At night in the meditation room.
After three full days of study, Lin Nuo finally had a decent grasp of divination magic and was eager to give it a try.
He overlaid the recently mastered Suhui Magic Array with the Traction Magic Array, quietly beginning to purify the black aura inside his body that had been relatively stable lately, transforming it into mana he could use…
Lin Nuo had almost fully understood the “Array Core Master’s Memory” ability described in the Magic Book.
At first glance, the help this book offered was the same type of surprise as the divination magic array that Xī had suddenly gifted him.
Only the Magic Book’s ability was definitely far superior.
There seemed to be another feature to this Elven Sacred Relic!
He remembered how his father and mother had recently taken those elves freed from the Angekesai family’s control back to the Elemental Forest and, on the way, were invited to visit the Elven tribe.
Before leaving, those elves had told him that the Sacred Relic could help elves locate others, even teach some kind of divination magic, and could act as another pair of eyes for long-distance spying!
Lin Nuo panicked for a moment after hearing this.
But it was only a moment.
Princess seemed not to understand him well, so she likely wouldn’t be the type to secretly spy on him using the Sacred Relic.
Once he thought that through, Lin Nuo felt a strange sense of relief for not being spied on.
Being exposed to someone else’s gaze with no secrets—now that would be terrifying!
Luckily, no one around him would do something like that.
Though thinking this way might be a bit arrogant; it wasn’t very likely that his little blond self would be spied on.
His thoughts drifting, the divination magic array he cast expanded with meditation, first spreading throughout his entire bedroom.
Familiar household objects, the goddess’s symbol carvings on the walls representing his power, the white Fatty Bird napping on the balcony shelf all appeared clearly in his mind.
The mana he had been gathering for three days was all for today’s attempt to probe further…
Because the meditation room was located right at the castle’s center, even if Lin Nuo couldn’t detect knights or mages with stronger mana, he could still sense quite a few sounds through the magic array…
“Am I growing a Fatty Bird on me, or is the Fatty Bird growing a me? What’s the meaning of life, anyway…”
From the adjacent building came the frustrated voice of a sleepless Holy Knight pondering life in the dead of night—obviously stuck in Sage mode after finishing a mission.
“Little cat! You’re really going to leave me just because you turned into a Beast-Eared Girl?”
“Have you forgotten how good I’ve been to you?! I’ve never let you starve, even groomed your fur every day, scratched your chin, and let you sleep on my lap…”
“Even the last time you were in heat, it was me who used my hand—”
“Meow!”
That had to be some Priestess near the church arguing with her cat who suddenly turned into a catgirl after living with her for a while.
His awareness extending further, Lin Nuo could even hear a maid asleep in the servants’ quarters muttering “Young Master Lin Nuo” in her sleep, followed by intense shouting and trembling.
‘What the hell was all this?!’
Lin Nuo quickly stopped channeling mana—not because he was shocked by the reaction from the maid’s seemingly… suggestive dream starring herself and him, but because he suddenly noticed—
Why was the mirror in his bedroom emitting a mana fluctuation?
Bedroom.
Lin Nuo opened the door and looked straight at the desk.
Everything there—his commonly used ink bottle, magical scrolls, rune study books—along with the glass mirror, were all meticulously arranged by Priestess Xī.
The glass mirror on the desk was still in its original condition…
Lin Nuo’s expression grew serious; there was no mistake about the mana fluctuation he had just sensed.
He picked up the mirror and tried to cast the divination magic array again to see if there was anything unusual.
But the moment his mana subtly surfaced, the mirror—seemingly sensing him—reflected his face, and the image began to flip at a speed visible to the naked eye…
The cross-shaped symbol of holiness,
The familiar, slightly deformed ergonomic chair, the neatly arranged priestess garments in the wardrobe, the girl’s tidy bed, and the thin white towel hanging on the side of the bed—all made Lin Nuo’s gaze pause.
‘This mirror… could change the image it displayed?’
And the scene had actually switched to…
Xī’s room!
After some trial, Lin Nuo discovered this glass mirror couldn’t see anywhere else, only linking his bedroom with Xī’s.
“Where did this mirror even come from?”
“Did Fatty Bird drag it here from the Sacred Relic Hall again?”
“Honestly, I’ve cast a bunch of magic arrays here. If this is some kind of magic item that activates through mana, it’s a bit weird that I’m only discovering this now.”
Lin Nuo pondered the strangeness.
For some reason, he felt it wasn’t his mana that had revealed the mirror’s oddity, but rather the divination magic itself that had triggered the discovery.
Or maybe the mirror’s owner had made some preparation, intentionally letting him find out only now…
But for what purpose?
Lin Nuo couldn’t say.
Until the image in the mirror shifted again, leaving him utterly stunned.
He saw a graceful figure outlined by priestess robes, kneeling beside another girl lying on the bed.
Undressing?
Slamming the mirror back on the desk, it dawned on him that watching Xī’s room through the mirror didn’t seem to alert her.
Lin Nuo calmed his hastening breath.
Driven by curiosity, he lifted the mirror again…
On Xī’s bed was a girl?
And Xī’s actions were… helping her put on clothes?
Lin Nuo clearly saw Xī kneeling by the bed, the other girl’s fair, flawless leg, with a faint pink hue on her knee—definitely a girl!
Seemingly unaware of being watched through the mirror, Xī placed a pale blue bra aside and took the girl’s hands, helping her sit up and lean against her.
She then wrapped her snowy, delicate fingers around the girl’s back and helped fasten the bra.
But, the two girls looked almost exactly alike, their close embrace causing their ample white curves to press tightly together, deforming in the narrow space before them.
‘Wow! The atmosphere was a bit… round?’
Lin Nuo shifted his gaze away.
Though he didn’t clearly see the face of the girl leaning against Xī, their close and intimate posture suggested they were very familiar friends.
But this naked honesty in the gesture.. why did it feel so suspiciously effeminate?
‘Hmph, could Xī be a girl lover? No wonder she disliked me so much!’
‘Case closed…’
‘Respect, respect… I’ll just pretend I saw nothing.’
Not knowing the mirror’s purpose or origin, and guessing the girl was almost done changing, Lin Nuo glanced at the mirror one last time.
What caught his gaze—
The image no longer flipped; after just a glance at the two girls in the mirror, Lin Nuo’s pupils suddenly contracted, his breathing growing sharp in an instant.
‘Wait!’
‘Why… Did they… Look exactly the same?’
“…In the mirror,”
“There are two Xī?!”
“Jiji?”
Fatty Bird suddenly appeared and also saw the two girls in the mirror.
A faint sound—
And the mirror’s image turned back into an ordinary reflective glass.
No matter how much mana was input, it only showed his utterly astonished face and Fatty Bird’s eyes filled with huge confusion.
“You saw it too,”
“That means I wasn’t mistaken…”
Why were there two identical Xī’s in her room?
Two indistinguishable Xī’s?