Rykard fell into the chair opposite of Cryo.

  As before, the master artificer was working on some part of his powersuit. For about two minutes, Rykard said nothing, just following the man’s working hands. He kept a keen eye on the tools that were being used and the gestures that accompanied everything. After those two minutes had epsed, he had to admit it.

  “I have no idea what you are doing today,” the king spoke out loud.

  Cryo let show a short smile, before concentration on his work demanded he focused again. After a few more minutes of small scale welding, he put the tools aside. Pushing the work across the table, he let Rykard have a look. “Try to decipher it.”

  The king did, to the best of his ability. He knew he was a good artificer, good enough to give someone utterly dedicated to it like Cryo good advice. However, here he was upstaged. “I can identify that there is power being routed to these two half-spheres here.” He traced the circuit lines to the two bumps that sat at the northern end of the rectangur pte. “I can also identify these fluctuation nodes.” He gestured at the tiny cylinders installed along the circuitry.

  Fluctuation nodes were a basic part of artifice. Simply, their purpose was to turn mana into electrical energy or mana into electricity. The two forms of energy had different properties and were thus used in different aspects of artifice.

  “I’m at a loss why you would install a whole thirteen of them on one side and fourteen on the other.” Rykard pushed the piece back to signal his surrender.

  “Ah, so you are unaware of the Ratataskar Effect?” Cryo asked with no small amount of pride. After their previous discussion, Rykard could not bme the man for taking additional pride in outcssing the king. Magnanimously, Rykard did not mind either. Artifice was not a subject he minded being shown up on.

  “Enlighten me,” Rykard requested.

  “When you force energy to fluctuate between mana and electricity rapidly and then open it into a space with lesser pressure than average air, it turns into a solid for 0,25 seconds. That alone is fascinating, but it is also quite useful, as this solid releases energy as it returns to its particle form in an unusual wave form.”

  Cryo grabbed a piece of paper and drew the wave form on it with a charcoal pen. His steady hand and knowledge made it a perfect representation of something other people would have needed graph paper and drawing instruments for. The waveform was indeed quite unusual, in that the energy releases happened in periods of three small and one rge burst.

  “So it has one rge energy release every second, mhm?” Rykard asked.

  “Indeed. It can be used as a mechanical clock that simultaneously transfers energy into other systems.”

  Rykard nodded. He could see a variety of applications for that. “I thank you for sharing this knowledge with me,” he said and leaned back. “A welcome break from my frivolities. Excuse the question, but you don’t seem very interested in female companionship?”

  “I’ve tried it in the bast. I’ve found it frustrating.” Cryo put one project aside and another in front of him. “Personally, I cannot support your dream of harems for every man. It sounds like hell.”

  “There would be plenty of space for loners,” the king promised.

  “I believe your theory, but not the practice of it,” Cryo said simply, then shrugged. “You will find me disappointing if we further pursue this topic.”

  “Then let’s continue the technical talk,” Rykard invited. “I’ll take it for as long as we can have this courtesy.”

  “The game begins at midnight,” Cryo commented with a nod, only to linger on the more pleasant topic. “Do you remember my previous statement?”

  “Building a war machine that could overpower me?” Rykard asked. It was the only topic that had been left somewhat open st time they talked. “Are you about to suggest something interesting to me?”

  “Depends on how you define interesting. With a big enough power source, I could challenge you. After I said that, I got to designing. I believe I could create such a power source, with your help.” The ocurs that repced Cryo’s eyes turned quietly, the lenses within moving to get a better view at some minute detail in his current task. “Your Conjuration, specifically.”

  “You’re asking me to provide to you a power source that would be used in a machine to drive me back?” Rykard asked, amused.

  “You would get a challenge out of it. Loran insisted I don’t tell you about it and instead pursue alternative avenues of getting that power. Such yered tactics don’t interest me.” Cryo connected some cables with tweezers, then looked up from his work. “Will you enable me to match my intellect against your power?”

  “Sounds fun,” Rykard agreed with a wolfish grin. “What do you want of me?”

  Cryo showed the second smile of the conversation. From under his chair, he pulled a contraption that he had prepared the entire time. It looked like a mixture of a ntern and cable wreathes. The cage of welded metal was made colourful by all of the wrappings involved. A blue sphere hovered at the middle of it all, its surface dull and dark.

