Chapter 99: You don’t mind if I suck on them? (R-18)
"Even better?" Zerena asked, genuine shock spreading across her face.
She had never heard of a potion maker improving the grade of a recipe this quickly.
Even the most gifted prodigies usually needed at least a month of repeatedly brewing the same potion before they managed to raise its quality by a single grade. Experience, trial and error, and countless failed attempts were simply part of the profession.
Max...
Had done it in a matter of days.
And most of those days hadn’t exactly been spent behaving like the image of a dedicated alchemist.
Come to think of it...
Over the past week, she’d watched him devote considerably more attention to humping his hips against her than studying potion recipes. At times, he’d looked less like a promising young genius and more like a monkey that had somehow escaped the zoo and declared war on her thighs.
Yet somehow...
He still kept producing results that left experienced potion makers questioning their life choices.
Zerena looked from Max to the row of glowing bottles before speaking again.
"...At this rate," she said, still sounding slightly dazed, "the army might hand us higher-grade potion recipes for free."
The thought only grew more outrageous the longer she considered it.
"They might even insist we brew stronger potions for them..." Her eyes slowly began to shine. "...Hell, they might even cover the cost of the ingredients themselves."
A broad smile spread across her face.
"...We’re going to be bathing in money."
Even as she said that, a trace of worry quietly settled into Zerena’s expression.
The faster Max improved, the harder it would become to keep him hidden.
A potion maker capable of pushing an ordinary recipe to A grade after only a handful of attempts wasn’t the sort of talent people simply overlooked. Sooner or later, someone would start asking questions. And once enough influential people learned about him, keeping him inside this quiet laboratory would become little more than wishful thinking.
By the time the excitement over the A-grade potions finally settled, the two of them headed upstairs to sleep.
Max fell asleep almost immediately.
Zerena...
Didn’t.
It wasn’t because Max had once again thrown a leg over hers while sleeping.
Nor was it because one of his hands had somehow wandered inside her shirt and settled comfortably around a breast, as though it had already signed a long-term rental agreement.
Those had quietly become ordinary nighttime inconveniences.
No...
The real culprit was the potions.
Twelve A-grade Minor Healing Potions.
At roughly seven hundred and fifty units each, the batch was worth around 9,000 units.
They were only about a thousand units away from earning five digits from a single batch.
The number refused to leave her mind.
Even mages with two Mana Rings often failed to earn that much over an entire week of dangerous work.
Meanwhile...
She and Max had managed to do it in a single afternoon.
Granted, that afternoon had involved an alarming amount of his penis.
Thinking about the profit should’ve put Zerena’s mind at ease.
Instead...
It only gave her a brand-new collection of problems.
Selling high-quality potions was incredibly lucrative.
It was also the fastest way to make powerful people start asking uncomfortable questions.
Who brewed them?
Why was someone capable of producing A-grade potions wasting their talent on a Minor Healing Potion recipe?
The quality was extraordinary.
The recipe wasn’t.
No matter how perfectly it was brewed, a Minor Healing Potion remained exactly that. It could close cuts, heal surface injuries, and mend lighter wounds, but it would never regenerate a severed limb or save someone whose organs had been destroyed. For that, entirely different recipes were needed.
And that was precisely why the army would become interested. Submitting these potions would almost certainly earn her access to stronger recipes.
Unfortunately...
Those recipes would come attached to people. People who would inevitably want to know who had made the A-grade potions in the first place. She could claim she’d brewed them herself. Technically, she was a mage and a licensed potion maker.
The title belonged to her.
The talent...
Very much did not.
Zerena wasn’t arrogant enough to lie to herself. She knew exactly who deserved the credit.
Max.
That hopeless brat who somehow managed to spend half his free time thinking with his penis and the other half casually shattering everything she thought she knew about potion making.
She didn’t want to expose Max.
Not yet.
The moment people discovered someone capable of producing A-grade potions after only a handful of attempts, they’d come looking for him. The army, rich infuential families, wealthy merchants—everyone would want a piece of that talent.
And what if someone simply took him away?
The thought alone was enough to make her frown.
After everything she’d invested in him, she had no intention of letting someone else walk off with the results.
Lying in bed, Zerena quietly began sorting through excuse after excuse, trying to come up with a believable way to keep Max hidden while still selling the potions.
Just as she was beginning to drift into her thoughts...
"Aunt... you awake?"
Max’s voice startled her.
Almost instinctively, Zerena squeezed her eyes shut.
She’d developed a fairly reliable survival instinct over the past week.
If Max was trying to wake her up after dark...
There was an uncomfortably high chance he wanted to ask for something perverted.
And after everything they’d done from noon until evening, she was officially out of enthusiasm.
She remained perfectly still, slowing her breathing just enough to resemble someone already asleep.
’Go away...’
’Whatever your penis is planning, it can schedule an appointment tomorrow.’
A moment later, she felt him gently shake her shoulder.
She stubbornly refused to react.
Fortunately, Max didn’t seem interested in escalating the situation. After waiting a few more seconds, he let out a quiet sigh and stopped trying to wake her.
Zerena nearly smiled.
Victory.
She was finally going to get some sleep.
Then Max leaned in close enough that his voice became little more than a whisper.
"...You don’t mind if I suck on them, right?"
He didn’t wait for an answer.
With the confidence of someone who had somehow convinced himself silence counted as permission, he gently rolled her onto her back. The loose shirt she’d been sleeping in rode upward as he tugged it aside, allowing her heavy breasts to spill free.
Zerena remained perfectly still.
’...Sigh.’