The Mage Emperor

(AN:\\Hai~ We're almost halfway to the current chapter count! Also, don't forget to rate, don't let the trolls get to me, guh~ *bleeds out* and subscribe to PewDiePie! XD)

Breath of the Wild

“Seth! You’ve got another message,” my mother shouted from downstairs.

Sighing, I stood up from my bed and went down to take a look at it before burning it. Even though only a single day passed, nobles have been challenging me because of Jonathan’s statement. Neither of them could accept that a commoner was stronger than them, even more so because many of them gathered more stars. Unsurprisingly, given Lien’s performance and declaration of our relationship, some nobles 'inquired’ about her as well in their challenge.

Two-thirds of the challenges were to prove that they were better than me while the remaining was to win over Lien. I didn’t even understand their logic, I had no idea why were they thinking that Lien would dump me and run to them if I ever lost. Things didn’t work like that, though maybe it did in their clans.

“My name is bla bla bla, he wants to challenge me because he found it unjust that I was called the strongest, even though he performed better than me. Just how many will I get?” I shook my head, summarizing the contents and then burning the letter without a second thought.

“You should be more careful with those letters, what if you offended them?” my mother asked, starting to be worry about the challenges.

I couldn’t tell her that I didn’t give two fucks about the matter, so I just tried calming her differently, “You know me, right? I’ve never been an unreasonable person and I can assure you, you don’t have to worry about any of this.”

“If you say so. Maybe challenges are different than in my times,” she sighed, seemingly a bit calmer. Well, I couldn’t do much about it, unfortunately. It felt nice that she trusted me so much, though the fact that I hid my secret from her still made me feel terrible. I thought I made up my mind already, but I was still thinking about telling them everything from time to time. I didn’t want to lie to them.

“Did you get another one?” Lien came down the stairs and looked at me. She wore that shoulderless white dress once again, which ended a little above her knees. I’ve seen it on her before, but whenever I looked at her, my heart skipped a beat. I just couldn’t get used to how angelic she was in that simple white dress. I couldn’t even lust after her!

Realising that I was staring at her for seconds without responding, I shook my head and then nodded. Chuckling, she walked up to me and asked, “Shall we go out then? You said you wanted to-” realising that my mother was present, she peered at her and continued with a lie, “to go on a date.”

In truth, I wanted to go to the office to get all the money we earned through World Path, my company. Seeing my mother grinning while looking at us, I rolled my eyes, “Let’s go.”

“I can’t believe my son, I’m so happy for you,” she raised her hand to cover her huge smile.

“Isn’t he shy about it?” Lien laughed, looking at my mother.

“I know, right? He’s so cute! By the way, what about your wedding?” she winked at her.

“Well, the trial came up and I also had to get used to the place a bit so we haven’t talked much about it. Now that we don’t have anything major going on, I think that we could appoint a time for it?” Lien replied, turning towards me.

“Ah, that’d be wonderful!” Mother cried out happily.

“You should also think about your honeymoon then,” Father turned around on the sofa and remarked on the topic.

“Ah, you’re right, honey. We visited a luxurious hotel in Ushua at that time, it was wonderful!” Mother said with enthusiasm. “But more importantly, you’ll have to think about who you want to invite, where you want to hold your wedding, etcetera. It takes a lot of planning, you know?” she placed her hand on my shoulder.

“Well, the thing is that I’ve made plans long ago and most of the things could be organised in no time. It all depends on Lien, I mean, I won’t do something she doesn’t want,” I interrupted them.

“When did you make plans? I didn't even know about them,” Lien asked surprised.

“Last week.”

“I think I should have expected something like this from you,” she chuckled. “Anyway, we can talk about it on the way, I’m just kind of hoping that you don’t… that you don’t plan inviting too many people,” she muttered.

“Why is that, dear?” Mother asked.

“Ehm, I don’t really like most of the people I know and I don’t feel the need to show myself to as many people as possible either. I’ve always dreamed of a small wedding with only my loved ones around,” she said, a little embarrassed to talk about her dream.

“Hahaha, that’s fine. Sadly, there aren’t many people we could invite anyway. Peter’s and my parents have died already and we both have only one sibling. My elder sister has a son, but her husband isn’t around anymore so that’s again one less. Commoner families aren’t that large these days,” Mother sighed in exasperation.

“Erm, we can invite only seven people from my family, I imagine that doesn’t count as a large wedding,” I remarked.

“Haha, certainly,” Lien laughed. “There are even fewer people on my half,” she sighed.

Now that I think about it, I don’t know anything about her grandparents or anyone else blood related. I know only her father, I guess I should ask her about them on the way. Am I terrible if I don’t actually care? Based on that she never received help from anyone but her father, she probably doesn’t have good grandparents or they couldn’t help.

“Bah, enough talking! We’ll talk about this later, let’s go already,” I took hold of Lien’s hand and urged her to follow me.

As I closed the door behind us, I put my arm around her slim waist and pressed my side against hers.

Showing me a small smile, she copied my movements, “This feels nice.”

“I know, right?” I chuckled.

On the way to the office, I asked her about her family and found out that only her grandfather was alive from her father’s side, but they weren’t on good terms so she didn’t see him that often either. Nonetheless, she told me that we should invite him. Obviously, her grandparents from her mother’s half were probably alive, but they never made contact with her up to date. I wouldn’t be surprised if they suddenly tried to get on her good side now that she showed her talent during the trial. From their point of view, she could become a powerful member of their clan.

Obviously, she didn’t want to have anything to do with them and told me to forget about inviting them, not that I wanted to. Her father was an only child and her grandfather’s sister never bothered with them either. She told me she was still thinking about inviting her, just to be nice to her family. With us included, the people present on our wedding wouldn’t exceed twelve. I had a good relationship with family, but they weren’t many. Well, life wasn’t always nice, not even for an optimistic person like me and families were quite small these days.

Reaching the office, we quickly met up with my personal administrator and finished business in about three minutes. During the trial last week, we managed to sell all hundred copies of Lien’s electric field and since I left the scrolls in the office, we received the payments as well. People with the alchemist trait weren’t that good when it came to combat, but they were still valuable assets to any country because of their ability to create spells.

That being the case, even though the public thought that I had the common alchemist trait, I wasn’t regarded as ‘a guy with a useless trait’. It was a different matter that my true trait was Blank Alchemist which was a very rare one. If word got out, my value as a person would raise significantly since I could fulfill the role both of an alchemist and combat related traits. At least, my trait was still something only Lien knew.

Once I’ve got the notification from the bank about my updated balance, we left the office and went to a company which dealt with real estates.

“I’m kind of excited now,” Lien tightened her arm around mine.

“I know how you feel,” I said as I opened the door and entered the ‘Cozy Houses’ building. It was a small office with a few pictures on the peach coloured walls, portraying both luxurious and smaller houses.

There was a middle aged woman sitting in the corner behind her desk, doing some paperwork. Raising her head, she greeted us with a smile, “Welcome to Cozy Houses. Please call me Susy, what can I help you with?”

As we walked up to the table, she added, “You may take a seat,” pointing at the chairs in front of her desk.

Nodding, we sat down and then got down to business. With Lien’s sales combined, we had a shocking amount of one hundred and thirty-five million dollars to spend, which would be more than enough to buy a mansion. Although houses were a bit pricey because of the limited space in the city, we didn’t have to worry about money for the time being. I couldn’t even imagine my mother’s reaction if she found out about my current balance.

Peering at Lien, I started, “We’d like to buy an average sized house which should be in perfect condition and if possible, I’d like to see the empty plots of land that are up for sale as well. We may build our own house.”

Nodding her head, she couldn’t help but remark, “You are very young.” Although she did a great job with her facial expressions, she couldn’t hide her envy from my incredibly sharp ears. The slight fluctuation of her voice sold her out.

“Please answer a few questions and then I’ll give you a list of empty plots and estates that are up for sale,” she said casually this time. She got over the matter quite easily. I could relate with her, she probably worked many years to buy a house, while we were still only sixteen years old. She must have thought that we were noble children, even though that was completely wrong.

Once we told her which region of the city we preferred, our budget, and a few other things, she printed a catalog and then handed it over. There were pictures about the estates and plots with the details added right under them, so it was easy to take a quick look at all of them and pick a few that interested us. While we were looking at the catalog, Susy continued her paperwork which I was happy to see. I didn’t want her to keep looking at us, it’d have annoyed me.

“Hey, I have something to tell you,” Lien used Link to talk to me secretly.

“Hmm?”

“I know that it’d come with more work and that you have enough money to-”

“WE have,” I corrected her.

“Ah, fine. We have enough money to buy a nice house, but given our abilities, I think that it’d be better to build one instead. In case you are unfamiliar with building houses, we could still hire a few professionals and it’d be still much cheaper than buying a brand new house. You could use your alchemy to create all the necessary materials, basically,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, we could build it the way we want and it’d be much cheaper as well. But most of this would rely on your trait so if you don’t want to do it, I beg you to tell me. I don’t want to burden you with something like building a house, it’s just that I wanted to remind you of this possibility. You don’t have to be in a hurry to decide either,” she put her hand on top mine and smiled at me.

