In the Sky with You

by a-shifty-sword

A Waifu Catalog Contractor isn't satisfied with how easy the default starting conditions are, and asks for a custom challenge similar to a Minecraft Modpack he played before, the Skyblock. He has to start from nothing and grow his way into power and adventures beyond his wildest dreams.

36. Day 043

I gotta say, Levy's new ability is pretty cool. I watched her use it on Chiho and Uzume last night to get their parts of what happened in Sekirei, and it was just really neat to see. It took her a couple tries to get it right. The first time she tried it on Uzume she just conjured a solid book-shaped block that couldn't be opened. Bisky said it was because her mental image wasn't detailed enough.

The second try produced an actual usable book, but the writing in it wasn't legible. But, perhaps appropriately, the third time was the charm, and a small book bound in leather appeared in Levy's hand. She opened it up and inside was a story about Uzume, one that started a few days ago.

I didn't read it directly, I didn't really feel a need to. Instead I let Levy have my phone and she started typing it up. I'm pretty sure she edited it down as well, to cover only the parts I didn't cover in my journal.

Which I'm grateful for. When I started this journal, it was just that- a journal to put my thoughts in. But it's quickly grown into a hobby that I enjoy, as I write it less like a journal and more like an… auto-biography? A dramatic retelling of my life? I don't know. Whatever it is, I'm enjoying writing it, and while Levy's ability could replace this entirely, I appreciate that she didn't even mention the possibility. This is my only real hobby after all. Unless you count sex.

Speaking of Uzume and Chiho's story though. I loved reading that. I'm not sure I would have left it at just a kick in the balls, but that was Chiho and Uzume's revenge to get, so if they're happy with that, that's enough for me.

I also read Kyouko's. I didn't see Levy get it from her, not sure when she did actually, or how. But it went a long way to explaining how she ended up teaming up with Akitsu of all people. They're more alike than I would have thought, and it seems like they ended up recognizing that. I'm glad. They could both use a person that can relate to them and help support them. Shutting herself off from everyone wasn't good for Kyouko, but now Akitsu won't let that happen.

I didn't interact with either of them very much today though. There's been a lot going on, with more pressing concerns. Like how, after a very light morning exercise session, Bisky and I headed back to the training area to figure out my Hatsu. I sat cross legged on the ground in front of her.

"First things first, do your Water Divination again," she said as she handed me a glass of water with a leaf on it. I carefully took it from her, not wanting to spill the water that is filled up to the brim of the glass, and started infusing my aura into the water.

I did so for several minutes, still not seeing a difference. "Is this going to actually tell us something?" I asked, doubtful.

"If I'm right, it should," Bisky replied. "And if I'm wrong, well, I have a few other things to try. But that should be good. Now, I want you to lift the glass up in front of your eyes and look through it."

I understood then what she was going for. It wasn't something we had ever tried, but obviously if my Specialist Hatsu was related to my vision, then the Water Divination would reflect that. So I did what she said and looked at her through my Nen infused water.

And then I blinked, lowered the glass, looked at her, then raised it back up and looked at her again. "Huh," I said.

"Notice something?" she asked.

"Yeah. When I look through the glass, you're wearing a different outfit."

Bisky had a few different outfits for when we worked out. Most were tight shorts and sports bras, just in different colors or styles. Today she had opted for a pink set with white accents. But when I looked at her through the water, she was clearly wearing the all black set. It was an outfit I recognized, one she had worn many times, but not the one she was actually wearing.

"And if I move around like this?" she asked while she started stretching.

I alternated between looking at her normally and through the glass. "Your movements are synced up, as far as I can tell. But your outfits are still different."

"And it hasn't changed to another outfit?" she asked, still stretching.

"No, it's still the same," I replied. My eyes lingered on the way the lean muscles of her stomach were accented as she bent to the side.

Bisky stopped stretching and looked up at me with a grin. "Okay then. I'm pretty sure I figured it out then. You're not seeing the future, you're seeing an alternate timeline."

I nodded in agreement, having come to the same conclusion, as I put down the glass of water next to me. "It seems that way. I guess when I saw Karasuba's attack ahead of time, I was seeing a timeline where she didn't pause for a moment before attacking?"

"That would be my guess, which would be pretty valuable if you could manage to do it consistently. But that's easier said than done." She crossed her arms and gave me a serious look. "Even when I learned that you were a Specialist, I never expected a technique as troublesome as this. Learning how to use this effectively is going to be very difficult."

"Well yeah, I can't imagine peering into other timelines is going to be easy," I replied. But I grinned, starting to get excited. I hadn't put much thought into my Hatsu since yesterday, either too tired or just waiting until I got Bisky's input before I started thinking much about it. But now that I knew what I could do, I was hyped. I had an honest to god super power now. The super strength and stuff was cool, but now? Now I had an ability that was unique and interesting. Now I was more than just some guy muddling his way through. I had become like one of the characters I loved watching and reading about.

I could peer into other timelines. I could see the things that could have been. If someone had made one choice instead of another, I'd see both. It was far more amazing than just throwing a fireball or whatever, it was an ability that impeded on the fabric of space-time itself.

While I'm still not sure what the exact limitations of the ability are, and whatever they were they would likely change as I got better at it, it was still awesome in the traditional sense of the word. It filled me with awe. Weeks of frustration had burst into a feeling of immense satisfaction, knowing that my efforts had been worth it.

And then Bisky brought me back down to reality.

"True, but that's only half of it. If you work really hard to learn how to control your power, and train your reserves to the point where you can sustain it for an entire fight without sacrificing offense or defense, then you'll have what is effectively a minor battle precognition, which is useful. But what else can you use it for?"

I blinked, grin fading as I thought about it. "I could… uhh…." I frowned as I was unable to think of anything useful. Even if I had complete control over what timeline I could see in, it was hard to imagine situations where that would be useful that weren't extremely specific. "Shit. So it's useless then?"

"No," Bisky denied firmly. "The battle precog alone is useful, even if actual precognition would be easier to train." She paused. "Maybe. Divination like that is… weird sometimes. But the point is that your ability isn't useless even outside of that. It's just… tricky. Coming up with useful and meaningful ways to use it will be the hard part."

I must have looked disappointed or something, because Bisky gave me a rare reassuring smile, which made her look very cute by the way, and continued. "It's an amazing power though. I've heard of some incredible Nen techniques, and seen some for myself, but seeing alternate timelines is beyond any of them. I have absolute faith that we'll be able to figure out incredible ways to use it."

Then her smile dropped a bit as she shifted back into teacher mode. "But first you need to figure out how to use it at will, and what your limits are. Try using it normally, like you did against Karasuba."

I nodded, trusting Bisky even as my brain tried to come up with ways to apply my power. But I pushed those thoughts to the side so I could focus on Bisky's instructions. I gathered aura around my eyes, like I was using Gyo, and pushed as much as I could.

"Don't just throw aura at it, use your will to shape it," Bisky instructed. "You know what you can do now. Command your aura, shape it, tell it to do what you know it can."

I nodded and focused. I tried to picture seeing into other timelines, but my vision didn't so much as waver. I couldn't conceptualize it, despite having done it.

Then I remembered last night, with Levy's failed attempts at Conjuring her book because of her lack of detail. I wasn't trying to Conjure something, but Conjuration was just a step away from Specialization on the Nen chart, so I decided to try a different approach, one based more on a detailed visual image.

I went back to my mental image, the one I still used to help me control my aura, though the process was so smooth and natural now that I didn't think much about it. But once more I revisited that image of a box in my mind. It was dotted with holes, where aura flowed from complicated pipes that filled every inch of the box.

But I needed to change that. I had changed it several times before, and each new thing I added to it complicated it, making it harder to properly envision, but training and practice fixed that issue, or it had so far at least.

I turned my attention to one of the corners of the box, where three of the faces met in a sharp point. It was the uppermost one, pointing 'forward'. There wasn't anything to really orient the image by, but there was still a clear sense of direction to it in my head. That part of the box was my eyes.

I had already divided the box up into parts that roughly corresponded to my body parts, which was how I controlled where my aura did and didn't flow from. The entire top layer was my head, so the corner that faced forward were my eyes.

What I had been doing before was just ordering the 'pipes' that were in that region to push more aura out, concentrating it there and closing all of the others. But that wasn't enough. I had moved beyond just changing how much aura was present. I needed something to shape it.

So, I imagined a telescope and I mounted it onto the corner. Tubes of aura fed into the viewing port, and I pushed aura into it and looked at Bisky, who was helpfully moving around randomly, stretching and walking while she watched me.

My vision… I'm not sure what my vision did, actually. There was something different about it, but not like with Karasuba. The only way I could describe it was that I was pushing up against a membrane or something. How I saw the world shifted slightly, but it wasn't enough to actually change it or see anything different. It's really not something I can describe properly, as it was more feeling than an actual visual change.

I tried pouring more aura into it, increasing the size of the telescope and pushing my aura to its limits. The subtle not-warping of my vision intensified, but it wasn't enough. I stopped, pulling the aura back. I hadn't used that much aura when I used it in my fight yesterday, so it was obvious that my approach was wrong.

I focused purely on the mental image of a telescope I made, taking it apart in my head. I tried shifting it into a pair of binoculars, but that didn't feel right so I changed it back. I spent a moment considering how telescopes worked, how lenses on the inside would bend light in a way to magnify an image.

Which is, of course, when I realized my mistake. Of course it didn't work. A telescope wasn't something you used to peer into other worlds. Maybe other worlds in the planetary sense, but not alternate timelines. So it was a flawed idea from the start.

Inspiration struck as I realized that there was something similar to a telescope that might work. A device similar in appearance but totally different in application. One that already had a strong association with peering into alternate worlds. A Kaleidoscope.

