The fact that Mary had nothing between her and that flimsy dress wasn't Greem's current focus.
Honest.
In her arms, the expectant and excited vampire held a large brown bag filled with one thermos sized canister and tens of bright red blood crystals, the sum of her efforts these past two months after she and Greem discussed their advancements.
Both of them sharing a look in agreement, Greem stepped back as Mary sat in a meditative position in the room's center. Before she could start though, he stopped her.
"Wait," he said, and gestured to the round silver ball in his hand.
Channeling his life force into it, he projected a translucent, milky white field and controlled it to cover the room in its bubble. No sound, smell, light, or energy emissions would escape this area so long as he supplied energy to the orb.
Done with his preparations, he nodded at Mary to go ahead and the latter picked up a blood crystal.
One after the other with blurry arms and the speed of a machine, she stuffed them into her mouth, sending them down her throat as normal flowing blood.
In no time, she swallowed all the crystals, leaving just the flask.
Her skin rapidly reddening and temperature running hot, she picked up the rune covered, magical version of a thermos and uncorked it, a potent aroma of blood and energy filling the room.
Said emanations converged and rushed into her throat as she poured the Adept level underground fire dragon blood down her gullet.
Her skin's shade instantly deepened until it was almost that of blood. She dropped the empty flask with a clank and closed her eyes as her Spirit began to climb, breaking through and past the level of a peak Pseudo Adept.
Perhaps under the influence of her bloodline and its transformation, she curled up, hugging her knees and tucking her head in as her body floated off the ground.
Little by little, crimson shockwaves of energy leapt off her airborne form in pulses, their size and strength matching her rapidly heightening Spirit.
This went on for a full ten minutes, her powerful heartbeat and the rushing of blood in her veins bouncing off the walls of Greem's eardrums and the concealing bubble.
Once her aura entered the realm of Adept and stabilized, a burst of condensed energy burst from her body and blew the bag, canister, and Greem's hair back, ruffling his clothes too.
Still in midair, Mary unfolded her body and stood tall, her head lowering backwards before a clear and sonorous scream tore itself out of her throat.
His forcefield more than capable of dealing with the cry's harmful effects, Greem remained unphased as he kept his eyes on his lover.
The person in question opened her now permanently red eyes and locked on to him like a predator, her form lowering to the ground.
Immediately her naked feet touched the wood panel floor, a crimson flash of mist washed over her and reduced the flimsy red dress to nothing.
Immensely grateful for his help in her advancement, freedom, and everything so far, Mary forewent words and chose to let her actions do the talking.
She stalked towards Greem with her figure that had somehow gotten more perfect and erotic.
Her target responded by molding the metal orb he held into a bracelet and placing it around his wrist.
No words or convincing was needed as Mary jumped onto him and locked her lips with his, her nails elongating and ripping his jacket to shreds.
Letting her deal with his clothes, Greem basked in the sensations of her strengthened ecstasy venom and pushed her down, turning the former werewolf nest into a wild lover's den.
☀☀☀
Dawn of the next day…
Things had long grown quiet inside the hideout.
Greem sat on a thick carpet of bedding, scattered pieces of goatskin paper, a host of metal parts, gems of different colors and sizes, and other substances in front of him as he tinkered.
Behind him, Mary lay asleep, her form partially covered by a blanket as her vibrant crimson locks lay spread out on her pillow.
Even though they both possessed endless energy, engaging in uninterrupted intercourse for hours right after advancing proved too much for even a supremely motivated vampire.
As such, sometime this morning, she suddenly stopped indulging in Greem's blood and simply fell dead, her snores not disturbed in the slightest by his attempts to wake her.
After checking every inch of her body and ensuring nothing was wrong, he let her be and focused his attention on other things.
He put the skills and abilities from his recent essence to work, eager to make the many, many ideas in his head no longer just that.
First order of business, he penned down all the ideas and sifted through them, separating them into two categories; those related to his combat prowess and those that weren't.
With the former being more important, he worked his way down the sheet pile detailing the ideas he had and whatever scribbles he'd added.
The rocket pack was of course the first thing he worked on.
Having discarded the wind suit plan, the five advanced wind elementium cores he purchased back at the mission site were part of the pack's main components.
Alongside them were a Second Grade molten giant core, some fire diamonds, regular diamonds, and a new material Greem was certain did not exist in the plane of Lethon (at least, according to his knowledge) before today.
Nyindenni Alloy.
It was an amalgamation of the various ores he harvested from the molten giants, namely: Steelrock, Wrought Gold, Star Iron, Black Iron, Adamantite, Mithril, and Eternium.
Steelrock possessed immense physical toughness, but zero magical resistance. Wrought Gold, Black Iron and Star Iron were also tough metals, but with some modicum of magical resistance, especially in the case of Star Iron.
When these materials were alloyed with the near indestructible Adamantite and the magic conductive Mithril and Eternium, a material with the toughness, magical resistance, and conductivity of near Fourth Grade was created.
"Nyindenni" was born from the combination of three words in the native language of his past life.
They were "Every, Tough, Mortal Thing," representing the combined strengths of these impressive metals and how their collective might still could not enter the realm of the divine.