She was like an angel, though her words piqued my interest way too much to refuse. I liked creating stuff and hearing her idea made me realise that I could create something, almost out of nothing. At first we thought that we’d hire a company if we wanted to build a house, but her idea was much better. Why would we pay for something when we could do it ourselves?

I’d definitely have fun building our own house and I wouldn’t have to resort to physical labour either. I had more than enough mana to transform materials and get everything done with telekinesis and other types of magic, so much so that I wouldn’t have to move a single brick with my hands.

“Let’s look for a nice plot then,” I winked at her, looking down into her valley. Rolling her eyes, she turned to the side, unable to hold back herself from smiling.

“You don’t have to look for that sort of PLOT,” she replied, almost making me laugh out loud.

People love oversized tits, is it? I definitely love them, I thought, peering at her plentiful bosom. Since I didn’t want to start flirting with her in front of Susy, I didn’t say anything in return and started looking at the plots instead. Well, thanks to her joke, I almost laughed every time I saw the ‘plot’ word in the catalog, but I managed to hold it in.

There were three plots that interested us and although neither of them was too far from my parents, they weren’t too close either. My mother would start crying if I made it hard for her to visit us, but I didn’t want her to keep coming over to us all the time either. Well, she wasn’t an airheaded person so she wouldn’t do it even if we were neighbours, but one couldn’t be careful enough.

After telling Susy about our choices, she appointed a time for all three to visit today afternoon. I found it a bit strange that she was ready to do business with us so quickly, maybe it was because she thought we were nobles. It was monday so we still had enough time to go to the wild and we weren’t in a hurry to build our house either. I had to break it down to my parents first, which would be the hardest part…

“Do you know anything about your father?” I asked when we left the building.

“Well, I didn’t call him up yesterday since your parents made a small celebration and then we,” clearing her throat, she looked at a few people who were looking our way and continued from somewhere else with her face slightly reddened, “anyway, I didn’t have the time.”

“Would you mind if I called him up now?” she asked.

“Are you kidding me? It’s not like you’re hanging on the phone 24/7. If anything, I’m telling you to call him up,” I shook my head. Honestly, sometimes she was way too considerate of me. It wasn’t like I’d feel jealous if she decided to spend some time to talk with her father. Sure, I was possessive, but it wasn’t to that crazy length.

“Ah! But I didn’t bring my phone with me.” she cried out as she reflexively tapped her thighs, looking for her pockets. “I didn’t want to walk around with a bag so I came like this and my dress doesn’t have pockets,” she explained herself for some reason.

“Use mine,” I handed it over. I was about to tell her that I exchanged numbers with her father already, but she typed it in by the time I opened my mouth.

“Thanks,” she muttered, taking hold of my hand.

As it turned out, she couldn’t have talked with him even if she called him yesterday, since he was out of the city and returned only this morning. Hearing her results and that she was second among the girls with only Mary above her, he started praising her to no lengths. I could relate with him. As her ‘master’ in magic, I felt the same way when I saw her performance in real combat.

He also told her that he’d be able to visit us again next monday, so we kind of wanted to finish building our house until then. While talking with him, she confirmed with me through Link and told him that we wanted to buy a land and build a house. Naturally, he started barraging her with questions but her only answer was that he’d get to know about everything later.

In all honesty, I had enough of hiding the truth from my parents and my father-in-law. Maybe it was a bad decision, but I decided to tell them everything next time they all came together and I’d keep this house thing a secret until then. The main reason Lien told her father about the house was my decision since she knew she wouldn’t have to come up with excuses anymore. Although she didn’t say anything, I could see it on her face that she was actually happy to hear that.

That was the kind of wall I wanted to break. It just meant that she wanted me to tell it to her father and my parents and yet she kept her opinion to herself. I hoped that one day she’d freely talk to me about everything she felt. Well, we were certainly on the right track given how young our relationship was compared to other couples.

About half an hour later, she ended the call and gave my phone back to me. In the meantime, we reached a nice park and sat down on a bench to take a short rest, though it ended up being a long one. “Haah- I’m sorry for taking so long,” she sighed.

“It’s fine, I had fun listening to you anyway.”

“What was fun about it?” she raised her brows.

“I just love hearing your voice,” I replied.

“You’re too sugary sometimes,” she laughed as she stretched her limbs and stood up.

“Do you want to go anywhere else?” I asked, raising a brow.

“We are to meet with Susy in an hour and going home and then coming back for such a short time would be stupid, so how about we go to the outskirts of the city?” she replied.

“What? Spending one week there wasn’t long enough for you?” I asked playfully.

“You bet.”

“The forest must be a romantic place,” I mused.

“You’ll teach me and guide me, we aren’t going there to fuck, you got that?” she said sternly.

“If you say so,” I shrugged my shoulders as I stood up, having slightly different plans. I kind of wanted to dirty her angelic and pure looks and I’d get to have my way with her if we went to the wild!

“I can’t believe you,” she shook her head, seeing straight through my ideas. Well, I wasn’t trying hard to hide them.

“You’re saying that but you love doing it,” I laughed.

Unable to say anything in her defense, she seemed to give up on the matter, still slipping in one more excuse, “We don’t even have to leave the city if all we’re going to do is have sex, it’s pointless to go out in that case.”

Feeling kind of sorry for her and remembering that I wanted her to be stronger than Mary, I changed my mind and gave up on my plans, “Fine, fine. I swear I’m not going to touch you with a single finger, okay? I was in the wrong, I know. I should take things more seriously since I was the one who told you to beat Mary.”

“I’m glad to see that you are reasonable. You can’t expect me to overcome a god incarnation if all we do is fuck.”

“What a foul mouth!” I gasped.

“My, it must have ruined your image of me,” she played along.

“Nah, I don’t care about stuff like that and it’s not like you’re cursing every second word,” I chuckled.

“Also, your statement was a bit wrong, you could surpass her if all we did was fuck, have you forgotten what my commandment is?” I asked.

Rolling her eyes, she just shook her head.

“Now that you understand, I wonder what should we start with. Although it may sound wrong, sex will take care of your mana and once it becomes strong enough, I’ll give you mana strengthening pills as well.”

“Your soul also becomes a bit stronger after each time but you’ll have to put much more effort into it if you want to have a commandment and reach Mary’s level. Right, while we’re at it, let me tell you about the types of magic there are and about the true characteristics of mana,” I added as I rose into the air. Nodding her head, she quickly followed after me.

While flying over the city, I told her about Word Magic and how mana was the ‘laws’ of the world. Although she didn’t have as much experience with magic as I had, she was clever enough and instantly understood the possibilities it held. I had to admit, teaching her was not only a lot of fun, it was rather easy as well. I wouldn’t have the patience to teach just anyone, especially not after tasting what it was like to teach someone as talented as her.

Once we reached the outskirts of the forest, it took her only about ten minutes to understand how to use physical laws in her spells, followed by chemistry. Even for me, it took about five minutes to learn back in the days and I had a clear image about everything in my head. I didn’t want to be pompous, but I had yet to see someone who was quicker than me when it came to learning and understanding magic. Well, given my trait and my inherited knowledge and all those experiments, it’d be a shame if anyone with less effort was quicker than me.

Considering that these types of superior magic mostly relied on imagination, she must have believed in my words without a shred of hesitation else it’d have taken her much more time. It felt nice to be trusted so much by the one I loved. After enhancing her body and applying a few physical laws, her strength and physical resistance became much greater than ever before, filling her with happiness. She started jumping around from tree to tree and broke them into splinters with every punch and kick. While she was getting used to her new magic, I experimented a bit with word magic.

Thanks to making a lot of noise, she attracted quite a lot of monsters so after telling her to leave a few of them to me, I had some targets to test my magic on. Using word magic was an incredible feeling. Whenever I started writing a letter, the air would start ‘boiling’ around me, throwing everything into the air. Just the presence of those letters was something that had effect on the physical world. If I had long hair, it’d have flown high into the air. Well, short hair couldn’t fly high, neither my clothes. I had to admit, using word magic looked badass.

Wait, if Lien wore a dress and used word magic, would it… hahaha, I must teach her as soon as possible! Anyway, we should go back because the time is nearing the meeting and I’m a bit short on mana after using it five times. It seems twenty-five letters are my limit with my current amount of mana.

“Hey! We still have about fifteen minutes before the appointed time. Would you care to spar with me?” she jumped off of a tree and landed on the ground in front of me. She behaved like a wild ape or something, I found it pretty funny.

“Erm, I don’t want to run too low on mana and I’m quite out of it after experimenting with word magic,” I replied, scratching the back of my head.

“Is that a no?” she raised her brows.

“Yes, it’s a no. However much I want to say yes, I’m too cautious to spend all my mana when there are nobles challenging me,” I reminded her.

Biting her lower lip, she asked, “Would you recover sooner if I… served you a bit?”

“Do you want to spar that much?” I laughed.

“I want to test this magic in combat and you’d be the best opponent, so yes,” she replied.

Massaging my temples, I shook my head, “A no is a no, and honestly, doing it for the sake of mana recovery would ruin the mood completely. Not to mention that I’d have to drain you to refill my mana so it’s not really possible either.”

