The maids deftly wipe my body and cast [Clean], then they use [Fireball] to quickly dry my hair. They seem to have fully grasped how to avoid cutting themselves on my scales and claws.

I take a step forward and stand in the beam of light pouring down from the glass ceiling, and my scales shine blindingly, polished so perfectly that I could use them as a mirror to reflect upon my incredible handsomeness and virility.

I look straight ahead, and my thick tail stands up in attention as I notice the divine beauty watching me with hungry, orange eyes. Her shoulder-length, almost orange hair seems to sparkle from both its silkiness and its moisture. Her fluffy fox ears point upwards in both attention and alertness, but her lazily wagging tail reveals the true feeling that lies within her heart: mischief.

She takes a step forward, and her juicy, supple breasts jiggle, immediately drawing my attention to them, almost as if it was all a deliberate distraction, then my eyes are drawn further downwards, past her fit abs, and towards her orange landing strip that contrasts with her pale skin. Nostalgic memories of that small, tight place arouse me, and my dragonator arms itself on its own.

We both walk to the side at the same time, moving towards a comfortable and lavish bed that's waiting just for us, and the maids light incenses around it, which release a stimulating flowery scent that helps to narrow my mind's focus onto my goal: Ravaging Alissa.

We go at it wild and hard. The heavy amount of teasing has built up so much frustration that it gets all released in an explosion accompanied by fireworks. Our wild nature within us just makes it hard to hold back, and we Fuck until I have to [Heal] us both, then I get up our mating nest and carry Alissa to the bath.

I carefully walk down the steps and enter the hot water, then I sit down on the jiggly, jelly-like bench and lower Alissa onto my lap.

She curls up and rests her head against my chest again, then she closes her eyes.

I find it really cute how her fox ears still remain perked up, probably so that she can catch any sounds of danger while she sleeps.

I gently caress her head with my padded claws, giving her a light, pleasant tickle, and close my eyes, too.

The battle was exciting, and the dragon is quite happy now, but the human is tired. I do have more energy than I did before, but my tolerance for violence hasn't increased that significantly, so I feel a bit drained, in both senses of the word.

As if she could read my mind, Poosh appears behind me and kindly offers, "Your Highness, would you care for a massage?"

"Yes, please."

She kneels down on the floor, and her experienced hands immediately go to work. Poosh's attentiveness might be my favorite thing about her, the second being the inside of her vagina.

After Alissa's had a good nap and my stress has melted away in the hot bath, we both get out, and we unfortunately have to part ways since we each have our own business to attend to.

Poosh opens the door for me, and I enter the meeting room, now fully dressed and refreshed, then the Officers stand to greet me and bow.

I wave my hand, and they sit down, then I sit in the biggest chair.

"Let the meeting begin," I immediately announce and give everyone a glance. "Does anyone have any questions related to the battle you witnessed?"

"Your Highness, did you… touch Cereleia's spirit with your own?" Almaria asks, sounding slightly concerned.

It actually surprises me that this is the first question she asks. "Yes, I did. It only causes pleasure, but it was unusually potent for her, for some reason. Why do you ask?"

"Well…" Almaria adjusts her glasses, trying to find the correct words to broach this topic tactfully. "There's a ritual among Dryads that is used when humanoids want to 'marry' a Dryad and become their permanent lover. It involves having sex while bleeding profusely, and it's said that this allows their spirits to 'touch' through their blood, which gives them both mind-shattering pleasure."

I blink blankly for a long moment.

"Did I accidentally marry Cereleia?" I blurt out.

Almaria awkwardly adjusts her glasses again and looks down at the table. "I don't know… but perhaps you did, in a way…" Then she looks at me with increasing worry.

I facepalm and sigh. "We'll… have to talk this out with Cereleia the next time we meet, then. She didn't give me the names of her lovers, after all."

"I still remember them, and they aren't anyone important to the Lordship, so it's incredibly unlikely that we'll ever cross paths," she assures me.

I sit up straight and point out, "We also have to set up a way to regularly communicate with her if she's to send the reports to me."

"Understood, I'll get on it." And she nods obediently.

Sai and Silvano seem very amused, while the rest are neutral, though they could just be hiding their emotions.