I closed my eyes and focused on turning my mental image of a telescope into a kaleidoscope. They were actually pretty simple. A magnifying lens wasn't strictly necessary, but I kept them anyway, hoping it would help with my focus. Then it was just a matter of adding some internal mirrors in the shape of a triangular prism that ran between the lenses.

Once I visualized those, I once again mounted the image to my mental box and attached a tube of aura into the viewfinder. I started pumping aura into it. A small amount at first, but I gradually ramped it up until I felt something click.

I opened my eyes to look at Bisky and instantly knew that I had succeeded. Just like it had with Karasuba, the edges of Bisky's body warped and shifted. Now that I knew what I was looking at, and wasn't distracted avoiding the very sharp sword that was trying to gut me like a fish, it was easy to pick out what was happening.

I could see the multiples of Bisky, the hers of other timelines, though their shapes were blurry. They all overlapped her, and for the most part they moved in sync with her, but some of them were slightly off. One that lagged behind, one that sped ahead. One that didn't quite bend over as much as she did, and one that stood in a slightly wider stance.

But she stopped moving and smiled at me. "You got it." It wasn't a guess.

"How could you tell?"

She pointed at her eyes. "Your irises have changed, they're a bunch of colors now. There's a bit of a pattern to it, kind of like if you took a rainbow and broke it into little crystals and put them back together in the wrong order."

"Like a kaleidoscope?" I asked.

"Yes, that's what it looks like." She looked at me. "You are imagining one, aren't you?"

I nodded. Bisky knew the mental image I used, and approved of it. She said it was one of several ways that Nen users could help focus their ability, and if that was what worked best for me, to keep using it.

"Is that normal?" I asked. "The whole eye changing thing."

Bisky shrugged. "There's very little 'normal' about Specialists to be honest. But physical changes to your body that correspond to your Nen are pretty common." Left unsaid was that her own appearance was thanks to her Nen responding to her desires, which I somehow kept forgetting. "Try ending the technique?"

I cut off the flow of aura and Bisky stopped looking so fuzzy. She looked me in the eyes. "They've gone back to normal. It was actually really strange to watch. Like all of the little bits of pigment just shifted sideways and were replaced by your normal color. Use it again."

It took me a second this time. I still hadn't fully internalized the new mental image so I had to recreate the kaleidoscope. I turned the flow of aura back on and once more my vision shifted and blurred.

Bisky got closer, looking deeper into my eyes. "Hmm. It's a different pattern now. Does anything seem different to you?"

"Not really. I still see a few blurry other versions of you, like they're out of focus. I think. It's hard to tell when you're not moving much. They don't diverge from you enough to get a good look at them."

Bisky nodded, taking that into consideration. "And how's the aura usage?"

I grimaced. "Heavy. More than I'd use during Ren. With just it I could probably keep it up for ten minutes, but in a fight? Even using it sparingly would cut down how long I could fight for, if I'm fighting at my max capacity."

"We'll have to focus even more on increasing your reserves," she commented. "In fact, I think that's primarily what I want you to focus on for the next week. We'll keep sparring and other Nen activities to a minimum. You'll be spending all of your time either in Ren training or practicing this."

"Alright," I accepted. Ren training wasn't the most exciting, but it was important. "But is Ren training even necessary? If I just used my Hatsu my aura would drain faster, and I could practice at the same time."

Bisky shook her head. "Increasing your aura reserves works better with Ren. It's not just about exhausting yourself, it's also about tempering your body, your aura nodes, to get them more used to a high flow of aura." She paused. "But what you can do is maybe focus a bit more than usual on the aura nodes around your eyes. Temper them, since that's where you'll use your technique."

"I guess that makes sense. Should I alternate between them?"

Bisky paused for a moment, considering it. "No. For every two times you exhaust yourself with Ren, exhaust yourself using your Hatsu once. That'll be the most efficient, as the more your reserves grow, the longer you can hold your Hatsu, and the longer you can stay in that state, the faster you'll master it. One minute of continuous use is more helpful than two sessions of 30 seconds of use."

"Got it."

"Let's get started on that now," Bisky continued. She stepped back again. "Right now what you need to learn is control. All you're seeing are timelines very close to the one the rest of us perceive. Your first goal is going to replicate what you saw through the water, where you saw me in a different outfit. Find that timeline and maintain your vision on that."

"Yes Sensei," I replied. I shifted a bit to get comfortable, and then I focused my gaze on her.

Bisky started moving again, doing a series of stretches to keep in constant motion. At first, I failed to change my vision at all. I couldn't remember doing anything in particular while I had fought Karasuba. I could barely think at all then, it was all instinctual. So I tried that for a bit, just wanting to see Bisky in her black outfit. But after a couple minutes, minutes where I could feel my reserves of aura dwindling, there wasn't any effect.

So I took a step back. Not literally, I was still sitting down. But I decided to try to focus on just one alternate Bisky. Right now I could see a few faded versions of her, though it was hard to tell exactly how many there were because of how they overlapped. What I wanted was to just see one of her.

Once again, just wanting it wasn't enough. So I went back to my mental image, dropping the technique briefly so I could rebuild the kaleidoscope. I added two rings built into the body of it that would allow me to zoom the lens and turn the mirrors to shift how the light would bounce through it.

Image rebuilt, I activated the ability once more. I watched Bisky as she moved and stretched, and as I did I rotated those two rings, using it as a shortcut to focus my will in a way that my Nen responded to.

It worked, to a degree. My view of Bisky shifted. I saw a few of her alternates fade away as more come into being. Sometimes they would diverge from her a great deal, enough that I saw two Bisky's at once, moving in sync but a foot apart from each other. And the image was so sharp that I was hard pressed to tell which of them was the 'real' one.

But when I tried to shift the angle of it so I was viewing a Bisky clad in black, the fake disappeared and instead it shifted back into the vague overlapping appearance. It was disappointing to lose it, but I kept at it.

The minutes ticked by, and my view of Bisky continued to shift. Her constant stretching was useful, mostly. The movement made it easier to see the other overlapped forms of her, which provided much needed feedback on the tweaks I was making.

But it was also a little distracting. The stretching did interesting things to her scantily clad body, reminding me of seeing her stretch in similar ways in our bed at night. But I tried to ignore those. Bisky had made it clear that lewdness was not allowed during training.

Even if she made it really hard when she turned away from me and reached down to her toes, putting her ass in tight form fitting clothes straight into my line of sight.

By the time my aura dwindled to the point where I couldn't maintain the technique anymore I was horny and a little frustrated from my lack of progress. I sighed and slumped over, entering Zetsu out of sheer habit to restore my aura. "I didn't manage it," I said before explaining what I had done and the effects it had.

"I would have been surprised if you had, to be honest," Bisky replied with a shrug. She stopped stretching and sat down in front of me. "I said it earlier. This is one hell of a technique, and training it is going to be difficult. Normally, I'd say it would take years of training to accomplish. But with Talents and your other advantages… it'll still take weeks, at minimum. Maybe even a couple of months."

"I guess that's just the price to pay for such a cool power," I said with a sigh. "So. What now?"

"Now? Well, there's one thing I want to talk to you about, but it's technically your rest day, so we'll leave the training there for today."

"Oh, right." In my excitement to test my new power I had completely forgotten that today was meant for relaxing. I leaned back, placing my hands on the ground behind me to support me while I looked up at the sky. "So what did you want to talk about?"

"Yesterday," she said. Something about her tone caught my attention, so I turned to her to find her facing me. None of the expressions I was used to seeing were on her face. Instead she was looking at me with concern. "Yesterday I went against your plan and forced you to fight Karasuba. I stand by that decision, I do. But I wanted to talk to you about it, to make sure you were… okay."

I didn't answer immediately. I wanted to make sure my answer to her was a meaningful and real one, not just a reflexive one.

My relationship with Bisky is a lot different than it is with the others. The sexual parts are more or less the same, but the more romantic parts are strange. Normally they're not very present at all. I purchased Bisky to train me, and that is her primary role, one she took to very well. She acted more like a coach or a teacher than a lover, most of the time.

But even she had moments like this. Moments where I could see the shape of the relationship we had outside of training. At first I thought she was nervous, insecure. But no, that didn't fit her. She was just being caring. She threw me to the proverbial wolves yesterday, but today she was making sure I was okay, not physically, but emotionally and mentally.

I'm not doing a good job summarizing it. But I felt it at that moment. The Bisky that wasn't my coach who just wanted me to be happy.

"Yeah," I said after a moment. "Yeah, I'm good. I admit, it caught me off guard at the time. But I knew what I was signing up for when I chose you to train me. I knew what kind of methods you would use. I want you to keep pushing me like that. I'm still lagging behind all of you, behind all of the threats we might face. I need to get stronger as fast as possible. If you had been wrong, then I'd be annoyed and upset. But you weren't. You were right, and I fought Karasuba and won. And that feels really good."

She smiled. "You did amazing. I thought it would be a much closer fight, even if you didn't unlock your Hatsu. But you did, and you fought against someone nearly as strong as you and with far more experience, and came out the winner. I'm so proud of you."

An indescribable rush of warmth rose up inside of me at those words. I could feel my cheeks heating up. "I uhh… thanks," I replied awkwardly, unsure how to respond to the praise. I was also reminded just how pretty Bisky was when she was smiling so genuinely.

And that realization rekindled the arousal she had stirred up earlier, with her stretching. I felt the rest of me start to heat up as well, and a fun idea occurred to me.

I sat up and grinned. "Though, now that you mention it, you do have a good point."

She tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

I leaned closer to her. "I mean, yesterday you did disobey me. Sure it worked out, but still, what kind of leader would I be if I let that kind of thing slide without punishment?"

I wasn't actually upset. But I was horny, and I knew what Bisky liked, so I'd gladly use it as an excuse to initiate a bit of punishment play.

Which Bisky picked up on immediately. She grinned back. "I suppose I have been a pretty bad girl."

"That's right, you have," I replied. "And bad girls get spanked." I reached for her and pulled her into my lap. She didn't resist, in fact she giggled a bit as she quickly got into the mood. She also shifted into Zetsu herself, her aura disappearing.

She was laying face down on my lap, her body draped across my legs with her hips on top of my right thigh. Her pert little ass, covered in tight pink fabric, practically begged to be touched. So I did, and I placed my hand on it, gently caressing it for just a moment. And then I lifted my hand up and sharply brought it down.

The sound of the smack was nearly loud enough to drown out the yelp of pain that Bisky made. I knew it didn't actually hurt her though, at least not in any meaningful way. She didn't have her aura to soften the blow, but I didn't have any to strengthen mine.

Besides, this was hardly the first time I had spanked her, I knew how hard she liked it by this point.

"One," she dutifully counted.

"I wonder how many we'll do today," I mused, teasing her as I gently rubbed her other butt cheek. She was tense under my hands, anticipating it. I lifted my hand and she tensed further, but I paused. I drew the moment out, making her squirm as she waited for it. She could have easily turned to look, but that would have ruined the fun.

I brought my hand down in another loud smack. Her own yelp was quieter this time, but her body reacted more strongly, her back arching as she recoiled from it. "T-two!"

"You're already so worked up," I teased her. "Have you been anticipating this?"

I caught the hint of a change in her expression, a realization that was quickly covered up, but at the time I ignored it. It was small and I was more focused on her ass than her face. "I- uhh-"

"Let's step it up a notch then," I said, interrupting her. "We can skip the warm up and move on to the main course." I grabbed hold of the waistband of her shorts, also grabbing her panties as well, and started pulling them down her legs so I could spank her bare ass directly.

"Wait, Roland, don't!" she protested, turning and squirming in my grip. But she was too slow, and before I could fully process her telling me to stop her shorts were around her knees and her ass was bare.

The reason she tried to stop me was immediately clear. At this angle it was impossible not to see the circular plate of golden metal nestled between her cheeks, right where her asshole was. It was easy to identify. "A butt plug?"

Bisky looked away, her face in her hands, looking absolutely mortified. I was just confused. "What's the matter, Bisky?" I asked. "You know there's no kink-shaming in this household, and for an anal enthusiast like you, casually wearing a butt plug isn't weird at all. Honestly I'm more curious about where you got-" I froze as I realized something, cutting myself off.

My eyes looked down at the butt plug, the color and texture of it familiar to me. I then looked at Bisky, who wasn't moving. My gaze shifted to her left hand, where her Soul Gem should have rested on her finger in its ring form. But it wasn't there.

"Bisky…" I asked slowly. "Are you using your Soul Gem as a butt plug?"

She didn't react at first, continuing to hide her face in her hands. But after a moment, she silently nodded.

I wasn't entirely sure how to react to that at first. I was still struggling to accept it as a concept. But once I did, my main emotion was curiosity.

I carefully reached down and poked it, shifting it ever so slightly. Bisky flinched in surprise and finally turned her head to look at me. "Don't touch it!"

"Why not?" I asked, poking it again. She squirmed, but she also didn't move, or put her aura back up, which was our equivalent of a safe word. "Doesn't it feel good?"

"It does," she admitted. She was still embarrassed, which was such a strange and unique thing to see from her. She was normally utterly confident and shameless. But not this time. Honestly, seeing her like that was one hell of a turn on.

I pressed my finger against the base of it again, this time pushing it harder into her as I moved my finger in small circles, causing it to shift inside of her just a little bit. She let out a sudden moan that she tried to hold back but was unable to.

"How did you even think of this?" I asked. I was still a little floored at the discovery, amazed at just how perverted Bisky was as I realized she had been walking around all day like this with her Soul Gem up her butt. "How long have you been doing it?"

"Since a couple days after I became a Magical Girl," she admitted, squirming as I continued to play with the base of the Soul Gem, running my finger along the rim of it and tapping on it. "I- I realized that I could feel it when I touched it and gripped it tightly. And it had the right shape… so I tried it."

"A wide rounded body with a flared base," I described. "Yeah, I can see the similarities. So, what does it feel like?"

"Tight," she said. She was panting now as I messed with the Soul Gem and I could feel a wet spot growing on my leg from her growing arousal. "It stretches my ass out, but inside of me, deep in my chest, I can feel it clenching around me."

"Your actual soul is in your ass, after all," I said. Technically, thanks to the Company, her Soul was equally in her body and gem. It wasn't split, though. It was fully in both, like there wasn't a distinction. Which made this some kind of sexual-soul-ouroborus.

I grinned and raised my hand again before quickly bringing it back down on her ass cheek once more, this time smacking the bare skin. She yelped, more in surprise than anything, and looked at me in confusion.

I raised an eyebrow. "Did you think we were stopping?"

"You… don't think it's weird?" she asked cautiously.

"Oh it's definitely weird," I said with a grin. "Even in the infinite omniverse you'd be hard pressed to find more than a few people who get off on shoving their soul up their own ass. But it's also pretty fucking hot."

I lifted my hand and once more brought it down on her bare ass cheek in a sharp slap, but she was ready for that one and only jolted slightly. "Now, I didn't tell you to stop counting, did I?"

"Three!" she responded enthusiastically, clearly relieved by my acceptance.

"Wrong, that was four, and you missed three," I said. I smacked her ass again, harder this time. "Start over."

"One!" she said, face so flushed it was even more red than where I was smacking her.

I kept going for a while, spanking her like that, alternating cheeks. Each one echoed through the empty training area, almost certainly audible from the main house, but we were long past the point of trying to hide the evidence of when I started having fun with one of my girls. Her ass quickly grew more and more red, and I was putting more and more force into each one.

My other hand rested on her lower back, and my thumb hooked down to press against the base of her Soul Gem. I fiddled with it between spankings, which I spaced out to keep her guessing on when the next one would come. She squirmed whenever I messed with it. I couldn't even imagine what it felt like for her, but she was clearly enjoying it.

"Fi-fifty…" she panted as I smacked her ass again. She was breathing heavily, shoulders and back heaving. Her entire body was red, though her ass was the most red. I was actually a little concerned about having bruised her, but all I had to do was look at her face or her dripping wet cunt to know that she was having the time of her life. It would heal up quickly after we were done anyway.

But as much fun as it was to get her worked up, I could only satisfy myself with that for so long before I wanted to feel good as well.

So I let go of her. "Get on your knees," I ordered her. When we first started having sex, she liked it rough, but that was all. But over time things had shifted, we had added stuff like the spanking. She didn't just want it rough now, she wanted to be dominated. And I am nothing if not accommodating of my girls' wants.

So she nodded and shivered in anticipation at my order. She pushed herself off of my legs and onto all fours, lifting her ass up. She then turned to face away from me and spread her legs, giving me a clear view of her pussy and plugged up ass.

I pushed myself to my knees and pushed down the hem of my athletic shorts enough to free my erection, which had grown large and hard while I had spanked Bisky. I positioned myself behind her, but I didn't immediately thrust into her. I took a moment to explore her body.

I traced my fingers along the raw and reddened skin of her ass, just barely touching it. She shivered, fingers digging into the ground as I caressed the sensitive skin.

My questing fingers ended, once again, at the Soul Gem buried in her ass. I was fascinated by it, with how novel and kinky it was. Now, I knew how much Bisky loved anal. Most of our sex was anal after all. And if she had been wearing a normal butt plug, I probably would have removed it from her and then replaced it with my cock.

But it wasn't normal. And despite the fact that Sexual Calibration kept everything clean and sanitary, I still balked at the idea of transferring it from her ass to one of her other orifices, either her pussy or her mouth.

So instead, I decided to leave it in, though not necessarily leave it alone.

I gripped the base of it and pulled slightly, like I was going to take it out, but didn't use enough force to actually do so. Instead it just pulled at her anus, the muscles of her sphincter fighting to keep it inside of her. She let out a low groan as I pulled, one that transformed into a sharp breath when I suddenly pushed it back into her.

"Rolaaaand," she whined. "That feels… it feels…"

I pulled on it again and cut her off. "Yeah? How does it feel?" I pulled a little harder this time, enough that I could feel it slowly starting to slip out of her.

"I- I don't know," she panted. "It feels weird but go-oood!" The last word was stretched out as I pushed it back into her, causing her voice to increase in pitch. "Don't- don't stop!"

I knew what that meant. She was close to cumming. I really wanted to stick my dick in her, but I wanted to make her cum by just playing with her Soul Gem and her ass even more. So I tightened my grip and kicked it up a notch.

I couldn't exactly thrust it in and out of her, there wasn't enough give. My earlier attempts had only been effective because of how sensitive the Soul Gem was. But if I wanted to push her over the edge, I needed more than that.

So I didn't just pull it out. I grabbed it, pulled out slightly, and then pulled down. She threw her head back and tensed up as she let out a strangled moan as her Soul Gem levered upward to hit her at a new angle, and no doubt her ass squeezed around it differently. Variety was the real spice of sex.

I pulled the base up, angling the tip of the Soul Gem down, and her muffled moan turned into a full blown one as she gave into the pleasure. And her moans continued, interrupted only by her panting gasps for breath, as I continued to use her Soul Gem like a joystick in her ass, shifting from one angle to the next at a rapid pace.

