As she took in a deep breath, a faint smile couldn't help but appear on the face of Beatrice, who was currently reading a spell book.
At the current moment, Beatrice actually did not have many things to do, as she had delayed practicing her control of the soul up until she became an Official Mage.
Because of this, Beatrice now began attempting to master a certain Rank 1 spell, which would be of great help to her.
"This doesn't seem to be too difficult," mumbled Beatrice as she stared at the several page wide spell diagrams.
Perhaps it was the fact that Beatrice's spiritual power was so high, but she was quickly able to understand the spell diagram of this spell, which gave her a lot of confidence.
Sadly, though, this confidence would soon be shattered.
...
Two weeks later,
As she stared at the spell diagram sitting in front of her, as well as at the two men who were currently tied to a table, Beatrice desperately resisted the desire to rip her hair out.
A moment later, after taking in a deep breath and calming herself down, Beatrice stretched out her hand towards one of the men.
At the moment, one of the two men was bleeding out whilst the other seemed to be perfectly fine, causing Beatrice to stretch out her hand towards the man who was healthy.
"Dark Siphoning," mumbled Beatrice as a wave of dark mana spread towards the man.
After that, as Beatrice closed her eyes, five seconds passed in silence.
Without any warning, Beatrice suddenly opened her eyes before kicking the metal table, causing it, as well as the two men tied to it, to be sent flying into a wall.
After being smashed into a wall, the metal table nearly fell apart, whilst the two fragile human beings that were tied to it suffered an even worse fate.
It took Beatrice a few more seconds to finally calm down and return to normal.
"It looks like I seriously underestimated the difficulty of Rank 1 spells thanks to the success I had with the Dark Arrow and Dark Manipulation spells," mumbled Beatrice she waved her hand, causing the metal table to fall to the ground once again, revealing a wall that had been dirtied by meat paste.
Even though it might have seemed as though it was extremely easy for Beatrice to master those two Rank 1 spells, both of them had some special circumstances.
As far as Beatrice was aware, the Dark Arrow Spell was considered one of the easiest Rank 1 spells to learn, this allowed Beatrice, who was much more powerful and skilled than normal Mage Apprentices to learn it.
At the same time, the Dark Manipulation Spell truly depended on the user's Spiritual Power, which gave Beatrice an extreme advantage in learning it, which she had made use of.
But beyond that, Beatrice had not yet attempted to learn any other Rank 1 spells, which had made her underestimate the True Difficulty of learning them.
After around thirty more seconds, Beatrice had returned to her normal self and had begun thinking.
"It's only been two weeks, and I've already made some progress, If I practice some more, I should be able to master this spell," mumbled Beatrice as she touched her chin.
Even though Beatrice's progress was extremely slow, it was still progressed, and based on Beatrice's estimates, it will take her at most three months to master this spell.
Right now, Beatrice was debating whether it was worth it to waste three months mastering a single spell when she could do it much faster after becoming an Official Mage.
At first, Beatrice was quite hesitant to abandon this direction right now, after spending over two weeks on it, but after thinking for a while, she finally made a decision.
"If I continue like this right now, I will just be wasting more effort, I should just cut my losses," mumbled Beatrice as around fifty ants began cleaning the meat paste on the wall.
After thinking about this, Beatrice then walked out of the room.
...
The first thing that Beatrice did after abandoning this task of hers was to go back to her room and lay down onto her bed.
As she had been extremely focused on learning that spell, Beatrice had not truly had a good rest in these past two weeks.
Back when she was focused, Beatrice could easily ignore this exhaustion, but right now, that exhaustion finally caught up to her.
A few moments after lying down onto her bed, Beatrice then dozed off.
At first, Beatrice seemed to have fallen asleep normally, but four hours later, when Guinevere walked into the room and noticed the fact that her mistress was still asleep, a somewhat confused look appeared on her face.
'It looks like mistress was tired,' thought Guinevere as she silently walked out of the room.
...
Twelve hours later,
As she looked at her mistress, who now had a cocoon growing around her, Guinevere couldn't help but tilt her head to the side.
Under Guinevere's incredulous eyes, in just a few minutes, a cocoon had enveloped Beatrice, who was now holding her knees up to her chest.
...
As she slowly but surely opened her eyes and stared at the surrounding darkness, a faint frown appeared on Beatrice's face.
"How long have I been asleep?" mumbled Beatrice as she stretched her hand behind herself and uncharacteristically scratched her back.
Right now, Beatrice did not seem to be in her best state in the slightest, as for some odd reason, she did not seem to care about the fact that she was in a completely unknown location.
A moment later, Beatrice couldn't help but scratch her back once again, as an annoyed look appeared on her face.
As she stared at her hand, which now had skin, flesh and blood from her back on it, a faint smile appeared on Beatrice's face.
A moment later, Beatrice felt her face slightly itch, causing her to suddenly scratch off her entire cheek, revealing the insides of her mouth.
But for some reason, even as this happened, Beatrice did not seem to feel any pain, as her removed flesh then began growing again.
This cycle then continued again and again.
For an unknown amount of time, Beatrice continued ripping off her skin, flesh, and even organs, including her lungs, heart, and even her brain.
But even as Beatrice ripped out her own brain, she still seemed to feel no pain, as the brain then grew back.
Eventually, though, Beatrice began feeling this itch more and more rarely, causing her to rip out her flesh less and less.
And after what seemed like an eternity, the itching finally stopped in its entirety.
Without any warning, Beatrice suddenly gritted her teeth as she bent forward, her eyes becoming bloodshot.
Before Beatrice had even realized it, an extreme amount of pain had erupted from her upper back, causing her to suddenly collapse.
...
Without any warning, a smooth hand suddenly smashed out of the cocoon under Guinevere's surprised eyes.
A moment later, the cocoon was smashed apart, revealing Beatrice, who now had a set of black and white wings emerging from her back.
The moment Beatrice emerged from the cocoon, Guinevere suddenly froze, as a deeply hidden primordial terror emerged from within her.