Time passed and the next day soon arrived.

In the classroom, Leon silently pulled out the book borrowed from the library from his bag. Before reading the book, his gaze turned to the cat-girl that sat in front of him.

Sylvia was in a completely brooding mood, her ears mopping to the side and tail lay lazily on the floor. The straightened back of the cat-girl had sloped and the enthusiasm of youth in her eyes had vanished.

The scene almost made him laugh.

Although Leon didn’t know the reason for the change in her attitude, the sudden disappearance of all enthusiasm in the cat-girl’s life made him want to giggle.

Simply put… the contrast in enthusiasm between yesterday and today was simply too big.

In accordance with the law of conservation of happiness, a bright smile appeared on Leon’s face seeing the sudden contrast.

After enjoying the gloomy suffering of the cat-girl in front of him for a good period of time, Leon returned to his book in a good mood.

The enthusiasm of the world seemed to return to his eyes.

Whilst he normally hated to find joy in the suffering of others, Leon would make an exception for the girl in front of him that scolded him for his good intentions.

Nodding to himself, Leon completely ignoring the class content and focused on the library book in front of him.

Time flied in the blink of an eye, as it usually does when enjoying yourself. Class ended as the bell rung, and Leon glanced at the mopping cat-girl before planning to leave.

“Leonardo, do you mind staying for a couple minutes?” The female teacher interrupted his plan, and he turned his gaze to the new teacher.

The teacher of his class was a beautiful woman of the tiger demi-human tribe, only approximately thirty years of age. Yellow wavy hair flowing to her shoulders and emerald, green eyes.

“Her name is Tanya, right?” Leon went through his memories and muttered to himself, barely managing to remembered the tiger demi-human teacher’s name.

Tanya, the teacher, wore a dark green jacket with formal white shirt that showcased her cleavage. Stripped tiger ears stood prominently above her head and a long thin stripped tiger tail.

She stood with an upright posture that attempted to emanate her authority as a teacher.

“Yes?” Leon didn’t care about the authority of the teacher position in the slightest.

After spending close to 40 years in this high school, Leon had basically lost his respect for the position of teacher. Leon understood that teachers were simply people that were doing a job.

Tanya was nothing more than a glorified babysitter in his eyes. A pretty version babysitter… but a babysitter all the same.

Although Leon would still listen to her instructions, there was not much respect for her.  

“Ahem-” Tanya seemed slightly embarrassed but nevertheless gestured to the cat-girl that was brooding in the corner and glancing toward Leon from the corner of her eyes, “I would like to introduce you to Sylvia… She… well, moved here from out of town and was directly placed into third grade.”

“What’s your point?” Leon stared at the teacher with a suspicious expression.

“She doesn’t yet have a solid grasp on the material taught in the school… and-” Tanya averted her gaze, knowing that it was an inappropriate request. “Well, I wanted to ask if you were willing to tutor her.”

“Sorry, I’m very busy.” Leon directly refused.

“Are you certain?” Tanya didn’t want to give up and pressed further, “We are willing to pay for your time. At least, 100$ per hour.”

“We…?” Leon stared at the teacher with a strange expression.

Under normal circumstances, shouldn’t it be the cat-girl’s parents who pay him? Using the term ‘we’ seems to indicate that it is either the school paying him, or the teacher herself.

Did this cat-girl have some big background?

Well, this optimistic cat-girl managed to get into this advanced magic school without a proper entrance test if her grades in a review test were so low.

The fact that the teacher was willing to pay a large price to hire an elf as tutor indicates there is something unusual about this manner. She should have a strong background... Otherwise, it really cannot be explained.

Weighing the pros and cons in his mind, Leon decided to accept the commission.

Although Leon didn’t really need money, having unregulated money that could be spent without his parents’ supervision was a nice bonus.

“Well, for the sake of my classmates, I’ll consider sparing a portion of my time to help fellow students.” Leon righteously responded with agreement with the generous cash offer.

“Thank you very much.” Tanya seemed relieved with my agreement, “…Sylvia, why don’t you introduce yourself.”

“Hello… My name is Sylvia Belfast.” Sylvia took a deep breath and sat upright, crossed her arms behind her back. Her tail began swaying behind her nervously and her cat-ears pointed away from him. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

…Belfast? Leon silently pondered the name and couldn’t think of any famous demi-human families… but he didn’t pay much attention to the subject.

