Chapter 83: Funding My Dream
"I knew it..." Yennefer groaned from the other end of the call. "That bitch kept telling me she was buying all those herbs for cooking. Like I’d believe that cheap bitch would ever spend that much on food."
She sounded far less surprised than vindicated.
Apparently, finally proving herself right was almost as satisfying as solving the mystery itself.
"Now that I’ve confirmed your suspicions," Max said calmly, "let’s talk business."
Silence followed for a moment.
Max couldn’t see her, but he could practically picture Yennefer giving a small nod on the other end of the phone.
"First," he continued, "tell me something. Do you really want your grandson to learn potion making?"
"...Yes," Yennefer answered without hesitation.
"I can make it happen," Max said. "But before we get into the details, there are a few things I need from you first."
Before Yennefer’s imagination could wander off and start inventing increasingly questionable payment methods, he quickly added,
"Relax. I’m not asking for any compensations yet. This is just to see whether you’re actually serious. If you are... then there probably won’t be much compensation. At least not the kind you can wrap in paper or transfer through a bank."
Yennefer frowned.
She wasn’t entirely sure what that was supposed to mean.
Still...
She’d already made up her mind.
"As I told you before," she replied without hesitation, "I’ll do whatever it takes."
Max smiled faintly.
"Good."
"Then the first thing I want is simple." He paused for a moment before continuing. "Whatever happens between us stays between us."
"Don’t tell anyone."
"Not your friends. Not your neighbors."
Another brief pause.
"...And especially not Zerena."
Silence greeted him from the other end.
Max waited.
If Yennefer couldn’t even keep her mouth shut about this, there wasn’t much point discussing the rest.
Besides...
If Zerena found out he’d started negotiating behind her back, there was a very real chance she’d promote him from ’annoying brat’ to ’dead brat’ before breakfast.
"I promise," Yennefer said without much hesitation. "I won’t tell anyone."
"Good," Max replied. "Then before we make the final agreement... let me show you something."
He opened his phone and sent over several short recordings.
Each one showed the potion-making process.
Not the kind of polished demonstrations people uploaded to the internet, either. These were raw recordings from inside the laboratory, showing the actual brewing process from beginning to end. In one of them, Zerena could even be seen standing beside the cauldron, calmly filling bottle after bottle with freshly brewed potions.
There was enough there that faking it would’ve been more work than simply making the potions in the first place.
Several seconds passed.
Then Yennefer finally spoke again.
"...I knew it," she muttered. "Even after you admitted it, I still had trouble believing that cheap bitch somehow found someone willing to make potions for her."
There was another brief silence.
Max could almost hear the gears turning inside her head.
Then they finally clicked.
"...You’re learning from that person too, aren’t you?" she asked. "That’s why you know how to inspect herbs and judge their quality."
For a moment, she sounded almost pleased with herself.
Apparently, she’d just solved what she considered a very satisfying mystery.
Max let out a quiet chuckle.
Yennefer had somehow managed to build an entire explanation on her own.
He neither confirmed it...
Nor denied it.
Instead, he smiled.
"Well," he said, "I’ve confirmed your suspicions twice now. First with my words, then with actual proof."
He paused just long enough to let the sentence settle.
"So now it’s your turn to prove how serious you really are."
There was barely a moment of silence.
"What do I have to do?" Yennefer asked, her voice carrying the same determination as before.
Max’s smile widened ever so slightly.
"Nothing complicated," he said in a tone so casual it almost sounded like he was asking her to send a shopping list.
"Just send me a pic of your naked breasts."
Silence.
The request had been delivered with such complete, matter-of-fact confidence that Yennefer’s brain nearly accepted it before actually processing what he’d said.
Then the meaning finally caught up.
"...What?"
Only a second later, the meaning finally caught up with her.
"...What did you just say?" Yennefer asked, genuine disbelief creeping into her voice.
Max answered with the same calm tone as before.
"I said send me a pic of your bare boobs... your milkers... tits... flesh mounds..."
He sounded fully prepared to continue listing every synonym for breasts he’d ever learned.
Yennefer cut him off before he could.
"I know what they are," she said flatly. "I was just checking whether I’d heard you wrong."
Silence settled over the call.
Several long seconds passed.
Finally, Yennefer spoke again.
"...For god’s sake... you’re not pulling my leg, are you?"
Another pause.
"You’re actually serious?"
"As serious as a surgeon looking for a misplaced sponge," Max replied without missing a beat.
Yennefer let out a long, exhausted sigh.
For a brief moment, she seriously considered whether she’d accidentally answered a scam call.
"...So let me get this straight," she said. "If I send you a pic of my breasts... the person teaching you will agree to teach my grandson too?"
She asked it slowly.
Not because the sentence was difficult.
Because saying it out loud somehow made it sound even more ridiculous than it had inside her own head.
"Yeah," Max replied with an easy nod. "So... show me just how serious you are about making that happen."
Yennefer fell silent for a moment before asking cautiously,
"...You aren’t planning to do something perverted with the picture after I send it, are you?"
Max looked genuinely offended.
"Hey, don’t insult me."
He clicked his tongue.
"What the hell am I supposed to do with a pic of a pair of saggy tits? They’re probably hanging there looking like fat folds after a really fat person loses a hundred kilos."
He even let out a small laugh, as though the very suggestion had been ridiculous.
Yennefer’s eye twitched.
The description of her breasts was irritating enough that she briefly considered hanging up on him.
The infuriating part...
She couldn’t confidently say he was wrong.
"...Just wait a minute," she muttered through gritted teeth.
"Let me take one."
The call disconnected before Max could reply.
"Hahaha... I actually did it!"
Max burst out laughing the moment the picture arrived.
It wasn’t just that he’d gotten someone to send him nudes for the first time in his life. It was the fact that the person had actually taken the picture herself and sent it directly to him.
No fake profile.
No random download from the internet.
No scam asking him to click a suspicious link first.
For Max, that alone felt strangely surreal.
Even better...
If everything went according to the system’s plan, Yennefer would become another official System Target. Which meant more Forbidden Acts, more Forbidden Points.
And, most importantly...
Faster upgrades.
The path toward his dream of owning a truly godly penis had just gained another reliable source of funding.