'Not again…'

Waking up from my meditative state, I felt just… helpless.

Because how else was I supposed to feel when there was a strange part of me that I didn't have any control over? It was as if I was randomly falling asleep whenever I tried to do something!

Still, as opposed to just falling asleep, there was the consolatory prize of my body completing the very task I set out to do, even if it all happened without the control of my own mind over it.

"You are up, huh?"

Hearing a voice from behind, I nearly jumped up to my feet, only to realize that there was some sort of powerful force holding my shoulders down and thus making me unable to move an inch from where I sat down.

"Calm down, it's me, Claire…" Once again, the voice reached my ears… but this time, my brain actually managed to process it.

'Oh right.'

I took a few deep breaths to calm down… Only to feel Claire's hands lifting up from my shoulders, thus allowing me to feel a strange, sharp yet perfectly bearable pain around the same place where she kept her hands.

"What is this…?" I muttered more to myself than to the girl as I reached out with my hand to check for any sort of injuries where the pain was coming from, only to realize that I actually held something in my hand!

'Again?' I thought, a sense of exasperation filling my soul as I looked down to check what I was holding.

Thankfully… Or rather, at the very least, it wasn't some sort of a device capable of producing an endless amount of elixir-grade potions this time. This time, it was just a single glass vial filled up to roughly half its volume with some sort of sparking, blue liquid.

Prompted by the sight, I looked down at the alchemy set, only to realize that just as I feared… It was empty.

With the exception of some stinky, slightly charred paste at the bottom of my tiny, ceramic pot, not a single bit of herbs, liquids or other materials remained in the box of the reagents that came with the set.

This time, as opposed to my last excursion into the land of mindless meditation, I could somewhat understand what happened.

'All of those, when following the recipes to their last letter, allowed one to craft just one full vial of an actual elixir,' I thought, only to then look at the vial in my hand.

And quite obviously, rather than a full vial of the finished product, I only had a half of it!

'Does this mean…'

"Hey!" Claire suddenly shouted, pulling me out of the depths of my analytical mode and forcing my thoughts to resurface back to reality.

"What?" I snapped back at her, somewhat dissatisfied I couldn't even get a few moments to process what actually happened. And given how it was the very first time for me to actually figure out a part of what I did while deprived of consciousness in my meditative state…

"I think I've figured out what's wrong with you," the girl said, instantly redeeming herself in my eyes and prompting me to nearly drop the vial out of my hand as I turned to look her in the face.

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"Did you?!"

I was excited. And in all honesty, it would be weird if I wasn't. After all, those few words she just said were proof that I was right in asking for her help, even if it came at a great monetary price of sharing the profits from whatever I created with her, even if just by making her my trading proxy!

"Yeah, I did," Claire sighed while leaning back on her hands and allowing her legs to freely dangle off the edge of my bed. Once again, I had nothing but utmost gratitude for her selection of clothing that saved me from the awkward feeling of not knowing where to look while she would unknowingly expose the part of her clothing no eyes of a random man were supposed to ever experience.

"Haaah…" the girl then uttered a long, exhausted sigh before pulling herself up by her bootstraps and raising up to sit on the edge of the bed instead.

"In short, you are extremely weird," she started, only to nigh instantly put me down. "Ah," she then reflected, right as my face twisted in response to her words, "Don't take it the wrong way. It's just… The amount of mana that you gather within yourself as you meditate is way, waaay higher than what I, or anyone else for that matter, would expect from a newbie," she explained before suddenly growing all silent. "What's more, this state of meditation you enter… It's something that normally only happens once one goes past the Flesh-Qi balance stage of cultivation. And that, I just can't explain at all."

At first, I simply stared back at Claire's face, my eyes revealing the extent of hope that I harnessed in my mind.

And how could I not be so hopeful? After five years of struggle, I finally found my breakthrough… Only to be met with yet another wall. A wall all the scarier, with how it pretty much prevented me from actually learning!

But now, rather than finding answers, all Claire offered me were more questions, questions that not even a cultivator like her could easily find an answer to.

"Let's cut the crap and get to the important bits," I suggested while leaning back so that I could look her in the face without looking up like some sort of kid looking up to an adult's face. "Is there any way for you to help me… get past those issues?"

This was supposed to be a simple, straightforward question. And yet…

Claire suddenly blushed only to quickly turn her eyes away. She then opened up her mouth… Only to close them back up without uttering a single word.

"Ekhem…" I cleared my thought, "It's not like I'm just going to forget about our deal if you can't. Just by clarifying what are my issues you are already helping me out a fair bit, so if you are worried about me going back on my word just because you couldn't help me out as much as I hoped you could…"

"And who the hell said I couldn't do it?!" Suddenly, Claire flared up, as if I just insulted not only her but her entire lineage, her pride of a practitioner, and then the cute dog she loved above everything else.

Still, Claire tightened her hands into fists and even raised them as if to swing them at my face… Only to squint her eyes and look me dead in the face with a look of determination I have yet to see on her face before.

"So, as long as I can help, you are fine with whatever methods I will have to use?" she asked in a provocative tone as if trying to scare me off from saying yes.

"I mean…" I hesitated for a second…

Only to then recall all the trouble, all the effort, all the pains, and desperation I went through to get to the point where I was at right now.

"As long as it won't kill me, I will do just fine," I said while defiantly raising my head and staring right back into Claire's determined eyes.

"Fine!" she called out only to jump off the bed's edge and up to her feet, circle around me… And then step over my lap before dropping down with her ass directly on top of my lap only to then wrap her hands around my shoulders and lean in, as if the answer to my problems lay in a prolonged session of a passionate making-out.

"What are you waiting for?!" Claire nearly screamed out right into my face as she wiggled her hips to press herself as close to me as she could, ignoring the fact that her crotch now rubbed against mine or how her breasts flattened against my chest. "Get to crafting, god damn it!"

At first, I was startled, not sure how to react. Yet, as the softness of her body pressed against my skin, as her slightly sweet, floral scent got to my mind, as her warmth started to warm me up from inside out…

'Shit…'

Feeling how my little soldier was waking up to stand at attention, I quickly reached out for whatever I could get my hands on without moving all that much before quickly scrolling through my phone to get some sort of recipe I could follow.

With just those two elements, I focused with all my mind on crafting… Only to feel Claire lean in over my shoulder…

Only to bite down at my neck, just hard enough for her teeth to bite through my skin.

Strangely enough, though, while it was slightly painful… It only served to get my blood pumping even faster, only further narrowing down my window of opportunity to forget about excitement and focus on the task at hand…