“Nice to meet you, Sylvia.” Leon nodded at her attitude; she wasn’t as rude as yesterday. “My name is Leonardo. I apologize if yesterday I accidentally offended you. It was not my intention.”

“It’s fine.” Sylvia seemed relieved and quickly adjusted herself, “When do you wish to start tutoring?”

“Anytime, I’m basically always free… I have nothing to do anyway.” Leon didn’t have a habit of procrastination. “We can start now if you wish.”

Sylvia’s expression froze and her tail froze mid-sway, her cat-ears twitched in disbelief.

If she remembered correctly, mere moment ago his perfunctory excuse to the teacher was that he was too busy to tutor her. She never expected anyone to be so shameless as to contradict what they’d said mere moment ago.

“Alright, we can start tutoring now.” Sylvia decided to graciously ignore the contradiction.

“Good… Let’s go to the library.” Leon led the way to the school’s library and gestured for her to sit down at a corner table.

After leaving the teacher’s sight, Sylvia returned to a playful appearance.

Her eyes darting around the library for interesting sights and her body moving in an eye-catching rhythm, before finally settling down.

“So…” Leon glanced at the optimistic cat-girl that was stretching her body over the table and letting her body relax in a similarly revealing manner as before. “Where do you want to start?”

“Ah- Well, I’m not really certain.” Sylvia’s cat-ears averted from him, and she glanced up in his direction from the table. “Wherever you want.”

“…” Leon stared at the beautiful cat-girl that seemed completely clueless. “-Alright, let’s go over basic magic model theory.”

Leon had no idea what level Sylvia was at, so he decided to start from kindergarten. Anyway, he was getting paid by the hour.

“Good.” Sylvia had no objections and straightened her back to facilitate learning.

“Let’s start with the essence of magic.” Leon began from the extreme basics. “Magic is essentially using mental power to influence the environment. In the past, people learned to manipulate magic from imitating nature.”

“By imitating various animals and plants with the ability to cast spells, we learned how to create mana and cast magic. These initial spells could only be extremely basic spells, like the [spark] spell that is utilized to ignite dry objects.”

“Magic is an idealistic existence.”

“For simple spells like [spark], all that is necessary is the desire to ignite a flame. Whilst some people learned to create extremely powerful spells through instinct and could advance to the tier 2 or higher through sheer talent, most mages were extremely weak due to the lack of inheritance of spells.”

“After a long period of instinctive inheritance, some people attempted to standardize the basic forms of magic into runes and combine them to create magic models for more advanced spells. This sparked a revolution and created standardize runes made magic easily reproducible and could be learned by anyone that understood the runes underlying them. This allowed tier 1 magicians to acquire significant combat effectiveness.”

“By endowing specific runes with ideas like [spark], [heat], [fly], [explosion], and [delay], we can combine and merge them to let different people consistently replicate spells such as [fireball] and this provides the foundation for more advanced magic system to exist. This meant that mages no longer needed to spend their entire lives to learn create a powerful spell exclusive to themselves and could begin to learn from each other.”

“Although a [fireball] can be created directly through magic without runes, if you do not utilize runes to create magic, you have to completely relearn everything when learning other magical spells."

“Whilst some geniuses can rely on instinct to cast spells, it cannot be reproduced or taught to others."

"From the standpoint of civilization, the modern magic system is necessary for inheritance to continue to be passed down. As such, modern mages almost exclusively rely on runes and spell models to improve their capabilities of casting spells.”

“Runes themselves are inherently worthless, and their value is entirely based on the cognition of mages. Therefore, if you don’t have a complete understanding of all runes in a spell, any related spell model is completely worthless.”

“Understood?” Leon ended the initial part of the lecture staring at the expression of the young cat-girl.

Sylvia nodded in acknowledgement of his words, her cat-ears followed him in extreme focus and her tail swaying happily behind her.

“Good, I’m presuming that you already know the basic standard runes?” Leon asked to confirm.

Considering this was elementary school knowledge, Leon only asked as a formality.

“Most of them.” Sylvia nodded happily with an answer that almost made him question life.