Placing her hand on her chin, she thought aloud, “Hmm, true. Despite knowing that sex has incredibly positive effects on me, I forget about it pretty much all the time and remember it only when we’re done… having fun. It never comes to my mind that ‘hey, this will boost my power so let’s do it’. I wonder if other couples feel the same way about it,” she started contemplating about the matter.

“I don’t know and I don’t really care either, but I don’t want to do it for that reason, ever. And now that we're done talking about sex in broad daylight on the outskirts of a forest, we should hurry up and go to the meeting point. I have yet to fight your father as well, so you may join him when he returns. I’ll spar with you when my mana refills. It won’t take long,” I said.

Clapping, a smile formed on her face, “That's a wonderful idea! You could prove to him that you’re worthy of being my husband. I'm saying that because he always said that if possible, I should choose a guy who was stronger than me and loved me. And that I should be in love with him mutually, and that…” she started muttering about a long list of requirements.

“Hah? That's one heck of a set of standards,” I cried out. “Didn’t he accept me last time?”

“He did, but if you think about it, you pass all of those requirements. Also, your standards are just as ‘delusional’ as my father’s, so you have no right to talk,” she started laughing.

“My standards?” I raised my brows.

“Yes, you told me about them years ago. I may have kept my eyes on a few of them for your sake,” she muttered towards the end.

“Hmm, true, my standards are quite delusional as well,” I couldn’t help but laugh. “The fact that it still worked out both for him and me is something really amazing,” I remarked.

“Indeed,” she nodded. “Though the same goes for me.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked.

“No…”

“Can you tell me about yours? I’ve become quite curious about it,” I asked. It’d be nice to know what was she looking for in people generally, especially in men. I’d know what she liked in me and what possibly annoyed her, though I had yet to see her annoyed by anything I did.

“I’ll tell you on the way,” she waved her hand as she flew up.

It turned into a pretty fun conversation since I’ve got to know about things people wouldn’t tell each other normally and it also helped us in understanding why were we liking each other so much. Our affection was more mental than physical, exactly because of our common mentality. Well, like-minded people attracted each other. It was just that combined with the mental attraction, she also had some insane visual ‘weapons’.

I’ve admitted to her before that I was attracted to her because of her body in the beginning and I just thought that I really loved her. But as we got to know each other more and more, I came to really fall in love with her.

As we landed in front of the first empty plot of land, I spotted a bit of dirt on her white dress. While she was looking around, I quickly cleaned her clothes with my magic.

“We have about five minutes until the meeting. I wonder how much later will she come, I don’t like waiting,” she sighed loudly.

“I’m also hoping that she won’t be late,” I nodded. Luckily for us, Susy arrived two minutes before the appointed time, so we didn’t have to wait for long. She led us around at each of the plots we considered buying and after making a decision, we bought the second one on the spot. We had to go back to the office where she quickly finished the paperwork and then passed us the documents.

“I don’t know about you, but I kind of want to finish the preparations today,” I said once we left the office.

“Do you mean cleaning up the land and stuff?” Lien asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’s still around five in the afternoon, so we have enough time,” she agreed with me. After moving to our new territory, I took a quick look around before entering. With Lien’s help, we used nature magic to grow a lush and tall fence around the whole land, hiding everything from the prying eyes outside.

There were a few old buildings and things we didn’t need so I quickly cleaned them up with Destruct. I just transformed every material into a mix of oxygen and nitrogen with my alchemy. My trait came in handy when I had to clean up unnecessary stuff. Thanks to Lien, I had more than enough mana to transform any material into nothing but air for hours upon hours.

After rebalancing the whole land and making it as flat and smooth as a mirror, we decided to go back home. I spent quite a lot of time on the internet that night and looked up all kinds of things that’d help me in building a house. Of course, Lien spent her time in my room practising magic and training her soul. At this point she went to her room only to fetch her clothes and the only reason I didn’t tell her to move them to my room was because we’d move out soon anyway.

The next day I started the day by creating the necessary materials. I could have finished it in one go, but I didn’t want to risk spending all my mana due to the threat the nobles posed. Even though transforming gases into materials like cement, gravel, iron rods, and other necessary things cost quite a lot of mana, it was much quicker and cheaper than ordering them.

We also took care of the foundation of the house in a matter of minutes by creating an invisible rectangle with the help of telekinesis. While Lien kept up the rectangle, I filled it with water and then transformed a good chunk of it to cement and gravel. I just used common water magic to mix the materials and then filled it with iron rods in a well-organised manner, just like architects would do at building sites.

After quickening the process of drying with some miscellaneous magic, the foundation was ready to be built on. Since I was running a bit low on mana, Lien started building the walls without me. Nowadays every architect had telekinesis magic which helped them a lot in their work, and we were no exceptions.

“Are you sure about the layout?” I asked, seeing that she started placing bricks and cement inside the house.

“Didn’t we talk this over last night? Or have you changed your mind about something?” she raised her brows and stopped building.

“Well, there is something I’d like to change. Although we agreed to have a different level for the kids, we don’t have them right now and I think that it’d be pointless to build the upper floor. My point is that we should make only the ground floor for now,” I replied.

“And how do you plan to add the floor later?” she rolled her eyes.

“I’ll just destroy the roof and remake it once we added the next floor,” I replied.

“Do you really want to bother with something like that years later?” she asked.

“I’ll be fine with it. I like smaller places and if we started out with a large house like that, I don’t know… I think I’d feel a bit weird about it,” I replied.

“Hmm, I also get that feeling but I haven’t really thought about it before,” she nodded.

“See? You can’t say no to me. I’m always speaking the truth!” I said playfully.

“Haha, yes, yes, and women should listen to men, right?”

“Only to me,” I winked at her.

“Restore your mana quickly instead so that I won’t have to do this all alone,” she turned back and continued her work. Although we worked quickly with telekinesis, it still took us a day to finish building and wiring the walls.

Since it’d be simple to grow a few trees and then chop them up into perfect pieces with nature magic, we decided to go for a furnace instead of using propane gas. We wouldn’t have to pay for growing trees either.

It was quite late in the night when we finished, but when we returned to the house, all my mother said was that we shouldn’t stay out for too long. They thought that we were going on dates all day. I couldn’t wait to finish our house and then surprise them with the end product. I was sure their jaws would drop from the surprise.

We spent the third day of the week painting the house and then furnishing it with everything that was necessary. I also called an electrician to check the wires just in case I messed up something, but after a quick swipe of his lightning magic, he told me that everything was fine. The main reason I called him was to connect the wires to the power system of the city since I couldn’t just connect to it and start stealing power.

Honestly, it was more bother and time to deal with the companies who provided us with services like running water, internet, electricity and whatnot than to build a house. They all gave us long ass contracts which we had to read and then sign. I’d have rather built another house than to deal with any of them, but it was a necessity. Although we worked more than fifteen hours on building our house every day, I still believed it was an amazing feat to finish everything in just four days!

I had only a slight problem with the whole thing, which was our lack of time. There were only three days remaining from our free time and we had yet to dive deeper into the forest. The worst of all was that I couldn’t lay my hands on Lien for four fucking days! I was too tired to do anything at the end of the day and my parents were also home. We could have done it on our land but then we wouldn’t have finished building the house in four days.

After going back home, Lien went straight to the bathroom while I had dinner. She also had dinner while I was in the bathroom, but I took my time with a nice hot bath. By the time I returned to my room, Lien was lying in bed with the blanket rolled up around her body. As I laid down next to her, I hugged her along with the blanket and took a whiff of her fragrant hair.

“Mhhm, I love this fragrance.”

Turning towards me, she asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m just sniffing you.”

“What are you, a dog?” she shook her head.

“This dog would be glad to have you all to himself,” I replied, placing my left hand on her chest, though the damned blanket was in the way.

Ignoring my hand, she asked, “Are you confident in that you could keep up a wind barrier to prevent my voice from leaking? Because I sure as hell won’t be able to do something like that, so unless you want your parents to hear me moaning, forget about sex tonight.”

“I’d be able to, but it’d be a bother if I couldn’t focus all my attention on you and let go of myself because of that shitty barrier,” I grunted. The sudden fire that prompted me to enjoy my girlfriend was extinguished as quickly as it came.

“If that’s the case, you should sleep before you awaken down there,” she replied as she closed her eyes and turned around. She also seemed to be sleepy and I didn’t want to bother her, so I closed my eyes as well and went to sleep.

The next day I woke up with a fresh mind and body. Maybe it happened because it was a bit hot during the night, but Lien got out of her blanket somehow and I also got on top of her somehow. Seeing and feeling her hot body touching mine made my fantasy run wild instantly, especially because she wasn’t wearing anything other than her black underwear.

“Mh- you’re heavy,” she woke up with a small grunt and slowly opened her eyes. After pulling out her arms from under my belly, she stretched her body and yawned in my face.

Seeing that I was just looking at her with a smile, she cried out, “Hey, stop staring and get off of me instead, I told you that you’re heavy!”

Lying down next to her, I leaned on my arm and continued looking at her in silence. She was so beautiful to me both inside and outside, just looking at her felt nice. It made things even funnier that she always became embarrassed when I stared at her in silence for a while.

