Spellheart 9: Chapter 2 (Patreon)

Tivana led me on a chase out of the city to one of the nearby northern mountaintops. It was familiar to me since Sam, Dean, and I had played board games here just a short while ago. The slope was too steep to climb, but those of us with flying swords had no trouble getting to the plateau on the top.

And that was the crux of the issue and why where we’re here today. While I had to ride Spell Eater to the top, Tivana merely concentrated on her spatial zeal and flew to the top, unaided by any external power. That was an ability all sorcerers were supposed to have.

All sorcerers except me, it seemed. Try as I might, I just couldn’t take to the air without an aid like Spell Eater. With a tool, I was faster than just about anyone else, but without one, I was as ground-bound as any non-magical human.

“Alright, I want us to fly from this mountaintop to that one!” Tivana said. “And if you cheat, you don’t get your reward.”

I muttered something about having countless secrets elf-kind wasn’t meant to know. Tivana had a soft spot for me, and I knew even if I failed, my consolation prize would probably be just as good as the real reward. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try my hardest.

Being able to fly without any aids was a mark of prestige for those at the sorcerer realm like myself. I needed to be able to take to the air if I wanted to hold my head high at my cultivation level, and that meant being able to fly. Otherwise, I’d be sitting on the ground while a bunch of sorcerers looked down from above. Either that or I’d need to resort to pulling out Spell Eater. It would look weak, which wouldn’t be good for the Hearthwood Clan.

The trouble was, I was at a natural disadvantage. Some types of zeal were naturally good at flying. Wind or storm zeal users could drift through the clouds at true mage, let alone at sorcerer. They had a natural advantage because of how well their powers were attuned to flight. Even more standard aspects like fire, lightning, water, or blood could take to the air without anything holding them back.

Only earth cultivators like myself were truly at a disadvantage. Our powers were all associated with the ground. It wouldn’t be too to imagine a future where I couldn’t fly at all. Tivana kindly told me it was a common problem for people of my aspect. Perhaps I would have to wait for my mind magic to catch up if I wanted to fly. That aspect didn’t have anything special with regard to taking to the air, but it at least wouldn’t be holding me back.

But I didn’t want to wait. I knew earth cultivators could fly. Sorcerers of my aspect had taken to the air before, which meant I would too.

“It took some of them until the end of the sorcerer ranks to have the control to manage it, though!” Tivana protested when I complained aloud to her.

“I’m powerful enough to match someone at the end of the sorcerer ranks blow for blow. I should be able to match them in this, too,” I grumbled.

Tivana gave me a warm pat on the back and explained the process again.

“For me, I feel the spatial zeal around me. It fills the air, the earth, and the empty void above us all. Then, I bend that zeal around me, letting my body become a part of it. To me, it feels as though I am standing still and that the universe is moving around me. Because of that, it takes very little energy for me to hover like this.” She gestured to her heels, which floated a meter off the ground. She drifted around me in a lazy circle while I focused.

I had tried her technique step by step myself, but earth zeal didn’t respond like spatial zeal did. I could do exactly as Tivana was suggesting if I was flowing through the ground. Her technique described what I did when I used my Unearthly Movement skill to travel through a ley line. But I couldn’t repeat the process above the ground.

That was for one simple reason. There was no earth zeal in the air!

How could I reach for the zeal around me when there wasn’t any?

I shook my head. There had to be another solution. Others had figured this out before. What had they done? Did they take the earth zeal with them?

A bit of experimentation helped me puzzle something out. Like a rocket shooting skyward, I could gather a massive lump of earth zeal and throw it down behind me to fly. But that process was both tremendously inefficient and energy intensive. It also provided me with very poor control. Tivana would be able to fly indefinitely at her level, and even though my reserves of zeal were many times larger, I would run out of fuel long before she even began to get tired. And worse, she’d be flying circles around me the entire time.

There had to be a better solution. I just wasn’t seeing it yet. It was there around the corner. All I needed was one little spark of inspiration...

Perhaps throwing out larger chunks of zeal? Or maybe gathering up fistfuls of dirt to anchor the zeal to? Maybe I could capture an earth-aspect monster and force-feed it zeal, which I could then extract and throw downward to power my flight while riding it?