It didn't take long for her to cum. I could feel it as she approached, her ass' grip on the Soul Gem growing tighter as she tensed up and her breathing grew heavier. And when it did come, it was a big one. Her back arched and she let out a loud cry of pleasure that echoed over the skyblock.

Her body shook, shuddering roughly as the pleasure washed over her, and despite the fact that I hadn't even touched it yet, a clear liquid squirted from her pussy as she came.

I let go of her Soul Gem as she rode out her orgasm, just sitting back and enjoying the fruits of my labor as it petered out and she recovered. She didn't move from her position though, still on all fours, supported by shaky but unbending limbs. She looked back at me over her shoulder, and her eyes met mine. I could tell that she had just had the best orgasm of her life. And she wanted more.

I couldn't hold back any longer. My cock throbbed with need and I no longer had any other desires holding me back. I quickly lined up with her sopping wet pussy, pressed the tip of my cock against her entrance, and then thrust all the way into her, hilting myself in one fast motion.

She let out another strangled cry, and she immediately came again. Not nearly as strongly as her first one, but I felt the way her inner walls spasmed and clamped around my dick and recognized it as her cumming.

"Damn, that really worked you up, huh?"

"T-two," she stammered. "Two things inside me. I'm so full."

I paused, realizing that this was the first time one of my girls had both of their holes stuffed at one time. Well, aside from the occasional finger or two by one of the others waiting for their turn.

Even more glad that I hadn't removed her Soul Gem from her ass, I grinned. "Can you feel it, then? The extra pressure? How's that Soul Gem doing?"

She just let out a moan and squirmed, shifting my cock inside of her as she swayed her hips from side to side. "More…" she begged.

My own body was telling me to do exactly that and give her more, but I held myself back. "That's not how we ask for that, is it?"

"Please, Master, give me more," she said, still squirming.

"Give you more what?" I replied with a grin that she couldn't see. "I need you to be specific about what you're asking."

She let out a whine. "Please fuck my slutty pussy with your big dick!"

She forgot to call me Master, but I couldn't bring myself to care, not if it meant holding back for longer. It was close enough.

I grabbed hold of her hips and pulled my own back, my length pulling out from her pussy inch by inch, glistening with her arousal. She didn't want to let me go, her inner walls clamping tight to hold me inside of her, but all that did was make it feel better for both of us as I pulled out.

Then, just before the tip of my cock reached her entrance, I stopped. I paused there, letting the anticipation build as she squirmed and let out little whines of desire. Then, just as she started to lower her guard, I suddenly thrust all the way back into her again, hard enough that a smacking noise echoed out.

She didn't cum again, sadly, but she let out the sweetest moan as her pussy tightened around my shaft.

And then I did it again, slightly faster this time, but once again pausing to build up the anticipation. And then again. And again. Each time my movements were a little faster, a little rougher.

And then I shifted my grip, once more placing a thumb on the base of her Soul Gem, and I started fiddling with it again even as I fucked her from behind.

She came again, body shaking from the intensity. And this time she did not stop. I couldn't tell if it was a series of back to back small orgasms, or just one really drawn out one. But as I pounded into her pussy and played with the Soul Gem in her ass, she gasped and moaned non-stop in pleasure and her body shuddered, inside and out.

It was a lot of stimulation for me, and after just a few minutes of thrusting I felt my own orgasm approach. I didn't warn her, too focused on the nearly overwhelming pleasure to indulge in more dirty talk. I just picked up the pace even more, my hips slapping into her already reddened ass.

When I came, I did so deep inside of her, pumping shot after shot of my cum as far into her as I could reach. She gasped as she felt it filling her, a noise that shifted into a drawn out moan of pleasure as my warmth settled into her belly.

Finally, once every last bit of my semen had been deposited inside of her, I relaxed and pulled out of her. We both collapsed onto the ground, onto our sides, not caring about getting dirty. We panted hard, my chest pushing out against her back as I spooned her. My cock slowly softened between her legs.

We spent a few minutes like that, not talking at all, just cuddling and calming down. I wrapped an arm around her stomach and pulled her closer to me. "That was pretty intense," I said, breaking the silence.

"It was," she agreed. Another few moments passed in silence. "Thanks, by the way," she said. "For accepting the Soul Gem thing and not getting turned off by it. I was nervous about it."

I snorted. "It's still kind of weird. Not the Soul Gem thing, though that too. But the actually strange part is how you act so differently when we have sex. Normal Bisky wouldn't be nervous about that."

"Well, you bought me to be a trainer," she said. "I enjoy that, and I'm good at it. But that is that, and this is this. When we're having sex, I'm not your trainer, I'm not your strategist, and I'm not the responsible adult."

She turned in my grasp, rolling over to face me so she could look me in the eyes. Her expression was soft and caring. "I'm yours. Your girl, your harem member, your sex toy. Right now I'm just your lover, enjoying a nice intimate moment with you." She grinned. "Besides, there's a reason I wanted to look like a young girl. Can you imagine someone trying to dominate my other form?"

I snorted. Her other form would put bodybuilders to shame. It had an appeal of its own, but she would have dwarfed me. I literally can't imagine her being dominated in that form, except by someone even larger. "You really are a pervert, huh?"

"Through and through," she admitted shamelessly. "But you knew what you were getting into, didn't you?"

"I had an idea," I admitted. "But you've continued to surprise me. But in a good way." I leaned down and kissed her, causing her to push herself closer to me as she kissed me back.

After a few moments, I pulled back. "Come on. We should get going."

She nodded and crawled out of my arms, pushing herself to her feet. I got up as well, and we both fixed our clothes and brushed the dirt off as best we could before heading back to the house. I could feel that everyone was already there, which was surprising. People usually spread out over the Skyblock on our rest days, and Kusano and Chiho had been spending a lot of time working together on the farm block.

Instead, everyone was sitting around the dining room table. "What's up guys?" I asked.

"Oh good, you're done," Levy said. "Did you two have fun?"

"Yep," I replied with a shameless grin. "You'll never believe-" I was cut off by Bisky elbowing me in my gut. "Ah, nevermind. You were saying?"

Levy, and quite a few of the others, raised an eyebrow at that, but Bisky's expression must have prevented them from asking because none of them said anything. "Akitsu's about to be healed," Levy explained instead.

"Already?" Levy handed me the smartphone, open to the app where Laws were dealt with. Specifically, it was open to the active 'infractions', which showed all of the Laws that were being broken.

That reminds me. Before, I described making a Law that everyone would break as 'forbidding anyone on the Skyblock to be part of my retinue'. Which just isn't accurate. I hadn't had time to familiarize myself with how Laws worked, I had just fiddled with stuff until it worked.

Really what I did was forbid being on the Skyblock or being part of my Retinue. Which was actually what I wanted, and just didn't realize that it was what I did until a few days later when I was messing with it more. I was mostly confused because I didn't have a lot of options at the time for what kinds of Laws I could make.

The end result is the same, I just wanted to clarify that, since I've learned a lot about how Laws work since then. I'll get to more on that later, but suffice to say that I had a law that anyone present on my Skyblock was always breaking, which meant that the Consequences always applied. And boy did I have a lot of Consequences attached to it. Mostly beneficial stuff though, as it was how I increased everyone's aura and magic as well as give them access to all of my Talents.

Last night I had thrown Body Tune-Up on that list, so Akitsu could benefit from it without being part of my Retinue. I had also purchased Laws of Cognition so I could add Rei reserves and regeneration to the list of things being increased as well.

But I was expecting it to take a few days for all of that to finish. Of course, when I looked at the app, I realized why I was confused. Increases to resource pools and other similar changes maxed out at 500%, which was when it was 'complete' in my head. But perks like Body Tune-Up maxed out at just 100%, which took much less time to reach. So Akitsu was just a few minutes away from having her Body Tune-Up access hit 100%, at which point it would kick in.

"Ah, I see," I said instead of explaining all of that out loud. It wasn't important at the time. I looked to Akitsu instead. "Excited?"

She didn't visibly react. "I am… unsure. It doesn't feel real." She shook her head. "Not that I don't believe you. But…" she trailed off.

"Nah, it's fine," Matsu cut in. "It's pretty crazy right? You haven't even been here a full day yet, so you haven't had time to get used to how weird this place is."

Akitsu hesitated but then nodded. "I don't know what to expect," she agreed.

"How about you Kyouko?" I asked. "Excited to be an Ashikabi?"

She crossed her arms. "It's whatever." Akitsu looked at her. She didn't say anything, but Kyouko nearly squirmed under her gaze. "I mean… I guess it'll be cool…"

Akitsu was still pretty hard to read, but she looked a little happier at that. The others chatted for a couple more minutes, and then…

Well, honestly, it wasn't very dramatic. Akitsu didn't even notice when it happened. She just continued to watch the others, mostly Kyouko, as they talked. And then the Sekirei Crest on her head disappeared.

I admit, I let out a little sigh of relief. I wasn't 100% confident that being 'scrapped' would be something that Body Tune-Up would fix. I was pretty sure it would, based on Miya's explanation and my own understanding, but part of me was still worried that I'd have to deal with a disappointed Akitsu after all that, and we'd have to use the Jinki to mess with her core to fix it. That would have been one hell of a project, and I was glad it didn't come into play.

Kusano was the one that first noticed it. "Oh! Look!" she said, looking at Akitsu. Everyone's attention was immediately focused on the ice Sekirei, which made her tense up a bit until realization flashed in her eyes. She reached up with a trembling hand to touch her forehead, though there was nothing there to feel.

Mami handed her a small hand mirror, which Akitsu took gratefully and raised it to her face. She gasped at what she saw, or at what she didn't see I suppose. "I'm… I'm fixed?"

