Zeal of the Mind and Flesh: A Cultivating Gamelit Harem Adventure (Spellheart Book 1)

by Marvin Whiteknight

  I’d thought I was only getting a hand job, but the elf had decided to turn it into a blowjob. I decided then that maybe my escape wasn’t that urgent after all. Yeah, I suppose she was treating my battle wounds. Relaxing like this was a major improvement over hunting for my own food and sleeping in the dirt.

  The feeling of her tongue stroking up and down my member was absolutely heavenly. She didn’t seem very experienced, but she licked and slurped with enough enthusiasm to compensate.

  One of the few motions I could do on my own was moving my hips. I began taking liberties with the only degree of freedom I had by thrusting my cock into the elf’s mouth.

  At first, she was surprised, but she quickly took to the rhythm and bounced along with me, her head bobbing up and down on my cock like a cork in water. All the while she mumbled things in elvish. I couldn’t make out any words, both because I didn’t speak the language and because it was hard to figure out what she was saying when I was balls-deep in her throat.

  Apparently my modified implant was having no problem interpreting the sex-speech though, to my benefit.

  Processing language data… 99% complete

  Processing for the language [Common elvish, wood elf dialect] has been completed. The purchase is now available from your menu.

  Damn cheap bald alien wizard! I had to pay just for basic communication skills.

  I flipped open my menu with a thought. Sava noticed my eyes glaze over. She probably thought it was because I was about to orgasm, which was also the case. With slow, deliberate motions, she untangled herself from the netting and snatched a glass vial. She thrust the top of the vial onto the head of my cock and started pumping my throbbing shaft like her life depended on it.

  Sure enough, I burst in a fountain of masculine fluids. Far more than I was accustomed to.

  Sava capped the tube filled with cum with a satisfied grin, licking her lips and closing her eyes as she held the vial tight, as if it were made of liquid gold.

  I browsed the menu trying to figure out what it would cost just to be able to talk.

  Language packs available:

  Subtitled language skills. [200 points]

  You will hear speakers of Common Elvish as they truly speak, but subtitles will appear in your vision, translating what they say. You will not be able to speak the language yourself.

  Dubbed language skills. [300 points]

  The mouths of Common Elvish speakers will move naturally, but the sound you hear will be dubbed over. The reverse will be true of Common Elvish speakers who listen to you speak. The language barrier will sometimes create unusual misunderstandings and you may have difficulty communicating complex topics with grace.

  True language skills. [400 points]

  You will have a basic but working understanding of Common Elvish. You will have the opportunity to evolve this skill naturally through use and practice.

  Available points: 634

  Good, it looks like Mac didn’t go on a spending spree the moment I disappeared. He had taken over two hundred and fifty out of that 500-point windfall I’d gotten from learning magic. He’d probably fulfilled my last outstanding request and bought the smith’s workshop. I wish there was some way to get information to him. That’s right! The scanner.

  Scanner level 1. (Upgrades available)

  Upgrade for [250 points?]

  I closed the window without purchasing the scanner. If that’s what allowed us to start communicating initially, then it stood to reason that upgrading it further would allow me to communicate at a longer range. The next time I got a point notification, the first thing I would do was buy that scanner upgrade.

  But right now, I needed language skills. Subtitled language skills could be useful if I just needed to listen in on conversations, but I needed to communicate two ways here if I wanted to get myself in a better position than that of a human breeding bull.

  I could buy dubbed language skills and still afford the scanner… but I was in a delicate situation here. I didn’t want to misspeak and lose my life due to translation errors. I had to purchase True language skills. The scanner upgrade was only a few points away, so I should be able to get back into communication with Mac as soon as I collected some more points.

  True language skills (basic) purchased. Remaining points: 234

  Communication! Finally, I could make some sense of what was going on.

  “Hello. I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Theo.”

  She tilted her head sideways in a curious expression. “Suddenly you speak,” She said with a strange cadence to her voice. It was odd seeing her lips move in unfamiliar patterns. I could hear strange and exotic sounds reaching my ear, but as soon as they were in my head they just started making sense. No effort needed on my part.

  “That’s right. I speak your language now, though I didn’t until just now. Now, what do I have to do to convince you to let me out of these ropes?”

  The entire time I spoke, the elf’s eyes were locked on my moving lips.

  “You speak,” She began, “but not through normal means. There is some form of magic at work here that I don’t understand. Strange, you don’t appear to have any treasures or enchantments on you.”

  “Believe me. It’s not something I understand either. You said your name was Sava?”

  “That is right, Theo the chaka. I am called Sava Greenstem, of the Riverweed tribe.”

  “I keep hearing that word, but I don’t know what it means. What is chaka?” I recognized the word as something that the other elves had shouted at me, but since it wasn’t being translated, it was probably a concept that didn’t have an English equivalent.

  “You are a chaka. I can tell by the vitality that surrounds you and flows through every part of your body as vitality. Nothing of this world can make life zeal from their own vitality as a chaka can. If that were not the case, this stuff wouldn’t be nearly so sought after,” Sava held up the vial of my cum she’d just taken, along with a deep red vial. Blood, probably collected while she was tending to my wounds.

