Jack and I locked eyes as I pumped myself into her. We both moved. Keeping a tempo that ran at opposite ends to increase the impact of our interaction. She moved down, and I moved up and the force of our joining was multiplied. Jack's lips pressed against mine, and my tongue invaded her mouth intertwining with her tongue in a wrestling match for the ages. My hands toyed with Jack’s puffy, pale, brownish-pink nipples. Gently tugging on her breasts as gravity and momentum tossed her deliciously full breasts about.

As mentioned prior, the Tree of Passionate Verdance was a well-respected sect known for a great number of things. Ranging from providing a large portion of the middle-realm’s spiritual-energy enriched produce, and alchemical medicines, to protecting the realm from deranged-spirits and powerful monsters. One slightly less “respectable” thing that the Tree of Passionate Verdance was known for, was the fact that dual-cultivation techniques, primarily of the sexual variety, were a cornerstone of the Tree of Passionate Verdance. In fact, it was a big part of where the “passionate”-ness in their name came from.

Jack and I learned this during a little trip to the sect’s archive. Technically, we kind of already knew that the sect had a licentious reputation before then, but since my data-sampling didn’t pick up anything too awful about the whole situation, we didn’t look deeper into the matter until then. Now I was kind of regretting it because, then we would have discovered sooner that dual cultivation was perhaps the only kind of cultivation that I could actively do and get anything out of it. Even if all I got was an increase in my potential generation and the occasional free talent point.

Needless to say, Jack and I were sleeping together a whole lot more often. I mean it took basically no time for me to find and develop the perfect sexual-cultivation technique for the two of us with my [Tale of the Cultivator] and my [Tale of the Arcanist] and my new surprisingly non-redundant [Tale of the Occultist]. Honestly, I didn’t think we could spend “more” time fucking but somehow we managed and it was working out well for both of us.

Apparently, my physique made for an excellent source of supplemental energy, that allowed Jack to refine her own physique while converting the energy we were generating during our sexual congress into yin to aid her cultivation. Doing this enough came with the pleasant surprise of unlocking the [Tale of the Lovers] in my Idle-Clicker system. It was another one of those vague, higher-leveled, tales, like the [Tale of the Fool], the [Tale of the Devil], and the [Tale of the World].

The one benefit I’d been able to find from this particular story was that my sexual technique seemed to be getting better, and the benefits seemed to be increasing the more I studied the story. Naturally, that meant that a lot of the talent points I was getting from me and Jack boinking was going to the [Tale of the Lovers]. It was one of those investments that I could see quickly bringing me returns.

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Jack and I stood in an empty field, while a bunch of 12 to 14-year-olds scattered around us. The kids were our juniors. A bunch of young outer-circle and inner-circle disciples were currently forming little groups, and setting off into the plains that were standing in, to go hunt the beasts that lived there. Jack and I extended our spiritual senses out across a distance of 50,000 miles so we’d be aware if anything went wrong.

Occasionally, something ‘would’ go wrong, then we’d have to make a judgment call about whether it was the kind of problem that the brats could handle, either barely winning the fight, or being forced to flee. If it wasn’t the kind of problem that the brats could handle, then either Jack or I would act. Either Jack would strike with a bolt of shadow, or I would send out a stroke of kinetic force from the axe that I’d taken to carrying lately.

Jack and I were Junior-Elders of the Tree of Passionate Verdance. As Elders, we were above the brutally competitive rat-race that the disciples, and outer-members, of the TPV sect had to run. Yet, there were still sect politics to worry about. Though we’d thankfully avoided getting entangled in that thus far, and aimed to avoid that mess altogether by becoming so uproariously strong that we became non-fuckwithable. Less avoidable were our sect duties. Though we no longer had to do all the little missions, jobs, and tasks that the sects disciples toiled over, we elders had our duties, tasks, and responsibilities.

We Elders were expected to lead, guide, and teach the younger generation. Which in practical terms meant that most shepherding and chaperoning tasks went to us. Especially us junior-elders. We also generally had to help out with tutorship and teaching. Though thankfully, those second kinds of jobs could be avoided by taking on powerful beasts and monsters.

It wasn’t all bad. We, Elders, were generally given a great amount of latitude in choosing exactly what jobs we did. Unlike the outer-elders, who were often only elders by virtue of seniority. Junior-Elders were elders by virtue of strength, and for the sake of keeping the talent happy, the sect wasn’t too demanding in its expectations for us. Carefully choosing not to overburden us.

As a result, Jack and I were often able to work together, so long as we wanted. Often simply choosing the same task, would get the job done. Other times, we might need to make a special request to work on the same team, but it would almost always be accepted because it’s not like the sect gets anything out of interfering with the way we worked.

As to why we insisted on working with one another. The two of us turned out to be quite “shy”. I’d already known I was a bit of an extreme introvert, that’s why Jack did most of the talking for us. I find it hard to talk to people that I’d never talked to before, and that kind of turned into a thing where I didn’t talk to anyone unless I had to.

However, I had recently discovered that Jack was also a bit introverted herself. I’ve no clue how I didn’t notice this before. She'd put up a front. Becoming the consummate icy, haughty, beauty, whenever we were around strangers and we were doing something that might force us to speak. It was actually a little bit amazing, and or, hilarious. Like a slow breeze would appear from fucking nowhere, sometimes the lighting would seem to change. It was this weird trick of avoiding attention by drawing attention that worked weirdly well, because it drew an invisible line in the sand, and made her a fair bit more intimidating to interact with casually.

Looking back, it kind of made sense that I wouldn’t have noticed. Even if she was a bit stand-offish, Jack was still a social butterfly compared to me, since she could at least fake being social when she had to. We’d only made friends with Sigi and Alina, because circumstances sort of forced us to. Then we spent 6 to 7 years by ourselves in the wilderness.

Between that, and her earlier childhood, as the household pariah, the woman had never really learned to make connections like a normal person.

Maybe this wasn’t the healthiest thing for either of us, but whatever, changing that aspect of ourselves felt like it would be far too much work. Also, there was the not-small issue of trust. We liked working with our new co-workers well enough, but trusting them to watch our backs was another thing altogether. We also had far too many secrets we were hiding, so getting mixed up with a bunch of strangers was kind of a huge deal for the both of us. We were still working towards expanding our social circle, but we were taking our sweet time with the process.