“… Most?” Leon couldn’t help but repeat wandering if he heard wrongly, and asked with a hint of disbelief. “Are you certain?”

In equivalent terms on the Earth, Leon had essentially asked if someone understood how to count or knew the letters of the alphabet… and Sylvia replied that she mostly understood it.

Mostly understood meant that there were parts that Sylvia didn’t completely understand.

The normal response is a sarcastic reply that stated that meant they definitely understood it.

“Yes.” Sylvia seemed proud and straightened her back further.  

“… Good.” Leon did not comment negatively or react in any disbelieving manner… such behavior would only discourage the cat-girl from learning attitude and be counterproductive.

The pride in Sylvia’s eyes could not be hidden, and made Leon understand why Tanya had thrown this problem child to him.

Leon had been wondering why the tigress of a teacher paid him to teach this optimistic cat-girl instead of tutoring herself.

Now, Leon was no longer surprised in the slightest.

This was no longer about a matter of missing a bit of knowledge, but that this cat-girl needed to fundamentally re-learn everything that was taught in school from elementary to high school. If he was the teacher, Leon would have also thrown this problem child onto someone else.

“Let’s start with reviewing basic standard runes, as I need to know your current level.” Leon was not impatient in the slightest, he decided to think of this as a comprehensive review to strengthen his foundations by teaching others.

Anyways, every couple of years, Leon did a similar review to ensure that there was nothing he had forgotten or missed regarding his foundation in magic. Although, normally, he went over the information by himself.

Leon was fully aware of the importance of a strong foundation, and it was partially the reason that he progressed so quickly.

Searching through the library for a few relevant books, Leon began to teach the basic runes that are used as the foundations of magic with interactive exercises and tell famous stories to assist in understand the material and ensure the interest of the cat-girl.

Judging by his interaction with the cat-girl, the statement that by the dunce of a cat-girl of knowing most of the basic runes was indeed correct.

Sylvia knew about 60% of them…

Considering that knowing every basic standard rune was the most basic requirement for most elementary school questions, Leon knew that he had his work cut-out for him.

The only good news was that despite her extremely poor foundation in magic, the dunce of a cat-girl retained the child-like enthusiasm for learning magic that was normally only seen in young children. Leon’s main job as a tutor was to maintain that enthusiasm.

Once this idiotic cat-girl lost her interest in learning, the difficulty of teaching would increase exponentially. If that happened, Leon could only give up this tutoring job. Leon did anything and everything that he could think of to ensure the idiotic cat-girl retained her current interest in learning.

Using illusion magic whilst telling stories regarding specific runes and their creation, both truthful and made-up, to assist in memorization.

Interactive games with illusion magic with questions about the taught standard rune to ensure that she understood the material.

Playful celebration music with fireworks using when correctly answering questions.

Leon did not have any materials prepared, but extra material were superfluous as an elven magician with a solid foundation. He could easily make do by casting various illusions for everything.

Although his illusion spells were not perfect, Leon was proficient enough to create simple games and sounds to assist in teaching… And this was not a formal occasion. It only needed to be good enough to encourage Sylvia to pay attention.

While learning through these types of methods was slower and required more extensive knowledge to implement, they enhanced the memory retention of the material and ensured interest.

If Sylvia stopped or delayed tutoring due to lack of interest, progress would not be slow, but stop completely.

“It’s been a couple hours, let’s continue this tomorrow with practical training.” Leon felt slightly exhausted from utilizing illusion magic and coming up with various ideas in the progress and he decided to end the lesson.

“Understood!” Sylvia stretched her body in place and lifted her arms into the air. Her cat-like tail continually flicking behind her in a manner that lifted her skirt.

After teaching for a couple of hours, Leon felt that this optimistic cat-girl receiving 8 entire points on the review test at the start of the year was already a miracle.

-But Sylvia was not an idiot, in fact, she was quite intelligent.

After playing a few games and listening to a few stories about the runes that the cat-girl previously did not understand, Sylvia quickly memorized the previously unknown runes and could flexibly understand their related meaning.

In other words, the cat-girl that simply had not been taught material related to magic in the past.

Leon had no clue as to why someone that had obviously never been exposed to the mage occupation from a young age suddenly decided to be a learn magic in the third year of high school of a magic academy.

