Chapter 58: The Skill Creator
If at any crucial moment the system decided to block my main manipulation or combat tools — as it was doing now with Echo of Nightmare, which remained unavailable — I wouldn’t need to panic.
It would be enough to open the menu, project a perfect tactical response to the situation, pay the price in points, and materialize a new ability on the spot.
The only downside, obviously, was the prohibitive cost.
Five thousand Vital Points was just the entry fee for something rudimentary; if I tried to create something that altered the laws of physics or gave me an overwhelming military advantage, the price would double or triple in the blink of an eye.
The lesson the system left me was very clear: I needed to accumulate more Vital Points than ever.
To ensure a truly colossal reserve that would shield me against any threat, I would have to intensify my search for new targets, have more sex, and dominate more influential women in this society.
In addition, that mountain of points was the fuel I needed to continue improving my own physical attributes.
I have been investing heavily in my conditioning, my reaction speed, and my combat mastery, and there was a strategic reason behind it.
I needed to be at an absurdly high level to be able to guide the training of my friends at the military academy.
Although the system didn’t allow me to distribute points directly to their status screens, my own physical evolution turned me into a relentless instructor.
By pushing my limits, I became capable of seeing the flaws in their postures and teaching hand-to-hand combat techniques that were truly useful, relevant, and capable of keeping them alive in the battles to come.
---
I closed the system interface with a light mental command and focused my attention back on the immediate reality of the dark room.
I took a deep breath, stabilizing the flow of mana circulating through my chest, and deactivated Paratime.
In the same millisecond, the invisible distortion that isolated the environment collapsed.
The flow of time returned to running normally throughout the entire Fou Holfort Mansion.
But the abrupt ending of the ability under the system’s mystical mechanics caused an immediate and visually impressive effect: the space around us seemed to correct itself to adjust to the standard timeline.
The clothes that had been removed, torn, or thrown on the floor during the act simply disappeared from the floor and returned instantly to our bodies in perfect condition.
In the blink of an eye, without any of us making any movement, I found myself fully dressed in my normal sleepwear, and Seraphina, who was still kneeling on the floor, suddenly found herself covered by her black silk nightgown, perfectly adjusted.
Seraphina blinked her green eyes repeatedly, completely stunned.
She looked at her own hands, ran her fingers over the soft fabric of the nightgown that covered her, and then raised her face to stare at me, noticing that I was also dressed.
The young aristocrat’s mind entered a clear and violent state of mental panic.
The shock of seeing reality reshape itself in that way broke the rest of her composure.
"What... what was that?" she asked, her voice coming out weak, hoarse, and faltering from the extreme exhaustion that was still taking its toll on her muscles.
She tried to stand up, her legs visibly trembling, and had to lean her weight against the wooden arm of the sofa to avoid collapsing back onto the floor.
"How did my clothes... how are you dressed now? What did you do to this place?"
I approached her with slow and silent steps, stopping just a few centimeters from where she was trying to steady herself.
I looked down at her, keeping my expression completely cold and impassive, before letting a half-smile appear at the corner of my lips.
"Let’s just say it’s our little secret, Lady Seraphina," I replied, keeping my voice low, firm, and controlled, leaving no room for questions.
"There are many things about my true potential that you still don’t have the capacity to understand. What matters now is that you keep every detail of what happened here tonight strictly between us. Don’t mention it to anyone. Not a single word to your mother or to Eleanor."
Seraphina swallowed hard, her chest rising and falling in gasps as she processed the weight of my order.
She realized that the power dynamic between us had changed drastically.
Without giving her any further explanation or space for replies, I turned my back and began walking toward the grand hall, leaving the exhausted, confused, and frightened redhead behind in the dimness of the living room.
As I climbed the marble steps of the immense central staircase toward the east wing, I mentally reviewed the events of that night.
Activating Paratime hadn’t just been a safety move against possible witnesses; it had also been an immense hygienic necessity.
Seraphina had surrendered with such intensity and cum so many times in succession that the rustic wooden servants’ table and the marble floor of the kitchen had been completely flooded with puddles of fluids, sweat, and mixed cum.
If time had been flowing normally, cleaning up that monumental mess before dawn, without leaving traces or odors that would alert the servants who would start working in the early morning, would have been a logistical nightmare.
Thanks to the system’s spatial correction at the end of the ability, the environment was perfectly clean and untouched.
Besides, I was completely convinced that no matter how shocked she was by the demonstration of my hidden power, she would never dare leak any information to Lady Beatrice.
Seraphina was a woman driven by the pride of her lineage and aristocratic vanity.
A high noble heiress of the Holforts would prefer death rather than publicly confess that she spent the early morning being completely dominated, taken from behind, and fucked relentlessly by her younger sister’s fiancé, on top of the table where the low-ranking servants eat.
The absolute need to preserve her own reputation and social status worked as my greatest guarantee of silence.
In the end, she thought she would create a seduction trap to turn me into her political puppet and steal control of the Airship, but she ended up becoming my secret lover, a piece permanently trapped in the gears of my board.
I crossed the long silent corridor of the east wing and stopped in front of the door to Rebeca’s private chambers.
I turned the doorknob with surgical care, slipping inside the room and locking it without making a single metallic click that could echo through the wood.
The blonde remained lying in exactly the same position I had left her, immersed in a deep, calm, and restorative sleep, completely innocent and unaware of the storm of lust and manipulation that had occurred just a few meters away.
I silently slipped under the fine Egyptian linen sheets, lying down beside her and allowing the soft warmth of her body to welcome me into the darkness.
Before closing my eyes and allowing my mind to finally rest, I fixed my gaze on the dark beams of the high ceiling, letting one last flow of strategic thoughts take shape.
"Many will still make the fatal mistake of underestimating me in this world, exactly as Rebeca’s sister did during dinner," I reflected, allowing a genuinely predatory smile to form on my face in the dimness of the room.
"But it is precisely that inherent arrogance of the high nobility that I will continue to use as my main tactical weapon. The naivety and haughtiness of these noblewomen, who firmly believe they control the fate of the men around them, will be the ruin of each one of them. They think they dictate the rules of the game, but they are merely dancing to the music I compose."
I felt the weight of physical exhaustion finally begin to take its toll, pulling my consciousness downward.
However, before the darkness of deep sleep completely took me, one last name echoed with total clarity and determination in my mind, precisely defining the next target of my conquest route.
"There is one specific noblewoman with whom I still have urgent pending accounts to settle. My next strategic move will be to slowly break this woman’s pride, dismantling her pose piece by piece, until she has no choice but to completely submit and become entirely mine... isn’t that right, Marie?"
With the objective set, the points accumulated, and the next piece on the board properly mapped, I closed my eyes and finally fell asleep beside Rebeca.
