Mana Charging and Love Potion
Mana Charging and Love Potion
A few days after I returned to Yoen-su, I noticed Brown's inn had gotten pretty lively.
Before I'd left, the place had been practically deserted—barely a soul living there.
But in the space of a month, the number of guests had shot up.
"Hoh-hoh. You're a real lucky charm, a lucky charm."
The bald innkeeper Brown let out a hearty laugh any time he spotted me at the counter.
With more guests came more coin, and day by day Brown's face practically glowed with renewed vigor.
"Who's the lucky charm?"
"Who else! It's you—the one who breathed life back into my inn! Those promotional magic shows paid off big time. The locals kept spreading the word, and the guests have been pouring in."
"That's great to hear. If you're making money, maybe put a little into the facilities. Winter's coming, and I'd really like to see some decent heating."
"Of course I'll invest! You think I would've just let the place rot if I'd had the money before? Nah—the income was so pathetic I just left it as it was."
I'd gotten attached to the Tabad Inn, so I really didn't want to leave if I could help it.
It was the only inn that had taken me in two years ago, after every other lodging had kicked me out for being a dream demon.
If I could, I'd much rather fix the place up and turn it into somewhere genuinely good to live.
Of course, gratitude aside, there was still a little something I needed to collect from the bald innkeeper.
We'd made a promise before I left for Yoen-su.
I spoke up to a grinning Brown.
"Mr. Brown. You did promise me the suite, right? You said if the inn promotion went well, I could move into the suite at a cheap rate."
This bald bastard—surely he wasn't about to try and weasel out of it now?
They say never trust a black-haired beast, but Brown has no hair at all.
With a dome as clean as a Cretaceous-era Pachycephalosaurus, he struck me as a trustworthy man.
"Ah, I've had the suite ready, of course. It's a fine room—even comes with a private shower booth."
"Hell yeah—I knew I could count on you, Mr. Brown."
See? Bald guys really are reliable.
I felt genuinely moved as I looked at the room key on the counter.
Brown had already set aside the suite key just for me.
"Wait, it even has a private shower booth? None of the rooms here had that kind of cutting-edge setup. The rule's always been that everyone washes together in the common bathhouse."
"While you were away, I invested a bit in the building. I had pipes installed in the luxury room so the water runs right through 'em. It's clean water, so you can even drink it without a problem."
"Nice. Really nice. Going all the way down to the bathhouse every time I wanted to wash was a goddamn pain in the ass."
At last, I too could bask in the glorious privilege of washing inside my own room.
In this otherworld, a "common bathhouse" was even shittier than you could possibly imagine. I once saw some lunatic piss on the bathhouse floor while everyone was washing together. My personal opinion was that bastards like that needed to be strapped into diapers until they learned to control their bowel and bladder functions.
'Now I'll never deal with that stress again! The shower booth is right in my room!'
It was liberation from every kind of villain that haunted the public baths.
I took the suite key from Brown, went upstairs, and started moving rooms right away. I hauled every single thing I owned out of the cramped single room I'd been using.
"Whoooaaa."
The more I inspected the suite, the more I liked it.
Not only was there a sleek shower booth off to one side, it also had a small kitchenette where I could whip up simple meals. If I had lovers over, it wouldn't feel embarrassing anymore.
It was even better that the room was on the same floor as Rebecca's, number 302.
Mine was 305, so I could just stick my head out the door and see her room right there.
'Fucking great.'
My delight didn't last long—soon enough I was back to taking lessons from Rumi.
Moving rooms was nice, but I couldn't neglect my magical theory studies.
Magic was what had turned my dogshit life into a cushy one.
"Let's get going, Rumi."
[Yes, Mage.]
"So what am I learning today? As of yesterday, we finished the whole section on combining Primitive Rune characters. Are you going to teach me more runology today?"
[No. Today I intend to teach you a method for precisely measuring mana. I will show you a function built into the quarterstaff by default.]
A function that measures mana, huh.
I wasn't sure what concept that even was, so I asked.
"What kind of mana are we talking about? My mana?"
[Naturally, Mage's mana, but it can measure the mana of others as well. A Rune Mage's quarterstaff comes with auxiliary functions like that.]
Apparently the quarterstaff can measure the mana of any object.
The moment I heard Rumi's explanation, I stared at Nistrond, which I'd set nearby, with a dumbfounded expression.
'What is this, a staff-shaped scouter?'
I'd picked up a fair bit of knowledge about the staff when I awakened as a Rune Mage.
But that was only foundational knowledge; there were still plenty of quarterstaff functions I didn't know about. Today was the first time I'd ever heard it could measure mana.
[Some time ago, I taught you the Primitive Rune character Ansuz. Do you perhaps recall its magical significance?]
"I still remember all of it. It's the rune that symbolizes Odin, the progenitor of magic, right? Beyond that, it carries the meaning of insight. It's the rune of discernment used in analysis magic when deciphering spell formulas."
[Precisely. Write Ansuz on Mage's staff with a pen. Then, grip the staff in your hand and pronounce the rune.]
I took out a pen and inscribed the rune character onto the staff's tip.
The Ansuz rune looks like a slightly crooked letter F. Once I'd carved the character, I held the staff and tried vocalizing it.
"Ansuz!"
Crack—.
In that instant, ice formed at the tip of the staff.
The ice shifted itself into a precise shape, forming what looked like a numeral.
[The number the staff is displaying right now is Mage's mana coefficient. If you touch the staff to another object, it will display that target's mana coefficient.]
The mana coefficient was a concept that turned the mana accumulated inside my body into a numerical representation.
'150.'
My mana coefficient was exactly 150.
From the number alone, I couldn't tell if that was high or low.