“So…” Leon stared the cat-ears that twitched with some regular interval on the girl’s head, “If you do not mind me asking, why did you suddenly transfer to a mage school?”

“Isn’t it because magic is extremely cool!” Sylvia jumped up from the desk and sparkles appeared in her eyes, she grasped Leon’s hand and leaned toward him. “Your illusion magic is extremely cool! How did you manage to make it release sounds and those cool fireworks? Teach me!”

Feeling of the cat-girls soft hands wrapped around his hand and the sweet fragrance of a woman invading his personal space. Sylvia leaning toward him allowing the observation of a good portion of her cleavage from the school uniform on her body.

Her sparkling eyes and beautiful appearance caused momentary heartbeat.  

“That…” Leon couldn’t think properly and tried to pull his hand away to calm down, but the cat-girl was stronger than anticipated and seemed reluctant to release him.

“Please.” Sylvia leaned closer to him.

The beautiful face of the cat-girl leaned extremely close to his own. Her breast almost pressing against into his chest. A strong feminine scent strongly released into his nostrils and caused him to feel slightly dizzy.

Her fluffy cute cat-ears swaying above her head.

Whether it was in this life, or his previous one, Leon always loved kemonomimi on people.

-But he simply ignored these desires and avoiding interacting with others due to shyness and the shorter lifespan of other species. He didn’t want to deal with the emotional baggage that comes with death of friends or loved ones.

The sudden enthusiasm of a beautiful girl and his lack of experience dealing with woman hindered his escape attempting.

“Yes- yes…” Leon was willing to say anything to escape from the situation, so he could only agree to get the cat-girl to back off.

“Thanks.” Sylvia’s eyes lit up with further excitement, her arms quickly moved to wrap around him and pulled Leon into a deep hug.

The feminine fragrance that caused his mind to go dizzy further distracted his mind as the softness of two squishy balls pressed against this chest, and soft fluffy ears tickled his face and chin.

Leon didn’t hate the feeling, but it made him extremely embarrassed as his body began to react to the presence of a woman.

The warmth of the cat-girl’s body pressing against him.

The soft arms wrapped around his backside pressed the two of them together.

Although Leon was an elf with reduced physiological desires, animalistic desire began to surface in his heart.

“Ahem-” Leon swiftly pushed the cat-girl away, hopefully to escape before she could discover his abnormality and Sylvia reluctantly released him.

Sylvia had a slight blush on her face, and averted her gaze whilst her cat-ears tilted to the side. Her tail swayed hypnotically behind her and flapped her skirt, drawing his attention to it.

“What did you want to learn about? Illusions?” Leon gulped and quickly glanced away. Soon hiding his abnormality by sitting down at the table.

“Ah, yes…” Sylvia breathed deeply through her nose. Instead of hiding away, boldly moving to his side. Sitting almost directly beside him.

“Uh-” Leon awkwardly found that the location of Sylvia was close enough that her fragrant scent occasionally trickled into his nose.

The cat-girl leaned forward slightly whilst sitting sideways on the chair, so that she could listen more carefully to him.

Her beautiful body was extremely close to him, and the animalistic instincts of his body caused his eyes to follow her every curve.

Sylvia’s skirt barely covered her thighs, and the school uniform exhibited her eye-catching body and fully displayed medium-sized breasts. The tail behind her body adjusting the position of her skirt, causing fabric to ripple and draw his attention to it with subtle movements.

Leon had consciously become aware that of Sylvia’s status as a woman, instead of simply treated her indifferently as a student to be tutored.

“Illusion magic-” Leon gulped slightly and tried to focus on the topic at hand. Glancing away from the beautiful cat-girl in front of him and taking a deep breath to calm himself down, Leon swiftly began his lecture.

“Illusion magic is a broad category of magic that is poorly defined, but it is usually subdivided into two categories.”

“Mental illusions and physical illusions.”

“The spells that are categorized as mental illusions attempt to directly influence the mind of a specific targets and no one beside the targets can see the specific illusion.”

“Mental illusions are an extremely complex topic that I won’t go into at the moment.”

“What you are interested in is physical illusions, or spells that rely on emitting light and sound to provide the illusion that an object actually exists.”

“For example, using a [light] spell to create the appearance of fireworks.”

