29 years after the death of Himmel the hero.
Gottok, a city in the central lands.
Fern the mage apprentice asked her teacher: "Frieren. That seduction technique you showed a few years ago, that was a joke, right?"
It had been a comical scene back then. Sein, a weird priest who had traveled with them for a while had wanted the company of an older woman. Yet he didn't like Frieren, who was over 2000 years old, because as an elf she looked as young as she always had and would. She had tried to show off a seduction technique she had learned, although to a casual viewer had just looked like a wink and a thrown kiss. Sein and the others had not been impressed, but Fern had been sure there was something in it.
Frieren, on the other hand, was wondering why Fern was asking about this now. She had to remind herself how fast humans aged. Fern was 18 now, so she was an adult and noticeably taller and better endowed than her elvish master. What did adulthood mean to her? She wasn't planning on using the technique on Stark, was she...?
Frieren explained: "I learned it from my master, and it worked very well on Himmel. There was something wrong with that priest."
"I was also wondering whether it actually was a spell, or you know, just flirting," Fern pondered.
'Flirting,' that was a strange word to hear from Fern. Not that Frieren herself had done much of it, it was not an elven tradition. She wished she had. Himmel had perhaps been interested in her, but that was too late now.
"It is a spell." Frieren sounded serious.
"Can I learn it?"
Frieren pondered about this for a while. Fern was generally very responsible, sometimes more so than she was despite her age, but could she be entrusted with this? Although, wasn't she already familiar with couple other things...
"Do you want a clothes dissolving potion too, I have --"
"Frieren. No." Fern was annoyed by the weird smile her master sometimes took on when talking like this. Elves weren't supposed to be interested in sex, that's what she had said herself, so why was she always smiling like that when the discussion was even slightly related to it?
"Of course, you already also know that spell which lets you see through clothes --"
Fern stopped walking and made a sulky expression. "Are you going to teach me that technique or not?"
"All right. It's actually a very easy spell, but we have to go to some place where it can't accidentally hit someone innocent."
"How about that alley there, it's a dead end?"
"You want to learn it right now?"
"You said it was easy."
"We can try, come on."
Frieren entered the alley. She could see it was indeed a dead end, there wasn't anything in there. That was a bit weird in itself, you'd expect some junk to be stored here at least.
"So, as you said you were unsure if it even is a spell, that's a part of it. A person shouldn't know they are being enchanted. You must suppress your mana while casting, so that it only looks like a kiss, as you may remember."
"Yes, it did look like that. That's why everyone was laughing."
"You weren't."
"You usually know what you're doing, but I'm not so sure about this subject..."
"I may not be very seductive, but Flamme certainly was, and I learned this from her. Now, observe carefully. I'll do it in a slow and obvious fashion so you can see the spell happening."
Frieren gathered a little mana, not hiding it now so Fern could see what she was doing. Then she threw a wink and a kiss at the wall at the end of the alley.
She turned towards Fern. "Right, so did you understand...?"
"Mhhs..." Fern seemed to suddenly have trouble speaking and she had a weird look in her eyes.
"Oh..." Frieren touched the walls, which she knew she should have done beforehand. Fern had made her too hasty. Frieren could usually sense spells without doing anything, but she knew she shouldn't always trust that sense. There were spells which had been cast by mages who were ancient even compared to her. Those could still linger in some places and they were hard to detect.