“Jeez, why are you doing this all the time? It makes me feel strange when you’re smiling at me like that,” she sat up and turned her back on me in a hurry. I put my finger on the middle of her back and then slowly moved down to her waist. She loved when I started caressing her back and as usual, goosebumps appeared all over her back. My reaction was exactly the same whenever someone started caressing my back, it felt wonderful.

I started drawing circles, rectangles, spheres, and all kinds of shapes on her back, making her become akin to a statue. She kept sitting there in silence, enjoying the tip of my finger. When I stopped caressing her back, she turned around and smiled at me, “That felt great.”

“Hmm~ And what is my reward?” I asked, amused by her reaction.

Without saying anything, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against mine. We stayed like that for who knows how long before finally separating. Looking at her soft pink lips, my body started begging for more, but the moment was too nice to dirty it with lewd thoughts. She probably felt as happy because of the house as I did, not to mention that our little wedding wasn’t too far away either. We counted as legal adults from the age of sixteen so there was nothing stopping us from marrying. Thinking that far, I couldn’t help but get a bit excited.

While I was still looking at her with a dumbfounded expression, she asked seriously, “This may come out of nowhere for you, but I know what I want, so I ask you. When should we hold the wedding?”

“Well, no, I was just surprised by your kiss,” I shook my head, trying to get it together. “What did you say again? Your father would return next monday, right?” I asked.

“Mhm.”

“Then how about we keep him around for a bit longer and hold that wedding?” I raised my brows. I wanted to officially tie my life to her, no matter how young we were. That was what I, no, what we wanted.

Smiling at me, she replied, “That’d be wonderful.”

“Just imagining you becoming my wife makes me super happy and excited,” I chuckled.

“Well? What can I say? The guy I’ve been in love with for years would become my husband. What do you think? Does that make me happy?” she raised her brows.

“I’m sure it does,” I replied.

Creeping closer to me, she put her hands on my shoulders and pressed her forehead against mine. Her lips only inches away, she said, “By the way, I know that you’re horny, but I think that it’d be more fun hold back ourselves until next week. Imagine how good it’d feel to ‘finally’ do it,” she whispered, her breath tickling every inch of my fantasy.

Placing her hand on my crotch, she started massaging it as she continued, “It’s so damned hard, I bet it hurts to keep in all that pent up sperm, but would you consider my words. You can take me now if you want, but if you can bear with it until monday, you could taste something you’ve never tasted before. Which do you choose?”

Her hand was making it much harder to make a decision, but closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and used every bit of my will to push her hand away. Smiling at me, she stood up from the bed and walked towards the door. Seeing her swaying hips and those insanely sexy legs, I kind of regretted not attacking her, but her plan would definitely feel even better than if we did it now. Especially because I’d have had to focus on keeping up the wind barrier which would have ruined everything.

Funnily enough, ever since I started going out with Lien, I haven’t resorted to satisfying myself with my hand and I refused to do so during the last four days as well. And it was exactly this little bit of difference that made me realise that holding back had a positive effect. At first, I barely noticed that it had an effect, but after the second and third day, my mana refilled much quicker than before. If I had to guess, I’d say that it was because our bodies produced more manalus while we were in a ‘heightened’ state which, in turn, quickened our mana regeneration.

Basically, if I became aroused and couldn’t satisfy my lust, my mana would refill quicker than normally. I never thought that being horny would have a good effect, though considering that being horny for too long made people stressed out, it wasn’t worth staying like that for too long. But if there was a tournament or something of the sort where you wouldn’t have much time between the matches, it’d definitely help if your mana regeneration was boosted. It’d make it harder to focus, though, so it was a two sided blade in every aspect.

Ignoring my quenchless morning wood, I quickly dressed up in clothes that wouldn’t slow down my movements, meaning shorts and an undershirt. It wasn’t like I needed heavy armour or anything of the sort against monsters. Although I was sure that there were monsters I haven’t heard of, I didn’t think there would be anything too dangerous and it wasn’t like we wanted to dive straight into world exploration.

Exactly when I finished, Lien opened the door and came in wearing black hotpants and a tank top. She looked hot and beautiful and all that shit, but I had to turn away. With my fresh morning wood, it took my everything to stop myself from jumping at her. Her rack was also simply too amazing to resist and it didn’t help that she openly started ogling my body either, especially my crotch. We were both lusting after the other which just made things even harder. Well, it’d be a good training to steel our will. It was quite weak when it came to sex.

“ARGH! Of all the times, why do I have to remember all kinds of sexy moments right now?” I cried out holding my head.

“It’s not easy for me either, you know? I don’t know what it feels like for guys, but- I’m sorry, I won’t say it, after all. I bet it’d excite you even more to hear,” she stopped talking.

“Thank you very much,” I bowed in front of her for stopping. If she started describing what her pussy felt like right now, I’d have surely lost it. My lust was burning like never before and she was in front of me, ready for whatever I wanted, and yet…

Okay, I’ll stop thinking before I lose my mind.

Clearing her throat, she said, “Let’s go then. Your parents are at work already, but I called up your mother and told her that we’ll be out for three days, training. She also told you to be careful and to protect me,” she laughed.

“Ah, that’s to be expected, though it’s not like I would forget about stuff like that if she didn’t ‘remind’ me,” I shook my head. We had to avoid every topic that had anything to do with sex, for our own sake!

Thanks to telekinesis, it took only ten minutes to reach the forest. It really saved a lot of time to travel in the air instead of bothering with the traffic where you always ran into death seeking idiots, traffic jams, red lamps, and idiots who drove super slowly for no fucking reason, creating long lines behind them. They were the most dangerous…

“Ahn~ I’m so looking forward to this!” she stretched her body and then started jogging in one place. After punching the air a few times, she looked at me and asked, “Are you ready?”

“Mhm. Should we run or fly past this area? I don’t think we’ll find anything interesting so close to the city,” I said.

“It’d be quicker if we continued flying for now, but I want to train my body so I want to run,” she replied.

“Good idea,” I nodded. “I’ll also leave behind something that will help us find the way back if we ever get lost.”

“And what kind of magic is necessary to achieve that sort of effect?” she came closer and started staring at me in anticipation. I wrote a single word in the air which was none other than ‘BIND’. I imagined that it’d turn into something like a beacon which I could perceive from anywhere in the world. Once the letters entered the ground where I stood, I closed my eyes and tried to perceive it, but I realised my efforts were pointless.

Even without closing my eyes or doing anything of the sort, I could clearly feel the direction I had to move towards. Well, I was standing right above it, but that didn’t change the fact that it worked perfectly. Word magic was really amazing in every aspect. After taking a few steps, I could feel that it was right behind my back and thanks to the way I imagined it, I also felt how far I was.

“Say, do you think I have enough mana to try my hand at using word magic?” Lien asked. She must have been really impatient to start learning it, but the problem lied in something else.

“If your mana was stronger, it’d be enough to use word magic. The problem lies in that you’d need about ten times as much mana as you have to write a single letter. If you work hard enough on strengthening your soul, your mana will also become stronger and you’ll be able to start practising word magic,” I replied.

I found it quite funny that when we were both kids, she was the one who tested my magic, since I didn’t have enough mana. Now she was in my shoes. She knew the way to use it and yet she couldn’t use it. I felt kind of sorry for her since I knew what it felt like to be too weak to use something you wanted. I had the same problem for many years, though she freed me from my shackles.

“By the way, when I closed my eyes to sense this thing, I noticed that a few people were coming this way, so we should leave with haste,” I remarked. Seeing that she felt down after hearing my answer, I added, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll fix that mana of yours in no time. The spell I use to make you feel real good-”

“Pleasure touch?” she asked.

“Yeah… that. Anyway, you may not know this, but during sex, your body produces phenethylamine, endorphins, and endocannabinoids which makes you ‘get high’ when it floods your brain. Pleasure touch is basically using alchemy to transform my mana to those three enzymes. But it’s quite hard to transform mana into anything, even more so when the ‘material’ is so tiny,” I started explaining as we started running.

“And what does it have to do with my problem? Doesn’t it just make me feel good?”

“Well, when the aforementioned enzymes reach your brain, they make your body produce manalus in large quantities, but without a trained mind, one could easily lose their mind to the pleasure. Imagine if you were orgasming infinitely, it’d definitely make you go crazy over time and that’s exactly why I don’t use it on you continuously. I hope I don’t have to explain to you that if your body is producing manalus, your mana will become stronger-”

“I know, I know,” she waved her hand. “There seems to be more to it, so out with it,” she said, seeing that I wanted to continue talking.

“Mhm, that’s really the case. What I wanted to get to was that the more of these enzymes I create, the more manalus your body will produce. If I started producing and storing them in my body now, your mana would grow explosively next monday when we get to do it, but you’ll have to prepare your mind for it. If your will isn’t strong enough and you receive three days worth of enzymes, you may pass out from the pleasure.”

“Didn’t you say that Pleasure Touch had some effects on you as well?” she asked.

“It makes me horny, but that won’t change anything at this point,” I shook my head helplessly. Whatever my brain thought, my flesh was desiring Lien more than anything. Every inch of my body was craving her whole being.

“That’s… I can’t help you for now,” she muttered. “And why did you tell me all this?”

“Do you want me to start preparing the enzymes now or should I do it while we’re doing it? It’s normally the latter,” I replied.