I tried the first two ideas. The third one was a bit too close to how a flying sword really worked. The elves of the last golden age were quite gifted to be able to mass produce an item that would allow people of any zeal aspect to fly. If not for all the relics of that bygone age left around, flight would have been entirely restricted to wind-aspect cultivators and those at the sorcerer realm or above. Without them, I suspected nations like Deania would be a lot smaller, and local clans would have far greater control over their regions.

“That flying technique looks a bit...”

“Clever? Incredibly impressive?” I asked, teeth rattling as the continuous explosion of grains of sand at high velocity kept me hovering fifteen meters off the ground alongside Tivana, who glided gracefully beside me.

“I was going to say painful, but I suppose it qualifies as flying if you want your reward now.”

I let myself drop back down to the ground. I wasn’t flying, not really. I was just preventing myself from falling with constant kickback. Being able to fly without help was supposed to look impressive and awe-inspiring. My technique didn’t meet those goals. If I flew through the streets of the Hearthwood like that, people would stop and ask if I was alright.

There had to be another way.

I spent nearly an hour making attempt after attempt. Many of them worked, but they didn’t work the way I wanted them to. The answer was just around the corner though. I could smell it.

Eventually, after going through my list of spells, I came across my gravity manipulation spell. I could make things heavier. Could I do the opposite?

It turned out that I could, albeit with a great deal of work and energy, to sustain the spell. The trouble came from my momentum, though. I was too heavy to change directions easily. As it stood, I was like a flying mountain compressed into the shape of a man. I’d need a kilometer just to turn.

I was heavy thanks to my body cultivation. The World Titan Fiendbody had made me denser than any human body should have been, almost like every gram of flesh in me contained ten times the mass it should have. I wasn’t entirely sure how it worked, but it certainly made surviving lethal blows a lot easier.

If someone shot me with a gun to the face, I was confident the bullets would bounce right off my eyeballs with scarcely more than a tickle. And even if they did hurt me, I’d healed from having a hole in my chest the size of my fist where my heart should have been. A bad blow to the skull would probably just have me feeling punch drunk for a few hours. The worst effect would be memory loss.

I thought those powers came with the unfortunate downside of making it much harder to fly, but what if I could negate that entirely?

Hells, I could turn stone into diamonds or gold. What if I just told the universe I wanted the benefits of being as dense as I was, but none of the downsides?

“I’m going to need a minute,” I told Tivana as I sat down cross-legged.

Would this be easier in the Primordial World? Possibly. But at the same time, the body of a living being was like a universe unto itself. The magic inside of me was mine, filled with the vitality of my own creation. I was the supreme god within my body, and my will was as mighty as the force of gravity.

And so I reached inside myself and made one tiny change. My mass would be one-tenth of what it was, but nothing else would change.

Why? Because I said so. That’s why.

And my body obeyed. I felt the weight like a heavy burden lifting off my shoulders. I hadn’t even realized how deeply I’d been sinking into the ground beneath me. The weight had come on gradually over time so I didn’t even realize I’d been putting it on. I supposed that was how this kind of thing usually went, and chuckled to myself.

Tivana frowned at me, tightening her brows as she tried to figure out what I’d just done.

“You’re flying much smoother now,” Tivana said. “How? I’m not seeing any change to your technique.”

“I took what is and what should be and switched them,” I said, voice smug. That would make little sense to her, but she’d let me live in mystery long enough that it was about time I repaid the favor.

“Not going to tell me?” Tivana pouted.

“It’s a grand unlock-the-mysteries-of-the-universe sort of deal. Tell you what though, if you can beat me in a race, I will give away all the mystique and explain it to you right away. If you fail, then you’ll have to wait until you get me in the mood.”

“And do you get if you win?” Tivana asked.

“If I win, then you are mine until dawn rises tomorrow.” I reached to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes, leaning close as I did so to cup her chin in my hands and tilt her head up, so her eyes met mine. “I get to do whatever I want to you, and you’ll be my obedient little pet princess.”

Tivana blushed, and she shifted from heel to heel. The gesture looked odd given that the two of us were hovering in the air. Biting her lip and staring back at me, she nodded.

“A-alright. It’s a deal!”

“Fantastic. Race you to the Myriad Monster’s Sea. Ready, set go!” I took off like a rocket, and Tivana was left far behind before she realized I’d even started.