  “I see. Life zeal, which comes from vitality. And what exactly is that used for?”

  Sava cocked her head. “I have read that chaka’s often appear from thin air, with little knowledge of the world. Still, I would not think you would lack something so basic, though it would explain why you hadn’t even been initiated in magic yet.

  “Vitality zeal is needed to maintain the coherence of your body as one practices cultivation. The higher your cultivation base, the more vitality zeal you must collect in order to maintain your sanity and identity.

  “Many would pay a small fortune for these vials of… fluids… I just took from you. They contain a portion of your vitality and so could be consumed directly to aid in cultivation. For me though, it is more useful as a valuable alchemical component.”

  “So, you’re an alchemist. Right,” I thought back to image of her mixing plants and vials together by the riverside.

  She shook her head. “Herbalist. I am not worthy of the title of alchemist. Not yet at least.” There was a hint of ambition hidden in those words.

  “So, you found me in the river, saw me as a big bag of human-shaped alchemical ingredients and now you’ve kidnapped me and you’re going to suck me dry? That sound about right?” I accused her.

  “Well…” She blushed. “When you put it like that it sounds like something an evil cultivator would do… Anyway, you’re not going to be sucked dry. A normal elf would be drained of vitality in a day or so, but you’re a chaka. Your body has no trouble replenishing its own vitality.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” I replied sarcastically. “So, I’ve become a living farm for you to harvest this vitality zeal from? Like a cow to spend its days in a pen getting milked.”

  Sava looked embarrassed. “Fine… I suppose I can make things a little more comfortable for you. Just wait right there, I’ll have to go out and buy a warding formation.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SAVA RETURNED Q
UICKLY enough, which was a shame because I’d almost managed to free one of my hands by slowly flexing and putting pressure on the knot.

  After she returned, she had a scroll in hand, along with a bucket of various powders and bits of metal.

  “This warding formation cost me nearly a thousand merit points you know. I had to cash in just about everything I had. Considering the amount I spent just the other day on materials, if this plan doesn’t succeed I’ll have to sell chips off my spellheart to buy food,” The elf sighed as she placed some of the collection of objects on the windowsill.

  “Wait. Points you said. You spent points to get the scroll you’re holding?” I asked, suddenly curious.

  “Yes, the Riverweed tribe awards merit points for services rendered and materials given to the clan. We don’t have enough queensmarks this far out, so we use merit points. Technically, ten merit points can be exchanged at the tribal treasury for a queensmark that can be traded with other tribes or in town, but the tribe doesn’t really have enough queensmarks to pay for all the merit points it gives out.”

  “So, merit points are your currency for small scale internal trading, and you spend them trading with each other?” I suddenly had a peculiar thought. “Can you spend these points elsewhere? Like on a screen that just… appears over your vision?” My mind went back to what Baldy had said. I wasn’t the only one sent here.

  Sava raised her eyebrows. “No, I’ve never heard of blue boxes appearing in someone’s vision. Maybe it could happen if you cultivated a special technique? Or perhaps it’s a chaka thing?”

  My shoulders relaxed at that answer. “Nevermind. Just a silly thought. Anyway, now that you’ve waved your hands about and fiddled with your warding formation, do you think you could cut me down?”

  The elf did just that, though she kept the knots binding my hands tied to the back of the room, presumably so I wouldn’t interrupt her while she was doing amateur chemistry. Sorry, alchemy. Was that supposed to be titration?

  Eventually, she undid my bonds and I rubbed my wrists, stretching.

  Should I try overpowering her?

  I should be able to… she couldn’t be more than half my weight soaking wet. But at the same time, I remembered the absurd strength of the elves back at the brothel. None of the elves I’d met thus far had access to that level of power, but maybe this one did. Besides, she was a known quantity, and also someone I could gather more information from. I could try to make an escape when I was better informed.

  While she was brewing something with a cauldron and the vial of semen she’d taken from me, I tried to test the ledge by the window. She’d laid down a strip of parchment engraved with a long series of runes which had burned themselves into the wood of the window.

  I tried to poke them and was surprised to find a mystical force repelling my touch. There was some sort of barrier there, springy rather than hard. Like trying to poke into soft sand. I could dig my hand through a little, but the further in I pushed the harder it got to go deeper. Eventually I was forced back entirely.

  “Don’t bother,” Sava said absently, her attention still focused on the cauldron she was carefully stirring. “I configured that warding formation to keep you in this room. It isn’t the best warding formation the Riverweed tribe has at its disposal, but it’s strong enough that you won’t be able to break through it at your cultivation level. The zeal you wield is simply too weak.”

  “You keep talking about zeal,” The English word loosely meant ‘great enthusiasm or energy,’ though I got the feeling that the true word in the elvish language was something a great deal more mystical.

  Sava shook her head. “It is little wonder that your cultivation base is so weak, since you don't even know that much. Your homeland must be a paradise for no one to need to know how to cultivate. Still, ignorance is never excusable.”

  After a series of disparaging comments about my lack of a good education, Sava took pity on me and began to explain. According to her, this was all common knowledge.