“So even that little bit is making me feel so good?” she asked, her voice slightly trembling. I really wasn’t sure whether she was getting excited and even more aroused or if she was just getting tired because of running and talking at the same time.

“Yes.”

“Erm, you can start producing them now,” she said a bit meekly.

“You don’t have to be shy about it, if I had the chance to feel better than ever before, I’d also go for it, like I did today morning,” I remarked.

“I have only a single question,” she frowned. “Wouldn’t it be easier to produce manalus?”

“Firstly, I haven’t learned yet how to produce manalus, which makes it impossible. I don’t know why, but I have a feeling that turning mana into manulus is impossible. It’s probably because manalus is a ‘level higher’. I mean, if manalus can produce mana, then it makes sense that I can’t transform my mana into the thing that’s creating it. Secondly, even if I could produce manalus directly, it wouldn’t even come close to the amount your body could produce.”

“Oh, I get it now,” she nodded. “Can you sense those guys who came our way?” she asked.

“I can. They’re also getting closer to us,” I replied, furrowing my brows.

“Do you think they’re after us?”

“I’m not sure. Neither of the nobles who sent a challenge letter made a move and it’d make sense if one of them wanted something now that we left the city, but I don’t think that’s the case. I’d have noticed if they were spying on us, so I either made a mistake and didn’t notice them or they were sent by someone who can hide even from my senses,” I frowned.

“Do you mean Leo?” she asked.

“Could be. Let’s hide somewhere for now. If they aren’t after us, they’ll just pass by without noticing us,” I replied. I spotted an old tree which had was hollowed out inside and I instantly thought that if we hid in there, we wouldn’t be noticed. We quickly changed direction and ran towards the tree. Once Lien hid in there, I followed after and then used dark magic to conceal our presence.

“It’s quite hot in here,” she remarked. This was the first time that my muscle growth was a bad thing. I became quite bulky and the hollow was barely enough to fit in two people. If I still had my old body, we’d have had more room to share.

“Shh, they’ll catch up with is in a moment, so stay silent,” I hushed her.

“I know.”

It took about half a minute until they caught up with us, but they all stopped for some reason. There were four of them, one woman and three men, all middle aged.

“Where did they go? Their tracks stopped here,” one of them said as he knelt down on the ground and examined it carefully. I felt like slapping myself for forgetting about something so obvious.

“They changed direction,” he answered his own question. Standing up, he turned our way and started coming straight towards the tree.

“What the fuck is wrong with him, is he a dog?” Lien cried out in my mind.

“He probably has the tracker trait and also likes observing others. At least, that’s what I experienced at people with the tracker trait. You have to be careful with them, they’re often good at psychology. Also, can you sense that there are four people?”

“Four? I see only three,” she replied.

“Because one of them has the Invisibility trait. Although it masks the user’s presence to some degree and hides them from the eyes, I can still sense him because of his soul. I can also use the wind to sense him,” I explained.

“Ah, you’re right! I can sense him as well, though I have to focus on him.”

“Of course, you still haven’t got used to sensing souls.”

“Come out! We know you’re here!” the man shouted. He was quite ignorant if he dared to shout so far away from the city. Quite a lot of monsters noticed us on the way, but since we were moving quickly, most of them ignored us. But the stronger ones were still following us and since this guy shouted, they’d definitely find their way here.

“Let’s wait a moment,” I said.

“Okay.”

Since we didn’t answer and didn’t appear in front of him and I masked our souls as well, the man resorted to using earth magic. He created many earth spikes and started destroying the trees while coming closer and closer to us. The large trees fell over one another, slowly covering the ground completely. I’d definitely fall over some of the branches if I wanted to cross that.

“What do you think? For how long you can hide?” he shouted.

“Um, Boss, at this rate every monster in the area will come here,” one of his underlings remarked.

“Haah? And what does it matter? The lord trained you, you should be strong enough to deal with trash like this,” the man rebuked him.

“Yes, but our targets aren’t weak either. You shouldn’t make things too difficult for us. What if they misunderstood something and attacked us?” he asked.

“You don’t have to worry about that, you just take care of the trash,” he waved his hand.

Just based on soul, he was definitely weaker than me, which meant that my mana was stronger as well. He was underestimating me quite a bit, but he didn’t seem to be some common noble either. Either way, I wanted to find out who were after me, even if their words implied that they didn’t want to fight me.

“The monsters are here!” the same guy as before said.

“Hmph, elite my ass. You’re all pissing your pants just because of some wild animals,” he scoffed at the three. Turning towards us once again, the man closed his eyes and turned to use wind magic. He was probably looking for ‘bumps’ behind the trees with wind magic. I could have used the same method to keep track of the invisible person even if I didn’t know about souls, but it was unnecessary.

Since we were inside a tree, he couldn’t find us even after his wind magic blew past our tree, though he must have sensed that there was a hollow in one of them since he started walking towards our tree. I knew we’d be busted, but I wanted to gather as much information about these people as possible. Despite fighting C ranked monsters, neither of them broke a sweat and easily finished them one by one. Their judgment was also good since they always picked the right element against the right monster.

These people were no ordinary nobles. Maybe they weren’t even nobles. Knowing that we’d be found in a moment anyway, I crawled out of the hole and then helped up Lien.

“Ah, so you were hiding there. I guessed it right, it seems,” he laughed. There were only five meters between us, which wasn’t much if he had a physical trait, but I was much stronger in every aspect than a month ago.

“The fact that you noticed that we were trailing you is quite amazing, though we weren’t trying hard to hide ourselves,” he praised me.

“More importantly, stop beating around the bush and tell me who are you people and what do you want?” I got straight to the point.

“Good day to you too… Aren’t you a curious one?” he shook his head. “I’m sorry if you’re all ready for battle, but we didn’t come to fight with you.”

“Then why did you come? Don’t tell me that you were sent by some noble who is lusting after Lien and you want to kidnap her?” I rolled my eyes as I took hold of her hand and made her stand behind me.

“Seth, I don’t think that’s the case,” she muttered.

“Haha, nobles? You mean those trash who think they’re at the top of the world? Nah, I would never work for lowly people like them. Also, I’m a gentleman, I’d never force myself on a woman, even if she was this beautiful,” he shook his head. “But I have to tell you that you have great taste, I must admit that,” he nodded while looking at Lien.

“Then what do you want?” still preparing my mana for battle.

“How fiery, the fire of youth!” he laughed. “But your caution is really unnecessary, I didn’t come after you to fight you. I’m here to invite you!”

“Where?” I asked, raising my brows.

“As you know, there have been many gods, champions, and whatnot in the past, thousands of them. Most of the vacant positions have been taken by now, but given your sudden growth, you must be one of them, aren’t you? There are numerous communities of god incarnations and I’m here to invite you to one of them. Oh, but in case you don’t know what I’m talking about I’ll have to… clean you up,” he smiled at me.

“How do you know about my sudden growth?” I frowned. They couldn’t possibly overlook everyone in the world.

“His majesty can sense every fluctuation of magic and you caused quite a big one, so we came to pick you up. Simple as that!” he spread his arms.

“And what happens if I refuse, what does it change if I join, where am I supposed to go?” I started bombarding him with questions.

“Hmm, you’re still cautious around me. I told you I’m not here to fight you and you visibly know about gods, so it’s going to be fine,” he rolled his eyes.

“Firstly, you’re free to refuse since nobody is going to force you to enter a city of gods. Joining would mean none other than that you could walk freely in and out of the city. Otherwise, every time you want to visit, you’ll be checked for security reasons. There are some groups who aren’t that happy about our peaceful lives,” he explained.

“If you join, you can enjoy the protection of our lord and you’ll be allowed to live in the city for as long as you desire, isn’t it amazing? You’d never have to bother with those weakling nobles in Balan city and you could live your life peacefully!”

“That sounds quite interesting,” I couldn’t help but start pondering about it.

“If you wish to join, just keep going this direction and you’ll find the City of Light, though you better pick up your pace since it’s quite far away. We don’t like mingling with common people,” his eyes twitched as he said the word ‘common’. He must have really hated them.

“I’ll see,” I nodded.

“Great! But I have to warn you about something. It’s fine if your suuuper beautiful girlfriend knows about it and maybe telling it to your parents is fine as well, but you shouldn’t tell it to anyone else!” he said, waving his finger.

“I had no intentions to do something like that, and I’d be labeled a lunatic anyway,” I remarked.

“Good then. One more thing, be careful around here. As far as I know, there is a god called Sylvanus. He’s very powerful and he’s a freaking nature lover. If you kill too many monsters and destroy too many trees, he may come after you,” he added.

Raising my brows, I looked around while pointing at all the fallen trees and the piles of dead monsters in front of the other three, “Are you really one to talk?”

“Hahaha, I’ll be fine. He wouldn’t dare to attack someone from Light city and I’d be able to defend myself anyway,” he laughed loudly.

I’m stronger than you, though.

Based on his explanation this lord of theirs could sense magic fluctuations and he or she felt that I became stronger in a very short span of time. But probably neither of them knew how much stronger I became. If that was all he or she knew, then that was fine since even I could do that much.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked.

“Go ahead,” he nodded.

“Are you an incarnation as well?”

