In fact neither Alice or her blonde friend were foolish enough to try anything against either Candi or myself right away, so we had a quiet relaxing meal. Which was actually a good thing, because it was time to refresh that spell on Evelynn and I did not want to be distracted or forget or otherwise mess that up.

Fortunately after the instructions I left her with last week, it was laughably easy this week to get her to renew the thing. At the end of the evening when she was in bed with her eyes closed, I simply told her to cast Obedience on herself for me.

And she did it. No schemes, no role play, she just got to work and made it happen. I stayed near her bed to test my new magic detection ability, and discovered instead of a red warning I got an amber one. Red when I was the target, amber when the target was someone else. And I found the notification amusing, for multiple reasons.

'Magic detected: Evelynn is enspelling herself.'

As she lay there recovering afterwards, I crouched by the head of her bed and started whispering her updated instructions. It was mostly a repeat of last week, but with a few minor revisions.

First I dialled-back on how needy she was for my praise since I found that a bit much. She'd still be really happy whenever I did give her a compliment, but she wouldn't be craving them so much anymore. Second I reminded her of her exhibitionist streak, like how much of a thrill she got when other people saw her naked or watched her have sex or masturbate. Especially me of course, performing for me was one of her biggest thrills. Even just thinking about performing for me turned her on. Better still would be performing for me and any friends I chose to share her with. On that note I also made sure she wouldn't be jealous of any other friends I made. She was devoted to me, but she understood I was too important to be satisfied with just her.

And finally I reinforced that thing I added last week about me talking to her like this, when she was on her back with her eyes closed. I reminded her that my words were like the word of God to her and they could reshape her understanding of the world and herself. And because of that sheer power, she'd always forget whatever happened and whatever was discussed when we talked like this.

After the performance I was horny as fuck again but I forced myself to wait for her to finish recovering. My work wasn't done yet this evening, there was one more thing I wanted to try. Now that I was level three I could cast Obedience, but I didn't want to start it at grade one. I wanted it at whatever grade she had, I wanted to acquire it with my Scrutinize ability.

So when Evie was recovered but still laying on her bed I ordered her to cast that spell again. Not on me or herself, I picked the first thing that came to mind in front of me. I had her try and enspell her pillow. And when the moment came I used my Dispell and Scrutinize abilities.

'Dispell successful! New spell acquired!'

By that point Evie was completely exhausted, she collapsed on her bed and passed out. I was eager to read up on the details of my new spell, but after watching her put on two little shows like that I desperately had to take care of my own needs first.

For the next little while my hands were busy under the blankets, but after I was finished I finally pulled up the details on my new spell.

'Obedience (3): Active spell (cost: 15 mana/level). You can attempt to temporarily control the thoughts of another sentient being. If successful you can influence their thoughts, mood, emotions, decisions. Effects wear off when the spell ends. Casting range: touch. Maximum duration: 2days/level.'

I was impressed she had it all the way up to grade three, she really got a lot of mileage out of that thing. Fifteen mana per level was pricey to cast, but it made sense considering how powerful the spell was. I figured it couldn't cost that much casting on herself, I was positive she didn't even have sixty mana points. For that matter I wondered what it cost her casting it at the pillow. Were pillows level one? Or level zero?

Either way I was chuffed. Less than six hours after hitting level three I had that spell in my little arsenal, and it was at the same grade as my roomie who'd probably been using it for months.

I glanced at Evie again but she was completely out of it. Too bad about her pillow, but rest-day was coming up soon and she'd have to do laundry anyways.

Next I pulled up my status screen again, and a smile played over my lips. I was already twenty-five percent of the way to level four. The amount of experience I got from renewing my control over Evie seemed to drop each time we did it, but it was still a pretty solid chunk.

The big victory though, apart from having Evie in my pocket for another week, was getting my hands on Obedience. Now if Alice crossed me again I'd have another really big surprise for her.

With that in mind I finally settled down to get some sleep.

The next four or five days things actually passed fairly quietly. I didn't get any more trouble from Alice or her friends, but I could tell they were watching me.

And in my evenings with Evie, she let me know that her girls and other second-year students had started paying closer attention to me and Candi. Like the two of us were on their radar now. So was Alice, but only because she had the guts to attack us in the open outside the building in front of a few dozen other students.

So they were interested in Alice for her boldness, me for winning the fight, and Candi for being involved somehow.

That worried me a bit but Evie assured me I wasn't going to get any flack from second-year students because they all knew I 'belonged' to her, and third-years wouldn't bother because first-years were too far beneath them.

Meanwhile me and Candi continued spending a few hours together every afternoon after classes, plotting and comparing notes and stuff. I found out she'd been practicing Arrousal on her roommate, which came as no surprise whatsoever.

