The sudden disappearance of sunlight choked his midday window sightseeing to a stop. He had no recollection of it in the past, and the planetary eclipse gave him a kind of chill that he had never felt before.

It felt like there was something clasping onto his heart.

Artus just couldn’t believe his eyes as he saw it crept from one side to the other. The dark blanket covered the green and blue forest until nothing could be seen. Something sinister inside him whispered that the bright sunlight might never return again.

They had spent two days and nights before the darkness came. Nothing really happened between the three of them other than him getting used to sleeping in between the two pretty girls. He wouldn’t say it was easy, but a correct mindset and the old man's experience had helped a lot.

The girls had been all over him during their sleep, and they didn’t even flinch when waking up entangled with him. The two also didn’t mind where his face and hands had ended up. It felt like sleeping with two rowdy sisters more than anything else.

It was, no doubt, really odd. He imagined something like this could only happen in this world as also the sudden disappearance of the daylight.

The town’s street lamps lit up one by one after a few seconds the town was veiled in abrupt darkness, but it had changed almost nothing. Everything else outside the town was covered in pitch-black ink. It was a disturbing sight.

The distant creepy howls and monstrous roars had only made it worse. He could feel the chilly goosebumps crawling all over his body.

How do people even get used to this?

Even he felt like he would go insane with fear and anxiety.

He could only wish he had a pair of those silver eyes right now.

He didn’t think he would ever need them, but spending on whores to calm his nerves down seemed to be a good idea. He didn’t want to lose control and did something that would betray the girls’ feelings. They had said nothing about it either.

Artus turned around from the window towards the room that was covered in a very dark shade of gray. Figures standing around the room showed up as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light in the room.

He didn't know how to tell them where he was going and maybe he shouldn’t.

“Perfect time to change clothes, right?” Jane chuckled at her own nervous jab.

“Yes,” answered Cindy with a light chuckle. “We need to save on the blackwater, the lamp refill would cost a few bits but every copper counts.”

“The street lights use what for their light, this blackwater too?”

He asked the question that he already knew the answer. Two days roaming around town had taught him a few things about it. The redhouse was one of the few places he had looked around just in case he had needed to use their service, but the fact the build wasn't red at all had surprised him.

“Those use mana crystals farmed from the dungeon,” said Jane as she stared at him suspiciously. “The things are a lot more expensive,” she added.

He walked towards the door after the short chat aimed to distract them.

“Where are you going?” asked Jane while holding a towel in front of her chest, eyes locked on to him.

“I rather not say,” he said as he stopped. His stomach crumpled.

She let the towel go as she clung to him. Her body shook.

No one is not scared by the sudden darkness. What they could do was distract themselves.

“Please don’t leave,” Jane begged.

“We might be not as pretty but you can have us,” Cindy said as she also approached him.

“We are just afraid to do it alone, you know,” Jane said as her lips inched closer.

“Are you sure about this?”

“It’s nothing personal, but your warmth will still calm us down too,” said Cindy.

“Just fuck us already,” whispered Jane.

He grabbed them both by the waist and warmed them up with kisses. They squirmed in excitement as he carried them to the bed. All their fears were forgotten.

Fingering two naive girls while they fought over his attention was something really invigorating. Add the skill with the lip service, he got them wet enough and their bodies wanting something more in no time at all.

He manhandled Cindy and slid himself into her slippery tightness. Cindy cried into her palm while the other clawed his back. Jane was right beside her as he worked Cindy up until she went limp.

Watching her girlfriend cum from a dicking had Jane drenched in lust for something more savage. He turned Jane around onto Cindy before he plunged into her drenched depth from her back.

The lewd cries and moans of two girls had driven him into overtime as he ravaged both of them. He had been bottling it up during the cuddling.

And it was they who had opened that bottle.

-

If Nusia hadn’t told him the fact about human bodies in this world, he would have panicked right about now. Anyone would have panicked when he woke up with two girls in his hands recalling the raw intercourses they just had.

Anyone as inexperienced as him, at least. This kind of thing had never happened to him before. It took him a lot more work to avoid the maidens to have a traumatic first time, but it was worth it. Their pained faces were brief and that was enough for him.

But to be honest, these two couldn’t even be compared with the curvy girl with her lush green hair. Artus could tell that he only had a short nap and he was ready for more. The girls, however, weren't even responding to his kisses and massages.

They are exhausted.

After a sigh, he decided to incorporate an idea he had into the only spell he had in hand. Being well-prepared would save his ass as even the tall walls didn’t make him feel safe.

He got off the bed and sat on the wood floor leaning to bed. Calling up his status showed the small improvements he had made.