"Good as new," Uzume said with a grin. "And ready to be winged whenever you want."

Akitsu quickly turned to Kyouko, who was sitting next to her. Kyouko tensed as well, understanding what Akitsu wanted. "Right now?" Her eyes flickered over the rest of us. "In front of everyone?"

"Yes," Akitsu answered immediately. Kyouko still looked nervous though, and she hesitated. "Please," Akitsu continued. "Unless… I'm not good enough?"

Kyouko flinched. "That's not fair…" she murmured, almost too quiet to be heard. "Fine," she said, louder. "Come here."

The room was silent as both girls leaned towards each other, their position slightly awkward. The closer they got, the slower they moved, both of them nervous. They stopped entirely, their faces just a couple inches apart, and looked into each other's eyes.

And then Akitsu closed the gap and their lips met. A moment later, shards of blue light, like ice, exploded from Akitsu's back in the shape of wings. Mami yelped in surprise, since she was on the other side of Akitsu and got a faceful of the wings appearing.

The kiss lasted until the wings faded away, at which point Kyouko, who was blushing furiously, pulled away. Akitsu didn't seem to mind though. Her eyes were hazy, but she looked pleased.

"Forever and ever," she whispered as she touched her own lips.

"Th-there!" Kyouko said, carefully avoiding eye contact with anyone, a difficult feat when sitting at a table and everyone else was looking at her. "Are you happy now?"

"Yes," Akitsu replied with such simple but deep sincerity that even Kyouko couldn't stay annoyed. She was smiling for the first time since I had met her. "Thank you, Ashikabi-sama, for saving me."

"You don't need to call me that," Kyouko replied.

"I understand, Ashikabi-sama."

Kyouko narrowed her eyes at Akitsu, but apparently she recognized an impossible battle when she saw one because she just sighed. "Fine, whatever. What now?"

"Now it's my turn," Bisky said. "Akitsu, Shiina, it's time for me to unlock your Nen. The others have explained what that is, right?" Both of them nodded. "Good. I'll teach you the basics as you learn Ten. Both of you come with me to the training area."

Akitsu hesitated, glancing between Bisky and Kyouko. Kyouko, apparently understanding her hesitation, rolled her eyes. "Fine, I'll come with you as well."

Akitsu immediately relaxed and stood up. Shiina hesitated a bit as well, looking at Kusano, but Kusano glanced at me before looking back at Shiina and shaking her head. "I've got something to do." Shiina looked a little disappointed, but nodded and got up.

As Akitsu and Kyouko walked by me, Akitsu stopped and turned to me. Then she bowed deeply. "Thank you, Roland-sama. For fixing me, and for allowing my Ashikabi-sama to wing me."

I gave her a smile. "Of course, Akitsu. I'm just glad you're happy, and I'm looking forward to having you be part of the family."

"Oi, she's sleeping in my room, keep your perverted hands off of her," Kyouko cut in.

"That's not what I meant, but I'm glad to see you so protective over your Sekirei," I reply with a teasing grin. "You're well suited to being an Ashikabi."

Kyouko narrowed her eyes and I could practically see the gears turning in her head as she tried to figure out how she wanted to reply to that, but Akitsu cut in. "Ah. If Ashikabi-sama wants, I would be more than happy to lay with her."

Kyouko froze, the blush on her face that had faded away coming back with a vengeance. She whirled to face Akitsu. "That's not what I was saying!"

Akitsu drooped a little. "You don't want me?"

Kyouko's blush grew even fiercer. "That- you can't just- argh!" Kyouko threw her hands up in frustration before grabbing Akitsu's hand and dragging her towards the exit. "We'll talk about that later. In private!"

"Yes Ashikabi-sama," Akitsu dutifully replied, but I swore I saw a flicker of amusement on her face before they passed through the door, following after Bisky and Shiina.

Matsu cackled. "Oh man, this is going to be great!"

"It will be good for both of them, I hope," Mami agreed, though it was obvious that the two of them were not talking about the same thing at all.

"I hope so as well," I said.

"Umm, Onii-chan?" Kusano cut in, scooting over to me. "Are you busy right now?"

"Nope, totally free. What's up?"

"Chiho and I have made some progress with our projects and we want to show you," she explained. "Levy and the others bought some of the seeds and other stuff we needed yesterday, and last night and this morning we made all the stuff we needed for potions, and I've made some other stuff as well."

"Really?" I asked, excited. I'd been looking forward to the results of both of those projects ever since I purchased Laws of the Jungle and Chiho's Template Stack. I stood up. "Let's go then!"

Kusano and Chiho led me to the farm block, which was still broken up into a four by four grid of square patches of soil. Though three were special. One was a chicken coop, one was filled with planter boxes and it's where the Pokeberries and other small herbs grew, and the last one was just an area where we could sit and relax.

Normally most of the plots were empty, as really Kusano grew most of what she needed on demand. But now a number of them were filled with trees and plants I didn't recognize, some of them obviously supernatural. I looked at them for a bit as we walked past them, but I refrained from asking questions. I was sure they would explain things to me.

They led me to a plot in the back, which had been transformed into a work area with several tables topped with paper notes, clay flower pots, and other odds and ends. I also noticed a few glasses filled with colorful liquids that caught my attention.

But Kusano came to a stop and turned to face me. "Right, so our projects!" She paused and then looked around. "Umm… what should I show off first?"

"Your stuff," Chiho suggested. "Actually, start with how you made them, with the Laws and what we found out."

"Right! Can I have your phone, please?" she asked. I handed it over. "Thank you. So, as you know, we obtained the ability to alter behavior and form of the animals and plants on the Skyblock. The behavior part was especially helpful, as I could make a Law that commanded the chickens to stay in the garden. I didn't even have to assign a Consequence to it, since so long as the Law exists they'll follow it."

"Not that they did much roaming outside of the garden anyway," Chiho added. "They're not dumb enough to hop off the edge, and VV did a good job stopping them from heading to the main house until they learned. But this made it easy."

"Right," Kusano agreed. "But that's just behavior, that's the easy stuff. Changing their appearances is a lot more complicated. Basically, we had to do what you did on a smaller scale. We can designate areas, even areas as specific as distinct flower pots, and target specific types of plants within that area. Like for example, any blapple tree in the corner plot. The app makes it really easy, actually, and it can tell what is where."

"Useful," I agreed.

Kusano nodded. "So what we did was figure out what plant we wanted to change, we'd grow it,and then we'd make a Law against that kind of plant being in that area, which it constantly breaks. As you know, continuously breaking a Law applies up to 5% of each of the Consequences attached to that Law. That's where it gets complicated."

She handed me the phone, which was open to one of the Laws she had made. "Each plant has a bunch of traits we can alter as a Consequence. There are broad things like height and size, but if you open up the sub menus you can get really detailed, down to changing leaf shape and stuff. This is the Law I used to make that tree."

She pointed at a strange looking tree. I could tell it had been a blapple tree at the start by the color of the wood and the leaves. But those were the only similarities. The trunk was skinnier and very uniform, standing straight up like a pillar. The branches that grew were strangely flat, looking more like long planks than actual branches. Most were also bare of smaller branches or leaves, aside from the top branches which had a thick coating of leaves. Those were arranged horizontally, looking more like a roof than a natural tree.

"I've dubbed this a Building Tree," Kusano explained. "I modified the shapes of the branches and roots so they're like planks of wood, and I can control how they grow when I use my power on them."

She stepped over to it and touched the tree. Branches grew from the existing ones, shooting flat pieces of wood straight down towards the ground. Similar pieces of wood pushed their way up from the ground as well. I noticed that they were spaced so that the gaps between the branch planks were covered on their backs by the root planks, forming two layers of wood that closed off all of the gaps.

Those gaps were further closed when all of the planks of wood grew in width, pushing up against each other. One layer like that probably would have been enough to keep out a torrential downpour, but two guaranteed it. And then, to finish it off, one of the sides of the wall, the branch side, sprouted a thick coating of leaves.

The end result was what looked like a very solid wall, eight feet tall and three feet wide. It looked really nice, with the flat plank branches that looked like actual cut timber that had been built with tools instead of grown into place. It was much cleaner than the rough tangle of branches she had used to make our main house.

I let out a whistle. "That's really nice Ku-chan."

Kusano grinned. "This was actually the first thing I made. It's designed for maximum toughness. And size. And a few other tweaks as well. I made it really tough but still flexible, made it so it can grow even bigger, and I even made it fire resistant, because Chiho reminded me of that being a big risk of an all wooden house."

I glanced at Chiho, who nodded, and then looked down at the Law, noticing the traits she had adjusted. There were several technical terms that I vaguely recognized as mechanical properties of wood, but their exact meanings escaped me.

One caught my eye though, because instead of being increased, it had been decreased to its minimum. "Sound Absorption? Any reason in particular that that is turned down all the way?"

Kusano blushed. "So we can hear each other when we call for each other?" she offered, unsure.

"And at other times, like at night?" I asked. She blushed further, which was all the answer I needed. "Good girl, Ku-chan. That's perfect." After all, I had put the guest bedroom right next to the master bedroom for a reason. I wanted anyone in there to hear our orgies and get jealous. It seems like Kusano agreed, though whether she had her own personal reasons or had just realized what I wanted, I wasn't sure.

She seemed a little embarrassed still, but happy at my praise. "I was hoping we could use this for the house," she said. "But also the training area, to make it safer. It's really tough." She turned to the wall and suddenly flared her aura, entering Ren. She didn't put as much time into training her aura as us combatants, but Bisky made sure Kusano knew what she was doing.