"About your Gift…" Sandoro starts, and I give them a rough outline of what we can do. It was for this exact moment that we required them to become Blood Slaves because it wouldn't be possible or even smart to keep my Gift a secret from the High Officers with us needing to fight together regularly.

"I see…" Sandoro hums then thinks for a moment before starting his analysis, "I noticed how you all seemed to use a wide variety of spells, but none of them, save for [Explosion], seemed to have a lot of 'Magical Power.' You have a lot of power, yes, but it still lacks the impact that an average Lord can bring onto a battlefield, though their power will never grow to be as deep or as diverse as yours due to your Gift, your Highness."

And Alcander immediately follows up, "However, we should be able to cast something big if we use [Ritualism]. If I understand it right, you prefer to keep a varied set of low-level skills instead of focusing on one, correct?"

I nod in agreement and explain myself, "Precisely. I can use spells up to level fifty, and the girls can go even higher if they have the skill points for it, but they don't have as many as me or Lina since they've had more time to level their skills than we have."

Silvano is quick to grasp the mechanics of my Gift and immediately voices a question, "Why do you keep leveling skills? Just suppress all level ups and accumulate enough points to push any skill to the maximum level at will."

But I already have an answer to that, "Leveling the skills gives us more knowledge and power than what just moving our points around can provide us. Think of it like a shortcut. It doesn't tell us how to navigate our skills, so when we have to be creative, we can't since the only thing we know is the shortcut and we never deviated from it."

He narrows his eyes and hums, pondering upon my words, "Hm… I guess it makes sense, though your Gift doesn't seem to make that much sense, to begin with." And I smile wryly while he grins.

Then Alcander wastes no more time and slyly suggests, "I think it's a good idea to start doing combat exercises with the Lordsguard so that they can get used to your 'unusual' fighting style."

Sandoro comes in to support, "I agree. None of your Highnesses fit within our units, except for Grand Hanafuria, perhaps, so I believe you'll need to learn how to fight around your men. They certainly don't have anywhere near the same versatility as you do."

I get where they're going with this, so I give them a subtle smile, then turn to Silvano and follow up with, "Sounds like a great opportunity to train with you, Sir Silvano. You also seem to have a very 'unusual' fighting style, or so I've heard."

"That sounds…" Silvano mumbles, very suspicious of what we're aiming for, but we give him a stern front, pressing him into acceptance. "Like a good idea," he relents, albeit a bit skeptical.

Alcander smirks as the bait has worked perfectly, then he returns to being stoic and points out, "It seems that our greatest weakness will be Lord-level magical combat since we don't have enough High Mages to counter most other Lords."

Silvano immediately forgets about the trap we just laid for him and presents a counterpoint with a grin, "But we can definitely compensate with ingenuity." However, Alcander definitely doesn't agree with him.

"If anything, your Highnesses have shown exactly that," Sai sides with Silvano, giving me a brief, warm smile.

Alcander narrows his eyes at her, and his tone becomes stiff as he retorts, "Still, warfare is as much tried and true methods as it is ingenuity, so I hope that we'll all work diligently to gain what we're missing…" Then his eyes turn to me.

I smile kindly, disarming his tension, and calmly reply, "We know the imperial mana training routine, so that's what we'll be doing every morning from now on."

Everyone's eyes widen, and they shift uncomfortably in their seats, except for Poosh, who merely smiles in a motherly way like usual as she doesn't have a single idea about what we're talking about.

"Ooh~… Not even my Lords knew that," Silvano coos and grins.

"And I also know [Godly Language]," I casually complete the combo with a smirk.

Alcander's face twitches and a vein bulges on his forehead. "As expected of your Highness…" He grumbles through gritted teeth, and I'd bet that he's trying to hold back his desire to shout out about how ridiculous we are.

"Of course, we'll be sharing this technique with all of you," I announce, and they breathe in loudly, their demeanors changing from surprise to excitement in an instant.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

After showing them how stupidly simple it is, they chuckle in disbelief.

"This is the oh, so secret and coveted, secret imperial secret technique that's so secretive that they secretly threaten all those who secretly discover it?!" Silvano exclaims, his voice rapidly increasing in pitch along the way, then he turns his eyes on Alcander, who just shrugs and chuckles.