Leon stopped talking and began to cast the [light] spell.

Demonstrated the process of casting physical illusion by creating a mini firework that shot up into the air from the palm of his hand.

The silent firework exploded into countless mini-fireworks of various beautiful colors and scattered throughout the library.

Sylvia’s eyes shone brightly like stars and darted around to follow the fireworks exploding throughout the room. 

“These type of illusion spells are essential more a test of mana control and imagination, than magical knowledge itself… so there is a higher demand for talent and practice than standard spells.” Leon added with a slight sense of guilt as this topic was slightly divergent from the study of normal spells.

“My method of using illusion magic is a typical example of instinctive magic.”

“The essence of this simplified illusion magic that is used for this demonstration is a [light] or a [sound] type spell carefully manipulated into various shapes with imagination and mana control.”

“As such, this type of illusion cannot be learned by simply studying runes. The [light] spell is usually demonstrated as a ball of white light, and typically is exclusively utilized in that format. My [light] is an abnormal to be shaped into illusion magic due my constant utilization of the spell to practice of mana manipulation and improving the flexibility of my magic.”

“So, I personally do not recommend studying illusion spells with my method at your current academic level.”

“My method of illusion creation can be called a toy at most... It is a form of instinctive magic that mages used before the invention of the rune system to provide distinctive feature to lower-level spells. It only because I’m an elf with unlimited time on my hands that I’m so proficient.”

“People usually only study serious illusion magic at college.”

“You are just getting started on learning magic, this type of instinctive spell is just a toy that will distract you from learning more useful magic.”

“This type of instinctively created illusion magic at the moment is unlikely to provide you with any practical benefits… Of course, if you are truly interested in the topic, I don’t mind teaching you. It’s extremely simple to get started on illusion magic and you can simply practice on your own.” Leon stated without concealing any information.

“Then please, teach me!” Sylvia moved closer to the edge of her chair and leaning further forward in his direction from excitement.

The cat-girl’s sweet fragrant feminine scent filled his nostrils, dizzying his mind. The cute expression of the girl causing him to lose his train of thought.

Sylvia’s beautiful medium-sized breasts slightly bounced, whilst leaned forward showcasing her white cleavage and her legs rubbed together in a seductive manner. White panties could be faintly seen beneath the skirt.

Every movement the cat-girl made further distracted Leon from the topic of teaching. Leon had become hyperaware of every subtle movement of the cat-girl in front of him.

Every subtle cat-ear twitch to the swaying of her tail that constantly adjusted her skirt’s location fell into his eyes.

“Not here.” Leon quickly scooted away the chair and turned around to avoid further hyper-observation due to his animalistic desires, trying to calm himself. “The library is not a place to practice spells. If an accident happened, we would get in trouble…”

“Okay!” Sylvia agreed with the logic and playfully jumped up out of the chair.

Leon put away the books and walked toward the exit to head toward a magic practice location, when two soft bouncy objects suddenly squished his upper right arm.

Soft hands wrapped his upper right arm and Sylvia proceeded to further push her body against him before he could react. The soft and warm sensation from her breasts and the sudden grasp on his right arm nearly caused Leon to nearly trip over.

“What are you doing?” Leon loosely tried to free his arm from her two soft objects, but the cat-girl kept a firm grasp.

The escape attempt merely resulted in his arm experiencing the gully of Sylvia’s soft rabbits.

“Treat it as a reward for teaching me.” Sylvia tightened her grasp on his arm without missing a beat.

The soft sensation increased, and the warmth of her body could be felt down his entire arm as Sylvia further pressed his arm into the depth of her breasts and the soft skin at the top of his arm connected to her cleavage.

“There’s no need.” Leon half-heartedly tried to wiggle his way into escaping.

“Your opinion is not relevant in this matter.” Sylvia ignored his protests and kept her arms wrapped tightly around him.

“This is more of a punishment than a reward.” Leon argued and stopped moving due to the tactile sensations that resulted from failed escaping movement. Glaring at the playful cat-girl with the fiercest expression he could muster.