Kusano shifted into a basic stance and then threw a punch straight into the wall she had made. A loud thunk echoed over the Skyblock, one that I recognized from hearing it last week during my training with Kyouko, and the wall vibrated with the force. But it didn't budge an inch, and there wasn't even a mark left on it.

Kusano turned back to me, shaking her hand slightly but smiling as she entered Ten once again. "I got Bisky to try it too. It took all of her strength just to dent it, and I can fix stuff like that easily with my power. I would have made it self-healing, but I haven't had time to test to make sure it heals properly and doesn't try to take on a different shape than what I want it to."

"We'll definitely have to overhaul the training area with that, yeah," I agreed. I looked back down at the Law and kept scrolling through the changes, and then frowned. "Energy Absorption? Energy Storage? What's all this?"

"Oh, right! That's the other part of what Laws of the Jungle lets us do." Kusano walked back over to me and tapped the phone, scrolling through a few things while I was still holding it. "I can modify existing traits, but I can also add new ones. They started us off with a bunch. Like, more than I've been able to get through. I've had to search for stuff I wanted just to narrow it down. But there are all kinds of really useful things in there."

She scrolled through a few, and she was not exaggerating about the list size. She flicked through the options and I saw them whir by as they scrolled, and several seconds of scrolling didn't even get through all of the A's.

She closed the option box and then stepped over to one of the tables, picking up two small pots. Both of them contained the same flower, which was more of a cluster of short thin stems with the tiniest flower heads I've ever seen. But those flower heads glowed with light.

"This is one of the first things I made with one of those traits," she said. "I added a light emission trait to them. Well, this is the second generation of them. See, it turns out that adding things like making them glow is fine, but it uses up extra energy still. Not much, but when I made them glow really brightly they died pretty quick."

"Ah, I guess that makes sense," I said. "I half expected it to ignore energy requirements like that though."

"I think it partially does," Chiho commented. "I'm not sure. I tried figuring out a way to calculate it but it was harder than expected. Still, I think that it's definitely much more efficient than it should be. It's just not free."

Kusano nodded and turned her attention back to the phone, tapping at three different traits she added. "Which is why I started adding these to everything. Light Absorption, Magic Absorption, and Aura Absorption. They're all ambient energy in the air that it can suck up to sustain itself."

"Don't plants already have Light Absorption?" I asked.

"No, they have photosynthesis, which isn't the same thing," Kusano explained. "Photosynthesis uses sunlight to turn air and water into sugar, which it uses for energy. Light Absorption is… nebulous. I think. I don't have a way to examine it but I'm pretty sure it's just turning light into a vague sort of energy that the plant needs. It's a supernatural process that skips steps."

"Fair enough. Is that why the wall you built still has leaves? To better absorb light?"

"No, those are just so it can still do normal photosynthesis as well," she admitted. "Plus, I like how it looks. But there's a couple more things I figured out. Like these." She hefted both of the pots she was still holding, shifting them from one arm to holding one in each hand. "This one we made using a Law about this type of plant, a type of sweet alyssum, growing in this specific pot." She put it down on the table and then showed me the other one. "And this one was grown using a seed from the first one."

It took me a moment to piece together the significance of that. "As in, without any Laws?" I asked. "The changes stay in subsequent generations."

Kusano smiled and nodded. "Yep! Once we modify a plant, it's modified for good! Even if we take the seeds from it and plant it somewhere where the Laws aren't applied, it keeps all of the changes of its parent!"

"Convenient," I say, rubbing my chin. Then I frown. "Uhh… dumb question maybe. Don't flowers need to pollinate or whatever to make seeds?"

"Oh, right. Normally, yes, most flowers need to cross-pollinate. My power can make them grow seeds without that though. MBI actually looked into it for a bit, but they couldn't figure out exactly how it works. The process is similar to self-pollination, but the results are what you'd expect from cross-pollination. Something about my power changes it in a process they never really figured out. They gave it a fancy scientific name, but I forgot it. I was pretty young when they were studying it."

"I see…" I said. Then I shrugged. "Well, if it's not an issue, that's great. What else have you made?"

She put the other pot down. "I modified the Building Tree so it can grow two more things from its branches. One of them is the Light Blooms, which are those flowers I just showed you, that way I can grow lights wherever we want. The more flowers I grow, the brighter the light. Oh, and don't worry, I can use Laws to only make them glow at certain times of day, and I can alter it by area, so we'll have automatic lighting."

She picked up another pot and showed it to me. There was a small little sapling in it, and from there, resting on the dirt due to its weight was a fruit, a large berry of some kind. It was blue, similar to a Blapple, but it was cube shaped and the texture was different.

She picked it and handed it to me. "This is a- wait, don't eat it!"

I froze, berry halfway to my lips, and then lowered it. She let out a sigh of relief and then glared at me. "This isn't for eating!"

I frowned. "But it's a berry."

"And most berries are not fit for human consumption," she pointed out. "I guess I'll have to tweak its appearance or something. But I'm calling this a Battery Berry. It's full of electrical energy."

"So eating it would have zapped me?" I asked, and she nodded. "Okay, but why?"

"For this!" She took the berry from me and brought it over to her work table. There she picked up one of our cell phones, which had a charger plugged into it. She took the part of the charger you'd normally plug into the wall socket and then suddenly jammed it straight into the berry.

I blinked in surprise. "What the hell?" I asked.

She turned to me with a grin, and Chiho had a similarly amused look on her face. "Well, since I was making lights, I figured we should replace our power as well. Making it so the Building Tree can turn the energy it absorbs into electricity is easy. But my power only grows things, and so building plugs directly into the tree is impossible without making it part of every single branch. Which we tried, but it looked bad and having all those open plugs is dangerous.

"So I made it like the Light Blooms, something the branches are capable of growing but aren't there by default. I can control how a plant grows as well, after all. After Chiho and I did some thinking, we came up with the idea of a berry. A flower wouldn't be sturdy enough. We tried making one hard, like plastic, but we couldn't get it to work."

She hefted the berry and showed me the cell phone's screen, which indicated that it was charged. "I admit, the berry idea is weird. And it's probably not the best way. But it's neat! The meat of it is firm enough to hold the plug in place. The skin is thick enough to insulate the electricity inside of it but thin enough to be pierced. And I can use my power to heal the holes, so it's reusable. And you can also pick them and use them as portable power sources! It does seem to slowly lose some charge once picked, but it's not too much. Some of the first ones I made a few days ago still have charge."

"Isn't that bad for the plug?" I asked. "Wouldn't it corrode from the juice?"

"I thought of that!" Kusano said. "Or, well, Chiho did. We added a trait so that the juice actually acts as a protective varnish, but still allows for the flow of electricity."

"That one took some digging to find in the list of traits," Chiho admitted. "And some research on Wikipedia just to narrow down what we were looking for."

I examined it for a few more moments before shrugging. "I think you were right when you said it earlier. This probably isn't the best way to handle it, but it is fun. I assume the voltage or amps or whatever aren't an issue?" My knowledge of electricity is pretty rudimentary, but I knew enough to know that it was a concern.

"It's configured to match sixty hertz Japanese electrical outlets, since most of our appliances use that," Kusano confirmed. "It's pretty easy to change it out though, I can make variations, like a fifty hertz one, if we need them."

"Alright, that's good enough for me then. So basically the plan is to use the Building Tree as the foundation for everything? And just grow plugs and lights on demand?"

"Yes! Unfortunately we couldn't figure out a way to make it so anyone could make it grow things wherever they want. If we upgrade Laws of the Jungle to the full perk, maybe we could add something like that. But lights and plugs shouldn't be something I have to change daily, and I don't mind growing them wherever people ask."

"Is that something you'd like?" I asked. "The stronger version that allows for more powerful traits? It's not too many Credits."

But she shook her head. "Not yet. I don't think we really need it. I've got tons of ideas for other things that should work even with the current limit. And I want to get more used to it before adding even more options. I think the Credits for that would be better spent elsewhere."

I shrugged. "It's your call, just let me know if you change your mind. So, what else do you got?"

"These are the only things that are finished, besides Chiho's stuff. I've got a couple of other things, but the Consequences take time to fully set in and I only adjusted them this morning." She turned to Chiho with a smile. "But Chiho's stuff is really cool and I think it should be her turn to explain it!"

We both turned to Chiho, and she smiled and nodded. "Okay. I think you'll really like some of these." She gestured for us to follow her a few steps over to another table. "So when you gave me this power, a bunch of knowledge popped into my head of different kinds of potions, how to make them, and most importantly what ingredients I needed for them."

She turned back towards us as we came to a stop in front of what I assumed was her work table. It was the one with the colorful glasses of liquid, but I also spotted five pots with a similarly colorful array of flowers in them that I was surprised to find that I recognized.

"Daybloom, Blinkroot, Fireblossom, Shiverthorn, and… I'm guessing that the middle one is Moonglow?" I said.

Chiho blinked in surprise before a smile lit up her face. "Yes! I'm surprised you could identify them though. Kusano and I had to create them from scratch."

"I played quite a bit of the game that your power is from, you know?" I reminded her. "Those are the basic herbs you need for making potions. You're just missing Deathweed and Waterleaf."

"Yes, those two are on my list," Chiho said. "As well as quite a few other things. But we haven't been able to make those yet, we're still missing some things."

She reached over and grabbed one the flowers, the one I recognized as Daybloom. It had bright yellow petals that darkened in their middles arrayed around a center circular part. "My power told me about a flower called Daybloom that, of course, only blooms during the day. Now, the Daybloom flower isn't something that exists in most worlds, but I was pretty sure substitutes could work pretty well."

