“You see, there is hardly any difference between that shrine’s treasure and what I was wearing ever since we first met. You should remember that rope I kept wrapped around my body at all times?” Pointing his hand at the very item he was speaking about, Layn smiled when Irea’s eyes obediently followed after his hand.

“Yeah. It was strange, but I thought it was just a quirk of yours. May I… touch it?” Strangely reluctant to do something so simple after touching the man’s body all over, Irea asked.

“Sure, just keep in mind that it’s pretty weak when compared to what I’m going to craft for you.” Gracing the girl with an approving smile, Layn moved on to the work. Grabbing one stone to each of his hands, he absorbed the energy from the one to destabilize the physical structure of the one. Given how he wasn’t wearing his rope right now, all the mana he had saved in his aura had to be saved for the translation spell.

Once the hard stone turned into a mist, Layn grabbed the dismantled hammock before infusing the stone dust into its structure. Yet, rather than stopping there, the archmage instantly reached for the other stone, keeping up the process. In the end, a single stone’s worth of energy was sufficient to dismantle only three stones to dust. With this calculation in mind, Layn split the remaining stones in his mind, before speeding the process up a bit.

“Incredible…” Running her hands down the mana-sucking rope, Irea was astounded. Even though she saw the creation of the previous treasure, by the time it started to produce energy as it should, it was already safely hidden within the shrine. As such, this was her first time experiencing the full effect of such a tool. “Something like this… It could be easily worth thousands if not tens of thousands of grade one stones… And you created it with just a single stone you got from that monster on the desert?!”

Moving her eyes, enlarged by a shock, on her man, Irea clearly couldn’t digest the truth.

“You just wait for me to finish your own rope. Just keep in mind, do never meddle with its structure. While it’s possible to obtain an enormous power by… hmm…” stopped by a sudden lack of a simple word that would portray what he had in mind, Layn had to take a moment before a correct comparison appeared in his mind. “One can burn through the dust contained within the treasure. By doing so, you can obtain an unimaginable power… but the drawbacks are just too damn huge to do so. That is unless your life will be at stake, do not meddle in the structure of this rope, okay?”

Looking at the girl with a clear worry written all over his face, Layn allowed yet another stone to crumble in his hand before infusing the dust into the rope. At this point, what used to be just a group of linen strands bound together was now slowly turning blueish due to an overwhelming amount of mana leaking out of it. The only reason why the rope didn’t outright explode in Layn’s hands was due to him constantly sucking on the energy that it produced.

“Okay, it’s done. Come here.” Noticing Layn’s gestures, Irea quickly placed the archmage’s own rope back on the ground before trodding towards him. “What are you doing? Undress. You need to wear it directly on the skin.”

There was no deeper intent behind Layn’s order. Just like he had his own rope wrapped around his upper abdomen and lower part of the chest, the girl had to do the same.

“Hmm? You didn’t have enough of the sights yet?” Squinting her lovely eyes, Irea grabbed the thin cloth of the robe she was currently wearing before slowly, slowly pulling it up. At first, her long, slim legs came into the archmage’s view, only to end up at her still moist precious place. But as her robe continued to ride forward, her toned stomach came into his view as well, her lower ribs, then her delicious chest… By the time the girl fully took her robe out, she just stood there naked as she was born while Layn’s eyes greedily savored the sight in front of them.

“Trust me, this time it’s not like that.” Reining in his own desires that returned to his mind as his body regenerated after the nightly endeavors, Layn brought the rope before placing one of its ends directly above the girl’s belly button. “Hold it in place and start turning around.”

Clearly not willing to let go of her flirtiness, Irea heeded Layn’s orders… But she did so at a much slower pace than Layn expected. No matter how hard he tried, it was hard to focus on setting the layers of the rope one above the next when this lass was clearly intentionally brushing her nipples against his face, only to turn around and gently lean forward, giving him a great angle to look at her shapely ass.

Thankfully, this torture of holding himself back didn’t last long, as Layn started to have doubts whether he could manage to hold himself back about halfway through the process. With the rope finally reaching its end, Layn turned the girl around once again, before grabbing the initial end of the item and binding it together.

“With that, you are set. Can you feel the energy flowing around you?” Slapping Irea’s soft buttchecks once he was done, Layn could see how the girl jumped away in surprise. Even though his attack wasn’t hard, a sudden burst of sharp although delicate pain was still more than enough to startle her.

“I… Yeah… Can I just absorb it… like that?” Raising her charming eyes up at the archmage, Irea put a confused look on her face. 

“I know it might feel weird for the first time, but that’s right. You won’t be able to affect the structure just by absorbing the mana it produces. Just keep in mind, that there is a chance that changing locations might result in fluctuations of the mana produced by this treasure.” Grabbing Irea’s robe only to pass it to the girl’s hand, Layn reached out for his own rope when a sudden shout stopped his actions.

“Sir! Sir! I brought the envoy!” Looking towards the window enclosed with shuts, Layn cursed under his breath before shoving all the remaining stones aside and wrapping his rope around his chest.

“Invite him in!” Shouting towards the window, Layn quickly finished dressing himself up. Just in time, as just when he was pulling his pants up, a knocking sound announced the arrival of the envoy.

“Come on in!” Shouting towards the doors, Layn stood up. Noticing how tense the situation became in a blink of an eye, Irea stood beside him, enclosing her hands around archmage’s arm.

The doors opened up.

“I didn’t expect you to call me so soon. What seems to be the problem?” Looking at the visitor, Layn swallowed a gulp of saliva. While it was for the best to talk with the prince directly, the archmage didn’t expect that this damned royalty would bother to make the trip himself!

“Your majesty, there is a recording stone between the shuts of the window. What’s more, the girl that waited below the building was tasked to make sure we didn’t leave the building at all. Regretfully, there is a time window without any recording at all, as I was busy taking care of this lass.” Placing his hand on Irea’s head, Layn rustled her hair for a moment before turning serious.

“There is a letter on the table that we received while busy with each other.. I believe you should read what it entails, your majesty.”