System Update

The System will now update with your set parameters, master.

Certain functionality, such as the Book of Infinite Knowledge and the ability to utilize Creation Points, will be restricted until the update is complete.

I hope you will be pleased with the results.

“No.” Amice tossed the fabric behind her and into a mound that came to her knees. “No linen, and no hemp. Cotton, wool, silk. Silk for the underclothes, since it's all you can afford, and cotton or wool for the outer coat and pants. But the undershirt must be silk, understand? Anything else will be considered mockery.”

Alden heaved his shoulders in a silent sigh. How can picking a single outfit require so much planning?

With Count Stowgardyn’s ball fast approaching, Alden had taken it upon himself to prepare for the situation. Updating the System was but one part of his preparation, a task that had cost him 3 Creation Points. Another part, which Amice had taken it upon herself to beat into him, was learning the finer details of noble life. A task which proved overly troublesome. Amice was not one to do something herself when she believed that it was another’s responsibility, though she would gladly teach them until they met her standards.

“This one, then?” he asked, holding up a length of yellow fabric that must have been silk.

Amice took it, gave it a single glance, then tossed it into the pile.

“That must have been silk,” Alden complained.

“It was. But what it was not was the right color. You are a noble now, and your outfit must represent that. For the moment, that means your coat of arms and its colors. Which means red, blue and gold. Red and blue will do nicely for the primary colors, and gold will act as lining and embroidery.”

“Fine,” Alden said. He scoured through the fabrics once more, selecting from them the proper colors. After that he separated them by material, or at least as best he could. Cheap fabrics were easy to tell apart, but as the quality grew (and thus the expense), telling wool from cotton from linen apart became an insurmountable challenge.

“Better,” Amice said.

“Can’t I have someone else do this?” What was the point of nobility, he wondered, if he was relegated to doing all the work himself?

“No,” came her quick reply. But her sternness fell away. It was becoming a habit of hers to fall to his whims. “We’ll select the colors another time, if that pleases you.”

“It would please me very much.”

“But we still have measurements to do. Strip.”

Alden slipped his white shirt over his head and tossed it onto the chair behind him. Even with the fire roaring to his right, the air was cool against his skin, and the hairs on his arms and chest prickled.

“It never ceases to amaze me,” Amice said. She circled him, observing him from every angle, the distance between them shrinking as she went. Alden felt his blood warm and his heart’s beat quicken.

Then she touched him, a gentle thing, and with only the singular intent of measuring his bulk with a metered rope in her hands. But his heart and body yearned for the touch to mean something else entirely.

Her hands glided over his skin, fiery hot, reaching around his waist until her arms were all the way around him and her body was pressed against his own. Then he felt not just his own heart, but a second, similar rhythm that beat with equal speed and ferocity.

Is this always how it is for her? He knew the details of her enhanced senses. Thought he could imagine them. But now, as he felt the same desire he had for her radiate off her body as if his own desire were reflected by a mirror, he knew that what he had imagined must have been no more than a speck compared to the real thing.

His heart skipped another beat, his mind wandered, and his blood flowed south.

“I didn’t intend on measuring everything,” Amice said, looking up at him with expectant eyes. “But I can, if that’s what you want.”

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Alden took a deep breath.

Skill Up

The Sexual Arts Skill has been created.

The Sexual Arts Skill has risen to Rank B.

+200XP.

Time, and the moments between, disappeared. There was a kiss, sudden and warm to the point of boiling. Then caressing, and more stripping, and a sight so shocking it froze him for a moment as he took it in. Then there was touching, and more kissing, and an embrace or two so delightful he lost his senses and his consciousness faded.

In the end the two lay naked, Amice half-way draped over him with her ear against his chest. Alden breathed, his gigantic chest heaving up and down in slow movements, and Amice, whose eyes were closed and whose mouth was upturned in a smile that made him tremble with excitement, moved with it.

“You’re an interesting specimen,” Amice said.

Alden chuckled. What are you, then, to have raptured me so?

He breathed again and something happened. Amice shifted in the bed, pushing herself up with her elbows so that she was half upright, her eyes open, alert. Her attention was glued to his body, yet he knew it was not his physical form she was focusing on.