"So I did some research, and I found this." She proffered the flower. "This is not a Daybloom. This is a Gazania, also called an African Daisy. But it's so close to the actual thing that it works just as well."

I wasn't sure how to respond at first. "So… it's just a normal flower? Not a magic one?"

"It's not the least bit supernatural," she confirmed. "They grow naturally and are popular for gardens. They only bloom like this while the sun is out." She looked up at the sky, which was overcast. "Or, well, when it's bright enough at least."

"Well… I guess that makes sense, I've heard of flowers like that before," I admitted. Then I looked at the table. "But the rest of those definitely aren't normal."

"No they are not," Chiho admitted. She turned and put down the pot only to grab another one, with an orange-red stem and flower that smoldered with heat. "This is a Fireblossom, and one that we had to modify extensively. Using a rose as a base, I altered its appearance, made it so it could absorb ambient energies, and it turns that energy into fire and heat."

I cautiously put my hand near it. It wasn't a ton of heat, not enough to worry about catching things on fire, but it could definitely burn skin if you touched it for long enough. "Was there any particular reason you used a rose?"

"When making these flowers I tried to use ones that were as close as possible as the base," she explained. "This was one of the trickier ones. Shiverthorn was easy, I just used a Snow Crocus, since it has a very similar shape and thrives in the cold already. But there wasn't really anything close to a Fireblossom, not in terms of the flower's behavior. So I turned my attention to its environment instead."

She ran a finger through the soil in the pot, which I realized looked weird. It was more gray than the soil of the daybloom, and it looked thinner. "A Fireblossom actually grows better in a soil that is more ash than dirt. That's not true for any real life flowers, but there are a number of flowers that benefit from a little bit of wood ash being added to their soil. Roses are one of those, and red roses were the closest thing I could find in shape and size that were easy to get."

"And that works?" I asked. "Like, your power accepts it as a substitute for potion making?"

"After the alterations Kusano and I made, yes," she nodded as she put the pot back down. "Potion making is… weird. Here, let me show you."

She jogged over to one of the plots to pick a Daybloom and brought it back over to the table. Then she grabbed a clay bowl and filled it with water from the nearby pond. Finally, she reached into another clay pot on the table and pulled out a few handfuls of scrap iron.

She dumped the scrapped iron, like the kind that Tinks often played with, into the pot and then picked up a ladle. I could tell it wasn't a purchased ladle, but something that Tinks had made, and I was pretty sure it was made of silver (Edit: I just asked, yes it was). She carefully lowered the ladle into the pot directly in the center. I could see the concentration on her face as she slowly started stirring it, moving out in a spiral.

Once the ladle hit the edge of the pot, she did one more full rotation and then stopped and pulled the ladle out. Then she turned her attention back to the Daybloom she had grabbed. She plucked all of the petals from it and sprinkled them into the pot. Then she took the rest of the flower, used a nearby knife to cut it up into small pieces, and then used a mortar and pestle made of stone to grind it into paste, which was also dumped into the pot.

Then she turned to me and gestured me closer. "Watch this part," she said. I stood next to her and looked into the pot. I was half expecting to see just a clear pot of water with some bits of iron at the bottom and flower parts on top. But instead what I saw was a brownish liquid with bits of flower on top.

That changed quickly though as Chiho inserted her ladle and started stirring again. But this time she started on the outside and did it in the opposite direction, stirring in a slow spiral that worked inward.

And as she did, the liquid transformed. The bits of flower sank into the liquid, and each revolution of her ladle changed the color of it, shifting from brown to a bright yellow. It also, strangely, decreased in volume. She started with a nearly full pot of water, about a saucepan's worth, but by the time she removed the ladle it was less than a quarter of that.

Then she stopped. "There we go, all done!"

I blinked. "That's it? No putting it over a fire, or filling it with mana or anything?"

"Nope, no cooking or magic involved at all." She paused. "Sorta. That's what I mean by it being weird though. It's more ritualistic than anything else. I have to add the right ingredients in the right order and in the right way. Each potion has its own unique method as well as ingredient list. And theoretically that's all you need. Except…"

"She tried to teach me how to do it," Kusano said. "I followed alongside her, doing the same things and using the same ingredients. But no matter how many times we try, it just doesn't work for me. It just stays as different bits of things in a pot of water."

"That's interesting," I mused. "That means there's something else there, something Chiho got from the Template Stack that Kusano doesn't have."

"But not something I'm consciously aware of," Chiho said. "But even that I'm not sure about. The knowledge my power gives me tells me I should be able to teach it to others. It's just not telling me how."

"You might have to get more practice with the skill then," I guessed. "How Templates work is that you have to improve to unlock more of the ability, including knowledge. Do you know how to make a…" I paused, trying to think of a potion that would be more advanced. "An Obsidian Skin Potion?"

She shook her head. "Nope, I have no idea what that is. Though the one I just made is an Ironskin Potion." She grabbed the pot and then poured it into an empty glass she had nearby, which she offered to me. "Wanna try it?"

I eyed it as I took it from her. "Why a glass?" I asked.

She shrugged. "It was all I had. I also have all the glassblowing skills I need in order to make proper vials, and for some of them the shape of the vial does matter! But we need equipment for that that we don't have yet. So for now, glasses. And plastic bottles if we need to make them portable, but plastic is bad for the potions. It reduces their effectiveness."

"Right," I said, remembering all the strange shapes of the bottles of the potions in the game. I never would have guessed that it mattered.

I paused for a moment longer, but my curiosity and excitement at trying a potion that I had used in-game so often in real life overcame my hesitation. I lifted the glass to my lips and drained it in one go. It tasted, appropriately enough, like iron, metallic and heavy. But it was toned down enough not to be gross, just weird.

I felt the effects immediately. My skin darkened and gained a gray sheen to it. It didn't straight up turn into metal though, instead stopping halfway. I could feel it too, how much stiffer it was, but my movements weren't affected at all.

I gave Chiho back the glass and looked down at my arms as I moved them around, testing their weight and mobility. Neither of those had changed though. I then looked down at my abs and poked at them. They were hard, supernaturally so, like I was poking something made of metal.

I looked back up at Chiho and Kusano and I could feel the grin tugging at my face. "One of you hit me!"

Chiho rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. Kusano on the other hand just nodded excitedly and threw a punch at my stomach. It wasn't empowered by Nen, beyond the Ten she normally kept active, and I stayed in Ten as well.

I felt her fist hit my stomach, not nearly as hard as she hit the tree earlier, but that was fine. I just wanted to see what difference it made. And it was a decent difference. I still felt Kusano's punch, and I could tell that if she had thrown a serious one it still would have hurt. But it was significantly muted, and I didn't move at all.

"Ow," Kusano said, shaking her fist as she pulled it back. "That hurt more than punching the tree did."

"Sorry. You should have used more Nen to protect your hand."

"But then you might have gotten hurt!"

I shook my head but didn't argue with her. I appreciated that she cared. I'd have to get Uzume or Bisky to give it a serious test later. Instead, I turned to Chiho. "How long does this last?"

She shrugged. "It depends on how well I make it, I think. The first one I made only lasted a couple of minutes, but the second one I made lasted almost five. That's my third, and I expect it to last a little longer."

"Not very long, but if you just need it for one fight that would be more than enough," I mused. "Would have been really nice when I fought against Karasuba."

She grimaced. "Sorry it took so long to figure it out. I needed to research and get specific flowers and-"

I cut her off. "It's fine, don't worry about it. In fact, I'm surprised you got something as useful as this done as quickly as you did. Especially since it seemed really easy to make."

Chiho nodded. "I can make them in bulk too, if I get a cauldron. I've been talking with Levy and Tinks about maybe making one, but it might be easier and faster to just buy one next portal trip. Assuming it's a world where we can buy things."

I nodded. "Put together a list of everything you need. Hell, include everything you want. We have plenty of money thanks to the mission that you and Uzume did. Which, by the way, I read Levy's story about how you two did." I flashed her a grin and a thumbs up. "Very nicely done. I approve."

She blushed and looked away, but she didn't respond to my praise beyond that. "I already have a list, but I can add a few things to it."

"What other kinds of potions have you made so far?" I asked, eyeing the glasses on the table.

"With the ingredients we have access to, there are ten different potions I can make, though not all of them are terribly useful, so I haven't made some of them."

"Like what?"

"The Archery Potion, for example. It makes you better at using a bow and arrow, helping with your aim and skill. But we don't have anyone that uses a bow and arrow. We don't even have a bow. I asked the shopping crew to pick up the stuff we need for it anyway, just in case that changes, but I've been focusing on things that are more useful."

She pointed at one of the glasses, filled with a cyan colored liquid. "This one is a Featherfall Potion. It reduces the effect of gravity on you, letting you jump really high and fall slower. It's a little dangerous to use outdoors on the Skyblock though."

Next was a bright green potion. "And this is the opposite, a Steelfall Potion. It increases the effect of gravity on you."

"By how much? And how hard is it to make?" I asked immediately. Heavy gravity training was a classic anime workout method and I was definitely interested in trying it.

"I haven't practiced with it too much, but it feels like a pretty heavy weight," Chiho explained. "I could still move around, but it tired me out faster. I could probably make it stronger though. And it's not too hard to make. An apple, steel, and Moonglow is all it needs. The farm has the apple and Moonglow, and Levy can make steel for me, though I need Tinks' help to break it into usable sizes."

I nodded thoughtfully. "I'll have to talk to Bisky about incorporating that into my workout. But we can do that later. What are the other potions?"

She pointed to a brown potion next, one that bubbled like it was carbonated. It didn't look like Cola though, it looked closer in color to chocolate milk. "This is a Builder Potion. It grants innate instincts and skills for construction."