With my mass reduced, my immense strength was even more apparent. I sprung off my heels with the force of a... well... I couldn’t quite think of anything that matched the kind of acceleration I could put myself through when exerting my full power. I did know that the side of the mountain shattered as I sprung off it, and they probably felt the tremors throughout the Hearthwood. I wasn’t too worried. Mac had long since worked to stabilize the city against earthquakes. He had to when we had an earth cultivator as powerful as me hanging around.

The kind of speed I hit was on a scale high enough to get into orbit, which was exactly what I did. I broke the sound barrier several times over as I shot upward, and the atmosphere thinned into nothing. The World of Sanctuary and Serenity sprawled out before me like a map, and I spotted the finish line.

Tivana was left far behind before she realized I’d even started. I sensed space shift behind me and knew she was doing her best to catch up. I spotted a spatial distortion beneath me as she raced east. I wasn’t quite sure how her spatial flight skill worked, but I knew mine would be best if I got rid of that pesky air friction, hence heading so far upward.

At the apex of my flight, I reached into myself. Like flipping a lever I’d already changed, I manipulated my mass again, as well as my gravity spell. My mass became ten times what it was unaltered, and the force of gravity a hundred times pulled on me a hundred times greater than it should have.

Between the two, I descended with a thousand times the force I should have.

The air hissed around me as I reentered the atmosphere. The threads on my clothes burned from the friction and shot flames behind me, but my body was too tough to be harmed by a little heat. I pointed the tops of my toes downward and held my hands crossed against my chest as I tried to make myself as streamlined as possible. The ground approached with tremendous speed, but I could see Tivana nearing the destination. She was skimming across the Sakaku Clan orchards, now under the management of the Hearthwood Clan.

But she was too slow. I quickly changed my mass again to lighten myself and reversed the pull of gravity, but this was the first time I’d done something like this. I underestimated the amount of energy I’d built up in my fall and was only able to slow myself down a little. Fortunately, I was headed for the water in the Myriad Monster’s Sea, so I wouldn’t be hurting the orchards Tivana was crossing over to the west.

With a tremendous splash, I sank into the sea. In this region, the water turned deep just a few kilometers from the coast, and I sank and sank all the way to the bottom. Given my speed, I quickly sank so deep that not a speck of light from the surface reached the ocean floor. Strange monsters roamed around me, and when I finally struck the bottom, I kicked up so much silt and dust that the water turned cloudy all around.

A few small monsters who didn’t know what was good for them tried to take a taste of me, but even though I couldn’t see, my senses were keen enough that I could tell what was in the water around me from feel and sound alone.

I brushed them aside, then urged all the sand in the water to settle quickly. Then, I stepped into the nearest ley line headed in the direction of the coast.

I emerged by the beach just as Tivana touched down.

“I win!” I declared.

“You’re naked.” Tivana gestured to me. She was right. My clothes had burned on re-entry.

“I still won. Besides, this saves me time getting undressed. After all, you’re mine until next dawn.” I grinned from cheek to cheek.

Tivana let out a laugh. “I suppose I am. So how can the crown princess of Deania serve you, Patriarch of the Hearthwood Clan?”

“How about you join me for a romantic stroll through the solar system?” I asked.

***

I flew the two of us out of the atmosphere again, though this time at a much more sedate pace. Once in space, Tivana flew on her own beside me, though I kept my arm wrapped tight around her.

After a few minutes, though, it became apparent that her method of flight worked just as well in space as it did on the surface of a planet, so I didn’t have to worry.

She wasn’t nearly as fast as me though, which meant a flight to a nearby celestial body would have taken her at least a month, even as close as they could be in the Ten Thousand Worlds. Other planets sometimes got close enough that they filled a quarter of the sky on the World of Sanctuary and Serenity, which put them near enough that the atmospheres started to mingle. That was how early orcs and elves flew between worlds to visit one another.

In any ordinary solar system, all these planets would have crashed into each other long ago and formed a handful of super planets too massive to contain life. But there was magic at work here, adjusting orbits day by day to keep all the countless words in motion and prevent them from colliding with one another too often, and enough civilizations had the means to clear out spatial debris that the space between planets was largely empty.

That was a good thing, since it meant I could really push my new flying spell to its absolute limits. Tivana glared at me when she realized we were headed for another planet and realized what I was doing. She was mine until dawn, but it just so happened that I’d chosen to explore a planet that was tidally locked to its closest sun. Dawn would never come.

To my surprise, the planet seemed habitable, at least in the zone locked in the twilight between night and day. There was an atmosphere. Admittedly, it smelled like a dark, dank basement full of rotting eggs instead of the healthy fresh air I was used to, but it existed. That meant Tivana could finally take a breath again and talk.

