"It's a good thing you aren't pregnant."

Katie gave Nathan an unamused look.

"What?" He asked. "That punched you in the stomach. What if you were pregnant? You might have lost the baby, then. So it's a good thing you weren't pregnant."

"You're ridiculous sometimes," Katie looked at her fifth kill of the day. "You woke up early today."

"Food supply day," Nathan grumbled. "Ichtvar woke me up asking me to place a bet on where I thought the food would be."

"That explains why he was avoiding you after bringing the food in."

"I promised to shoot him."

"I don't blame you," she snorted.

"Think you're done fighting for today?" He asked.

"Yeah," she nodded.

"Showers, then lunch, or lunch, then showers?"

Katie looked at her clothes and fists, then at Nathan.

"Showers," she answered. "Then lunch."

"Good choice," he said, and they made their way to the shower rooms. "Want me to wash you today?"

He watched as she began to undress in the changing rooms, his question left unanswered at first.

Ever since her awakening, Katie had yet to allow Nathan to wash her again, her body still sensitive as she continued to adjust to it. They were fifteen days into their second run, and she still refused every time because she still wasn't sure she could handle the stimulation.

Which is why her response stunned Nathan.

"Only if it leads to more," she told him as they entered the changing room sin front of the showers.

"Are you talking about sex?" He asked as he began to undress.

"I am," her face reddened. "I didn't know how else to say that, and then that just came out as I tried to think of something."

"Okay," Nathan said. "Are you sure you want to have sex? You aren't just saying this because I've been asking you and you know I want to sleep with you?"

"I'm ready," she told him. "I've gotten to know you better, Nathan, and I know that it'll still be weeks away before I'm ready enough for you to wash me again if we aren't having sex, and I'd really like to feel your hands on me once more. I kind of missed it."

"Then let's hurry up and finish undressing," Nathan quickly stripped down.

Katie did the same and they entered the showers to wash the blood off of her. Nathan carefully, but sensually, scrubbed her body, making sure to fondle her breasts and pleasure her nethers. Katie shuddered in pleasure at his touch, moaning heavily with his ministrations.

After he cleaned the blood off of her, Nathan nuzzled her neck, pulling her against him from behind as he bent her forward.

"Ooh!" Katie exclaimed as he penetrated her.

Nathan began fucking Katie, doing his best to tune out her louder moans. As he thrust in her, his hands wandered around her stomach, breasts, and chest as he savored the feel of her soft flesh. When he climaxed, he stayed inside of her for a few moments, then pulled out and began scrubbing himself down.

"That was… not what I expected," Katie told Nathan, turning around and sliding down the shower wall so that she was sitting facing him.

"You were noisy," he told her, and she stared at him in shock.

"What?"

"I don't like it when it's noisy during sex," he told her. "You were really noisy."

"I'll… try not to be, next time?" She offered. "That was far, far different from the last time I had sex."

"Probably because you were willing, I gave you some foreplay, and your senses are awakened."

Katie stared at Nathan, her high from her orgasm quickly fading at his tone and words.

"You really know how to kill a good feeling, don't you?" She asked.

"That wasn't my intention," he finished scrubbing himself down, then rinsed off. "I was just stating the facts in response to what you said. When trying to be quieter during sex, try to turn your moans into exhales instead. There will still be some noise, but it won't be as much."

"I'll keep that in mind," she said as he finished rinsing off.

"Want to practice it now?" He asked. "There are a few other positions we can do in here, too."

Thirty minutes later, Nathan and Katie returned to the cafeteria, where Keith was working on one of their projects. Nathan sat beside him as Katie sat at another table and began reading. She had tried learning enchanting, but couldn't keep up with the two enchanting geniuses, and didn't want to interfere with their work.

As she did that, Nathan began examining the progress Keith had made.

"Katie and I are now having sex," he told the psychic. "But don't worry, you can still give me blowjobs."

Keith gave him an incredulous look.

"I haven't been in the first place," Keith said. "And you don't like blowjobs. You established that a long time ago."

"It's okay," Nathan patted Keith on the back. "You can still fantasize about giving me blowjobs."

"…you're just doing this to see if Katie's paying attention, aren't you?"

"I am."

"You know I can erect a privacy barrier, right?" Keith asked, glancing to their comrade.

"Oh, right," Nathan said, and Keith snorted, then erected the barrier.

"What did you want to talk about?" Keith asked. "And congratulations, I guess?"

"Thanks."

"So?" Keith asked. "What did you want to discuss?"

"The island."

"What about it?" Keith asked as Nathan set down the crystal and pulled out a box of Legos. "Nathan…"

"How feasible is it to make that Point Zero?"

