s cheeks flushed.

The blush was invisible in the dark, but the heat was unmistakably real.

Because the instant Elsa finished speaking, Elsa’s hands fell with precise force upon a very specific spot.

It was exactly the optimal pressure she had arrived at through repeated adjustments—for Pandora’s body.

An intimate, contented hum escaped Pandora.

That wave of comfort swallowed whatever retort she had been about to make.

“Mm... mm-hmm... fine... fine, you’re right...”

The shadow-hands quietly dissolved.

Like ink dispersing through water, those intricate shadow-constructs melted back into formless darkness, reabsorbed into the bathroom’s natural shadows.

Darkness still cloaked the room.

What Pandora didn’t notice was that only now did the flush on Elsa’s cheeks finally begin to fade.

It was true their bodies were different, and techniques couldn’t be directly equated.

But Elsa, unlike Pandora, had never grown accustomed to her own touch.

Having rarely experienced such sensations herself, she was still highly sensitive to them.

Those shadow-hands had replicated her techniques—the very same pressures and angles she applied to Pandora daily, now turned upon herself without modification.

The feeling was...

Strange yet familiar. Unsettling yet...

In any case, she was grateful she’d managed to suppress any stronger reaction.

Otherwise, it would have been far too discourteous before Lady Pandora...

………………

Time passed. The clock’s hands swept through several rotations, and afternoon arrived.

Sunlight slanted through the high window lattices, its glow seemingly tinged with the drowsiness of autumn.

Tiny dust motes floated in the air, spiraling slowly within the shafts of light.

Yet in stark contrast to the clock’s languid sweep, Pandora was brimming with energy.

A bath so comfortable it left her body completely relaxed, plus ample, unrestrained sleep—it had not only washed away the lingering exhaustion from last night’s amusement park excursion. It had also tuned her mental state to perfection.

Nearby, little Phoebe was the same.

Though she’d slept late, she’d also risen late. Now she was spiritedly flipping through a picture book, occasionally glancing up to confirm Pandora was still there, then lowering her head to continue reading.

Elsa, as ever, remained in flawless form at all times.

At this moment, Pandora stood within her alchemy laboratory.

Perhaps influenced by this exceptional state, or perhaps it was simply a natural culmination of accumulated experience—this potion-brewing session proceeded with extraordinary smoothness.

Those steps that once felt slightly obtuse, those tricky junctions in the process—now they flowed like water.

Every action was perfectly timed. Every stir, flawlessly precise.

It was as if she wasn’t brewing the potion—as if the potion itself was guiding her hands.