The Spider Queen

Perhaps this failure by itself would not have affected Sophie so greatly under ordinary circumstances, but one had to remember that she spent the entire morning getting mercilessly beaten down by her father.

She could not help the tears of frustration from dripping slowly down her face as she wanted to throw punches into the air and scream.

Complain! Complain! Where is that damned god of transmigration… she was ready to fight him to death.

The gold finger? The unmatched cultivation talent? The beauty that would swoon in her arms?

None seemed to be in sight!

(Planet Gaia – Imperial Complex – Side palace #503)

"Achoo!"

"Should we send for a doctor my princess?" a maid hesitantly asked the veiled girl lounging casually in hammock.

"No need… maybe someone is thinking of me?" a melodious voice wrapped itself around the maid's ears and caused her to blush furiously.

The mysterious young lady smiled softly, and her enchanting eyes formed two crescents which would leave anyone starstruck.

(Main Story)

Jack could tell that his young protégé was feeling rather downtrodden, so he instantly searched up on his tablet 'How to encourage students after failure'.

His high cultivation level came in good use as his enhanced memory could swiftly scan through data and perfectly remember the information even if he had only read it once.

There was a lovely article on a preschool website which Jack thought fit the situation very well, so he began speech quickly,

"My pupil… failures do not define a true hero! Make your mommy and daddy proud and grow up to be powerful and strong cultivating who are the proud defenders of humanity...."

He finished the entire wall of text after five minutes and gazed at Sophie with an expectant expression with a puffed-out chest of pride in his skills as a mentor.

But Sophie was simply confused over why on earth her teacher talking to her as if she were a young child. Just as she was racking her brain to think of a reply, a loud knocking noise was heard from the door and Katarina entered with a cheerful expression.

"Alright… you had your fun Jack! It is my turn to teach the young miss"

She quickly grabbed Sophie's hand with a firm grip and marched out of the holodeck while moving at a brisk pace. Sophie did manage to turn around and give a small wave towards Jack who grinned and awkwardly tried to mimic the gesture.

Jack's role on the death guard team was mainly cypher infiltration and data analysis which were extremely impressive, but he unfortunately also suffered from a severe lack of social skills.

Sophie followed Katarina through a winding path of staircases and corridors until they arrived at the next training room. When Sophie entered, she immediately was struck with how normal everything was.

The room was small not unlike those at an inn and just contained a single bed along with a small chair at the back. The bed had a mechanical base, but the mattress reminded Sophie of her high-quality bed at the royal academy.

"Are you tired milady? Don't worry our first couple of sessions just require you to relax and lay down on this bed," Katarina smiled gently at her.

Sophie could not escape the nagging feeling that something was not quite right but followed the instructions and peacefully sat down.

The mattress was soft and comfortable with a strange material filling the inside that molded perfectly into her body shape. She could not help a soft moan in satisfaction escaping her mouth after experiencing this level of rest.

When she first heard from her father that she would be learning the Art of Poison from Katarina, there were certain thoughts running through her mind. Poison arts were not respected in the martial world and many competitions banned their usage in official fights.

Oddly enough, the evaluation for the four great universities placed no such restrictions and cultivators could fight with whatever technique that they trained in.

These were killing arts and her father emphasised strongly that they should only be used in life or death situations.

Sophie was not completely sure of how she would react in a fight to the death. It was completely normal to the people of this era, but Sui Meng had come from a more peaceful time and had not even gotten into a fist fight much less kill another human being.

But this would be a bridge that she would be forced to cross eventually….

A small flicker of sadness crossed her face as she realised that it was unlikely that she would ever see her friends and family on Earth ever again. She shook her head slightly to get rid of these unnecessary thoughts and just focussed on relaxing like her teacher said.

This was the best training session of the day!

Sophie could feel her aching muscles beginning to cool down and even started to feel slightly sleepy but out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the gaze that Katarina had towards her….

Why was she staring at her with an excited expression?

[Subject has been placed on the restraining bed------- Activating binds] a mechanical voiced sounded out from underneath the mattress.

Suddenly four mechanical ropes emerged from slits on the side of the bed and wrapped tightly around Sophie. She thrashed frantically but found that her strength was too little to break out of these binds.

"Katarina what the hell is happening?!" Sophie yelled in shock. She just saw her loyal bodyguard give a sorrowful smile and place a silvery briefcase on the ground.

"Do you know what the first step of learning the Art of Poison is?" the wicked woman demanded.

Sophie shook her head in utter confusion and Katarina stared at her with a dark glint of pleasure surfacing across her face.

"The first step….is building up your poison immunity!" Katarina continued.

She nonchalantly opened up the case to reveal ten vials containing unknown liquids of various colours. Sophie was unsure of the contents of the liquid, but her instincts kept telling her to get away as soon as possible.

There was also a single syringe gun which Katarina loaded with a purplish liquid and approached her young miss in a threatening manner.

Sophie was now thoroughly freaked out and began to struggle against the binds that held her body. The needle of the syringe was glistening sharply in the light of the room and the Sophie's arm shivered slightly at the mere thought of the injection.

"Katarina…. what are you doing with that needle," Sophie nervously asked.

"Don't you dare bring that thing any closer!"

"Please!"

(A few moments later)

"Forgive me milady, this is for your own good."

Stab!

A loud scream of pain echoed though the corridors of the mansion which was then followed by an overwhelming number of curses and inappropriate language.