“I’m just a common human who was saved by the lord and then raised and guided,” he replied. “But you shouldn’t underestimate me just because I don’t have an inheritance.”

“I don’t care about that, I was just curious,” I replied, shrugging my shoulders.

“Heh, a wise choice. It happened a few times that the new incarnations I recruited looked down on me because I was a ‘common human’, but they all got their ass whipped,” he winked at me.

You’re looking down on common humans as well and you also hate them, I don’t think you’re one to talk, but whatever. I won’t pick a fight with him for no reason, though he’s definitely an idiot. That much was obvious the moment he started shouting and called his companions weaklings. Or wait… based on his trait, he shouldn’t be like this, though I can’t be sure that his trait is really the Tracker. Should I probe him?

“Now then, it’s time for us to leave. In case you can’t find your way to Light city, you can just call me up on this number,” he said as he gave me a piece of paper with a phone number on it.

“Most of the time you won’t be able to call me up since I live in Light city and come to Ushua and Eglon only for business, but you may be able to catch me one day,” he laughed.

He’s so irresponsible.

“Erm, thank you,” I nodded as I took the paper from his hand and put it in my pocket. I wouldn’t call him anytime soon, that was for sure.

“Your girlfriend is very quiet,” he remarked, eyeing Lien behind my back.

Although she practised a lot and became much stronger, she was still new to many of the spells and had to practise a lot more. I was quite sure that the amount of mana she had was more than this man’s, but the quality was definitely worse. Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to help too much, she probably wanted to stay out of the matter and leave things to me. The fact that she looked at me for confirmation before saying anything, proved my thoughts to be true. She gave me the ‘am I allowed to speak’ look.

It helped a lot that she wasn’t some stupid girl who ran her mouth all the time. Sure, I could beat these people if she somehow offended them, but maybe I’d anger their lord who could be stronger than me. Then we could be forced to run away or something of the sort, which would be really unpleasant.

Seeing me nodding, she said, “I didn’t have anything to say.”

“My, what a well behaving girlfriend you have. I’m starting to be jealous,” he laughed.

“I just didn’t want to cause any more troubles to him. You could have been the usual lustful greedy bastard kind of person as well. The kind that’d be offended if I refused him and stuff like that,” she frowned, probably remembering something unpleasant.

“Er- I can only feel sorry for you, little girl,” he scratched the back of his head.

“I can’t say that you’ll be completely safe in Light city since incarnations are people as well and there are those kinds of men, but I can assure you that you won’t meet them often, maybe never. For one, even average women are as beautiful as ‘high-class’ women in Eglon and Ushua, so if you refuse them, they’re more likely to leave you alone. And secondly, the security is stricter than in Balan city in some aspects, this case being one of those aspects,” he explained.

“If anything, you’ll have to make sure you don’t fall for some handsome man and dump Seth!” he laughed.

Her eyes twitched as she kept looking at him in silence. I had a feeling she wanted to say something rude, though I wasn’t sure why.

“I don’t think I have to worry about that,” I chuckled. “Also, what’s your name? It’s never too late to introduce yourself…” I looked at him meaningfully.

“Oh, pardon my rudeness. My name is Cayn,” he replied.

“Wonderful, now that I know who I was talking to, I think that we should move on,” I clapped.

“Indeed, it’s starting to be troublesome here,” he frowned, realising that more and more monsters were coming our way. The smell of blood was very dangerous. Once you killed a monster, they’d keep coming towards the smell, always adding more to it. While we were chatting, the other three killed about fifty monsters which naturally came with a lot of blood.

“We’ll meet again,” I said as I turned around and started running. They were the ones who dragged so many monsters with them, so they should be the ones to take care of them as well. It wasn’t like they had to wait until we came out here to get closer to us, which I also found a bit weird.

Maybe their lord couldn’t sense accurately which person became stronger and sensed only the area. If that was the case, they found us only now because first they had to find out who did their lord sense, and they came to contact me only when they did. It’d make their lord seem much less scarier to me.

“That fucking bastard,” Lien started grumbling.

“What’s your problem with him?” I raised my brows.

“He thinks I’d dump you if I saw a handsome man? Why do people always say stuff like that? I have genuine feelings for you, but it feels as if everyone was thinking that I’m with you only because of some sort of benefits. It’s pissing me off so much!” she clenched her fists.

It surely didn’t feel good that everyone was doubting her reasons, I could understand that much.

“If I hear it once or twice, okay, people are idiots. But everyone we meet says stuff like that, am I doing something wrong that makes me look like a leecher or what?”

“Uh, no. I can’t say much about the matter, people are idiots, like you said. It doesn’t make me happy either when I hear a remark like that, but I’ve learned to ignore negativity, so it just passes by my ear most of the time. Well, it’s true that if I hear too much negativity it affects me as well, but I think that’s normal. The only thing I can tell you is that you should look only at me and stop minding random people, I’m doing the same, looking only at you,” I replied.

“I swear I’m thinking about falling for this much sugar and just look at you through the pink glasses,” she chuckled, shaking her head helplessly.

“What? It wasn’t that sugary,” I rolled my eyes.

“It wasn’t? Do you really think that?” she raised her brows.

“W-Well… it was just a declaration of my love!”

“You’re so silly,” she laughed. “But thanks, I feel better,” she smiled at me.

“That’s good then.”

As we neared the end of the forest, I heard a loud roar. I’ve never been this far from the city and it felt wonderful! It was kind of exciting to get away from that human prison they called a country. All those laws and restrictions and watchful eyes. If you did something out of the norm, people stared at you and thought you were an idiot or a weirdo. But none of that was present here, far away from civilisation.

For the first time in my life, I felt truly free because I knew that no matter what I did out here, it wouldn’t matter to anyone. I didn’t feel that tiny bit of constant stress and anxiety anymore. It was fun observing people but it was also tiring, so it felt great to take a breather. Even more so because my dear love was with me, who was the only person on the planet who really knew and understood me.

“What was this roar?” Lien frowned.

“This, my dear, is a brown bear,” I replied.

“But that’s an SS rank monster!” she cried out.

“Yes, but you can expect to run into some so far away from the city. We’re like thirty kilometers away, so that much is to be expected,” I remarked.

“As my senior in magic, tell me, do I have a chance against it?” she gripped her necklace, visibly excited to meet a powerful beast.

“It depends on how well you can control physics magic, but given your performance last time, I think that you have a chance. The main problem is that this is an apex predator and it’s very quick. If you hesitate or can’t decide about something for a single moment, it could easily finish you with a single strike, so no mistakes are allowed,” I replied.

“That’s… I can’t say I’m confident in beating it, but if I have a chance, can I try?” she asked.

“Sure, I’ll take care of anything that would interrupt your battle, but you must know that if I see the tiniest chance that you’d be hurt, I’ll interfere,” I said.

“Even if I could escape with a small graze?”

“I’ll see,” I muttered. “It’d be kind of sad if you became scarred all over your body, though I don’t want to shelter you too much either.” I knew my possessive side was getting the better of me sometimes.

“Why would I become scarred all over my body?” she rolled her eyes.

“What if you always got hurt a bit? Ah, but don’t misunderstand me! I’ll love you no matter how many scars you have, I just don’t want these stupid things to hurt you and then leave a mark on you,” I explained myself. I was hoping that she wouldn’t misunderstand something.

“Because only you can leave a mark on me, right?” she started smirking, seemingly amused by my flustered reaction.

“Uh- no, it’s not like that,” I said with a stiff face.

“Hahaha, you suck when you want to lie to me. Anyway, let me get ready,” she took out her katana and started gathering her mana for the incoming monster. It walked in to the scene on its hind legs, standing at a height of eight meters. Its thick fur and huge muscle mass definitely provided it with a lot of protection and resistance against all kinds of attacks.

Looking at its fifty centimeters long claws, Lien’s body stiffened a bit. Despite knowing that I could beat it in the blink of an eye, even I felt a bit afraid of it. Its body was just so massive and gigantic, it really lived up to its rank.

“This thing is massive,” she muttered, looking up at the towering bear.

As their eyes met, the bear started growling and then roared with all its might, making her flinch. “Damn it, it’s so loud!” she covered her ears. She was actually startled by the sudden sound, it was cute how she was trying to hide it.

“Don’t hesitate, if you want to fight it you should go now,” I said.

“It’s easy to say, it’s so scary,” she pouted.

“You may see scarier things in the future, so you better get used to it.”

“I know! I think I’ll keep my distance, I don’t want to fight this monster up front,” she muttered as she jumped back and cast gravity magic on the bear. It was her first time to use it on an actual opponent, but the effect was visible since the bear suddenly dropped to all fours and charged towards her. Since I didn’t want to get in the way, I hopped onto the tree next to me and observed the battle carefully.

As expected, she knew that she should restrain it first to take in a well placed shot, so she resorted to using nature magic. I always liked using mana enhanced vines since they cost little mana and they were quick as well. There was only a slight problem, as soon as the vines entangled the bear’s legs, it used fire magic and turned the vines into dust. The bear kept charging towards her without stopping or slowing down and thanks to its speed, she had no time to start casting something stronger.

