Chapter 1377 (Patreon)

Stepping out of the shadows and into one of the clearings I had visited occasionally to hunt, I was briefly taken aback. I hadn’t checked the location beforehand, relying on my own strength to keep me safe, so I hadn’t known what I was moving into. Due to that, the sudden lack of snow caused me to stumble a little, but my agility was luckily up to the task and kept me upright and balanced moments later. Lisa, on the other hand, wasn’t as lucky. Maybe it was due to the surprise, maybe it was due to her prone position, or it might even have been because she was unfamiliar with this method of travel, at least across long distances - ultimately, it didn’t matter too much why it had happened; just the results were important. Or rather, the results were relevant, and, for Lisa, rather humiliating, as the shadow-step caused her to land face-first in a pile of small, round pellets. The smell was rather ripe, making me immediately lower my nose's sensitivity, while Lisa added to the mess by throwing up.

Nearby, I heard a group of animals, likely the ones responsible for the droppings I had accidentally dropped Lisa into, flee at our sudden appearance. For a moment, I was tempted to add a bit of meat to my already overflowing larder, but that wasn’t why I was here. So, I looked around instead, slightly taken aback by the transformation the area had undergone in the last two weeks I hadn’t visited. Gone were the lingering remnants of winter, completely replaced with fresh grass, flowers and countless insects. 

It was quite obvious that numerous creatures were planning to propagate their individual species and making a lot of noise during the process. In a way, it was good preparation for fall, when Maggie’s community would be overrun by newborns, causing all kinds of loud noise and funky smells. I still wasn’t sure I wanted to visit during that time, beyond the effectively necessary visits at the beginning when I was needed to deliver the babies or heal up the mothers afterwards.

“First lesson, or rather, first demonstration. Conjuration of Water,” I told Lisa, noticing the smears on her face and the absolutely disgusted expression on her face, “Don’t try to mimic that just yet; we don’t want you to accidentally take your head off, just trying to wash your face,” I added, before placing my hands near said face. Not close enough to brush against it, but close enough that I could feel the heat radiate off her blush when she realised the situation she was in. 

A brief focus of my magic caused warm water to cascade down her face, washing away the mess she had landed in. She even opened her mouth a little, cleaning that out, too, though I learned far more than I ever wanted to in the process. Due to the symbiote I had bestowed upon her, I could feel her body easily, and reading the reactions of it was trivial. So, I was well aware just how aroused she was getting, even if I was only washing her face so she wouldn’t stink of deer-shit. And when she opened her mouth to take in some of that water, the supposedly invisible reactions of her body only made me more uncomfortable. For once, I would have preferred ignorance, but, sadly, that blissful comfort was denied to me. 

Once she was cleaned, I stopped the water and pulled her to her feet, banishing what I had just summoned so she was dry once more. 

“Let’s get moving; it stinks here,” I told her, starting to walk to the side of the clearing, with Lisa trailing behind me. “Do you feel the power within you?” I asked, already wanting this to be over. 

“I think so,” she replied, and I saw her nod out of the corner of my eyes. “I’ll try using it,” she added, after I prompted her to do just that. 

For a moment, nothing much happened. But then, I felt a faint surge of Astral Power go through the symbiote, and an arc of brown light shot from her outstretched hand, striking the ground a few metres away. The ground, in turn, rippled a little, looking almost like a lake somebody had thrown a stone in, though the effect only lasted a second or two; then it ended. Afterwards, the terrain looked a little disturbed, though I had no idea how much had changed, nor how deep the changes went. 

However, while the intended effect of her magical feat was a little lacklustre, the unintended side-effects were rather startling and followed in an already established theme. Lisa enjoyed the feeling of my magic a great deal, to the point that I was quite certain I had heard an involuntary moan escape her mouth. For a moment, I considered ripping the symbiote right back out of her, though I had no idea what would happen if I did. Given how it had spread through her body, interweaving with her mind and soul, I would likely kill her by doing so, making me hesitant. At least a little, as I could largely push aside the sensations her body experienced.

“There should be another stream of power, too. What you just channelled was Earth Magic, which should allow you to easily move all related materials and effectively act as a piece of heavy construction equipment,” I explained, maintaining a serious facade, despite the slight ridiculousness of the statement. “The other power is Water. Hopefully, that will let you conjure water just as I did, and I shouldn’t have to tell you just how valuable a permanent source of clean drinking water can be, especially a mobile one,” I added, getting a nod of understanding, even if she didn’t appear to be happy about being called construction equipment. Or maybe she took umbrage at the idea of being called heavy; I wasn’t sure. 

Again, she raised her hand and looked a little confused, her face scrunched up and her body starting to tense. Thanks to the symbiote, I could feel a little more than I really wanted to, which seemed to remain a common theme with her, and I decided to intervene before something unfortunate happened. Otherwise, she would have conjured liquid, but not water and not from her hand. That was a mess we really didn’t need right now. 

Given that the magic she was trying to call up was still mine and responded to my command almost as well as if it was within my own body, conjuring a stream of water was easy. The only issue was that I couldn’t control the temperature, as that would require fire or ice magic, so it simply came out at the ambient temperature.

“Did you feel that?” I asked her, only to realise that controlling the magic within her was a bad idea, at least for my mental well-being. If she reacted with arousal when using my magic, when I used my magic through her, the effect seemed to be magnified. Her eyes, despite faintly glowing with Astral Power, were glassy, her pupils blown wide open, and she stared into the void, but the rest of her body was surging with adrenaline, and I didn’t have to think too hard about what had just happened. Nor did I want to think about it; this was far too much for my poor, poor mind. 

Reeling just a little, I decided that this was enough. Or maybe this was already too much. For once, my usually insatiable appetite for information and knowledge was completely gone, suppressed by distaste. I really didn’t want to know what was going on in Lisa’s body. 

A part of me recognised just how amusing this was. I had rooted through dead bodies, and produced quite a few of them, in my pursuit of knowledge, without hesitation or concern. The only reason I might have batted an eye while doing so was to keep splatter from blinding me. 

And yet, knowledge of Lisa’s body and information about her arousal were enough to make me deeply uncomfortable, to the point that I didn’t want to know more. 

“Can you replicate it?” I asked, unwilling to dwell too much on the topic, even if I couldn’t fully escape it. Hopefully, distance would mute the link that fed me the sensations from her body, or maybe I could mask it somehow. 

“I think so,” she nodded, her face scrunching up once more, but this time, she managed to call on my magic and conjure a trickle of water from her hand. It wasn’t much, but she was getting there. With some experimentation and training, she’d be alright; the symbiote performed sufficiently well, and it didn’t look like she was about to cause widespread devastation. 

To me, that meant one thing. I didn’t need to keep her around for further experimentation, so I could drop her off at Maggie’s community. At least after I made sure to command her, through the magical connection between us, to keep quiet about the experiments performed on her, to forget she knew Alice and Xander, and to generally maintain my secrets. Especially regarding the sensations my magic caused within her, I had no interest in having people hound me because they were horny. 

That done, I dropped us into the Astral River once more, this time heading towards Jademoon Tower and Maggie’s community. I couldn’t wait to get away from Lisa.