Chapter 196

As I collapsed next to my cute, naked dragoness who had been trembling softly as she did her best to process her explosive climax, tethering on the edge of unconsciousness as she mewled in dazed satisfaction.

If she didn’t show the signs of exhaustion already, showing she wanted to go back to her sleep, I would have pushed her against the wall for another session.

Instead, I pulled her against my chest, enjoying her warmth as her arms wrapped back automatically. It was supposed to be a calming moment, but it wasn’t. Not when I was trying to process the latest realization, one that threw everything I had managed to discover about the System into question yet again.

It was the reason I let her go back to sleep rather than bothering them. I wanted to think about the implications of the Tantric, and why it was different than my other skills.

Of course, before making an immediate decision, I first needed to make sure my earlier discovery was not just a misunderstanding of the root, or a mistake of blocking. Which meant, I needed to do more experimentation. I quickly applied the same blocking trick to every single skill I owned, but the difference for every single skill, from Crafting to Melee, from Subterfuge to various magical skills, was sharp enough to be apparent, leaving no place for doubt.

Yet, for Tantric, between blocking and not blocking, there was absolutely no difference in performance.

I was shocked. Yet, I wondered whether it was even reasonable for me to feel shocked. From its ability to help others level up to actually giving me the ability to strip its uniqueness from the Divine Spark, there was nothing ordinary about the achievements triggered by the Tantric skill.

No wonder I never managed to find any proper information about it in the library.

Yet, that only created more questions. I remembered the dismissal the headmistress had when I first displayed that I had the ability to contain her Light Divine Spark, which, when analyzed together with the shock she displayed when she realized the structures made from Tantric mana were able to contain Divine Spark much more efficiently.

It meant that I wasn’t the only one unaware of the true potential hidden in my skill.

It also meant that I needed to be careful about the capabilities I revealed to her — in particular, the ability to purify the Divine Spark.

But that was a decision for another time. Instead, I repeated the earlier experiment, this time focusing on the changes that occurred between blocking and not blocking the skill, to see if I could catch something more.

At first, I was not sure whether it was going to be successful considering I was still under the wards that weakened the reach of the system, but after some time, I realized that wasn’t the case.

The subtle shadow of the darkness wards created a little layer between the skills nodes in my soul space and the System, and that created subtle friction between that link, allowing me to catch the existence of a flow I had never noticed before. It was subtle flow, hard to describe, and impossible to decipher — at least under my current level of ability. I doubted that I could feel anything more than a flicker that would have been mistaken by my body’s natural flow if it wasn’t for the assistance of the headmistress’ unique wards...

Yet, the same connection between the System and Tantric was dead. No flow, not even a flicker, completely empty, existing only in form.

And that only made it more complicated.

With a sigh, I slowly extracted myself from the arms of Janelor as she slowly fell back to sleep, our little exertion enough to make her collapse even after she had just woken up. I was tempted to nap with her, but that latest realization about the extraordinary nature of Tantric was enough to overwhelm that particular desire.

I couldn’t say that I was glad about that realization, but that was not due to any direct reason related to its application of it. On the contrary, it actually allayed one of my biggest fears, that, somehow, I would find myself helpless with the System blocked.

Yet, it was inconvenient, because it put a lot of things in question, particularly about how the System functioned. I didn’t have the slightest idea why Tantric could function without the assistance of the System, and it put into question whether Tantric actually came from the System...

My unique nature of getting experience certainly added to that particular question.

It was an annoying feeling, discovering the truths about such a fundamental part of my being, only to end up with more and more questions.

Unlike the previous times, I didn’t even have the luxury of going to the library to explore some ancient books, or interrogate a naughty dragon or a prude angel for some scraps of information, because it was getting riskier to reveal even hints of my discoveries compared to the scraps of information I might extract, especially since their actions already confirmed their information.

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 6528 / 6528 Mana: 7592 / 8000 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Arcana [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [100/100]

Master Craft [84/100]

Expert Speech [75/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (0/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 22/26]

[Helga - Level 22/26]