The dragon's harem

Merlin flicked her fingers and turned on the shower, letting a gentle stream of warm water pour out. Hundreds and thousands of tiny droplets hit her hair and slid down her pale skin, finally ending on the marble floor beneath her feet. For a moment there, the water felt cold, but quickly got warmer and warmer until it steamed.

Standing still for a few seconds and letting her skin and hair soak, Merlin closed her eyes and focused on the flow of mana going through the tubes alongside the water, and followed it all the way back to the magical boilers. Unlike the maids, she didn’t need the control panel and could directly hijack the magical circuits of the boiler from anywhere.

She slowly adjusted the water’s temperature to her liking and even made the flow of water a bit stronger. But since she was already running low on mana, that alone wasn’t enough. Pushing her senses even deeper, she now followed the water’s pipes all the way to water crystals where it was produced, and could see several maids already there to fill water for cooking.

They first used a common water crystal, but they recently had Rilyeh bring them a pearl-shaped giant water crystal to use, which produced several times more water. While that gave them more water, it sadly made it harder for Merlin to use the crystal since it only responded to spirit magic.

Looking around the entire private quarters, Merlin had to look for one of two people. Rilyeh herself, or Undine, as they are both water spirit queens and could easily operate the pearl. She didn’t find Rilyeh, but Undine was dealing with a few aquatic monsters inside Arad’s inner world, so Merlin could easily observe her mana waves and copy them from afar.

Using the imprint of Undine’s waves, Merlin could generate a similar spirit magic, which she used as a temporary key to operate the pearl and get more water for her shower, which in itself was a horrifying feat of magic, one that was unbefitting of such a mundane task. Being able to mimic the spirit magic of a spirit queen, even for a second, was enough to make some fairies die of sheer horror and fear, yet to Merlin, it was just a daily skill.

As the water got nice and perfectly warm, and its flow increased, Merlin smiled and pushed her wet hair behind her back. The maids had just arrived in the shower, so she looked back at them. "You’re quick. Is everything ready?"

Most of the maids silently headed into the bath to prepare it, and the three who were left approached Merlin. "They are getting things ready; we’ll help you wash." They approached her all at once. One poured soap on her hair, and the remaining two each grabbed one of her arms to start scrubbing.

While Merlin had a perfect and beautiful figure that could even make some of the maids act up, she didn’t have a single muscle showing. She wasn’t toned, but instead looked soft and plump, which was the general feeling the maids got when touching her pristine, pale skin. But it didn’t take someone skilled to know... while her muscles were soft, they only felt like that when she was completely relaxed.

Merlin’s modified body didn’t just look attractive and feel nice to the touch; it held a horrifying amount of physical strength and flexibility. Merlin was easily five times as strong as her size would imply, and she didn’t have a problem lifting an entire ton with one arm; and all of that was thanks to all of the modifications she got. That strength might sound like nothing when compared to utter nightmares like Arad, but to the maids, it meant that Merlin could easily throw an entire horse into the air.

But the part that fascinated the maids the most was Merlin’s flexibility and the fact that all of her joints felt as if they didn’t even exist. She had far surpassed hypermobility by a lot and could bend her elbows fully backward with ease.

So besides looking great, pristine, and being horrifyingly powerful and flexible, Merlin’s body boasted another aspect that the maids could only envy. It was that it was a high human body, one that had gotten perfected and powered beyond belief, to a point when even someone as powerful as the emperor cannot ignore.

If any of them had her power, they would’ve already risen in rank and wouldn’t be stuck as mere maids. But that was also their flaw. They saw the greatness that Merlin achieved, but couldn’t even imagine the struggle and suffering she went through to reach her current self. None of the maids here had the courage or pain tolerance to pull one of their teeth out, let alone perform the surgeries which a nine-years-old Merlin had to perform on herself to stay alive.

After scrubbing Merlin’s arms, they went down to her chest and back. They were once again a bit jealous of what she boasted, but this time, one of the maids did match her in size. "Lady Merlin..." One of the maids spoke, and Merlin looked at her.

"If you want a bigger chest, injecting succubus blood would give a temporary effect, and eating Bova demon flesh on the regular would also bear results." She smiled, "The only way to get them to grow bigger naturally is either to train the muscles beneath them or to graft succubus bones as I did. The blood is produced in the bones after all, and the hormones coming out with it are what help."

The maids looked at each other, and then one of them finally asked Merlin. "We’ve been studying magic and training in martial arts for months now, yet we aren’t getting that stronger than we were. Is there a way to progress faster?"

Merlin turned around, looked at one of the maids, and then smiled. "No, not really. You’ve only trained for a few months, and I’d say your progress is already a bit better than the average woman. All thanks to the perfect conditions here, and your prior noble upbringing. Growth takes time, and that is key."

"But... we feel slow. Lexi, Camilla, and many more maids are rapidly getting stronger, leaving us in the dust." One of the maids replied. "We feel left out."

"You aren’t left out." Merlin patted the maid on the head. "Each of them has a reason for their growth. Lexi had trained since she was a kid. Camilla was an adventurer before and is now a werewolf. Don’t get me talking about any other maid, since many love to keep their reasons a secret. Believe me, all of them have years and years of training and struggle to allow such rapid growth."

The maids kept washing her body, now getting to the lower parts. There was no easy solution for power, and so they were all stuck as servants until they grew on their own. "Then... would you mind telling us at least how you got rid of your body hair?" Looking at Merlin’s perfectly clean and smooth bits, they could only bite their lips in frustration as they remembered Gamond casting [Instant Wax] on them.

Merlin smiled, "I didn’t even do this." She spread her legs apart. "I was bald; I got so sick that I couldn’t grow hair anymore when I was young. I only cared about regaining my head hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, so I only cured those later."

"But... I can help you with that. It isn’t a permanent solution, and would leave you tanned for a while... But it should be less painful than [Instant Wax]."