“You cheater.”

I chuckled. “Not so fast, my little princess! I only want to hear compliments from you. You’re mine, remember?”

“You have cleverly and deviously outwitted me again, Theo.” Tivana rolled her eyes.

“Better. Now let’s go find somewhere with a view.”

I found a place overlooking a sprawling ocean of pure quicksilver, as vast as the eyes could see. It was what had caught my eye about this planet in the first place when looking at it from afar. It had been near enough to the world of Sanctuary and Serenity that I could see our planet’s reflection on the surface of this lake.

“Beautiful...” Tivana muttered as we both took in the view.

“And highly toxic. I wouldn’t recommend breathing any more than necessary. In fact, I imagine just being here would kill anyone beneath the wizard rank in a few hours. We should be fine for a short stay.”

“And here I thought you were going to keep me here forever as your pet princess.” Tivana teased.

“Keep tempting me, and I just might. There are ten thousand worlds to visit, after all.”

With a wave of my hand, a plus blanket covered the cliff top from my Dimensional Storage, and I tore off what remained of Tivana’s clothes. They’d worn thin in our flight out of the World of Sanctuary and Serenity, and again with our entry to this world. The threads came apart in my hands as easily as dry straw. Soon, Tivana’s bare, bountiful, and beautiful bosom bounced before me.

My fingers roamed her chest, toying with her breasts and nipples. I gently pushed her down to the sheet I’d laid out for the two of us, and she laid back and closed her eyes.

I explored her body, as I’d done several times so far. But today, I had something special in mind.

I’d be the first to admit that I liked to spice things up a little in the bedroom. With as much sex as I had, I needed a little variety. Vanilla ice cream is great, but sometimes you want sprinkles, and sometimes you want chocolate fudge.

Me? I found there was nothing sweeter than a desperately horny elf girl begging her Patriarch to do whatever he wanted to her.

When Tivana’s mother had ordered her daughter to make grandchildren with me, Tivana had been completely inexperienced in the bedroom. She was a fainting, blushing maiden who would have been modest back on earth, let alone here among elves.

The elves of the World of Sanctuary and Serenity were primarily female, so many of them walked about nearly naked all the time without a care in the world. Tivana, however, had always worn these long, business-like armored coats that looked more like a gambeson than a dress. It gave her the appearance that she was a warrior princess, which was true, though it belied her skill at administration and leadership. She was just as talented a leader from the rear as she was from the front.

But in all her time as a princess, she’d never once taken to satisfying her more base urges. Many elves took on a female lover since their men were so scarce. Others paid the Temple of Fertility, where the few men the elves did have congregated and sold their services for hire. But not Tivana. She kept herself quietly tucked away and never even learned about much more than the very basics of how making new elves worked.

I had been giving her a bit of a crash course on how to have fun. There was a lot more to sex than just me sticking my prick inside her again and again. Before long, she would be just like the rest of my women, moaning and mewling beneath my skillful touch.

I spread her legs, and my fingers ran up and down her body. Her breath was hot. Mine was fierce. I dug into her plump round flesh, claiming every centimeter of it. She was my woman, now and forever. She’d promised as much to me, and I wanted to show her just how seriously I took that promise.

“Mine...” I whispered in her ear as I pressed my chest down on top of her. She felt my presence and nothing else. I was making sure of that. The earth beneath us was flooded with my zeal.

“Mhm....” Tivana moaned, biting her own lip, nodding as best she could while my hand found its way between her thighs.

I traced along the skin of her abdomen and the upper bits of her legs, circling the dampening wetness I felt there. My finger graced her lower lips and her back arched. I circled closer, moving faster and quicker. Her breathing quickened with my touch, and I felt her body tense and spasm. What a good little princess, already so desperate for me and I’d hardly begun.

“W-what are you waiting for?” Tivana panted.

“I’m waiting for you to say please.”

“P-please.”

I clicked my tongue. “Not like that. Ask properly.”

“P-please, Patriarch?”

“Good girl.”

And so, to reward her, my fingers entered her tight, waiting slit. She parted before me eagerly and would have let out a sharp cry if I didn’t plant a kiss on her lips. This was going to be a fun night.

