§ I’m confident that Áne sensed nothing before I appeared. One moment, she lay curled up on a patch of clover, safe and alone within her tower. The next moment she was panicking and attempting to flee the intruder whom she surely never imagined would suddenly gather from the mana in front of her. Her reflexes were good. Rather than …

§ I’ve described Fan Li’s original blood magic, [Blood Effigy], as a replacement for the spiritual proxies of the Elders, but her own paper effigy technique from Huajie, that she based the magic upon, differs from spiritual arts in one very profound way. Proxies like Kanon are distinctly separate entities, intended to survive independently until they expire or return to …

§ The two fairies led me to a small camp in a clearin’, containin’ a jumble of equipment, a couple tents and three more people. The group had already settled in, to the point of draggin’ in logs for seats around a fire pit safely lined with rocks. As I arrived, I became aware of a nagging sensation. I recognized …

§ My inner struggle not to burst out laughing, the entire time Rod was confronting Sirth, nearly ended in failure. Somehow I held it, but it wasn’t easy. Since I was still somewhat pissed at him in the end, my humor was probably schadenfreude to some extent. But it was also simple Fae merriment at a trick well-played on my …

§ As soon as I finished introducing myself, His Royal Highness jumped up, and his quick movement forward and sideways put himself betwixt me (my effigy) and the princess (our main body) as he drew his sword. From that, we both knew he wasn’t payin’ a lick of attention to her when she told him to stop tryin’ to protect …

§ Alright, I’m not going to pretend that Rod’s reasons were any kind of a surprise. No, they were exactly the reasons I expected them to be. That being said, despite the fact that Sirth was in the back of my mind, advising me to agree with him, I wasn’t about to just take this lying down. It did help …

§ As soon as she heard it, the Princess jumped to her feet and charged the door. Genette was handling some matters, so an ordinary maid was on standby there. Her panic was plain in her eyes as the Princess marched her direction. – Ease yer mainsheets, woman! Where you goin’ in such a hurry? As she charged out the …

§ The Princess made a tactical error upon wakin’. She didn’t notice that the goddess shut down her spiritual vessel and me along with it when she put her to sleep. Maybe ’cause she didn’t need it in that Illusory Reality dream thing, she didn’t think about it. Not sure. But she was distracted by her own embarrassment and the …

§ The awkwardness was almost overwhelming after my companions woke. I had already slipped out of Mireia’s hug and into my yukata before that, but with none of their items in reach, the other two needed me to retrieve their clothing for them. We all kept our backs to each other while they put things on, without anyone saying a …

§ So, Volume 9 is complete at an already long fifty six chapters. Once again, I am your author, Eric Fretheim, online as Fushigi on this site and on Discord, and as /u/ericthefred on reddit.  If you are a free chapters reader popping in to read this when you haven’t unlocked the preceding chapters yet, please go away and come …