"I used it a few times when designing the Building Tree!" Kusano helpfully added.

Chiho continued with a potion that was similar in color to the Steelfall one, but it was a little lighter. "And this is a Night Owl Potion. It lets you see in the dark."

"That hasn't really been an issue that's come up so far, since we keep ending up in major cities, but that'll definitely be useful later on," I mused. "How long does that one last?"

"I haven't tested it yet, but it should be several hours at minimum, if not nearly a full day. Oh, and it shouldn't make you more sensitive to light, so you can use it without worry."

"That's pretty nifty," I said. "Better than goggles."

Suddenly, a rumble of thunder echoed over the Skyblock. I looked up to see that the overcast sky had darkened even further, the clouds growing thicker.

"Looks like it'll rain soon," Kusano said.

Rain was somewhat common on the Skyblock, happening at least once a week. But most of the time it was either light enough to ignore, or it happened at night. Or both. But thunder wasn't common at all. That meant it was going to be a lot heavier than normal.

"Kusano, go ahead and grow and grab whatever you need for dinner, before it starts pouring," I instructed her. She nodded and headed for one of the plots of land, where she started growing some vegetables. I then looked at Chiho. "Any other potions? Or anything about your power?"

"Well, there is one potion, but I'm not sure what it does," she said, indicating the final glass that was filled with a golden liquid. "It's called a Quest Skip Potion, but the only thing my power is telling me about it is that you have to be the one to drink it, but not right now."

I raised an eyebrow. "If not now, then when?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. But I will know when it is time."

I eyed it warily, but then shrugged. I have a few vague ideas of what it might affect, though testing them will have to wait. "I'll keep it in my Pocket Inventory then." I picked up the glass and used my phone to stash it. "Anything else?"

"Nope, that's all I wanted to show you. Thank you for making time for us."

I shook my head. "No, no. Thank you, and Kusano as well, for the hard work. Anything you need, we'll provide. I can already tell that these potions are going to be a game changer for us." I felt a sudden burst of itchiness as the effect of the Ironskin potion abruptly wore off. "There it goes. How long was that?"

"About six minutes," she said. Thunder rumbled overhead again. "We should probably help Kusano and go inside though."

"Agreed."

Chiho put some empty pots over the potions she had made, upside down to protect them from the rain, and the two of us went to help Kusano carry what she had grown inside. We didn't quite make it back inside before the rain started falling, but we only got a little wet. Thankfully, we did make it in before it started really pouring. It came down hard enough that we had to put tarps over the normally doorless entries into the house.

"Kusano, I hope your new Building Tree has a better solution for doors," I commented as we settled into the house after getting the tarps up.

"I forgot about doors, actually," she admitted. "But I'll figure something out tonight!"

I pat her on the head. "No rush, it's still our rest day after all. Even if we keep working through them." I paused, looking at the tarp covered door. "And it's best to stay inside until the storm passes anyway. We'll just relax and pass the time together. Maybe watch some anime?"

"Actually, I have a suggestion," Levy cut in. All of us save for Akitsu and Kyouko were either sitting at the dining room table or lounging in the living room area, all within easy earshot of each other. "When we went shopping yesterday I picked up something special."

She darted into the storage room and came back with two boxes. One was a large box, bigger than her, though she hefted it with ease. The second one was much smaller. Both were immediately obvious to me. "A TV and a Switch?" I asked, excited.

"We have too many people to keep huddling around Matsu's laptop to watch anime," Levy said. "And we didn't get the chance to properly go shopping in Mitakihara. But we made sure to swing by an electronics store at the end of our shopping trip and pick one up. We got the biggest one they had."

Matsu immediately dashed forward and started inspecting it. "Oooh, this is a really nice one too! I'm pretty sure this model just came out!"

I nodded. "Makes sense. I had forgotten about it to be honest. What about the Switch though? Not that I disapprove, I'm just… surprised I guess. It was just you and Bisky shopping right? I didn't think either of you had much of an interest in gaming."

Levy blushed as she let Matsu take the TV box from her and started opening it. "Well… when we were in the store we walked by the game section and I spotted a game that had VV on the cover of it."

She was talking about Pokemon Let's Go Eevee, which prominently featured Eevee, of course. It makes sense that it would catch her eye, considering VV is her pokemon.

"I was curious," she continued. "And you said I could spend some money on things I wanted, so… I got it and the console for it. But don't worry, the salesman helped me pick out some group games as well, so we can play games together. Lots of them are about someone named Mario, apparently."

I snorted. "Yeah, there are a lot of Mario party games. Good going Levy, those were good purchases."

Levy smiled, looking a little relieved. "I'm glad. I was worried that the salesman was tricking me or something."

"I told you he was being sincere," Bisky commented. "I would have been able to tell if he was trying to deceive us."

"I know, I just worry."

I looked over to where Uzume, Kusano, Shiina, and Matsu were setting up the TV. Kusano had grown a little shelf from the wall to rest it on, and Uzume was lifting it up onto it. Matsu came back over and gestured for the console. "Gimme! I'll set it up. I hope you got more controllers and games as well."

"In the storage room," Levy confirmed as she handed Matsu the box. "I'll go get them."

Well, to skip all the boring setup, it didn't take long for us to get everything plugged in and configured. The solar panels we got in the Love is War world weren't all that good, truth be told. They didn't hold the best of charges. But it was enough for us to spend the rest of the day playing games on the Switch. Mario Party, Mario Kart, and a few other ones that I had never heard of.

Of course, most games only supported up to four players, so we took turns. And Kusano and Bisky had to step away to prepare dinner partway through. But it was a lot of fun. I hadn't spent any time playing a game like that since before I became a Contractor. I missed it.

Kyouko and Akitsu came out of their room to grab some dinner, but they took it back with them rather than stay outside with us. Akitsu looked like she wanted to stay, but Kyouko took one look at the TV and games, clicked her tongue, and marched right back into her room, and Akitsu dutifully followed her.

I knew from Levy's entry that she had purchased her own mini TV and game console as well, so she was probably annoyed that we had gotten a bigger version. I was more worried about Akitsu suffering just because Kyouko was being anti-social. But I didn't say anything then. I'll give it a few more days. She just winged on Kyouko, and wanting to support her more than anything else was understandable.

On the bright side, I had seen her using Ten, and so was Shiina, so I know that they've successfully become Nen users. Not that there was any doubt. Bisky has only gotten better at helping our new family members master Ten in record time.

I've been writing this journal when it hasn't been my turn to play, distracted by watching the others even as I write. Everyone's been doing pretty well, actually. Superhuman reflexes do a lot for games meant for normal humans, enough to make up for a lack of experience. I still usually win when I play, but it's one hell of a fight to stay on top.

It's starting to get pretty late though, so we'll probably wrap it up soon. It's been a pretty long and eventful day for what was meant to be a rest day, but that's just how it turns out sometimes. Oh well.

Tomorrow will probably be pretty eventful too. I have to train my new Hatsu, and I need to start working on trying to sense my Sekirei's Rei reserves. The boost they're getting from Laws of Cognition should help mitigate, but it's still crucial that I learn how to sense it. Especially if I want everyone to be able to use the Jinkis to use their Noritos whenever they want. I haven't even touched those yet, they're still in my Pocket Space.

I also need to talk to Bisky about new training ideas, figure out how to spend the Credits we earned, make a plan for Kusano to upgrade the house… there's just so much to do. No wonder I didn't spend today resting.

Oh well. I'm stressing myself out thinking about it, so I'm gonna let the Roland of tomorrow figure it out and spend the rest of the night playing games and having sex with my super sexy harem. Until next time.

---

Shifty's SubscribeStar: subscribestar com / shifty-s-fiction

Shifty's Discord Server: discord .gg/aWJrmhf4Hy

AN: Obligatory disclaimer that a lot of the Nen stuff, especially the more specific stuff, is my headcanon, just me filling in gaps in ways that make sense to me. The visual trick stuff he does, which he started back when he first started learning Nen but I'd forgive you for forgetting if you've only been reading this live, isn't a mechanical thing, it's just a trick he uses to help him focus. It is inspired by Randidly Ghosthound's Images though. I think it's a neat power system.

Roland's power is confirmed as seeing alternate timelines. Is it pretty cool? Yep. Is it horribly broken? Not really. I didn't want it to be though. It suits Roland well though. Don't worry, I've come up with plans on how to give him the sheer power he'll need. This is just the Nen power that suited him, a multiversal traveler with a focus on metaknowledge, the most. It'll prove to be a useful utility, and I've got some cool ideas for how it'll grow.

Bisky's Soul Gem butt plug is something I've been planning for a long time, ever since I decided she'd become a magical girl. I mean, I already made her an anal lover, and it's the perfect shape, and it's a gem. The stars aligned to make that happen, and I'm very happy that I finally got to introduce it.

The tinkering with Laws of Jungle is also something I've been waiting to introduce for a while. Even longer, actually. Since not too long after recruiting Kusano and having her build the house. I realized that the Laws would let her make custom stuff, which would explode their possibilities. When coming up with a Template for Chiho, I remembered at the last minute what I had planned and that the ingredient issue could be solved with it as well.

I've put entirely too much work into writing down all the potions the Brewer canonically sells, figuring out their ingredients(and modifying some), translating their effects from gameplay to this, tiering each type of potion and organizing which ones she knows how to make based on her progression with the Template, and doing a lot more background work all to ensure that she can only make potions she can actually make, with a method of getting all necessary ingredients. Resource management is a very important part of the Skyblock, one I don't want to ignore. I'll delve more into this later as well, in the relatively near future. Specifically, Chiho has a wishlist of things she wants that they'll be on the lookout for in future portal trips.