Chapter 70: One heck of a way to procrastinate
The list was long, after all, and it would be no fun if we brought this fun to an end anytime soon!
"Teastone, it\'s a crystal that can make any liquid taste like tea… but just a normal one, not one of the fancy ones we\'ve been drinking back home."
I raised my eyebrows, losing my focus for just long enough for my hands to freeze as I leaned in over the idea.
\'For cultivators, it would be useless, but wouldn\'t that be one hell of a hit on a normal market?\'
It didn\'t take a genius to notice all the benefits of such a wondrous item.
A stone that altered the taste of liquid with just its spiritual power? Wasn\'t that a key to taking over the entire industry of special bottles for water with flavored caps?
"Interested?" Claire asked while leaning her head up to look at my face.
Even with my fingers just an inch away from her pussy, she had enough will to break herself free from the restraints of her excitement and lust and focus on the job whenever necessary.
"Maybe later. It\'s not something that would aid anyone in their cultivation, just a convenience that could make us a lot of money… That is, what does it cost?"
Claire threw a glance at the liquid-crystal device in her hands.
"When bought individually, it ranges from five hundred Esces to roughly five thousand. But when bought in bulk, it goes for around six hundred a piece," Claire explained before squinting her eyes a little.
"Something wrong?" Just as she could read my body language, so I could read hers. And in all honesty, I didn\'t mind at all switching the focus from my right hand sinking into her crotch and my left hand with which I simply snuggled her close to my chest.
In all honesty, if not for her invitation, I would be perfectly fine just cuddling, savoring every second of being in such close contact with someone so impossibly adorable!
"No, I\'m just wondering…" Claire squinted her eyes before raising her hand to her mouth, only to end up chewing on the tip of her thumb. "When bought in bulk, it should be cheaper, so why…"
Rather than trying her best to figure it out with what little she knew… Claire simply tapped at the entry in the database, hyperlinking to the page describing the ins and outs of the product with a full array of pictures and further spreadsheets describing the potential deal in the finest detail.
\'So it\'s not just a wholesaler, but pretty much a shopping center for every smaller shop around, huh?\' I thought, recognizing the similarities between this page… and the very page I used whenever arranging for the delivery to my former part-time job at a small grocery.
Back in that part-time, I used to joke around that it wasn\'t the customers of the grocery chain that the corporation behind it made its money from, but all those who were forced to obey quite the weird rules when ordering more supplies to their respective franchises.
Thankfully, from what I could glance over Claire\'s shoulder, as she constructed our order, she wasn\'t forced to accept a certain amount of produce that the wholesaler simply wanted to push out or to follow any other rules like that.
"I see," the girl shifted a bit in my hold when she finally found her answer. "They all range in size, so the cost increases as the individual stones grow. On average, the prize of a single crystal would be between eight hundred and a thousand, so six hundred is a reasonable discount when purchasing in bulk…"
This time, I was the one squinting my eyes as Claire\'s reason made perfect sense to my ears. And while it was nothing surprising given how she had her very own shop for quite some time… I still couldn\'t help but feel impressed with how quickly and easily she managed to figure out the truth behind this deal.
"Do you want to get some of those?" Claire then asked, turning her eyes away from the device as she looked up to my face again.
"Sure, a small box of them wouldn\'t hurt," I replied, already stocking some ideas for later.
Why were the bigger stones sold at a premium? Did it have anything to do with their durability? Or maybe they could infuse the drink with the taste at a faster rate? But if so, was the growth of the intensity of those crystals bound linearly to their surface… or not?
\'I wonder what will happen if we grind them down into smaller pieces?\' I thought, already picturing a flavoring cap that could work pretty much in perpetuity… as long as those stones could be ground down to a convenient size, that is.
Then again, all of this was merely a distraction, a potential project for the future aimed to do nothing more but earn us some money if that ever becomes necessary. Alternatively, a project I could use purely for the sake of improving my own crafting skill.
And so, rather than putting my readiness to keep going with the list into words… I turned my attention from hugging Clarie with my arm to the hand that already infiltrated her panties.
\'Given how long I\'ve been teasing her by now…\' I thought while Claire already tapped on the device to return back to the list.
"Asmotic… ah!"
My fingers made the move, finally reaching the rim of Claire\'s pussy before slowly creeping inside.
At first, I probed around with just my middle finger, all the while moving the palm of my hand over Claire\'s crotch.
"That\'s…" Claire attempted to protest a bit only for her body to tense up all over my lap as her hand shot to the back and clawed at my arm.
Even though I\'ve barely scratched the surface, I responded to Claire\'s reaction and pulled my finger down. Yet, the very moment her body powerlessly fell back down on top of me, I pulled the palm of my hand down.
Trapping her clitoris beneath the palm of my hand, I slid down against it while pushing my middle finger up her pussy, now wasting no time as I inserted it whole.
Claire tensed up again… just this time, she no longer had the strength in her body to make it jump up. Still, with her joints locking and her muscles tensing up, Claire gasped for air, proving that after all the edging, even such a slight caress was enough to bring her over the edge.
But she wasn\'t there yet. As if to show her indomitable spirit, she clutched at the device in her hand before dragging her eyes down and opening her mouth.
"Aaah…" the very moment her lips relaxed to speak, a long, sweet moan escaped from her mouth.
Then again, Claire wasn\'t the one to give up that easily. And after just one more moment…
"Asmotic paste, it\'s a reagent you can use to… Hiya!"
I\'ve only waited for Claire to finish the first half of her sentence before bending my finger down and hooking it right against the spot that made her body react the most.
But Claire still refused to give up, clenching her entire self to hold back the pleasure as she focused on the task before her.
"You can grind it down and use the powder as the seal that lets the spiritual energy seep through!" Claire recited out as quick as she could in a race against her own pleasure.
The very moment she did, the sense of achievement washed over her, causing the girl to drop her guard just little enough for my caressing to finally get to her head.
And with just a single crack on her will, Claire could no longer hold back, her body jerking one more time as her back arched up, sending her hips up and thus pressing my palm even harder against her clit as her crotch literally dragged my hand up.
At the very same time, her wet insides coiled down against my finger, as if trying to suck on it so strongly my blood vessels threatened to burst out and offer Claire\'s womb the sacrifice of my blood.
And in this precise moment, with her hands clutching at whatever they could find, with her mind losing control over her orgasming body and her face melting down under the relentless assaults of the waves of pleasure…
Claire looked all the more adorable!
\'Is this what people mean by gap?\' I thought, watching how Claire spasmed, her expression twisting in turning as she gasped for air, forgoing all the elegance and dignity in favor of her true, unrestrained self.
And as she fell down on me, her body so deprived of strength she couldn\'t even twitch anymore, a hint of her usual adorableness returned… only making her all the more endearing.
\'I\'m the one who did it,\' I thought, sensing a strange desire to show Claire in her current state to the entire world and then brag out loud about how I was the one who brought her into such a disheveled, undignified state.
But, amidst all the excitement of Claire showing yet another side of her that I didn\'t really get to see before, just one thought continued to ring in the back of my head.
\'At this rate…\'
Just one thought, and yet, it refused to leave my thoughts.
\'At this rate, we are never going to finish this job!\'