NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 277 Night Time Studies, and Mana Batteries. (nsfw)
“Hello Van, so glad you could finally make it.” Marie said with a seductive look his way. She was sitting on his bed with Luna, she hadn’t once changed back into her clothes. Instead she had changed into a pair of very revealing lingerie. She wasn’t the only one either, Luna had somehow also gotten ahold of some very sexy attire, probably given to her by Marie, and was sitting on the bed beside her.
Despite Van’s exhaustion, he couldn’t help but feel his little dragon stir and awaken upon gazing at his beloved wife. “Well… A quickie doesn’t sound that bad…”
---Sex Scene---
---End of Sex Scene---
Van woke up with a groan. Tired as he was from last night's antics. He felt refreshed more than he ever had in a while. He looked down on the cute faces of Marie and Luna who were quietly sleeping on top of him. Wondering if he should wake them up.
Deciding not to, he slipped out from under them as carefully as he could, last night's antics making sure that they were well and truly knocked out. Quickly changing he made his way to the door when he heard a knock come from it and froze. He was beginning to wonder if everyone was going to one day end up knocking on his door in the morning…
Slowly he opened the door to check who it was. And to his not surprise, someone new was there waiting for him.
“Hello-” She quickly looked down at the clipboard she was carrying. “Van…” Looking back up at him. “I’m here to take you to the Central Shield Center. Where you will be putting your mana to good use in protecting our city from monster attacks and the occasional fog storm. Please be reminded you do not have a say in this. I’ll wait five minutes for you to pack anything you wish to bring as you will be gone for the whole day. And yes, the officer in charge of you has been notified that you will be out today. I’ll be waiting out here, please do not take too long.
Van paused before sighing, he asked the girl to give him a minute and closed the door, wondering about what she meant by packing his things. “Perhaps since it’s going to take the whole day I should pack some food? Or something to read?” He couldn’t be sure, but since everything he could ever want was in his soul realm, he decided that he might as well leave now. But not before leaving a note for Luna to read, telling her where he went.
With that he opened the door and followed the girl to his next destination.
To his surprise they didn’t go anywhere that was placed on or near the wall. Instead they took a train to the very heart of the city, where a large cylindrical building was with a massive dome. Physically speaking there was nothing of note other than how impressive and big it was, but activating his mana eyes he saw that great torrents of energy shooting out from the dome and into the air. There also seemed to be many tubes that shot out from underground connecting themselves to every corner of the city, with a large majority of them stretching out to the several layers of wall that protected the city.
Entering the building, he was taken aback by its extravagance, as well as the security on display. They had to go through at least four security points just to get anywhere near the center of the superstructure that spiraled deep underground.
They finally arrived in a massive chamber at the bottom of the building where the biggest mana crystal he had ever seen in his life rested, surrounded by scores of mages, engineers, artificers and more, all going about like so many busy ants.
Van couldn’t help but be amazed at what he saw. The mana crystal seemed to feed into several tubes surrounding it. And there also seemed to be ginormous batteries that both helped regulate magical flow as well as store any excess mana for future use in case of an emergency.
His guide led him to one of the many batteries that connected to the mana crystal. A giant cylindrical tube-like structure where pure mana was converted and condensed into a form of liquid and stored.
“This is where you will be working for the rest of the day.” His guide explained. “All you have to do is put your hands on the orb there and pour in your mana. There really isn’t much else to it. When you're tired, there is a cafeteria down that hall and a meditation room across from it. The amount you put in is the amount you will get paid for.”
“I’m getting paid?” Van perked up at that.
“Unless you're a convict or something, all those who work here get paid for the mana that helps this city continue functioning. Though you will be getting half the usual amount as punishment. Or that's what it says here.” His guide said.
“Good luck and try not to overwork yourself. The last thing we need is to carry your unconscious body to the clinic.” and with that she left, leaving Van all alone.
Van turned to the orb in front of him and stared at it for a good long while before finally placing his hand on it. “Welp… I guess there's no time like the present…” He then began pouring his mana into the orb and his eyes widened. The orb was sucking his mana out like a vacuum in almost a painful way. His arm was going all tingly and he felt his reserves of energy drain at a rapid pace.
“This is crazy! How much is this thing going to drain me!” He panicked a little thinking it might drain him dry. And in his panic began trying to throw all the mana he had available in the hopes of satiating the hungry orb. The tube in front of him began to glow as it absorbed Van’s mana.
Remembering what little Marie had taught him, he began to try and convert some of his vitality and stamina into mana to pour into the orb as well. Determined to feed the hungry beast so that it would stop sucking on him.
But it was to no avail. Only after two hours and Van’s body feeling like it had been completely drained of power did the orb finally let him go. He almost collapsed on the floor, but was able to pull on some of his energy reserves within his mana realm to keep in steady. Walking his way to the cafeteria, he decided to get a nice hot meal before heading into the meditation room.
A few hours later, he went back to the orb to try his luck again and see if he couldn’t feed the battery full. But by the end of the day he left even more tired than when he started, wishing that perhaps he didn’t try so hard.
Lethargically he walked back home, completely out of it and unable to continue any of Marie’s nighttime lessons.
---
“Hey, are you seeing this?” One of the technicians said to his fellow workers. She tapped on a screen. “Battery twelve went up by a whole three percent. Does anyone know if we gave it an influx of mana stones or something?”
Her colleague leaned over to check out what her friend was pointing at. “Huh… That’s weird. The only thing different was that we got a newbie in just today for number twelve. But there's no way he alone was enough to recharge it that much…”
“Should we report it in any way?” the technician asked.
Her friend thought about it before nodding. “Best we do so just in case there's an error. The last thing we need is a faulty reading giving us the wrong percentage of the battery. Imagine what would happen if in an emergency we thought we still had three percent power left but it completely shut down on us.”
“Yeah, you're right, I’ll call it in.”
