The silvery [Living Armor] was, no doubt, an awesome addition to his arsenal, but it still didn’t scratch his mech-armorer itch. The armor was leaning too much on the magical side, and for that reason, The Mark I exoskeleton armored frame was the answer.

Originally arrived as a set of medieval metal armor and what he had to do next was pretty obvious. He could just have started from scratch but he doubted his creation would match this world’s style or custom. The Mark I was made to blend with the surroundings and what worked better than especially ordered armor?

It had fit in nicely when it was already known that [Metal] aligned [Mage] would use armors and swords in fights. The armor felt unnecessarily heavy and clunky but it was something the nerve-linked magitech micro-motors and gears had been designed to fix, and of course, augment.

The four limbs were done and he was finishing the chest piece when Ana came knocking on his workshop door. Adrin had debated with himself and he finally decided to use the front of the armor as the entrance. This would leave the front to be theoretically more vulnerable than the back but a pilot could better defend the front than the back of the armor.

Moving the armor pieces with his mind still needed some practice as he still didn’t have an onboard smart system to do all the specific calculations. Taking a step in the flesh might be simple to a human mind but endlessly complicated for mechanical construction. The complication only multiplied when flesh and bone were residing inside.

The last thing he needed was the armor to move way beyond the biological limits of his human limbs when the person inside was in shock or something. It would be a disaster he never wanted to experience or let anyone see.

It had taken him longer than he would like, but he now could move without using his actual limbs or the silver scales. He wasn't sure whether it was due to the design itself, but using the nerve-linked armor felt like moving a phantom limb and it took a while to get used to this.

But believe it or not, the mecha frame was in its simplest form right now. It felt like he was walking in clunky, powered armor. Things would only be more complicated from now on. Scaling up would introduce a lot of new problems he had to solve before he could take it to the field.

How Ana knew his exact sizes though, was obvious after thinking how long he had been a complete unresponsive vegetable. The maidservants had probably measured every inch of his body while he was in a coma and he would rather not think about that.

Adrin glanced at the girl. The younger redhead was still in the room as she stared at the floor, thinking about her troubles. A tiny part of him wallowed at the sight and missed opportunity.

God, she was gorgeous.

He sighed as he ducked and slipped into the chest piece. The armor clammed close as the machinery hummed to life and connected itself with the waistpiece and pauldrons. What was left now was the helmet, the headpiece of the armor.

It was bothering him, but at a similar age, as they were, he couldn’t just chase away the young Matriarch of the family. Besides, her grand presence also allowed him to work in relative peace. No maidservant was going to sneak in and profusely offer herself to be humped while the Matriarch herself was present.

Adrin had waved away when she said she was sorry, but he just wondered why the Matriarch had suddenly tried to seduce him. The look in her eyes had confused him as she wasn’t a bit interested in him or his manhood.

‘She was trying to be rebellious, perhaps?’ Adrin mused.

She looked like she was at that age. He imagined her, as the Matriarch, sleeping with a cripple would have pissed off the Elders of the family.

Who knew, the Elders might have thanked their gods that he hadn’t touched or sullied any other girl than Lily. They probably thought the girl was somehow special and the girl had only happened to be sleeping with the [Lightbringer].

It would explain why she was kept away from him after they found out the baby was special. No one would think a cripple could squid out a special baby-making juice into a girl.

However, the old folks of the family can forget about molding the child to their personal or familial benefits. Adrin would make sure that would never happen.

Maybe the rumors of Ana sleeping with him would be like the girl giving a huge middle finger to the Elders and there was nothing the old coots could do about it. It would be a disaster in the making if this was true as he would rather not be caught in the middle. All the more reason he should crawl his way out of this hole while paying his debt in full.

Speaking about debts, “By the way, how much do I owe the family?” Adrin threw the question at Ana as she would know better than anyone.

The big pretty green eyes locked with his boring brown. God, he could stare at them for days and still wouldn’t grow tired of them, but he had to look away before it started to become awkward. He had pretended to check his gauntlet to pull the stubborn eyes away.

“Remember the patterned swords you’ve sold to the merchants,” the girl reminded him as she stood up from the sofa.

Adrin shrugged his metal pauldrons without looking, but how could he ever forget about almost being charmed? It would be a constant reminder to him for the rest of his life and he wondered if the family knew about the incident. In hindsight, he should have stuck with jewels and trinkets.

“It is about three hundred more of the same swords,” Ana continued, “but the price will drop sharply if you make that many more. Your buzzing sword, on the other hand, is safe in my personal vault. No one else knew about it other than a few.”