[Name: Artus]
[Age: 17]
[Essence: 3]
[Status: Awakened (+28 Spirit)]

[Attributes]
[Body: 13]
[Mind: 8]
[Spirit: 31]
[Health Pool: 10/10]
[Mana Pool: 19/19]

[Affinity: Aether 17%]
[Core: Level 1 - Skill Slot 1 - Arcane Shell]

[Other Skills - Axe Handling, Chop, Lady Killer.]

After a quick activation, the shell reappeared. The skill slot was used for a quick spell or skill, he had deducted that after a few usages. There was no need for him to draw the spell before activating the spell. He had to choose wisely when he got more of them as it also determined the class he would get.

The sphere that appeared around him behaved like a bubble as it was transcribed in the matrix of the spell. The spell had seemed to take the image of a ‘bubble’ inside his head because there were small differences with every activation.

He decided to test something and it became obvious when it changed color based on what image he had inside his mind. The pink shell had confirmed this theory. If he hadn’t given it a clear image, the spell would even fail.

But calling what appeared as a shell had been misleading at best. The bubble was unstable as the only number included in the spell was its size, but it got him asking.

What if he incorporated a math formula? What if he used math to represent the surface of the shield? Would it stabilize the shield?

He should use the formula for the surface area of a sphere, or half-sphere, in this case, to replace the only number in the spell. That means two multiply by pi, and by the radius that he wanted to be powered by two.

The most accurate pi he recalled was 355/113 and the radius should be more than his height, and three meters should give enough headspace. Like any experienced coder, he separated the variable from the formula. This way he could adjust how big the shield could cover on the fly.

He triple checked the code to make sure everything was connected properly. He didn’t know the ‘programming language’ of a magic spell in detail yet, and so he could only do this much.

After a few hesitations, with sweaty hands, he activated the new spell matrix.

The result astounded him. It left him staring for a few seconds.

What had been a wobbling bubble turned into a steady thin layer of a sphere surrounding him. He could cover the ground too by adding another formula, but that wasn’t that important right now.

What was important is, his theory was right all along. The Mana couldn’t take proper form with only vague descriptions. An image from the [Mind] could only do so much.

The only reason why the basic spell was so weak was because of the lack of knowledge on how to develop the mathematical representation for the surface of objects. Math hadn’t improved much in this magical world, and it made perfect sense when he thought about it.

Who needed math if they had magic?

Not only that but over-reliant on the Elements might also contribute to this lack of development in the said subject. He also suspected that even science had become stunted when people were more interested in learning and developing magic.

Adding all situations, the monsters, the long nights, and the long winter, it was clear why these people were stuck in the middle ages. No development in math had only made civilization wide progression much slower.

Little that everyone here knew that the same magic could be guided by math and maybe even science. He was able to deviate Nusia’s spear thrust by spinning the weak bubble at ridiculous speed, but that would definitely improve with this new development.

But he feels it won’t be enough. Artus wanted to go further than this so he could secure his safety as he had no plot armor. He added one more thing to the spell matrix. The word hardness in the runic alien language and its value.

The hardness of material could only be measured and so it didn’t have a general formula that he had knowledge off. He wasn’t a rocket scientist back in the old world but he knew his science and math quite enough.

Hardness zero gave the shell no resistance at all when he tested it and from there he had only to increase the number. One hundred was the biggest number he could enter as entering more than that had caused the spell to fail for some reason.

Like a buggy program, the shell had just refused to show up no matter how many times he had tried. He had also tested the hardness without the hemisphere surface formula, and the result was as he had expected.

Without the formula, the shell wouldn’t be stable enough to demonstrate the hardness coded into the spell. The bubble shell became brittle and broke like glass when he applied a little pressure. It made some sense as even metal would break if it was that thin and wobbly.

His guts were telling him the combination of three new additions would be more than enough deflect more than just arrows. Maybe even swords.

Testing it would be crucial so he would know its limits. The weapon the girls had brought along would be an excellent benchmark tool.

He had almost screamed in joy when the crossbow bolt had been deflected away from the target. Testing the shell without the spin was also successful as the bolt had bounced off the shell harmlessly even at point-blank. The only difference was the increase of the tiny dip in his mana as the bolt bounced off the almost transparent membrane.

Artus shot the crossbow a few more times to test the shell in various ways, but he was stopped by a pair of hands. The girly hands wrapped around from behind and warmed his back as if she was trying to comfort him.

“It’s okay, Artus,” Cindy said. “You are safe here. We are safe here. You don’t need to practice using the crossbow. We only brought it with us to show that we are armed.”

Artus wanted to correct her, but the less she knew the better. She couldn’t freak out if she didn’t know what he knew, or misspoke to a stranger if she didn’t know anything about the new spell he had developed. He let her pull him to bed again after he had placed the crossbow down by the bed.

The girl tried to make him forget about his supposed fears by using her body, but he could tell that she also had wanted more of his attention. The skill [Lady Killer] told him that her body language was practically begging for it.

He gave her and the other plenty of it.