“Then…” Sylvia’s leaned forward, her face mere centimeters away from his own face. Letting her soft rabbits press against his chest. A playful mischievous smirk appeared on Sylvia’s face. “Treat it as punishment for your impure thoughts…”

“Nonsense, I’m an elf, how could I have any impure thoughts?” Leon averted his gaze away from the close face of the cat-girl and felt the soft, squishy sensation of breasts on his chest.

“Do you think that a cat demi-human’s nose is a decoration?” Sylvia giggled and her cat-like tail playfully brushed against the back of his legs. “I can literally smell your impure thoughts.”

Embarrassment surfaced on Leon’s face.

Sylvia’s soft and strong grasp prevented him escaping.

The soft feeling of her breasts against his chest and pressing against his upper arm.

A sweet fragrance tickling the nose and teasing the senses, alongside the occasional brushing of her tail against his legs.

All of these sensations caused his body to react to the beautiful girl in front of him. Even if he managed to visibly hide it, his physiological reaction was extremely obvious in front of a catkin with strong sense of smell.

Leon could hear his heart beating rapidly from the stimulation.

“Then you still don’t let go!” Leon angrily responded to the cat-girl, and tried to peel her off.

“A handsome, smart, shy elf boy is aroused by me.” Sylvia ignored his resistance and continuously held onto his arm. “Isn’t that the best praise for my attractiveness? It’s an ideal situation, why should I let him escape?”

“Didn’t your parents teach you to stay away from adolescent boys?” Leon tried to pull open the arms of the cat-girl with his free hand and escape from her grasp, but she simply ignored his attempts.

“Quite the opposite, for cute boys that I like…” Sylvia giggled and flicked her tail in a playful manner behind her, “My parents always taught me to get on the bus first and making up for the ticket later.”

“What…” Leon was momentarily confused, before realizing that Sylvia implied directly sleeping together then improving the relationship later.

“How about it?” Sylvia leaned forward and softly whispered into his ear. “Want to head over to my place and have fun?”

Her soft breath flowing onto his ears released a subtle scent, tempting him with an arousing offer. The sensation of her chest pressing against him whilst she leaned forward further distracted him.

The sweet fragrance of her body flooded his nostrils and her arousing words resonated throughout his mind; the cat-girl’s tempting offer made Leon momentarily dazed.

“Will you stop teasing me!” Leon directly forced away the cat-girl, ignoring the sensitive parts of her body that he needed to touch forcefully to escape.

“Shame…” Sylvia blushed and reluctantly released him. “I thought I’d finally lose my first time.”

“Please be act more maturely.” Leon shook his head, and internally decided to keep a good distance from this cat-girl in the future.  

Personality, romantic timing, and a desire for lifetime devotion were his criteria for a mate.

Whilst Leon didn’t particularly hate this optimistic cat-girl.

-But he had no desire to fall in love with anyone of another race besides an elf.

It was impossible for the optimistic cat-girl to remain with him for a lifetime… getting entangled would only lead to future tragedy and sadness for himself.

Time was the greatest blessing and worst curse of elves.

Maybe… Sylvia be willing and able to spend the rest of her entire life with him. Leon could completely understand her perspective on the matter, there were many advantages to finding an elf as a partner for short-lived races.

…but Leon definitely couldn’t spend the rest of his life with her.

Love that lasts for a lifetime is not the same from the perspective of an elf.

-When the optimistic cat-girl grew old in twenty to thirty years and withered, Leon would be exactly the same.

Maybe Leon’s love for her would grow to the point that he could accepted her withered body… but, eventually, her withered body would die.

Then, all the love he felt for cat-girl would turn into emptiness.

He would be left standing at her funeral…    

Alone.

From an elven perspective, immortality isn’t living forever. At least, that not what immortality feels like…

Immortality is everyone around you dying.

“Tsk-” Sylvia clicked her tongue and crossed her arms, leaning toward him. “I think you’re the one that needs to act more mature.”

Ignoring the snowy peaks that were exposed to his gaze, Leon backed away and stated. “Today’s tutoring session is over. If you are interest in illusion magic, I recommend you started with this book.”

Leon removed a book from a nearby shelf in the library about the light-spell.

Sylvia frowned in momentary distress about the loss of the practical magic tutoring session, but finally didn’t refuse. “…Okay, directly after tomorrow’s class is finished.”

“Good.” Leon directly agreed and left the library with sadness in his heart.