God Of Crafting

"Were you guys preparing for the world war or something?" I asked as I ran my hand through all the clothes in the apartment's wardrobe, quickly noticing quite the number of brands even a complete fashion amateur like me could recognize.

"This is our kingdom," Claire smiled, only to pull out two different dresses before, while still keeping them on their hangers, pressing one of them against her front, giving me a look, and waiting for a moment before switching her hands and pressing the other dress against herself instead.

"Second one, for sure. But that's only if you want to walk around at home. Otherwise, for the sake of saving me from jealousy, the first one," I quickly answered the unspoken question, only to see Claire's lips curve up in a lovely smile as she ostentatiously grabbed the much sexier but also much more revealing of the two dresses she picked seemingly at random before stuffing it into one of the bags that were already prepared in the room.

"We will be wearing official robes whenever outside of our private quarters, so…" Claire leaned her head over her shoulder while putting on the best poker face she could muster, "look forward to it?"

For a moment, I simply stared at Claire's expressionless face…

Only for both of us to suddenly start laughing.

"At this point, just you telling me to look forward to something is enough to get me going," I admitted through my laugh while wiping the small tears of joy that formed in the corners of my eyes. "But we don't really have the time for it now, so, if you could spare me the beauty I cannot responsibly hold…"

I changed my expression, playing it out as if I were outright begging the girl to spare me the temptation.

"Won't we have all the time in the world while in transit?" Claire asked with a small hint of surprise on her face, while failing to follow through in any of the ways I expected her to.

"Wait, you mean to do it while on a plane?" I raised my eyebrows in turn, shocked by just how daring my cute little Claire could be. "I mean, it would be one thing if we rented a huge one, but doing it in a small, private plane?"

The hesitation in my soul grew to the point it started to cut through the barrier between the world of ego and the world of materia as it started to show directly on my face.

"Huh?" Claire jumped a little, only for the handful of clothes she gathered on her left arm to slip off it and fall to the ground. "We are not taking the plane, though?"

Once again, my eyebrows moved as far up my forehead as was physically possible.

"Isn't the spiritual world pretty far away? Wait, no, how else are we going to get there if there are no roads that a car could traverse?"

Even though the clan's city was located in the no-man's-land between the two superpowers, it was well within the zone directly influenced by the modern world. And judging from what I knew… it would be much easier to reach one of the seven major cities of the modern world than to actually reach the border of the spiritual realm!

All of that, I thought we could overcome by simply using a plane. But now that I'd learned that wasn't the case…

"There's a powerful barrier of many, many tens if not thousands of arrays buried all along the spiritual world border. And while some say it serves to contain the spiritual Qi from seeping into the modern world and thus away from the spiritual one, its actual aim is quite different," Claire suddenly changed the topic, her face growing serious enough for me to drop everything I was doing and sit down with her on the edge of the apartment's bed, fully focusing on her story rather than something as silly as just packing up.

"Ever since the great disaster of the reformation era, the cultivators were at a great advantage over mortals. It was only due to their desire to do things slowly but steadily that we are in this state of quasi-cold-war right now," Claire started to explain. "They wanted to take their time conquering the world, never going on the attack until they fully controlled and pacified their last conquest. But that gave the mortals all the time they needed to develop stronger and stronger weapons."

That part of the history I knew. It was a major module in the basic history course both in primary and middle school, after all!

"Starting with the first repetitive firearms, this balance of… unbalanced powers started to change. By the time automatic guns came into play, neither of the two worlds could afford to attack the other, given the losses both sides would suffer from doing so," Claire continued to explain, all the while her mood visibly sank into the abyss.

"The situation flipped in favor of the mortals the moment they created the first atomic bomb," Claire stated the obvious. "Cultivator or not, if you are within the blast radius, you are gone. And so, as this discovery led to the rapid cooling and outright degradation of the relations between the members of each side, the cultivators made a concentrated effort to protect their realm. And that's how the barrier came to be," Claire concluded, only to then spread and shake her arms.

"But how is it…"

"As far as I'm aware, the function of this outer barrier is extremely simple and limited. All it does is limit the speed at which objects can travel through it. If you go too fast, it uses your own energy to stop you. Only by going through it while keeping your speed below the threshold of its activation can you pass safely through."

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"So that's why planes are a no-go," I muttered under my nose, genuinely interested in the details of Claire's story and actively trying to engage her. "I mean, rockets and drones are out too," I added as I realized the full idea behind the barrier.

It wasn't there to stop people from moving.

No, that task normal cultivators were more than enough to complete.

No, the only purpose of that barrier was to stop the greatest weapon of the modern world from ever deploying in their ancient sanctum. And by stopping all kinds of drivers that could carry the bombs over, the spiritual world pretty much eliminated the risk of ever being on the receiving end of it!

"But that leaves us with a question that I posed before," I pointed out, only to lean back while locking my eyes on the girl. "How do we get there, then?" I asked, only to then smile a little, "and get there in a way that allows some coitus to boot…"

Hearing this, Claire actually smiled, only to then lean back, strike my chest with her back, and send us both down onto the cushions.

"It's simple," Claire grinned as she leaned her head over before pushing it forward a bit and gracing my lips with a quick peck. "We will use a bus-glider, hence why the journey is scheduled to last for over eleven hours."

She quickly followed that statement with a wild grin.

"And once again, you better be ready to keep up!"

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