“Oh! Don’t the two of you look just so cute!” Rosalyn exclaimed as she gazed at Van and Luna in their new school uniforms. The school uniforms that were ordered for them had just finished, and Rosalyn wanted to be the first that saw them in it.

Van was wearing the same uniform that he saw Seral wear when he met him. Black pants, with a dark shirt, and a black and red blazer of sorts with some gold mixed in for good measure and to break up the pattern and give it some accents.

Luna’s uniform was actually quite unique compared to his.

She also had a dark shirt and blazer on top, one that was doing its best to contain her impressive chest. But on her waist was a short skirt, striped in red and black, tiered and frilly. But what stood out was the dark stocking she wore that went all the way up to her waist.

Luna was picking at said stocking with a look of annoyance. “Why do I have to wear this? I feel so… constrained…” as she lifted her skirt, looking at her front and back at how her privates were now covered up.

Van tried to ignore how the stockings hugged her body and sex, teasing what lies underneath and what that did for him…

Rosalyn nodded in understanding. “I get what you mean. Personally, I like to wear stockings up to my thighs, but not all the way to my waist! That’s just too much…” Shaking her head. “But! Did you know? Those stockings are actually specially made for all female students of Bloodhaven.”

“Oh? What do you mean?” Luna asked.

“Well… just because you're a student… doesn't mean you're still not a woman… and well… women have needs… so the school board figured, so as not to have a bunch of girls dripping their ill-gotten gains all over the place. To try and prevent such leakages from happening by having stockings catch it!”

“For example, if you and Van were to do it, the stocking would hug your private in such a way as to prevent anything from dripping out. The stockings also come with a self-cleaning and self-repair function. So even if it’s ripped, it will fix itself eventually! What was at first a great annoyance for women when it first came out, now can be found on the black market! The school now has to track every stocking they hand out, and if you lose it, you can face some serious fines if it’s found out you sold it.”

Rosalyn grinned. “I guess they didn’t take into account the horniness of their students, nor the fact that they might have just invented a new kink!”

Luna laughed. “Seriously!? That’s just too funny!”

“I know right!” Rosalyn agreed.

Luna now looked down on her stockings in a new light. Probably already thinking about when she was going to break them in.

“Jeez. the lengths people would go just to prevent jizz from running down people's legs and splattering all over the floor…” Van thought. “Though I suppose it makes some sense….”

“But why stockings though?” He asked. “Why not just underwear?”

“Underwear?” Rosalyn parroted back confused. “Like what males wear?”

Luna rolled her eyes, she heard similar things from Van before. “Van, we’ve been over this, women don’t need to wear underwear.”

Rosalyn nodded, looking slightly apologetically towards Van for some reason. “Van… women don’t have that thing in between their legs that males do… we don’t have to wear something to help keep our privates safe from the elements… or to cushion it if we sit on it too long.”

“Okay… but then why not have the women wear pants? Why do only males wear pants?” Van tried to point out. “Women can wear pants too.”

Rosalyn nodded sagely, acting like a patient parent with a child. “That’s true, and some women do wear pants… but it’s much more liberating to wear skirts. Besides, males wear pants because if they wore skirts, then they would be more easily raped, or it could be taken as an invitation by the less savory sorts…”

Van couldn’t deny that… if he wore a skirt, it would just make it easier for women to try and get at his privates. Not that he wanted to wear a skirt of course…

He sighed in defeat. “Never mind,” he said, then turned away. “I’m going to check on my stuff in my soul realm. Be back in a few hours.

He hoped that it didn’t look like he was pouting or anything.

Walking over to the bed, he absently heard Luna and Rosalyn talking about the odd conversation that was just had. Luna explained that it was just another one of those eccentricities of Van and not to worry about it too much. After that, they began to talk about what clothes Luna should try on next.

Paying it no mind, he got on the bed and closed his eyes, preparing to descend into his soul realm.

Soon the familiar feeling of descent happened and he was inside his soul realm. Now that Rosalyn knew about his soul realm and everything inside, it was a lot easier to move things in and out. Still a little difficult to move people, but Rosalyn helped at least Kella and Isa get out and about into the castle. Helping explain away their sudden arrival.

More importantly, they were able to move the things Van bought from the auction house into this soul realm for safekeeping. This included all the different kinds of goblins, who were now slowly integrating themselves into their new home. He would check on them a bit later, especially the blood vials he bought, for plans for how to use the unique blood on the goblins later…

Gently falling towards the castle, Van entered and walked into his throne room, wondering how far Ren had progressed on the task he asked him to work on. It had only been a few days, but hopefully, they might have come up with an idea of sorts by now.