"Don't look at me, I knew absolutely nothing about it before today," Alcander remarks with a smirk.

But it's Almaria who seems to have the strongest reaction to the revelation. She just stares down at her hands, her droopy eyes looking dead and lifeless.

"Madame Almaria…?" Poosh kindly prods her, concerned about her speechlessness.

"I bled so much…" Almaria mumbles, and the pain in her voice gives us all pause. "So much effort to gain my mana… so much work when I could've just been meditating this entire time…" She raises her head and gives me a creepy stare again. "Thank you, your Highness, for easing our burden."

"You're welcome…" I stiffly reply, not sure how to properly comfort her right now.

After that, we go through a few more light topics, then they report that the room for the [Otherworldly Summoning] experiment will be ready tomorrow.

Once the meeting is over, Yunia comes in with a gentle smile on her face and sits down beside me as the other Officers get up and bow, then they all leave, except for Almaria.

"I never knew you had [Acting]," Yunia teasingly comments as she pulls out a bottle of Cinco Flores.

"Ah~…!" Almaria squeaks in surprise as she sees the bottle, her face brightening up for just a split second, then she returns to acting depressed again.

"I see it's only at level one," I follow up and pull out a set of small shot glasses. It's funny that elves actually use glass for alcohol instead of wood, but that's only because it's the best vessel for drinking Eia.

Almaria suddenly chuckles and stops playing around. "I was actually sad, but only for a little while," she explains herself in embarrassment.

Yunia uncorks the bottle, and the sickeningly sweet smell of the extract makes me rather excited. My body gets all tingly just from smelling it, and I feel like my "Sanity" has increased by a point as my vision becomes subtly more vivid.

Yunia pours out a finger of Eia, which is considerably more than the few drops I had last time, then they both turn to me.

"He doesn't have our resistance to Eia, so…" Yunia insinuates with a teasing smile.

"You'll have quite a lot of fun with this one, your Highness," Almaria assures me with a kind smile.

Yunia casts [Spirit Light] and pushes it towards the point between us, then we all grab our glasses and lift them up to let the light bless them, the elven version of a toast.

The shadows that the glasses cast on the table actually include a faint rainbow due to the magical light, and that's a testament to the quality of the extract.

We down our glasses, and a multitude of flavors caresses my tongue. First comes chocolate, then, surprisingly, I recognize coffee, making me feel extremely nostalgic, then the flavor of peanuts rises up, followed by a subtle taste of cherry, and the last flavor of fig comes in to complete the quintet of flavors. These are the famous five spices, but this doesn't mean that they have coffee or chocolate, it's just that the flower plus the extract forms the flavours.

My tongue starts to go numb, so I swallow, then my vision goes blurry and warps, as if I had just summoned something, and all of my senses become heightened, including my control over my body, but it actually requires more mental effort for me to move like this. This is the downside of Eia: like with using any body-enhancement skill that doesn't consume mana, they make you mentally exhausted, instead.

Then my "third eye" opens, and I start to see Life. All around me are hundreds of little white dots, the plants growing on the castle itself. They move around in an organized manner, like white cars driving around an incredibly complex network of invisible roads, or at least, invisible to me because Yunia can see how they all connect.

"Is 'Life' information? Why do the plants keep sharing it around?" I suddenly blurt out, my inhibitions becoming loosened as the weed reaches my brain and makes me relax.

Yunia smiles amiably at me and scholarly answers, "It's 'interaction.' Every living being shares some Life whenever they 'interact,' so, in a place full of immobile plants, these 'interactions' look like a network."

I chuckle as I look around and mumble, "I still have no idea what the fuck 'Life' actually is. Is it the same as the Tale of Creation's 'Life'?"

"No, the Tale's 'Life' is the Original Life, which became what we now call mana," Ciel quickly chimes in through [Bind].

"The Tale's 'Life' has evolved into mana. What we now call 'Life' is what separates us from 'objects,' it's what makes us 'entities,'" Almaria answers, resting her head on her hand as she stares at me amusedly.

"So, like, it's what makes us different from 'inanimate' objects?"

