“Lily, why are there naked pictures of you circulating in the Network?”

Yuriko stared at Scarlett for a long moment. Lilibeth’s friend had a stiff smile on her face while standing in front of her, hands on her hip. It was Goldsday midmorning, right before Walking for Fitness. The coach wasn’t here yet, and Yuriko had just arrived, but she saw Lilibeth’s friends clumped together next to a half wall. When she approached them, Scarlett confronted her.

“Naked pictures?” Yuriko asked innocently. “I’ve never allowed anyone to photograph me naked.”

Jenna flipped her phone over and showed Yuriko her screen, which had a reference photo of her in art class displayed prominently. It was the first pose which showed off her leg.

Yuriko pointed and said, “Blanket.”

Scarlett poked her finger at the screen and said, “Sideboob. Your entire leg. And! Your bikini line! You weren’t wearing anything under that, were you?” She had the grace to keep her exclamations soft, thankfully.

Yuriko nodded. “Nothing.”

“You!” Scarlett’s face turned the same shade as her name. She spluttered and coughed, but couldn’t seem to form any words.

“You look great!” Nora said in a loud voice. The larger woman pressed up against Yuriko’s side and poked her arm with a finger. “Since when have you started working out?” Nora asked incredulously. Her poke transitioned into a squeeze and she gasped. “Your muscles are as hard as steel! But your skin’s so soft!”

“Er…”

“Really?” Jenna gasped and skittered around Yuriko’s other side and mimicked Nora. “Oh wow, you’re right! Lily? Since when do you exercise?”

“Every morning,” Yuriko reflexively replied.

“Eh?” All three of her friends gasped.

“But you hate waking up early,” Scarlett said.

Yuriko gave the tiny woman a tilted look. But all of Lilibeth’s classes were in the morning.

“You have been complaining about it since the start of the semester!” Scarlett growled. “All because you needed your afternoons for your job.”

Yuriko chuckled awkwardly and looked away evasively. Scarlett slammed her palm next to Yuriko.

“Lily. Why did you let someone take pictures of you nearly naked? They’re all over Xixiao’s S board!”

“Xi..xiao?” Yuriko muttered. That sounded familiar?

Nora rolled her eyes. “It’s the Network image request board. But half of it is filled with stolen photos of hot, neked gurls.”

“Ah.”

“Ah, indeed. You’ve probably got a hundred thousand guys beating their meat looking at this part of you.” Nora chuckled as she pinched and spread her fingers to zoom in on the picture, magnifying it to a point where the blanket barely covered Yuriko’s sex.

“Still can’t see anything anyway.” Yuriko shrugged, “Besides, I don’t really mind.”

“You don’t?” Scarlett gasped incredulously. “Why not?”

Yuriko smiled but didn’t say what was on her mind. The image in the phone was just her body in a less than a halfway state. In a Season or so, she’d look quite a bit different from that, and she was sure anyone who looked wouldn’t believe that it was her. Hmmm, not that she really minded. She could feel numerous new threads, and all of them were oozing that green film.

In her true body, Yuriko settled into a meditative pose. After her conversation with her lovers, she decided to wait and consolidate her gains. The Fifth Phase wasn’t stable yet, but she was making good progress. Before all of that though, she intended to figure out what the weird greenish film littering her dreamscape space was.

She sent her mind into the dreamscape. As she’d noted before, the dream in this place was different from the one in the Chaos Sea. it was more…ordered? Less a mishmash of fog, Chaos , and desires, and more a reflection of the material plane. It still reflected the Threads of Fate though she wondered if the Fateweaver Loom could reach this far from Realmheart. Probably not, otherwise her family would have contacted her already.

While the base dreamscape was a reflection of reality, in which she was still seated atop a mattress, it would not show the threads surrounding her unless she… altered the way she looked at things. To see it, she would have to merge different layers of reality, and bring in a little bit of Chaos from its Pure realm. She did that through the medium of her Anima, which dipped in all layers of reality by its very nature and as a result of her refinement.

A blink, and she could see the near uncountable threads that surrounded her, and sought to touch her Anima. They each produced a minute amount of green, which seeped out and formed a film around the boundary of her Anima, nearly three hundred paces away. The film was thin, but tinted enough that anything she looked at beyond her reach was coloured slightly. It…oddly reminded her of that bowl of greenish liquid she was given in Kogasi. Ambrosia. No, not quite. It was fainter, weaker, and not quite right, but…could there be the possibility?

Ambrosia was a form of distilled Chaos refined and purified, then prepped to perch at the tip of a blade. It could fall any which way, and could become whatever its imbiber wanted it to be. But the more improbable, the more powerful one wanted it to be, the more it took, and the more power and focus it needed to actualise. This film wasn’t that. But perhaps, it could be?

Instinct had her reach for the film, a tiny part of it. It swirled just out of reach and rejected her touch. Frustrating. It was just there. Why won’t it come to her? It wouldn’t. It resisted, but then, if it had, her Anima would have consumed it already.

Her Anima. The film wanted to integrate into her Anima, but something was stopping it. As if there was a dam in the river, and she was so far downstream she couldn’t even see the shape of it. She could see the water, but it dribbled into the parched riverbed and every time she tried to get to it, the water played hide and seek. There must be more of the film for her to interact with it, or the far more likely requirement was that she needed to be stronger. Or rather, her Ennoia, her Colligia, must progress. A Colligia wasn’t enough, but perhaps the next step up would be enough.