“Ah, hello Van, have you come by to check on that task you asked us to work on?” Ren asked, looking up from his many panels.

Van was surprised by Ren’s good mood, he was getting a bit grumpy as of late, but this was an odd sudden change… “Yes… I have… any good news?” He asked tentatively of Ren, wondering if there was a hidden trap of sorts.

Ren smiled. “Most definitely. You see, an interesting idea came to us, and we asked Anna for her help. Thanks to her, we progressed a lot further than we expected. We might be ready by the time you get ready.”

Van perked up at that. “Really? That’s wonderful news! But… how?”

Ren gave a smug smile. “Well… you know how thanks to Anna’s mirror you have a double of yourself? We used that to create temporary copies of people, linked to the real one.”

His smile turned wider. “Imagine it! All a person needs to do is hold onto a special little rune scroll and meditate, and they will be able to create a copy of themselves in your soul realm with the ability to feel and everything! Password locked and everything of course…” he quickly added at the end.

“With this, you won’t have to worry about the long distances between you and Rosalyn. She can meditate on the scroll, and have her consciousness take over a copy of her body that will be produced inside the soul realm. When she is done using it, the copy will simply disappear! And in case of an emergency, it can act as a quick one-time portal to your soul realm directly! What do you think!” Ren asked, looking quite proud of himself.

Van couldn’t deny that Ren deserved some praise. “That’s amazing!” he grinned. “That’s even better than I expected! You're a genius Ren!”

Ren looked like he was going to blush. “It wasn’t all my idea… Kassandra was the one that brought me to it. She and Anna are over to the side right now as we speak. Smoothing over the last little kinks in our operation.”

He then guided Van over to the corner where a bunch of runic symbols had covered the ground and a strange metal orb floated gently in its center.

Van wondered if that metal orb was the new form of the mirror, or something else?

Anna and Kassandra looked up and smiled as he approached.

“Hey Van, bet you're surprised to see me here,” Anna said mischievously.

“I’m sure you're just as surprised to be here as I am to see you here.” Van joked back. It was a bit unusual that Anna visited the castle, considering her duties in the temple, but her presence wasn’t unwelcome.

Kassandra then gave Van the quick rundown of what they were doing and how they figured it was going to work.

It didn't take long to explain. It actually was quite simple really. Using sympathetic magic, they were going to connect the consciousness of whoever was meditating on the scroll and connect it to the copy that would be produced on the other end. This copy would be nothing but a vessel for the person, allowing them to not only communicate in real-time but to also feel everything the copy felt as if it was their own body. The only downside was that the person had to be in a safe place while they mediated since the principal also worked on a form of astral projection.

“I see… and how many can you make by the time of the wedding?” Van asked.

“Sadly, only about one and a half…” Kassandra said. “But it might also just be a moot point… all of this…”

“Oh? What do you mean?” he asked.

“There’s already a betting pool. Sixty to forty that says Rosalyn is going to soul bond with you. If that’s the case, much of our work would be made a lot easier, for she may not even need to scroll… just needs to meditate…

“Hmm…” Van hadn’t thought about that… he didn't’ know what would happen to a person he soul bonded with if they were very far away from him. And he had a feeling that Rosalyn wouldn’t so easily join in a soul-bonding… despite her constant upbeat attitude, there was steel will within her that didn’t conform or just go with the flow.

“Well… even if Rosalyn does soul bond with me, it doesn't mean that there won’t be others who would need such a thing in the future,” he said. “Speaking of which… How's our guest?”

“Katalinya is having a blast,” Anna said. “It’s like she is on her own mini adventure. She’s also very interested in Agnès’s soul island, wondering if she can try and mine some of the strange crystals and metals that grow on it.

“Well… it’s nice that she’s enjoying herself…” he replied, relieved as well as amused.

Just like with Rosalyn, since Van was technically going to make Duvessa and Katalinya his concubines, he decided to also expose his true self to them. So after making them swear an oath, he let them inside his soul realm.

Duvessa… well… it was hard to figure out what she thought about all of it. At the most she just looked mildly surprised… it was hard to see if she even cared at all for the sheer absurdity that was Van’s soul realm…

Katalinya on the other hand. Looked terrified when she first arrived here. Like a cat, she wanted to jump up and run away. It took a few hours to calm her down and convince her to give the soul realm a chance, but once she did. Just like a cat, she began zooming all over the place in wide-eyed wonder. When she was told that if she moved in here, not only would she get to experience this wonderful magical land, but also travel all over the world by proxy thanks to Van, she jumped at the chance to try and move in. Begging Van to also convince her father to join in as well.

Van now wondered if perhaps if her father refused for some reason, maybe he could give the mirror copy scroll to him. So that Cole could always visit her daughter no matter how far away she was…

“Last I’ve seen her, she took one of the empty smithies for herself and is hammering away constantly,” Anna added.

Van nodded his thanks. “I’ll go drop by and meet her and ask how she’s doing.” he then gave his thanks to the group and took his leave. But not before dropping by his treasury and taking a few blood vials with him.

Now on the streets, he made his way to the smithy that he last heard Kat was in. The ringing of steel on steel assaulted his ears once he entered. Moving silently behind her, he gave a casual. “Hey Kat.” watching as she practically jumped out of her skin and whipped around.

“Don’t do that!” she complained. “I have a hammer! And I’m not afraid to use it!” pointing the hammer at him threateningly. Though she didn’t mean it, so it ended up just making her look cute.

Van ignored the threat and gave her a gentle smile. “So Kat, how do you like it here? Have you put in any thoughts of staying?”

Kat gave a slight glare towards him, only for it to melt away and a smile to replace it. “Like it? This place is amazing! I can literally feel my body and mind being energized in this place! And all the strange and new materials that I can work with! My body can barely keep up with my imagination!”

Van grinned. “I’m glad you feel that way. But… What about Cole? What does he think about this?” suddenly taking a more somber tone.

Kat hesitated. “I’m sure we can work something out…” though it didn’t seem she entirely believed herself. “Don’t worry, I’ll figure something out! I just hope he… decides to come with…”

He now felt a little bad for ruining her mood, so told her about the little pet project that he was having Ren and the others work on. The news of which seemed to make Kat perk up a little once more.

“That’s wonderful!” she said, “Perhaps that will help convince my dad!” then it was like a light bulb went off. “I can also make something special! Show him how wonderful this place is using the materials I find here! Yes! That’s it!” and quickly turned to hammer away once more.

Van quirked an eye at that. But it genuinely seemed like she was really into what she was doing. So he left it to her and decided to do the other thing he came into his soul realm to do…

Traveling over to the barracks and training yard. He asked around for Isa until he finally found her in her office doing some paperwork. “Hey Isa, how are you doing? It’s rare for me to see you doing paperwork.”

Isa looked up and gave a small tired smile. “Hey Van, with how the soul realm has grown, I’ve found that my biggest battles are in the office, and not on the training field.” she put her paper away and clasped her hands. “How can I help you?”

Van grinned, “it’s not how you can help me… but how I can help you!”

Isa tilted her head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Van brought out a vial of blood. “How do you feel about evolving?”

Isa’s eyes widened. “Evolving? Not ranking up?”

He nodded. “I’m not only going to make you a vampire-kin, but if this works, you will also be an amazon variant.”

Isa got up, lightly slamming her hands on her desk. “No way!” she gasped.

“Yes, way! So what do you say? Do you think you have some time to spare from your busy battle with the paper army?” Van asked.

Isa jumped out of her seat and quickly walked over to him. “Forget about the paperwork! What are we waiting for! Let’s do this!” she said excitedly.

Van gave another grin and began creating the magic circle with Isa naked in the center. He was really looking forward to this. It had been too long since Isa got a well-deserved promotion. And in order to keep her relevant, he had to make her stronger.

Giving her some more of his blood, and pouring the amazon blood within the circle, he began the process of evolution and transformation. The magic circle began to glow, and so did Isa’s body.

Soon, she began to change, growing larger and taller, her skin changing, becoming a strange dark paler tone, like a strange off-white. Her eyes began to become more golden and shifted between blue and red from time to time. Her hair was longer and blacker, her breasts larger and fuller, her body curvier and more beautiful, yet hiding hidden strength underneath her new softness.

Finally, it was done. And a new Isa was born. She looked down at herself in awe and looked up in surprise to see how much she had grown. Now only about a head shorter than Van.

“Well… how do you feel?” Van asked curiously.

Isa smiled. “I feel great!” and rushed to hug him in joy.

Van hugged her back. Glad that things were progressing well. Now all he has to do is prepare for the wedding… hopefully it would go as easy as this did…