Chapter 82

Titania’s face was glowing with excitement as I changed direction, and moved deeper into the base, but it lacked the manic obsessiveness I expected her to have. Just like her carnal joy, it was probably the first time she was enjoying the adrenaline rush of a battle without the effects of her emotional dampener, but she was already getting a hang of it.

I wasn’t the only one that benefited from a high Wisdom score in decision-making, it seemed.

Unfortunately, we needed to avoid the gathering spot, no matter how good it felt for her to burn hordes of skeletons and zombies. A part of the reason was my mana, still regenerating, but a bigger part of it was the wards that were being activated. Ambushing a bunch of inexperienced necromancers was fun, but I didn’t want to repeat it with the great wards backing them up.

So, instead of returning, I leveraged the benefits of my earth-elemental mount, and created a temporary underground tunnel. Their underground road was protected with wards, of course, but covering miles and miles of road perfectly was not an easy job. A simple application of my Arcana abilities was all it took to avoid their detection as we disappeared underground.

[+1 Arcana]

[-53 Mana]

Since it gave us a moment to rest, I let Titania sit while I stopped the movement of our mount, letting her catch her breath after her latest orgasm while I grabbed a chunk of stone, to test my newest skill. Crafting.

Crafting was a difficult skill to master, and since I was a beginner, it came with a very limited set of instinctual understanding. However, unlike my other skills, I had a great advantage. I had worked with Oeyne, a master of her craft, and it gave me a much greater understanding of the skill. Folding my mana several times around the piece of stone while using Earth Magic to sculpt it was almost trivial.

[-281 Mana]

[+4 Craft]

“Not bad,” I murmured as I examined the stone dagger in my hands. From an objective assessment, it was nothing more than garbage, constructed from a material worse than garbage and carrying only one layer of enchantment, it was a total waste of mana.

Luckily, I had more than enough to waste it.

“What are you doing?” Titania asked as she realized we stopped. “We should hit them before they could react!”

“No,” I answered even as I grabbed another piece of stone and repeated the earlier crafting activity, which worked quite a bit better due to increased familiarity. “It’s better if we don’t hit them immediately.”

[-234 Mana]

[+3 Craft]

“Why?” she asked, her voice sharp, but even that was an incredible development with her famously dominant personality. The fact that she was asking me to explain angrily rather than trying to force me to speak was a huge development. Of course, compared to fact that she was sitting in front of me, wearing only a damaged skirt that didn’t even cover her slit, her reduced aggressiveness wasn’t even worth mentioning.

“I want them to start searching the intruders,” I explained. “Once they are committed to it, they’ll have many strong necromancers, maybe even some of the liches, away from each other, making them easy pickings. Hunting their strongest members will work much better than otherwise. Even better, after your display, they are likely to assume that you’re pushed to your limits, meaning they’ll prioritize speed over safety”

[+1 Speech]

She nodded, approving my strategy, before her eyes landed on my hand. “Why are you wasting your mana like this?” she asked.

“Why? Do you want me to give you some more ‘mana’ instead?” I said with a naughty smirk.

Her blush was spectacular. “You dog,” she murmured, avoiding my gaze as she tried to process it, wrapping her arms around her chest.

I just chuckled before explaining. “I just received an inspiration on crafting, and want to try a new production method,” I explained.

“You can craft as well?” she asked, shocked. “What you can’t do?”

“I can do many things, including you,” I quipped, this time earning a slap on the shoulder rather than a shy avoidance. I just smirked as I grabbed another piece of stone, this time fashioning them into stone handcuffs, adding a simple suppression effect to them.

[-467 Mana]

[+5 Craft]

“Careful,” I warned. “Or I would tie you up to make sure you don’t get naughty while transferring mana.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” she challenged, which was all I needed to dash forward and grab her arms. Before she could even react, I pulled both of her arms behind her, and locked them with the handcuffs. “No,” she said. “Stop.”

“Do you really want me to stop?” I said as I pulled her on her feet, and slipped my fingers into her slit, which was getting wetter at a noticeable pace. “Your body doesn’t agree. Instead, it reacts like you want another dash of my ... mana. Am I wrong?”

She didn’t answer at first, so I started pumping my fingers, trying to force her to answer. When that failed, I decided to employ my new crafting abilities to the limit. I grabbed another piece of stone, and started crafting another item, a cylindrical one that resembled my shaft, only shorter and thinner. Unlike the daggers, I invested quite a bit of mana on its crafting, and made sure it had several spells integrated into its nature semi-permanently, including the ability to vanish waste and constant lubrication.

[-1139 Mana]

“But why?” she said, unable to hide her shame. “Isn’t it wrong to enjoy something like that? Like I was some kind of slave...”

“Not necessarily,” I said as I sat next to her, delaying the assault another couple of minutes. “What you enjoy during sex doesn’t necessarily have to be what you do in your daily life. Maybe that was what you needed, a contrast to your strict life, where you do nothing but missions or managing the library, forcing you to be always on command. You were always so stiff before we truly met, after all.”

“Do you think it’s permanent?” she questioned even as she dragged her fingers over her collar.

“Maybe, maybe not?” I said, caressing her raven hair. “The important question is, why do you care. We can always stop if you stop enjoying it,” I offered, then smiled mischievously. “And I promise I’ll forge you a much better collar if you continue to enjoy it,” I offered.

“You bastard!” she exclaimed, hitting playfully, but her wide smile was enough to tell her true feelings.

I sighed. “As much as I enjoy spending time with you, we need to move,” I murmured, and cast telekinesis on her robe, bringing it to us. “Put it on, and we can move again,” I suggested. She looked at her robe with no small amount of disappointment. “I know, but unlike before, we’re going to hunt strong magic users rather than mindless hordes. Our attack-defend combo is not guaranteed to work. There’s no guarantee that they can’t split us temporarily by attacking from multiple directions, and leaving you defenseless is not a risk I’m willing to take.”

“Okay,” she murmured mulishly, but her blush signaled that she enjoyed the attention. While she got dressed with her battle gear, I made the elemental mount move again.

Destination, their meeting area...

[Level: 30 Experience: 439500 / 465000

Strength: 36 Charisma: 51

Precision: 33 Perception: 35

Agility: 33 Manipulation: 38

Speed: 32 Intelligence: 42

Endurance: 30 Wisdom: 44

HP: 4920 / 4920 Mana: 6300 / 6300 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [95/100]

Master Arcana [87/100]

Expert Speech [63/75]

Advanced Craft [31/50]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (1/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 17/25]

[Helga - Level 13/17]