  “I wish to conjure your idea of ‘power’ into this,” Cryo expined. “If my calcutions are correct, the esoteric energies should be bound into an energy form. An artificial soul, if you will, that can serve as operator and energy source for the body that I will make for it.”

  “Interesting… very well.” Standing, Rykard pced his left hand on the top of the device and closed his eyes. He would lie if he said he understood the device he was now in contact with in all of its details. There was a mana void there, an absence used to siphon energy from one area to another. There were binding seals and batteries involved. Individual parts made sense to him, but the whole was an enigma wrapped in itself, eating its own tail.

  Power.

  Rykard imagined the concept. Himself came to mind. Overwhelming power, tent and coaxed out by challenges. His mother came to mind. Empress-Consort of the Troyk Empire and true holder of the reigns, power exercised through others. Miyo came to mind. Weak in terms of his harem, yet powerful due to position and investment. Benhuldran came to mind. Altana came to mind. Tess came to mind.

  Beneath that, what was there?

  The gods?

  No, even they came from something greater.

  The Princess of Yellow?

  She just dwelled near that greatness.

  Power, true power, was potential. An untapped ocean of esoteric might on one end and of raw material, physical infinity on the other. Power was the will to take hold of these things and the ability to make them dance. Yes, the will to power was power itself. An infinite cycle, repeating itself. Power created more power that other power cimed.

  “Incredible…”

  The mutter by Cryo made Rykard open his eyes. The ntern before him was taking in light. That blue sphere that hovered at the centre was now a pitch bck spot in the middle of a deep purple fog. The entire device hummed.

  Cryo marvelled at it for only one more moment, before suddenly snapping forwards. The entire ntern vibrated, bouncing on the table as if there was an earthquake. Any quaking going on was coming from the device itself. Rykard did the artificer the favour of holding his creation steady while he worked at it.

  Well, he did everyone the favour. Understanding the entire device was unnecessary to realize that it was about to blow up. After a few hastily welded additions and newly connected cables, the vibrations stopped. Cryo let out a relieved sigh. “Crisis averted. Your power is fear-inducing.”

  “I prefer awe,” Rykard joked.

  “I’ll have to store this,” Cryo stated. “It cannot be left out in the open.”

  Rykard accompanied the artificer to the stairs that led to the upper level. There, Loran sat, a book in hand. The androgynous man only let out a quiet sigh when he saw that the device was carried past him. “Not even upset that your schemes fail?” the king teased.

  “Please, I am merely trying to inconvenience you. It is the least I can try to do,” the diplomat spoke with a weary smile.

  Cryo continued up and disappeared around the corner. As if on cue, the Butler stepped forwards from the other side. With him was another older man with grey hair. His pte had gotten more gleaming since Rykard st saw him.

  “Hail,” Benhuldran greeted the two other Contestants and descended the stairs. “I figured I would meet you here.”

  “Likewise,” Rykard greeted. “Couldn’t imagine that you would skip out on any way to leave your mark on this world.”

  Benhuldran took measured steps down the staircase. “Not going to cim that it is yours?”

  “It will be, but it’s not yet.” Rykard remained diplomatic and stepped aside when Benhuldran’s attention shifted to the blond man besides the king.

  “You must be Loran Tyr.”

  “That I am, your excellence,” the diplomat was swift to answer. “If I may be so bold, we have much to discuss about the threat that king Rykard of New Eden poses.” He smiled suavely at the king. “You prefer challenges openly, do you not?”

  “It certainly beats your ploy to be a political parasite,” Rykard answered and checked his fingernails. There was a bit of dust under them, so he cleaned that out casually. “Well, we’re down to 7 and a half Contestants now, so you might as well struggle.”

  A raised eyebrow preceded the question. “Would you be kind enough to tell me what you mean?”

  “As you know Tess dropped out of the race some time ago, she came to me.”

  “...I am unsurprised…”

  “And after getting here, I got in an altercation with Iceface. I spared his life, but in return, Vimi has to step down and their hold has to outw svery. They swore upon the Bond Crow. In other words, they are out for the time being.”

  “...I see, that is noble, in part.”

  “And then Altana came here and she decided to submit to my superior seed,” Rykard finished his summary.

