Descend- Seeing Stars by Sean Oswald (the ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Either way, it was time to go rest now. Rest and enjoy the company of his wives, children, and just eat a casual meal. Maybe act like a normal person for a bit, someone whose shoulders didn’t bear the fate of his entire race.

Chapter 6- Refining

Jay had an evening in regular time, eating at a huge table, with all of his fuses and even the non-fuses who had his children all invited. The kids were there, and the room was loud and chaotic. But it felt alive. It felt real, not like some sci-fi adventure.

      There was one extra girl at the table that Mia introduced as her guest, Cecelia. The pretty redhead was bubbly and maybe trying too hard to make a good impression. He could understand how she would be nervous with a room full of women around him. But she was still pleasant to talk to.

      When he had first seen her, he had asked Mia telepathically why she was here. The response was, “She is my guest and remember I get to pick who your next fuse is. So, you might want to make nice with her.”

      “What about Emma?” Jay asked back.

      “What about her?”

      “She is also in your pod and according to the list I was given she wants to be fused. Certainly, she has priority. She has been with us since the beginning. She even played a part in containing Jasmine when we fled into the dungeon,” Jay answered.

      “Yes, and she will be my next pick, but she and I had a nice long talk earlier and she understood that it is important that some of the newcomers be picked, especially their leaders so that they can feel like they are truly equal parts of Team Jay,” Mia said.

      “Ah,” Jay said. He laughed at himself. He excelled at stating the obvious, but he couldn’t argue with Mia’s logic. Even better that Emma was okay with it.

That of course led him to engaging in more conversation with Cecelia who was soon insisting that he call her CeeCee. Madison burst into the discussion and said, “Oh no. Jay can’t use any nicknames until he’s been in you.”

      Charlotte burst out laughing remembering Maddy’s statements after their first time. But Cecelia didn’t miss a beat as she said, “Oh, okay. Right now?”

      Half the room burst into laughter, a couple of the girls said something about there being children present, and most predictably Huong shouted out, “Orgy.”

      Jay just shook his head.  Eventually things calmed down and the strangest thing he heard was Ava asking Huong, “Why shouldn’t she please the master right now? I can tell he is aroused.”

      Things naturally calmed down from that point and Jay eventually announced that he would begin the agreed-upon schedule tomorrow but for tonight he was just going to spend a quiet evening with his wives. Ultimately while a great deal of passion was involved, he still ended up getting several hours of much-needed sleep.

      When he woke, he was draped in legs and arms and he sighed deeply, realizing that it wasn’t fair that it had cost billions of human lives, but this was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him. That morning he had to go check in on the science lab and see what was going on with the implant replacements.

      Everyone was nervous when he arrived but confident that it was going to work. It was the first time any of them were going to be practicing brain surgery. He set up the tempus fugit fields for the lab. The ease with which the skill functioned now was miraculous. He had so much more precision and the skill level for it had only hit just a bit over one thousand. He couldn’t imagine how amazing it would be if he could get to triple that.

      From there he followed Trina until they reached a room where there was a line of newcomers. All the ones who weren’t working in the labs or nursery this morning were waiting for a turn at refinement. It was daunting to think about. He had four hours dedicated to this and they had agreed on a 125:1 time dilation.

      A quick headcount showed that there were thirty-seven of the newcomers in here. He was surprised sometimes now by how quickly his head did the math for these simple tasks. It was hardly rocket science but not the sort of thing that he would have been able to naturally do before.

He would have approximately six and a half real-world minutes with each of the thirty-seven but that would translate into thirteen and a half hours per girl. That would definitely be enough to lay a good foundation for their refinement. Especially if, as he hoped, his new higher-level skill would allow him to be more efficient.

      Thankfully, they already had an order set aside. Trudi, one of the two leaders, was going first. She was another cute blonde. Was it possible to have too many of those? He didn’t think so. He loved all the flavors of beauty around him from blonde to brunette, Caucasian to African or Asian and every variant possible. They were more American than anything else, but Team Jay had representatives from over thirty countries now and he couldn’t help but think that was a good thing.

      He also needed to remember that Trudi wasn’t just a pretty face. She had managed to successfully lead a cluster after numerous deaths and saved the rest long enough for them to survive for a merger with his cluster. That was no small feat given how hard the experiment had been. Jay knew that his success was in large part due to his cheating help from the future.

Rather than