With a sigh, Yuriko retreated from the dream and meditated on the Fifth Phase. She made links with each stance that would allow it to flow into the rest of the Four Phases, but was making little headway now. Wait. Modifying the Fifth’s stances won’t be enough! She had to do the same for the other four. With renewed vigour, she went about it, and before she knew it, it was already evening and Gwendith was pulling her for dinner.

In Astoria, the gym class progressed with the four girls walking next to each other. The route around the academic oval that surrounded Trinity University Park was nearly half a league around, and class had been going around it for most of the semester.

“I heard, for finals, we’ll be walking all the way to Neo Prism City,” Jenna said.

“Which part of it?” Scarlett grunted. The city was practically a metropolis as it connected five different cities together.

“Burmington, of course,” Jenna scoffed, “Right into Burmington Mall.” That was where Lilibeth’s job was.

“A couple of leagues walk isn’t bad,” Yuriko said, “What, it’ll take an hour?”

All three girls turned to stare at her. “Three hours.” Scarlett said.

“Oh.” Yuriko muttered, “Slow…”

Scarlett huffed. “Speaking of Burmington, it’s Goldsday today and the weekend tomorrow. We’re all single, how about we head over to Pegasus Stellar tonight!”

“I’ve got work,” Yuriko said reflexively.

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll pick you up after. You’re so bold now, let’s put it to good use!”

“Isn’t the cover charge for that club a hundred Torries a head?” Jenna protested.

“Not if we dressed well,” Scarlett said.

“You mean if we dress like streetwalkers,” Nora grunted. “And with my figure, that’ll be more grotesque than sexy.”

“Have some confidence, Nora!” Scarlett said. “All you need is some makeup magic and a body shaper!”

“Yeah, right!” Nora grumbled. She was roughly five Jins heavier than would be ideal for her height, but it wasn’t that bad, especially since Yuriko was more than a hundred Jins heavier than her height would suggest. That was her true body, though, Her current body was actually already heavier than Nora, but all of that was her dense musculature and bones. It was also neutralised by her Animakinesis, since unlike Dragon Fall City, her Anima could latch on to the underlying canvas of reality. Meaning she could fly here if she cared to.

The walk was leisurely to Yuriko, and mostly a waste of time. She didn’t want to restrict herself using her kinesis since she already trained today, and while she would still benefit, she wasn’t rushing her physique refinement in order to avoid suspicion. Already, she was nearly a couple of inches taller than the original Lilibeth, and she had a one and a half more inches to grow before she reached her true body’s height. It would take another week to finish that growth, though thankfully, Lilibeth was still within the age range where it was still possible to grow taller naturally.

Losing the light tan was a bit more problematic, or so she thought, but apparently, there were some skin care products that hastened whitening. By the same vein, there were actually products that increased the likelihood of tanning. She wanted to try it, but she was pretty sure it wouldn’t work. Not unless it painted her skin directly anyway.

“So, it’s settled, then! We’ll all go to Pegasus Stellar at nine,” Scarlett said.

Yuriko blinked and pointed to herself.

“Yes, you’re coming, too,” Scarlett insisted. “We’ll have dinner at the mall, then head over to the club. We’re going dancing!”

Jenna grinned. “Maybe get some action, too,” she giggled while wiggling her eyebrows.

Yuriko just shrugged. While she was still feeling backed up, she doubted a casual hook up in a club would satisfy her even in the short while. She looked at Lilibeth’s friends—though perhaps she should think of them as her friends now too. All three of them were pretty in their own way, but she was sure it wouldn’t be difficult for them to find partners.

Anyway, that’s how she found herself, nine hours later, in the mall’s food court while clad in a black, halter top dress that had a shorter hem than her school skirt. At least the thing was tight, so it wouldn’t fly up on its own. Nevertheless, she held it down, discreetly, with her Anima. She also had gladiator style sandals that had two inch high heels. She hadn’t worn footwear like that since she was thirteen, but it didn’t take much to adjust to it. The clothes and shoes had been forced on her by Scarlett, who took them on a shopping spree right after Yuriko’s shift. Her duffel bag with her uniform and casuals had been dumped in the smaller woman’s car.

The other three were dressed just as provocatively and Scarlett drove. The girls brought her to work so she didn’t have to worry about her scooter, and they hung out in the mall during her shift. They must have gone window shopping since it didn’t even take five minutes for them to drag her into the clothing store.

Pegasus Stellar was a relatively new club that just opened a cycle ago. Lilibeth’s memories told her that it had been hyped up in school, and many students had already gone there. She obviously hadn’t, but her experience, as Lilibeth and in her true body, going to taverns and pubs was rather sparse, so she was somewhat interested in the club now.

She somewhat regretted it when they actually arrived at the garishly lit place that had an image of a winged horse outlined in blindingly bright lights on the building’s wall. Scarlett and the others whooped as they parked in the open lot, and they made their way to the entrance. There was a long line outside, but most of them consisted of yo

ung men. Other girls entered through a different queue, and as soon as they got close, the guard waved them inside.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep