A Sinner’s Chance

Now that Arya was back I planned on trying out riding Steria to see if it would be feasible or effective. Steria was hesitant when I presented the saddle I'd created but she eventually caved as I said I only wanted to give it a try and if it was too much I could scrap it. I'd made sure to make all the straps adjustable so that it could be tightened so that it wouldn't shake and cause discomfort for Steria or me. In addition it was only a prototype, so if it didn't work out I wouldn't have wasted too much time on it, and if it did, I could make revisions until both Steria and I were satisfied with it.

Steria was surprised by how comfortable the saddle was, she'd been expecting something much worse it seemed, but I wasn't one to make shoddy work when it came to the women in my life. Once she was satisfied with the fit I stuck a foot in one of the stirrups and swung myself on her. She shifted a bit as she settled the extra weight. "You're lighter than I thought you'd be." She remarked as she began to pace around getting used to the feeling. "I don't think I'll have enough stamina to do so for very long though."

I'd figured if anything was going to be an issue it would be her stamina, but I had a nice and convenient solution in the Skill called Essence Sharing, though it would probably cause issues in combat, but that was a problem that I would think about later, right now I just wanted to see how long we could go for. As such, I situated my body so that no matter how I moved I could always have direct contact with her body before tapping her side as I connected us with Essence Sharing. "Try sprinting, it shouldn't tire you out too much since I'll be taking most of the burden."

I could feel her desire to question me flow through our bond, but she listened and began to accelerate over the grassland. I could actively feel the drain on my stamina, it was like I was being forced to sprint with a few hundred pounds of weights on me. Even with Yin from Yang converting sunlight into energy, I wasn't able to offset the expenditure and could gradually feel myself running out of steam. However, even as my breathing became heavy, my body became drenched in sweat, and Steria began to feel concerned, I wouldn't be satisfied until we'd done as much as possible.

In the end it only took around half an hour for me to call it quits and practically faint as I tossed myself off of Steria. Both Arya and Steria were worried for me as I lay on my back in the soft grass breathing heavily while sweat poured out of me like it was trying to drown me. Even with Steria's concern, she couldn't hide the undertone of excitement she was feeling. Aside from being tired for the first time in quite awhile, I wasn't in any danger, it would take far more than just exhaustion to do me in, so I asked Steria to elaborate on the cause of her excitement.

Apparently, when the Khetoran hunted, they only sprinted for a moment since it was so energy intensive, and usually just ran down their prey at a more reasonable speed unless they seemed to be getting away or when they got close enough. I fully understood that tactic since we'd been moving extremely fast and the drain I experienced wasn't small, so a creature with far less stamina than I did would never be able to keep it sustained, even if they didn't have an extra amount of weight they were dealing with as well. If I had to wager a guess, we had been going around 80 miles per hour(128 Kmh) and while in Velen's world that might be considered about average transport speed, it was stupidly fast for this world, the max a person could travel a day without magic was around 120 miles(190 Km) if conditions were perfect.

I didn't know what a sustainable speed was for me and Steria, but if I had a decent store of the bodily fluids of others, I could feasibly maintain the drain from Steria's sprint, though that would be a last resort as there was no good reason to go so fast when I had undead horses that could move 24 hours a day without rest, food, or water, allowing us to cross vast distances much quicker and without tiring anyone out.

I planned to do some more practice with Steria later, but the sun was soon to reach its peak so I glanced at Arya as I sat up. I'd assumed we'd be out here for a while so I'd made sure to pack the silken blanket which I was now able to lay out before I looked over to Steria who was puzzled about what was happening. While I didn't really care if she watched and I was sure Arya didn't really care either, I didn't know how Steria would view our cultivation, so I put it bluntly. "Arya and I are going to have sex, not just for pleasure, but cultivation of our mana control techniques, it's up to you if you want to stick around or find something else to do."

I could feel Steria's enlightenment about what was happening as her confusion dissipated. "Sexual cultivation that is beneficial to both of you? What a rare technique, I'll watch as I'm quite interested in its efficiency, not that I could help with that. If only you could communicate with a fragment of Rokasut too, she'd probably be able to provide tips, or other methods of improving it."

I was somewhat surprised to learn that there were other sexual cultivation methods, especially ones that seemed to be detrimental for one of the partners, but I already knew the universe was much larger than even the most learned from Velen's world so I should have expected as much. Regardless, if Steria wanted to inspect the Universal Yin-Yang Revolution we practiced, I wasn't going to stop her, and neither was Arya as evidenced by the fact that she had already begun to undress while I had been addressing Steria.