Chapter 151: Knowledge Comes at a Price (R-18)

By the time Max was done, Yennefer was staring at the potion with wide eyes.

She had never heard of anyone increasing a potion’s quality through a process like this.

Max had been controlling multiple arrays at once, using them to burn away impurities, further charge the potion’s healing properties, and combine the effects of each herb more efficiently. Instead of simply letting the ingredients work together naturally, he was actively refining the entire concoction, making it both more stable and more potent.

It was brilliant.

For a moment, Yennefer was so absorbed in what she’d just witnessed that she completely forgot she was still standing there in nothing but her undergarments.

Max, meanwhile, finally stopped working.

A satisfied smile appeared on his face as the various rune arrays gradually stopped glowing one after another.

"It’s done..."

"It’s done?" Yennefer asked in shock, glancing at the red, glowing liquid inside the cauldron. "Already?"

Max nodded.

"Just needs to settle down a bit before we can bottle it up..." he said, taking a seat with a relaxed sigh.

He glanced over at her, then grinned.

"So, did you learn anything?"

As he spoke, his hand casually reached toward her and gave her butt a quick, shameless squeeze.

She hadn’t.

Max had been moving so quickly that she’d spent most of the process simply trying to keep up with what he was doing. By the time she’d managed to understand one part, he’d already moved on to the next.

It wasn’t as though he had been properly explaining anything to her either. He’d been too busy working, leaving her to figure out what she could from watching him.

Still, she had picked up one interesting thing about mana control.

With enough skill, mana itself could apparently be used to perform far more complicated tasks without necessarily needing a rune for every single function. Better mana control meant more direct manipulation, allowing a mage to accomplish things that would normally require additional magical formations.

Of course, runes were still the main attraction of magic in this world. They provided far more possibilities and were something Yennefer would much rather understand first.

She shook her head.

"I couldn’t make out much. You were doing it way too fast..."

As Max continued casually fondling her butt, he said, "You can stay if you wanna see some more. I’m gonna make another batch in a little while..."

"You can still make more?" Yennefer asked, clearly surprised.

She had assumed Max had used up most of his mana making just this batch, especially after seeing how much he had been doing throughout the entire process.

Max simply nodded, completely nonchalant as he got up and started filling the finished potion into vials.

"I can make them all day if I’m in the mood—or if there’s some emergency, like last night..."

"And if you stay the night, I might as well make them all night too..." Max said.

He’d been awake since the previous morning, and it was already noon on the second day, yet he was still talking as though staying up all night was perfectly reasonable.

"I’m fine just watching one more time..." Yennefer said as she started picking up her clothes.

She glanced down at herself before muttering, "I don’t wanna stand half-naked all day..."

"Then how about being fully naked for an hour in exchange...?" Max said.

He finished filling the bottle and walked toward her, slipping his hands around her waist from behind and pulling her a little closer.

She didn’t stop him. Instead, she simply asked, "Then you teach me how to make the potions?"

Max looked amused as he slowly pulled her panties down from her waist, letting them slide lower before saying,

"I can’t make that promise, but I can teach you the improved recipe for this potion and how to properly follow it... Though, of course, that’s going to take at least a few days to teach you everything."

Saying this, he had curled her panties down until they hung around her thighs, leaving her pubes-covered folds fully in view. Max’s hand moved lower while his other hand went up to squeeze her breasts, drawing a moan from her.

She didn’t know what to do. Part of her wanted to stop him, but another part of her wanted to learn how to make the potion herself—even if she could never make it as well as him, she still wanted to learn from him.

Even if someone was strong and wealthy, that didn’t mean they could easily find someone willing to teach them potion-making. Most potion makers started by figuring things out on their own, and it was quite rare for an experienced potion maker to willingly take another person under their wing.

"Still, you’ll teach me, right?" she asked, unsure whether she should let him move forward.

Every time he did, she ended up with a sore throat afterward, and the soreness from last night was still there. Yet, despite that, she couldn’t help but salivate at the thought of doing it again.

"Of course I’ll teach you... but this is a different deal from those notes," Max said.

By then, both her breasts were out of her bra, while Max continued touching her as he held her close.

"So, what are you offering in exchange for this?" he asked.

Before she could answer, he added with an amused look, "And it better not be some money thing. You already know I can earn plenty of that on my own."

"Then what do you want?" she asked, frustrated.

He had already made her suck his penis, seen her naked, and even nearly turned her into a pimp with how shamelessly he kept dragging her into his schemes. What the hell did he expect her to do next? Fuck him?

Her patience finally wore thin.

"Fuck me..."

The words came out in a frustrated tone, almost as if she were challenging him to admit that this was what he had wanted all along.

Max’s eyes went wide.

Then his lips curled into an unmistakably pleased grin.

"That’s a tempting offer..." he said.

Almost immediately, as if the System had developed a habit of appearing whenever something remotely interesting happened, a quest window suddenly appeared before his eyes.

Max glanced at it before looking back at her.

"But once won’t be enough if you really want to learn from me..."

Her eyes widened as well. She clearly hadn’t expected him to actually say that.

"You really wanna fuck me?" she asked, pulling herself free from his hands before turning to face him.

Max, meanwhile, had no idea why she looked so shocked.

"Of course..." he said with a shrug, nodding as though it were the most obvious answer in the world. "If there’s something else you can offer, then I’m all for it."

He paused for a moment, then, apparently forgetting that some thoughts were better kept to himself, added with a grin,

"Just imagining you cuming under me, moaning like a bitch while I ram my dick inside you... yeah, I think that could be fun."

The moment the words left his mouth, even Max realized he probably should have kept that part to himself.

That made Yennefer’s shocked expression slowly turn into one of disgust.

There was anger there too, but it wasn’t simply because of what he had said. Part of her was irritated by his shameless confidence, another part was embarrassed that the conversation had even reached this point, and the most annoying part was that she still genuinely wanted what he was offering.

She hated that those three things could exist at the same time.

"Making me cum? Keep on dreaming..." she muttered, forcing herself to calm down before the irritation got the better of her.

She took a breath, looked him directly in the eyes, and decided to stop dancing around the point.

"Let me make sure I understand the deal," she said. "If I have sex with you, you’ll actually teach me how to make the potion myself?"

Her tone was reluctant, but there was a practical edge to it now. She wasn’t agreeing just because he had asked. She wanted to know exactly what she was getting in return before she gave him an answer.

"Yeah, I will. But I want to make one thing clear again—you’ll have to have sex with me multiple times, not just once," he said.

He paused for a moment before continuing, "How about every time I need something for the whole month? Just like before, when I had you suck it. This time, I get to decide what I want, and you agree to it."

The whole idea sounded horrible to Yennefer. She couldn’t deny that.

Yet, frustratingly, Max had already been doing things like this before, and judging by his attitude, he had no intention of stopping anytime soon. She had already endured his shameless demands and crossed more boundaries with him than she ever would have imagined.

So, as terrible as the thought was, a bitter part of her mind couldn’t help but wonder—what difference would it really make if he found one more place to shove his penis inside her body?