And I finally taught her the Control spell, though that was a lot more difficult since I still didn't have much experience with it. She finally got it, but it took a whole afternoon. And I had no doubt her roommate would soon be helping Candi get familiar with it.

I suggested, "If you're going to start practicing that, I have some advice. Some stuff Evelynn told me... I don't want to go into details but I think it might apply to the Control spell? Basically the key is not to let your subject know she's under a spell. Like what I did to Alice last week, that was the wrong way to do it. I had to go that route because of the situation?"

"Ok," Candi nodded. "So how would you use it without someone knowing they were being controlled?"

I thought a moment then suggested, "Cast it without being obvious, then instead of giving blatant orders and stuff, you could make it more like suggestions. Or questions. Be subtle. You can't just tell them not to remember they're under a spell, that only works till the spell wears off then they'd remember regardless. The idea is to convince them they're not under your control so when the spell wears off they're left believing they did what you wanted by their own choice."

She frowned for a few moments then got a slightly evil grin on her face, "I like it."

A moment later she added, "I wonder if I could do it when someone's asleep? Then wake them up for the duration of the spell, before letting them sleep again? Let them think it was all a dream?"

"Huh," I shrugged. "Might work? I've never had the opportunity to try it like that, the only person who sleeps around me is Evelynn and I'm not going to try Control on her."

Candice grimaced, "Yeah that wouldn't go down well. Still, you're lucky she's been so nice to you. Does she know you're sharing these tips and lessons with me?"

I shook my head, "Not yet. Maybe I'll tell her at some point, if I think it's safe."

"Ok good," Candi looked relieved. "I really don't want her coming after me. Or you."

"Agreed," I said with a grin.

In fact it was about a week and a half since Evelynn had anything new to teach me. I already knew all her spells that I could cast. She had a few more that required level four so I couldn't pick them up. Even if I could, I probably wouldn't be able to use Scrutinize since the more advanced spells required so much mana to cast. So she couldn't just sit around casting advanced spells while I watched.

And after nearly three weeks with her, I was positive my mana score was higher than hers already. Plus my species meant I recovered it twice as fast when I used it, so I could afford to use half my mana in the morning before class and have it all back again in the afternoon when classes were done.

That line of thought suddenly led me to a question.

"Hey Candi? Is it possible to snoop other people's stats? Like not system people but normal people?"

"Why?" she asked with a frown. "What's the point of that?"

I shrugged, "I was just thinking it'd be good knowing what we're going up against if we get into another fight. Like how much mana someone has available? Even if we couldn't get all their stats, just knowing if someone's got like the same mana, twice as much, or half as much, that might help us out so we'd know what kind of risk we'd face?"

Candice was still frowning, "My understanding is most magic fights aren't endurance battles. It's rarely a question of who runs out of mana first. They're usually decided almost instantly, or at least within the first couple seconds."

She added, "Unless you had two foes who were really evenly matched I guess."

"Fine," I rolled my eyes. "I'm just curious and want to snoop. Is there a way to do it?"

She got that distant look as she consulted her system. She'd told me how to do it but none of her commands worked for me, so I was stuck relying on her to access the archives and the resources and all that stuff.

After a minute or so she nodded "It's possible but it's an unlockable thing? There weren't any more details than that, so I don't know what level it unlocks or if it's a new Ability or whatever. So yeah you can do it but not yet."

I sighed, "Ok, thanks anyways."

She smiled, then changed the subject "So have you been up to anything with Alice? I've been targeting Hannah for the last five days, digging up dirt on her like I did for Brianna."

"Who's Brianna?" I frowned.

"My roommate," she laughed. "You need to pay more attention Abby, one of these days you'll miss something important!"

I blushed, but responded "Nah I haven't. I've been waiting for Alice to make the next move."

"What?" Candi looked surprised and worried. "What if her next move is something terrible? You're just sitting and waiting for her to pick a fight when she's ready?"

She gave me a look and narrowed her eyes, "I know you're level three Abby but you're still first-year and you've got less than three weeks experience. The rest of us have nearly two months now. It's not a good time to get overconfident and let your guard down."

"I guess," I shrugged. "I'm not letting my guard down, that's for sure. As for confidence... I don't know. I think I've done pretty well, all things considered. And maybe I'm a bit cocky but I just have a hard time seeing Alice as much of a threat."

Candi still had that look on her face. "That right there? That's over-confidence, and it's going to get you in trouble."

"Oh," I blushed. "Yeah you're right. Thanks Candi. I'll try and take Alice and her cronies a little more seriously."

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