God Of Crafting

"A perfect breakthrough?"

I raised my eyebrow as I heard the unfamiliar term.

And the instant hit of curiosity was strong enough to, kind of, knock me out of my trance.

The shock on Claire's face proved that, at least to some degree, she understood the implication of what just happened.

'Maybe that's what this perfect breakthrough is about?' I thought, rationally connecting her words to the emotional state she was in.

But as seconds passed, Claire's face only sank into greater and greater shock.

It was a weird show of her face slowly draining out of all its colors.

Whatever she herself understood about it, I've also just proved my theory. And from the weight of presence exploding all over the room, I could see I was right.

"A perfect breakthrough," Claire sighed and slowly raised her strangely tired eyes. She then bit down on her bottom lip as she looked up at me.

I swayed to the back a bit, floored by her look. And with those curled fingers of hers raised up to her mouth…

'Fuck, a critical hit…'

She couldn't be more adorable right now!

In this loose, comfy-looking outfit of hers, she gave off such an unguarded, innocent vibe…

A vibe that when mixed with my suddenly resurfacing memory of just the night before, produced a sense of a filthy, deep satisfaction.

"Normally, when you advance to the next stage, you use enlightenment to overcome the last hurdle."

Claire's face slowly turned back to its more serious side, prompting me to calm down with a heavy breath and do the same.

"But I just advanced," Claire announced the obvious while all firing up as if she was presenting a case to a judge. "And there wasn't a single hurdle on the way."

Claire lowered her head while putting on an extremely tired, inquisitive look as he rubbed her chin over some deep ponder.

"In other words…" she spoke as she breathed out and looked down. Yet, as she raised her eyes…

"What in heaven's mercy did you do?"

'Ugh…'

Honestly, I was at a loss for words.

There was absolutely nothing I could say about experimenting on someone so close to me with what amounted to merely… an unfinished idea.

I thought so highly of my ability to craft not only things but also the ideas behind them, that I had never considered the fact I would be experimenting on the one close and pretty damn important person in my current life!

Still, there was still the factor of this trance of mine, a power that I arrogantly disregarded some time ago, only for it to prove far… heavier of a burden than I thought.

'I can control my movements… but my thoughts might not be truly mine.

It was, honestly, a terrifying sign. All the more if the consequences were to befell those around me… Which pretty much was limited to Claire.

Still…

I raised my eyes to the girl.

'Yeah, she's too precious for me to do it ever again like that, regardless of the current outcome.'

"First off, I'm sorry," I lowered my head, already bearing the weight of the guilt dropping down on my heart, a guilt that only intensified when I looked back at Claire's agitated face.

It didn't matter that she was clearly excited rather than disturbed, eager to learn more…

No, it only made me feel all the worse!

"Listen, what I did, even if it worked in the end, it…" I bit down on my lips and looked down. "I had no proof or reason to be as sure it would work as I was. And for imposing my unfinished idea on you, I truly am sorry."

With that said, though… Armed with my new determination, I summoned the very feeling that led to the current situation.

"As for what I did, I created a concept that satisfied all the required criteria."

The voice in my mouth… wasn't exactly mine.

And now that I've myself reached quite a new height, controlling it grew somewhat easier.

Claire's eyes went, as unbelievable as it was, even wider.

Her body visibly tensed up… only for the air around her to suddenly start to weirdly vibrate.

Claire's attention went somewhere else, proving she herself was startled. And right as it happened, her body suddenly twitched only to relax and collapse down to the ground as the power within her fresh stirred up.

Not a single thought passed through my head as I bolted ahead, cutting the space between us in the short instant it would take for her body to fall down to the ground.

"And Qi is nothing more than an echo of shared consciousness, isn't it?"

Claire's eyes shone with a strange light as she looked up and smiled crazily. Still, hanging down on my arms and unable to support her own weight…

The spiritual energy clearly stirred up inside her as more and more energy filled her flesh only to then drain right back to her core.

But as the activity of her core intensified, she soon reached some sort of a limit…

Only to smash through it without even a single thought, as the energy in her flesh continued to explode.

With my inner instinct already in my lips, it couldn't be easier to spread it over to my eyes. And as I did…

'Not yet.'

From just this perfect breakthrough she mentioned, Claire's body skyrocketed so high, that she readily knocked on the gate of yet another stage!

On one hand, it was great, to see how fast she could advance. But on the other hand, now that I looked closer…

She wasn't ready for her next step yet.

I knew nothing about the ranks that were ahead, and yet, I just could tell.

Right now, Claire rode on the wave of the booming energy from her mathematically perfect advancement. But that energy, while sufficient to approach the lower strata of the next stage was nowhere near her full potential.

"I'm sorry," I leaned over the overly excited if not weirdly horny girl, "but you need to stop."

I reached for Claire's waist before leaning in even closer.

"Breathe in…" I waited for the girl to follow my commands, "Breathe out."

For a moment, I patiently observed and coordinated Claire's breathing, all the way to the point where she came back to her senses.

Yet, even as she stopped… she didn't give me a single "why" look. And judging from how readily she rushed to break through again…

"I don't know how, but I can tell it will do you no good to advance now," I lectured the girl with a stern look on my face while squeezing down on her waist as if kneading it. "You can do it… just not yet, okay?"

Before I knew it, Claire already sat down on my lap, still keeping her head at a hands-length distance while leaning back on her arms with a complicated look on her face.

Then again…

'Isn't this how pretty much how all of our… more exciting moments started like this?' I thought, trying to smile in the face of a small disaster in my underwear.

Not wearing anything but undies didn't do me any favors when Claire's soothingly warm, fluffy fabric of her onesie pressed down against my thighs.

Just the sense of her weight atop my lap was enough to make me go mad.

But if there was anything, it could only be one of the two questions that seriously bothered me at this precise moment.

'What part did I skip? How the heck did we get here?!'