"For the-" Keith began, then frowned. "It wouldn't be easy, especially as it would be moving. That's why we wanted it underground."

"But if our estimations are correct," Nathan opened up the box and began pulling out the bags of pieces. "Then we'd need to add some pretty potent wards to it. We'd need to enchant the chamber heavily, beyond what we'd have to for the island."

"With the island moving around," Keith told him. "It would require a fuckton of other things. Additional research and resources put into it. And we'd only really be able to do that study here, where we know we'll be watched."

Nathan opened up the packages and began to assemble the kit as he thought it over.

"Is that really a bad thing?" He asked as he flipped the page of the instruction booklet. "It's not like they wouldn't figure it out, and with the Soul Engine backing them, they'd be able to punch through. Its purpose is for after I die."

"Right," Keith sighed. "And we still need that soul mage, too."

"A powerful necromancer," Nathan said. "Who is also of a forged soul. That way, we can tie it into my death as one of its possible triggers. Since I'm dying after we destroy the Soul Engine, it won't matter if our overlords know what we're doing."

"Alright," Keith said. "But we're not researching that while others are with us. At all. We have to minimize chances that anyone not our overlords finds out about it."

Nathan agreed on that. They had discussed things while Katie was in the cafeteria and they weren't, and had come to the conclusion that if Nathan destroyed the Soul Engine, it would destabilize the universe. That theory came from what happened when they set off the bomb in the gym their last run, and from them being evicted from the run a few minutes early because the dimension destabilized.

While neither were completely sure what would happen if an actual dimension was destroyed – which is what it would take to destroy the Soul Engine – both knew it might affect the rest of the universe. If the effects became negative, then it was likely that the universe's citizens would seek out the source of that.

And they would find it on Earth.

Because of that, Nathan and Keith wanted to create a form of shield around Earth, sealing off the passageways in and out and preventing new ones from being forced open. An enchantment similar to the one which protected the dimension housing the Soul Engine. The enchantment would have two triggers for it, the first being a manual trigger, the second being Nathan's death. The first trigger would be so that Nathan or Keith could turn it on if they became aware of a threat to Earth from outside, the second would be in case someone from outside – or inside – Earth managed to kill Nathan.

Whoever did that would also hunt down anyone else part of the project, and possibly his son as well. While the pair of teens couldn't be too sure, they suspected the universe would instantly force anyone on Earth who didn't belong off of Earth as soon as the enchantment turned live.

Their main issue with the enchantment was powering it. Even the mana orbs had their limits, and the enchantment would require several of them. It would also require them to succeed in raising the limit of how much mana could be drawn out at once.

"The main problem with researching it," Nathan said. "Is that it's virtually impossible in here, yet this is the only place we can really research it."

"We can do bits and pieces here," Keith told Nathan. "Other bits outside. Don't forget the government will be supplying us with a fair bit of what we want, too, and we'll be able to acquire more from elsewhere."

"Yeah," Nathan rubbed his temples. "By the way, do you think Katie figured out what we're working on right now yet?"

"No," Keith snorted. "If she did, she'd probably kick up a fuss. Samantha's probably in the minority of women who'd not have an issue with it."

Nathan looked at the orb Keith was enchanting, thinking that Samantha would probably want to use it, herself.

"Shouldn't that be 'define', not 'defined'?" He asked.

"I did 'defined' because I thought it might work better," Keith told him. "If it fails, we can probably adjust it to 'define' and see if that works. Don't worry, I'm taking meticulous notes on what I'm doing."

"Okay," Nathan indicated another section of the enchantment. "I thought we agreed to nix that?"

"We did," Keith said. "But then I realized we needed something similar there. That's a placeholder until I can figure out a better sequence."

"What do we need that section for?" Nathan asked. "It's just about defining colors. Also, you used 'define' there instead of 'defined'."

"The actual formula won't have a section for defining colors," Keith told him. "That's actually going to read colors, but defining colors was similar enough to work."

"Read colors?" Nathan asked, then realized the purpose. "Ah."

"Yeah," Keith nodded. "Actually, I'm nearly finished with the enchantment. Want me to try it?"

"We're still on the orb version," Nathan glanced at Katie, who was absorbed into her book. He looked back to Keith. "How will it display the results?"

"It should display it in a sequence in the orb," Keith told him. "Much like it does when I use my scrying orb."

"Okay," Nathan said. "Let me know when you've finished. We can test it on both of us."

"Will do," Keith said, and they returned to work.

A few times, Keith interrupted Nathan to ask for his input, or Nathan stopped to make a comment about Keith's choices, and an hour later, Keith declared it ready for testing.