The metal was a deep gray—almost black even, its smooth sheen reflecting barely any light.
For the rocket pack, Greem used a good, compressed amount of the alloy to make the combustion chamber, ensuring that it could withstand the wild mixing of energies that would take place in there.
He also enchanted its inner walls with Spirit and Gravity magic, making it so that not a single ounce of heat produced within the chamber would be wasted on it.
As for the molten giant core, he created an alloy of mithril and eternium before using it to fill the carvings he had made on it.
Unlike a normal golem core though, the runes covering this one were missing the Elementium Body Construction formation, though it still had the Mind Control Imprint System, Summoning Rune, energy circuits, and energy storage nodes.
Since he simply required a pure and stable stream of high temperature flames, he forwent the body construction array and directly enchanted the Burning Hand spell into the core using Creation magic.
Now when he sent a command to the golem it could unleash a stream of flames in whatever direction he willed it… in this case, the combustion chamber.
To ensure he could use the jetpack for long periods, he devised a way of gathering and storing excess fire elementium when it was not in use.
He used Compression Synthesis and reduced the sizes of four fire diamonds until they were as tiny as little drops of water. Afterwards, he enchanted each of them with Spatial magic, converting them into storage artifacts with island sized spaces.
Placing these four tiny gems into the energy nodes on the core, he made it possible for it to be active for near indefinite periods so long as there was enough energy available.
This had the fire source and combustion chamber sorted, what remained was the air to be heated.
The five advanced wind cores came in at this juncture.
Greem gave them the same treatment as the fire core; forgoing the Elementium Body Construction array, socketing wind attuned storage gems in their energy nodes, and applying a simple formation that released the stored wind particles when needed.
Two pairs of the thumb sized crystals were placed on either side of the chamber, with the last socketed right on top of it.
Pipes connecting each of them to the chamber were created and fitted in the right places, the Spirit and Gravity enchantments in the chamber keeping any intense heat away from their vulnerable shells.
Encasing this entire construction was a thin body of Nyindenni Alloy, over which a light coat of Wrought Gold had been spread to keep inquisitive and experienced eyes from noticing the metal's qualities.
Overall, the finished creation had a dark gold sheen and looked like the small backpack normally used by female teenagers from his previous life, except it had the lower end opened wide.
Greem wanted to test it out immediately, but held off on doing so since he hadn't yet implemented a control mechanism to vary the power and intensity of the generated heat and thrust.
If he activated the six golem cores right now, the device might blast off into the walls or up through the tree's trunk.
That's why he was still brainstorming on the right combination of Evolution and Spirit magic and how and where to apply it.
Besides, he hadn't even created a harness yet.
In the meantime though, he worked on a bunch of other things like storage rings, a necklace that heats up when you're under some form of observation, a golem control mask, and the Agility mantle he got from Wind Devil, resizing and altering it with the intent to pass it on to Mary.
Currently though, he was working on the other aspect of his updated combat style; a weapon.
It looked like a shortsword, but in reality it was a spearhead.
He was an Adept now, one of the "big boys" so to speak. He couldn't go around punching any and everything in his way like he did as a Pseudo Adept.
Well, he could, but that wouldn't be (in his opinion) the best use of his fire talent and crafting abilities.
There was only so much intense fire and heat could do to increase the damage of a punch. When expertly applied to a bladed edge however, the high levels of heat energy could be focused to cut through almost anything.
That's why he had been training with a spear since he got barred from the Underground world. He initially planned to make one that used a molten giant core as its heat's source.
He had no idea he'd get a crafting essence, but its presence had cemented the idea as an excellent and viable one. There's no way he wasn't going to try it out at least once.
Holding the dark gold blade with glinting, dull red crystalline edges with both hands, Greem startled and smiled as a pair of thin arms snaked around his torso.
Their owner poked her head above his shoulder and nuzzled his neck, leaving hickeys on the thick muscles there and on his pulsing jugular.
"Hey sleepyhead."
"Ugh. Please don't remind me," Mary groaned and turned her head to the object in his hands. "What are you doing?"
"Just working on some stuff. How are you? Any complications with the advancement? You kinda left me hanging."
Huffing and pinching his side, Mary rested her whole weight on him and said, "There's nothing wrong, don't worry. My Physique and Spirit just needed time to adjust. I wiped away Anderson's brand completely, and that also took energy. A certain someone hammering me with all his strength also didn't help."
Greem laughed at that, conceding on the last point. If he treated an ordinary woman the way he did Mary, they'd be left with at best extensive pelvic fractures and at worst death.
But she loved the treatment and got off on it so he was fine. It also helped that she could regenerate on his blood.
He set the spear down gently and turned to Mary, pulling her into himself and letting her recline against him.
"Now that we've both advanced. We need to talk about Anderson and our status."
Gritting her teeth silently as a quiet air of anger surrounded her, Mary asked, "What do you mean?"
"We're Adepts now. When we return to the tower, we'll have the same status as Anderson. The Sarubo clan's spies will also alert their masters to our changes.
At that point, we won't be allowed to touch him. So I'm asking how you want us to return. Do we go as Adepts or do we hide our power so we can corner Anderson and kill him?"
****
You can read five chapters ahead at: patreon.com/masterreigen