City of Sin Book 8, Chapter 94

Jelly Legs
Richard stayed at Prince Tumen’s castle overnight, being visited by Macy just after dusk. Busy handling the materials he had acquired from the offering ceremony when she arrived, he didn’t even lift his head, “Take off your clothes and get on the bed.”
The young woman’s face turned scarlet, “What did you say?!”
“I said, take off your clothes and lie on the bed,” he repeated.
*Trrring!* She unsheathed her longsword, placing it on Richard’s neck, “Do you think I won’t kill you if you keep spouting nonsense?”
A casual flick of the hand pushed the sword aside, “If you don’t want that custom rune, then get out. I’ll make you a random one later.”
“Why do I need to take off my clothes?!”
Still focused on his materials, Richard replied indifferently, “Because I need an in-depth understanding of your body.”
“I’ve had other custom runes made for me, nobody else asked me to strip.”
“Nobody else is me.”
Macy finally went silent, remembering that Richard was a saint runemaster with high standards. Perhaps she really did need to remove her clothes? She recalled that there were some runes that were tattooed right onto one’s skin, something she had forgotten because she rarely saw such a thing. With trembling hands, she finally removed all her clothes and laid down on the bed. Feeling her entire body grow hot, she stared at the ceiling without moving a muscle as a light breeze tickled her skin.
Richard still took a few minutes to seal up all of his materials, carefully stowing them away before walking to the bedside and looking down at her. His cold fingers then touched her forehead.
‘Oh, it’s not that bad…’ That thought quickly proved itself false as Richard started touching every corner of her body, not missing a single spot. Every touch send a cold chill into her that left her shivering uncontrollably, and in some locations her body spasmed. She quickly shut her eyes tightly, no longer daring to even look at him. Richard had used some unknown force to excite all of the energy in her body, but as a side-effect she felt the most aroused she had ever been in her life.
This examination was repeated a full three times, leaving Macy writhing in agony. Her desires had climbed to peak after peak, but there was just no orgasm to be had. Every touch to a sensitive area incited further arousal, but Richard never took her past the edge. It took all her willpower to keep herself from moaning.
He eventually tapped her on the forehead again, activating all of her previous runes in one go. Examining those visually, he nodded, “We’re done, now get up.”
Macy jumped to her feet, glaring at Richard. She longed to throw herself at him, but she managed to grit her teeth and restrain herself, “You did this on purpose, didn’t you.”
“Yes,” he answered calmly, grinding out his inks and slotting them into his pen. Two minutes later, he returned to the bed, “Lie down on your left. This rune is complicated, it’ll take the entire night.”
……
The night seemed to pass very quickly. Richard finally heaved a deep sigh just as the first light of day filtered into the room, stretching his body and putting all his runes away. Macy was gasping on the bed, about to collapse from exhaustion, but on her body was a completely new rune. It looked like a beach rose from the outside, going from her right shoulder all the way to her knees while covering that entire side of the body. The beautiful patterns glittered for a while before receding into her skin.
She struggled to sit up, but then she suddenly grabbed her sword and placed it on his neck again, “Don’t think this is over! Fuck me!”
*Snap!* Richard looked at her and flashed a smile. The new rune on her body suddenly started glowing, draining all of her strength in an instant until she crumbled to the floor.
“AH! WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?” she screamed in shock.
“Oh, nothing. Just a small addition that won’t affect you much. I can just make you fall down whenever I want to.”
Shocked and angry, Macy did her best to push her internal energy to her legs. However, they seemed to be completely blocked off, leaving her unable to stand no matter how hard she tried. Saint Lawrence had designed this add-on such that it wouldn’t be easy to overcome.
Richard snapped once more, giving Macy back her strength. As she stood up with a bewildered expression, he reached out and tapped her face, “I’ll fuck you when I want to, but I’m not interested right now.”
“Why would you treat me like this?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“I have my reasons, but ask your father. I’ve finished everything I need to here, I’ll be going. Bid him farewell for me.”
With all his things packed, Richard calmly walked out of the room, summoning a mage and heading to the teleportation circle. After a flash of light, he disappeared from the Millennial Empire. Back in the room, Macy continued to lie there in a daze for a long time before deciding to try out her new rune.
Richard’s design had two great abilities, one passive and one active. The passive one allowed her free movement in natural terrain like jungles and marshes, and when the rune was activated her strength would be multiplied for a brief instant. It was something similar to the Eruption ability, which synergised greatly with her existing runes and boosted her combat ability greatly. This was at least a grade 3 rune on top of a grade 4 rune, but Richard had combined the two perfectly.
Only testing things out did she truly understand just why he had to examine her body so thoroughly. Sucked a whirlpool of emotions, she had no idea how she would face him in the future.
……
To Richard himself, Macy was nothing but an amusing little interlude in his life. He was currently focused on his greatest gain from the trip to the Millennial Empire, the seed of the tree of life. As a seed from the elven era, even having lost some life force over millennia it was still amongst the most powerful species to exist.
While this seed of life couldn’t compare to the Golden World Tree, it was still phenomenally more potent as a being than the local trees in the Forest Plane. Fully grown, it would be worth far more than a top-tier offering, capable of sustaining an entire province of elves. Prince Tumen didn’t think much of it— cultivating this thing would require centuries upon centuries and a huge amount of resources— but that was only because the high elven bloodline had almost died out in Norland. With the blood of silvermoon flowing inside him, Richard could easily germinate this seed and place it in the Forest Plane under the care of the Golden World Tree.
Once he returned to Blackrose Castle, he immediately headed over to the Forest Plane and activated the seed. He put it 500 kilometres away from the Golden World Tree, a small distance when that tree fully matured, but that would take hundreds of years and things could be moved by then. He spent a full month watching over it, using his powers to strengthen its growth until he saw two tender leaves sprouting from the ground.
However, Successful germination was just the beginning. Following this, Richard had to lead the tree of life in the direction he wanted it to develop in. He thus stayed beside the tree for a little while longer, guarding it and supervising its growth.