Realising the situation she got in, she quickly jumped back once again, but the bear created an earth wall all around her while on the run and cut off her escape routes. She applied a physical law to her body and punched the rock wall, causing it to explode. Combined with gravity magic and probably some weight increasing magic, the head-sized rock splinters smashed into the body of the bear with incredible force. Only two of them missed its body, but they both caused the ground to explode around the bear and make some dust fly into the air.

Surprisingly, the bear wasn’t damaged and used wind magic to clear its sight, but Lien was already preparing her next attack on the lowest branch of a tree. The bear used nature magic and made the branch twist around her leg, and hung her up in the air. As the bear charged towards Lien, the ground suddenly caved in under its legs, causing it to fall face first on the ground.

As it turned out, there was more to that trap than I expected, since the whole ground caved in and the bear fell into a twenty meter deep hole with long and pointy spikes awaiting it at the bottom. It was a feat to prepare a large trap like that so quickly, but she was still playing around too much. If she was really proficient at physics magic, she could punch the bear to the death and kill it with her bare hands.

As expected of a high ranked monster, it used earth magic to destroy the spikes in the hole and then jumped up to get out. It was just a monster, after all. She seemed to expect it since while the bear was in the air, she cast her electric field. With no time to react and unable to move mid-air, a bolt of lightning as thick as a sequoia tree struck its body and then entered the ground. The bear fell back into the hole where she recreated the spikes. Stunned, the bear couldn’t do anything and fell straight onto the spikes. Much to my surprise, the spikes weren’t enough to penetrate deep into its flesh and caused only minor injuries.

“What the fuck is wrong with this thing?” she cried out, seeing that it rolled over the spikes and broke them off as if nothing happened. I never fought a brown bear before, so I was just guessing how much chance she had winning, but she knew it as well. Still, its defense was really amazing.

Seeing that it was starting to regain its vitality, she mixed fire and earth magic and poured a large quantity of magma into the hole, followed up by gravity magic which pushed down the bear. But before the magma could reach its body, it used fire magic to cause an explosion and splatter the magma all over the place outside the hole.

With its strength regained, it started climbing out of the hole, seemingly unaffected by the gravity zone. It learned its lesson and climbed by sticking its claws into the wall instead of jumping out. It was like some kind of ninja bear at this point, I was really amazed by its performance. Reaching the surface, it roared at her and then started barraging her with fire magic. One huge explosion followed after the other, forcing her to run around like a rabbit. Each explosion was strong enough to blow about ten trees in the affected area into smithereens and hit me with a powerful shockwave every time.

If I stopped holding onto the branch I was holding, the shockwave would have blown me off of the tree. Finally, she managed to get it right even while being under pressure and used chemical magic to mix up the components of elemental magic, stopping the bear in its vengeful campaign. Surprised to see that its spell stopped working, the bear roared angrily and then charged towards her. It probably tried using other types of magic as well, but the only elements she left working were light and dark magic.

“Argh, I’ve had enough of this bitch!” she shouted as she shot a pool-sized water ball towards the bear. Surprised by the sudden wave of water, it stopped in place and held its ground against the water body. Its physical strength, endurance, and reaction time were all incredible.

While it was still surrounded by water and its fur was soaked, she used lightning magic once again, amplifying its power. While it stood there and shook its head stunned by the lightning and weighed down by its wet fur and gravity magic, Lien ran up to the bear and took out her katana. The bear regained its consciousness earlier than expected in the face of death and swiped towards her. I watched the whole thing in slow motion, waiting if I should interrupt their battle or not. But seeing the trajectory of its claws and the way Lien stepped, I knew she’d be able to avoid it. Turning on her heels, she dodged its claws and thrust her katana towards its throat.

The bear reacted quickly and jumped up, evading a fatal wound. Her katana reached its throat, but it left only a smaller hole which wasn’t deep enough to cut any major veins. As she touched its body, the bear suddenly slowed down since she greatly increased its weight. The bear couldn’t bear the weight of its own body and fell onto its front, straight into her katana. As her weapon penetrated its mouth, the bear roared in pain. It was really lucky since her katana avoided its brain.

Blood filled its mouth as it started flailing its front legs, trying to claw Lien into two halves, but its movements were too slow to reach her, even though she was really close. Grabbing its right front leg, she strengthened her body with physics magic and broke its leg with a single movement. Glaring at the bear, she said, “Thanks for teaching me how to use this in combat.”

After saying that, she spun on her heel and kicked its head, blowing it into pieces.

“Now, that’s more like it,” I chuckled.

“Argh, I’ve made such a mess of everything! This is terrible, I performed terribly!” she flailed her hands, trying to shake off all the blood. But blood would never come off that easily. Using water magic, I shot a water ball towards her and cleaned her body. Since the blood was still fresh, I didn’t have to resort to using blood magic.

Looking down at her new soaked self, she then looked at me with deadpan eyes. “Why’d you do that? It was cold!”

“Ah, you were talking bullshit, so I felt like waking you up,” I smiled at her. “It was natural that you couldn’t use everything perfectly from the start. Just because you were able to use them earlier when you weren’t under pressure, it didn’t mean that you’d get it right instantly even against a monster like this. You need a strong mind and focus to use this type of magic and if you’re afraid or are hesitating, it won’t do. You did well for your first time,” I said.

While drying herself with fire magic, she muttered, “Fine then.”

I wanted her to understand that using this kind of magic wasn’t as easy as she thought. Even under the slightest bit of pressure, it’d become many times harder to use advanced magic, much less when she was facing a monster like this. She was asking too much from herself.

There was only one major problem, which she noticed a moment later. There were seven other brown bears which encircled us, all glaring at Lien and their fallen comrade on the ground.

“What… what the fuck is this? Since when do bears move around in packs? Have they picked up the behaviour of wolves or what?” she frowned, looking at me with hopeful eyes. Certainly, this would be a run or die situation for her if she was alone. Luckily, that wasn’t the case.

“You haven’t listened in class, have you?” I laughed as I jumped off of the tree and landed next to her.

“What? Why?”

“People call this kind of effect the breath of the wild, for a single reason. If you kill a high ranked monster, more of its kind will come and gang up on you. The main reason nobody dares to go too far away from the city is this sort of mentality among the high ranked monsters. They’ve become smarter and they probably realised that if there’s someone who can kill one of them, they could become the next anytime.”

“And at times like these, they group up to fight off the threat that could take away their position in the food chain. Every monster above B rank reacts this way if one of their comrade is killed by anything they don’t know. If a brown bear killed an A ranked monster, nothing would change, but the monsters refuse to accept a new apex predator and are trying their best to remove every threat. Unfortunately, humanity was somehow cast out of the food chain when the new system formed out here in the jungle and that’s the main reason monsters are so pent up on attacking us.”

“Because we’re the unknown threat that could kill any of them, so obviously, they want to get rid of us, as a whole. If you kill one of them, the wild breathes back,” I explained, seeing that more and more monsters were coming to the scene. It felt as if they were preparing for an execution. Even giant birds started flying above us, blocking every escape route. Taking hold of her hand, I said, “This will be the first time I’ll use word magic in real battle, so please stay behind me just in case it gets a bit out of control.”

“Mhm,” nodding her head, she quickly hid behind my back and put her arms around my waist. Her soft mounds really weren’t helping me in concentrating, but I decided to use this time as a sort of training. Just like she had to practice physical and chemical magic, I had to practice word magic. It was harder to use magic when she was pushing her breasts against my back, though I had much more practice so it was much easier for me.

One of the bears stepped forward and roared loudly, almost tearing my eardrums. I honestly considered killing it on the spot, but I restrained myself and started writing in the air. They were about to attack us but when the first letter appeared, all of them stopped in their tracks. Seeing the second letter forming in front of my finger, most of them started fleeing while the remaining bears charged at me suicidally. They really wanted to prevent me from writing.

I didn’t feel good about the fact that I’d kill all of them, but they’d have killed us as well if I wasn’t who I was. “No hard feelings, okay guys? This is the law of nature,” I mused as I finished writing the last letter of the word ‘ERASE’. One of the bears was only about a meter away from me, but it was too late. The ground started shaking as a black light shot towards the receding monsters. It had no sound or any other specific reaction than what I imagined it to be. A black wall that was supposed to erase everything in its path.

The monsters roared in fear as they saw the black light nearing them with the speed of sound, but they had no way to escape their fate. The black wall reached all of them one by one and erased their existence as they were. My spell stopped only after travelling five kilometers, creating a perfect circle around me with a diameter of ten kilometers.

There was not a single tree or insect left alive, only Lien, me, and the claws of the bear which almost reached me in time. I could feel her hug tightening around my waist, maybe a bit afraid of this kind of magic.

“This… what the hell?” she muttered, looking around with a dumbfounded face.

“Is this word magic? Is this what it’s capable of?” she clenched her fists as she looked at me.

“Yes, the other incarnations are also walking around with this kind of power. And that’s why, I want you to be stronger than Mary. I’ll always protect you to the best of my abilities, but it’d be hard to protect you while defending against something like this. It’d be possible, but it’d be hard,” I said.

“I’ll try my best,” she said seriously.

“Now then, since there is a huge area like this with nobody and nothing around, do you want to spar?” I smiled at her as I picked up the claws from the ground.

“Huh?”

“What? You wanted to spar last time, but I was low on mana so I refused. Now I have more than enough to take you on and still feel safe.”