"If this works properly," Keith told him. "We can move on to condensing it down to a card version."

"Yeah," Nathan glanced at Katie. "Let's test it in another room."

"Katie," Keith stood and called out to her, and she looked up from her book. He held up the orb. "Nathan and I are taking this to another room to test, we should be back in a bit, but stay here."

"You two forgot to eat lunch," she said.

"We didn't forget," Nathan picked up an empty package off the table. "We snacked on crackers, gummies, and other stuff. I'm making an early dinner. You should know this by now."

Katie sighed, but nodded, and the two enchanters left, making their way to another section of school.

In a classroom Keith had painted enchantments on to prevent monsters from spawning in, the psychic stripped naked and Nathan pulled out a storage card. From that, he removed a measuring strip, a pad, and a pencil, then began taking Keith's measurements, making sure to miss nothing, not even the smallest of measurements. There were the normal sizes, such as leg height, arm length, chest, and such, but he also took more finer details, such as the sizes of Keith's eyes and irises, nostrils, nose, mouth, ears, and more. Each measurement he took, he noted down in his notebook, making sure to include what he had measured. He worked in a specific order, so that his notes would match up with the displayed results in the same order.

When he finished, he held the orb forward, and Keith touched it. Nathan pushed his magic into it to activate the orb, and a string of numbers appeared inside, wrapping around into several layers.

"Argh!" Keith exclaimed. "Seriously? I thought I sorted that! We can do you after I fix that, Nathan."

"I want to get measured now."

"You just want to make sure your dick is still bigger than mine," Keith said. "And it is, considering mine hasn't grown since I measured it in the Tutorial. We can retry the enchantment after you make dinner. I'll work on fixing it doing a string rather than listing while you do that. It didn't even list what each measurement is for."

"What is it measuring in?" Nathan asked.

"It's supposed to be the Imperial system," Keith told him. "But it looks like random gibberish to me."

"Hm," Nathan thought for a few moments, then called Ichtvar to the room. When the phoenix arrived, he indicated the orb. "Do you recognize those runes?"

"I'm more interested in why you're a room with a naked Keith," Ichtvar said. "Are you two getting it on in here?"

"This is the measuring orb," Nathan held up the orb. "It measures the sizes of the person who touches it. We had to take down all of Keith's measurements to make sure it's accurate. If it's accurate for both of us, then we can move on to condensing it to a card. If Samantha were here, we'd use her a guinea pig, but we have Katie. She'd have an issue with it. So we were using Keith. He just didn't get dressed again after I summoned you."

Keith began dressing as Ichtvar examined the orb.

"I'd say that's the First Language," Ichtvar said, and the enchanters stared at him. "The First Language, also known as the Language of Magic, is the first language to exist within a universe. It exists even before life did, and is the defining point of all magic. I actually only suspect it, because I only recognize one of the runes. However, if you're using magic to discern sizes, then it makes sense it would respond in magic."

"But our measurements for someone's natural mana doesn't," Keith said as he resumed dressing.

"That's because you've defined the values in the enchantment," Ichtvar told him. "You regularly tested it and adjusted it, telling it what to respond with, and so the enchantment has a set list of definitions to use and respond with. Here, you didn't give it that. You probably did teach it to measure, so it might actually be giving you the appropriate responses, but the enchantment doesn't know English, doesn't know Arabic numerals, so it's not displaying them."

"That makes sense," Keith sighed. "Okay, so we need to sort that out, too. Would you be able to help me sort that out while Nathan cooks?"

"I can try," Ichtvar responded. "But I've never tried doing an enchantment like that before, nor have I seen one like that before. I also don't know the First Language."

"Thanks," Keith said.

"I have a question, though," Icthvar said. "Why are you two making an enchantment which can register, read, and display someone's measurements?"

"Once we do that," Nathan said. "We can then strip away the unnecessary parts of it, modify it a little into a device, and then sell the readers to clothing stores, which would decrease the time needed to fit someone properly to the outfit. They can use the reader in an instant, rather than taking however long it normally takes to measure someone out."

Ichtvar stared at Nathan.

"Also," Nathan said. "Because it might help with fitting uniforms for soldiers, police, et cetera. It can also help with the outfits needed for that world the government farms resources from, since those are custom-made to fit the people."

"Naturally," Keith said. "We'll keep this enchantment secret. A talented enough enchanter will be able to reverse-engineer it once they know it's possible, but that would still probably take a little time, and chances are, someone doing that would probably be doing it for perverted reasons."

"Like noting a woman's sizes," Nathan nodded.