***Special thanks to everyone who sent me stones, I hope you guys and everyone reads my novel and enjoy it! (LordofTheSunRealm,Lucyfer,Babc.o.c.k, Myzy, IDontMakeSense and all the others whose names are too long :D)***The next day Alexis woke up inbetween Florestine"s bust, he tried to get up but he couldn"t.
She had wrapped herself around him as Alexis groaned inwardly, he woke up early because of Philip and now he wanted to train!
He felt himself get closer and closer to becoming a Saint Emperor...
"Florestine... please wake up..." Alexis said, his voice was distorted because his face was covered by her chest.
"Ugg..." Florestine woke up to his voice and also because Alexis was moving around too much.
She blinked her eyes...
"Where am I?" She asked herself and looked around, turning her head.
"Oi... Florestine, let me go... I need to go train!" Alexis reminded her in an irritated voice, Florestine yelped and let go of him...
Alexis got up and went on with his normal daily routine, Florestine who was still in the bed was shivering...
She then pumped her fist up!
"YEAH!!" She shouted happily...
-●-●-●-
"Hmm... i need to crack the layer that blocks me from tapping into my mana reserves..." He mumbled and made his mana run through his body at very high speeds and by constricting his mana veins that run through his body, this would make the mana pa.s.s through him at high pressure...
Mana veins are a set of veins that all mages have, they are always next to a mages" blood veins, therefore if a Mage gets a limb cut off, he or she would lose a part of his or her mana reserves, usually at a rate of "one-fifth" the mana.
He remembered Philip once say that humans too have mana cores... it is apparently in the heart or rather... the heart itself is the mana core in humans!
He realised he was getting distracted and shook his head and proceeded with his work.
And after three hours he finally completed the cracking process...
*crack!*
Alexis" eyes opened wide, he touched himself and looked at himself...
His mana expanded! He was now in the Saint Emperor Mage...
Now he needed to repair the barrier since the necessary amount was taken, his body needed to adapt to the increase in mana... if there was a sudden continuous increase it would be detrimental to the body and his mana veins might explode... leaving him powerless!
Repairing the barrier was easy considering the fact that he just needed to supply a constant amount of mana into his core, unlike having to crack own core with precise control... he stood up and went to the balneae inside the mansion...
The door to the balneae was covered with a few runes that prevented it from decomposing under the heat and moisture from the inside, Alexus wrapped a towel around his waist and opened the door.
The balneae was very misty and looked very beautiful, the whole room was made of marble and the lamp lights illuminated the place giving a yellowish hue to the room...
The water was very clean and transparent, this was also due to runes which purified the water everytime the user was not present in the room, the water glistened in the light as he took off the towel and kept it on the steps as he entered the warm water.
"Ah..." he moaned in comfort and rested his hands on the edge of the basin...
"This is how life should be... not thinking too much and just flowing... like the water..." he thought and closed his eyes enjoying the warmth seeping into his body...
"Y-Your highness... do you want anything t-to have while you take the bath?" He heard Florestine"s shy voice and decided to tease her.
"I want to have you..." He said with a smirk as he was now floating around in the water, knocking his head in the edges sometimes...
"W-W-What are you SAYING?!" He heard her shout from outside of the door and chuckled.
"Get me some fruits... and wine!" He said and tied the towel around his waist again, he wasn"t planning being an exhibitionist and sat on one of the marble chairs placed close the water...
After sometime, Florestine entered the balneae pushing a serving trolley containing plates of food and the wine along with it"s chalice.
She wore a white sleeveless robe that went upto her ankles, Alexis couldn"t help but stare at her in daze for a second until he quickly calmed himself down...
Florestine who saw him ogle at her immediately blushed and looked down, considering the things they had within the past week, she could be expecting anything... except for the fact that her heart wasn"t ready... yet!
Alexis walked upto her and casually grabbed a handful of grapes, filled his chalice full of wine and went back.
"...M-May I feed your highness?" Florestine asked.
"No... it"s alright, you can sit down" Alexis answered while savouring the fruits in his mouth.
"Alright then..." She mumbled and sat on the marble chair next to him...
Florestine was looking at his scars and then glanced at his face... and then repeated doing so over and over again.
Alexis was covered in drops of water that trickled down his Adonis like body... his dark red hair covered his sharp eyes as Florestine almost drooled and gulped...
"What is it?" Alexis asked her, unable to ignore her constant eye contact on him.
"The scars... they l-look good on you..." She stuttered at the last bit and looked down in embarra.s.sment.
"Oh... Is that so, then you may look at them as much as you want..." Alexis replied and glanced at her with a chuckle...
He then sighed.
Alexis glanced at the ceiling above him, it had drawings of various mythological stories...
"Florestine... do you regret becoming my maid?" He asked her.
"No! Never!" She denied and turned to him.
"I see... may I ask why?" He questioned her once again.
"Your highness is the nicest person in the world! You always care for me eventhough I"m just a maid... You don"t scold me for my mistakes and correct me, you never put down and always make sure that I don"t end up miserable..." She answered with a smile...
"...I"m nice only to you..." Alexis interjected...
"That maybe so... but the question you asked was from my point of view!" She smiled happily.