  Benhuldran let out a dry ugh. “The absurdity that we are struggling against that is you… Come then, Loran, let’s discuss what letters failed to communicate."

  Rykard let them pass. There was not much to discuss with Benhuldran or Loran. One was too prideful to be his subordinate without a proper fight, the other was too conniving to be taken as a subordinate without thorough humbling. Letting them work together would give them the possibility to try and put up that fight.

  If they even managed to put together.

  ‘If nothing else, Loran, Benhuldran and Cryo working together will slow down their efforts to pce tiles on my world,’ Rykard thought. The rules were that only an independent Contestant could pce tiles. An alliance of several Contestants necessarily needed to have a leader to be coordinated enough to be aimed at something and once a leader was established, only that leader would count as independent for as long as the alliance persisted. The gods desired entertainment. Courtesy of that, a hug box of friendly retions was not encouraged.

  Rykard wandered up the stairs and back to his room. The voice of Subana greeted him the moment he was through the door. “That’s it, slow and steady. The goal is sensuality, not ecstasy.”

  “Got it.” Punk stared at her hands, which were currently busy kneading the enormous chest of Tess. Bck fingers sunk gently into pale white mountains of squishy flesh. Soft circur motions kept the hugely endowed goth woman wantonly gasping.

  The tantric massage of Tess’ chest was complimented by Altana doing the same work for her thighs. The Ouroboros Queen had bound her hair up into a ponytail. A somewhat misleading description, as there was no actual binding involved. Rather, she had mutated the shape and structure of her hair to mimic a ponytail. However she achieved it, it was out of her way while her oily hands brushed over thick thighs.

  “Keep her nice and stimuted, but do not overdo it on direct touches on nipples and clit. We are going for a nice, shallow rise towards the climax,” Subana kept instructing. The goddess of fated submission hovered above the scene, occasionally squirting fresh oil on the two women. The bed beneath them was protected from any spills by a wax cloth that had been spread out.

  Rykard’s arrival in his room was, of course, acknowledged. It was a raised hand on his side that kept his women dedicated to what they were doing. Haremettes training each other in pleasing each other was exactly what he wanted to see.

  Miyo was tangentially part of the process. Judging by the rosy colour of her skin and generally rexed air, the vixen had been the previous recipient of such attention. Seated in an armchair, she was rubbing her clit at a leisurely pace. Her swollen bia stretched alluringly with the motion.

  Stepping up to the armchair, Rykard presented the first of his bred sex sves with his cock. Her attention shifted swiftly from the sapphic dispy on the bed to him. “How would you like me, Master?” she cooed.

  “Keep me comfortable-” A simple order with a simple response. Miyo’s took hold of his manhood, stroking him gently while she leaned over. Lips and comfort hole enveloped him with venerating warmth. “Benhuldran just arrived,” he told her.

  Miyo’s tongue whirled around the head of his cock. Only after pushing herself halfway down his respectable length, did she come back up. “Is that so?” she asked, aroused and yet cool-headed enough to continue listening to him. Both of her hands were on his cock now. Serving him always pleased her more than fingering herself. “Anything of interest?”

  While he responded, she resumed sucking him off. “He arrived, I informed him of the decrease in Contestants and increase in my harem, then he and Loran went to have a private conversation.” Rykard groaned, to let Miyo know where exactly he wanted her tongue right now. “I also helped Cryo create a power source for a machine that he says could challenge me.”

  Rolling her eyes, Miyo went all the way down to the base of his cock. Lids fluttered while she stayed there. A gag reflex she had long since lost, at least when it came to his cock, but her need for air she did need to fight. Her task was only to keep him comfortable, so she surrendered to her survival instincts before long. Lips tight around his shaft, she polished every centimetre on her way up. When her pink lips finally did part from his cock, no messy strands connected them.

  “Tactically unsound,” she commented. “However, I…” she took a break to lick a fresh drop of precum off the tip. Another one swiftly followed. Her hands kept stroking his length. “...I am certain you will shatter any inconveniences you cause for yourself.”

  “I am just adding a few weights to my dumbbells.” Rykard scratched his favourite fox woman behind her pointy ears. The cool beauty melted under his touch, then dedicated herself to fulfilling his desires once more.

  He had quite some time to kill until midnight.