Adrin gulped. He almost forgot about that. Introducing hyper-tech like the vibroblade could cause kingdoms to be toppled. Ana had made an excellent call to keep it secret, but was there a reason for her to keep it a secret?

Well, it didn’t matter to him, as long as it was in safe hands. Adrin shook his head slightly. He kept piling up all kinds of debts these days.

“You can keep it,” Adrin said as thanks. “But, selling swords, was that what you were thinking when I asked for metals to work on?”

Ana affirmed with a nod as she walked towards his workbench. She stopped right beside him as she looked at the metal parts on the bench with reserved curiosity.

Somehow she made it look like she had no interest in the ‘space marine’ knockoff standing just beside the work table. Ana had a lot of questions on her mind by the looks of it, but she had stayed her words.

‘Selling swords as payback?’ Adrin could only shake his head inside in response.

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They really had no idea, didn’t they? These people might have recognized him as a soul from another world but they didn’t know how vast the difference he could make in this world.

Adrin could have flown to the moon, at this moment, if he had wanted to. What would happen if they suddenly witnessed that? Would he be revered as or feared? Nevertheless, he had side projects, of course, in his grand plan of paying his debts.

The concept of the plan was simple if anyone thought about it. Kingdom toppling vibroblades aside, what sells better than modern conveniences?

Probably nothing else to a person who came from the world of avid consumers. Rich folks in this world would pour money into luxuries they had never seen or heard of before.

Adrin wouldn’t mind corrupting this world with such a culture if it meant he would pay all his debts along with the interest. It was better than a drug empire idea at least.

The money-making prototypes were, of course, also for his own selfish needs. Nothing like rich people’s luxuries to rewind and relax after a long tiring day.

“Come, let me show you something,” he said to his lady boss and debtor.

The girl nodded. Her expression was neutral as she checked out his main project but more sincere than the first time she entered his man cave.

The metal boots clicked loudly with the stone floor as he led the way. The underground floor under the mansion was made with his own [Stone Shaping] as he didn’t want or need anyone’s help in the matter. All he had needed was permission from the mansion’s owner and Ana had allowed him as long as he didn’t do something stupid. It was easier to talk to the boss when they were about the same age, relatively speaking, at least.

He also should start a search for something akin to rubber as the constant clicking metal boots already started to rub him in the wrong way. The noise was starting to drive him nuts. They arrived soon at the place he enjoyed very much after a busy day.

“I’m going to undress but don’t take it wrongly,” he warned her. “I'm just going to take a dip in the warm water. This is the first product to pay for my debts.”

Removing his clothes in front of a girl was nothing compared to multiple cute maids undressing him, well, when he allowed them to. Believe it or not, he had already grown dull to it, but of course, he left his boxers on as the magitech exoskeleton frame opened up and lowered his half-crippled body into the pool.

A jacuzzi pool to be exact. He had this idea the first time he showed the village girls how awesome their new bathrooms were.

The soft safety straps around his chest disconnected on command, and it was the last piece between him and the magitech exoskeleton armor. The first of its kind but certainly not the last.

He had to temper his excitement as he didn’t want to look stupid in front of the Matriarch.

Adrin was getting better at it, but he couldn’t help but let out a moan when the bubbling hydromassages started to rub on his sore muscles.

“There is nothing like bubbles with benefits,” he muttered under his breath.

Of course, he hadn’t used his muscles that much but it still felt great to let the warm water and bubbles do their magic. His physical body had been healing along with the progress of his project as he didn’t want to depend on his armors one hundred percent.

As he had expected, he heard a splash not long after he had entered the water, but he wasn’t ready for it when he opened his eyes.

The girl went buck-naked under the water. He had confirmed this based on the clothes left behind. An alluring groan escaped her lips as she leaned back, one arm away from him.

“Oh my god, this is fantastic,” she said accompanied by another long seductive moan. “This will sell, I imagine,” the girl added with a whimper.

Nothing like the genuine pleasure of a girl could send shivers down a man’s spine. Adrin threw that thought away and closed his eyes. Nothing good would come out of that kind of relationship with someone who was technically his boss in another world.

“I'm sorry to come to you like that, but can we be friends, at least?” asked Ana suddenly after a long silence.

“I thought we were already friends?” Adrin said with a chuckle.

Ana giggled and slapped his shoulder.

He didn’t think it was that funny.

Why did she even think being friends was funny?