[Unranked mages tend to have a coefficient around 10. Third-rate mages on average possess a mana coefficient of 40. Second-rate mages who have awakened their class generally fall in the low 100s, I would say.]
The average mana coefficient for a second-rate mage was 100.
That meant my total mana pool was about 1.5 times that of others. No wonder I'd never struggled with mana shortage even when I threw magic around like crazy—the secret had been hiding in plain sight all along.
'All thanks to diligently doing mana charging with Rebecca.'
I can copy magic power through sex!
That was the strength I held as an incubus. Seeing my mana expressed as a concrete number gave my motivation toward mana charging a massive boost.
Now that I knew about the mana-measuring function on my staff, an important change seemed to be coming for me and Rebecca.
"This is good. Now, after we have sex, I can actually confirm exactly how much my mana went up. I'd always wondered about it—what precise mechanism makes mana charging work the way it does."
[When using the mana-measuring function on another person, a somewhat more complex operation is required. I will teach you that method starting now.]
I made sure to learn the quarterstaff's mana-measuring function thoroughly from Rumi.
Around the time when supper was due, Rumi's lesson ended. Now I could measure not just my own mana but other people's mana as well.
'About time for Rebecca to come back.'
It was dusk, nearly the hour when Rebecca, who'd been training outside the inn, would return. When I peered out the window, I could see the redheaded beauty walking toward the inn, sweating.
I should try measuring Rebecca's mana too.
I stepped out of the suite to greet Rebecca as she came back.
On top of having changed rooms today, there was quite a lot I needed to tell her.
*
"Whoa! So this is your new room, Luke? It's amazing!"
When Rebecca followed me to the suite and got inside, she looked around excitedly, full of admiration. With its bathroom and even kitchen fixtures, it was on a completely different level from Rebecca's cramped guest room.
Right off the bat, Rebecca's eyes flashed, and she asked me about the rent.
"How much does it cost to live here? I think there are a few more similar rooms."
"Five silvers a month. I got a discount from Mr. Brown, so it's just 50 coppers for me."
"Five silvers...! That's way too expensive. With that kind of money, I could buy a hundred bundles of dryad herb juice, you know."
Rebecca, whose hobby was stocking up on health foods, was perpetually short on money.
Lately, whenever I stopped by her room, the smell of herbs was overwhelming. She was still young, but my girlfriend took her health incredibly seriously.
"I'll just stay in the room I had before."
"Rebecca. If you're jealous of my place, you could just move in with me."
"L-living together is something only married people do.... Besides, I don't want to show you anything embarrassing."
"What kind of embarrassing stuff?"
"Like, you know, rolling around on the bed."
"That's cute as hell. What are you talking about?"
"It is not cute!"
I'd casually suggested living together, but Rebecca turned red and put up an iron wall. I guess the time wasn't ripe yet.
After we'd looked around the room together, I brought up the topic of mana measurement.
"Rebecca. I learned this staff function that measures mana, right? Let me use it on you. You must be curious how much you've grown too, right?"
"Oh, really? There was a way to measure mana outside my home continent, too? I thought you could only do that back in my homeland."
"Yeah. It's pretty accurate."
Even upon hearing I was going to measure her mana, Rebecca wasn't terribly surprised.
It probably meant the Zakarta Kingdom also had its own method for measuring mana. Thanks to that, I didn't need to make a long conversation out of it—I could just pull out my staff right there.
"Ansuz. Reveal the hidden strength of the one I touch."
Tap!
I touched the tip of the staff to Rebecca's forehead and recited the incantation.
In that moment, ice sculpted itself at the staff's tip and displayed Rebecca's mana coefficient as a number.
'120.'
Rebecca's mana coefficient was 120.
It was lower than mine, her mana charging partner, but there was a good reason for that.
A mage and a martial artist naturally accumulate mana as they train. However, Rebecca had a constitution that couldn't build up mana in any way except through mana charging. A gap between us was inevitable.
"It says 120! Is that high?"
"In terms of mana coefficient alone, she's on par with a second-rate martial artist. You're probably the strongest among third-rate ones by now."
"Hmm. It's nice that it's so easy to check."
Rebecca looked at the mana-measuring staff with a fascinated expression.
While her eyes were fixed on the staff, I quietly slipped up behind her and wrapped my arms around her.
Squeeze.
"Hey, I just got back from training...."
Damp with sweat, Rebecca squirmed a little in my arms.
But contrary to her coy gesture, her expression was honest, and a smile lingered at the corner of her lips.
"So what?"
"I said I'm all sweaty!"
Her being sweaty only made it better. A thick, sweet fruit fragrance wafted off Rebecca's body as I held her close.
It was the scent of a lewd newbie that gets me rock-hard the instant I smell it.
My fully erect cock pressed against her ass, and Rebecca's face flushed red.
In an instant, the atmosphere in the suite turned sticky.
"Can't I just wash up and come back? I'll be really quick."
"No."
I grabbed Rebecca's wrist tightly and kept her from leaving the room.
There was no way I could let a girlfriend with a body this hot walk out right now.
Just as I was about to pounce on her, a good idea came to me.
"You don't even need to leave, you know? Didn't you see the shower booth in my room? Let's wash up together in there."
I pointed with my finger at the booth-type shower stall in one corner of the room.
It was spacious enough that a man and woman could easily fit inside together.
My plan was to do mana charging with my girlfriend right there.
After we'd had our fill of fun, we could check how much each of our mana coefficients had gone up.
"O-okay! It's nice that we don't have to go far."
"I'll give you a thorough wash."
"You're going to wash me...?"
"Yeah. Get you all soaped up and squeaky clean."
In the end, led by me, Rebecca stepped inside the shower booth.
It was my first time ever trying out bathroom play.