One Last System

The rays of light shone through the gaps and holes within the structure of the building. Those warm rays changed their angle over time, proving that contrary to how I felt, time didn't stop its daily passage.

"Are you okay?" I asked in a lazy voice while hugging Mia from behind.

We were laying back in bed, resting after both stressful and pretty damn exhausting exercise.

The days were slowly turning cold, but we were all sweaty, even despite not wearing clothes at all and casting our sheets away.

"Mhmm…" Mia replied with an intangible mutter, wiggling herself around a little within my embrace.

For cultivators of our level, we could fuck around for hours to come without feeling a single bit of physical exhaustion from doing the activity. And yet, after everything went down in less than just a single hour, we were in a lazy state where neither of us could be bothered to move.

Because neither of us was physically exhausted.

Mia's state could be attributed to how she proved her ideas correct by stretching her cultivation potential by a massive margin before filling roughly half of it after a few bouts with me.

She didn't lose her energy during sex, she lost it when her body had to enter overdrive just to heal her internal injuries during the least stable moment of her growth.

On the other hand, I wasn't physically exhausted nor did I go through any changes that required my body to reach its limits. Instead, all that happened to me in the last while was quite a lot of physical pleasure, increased by how it was a while since I last properly slept with Mia.

No, when it came to me, my exhaustion was sole of a mental type after I was forced to watch, nearly powerless, how Mia brought herself to the edge of demise.

"I think we shouldn't laze around like that," I finally said, breaking down the devastating truth to my beloved.

Laying down on the bed and cuddling while letting the time pass was something I strived to be always free to do. It was the ultimate goal that I wanted to achieve in my life…

But right now, not only we weren't there yet, it was actually counterproductive for both of us.

"Just a little bit longer," Mia protested in a lazy voice, too comfortable in my embrace to care about anything else. And as if to prove it, she grabbed my wrist only to pull my arm closer to her chest, making me tighten my embrace.

"Five minutes are okay," I muttered, hiding my face in Mia's hair and taking in a breath full of her delicate, slightly sweet fragrance. "But we will have to get moving then," I added, despite how much I despised the idea myself.

Moving around would allow me to air out all the thoughts and stress from watching Mia push herself beyond her limits. And for Mia, moving around and actually using her cultivation would give her the opportunity to not only get used to it but also to ease herself into driving her mana.

'Thinking about it, our current laziness is a vicious loop,' I realized.

I didn't want to move before there was still some residual stress within me, the stress of seeing my beloved wither away within my arms. And for Mia, while resting for a long time would suffice for her cultivation to regulate itself, the more she lazed around the less willing she would be to cut the slack and take the far quicker route of shaking off her dizziness.

It was a vicious circle where the more we lazed around the harder it would be for both of us to move and take action that would quickly solve our temporary problems. And yet, I couldn't refuse Mia's request to cuddle for a little bit longer.

Now that my desire was fully satisfied, I could simply enjoy the gentle warmth of Mia's flesh. It was a sensation that made me feel at home even in the run-down ruin of the room that only with the utmost effort I managed to turn into a livable space.

Her softness would flood my brain whenever either of us would move, making me wish to hug and cuddle her more and more, never able to get enough of how divine of a pillow she was.

Mia's scent continued to assault my nostrils. The smooth texture of her skin rubbing against my own made my head spin. Her gentle curves made my body perfectly comfortable while hugging her and having my arms wrapped around her.

All in all, just cuddling around with my beloved brought me to the peak of happiness.

And yet, it wasn't my goal to experience it just now. No, I was way too greedy to be satisfied with just that.

What I wanted, was to be forever able to enjoy all of those sensations while gazing upon Mia's happy face. I wanted to study the sparks in her joy-filled eyes. I wanted to smile back at her laughing face.

'I really am greedy, am I not?' I thought, bringing my chin down and lowering my head over the girl's neck.

"Five minutes have passed," I whispered softly while sneaking a small kiss on the side of Mia's neck. "And as much as I hate to say it, we really need to move."

I was too greedy to be satisfied with the peak of happiness that only lasted for a few moments. I was too obsessed with Mia to let anything infringe upon our happiness.

And for my ultimate desire, to turn what I could temporarily enjoy into something that would be forever within my reach, I had no other choice but to move up and get back to work.

Because no matter how strong I was right now, there were bound to be opponents that could still challenge me.

'What a broken world this is,' I thought, clutching my fists before relaxing my hands and pushing my upper body up, breaking the bliss of hugging Mia's soft curves close to my heart.

Back in my original life, I didn't need to become the strongest in the world to enjoy a peaceful life with the person I loved. And while that world was broken in many different ways, this ability to attain simple happiness without that much of a struggle was how it triumphed over the world I currently resided.

'Nothing good will come out of complaining,' I thought, standing up from the bed and stretching my arms up while feeling Mia's eyes all over the back of my body.

I ignored this weird sensation of being checked out like that, taking a moment to get myself warmed up before finally turning around and taking a look at my girl.

Mia followed my example and sat up on the bed, using the formerly discarded sheets to cover the upper part of her legs and hips. And with the warm rays of the sun scattering all over her body, for this one precise moment, she turned into a goddess of love and beauty that sculptors would forever dream to replicate.

The sun reflected a thousand times within each drop of sweat on her skin. The perfect proportions of her chest made me wish to reach out to grab and fondle her boobs, even though there was no sexual desire left in my groins. Her slightly indented waist and perfectly soft stomach…

I felt a spark in my spine as my face froze with my eyes stuck on the girl's belly button for a second.

"Arty?" Mia asked, leaning her head to the side and letting her hair fall along her head and over her chest. She looked at me with curiosity sparking in her eyes, struggling to figure out what exactly I was thinking.

Yet, rather than answering, I took a step forward and sat down at the edge of the bed. Then, I reached out… but instead of grabbing her breast, I put the inner side of my palm flat over the curve of Mia's abdomen.

"One day…" I whispered, unable to control myself as I fell into a sort of daze.

For a moment, I continued to gaze at Mia's flat stomach, opening my mouth and moving them around yet failing to produce a single sound.

Only after a while did I manage to raise my head and look straight into the depths of Mia's eyes. And with my hand still gently pressed against her abdomen, I leaned forward before resting my forehead against hers.

"One day," I whispered, pushing my face closer and closer before only the tiniest bit of air separated our mouths. "I will put my kid here," I announced in a soft voice.

Mia blushed a little, taken aback by my out-of-nowhere statement.

"Then," she moved her lips, allowing them to rub against my mouth as she spoke, "I will be eagerly waiting for that day to come."