“I mean true friends, oathed friends,” she clarified with a small sigh. “I think both of us need it. I have my own plans for the future, Adrin, and for that, I’ll need someone to watch my back.”

A friendship would be a very good start as he might have to relearn on how to make friends. How to build trust from the ground up.

“Yeah, we can do that,” Adrin agreed almost immediately.

The water splashed with her sudden movement, “do you mean it?”

“Yes, of course,” he replied. “How do we do this oathed-friend thing?”

“Well, to start, we’ll have to make our mana harmless to each other,” the girl said excitedly. “It is a sign of great trust between mages.”

She was more excited about making friends than seeing magitech in the making, but he could understand why. The girl might have no idea what she was looking at, and she had only a few trusted friends around to count on. Not everything you could share with much older, backward-thinking, family members.

“Hmm, I’m starting to see a pattern here,” Adrin joked and the girl giggled at it.

For a change, Adrin offered his hands first. He knew what she would discover when his mana rubbed on hers, but that was the risk he had to take.

He had to trust others to have any chance for others to trust him.

She probably already knew about it anyway. The girl should already have learned about him from his Spellmaster, but probably had no idea about the blood-bond. It was a taboo practice of spellcraft that even the ex-matriarch didn’t want to share with anyone else.

Anaxandra took his hand and they sat in meditation while still in the bubbling, swirling, warm water. Ana’s mana gave him a vision of a warm cooked meal prepared by a loving wife after a long tiring day. It was such a simplistic vision for a girl who he thought had such high ambition, well, until he noticed the charred corpses outside.

Nevertheless, she had wanted nothing but to warmly take care of her family. Adrin could relate to such strong dedication.

Ana, of course, gasped when she saw his version of mana-vision. Her eyes bulged wide before she closed them and took a deep breath.

“I’ve never imagined, no,” she stopped herself. “I’ll carry this mana-vision to my grave,” she said her oath as her mana swirled with her words.

“I’ll have your back no matter what happens,” Adrin said with conviction and his mana responded to it. “The world could burn for all I care.”

Ana giggled some more before she sighed and let go of his hand. Her eyes stared into his as if she had appreciated the notion he had mentioned.

“I got to say, it is an odd place to have your oaths taken,” Ana chuckled at her jab. She seemed a lot happier after making an odd friend from another world.

“I couldn’t agree more, but I liked to stay just a while longer,” Adrin closed his eyes and leaned on the pool’s walls.

“Me too,” she replied before he felt her dainty hand on his chest and her modest breast poking and pushing at his side. Adrin tried to think nothing of it as she probably was, but his man-brain wouldn’t cooperate with him.

Ana snuggled onto him as any boundaries between them disappeared completely.

It didn’t feel wrong at all for some odd reason. He would blame the magical bond as that was the only thing different between now and then. She separated herself for a moment just to guide his hand around her tiny waist before she snuggled even closer.

“Hmmm, this is a lot better,” she purred as the girl leaned on him and made herself comfortable in his arms.

Adrin shifted uncomfortably and Ana felt it when they were this close together.

“Don’t worry,” she said with her eyes closed, “those old coots pretty much ordered me to be here, if you know what I mean. Now wrap your other hand around me too,” she cooed.

Things began to snap together as soon as he did as she asked.

Adrin cursed inside. How stupid he could be? Of course, the Elders wanted him to impregnate her. One was not enough as the greedy old coots wanted a magical prodigy out from Ana’s womb too.

He couldn’t imagine being ordered to sleep with someone she barely knew.

Maybe that was why she was kind of pissed off when she sat on his lap.

Ana was under a lot more stress than he previously thought the girl was. The girl had her troubles, fears, and worries too. She even had her plans for the future, but he wondered what? World domination? He chuckled inside.

Adrin sorted his thoughts for almost an hour before the girl kissed his neck. Ana smiled beautifully and playfully when he looked down at her. He knew that look very much.

It was the look of a sad lonely heart hidden under a genuine smile. Her intention was crystal clear when he felt the soft grip around his other brainless head.

The girl’s heart would probably never be his, but the girl’s eyes were begging for someone to comfort her. Someone she could trust to hold it gingerly in their hands and ease its aching deep wounds. A part of him loathed to be that someone, to be used like a tool, but he had promised to have her back no matter what.

And her arched back was exquisitely delicious. Let’s be honest, who in the world wouldn’t enjoy banging such beauty? Watching a gorgeous redhead gasping at the fully erected man-tool was every man’s dream come true.