For the next few hours, I teased Tivana over and over. She grew rather used to calling me her Patriarch. It was a bit embarrassing for her at first, since she was a princess, and the Hearthwood Clan was by most measures part of the Deanian Queendom, though we had special privileges no other clan had.

Years of upholding her family’s pride had taught her to hold her head high. And yet here I was, teaching her to beg and plead my name. It was a rather exhilarating feeling. I couldn’t wait to see the look on my other women’s faces when Tivana finally slipped up and called me Patriarch in front of them. It was going to be a beautiful sight.

But between then and now, I had a lot of work to do on my beautiful little princess.

I was satisfied with the progress I’d made for now, and for her sacrifice, I gave her the reward she desired so much. I plunged my fingers deep inside of her, penetrating her soft folds and touching the plump bud at her opening as my fingers ran along her skin.

I felt her convulse around me, and I brought her right to the edge of pleasure. And then I stopped.

“W-what’s wrong?” She asked.

“Your mother wanted a hundred grandkids, didn’t she? I’m not sure if they teach you this in princess school, but a man’s fingers can’t make little elves. Turn over.”

Tivana obediently flopped over onto her belly, and I wrapped my hand around her chest to pull her tight. With my other hand, I positioned myself at her entrance and pierced her. She shuddered as my hard cock sank into her flesh, filling her up completely. One of the benefits of body cultivation was the fact that the tool I was packing was adjustable, and I’d sculpted the size and shape of my cock just for Tivana. It filled her completely as I hilted myself inside of her without so much as a scrap of extra room.

In my arms, Tivana’s back twitched, and she would have bucked if I wasn’t holding onto her so tightly. My firm grip and the heat of my chest pressing against her only aroused her all the more, and I could feel per pushing back off the ground and further against me.

I held the moment and breathed in her sweet scent from the nape of her neck before pulling out and thrusting again. I went slow and steady at first, but as the moments passed, I picked up the pace and gathered steam. Tivana started desperate for more, but by the time I reached my rhythm, all she could do was grip the sheets as her eyes rolled up in her head and all thoughts left her mind. This was just where I wanted to keep her, and I planned on holding her right where she was for a few hours at least.

The feat would have been impossible for any normal man, but my powers over my body and my extraordinary senses extended deep into Tivana’s very being. I could feel her senses and sense what she felt with each passing moment. If she was close to orgasm, I would know before she did. If I wanted to tip her over the edge, then I would, and if I didn’t she would stay desperate and pleading as long as I wanted her to.

Hours passed. I switched between cock, fingers, and mouth, one after the other. By the time I was finished warming up, the most Tivana could muster up was a bit of wordless blubbering. Eventually, I decided she’d been a good princess for me, and I flipped her over again.

I plunged my shaft all the way into her, timed perfectly so that she would climax from that single thrust. Just as planned, it sent her over the edge, and the twitching of her insides drove me to join her in climax.

I held her tight, buried up to my hilt as thick globs of cum gushed into her deepest place. I held that position for a full minute, and by the time I was done, Tivana’s stomach looked slightly bigger than it had before. My cultivation powers gave me the powers of a thousand men in all aspects.

Tivana’s face looked drunken, and drool dripped down the corners of her mouth. I held her in my arms and pulled a large cushion from my Dimensional Storage. I left myself inside of her, keeping my seed deep within her as I cradled her in my arms, and we stared at the alien lake.

“Your mother will be happy. I’m certain that one did the trick,” I chuckled. “Only ninety-nine more to go.”

“Passing an egg doesn’t hurt, does it?” Tivana asked worriedly.

I laughed. “What are you asking me for? Talk to any of my other women, though. They’ll know. I wouldn’t worry too much. Everyone else was fine afterward. If you’re really nervous, I’ll have Mac knock you out in the Medical Bay, and we’ll do the whole thing while you’re asleep. I’d rather you not though, since the egg-laying process is a lot of fun for me.”

“That makes me more nervous, Theo.”

I chuckled.

The two of us planned to bask as we were a while longer, but the surface of the quicksilver pond shook, and some of the metallic liquid splashed onto the rocks.

Both of us sat upright. Nothing on the surface had made that splash, which meant it was something beneath the surface.

“I thought this was a dead world,” Tivana said.

I grimaced. “Apparently not.”

Then a shiny metal tendril shot out of the lake.

Tivana and I both tried to dodge it. Under any other circumstances, it would have found us already out of the way. But we’d both been caught with our pants down and more.

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