Natasha's New Ability

"Jing Yan, want to go hang out at the Fight Club?"

It was now the middle of the night. The celebration had just entered its next phase. Some people couldn't stay up any longer and went back to rest—or to enjoy a romantic night—while the night owls began the next round of festivities.

Jing Yan was walking with Natasha.

Suddenly, a voice sounded beside them.

Jing Yan glanced over. The speaker was Seele.

Her voice was brisk and decisive, just like her personality.

They had just passed a street, and beside it stood the famous Fight Club of the Underworld.

Because the Upper District and the Underworld had been separated before, people in the Underworld had relatively few ways to spend their leisure time. So they had come up with boxing.

There were no restrictions on age, gender, or race. Anyone could participate, whether human or some kind of mechanical creation.

The club was brightly lit. Its warm yellow lights were visible even from outside, and bursts of enthusiastic cheers and applause rang out from within.

Seele had been outside, looking at the sign beside the club: "Boulder Town Boxing Tournament."

She had happened to spot Jing Yan and called out to him.

But then she noticed Natasha beside him, and a look of surprise crossed her face.

"W-wait, is that Sister Natasha?"

"You..."

Seele looked at Natasha's evening gown in surprise. Then, as if she had realized something, she glanced at Jing Yan with a knowing look and quickly changed the subject. "Sorry, I didn't realize you had plans. Let's leave the boxing for another time."

Jing Yan smiled at that, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

He was quite pleased with Seele.

He had originally thought March 7th would be the one with the highest affection for him after Natasha.

He hadn't expected Seele's affection for him to have risen so much as well.

[Seele's affection increased by 7%. Current affection: 77%.]

Seele's 77% was still a little below March 7th's 80%, but among the people Jing Yan had met since resolving the Stellaron crisis, her affection had risen the most.

Since he could see other people's affection levels directly, Jing Yan knew that although Seele's words seemed much the same as before, the emotions behind them had changed somewhat.

Mm, Seele had potential too.

Jing Yan mused.

Seeing Jing Yan smile, Seele suddenly felt more awkward than ever before. She couldn't help scratching her head.

"Um, Jing Yan, if you still have time tonight and want to try your hand in the ring, getting some exercise wouldn't be a bad idea."

"Maybe next time," Jing Yan replied.

"Who's the current champion again?"

"Sampo," Seele answered.

"Mm. It's mainly that Old Man Oleg won't let me compete."

Seele waved a hand.

"But if you came, Jing Yan, I bet the old man wouldn't stop you. Haha."

"Then we'll see about next time," Jing Yan replied.

Beside him, Natasha smiled warmly at Seele.

After walking a little farther with Jing Yan, she turned to him and said, "Seele's a good girl too. She can be a little careless sometimes, but she works very hard. Whenever there's something she can do to help people, she never hesitates. She's always eager to take it on."

"And it seems she might have a thing for you too?" Natasha winked.

But Jing Yan interrupted her.

"Shh!"

"Let's not talk about anyone else tonight. Let's just enjoy ourselves."

Jing Yan smiled.

Natasha's eyes flickered at his words, their light seeming even brighter than before.

And so, beneath the warm yellow streetlights and the shadows between the buildings, they headed toward the clinic.

The night that followed was passionate, and they both grew.

At dawn, the crystalline Gem Lizard crawled along the metal pipe outside the clinic's lounge window, making a noise as it passed. Jing Yan and Natasha had just woken up.

Looking at the man before her, Natasha felt thoroughly satisfied.

Suddenly, Jing Yan seemed to sense something. With a look of surprise, he turned to the beauty beside him.

"Natasha, you really are a temptress."

"And a genius, too."

As the Aeon of Eros, Jing Yan found it wonderful to be intimate with Natasha, the only person whose affection he had raised to 90% so far—and someone he knew well. What was more, after she had gained the power of Eros, Jing Yan could also inspect the ability she awakened, gaining insight and feedback from it.

And he thought the Eros ability Natasha had awakened was excellent.

The Eros ability Natasha had awakened was [Intense Love].

[Description: When someone meets your gaze, their love for you will continue to increase for a short time. The effect is limited by time and measured by affection; they will agree to your requests!]

In a sense, this ability was a specialized form of Jing Yan's [Emotion Manipulation]. It was also a weakened version of [Verbal Domination], but it was still very useful.

Compared with using [Illusion Domain] to sever someone's perception from reality and then control them, [Intense Love] let a Pathstrider manipulate someone without speaking or using divine power to construct an illusion. With further development, it should even be possible to affect people nearby just by radiating a certain feeling, without needing to meet their eyes.

Although this was still very similar to Jing Yan's own [Emotion Manipulation], Natasha might even be better at it in this specialized field.

By the looks of it, she could easily become a qualified believer—or even an Emanator. Her power simply wasn't up to the required level yet, since she had only just embarked on this Path.

Besides, Natasha's original Path of The Abundance hadn't disappeared. The two Paths coexisted, and since they weren't mutually exclusive, they could even be combined. Jing Yan had already foreseen the ability that would result from their fusion.

She would probably be able to use the love within her to imbue other objects with healing properties.

That certainly made for a unique power.

So unique that even Jing Yan, an Aeon, didn't possess anything like it.

After all, he himself didn't have the power of The Abundance.

Although he had devoured the Stellaron's power of Destruction, he still had to convert that power into the power of Eros before he could use it.

An Aeon wouldn't easily accept the blessing of another Aeon's power. Natasha was different.

"Excellent."

At Jing Yan's praise, Natasha seemed to sense something herself.

"It feels like a new power and ability have appeared inside me?!"

Natasha was stunned.

"That's right. Exactly."