  Zeal was the natural energy that flowed through this world, taking on the aspects of everything it touched. The air had wind zeal, the ground had earth zeal. The oceans had water zeal, and fire had flame zeal. Those were the fundamental elements, and the higher elements were alloys of two or more of them. Those were river zeal, wood zeal, mist zeal, and countless others built from the basic elements, blended together in an unlimited number of combinations, like colors on a painter’s palette.

  Those who had been initiated into the magic system, a practice termed cultivation, did so by wielding spellhearts. These were specific and focused containers that held vast amounts of zeal in a metastable state, like a sort of crystal. Using their spellhearts and eventually fusing with them, the elves of this world were able to enhance their minds, bodies, and souls to superhuman feats. This allowed them to fight monsters with their bare hands or even perform such fantastic feats as shooting dragons out of their fists as they punch.

  Vitality, generated through life zeal, was just as fundamental as the big four, but it was often not counted among them, because it was something that rode on top of other zeals, but was never present in a pure, unadulterated form. Some even chose to call it a primordial zeal.

  Apparently, there’s a sizable concentration of life zeal in the creek water here, which is what had been giving me that strange, wonderful sensation whenever I drank from it. It also may have been healing me in ways I didn’t yet understand.

  Surprisingly, the elves could only enjoy the benefits of the creek indirectly. They couldn’t drink from it, but if they were careful, they could catch a fish and eat that.

  I suspected it was all that iron in the water that was causing them trouble, iron appeared to hurt them a great deal more than me, which explained why I was able to drink from the creek directly.

  The process of cultivation required an elf to cultivate their spellheart, and at least at the lower levels, involved bonding with and increasing the power of a spellheart. That’s the step that Sava was on, as well as the majority of elves in her tribe.

  For the most part, elves could harvest this zeal from their environment, with one critical exception. Life zeal, stemming from vitality, was usually the limiting resource.

  A herbalist like Sava could pull a little out of a plant. She could pull a little more out of a fish. She could pull even more out of an elf, is she was willing to tread a darker path. That’s where I came in. Half of my personal worth came from the fact that I could… ehem… release vitality suitable for elves, and recover it all completely, no permanent damage done. In contrast, pulling vitality out of anything else usually resulted in that thing dying quite rapidly. Even so, Sava made sure to warn me there were still plenty of people who would be able to take more vitality than I was able to generate, at which point I would die just as easily as anyone else. I made a mental note to myself to avoid getting drained dry.

  The next few days I spent wandering back and forth around the tiny room in Sava’s tree house. Apparently, the room had previously served as her laboratory, as much of her herbalist’s tools were in here.

  I began asking her about herbalism, which she was well versed in, and looked proud of that fact. From her attitude, I concluded it was a prestigious and respected discipline here, though not as respected as alchemy, which Sava revered with an almost religious devotion. It turned out there was a great deal more to herbalism than making poultices and glowing liquids.

  Sava herself had a nature attuned spellheart. Using her spellheart, she was able to wander the surrounding forest and pick up plants and animal remains that contained traces of a variety of zeals and a variety of medicinal effects.

  By blending and treating those plants and ingredients in just the right manner, she was able to make potions that were useful to her fellow elves. To her, I was a cheap source of vitality that was only very slightly affiliated with a type of zeal. Usually whatever I’d been eating recently.

  The doorbell rang, which is to
say that somebody stuck the brass bell Sava had anchored to the ceiling in the other room. I had long since learned that Sava made a living here selling potions out of her home, which appeared to be one of the most common trades here in the Riverweed tribe. The spell formation Sava had set up ensured I was stuck in the back room, so I couldn’t be seen by customers.

  The bell rang again, and both Sava and I looked up. Her from the potion she was brewing, and me from where I was watching her. She’d already laid out all the ingredients she planned to use. Half of them were in the pot already, which was simmering on the cube of reddish-black wood that somehow served as a magical hotplate.

  “Stir this for me. I’ve got a customer,” Sava handed me the spoon with just a bit of hesitation before standing up and passing through the doorway. A place I couldn’t go.

  I took up the spoon, looking at the potion. It looked kind of murky green from all the dead plant matter. Probably lots of chlorophyll in there, assuming plants in this world worked the same way I was used to. Really, it looked a lot like a spinach smoothie.

  As I kept stirring, I overheard Sava talking with her customer, who was being far louder than I’d expect a reasonable customer to be.

  “This is a onetime only offer Sava!” the unknown female voice began. “I don’t know how you’re brewing so much these days, but if you’ve stumbled on a sacred grove, you’d be wise to share them with us. There’s no way you can keep such a secret forever. I know you have plans of becoming an alchemist, but we were all born from the same father. Don’t you think it’s a little unfair to your elder sisters to keep all the good fortune for yourself?” Katiana voice became quite and conspiratorial. “Besides, I’ve heard the Crimson Dragonfly tribe wiped out the Claw Tamer tribe recently. I don’t know how they finally managed that, but they’re infamous bandits and they’ll be ranging farther afield now that they Claw Tamer’s aren’t keeping them in check. They’ll be looking for new prey, and a lone elf with a fortune greater than she can defend is just going to lose everything. If you want to keep what you have I’d suggest you share some of it now and make some allies.”