"So does that mean that you do not care about other people? Following me would mean that you will be labelled as a murderer, a killer and you may have to kill people yourself... would you still not regret your words at that time?" Alexis asked her curiously, he wasn"t trying to get emotional, he was just genuinely curious about her... afterall, human beings were very fickle creatures...
They pray about peace and love and help others but violently attack and hate those that disagree with them, almost immediately...
"No... the moment I gave my life to you, i stopped caring about such minor things!" She responded and giggled.
"I guess... both you and I are alike... You are devoted to serving me while I"m devoted to developing the world..." Alexis chuckled as he swirled the wine from his chalice and sipped...
"And neither of us care about anything other than doing what we really want to do..." He declared and drank half of the wine from the chalice and released a content sigh.
"...I guess so" Florestine mumbled and went into deep thinking...
"The next step is to start ma.s.s producing the rifle, yesterday I recieved a letter from father saying that everything is prepared... We can then start leaking news little by little..." Alexis muttered.
"...Your highness... what if it doesn"t... work?" Florestine asked Alexis who immediately went silent.
"Indeed... What if it fails? What if even after doing everything... nothing happens?" He asked himself...
"...Then I can only hope they change their ways..." Alexis answered after a few minutes of contemplating.
"You mean like... adapt?" She asked him in a small voice.
"Correct, considering the fact that in the future there will a great war, it will be easier if the Emperor who comes after it, is a "kind" person. This will make them accept everything rather than protest against a tyrant..." Alexis explained with a shrug...
"I"d rather not have the army interrogate innocent people because of a rebel army and cause a rebellion once the empire takes over the continent... Once everything is over, I would still need to rule" he said out loud.
"To check up on the other two continents..." he added to himself.
"Until then, continue with the business... gather loyal people, we don"t necessarily need generous and kind people, and we need some greedy people who will be promised power once the Empire has taken over everything..." Alexis said and smiled at her...
"And later terminate them before they get out of hand..." He mumbled.
"Ah... everything is so tiring, Maybe I"ll just make an heir and give everything to him or her..." He told her and winked with a smirk.
"An heir?! I-I don"t think I"m r-ready for
s-such t-t-things yet!" She stuttered and turned beet red as Alexis chuckled and stood up walking upto her...
"W-Wait your highness! I-I"m not r-ready yet!" She shouted at him, turning red, her eyes tearing showing a bit of excitement!.
"What are you saying?" Alexis asked her as he sat down next to Florestine and kept her on his lap, he then hugged her and rested his head on her shoulder, he inhaled her sweet smell of flowers and herbs...
"Perfume from the southern kingdoms, is it?" He asked her softly as she nodded shyly but she had a smile on her beautiful reddened face..
[Host, good job!]
He heard the System compliment him and his eyebrow twitched.
"Thank you for the gracious compliment..." He commented sarcastically as he heard the System snort.
[Host, you may not be insulting me but you are very rude to me... I might start being rude to you aswell!]
The System said as Alexis scoffed at the mere fact that the stupid system threatened him.
"I"m so scared~ As if I"ll be intimidated by you..." Alexis replied and continued.
"Besides, this whole thing happened because you decided to trick me!" Alexis ended his speech.
[Oh please... Host, if you haven"t noticed already, I helped you in your relationship... you can"t be blaming me for helping you! Look at you, already hugging her and doing all other sorts of human intimate acts... If it wasn"t for me tricking you, you would still be the shy boy who screamed at her for removing her clothes!]
The System retorted as Alexis stayed quiet...
[Hmph! That"s what I thought... You meanie!]
"..."
"Y-You are right... I guess I"m s-s-sorry!" Alexis apologised unwillingly as the System gasped.
[*Gasp!* You actually apologised! I guess I can let you off with this one...]
"...shut up" Alexis ended their conversation.
"Y-Your highness..." Florestine mumbled, she felt very happy but what would happen next...
"Hm... What is it?" He asked her gently, Florestine blushed hearing his gentle voice, it made her feel very special considering how he talks to everyone else coldly...
"N-Nothing..." She said and shook her head, Alexis made her turn to him with his hand and stared at her.
"Y-Your highness..." She mumbled and stared into his ruby red eyes expectantly, Alexis felt his throat run dry seeing the emerald green eyes staring into his own...
-●-●-●-
The two of them came out of the balneae, Florestine was in another world and had a wide happy smile plastered on her face as Alexis had closed his eyes and had a slight pink hue on his face.
He then cleared his throat as Flroestine turned beet red and hugged his arm effectively covering her blushing face that would produce steam at any moment...
"Well... that certainly went a bit "too" far..." Alexis said as the two of them walked to his room.
"You can bring your clothes to my room..." Alexis said while moving his eyes around, not willing to look at her...
Florestine gasped in shock and squealed in delight, she hugged him tightly and pecked him in the cheek.
"And Florestine... what happened in the bath, stays in the bath..." Alexis said sternly as she immediately turned bright red and nodded like a chicken pecking on rice...
"You will be staying in my room from now on considering everything that happened, if it"s fine with you..." he reminded her as she smiled happily.
"It"s fine! It"s perfectly fine! I"ll be happy to stay with you!" She shouted and ran back to her current room eagerly and quickly started packing her luggage.
Alexis genuinely smiled seeing her excited while she sighed in bliss...