“Won’t we attract more monsters?” she asked a bit ‘worried’, though she just wanted to avoid the battle. I could understand that she didn’t want to fight against something like this, but I wouldn’t use word magic against her anyway.

“I’ll use only my body to fight you,” I chuckled.

“Is that so?” she asked, this time much more interested.

“Yes,” I replied. It was quite ignorant of her to think that she could beat me if I used only my body, but I was a jerk and I wanted to play with her. She was so gullible when she was facing me, I just had to take revenge at times like these for all the teasing she made me go through!

Ah~ I’m sorry, dear. I’ll have some fun with you today!

----

After hours of sparring, Lien was kneeling on the ground, her hands between her legs. Looking up at me while panting heavily, she started begging, “Haah- please, stop. I’m begging you, okay? I’ll be a good girl, okay? Just stop it.”

“My, what's the problem? Are you so tired you can’t stand?” I asked, amused by her reaction. I took revenge today for all the teasing she made me go through. Every time she made a mistake, I used pleasure touch on her. In the beginning, she just flinched and ignored the short waves of pleasure, but as time passed by, the number of mistakes increased because her mind started wandering elsewhere. I often found her staring at my crotch even when she was supposed to focus on attacking me.

She’s been holding back all week and since I put her through the same kind of pleasure she had been desiring, but only in small doses, she was probably itching down there to get me. I had to say, I had a lot of fun seeing her cute reactions during our battle, but I didn’t want to go overboard so I decided to stop for today.

“Fuck you, you know exactly what’s my problem! Why’d you even do this to me?” she groaned. At this point, her body was probably desiring sex as much as a person would desire food after not eating for a week.

“It’s revenge.”

“You’re so vicious, you’re the worst!” she shouted at me, slowly standing up. “Uh, you fucker, this is so unbearable.”

“Do you need a helping hand?” I winked at her.

“Oh, just you wait, you fucker. I’ll tease you tomorrow until you-”

“Woah, I guess I’ll have to keep my distance in that case,” I laughed.

“That’s unfair!” she cried out.

“Catch me if you can,” I replied. Turning around, she went back to the tent and laid down instead. Going after her, I actually laid down next to her and ignored the threat she was posing to me. She was so soaked down there that I could smell her usual scent even through her clothes.

Grabbing my wrist, she sat down in my lap, facing me. “Well? I caught you,” she said, pressing her lips against mine.

Soon pulling back, I taunted her, “Do you want to do it now? What about holding out until Monday?”

“Hmm? I won’t break just because my lower half is desiring you,” she whispered into my ear, tickling my fantasy. Sticking my hand into her panties, I could feel that she was completely soaked down there. Biting the shoulder part of my shirt, she moaned, “Even though you’re just touching me, it feels so good.”

“Could you rub it a bit? Just a tiny bit, okay?” she said, her hoarse voice shaking from the excitement.

“If I did that, you’d go crazy if I stopped,” I replied as I pulled out my hand.

This was a battle of wills. Although she didn’t know this, training her will would have incredible effects on her soul. A strong will was necessary to train her soul, and this little training would definitely help her in training her will. It was a different matter that it was a perverted way of training, but it was the most effective way of doing it in her case…

“Uh, I’ve never thought that I’d ever feel this kind of lust in my life,” she groaned as she climbed off of me and laid down.

“Bear with it until Monday. If you can withstand this kind of temptation, your will is going to become much stronger. It’ll help you a lot in tempering your soul,” I remarked.

“It will?” she turned towards me.

“Mhm. Don’t worry, I’ll satisfy you next week!” I showed her a thumbs up.

“Uh… it’s not like it helps me in any way today,” she groaned as she turned her back on me. A good five minutes later, she suddenly cried out, “Argh, so annoying! I keep thinking of your cock and that wonderful feeling! I’ve become a fucking addict! How can I even sleep like this?”

“Are you not feeling any lust or what’s with you?” she asked, seemingly unhappy.

“My dear, you’re very very wrong if you think that. I don’t know whether you noticed or not, but your scent filled the whole tent and I touched you a few minutes ago. Do you think it didn’t arouse me when I found you in that kind of state down there?” I shook my head.

“I can’t believe you’d make that kind of straight face if you felt the same way I did,” she groaned.

“Hmm, so you don’t believe me? Let’s see, I’ll sense how much testosterone and estrogen my body is producing and adjust yours to the same level,” I said.

“Wait, wait, what the fuck are you saying?” she frowned.

“Well, didn’t you start learning chemical magic? Actually, love is also caused by chemical materials in our bodies, just like lust, attachment, and many other feelings.”

“But if you can change mine then…” she started realising how dangerous chemical magic could be.

“Yes. Supposedly, it’s phenylethylamine that makes us fall in love with other people, so if I filled someone with it while it was only the two of us, the person could easily fall in love with me,” I explained.

“I won’t get angry, this is the happiest time of my life, but I still want to know. Have you ever done that to me?” she asked with a straight face.

Sighing loudly, I shook my head, “I knew you’d ask this, but my answer is a definite no. In fact, chemical magic is the way to learn mind controlling magic, but I’ve never used it on anyone. I’m of the belief that manipulating people with magic is a bad thing. I’d rather do it with words, behaviour, and stuff, but I wouldn’t resort to using mind magic.”

“I believe people should have their own will and do what they want to and if what they want is crossing paths with what I want, I’ll simply fight them. I know that using mind magic would have incredible ‘benefits’ and that it’d make my life much quicker and simpler, but… it’s just wrong. Don’t you think life would be boring if everyone did what I wanted and behaved as I wanted?” I replied.

“If you let me touch your body, I could sense every chemical material in you and I could change the amount as well, but I swear on my life that I’ve never done it to anyone. The most I did was that I sensed the amount in people’s body when I shook hands with them and stuff like that. Just out of curiosity.”

“Didn’t you say that you didn’t know mind controlling magic?” she asked.

“Well, I know how to do it, but I’ve never done it so I don’t know what amount should I use and what would result in what. I’d have to practise it if I wanted to say that I know mind magic,” I replied.

“I don’t think it’d cause you a lot of trouble to use it, so that’s not really true, but whatever…” she chuckled.

“The reason I’m telling this to you is so that you’d be able to defend yourself from these kinds of attacks as well. If somebody tried to alter anything in my body, I’d notice it. If you got used to observing the levels of your own chemical components, you’d notice if somebody tried to use mind magic on you,” I explained.

“Ah, what the hell! I’ve just got even more things to learn now!”

“Well, knowledge doesn’t come that easily!” I replied.

“Oh? Are you really one to say that when you inherited a shit ton of knowledge?” she raised her brows.

“Erm.. let’s drop the matter,” I cleared my throat.

“I thought so.”

Looking into her eyes, I asked, “Do you believe me regarding the matter of mind control? I’m feeling kind of uneasy about it without your confirmation.”

“It’s a bit scary when I think about how you could have done it, but I know you the most and that’s not because of mind magic. You can’t make me know more about you with mind magic, can you?” she tilted her head to the side.

“No, it’s for altering emotions only. I can’t use it to give knowledge to people,” I nodded.

“Good. Like I said, I know you and I also know that you weren’t lying to me. Your reactions would have sold you out anyway,” she smiled at me.

“Haah- thanks. I feel calmer now,” I sighed.

“You don’t have to worry about it, I believe in you. But this is great, learning about this thing made me distracted about my libido and now I can finally go to sleep!” she quickly laid down and closed her eyes.

I guess she wants to sleep before her lust returns or something. Well, I can tell her more about mind magic later.

Soon she fell asleep, and I used that time to sense the amount of oxytocin in her body, which was responsible for the feeling of attachment. I was curious how much did she feel attached to me, but what I found surprised me. The density in her body was close to the upper limit, almost reaching a point where it’d be called unhealthy. But after checking mine, I realised that I was in the same condition…

Looking at her beautiful sleeping face, I gave her a short kiss and then laid down next to her. Her warmth reminded me of something important. Thanks to her, I wasn’t alone anymore. Ever since I inherited all the knowledge in my head, I always felt that I was different than the others. It was a good feeling, but sometimes it made me feel really lonely, which left a bit of a gap in my heart. With her by my side, that gap was filled up.

---

We spent the weekend training her soul, her body, her will, and I also drilled as much knowledge into her as possible in such a short amount of time. Much to my surprise, she told me that I should test mind controlling magic on her. I didn’t quite understand why she wanted me to learn mind magic and I had more important things to learn anyway, so I refused to do it. Obviously, the main reason was that I didn’t want to use mind magic, especially not on her.

After returning to Balan, we spent Sunday night meditating since we were both at our wits end. For some reason, the withdrawal from sex hurt both of us emotionally, in a way. That just meant that we were addicted to it, but like good addicts, we didn’t want to stop being addicted to it because it felt wonderful.

From my point of view, our will was strong enough to resist doing it if it mattered and we never went overboard or did it more than twice a day. Thinking back, I was quite sure that we did it twice a day only once since we started going out! Once a day still counted as healthy, right? We spent the whole Monday at home, unfortunately, the sky was already turning grey by the time Michael arrived. We were itching to do it, but my father-in-law really took his time.