“What stage of cultivation are you?” she asked. “You feel… stronger than I remember.”

“The fourth stage,” Alden replied. She slumped back down into the bed. “It was when I was hunting the flesheater.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” she said. “Not until… not until we were together. It was like I could feel it–you– in your entirety. It hasn’t even been a year.”

A hollow feeling filled him as the wonderful moment between them parted. Like a dream, and now they were awake, and the dream was only a memory.

“I want to go south,” Amice said. “I’ve wanted to go for a while now. But feeling how far you’ve come, how quickly you’re approaching me… I spent years trying to achieve the cultivation I have now. And I stopped, once. I was too afraid to continue. And what reason had I to continue? I had never met someone who could challenge me.

“Then I met you. You were a curiosity for me, you know? A trinket. It is harsh, I know, but that was how I felt those first few days. Then I watched you grow stronger. I knew you would surpass me. So I grew enamored. Before then I thought I was the strongest person in the world. And with you I knew it wouldn’t last, and a part of be was disappointed in knowing that. And then I met the Vigilants, and discovered that it had never been true to begin with. I was just the biggest fish in the pond. And now I’m in the ocean.”

She’s afraid. Curled up beside him, he had the urge to wrap his arms around her and comfort her.

So he did.

Yet as Alden pulled her close, her skin cool to the touch, he felt her pull away until she was in the bed no more. Stood beside the bed, she faced away from him, her snow-white hair obscuring the pale skin of her back from her shoulders to buttocks. A sight that should have thrilled him. Instead he felt muted, as if the colors of the world had faded.

“Is it truly so bad?” he asked. Harsher than intended. She flinched.

“I cannot stomach it. Do you know what it’s like? To know you have such potential in you, but without any way of drawing it out? Every night I wonder how much I could have accomplished had I been born among my mother’s people. Instead I am here, stagnant, forced to watch as others grow around me in a way I could only dream.”

He didn’t know what to do. What to say. So he did nothing, said nothing. It was the wrong choice, he thought. But what else was there to do? He could not even turn to the System for answers.

“What is it you want?” he eventually asked.

“I want to go south. With you.”

“I can’t,” he said.

Amice sat on the bed’s edge, curling forward. Closer, physically, yet otherwise more distant. The words hurt her. But they were the truth. There was too much to be done.

Alden sighed. “I won’t stop you. If you want to go… then go. You have my blessing.”

She turned back to him, and internally he flinched. Etched on her face was not the resignation he had expected, that look of surrender that would have meant an end to the discussion. No, what he saw was a glimmer of hope. And that hope smothered his own.

She’ll leave me. The realization bit him deep, like a cold blade.

Amice sensed as much. “You want me to stay.” It was not a question. Just the hard truth of the situation.

“And you want to go.”

“I do. More than anything. Besides you, maybe. I don’t know. I just know that I want it.”

“Then go!” he yelled, anger welling up in him. Then shame. I’m a damned fool.

But Amice did not mirror his reaction with anger of her own. Not overt anger, at least, which he might have preferred. Instead she spoke with the cold anger of disappointment.

“You are the lord of these lands, and legally I am your serf, by the will of the late Emperor. Your property. A fate I resigned myself to when I turned from my father’s homeland. I cannot leave without your permission, thus the decision is yours. My lord. Am I to take your words as permission?”

“No,” Alden heard himself say. “No, you do not. I need you here, with me. I’m sorry.”

Amice stared at him. “I care about you. I do. Even now.”

“I know.” But you care more about going south. “We’ll go together. Eventually. After the ball. After the barony’s finances are settled. I’ll make time for us to go. But I can’t now. It’s too unstable. One wrong step and I lose everything. I can’t let that happen.”

“I believe you,” she said. He wasn’t certain she did.

Then she sat next to him on the bed. She rested her head on his arm, took his hand in her own, squeezing it ever so gently. The tension dissipated, leaving them back where they started. Two lovers in the afterglow.

“I love you,” Amice said. Tears welled in the corner of his eyes, and his heart felt so full it might burst.

“I love you, too,” he replied.