Almaria nods slowly. "Exactly that. If you're alive, you have 'Life' within you."

I narrow my eyes and stare at Yunia's Life, which is slowly moving between her, Almaria, and me. Each ball of "Life" seems to be a different size, which is curious. "Can you quantify 'Life'?"

Yunia shrugs and answers casually, "Perhaps. We can see it, and it varies in size, so yes, we can."

But that's not good enough for me, "Though not with certainty, it seems." And I raise my eyes to look at them. "There are no Life 'units,' right? Like, MP has its units, or you can measure liquids with cups, or weigh things with stones, but there's no 'unit' for Life?"

Almaria slowly shakes her head. "I don't think so. We can create a measurement unit that uses sight alone, but it would definitely be imprecise."

With that, I theorize further, "We could compare the measured Life to a standard being, like the average amount of Life in an Eia plant."

But Almaria already has a counterpoint, "That's been done in the past, but everyone's sense of Life is different, and the 'size' of the 'interactions' even change with how much Eia you take regularly, so it's only useful if you're measuring Life fairly often, like a researcher does."

"Huh…" I hum as my brain processes that, then I immediately swerve on a tangent, "Hey, do the golems have Life?"

Yunia chuckles, and Almaria calmly answers, "They do, though it isn't as dynamic as yours."

"And a Thread of Fate?"

"Yes."

"So I can say that I've already given birth to a new life form?"

Almaria raises her eyebrows and glances at Yunia. "That's an extremely curious phrasing," she remarks bemusedly.

"Is 'Life' intelligence? Do bacteria have 'Life'? What about ants or other insects?" I rapidly fire off questions as my mouth gains will of its own.

Almaria frowns in confusion and asks, "What's 'bacteria'?"

Yunia shakes her head while smiling subtly and tiredly answers, "Micro entities, and yes, ants and other insects also have Life, though it's so small that even Almaria has trouble detecting it."

And then I shoot off yet another question, my brain going into overdrive, "Everything that has Life also has a soul and a Thread?"

"Yes," they answer in unison.

"Then why do dead spirits have their Threads cut? What does it mean to be 'dead'?"

Yunia shrugs. "Ask Ciel, that's not really my area of expertise."

And my angel's voice immediately echoes within my soul space, "'Death' means that you've reached the end of your time in this realm, and you must now return to the Cycle, like all things should. The undead exist outside of this Cycle, which disrupts it, and that is why they must be eliminated."

"Are you talking through 'telepathy'?" Almaria quietly asks, noticing the awkward silence.

"Yes, we are," Yunia whispers back.

I frown and cross my arms in confusion. "Wait, don't dryads live forever? How are they not undead, then?"

And Almaria immediately answers, concerned that my opinion of dryads might suddenly do a 180, "They constantly change over time, and at some point, the Cereleia we knew would no longer be the same being, having become someone else."

I don't even dwell on it for a second, instantly accepting her answer, and immediately go for another question, "Do insects go to Paradise?"

"I don't know, nobody does," Ciel kindly answers through [Bind].

"This is rather amusing, your Highness," Almaria quietly comments to Yunia with a chuckle.

"His scholarly curiosity is sometimes endearing," she fondly admits.

I get up and walk over to a flower, then I touch it, and a white blob of my "Life" is sent towards it.

"What controls the 'direction' that Life travels in?" I inquire in a scholarly tone.

"The initiator," Almaria loudly replies, then she whispers something to Yunia, but I'm too distracted to make it out.

"And the intensity of the sharing?"

"The intensity of the interaction," Yunia answers this time, and they both giggle.

I crush the leaf with my hand and observe a larger blob of Life going towards it, then the little plant's Life becomes weaker, making me feel sad, so I cast [Regeneration] and [Grow] on it to return it to its previous state of glory.

"How do plants 'interact' with each other? I don't remember there being any kind of meaningful 'connection' between them," I ponder.

"What…?" Almaria squeaks and waits for Yunia's answer.

My loving elven wife is definitely happy to answer all of my questions, "Plants interact magically all the time, and they also occasionally interact physically when their roots touch. The plants we have in here are literally living off of the nutrients in the castle's wood, so they're constantly interacting with it."

