Rise of the Harem King

After slaughtering every last monster in the area, Davi got to work as usual, purifying the creatures' blood.

Ange, his only companion on this dungeon expedition, also began her own task, carefully analyzing the samples he provided.

Normally, a team like theirs would have several bodyguards assigned to protect the researchers. But with the recent spike in monster appearances across the dungeon, Enki's manpower was stretched dangerously thin.

Even so, no one considered it a risk, Davi alone was more than enough to handle anything that roamed the current floor. He had gotten really strong recently.

That was how he and his professor had ended up spending five relentless days deep inside the dungeon, working without pause.

Every now and then, a distant roar echoed through the tunnels, but it was never close enough to worry them.

The artificial blood Ange had been working on was finally functioning as intended. Back in Enki, Wain was already testing whether this synthetic fluid could be used to create his long-theorized coreless monster.

Originally, Davi had no intention of letting Wain progress too far with his research, the man was far from trustworthy.

But with the looming calamity drawing closer each day, they couldn't afford to be picky. Every possible source of power had to be explored, no matter the risks.

If the research progressed as expected, they could create an army of extremely powerful monsters. Or maybe even modified humans, but this would be left as a least resource.

Besides, he felt Wein's spirit had been broken after being thrown in jail, it didn't seem like he would try anything fun.

Of course, Davi wouldn't let the man have much freedom either way, Morrigan had arranged things so Wein would always be under vigilance. And other professors got involved in the project, so he couldn't really conspire against Davi.

Now about what Davi and Ange were trying to do, it was simply a mana potion.

Ange had successfully been able to take the blood of a very powerful monster, filtered away undesired things and changed the fluid with mana. In theory, injecting it in your blood vessels could regenerate the mana instantaneously.

Not just that, she mixed in the blood of a Dicto, a monstrous creature, who could regenerate itself. She found out Dicto could regenerate because of a special property of their blood that activated with mana.

By removing all the unnecessary biological cells, she was finally able to create a fluid that was basically inert, but was filled with mana and had regenerative powers..

It was all fantastic, she even tested the potion on a monster and it actually worked, but in humans things were a little bit harder.

At first, the results had been… catastrophic. The moment the modified blood entered a human body, it was like forcing two opposing elements to occupy the same space.

Ange found out the hard way just how different the mana types of humans and monsters were. Even a very small dose caused a mana backlash, leading to organ failure and violent spasms.

The problem was simple in theory but devastating in practice: human mana and monster mana were fundamentally different.

The breakthrough came when Ange began studying a rare monster that could mimic human form and powers, by converting its own monster mana into a near-perfect human equivalent.

By dissecting its mana conversion process, she found a way to "translate" the artificial blood's mana before it reached the host's circulatory system.

With that, the lethal side effects were eliminated.

However, another problem remained: even if the mana was now perfectly compatible, humans simply couldn't absorb much of it.

Human's blood was, in Ange's words, 'an embarrassingly poor conductor of mana'. Most of the injected energy dissipated before it could be put to use.

To solve it, they began focusing on a second monster species, one whose blood naturally stored and circulated mana in massive quantities.

If they could adapt that property to humans, it wouldn't just make the potion viable, it could fundamentally change the limits of human mana capacity.

Then they would be able to create the most powerful mana potion ever.

"Okay, we did enough for today," Ange said with a happy smile, even that crazy girl got tired of working at some point. "Let's go back to our base."

"Yes," Davi agreed.

So they went up to a small wood structure they had done to work as their sleeping space.

It sat tucked against the wall of a wide cavern, half-hidden behind a curtain of thick moss that disguised it from wandering monsters.

Inside, the space was barely large enough for two bedrolls and a small folding table. The "kitchen" consisted of a single portable stove and a pan.

〇〇〇

After staying up all night slaying monsters, Davi collapsed into bed, barely scraping together a few hours of sleep before the sound of Ange moving around yanked him back to consciousness.

His brain was still drowning in fog, his body moving on autopilot as he stumbled out of bed like a sleep-deprived zombie.

And then he saw her.

Ange stood at the stove, wearing nothing but a thin tank top and a pair of panties that did nothing to hide her plump, perfect ass. It was like a gravitational force, pulling his half-awake attention straight to it.

His sleep-addled mind short-circuited, just for a second, and in that glorious, disastrous moment, he forgot he wasn't at Sophia's house anymore.

He had been so long used to react in a way whenever he saw a sexy ass, and he reacted in the exact same way:

Smack.

His hand moved on instinct, landing a firm, appreciative slap on Ange's backside. The sound echoed through the kitchen like a gunshot.

Ange froze, the spatula in her hand hovered mid-flip. Davi's brain finally rebooted, and he realized what he had just done,

"Eh…" Ange blushed profusely looking at Davi without knowing how to answer.

Fuck, what a way to begin the day… He thought.