God Of Crafting

Chapter 17: A method of helping me out I truly wasn't prepared for

'Not again...'

Waking up from my meditative state, I felt just... helpless.

Because how else was I supposed to feel when there was a strange part of me that I didn't have any control over? It was as if I was randomly falling asleep whenever I tried to do something!

Still, as opposed to just falling asleep, there was the consolatory prize of my body completing the very task I set out to do, even if it all happened without the control of my own mind over it.

"You are up, huh?"

Hearing a voice from behind, I nearly jumped up to my feet, only to realize that there was some sort of powerful force holding my shoulders down and thus making me unable to move an inch from where I sat down.

"Calm down, it's me, Claire..." Once again, the voice reached my ears... but this time, my brain actually managed to process it.

'Oh right.'

I took a few deep breaths to calm down... Only to feel Claire's hands lifting up from my shoulders, thus allowing me to feel a strange, sharp yet perfectly bearable pain around the same place where she kept her hands.

"What is this...?" I muttered more to myself than to the girl as I reached out with my hand to check for any sort of injuries where the pain was coming from, only to realize that I actually held something in my hand!

'Again?' I thought, a sense of exasperation filling my soul as I looked down to check what I was holding.

Thankfully... Or rather, at the very least, it wasn't some sort of a device capable of producing an endless amount of elixir-grade potions this time. This time, it was just a single glass vial filled up to roughly half its volume with some sort of sparking, blue liquid.

Prompted by the sight, I looked down at the alchemy set, only to realize that just as I feared... It was empty.

With the exception of some stinky, slightly charred paste at the bottom of my tiny, ceramic pot, not a single bit of herbs, liquids or other materials remained in the box of the reagents that came with the set.

This time, as opposed to my last excursion into the land of mindless meditation, I could somewhat understand what happened.

'All of those, when following the recipes to their last letter, allowed one to craft just one full vial of an actual elixir,' I thought, only to then look at the vial in my hand.

Claire suddenly blushed only to quickly turn her eyes away. She then opened up her mouth... Only to close them back up without uttering a single word.

"Ekhem..." I cleared my thought, "It's not like I'm just going to forget about our deal if you can't. Just by clarifying what are my issues you are already helping me out a fair bit, so if you are worried about me going back on my word just because you couldn't help me out as much as I hoped you could..."

"And who the hell said I couldn't do it?!" Suddenly, Claire flared up, as if I just insulted not only her but her entire lineage, her pride of a practitioner, and then the cute dog she loved above everything else.

Still, Claire tightened her hands into fists and even raised them as if to swing them at my face... Only to squint her eyes and look me dead in the face with a look of determination I have yet to see on her face before.

"So, as long as I can help, you are fine with whatever methods I will have to use?" she asked in a provocative tone as if trying to scare me off from saying yes.

"I mean..." I hesitated for a second...

Only to then recall all the trouble, all the effort, all the pains, and desperation I went through to get to the point where I was at right now.

"As long as it won't kill me, I will do just fine," I said while defiantly raising my head and staring right back into Claire's determined eyes.

"Fine!" she called out only to jump off the bed's edge and up to her feet, circle around me... And then step over my lap before dropping down with her ass directly on top of my lap only to then wrap her hands around my shoulders and lean in, as if the answer to my problems lay in a prolonged session of a passionate making-out.

"What are you waiting for?!" Claire nearly screamed out right into my face as she wiggled her hips to press herself as close to me as she could, ignoring the fact that her crotch now rubbed against mine or how her breasts flattened against my chest. "Get to crafting, god damn it!"

At first, I was startled, not sure how to react. Yet, as the softness of her body pressed against my skin, as her slightly sweet, floral scent got to my mind, as her warmth started to warm me up from inside out...

'Shit...'

Feeling how my little soldier was waking up to stand at attention, I quickly reached out for whatever I could get my hands on without moving all that much before quickly scrolling through my phone to get some sort of recipe I could follow.

With just those two elements, I focused with all my mind on crafting... Only to feel Claire lean in over my shoulder...

Only to bite down at my neck, just hard enough for her teeth to bite through my skin.

Strangely enough, though, while it was slightly painful... It only served to get my blood pumping even faster, only further narrowing down my window of opportunity to forget about excitement and focus on the task at hand...