"Oh~…" I hum in wonder.

Alissa nudges me to sit down again and let the two talk before I blurt out something that's hard for them to explain.

"Did we answer all of your questions, your Highness?" Almaria asks amusedly.

I nod happily like a good child. "Yes. Thank you."

And she lowers her head respectfully with a wide smile, then the two friends turn to each other.

Yunia sighs and relaxes as she brings the conversation onto something more casual, "So, how are you doing lately, Almaria?"

The bookish woman grins and answers amiably, "I'm happy to be back at work. There's no other job as rewarding as serving a Lord."

Yunia nods, pleased with her answer, and points out, "You'll also be the instructor for our children."

And Almaria gladly answers, "I'll be looking forward to it. I still remember holding you as a baby. You were so adorable back then."

Yunia is unfazed by the teasing, merely raising an eyebrow and questioning, "'Were'?"

"Now you're a beautiful woman, so your adorableness has been replaced with something better."

Yunia smiles smugly and pours out another shot, though she only gives me a quarter of what they're drinking.

"What about you two? How are you adapting to being a Lord," Almaria returns the question.

"Swimmingly," I answer with a grin.

"That is…?" Almaria turns to Yunia for an explanation.

"Without a problem, that goes for both of us," she translates for me.

And I immediately blurt out, "Only because we're all together. I used to actively avoid nobility, and I'd shiver at the idea of becoming a Lord one day."

Almaria takes a sip as she warmly asks, "And Yulania made you change your mind?"

"Of course I did," Yunia proudly replies.

I give my golden elf a loving look and whisper, "I'm so grateful that we were brought together."

Almaria chuckles softly at our flirting, then she looks down at her glass while she ponders and takes another sip. "I'm honestly excited about the future," she shyly confesses, then raises her droopy eyes to meet ours, and I recognize the determination blooming within them. "My children have already grown up, and I have nothing left undone, so I'll always be ready to serve you until the end."

Yunia suddenly gets up and walks over to Almaria, then she sits down in the chair beside hers and grabs her hand. "And I'm honored to have you here," she affirms with conviction.

Then Almaria turns to me. "I believe in your vision for the future."

Over the rest of the afternoon, we have a casual talk about the future and our dreams, then we gradually shift topics to the present and our hopes, followed by another shift towards the past and what we want to change.

The extract makes me quite giggly and relaxed, renewing my energies and clearing my head of doubts. I've always thought about doing something like LSD because of the supposed benefits it has for mental health, and it seems that Eia has a somewhat similar effect, though it obviously doesn't make me trip like LSD would.

Once bath time comes, I only take a quick dip since I'm already clean, and instead, I dedicate my time to playing with the girls.

Osaria and Klein get the most attention this time since they've been working quite hard and need some "stress-relief." There always seems to be someone wanting to get our attention who doesn't really need it, and my elven milf has been dealing with these sorts of people while working closely with the Mayor.

She always has my singing bird with her, so I know for certain that the fool only has eyes for Yunia.

I'm already becoming quite possessive of Osaria. And I'm not sure if she enjoys that, so I'd better watch myself.

Then I realize something.

Osaria and I are so close, yet she doesn't appear in the "Companions" tab of my Gift. Why is that? Roxanne and Ciel appeared in there immediately after we had sex, but not Osaria, so what's so different about her?

I feel uncomfortable just thinking that it might be because she doesn't love me enough, but then I remember that I'm the one who asked her to be a concubine instead of a wife.

Perhaps it's because I've never relied on her like I have with the girls.

Dinner is more Kibbeh, a lot more, and we devour it all with a ravenous hunger. Alissa is definitely ashamed of how much she enjoys it, but Aoi and I gorge on it unabashedly with grins of delight.

"Wolfy needs to eat a lot of meat to grow big and strong," Roxanne subtly teases and grins.

"Dad's mostly vegetarian, though," Klein comments innocently.

"Meat is more efficient at helping you to gain muscle," Lina retorts matter-of-factly.

"But you can't eat too much fat, or you'll… get fat," I add with a wry smile.

Then we continue talking about food and nutrition, causing Roxanne's grin to dull and fade away as her teasing is ignored and turned into a learning opportunity instead.