God Of Crafting

Chapter 72: Hints and floating lights

"So?" Claire leaned her head over to the side as she threw a curious and slightly inquisitive glance up to my face. "When are you going to reveal what it is that you are planning to make?"

I raised one of my eyebrows as I looked slightly down, to the face of the girl walking by my side.

"I don't think it's something that I should be bringing up now that we are outside..." I shook my head a bit, "why didn't you ask while we were still back in the lounge?"

Claire bit her lips just a little bit to make herself appear even more adorable. Whether it was her intention or not I couldn't really tell... but rather than intentions, it was the end result that mattered in this regard.

"It was a bit hard for me to... think properly back there," Claire whimpered in a low voice while dragging her eyes down and to the side, locking them on the floor of the massive building's main corridor. Yet, despite going as far as to hold her breath to make her cheeks appear blushed she recovered enough to throw a sneaky glance up to my face way too quickly for her embarrassment to be real.

Still, I was more than happy to respect the effort she put into making me talk.

'Or maybe it's all a test, on whether or not I would cave in and do something reckless so that she could know whether or not it was a good idea to trust me with important yet restricted information?'

Pondering over the issue for a moment, I suddenly reached out for Claire's wrist, grabbing it and pulling her back just strong enough to make her turn around and properly face me with her full body.

"I really don't want to bring it up while we are outside, so, I'm going to give you a hint," I decided before taking half of a step closer while pinning my eyes right against Claire's and refusing to move them away. "Now, focus on my face and face alone, okay?"

Rather than answering out loud, Claire pursed her lips and nodded a bit while already squinting her eyes to see as clearly as she could.

And so I went ahead and let go of her hand only to raise my arm and grab right at her breast!

"Now that I think about it, I never really brought up the details of the temples, did I?" Claire said, this time satisfied with just grabbing my hand as opposed to wrapping herself around my arm as she did before.

"Do those lights have to do with those temples?" I asked, fully aware by now just how observant this girl was. And between her randomly raising this topic and her doing so in response to how much my eyes drew to those floating lights...

"Actually, they do," Claire said with a small smile, showing just how happy she was to teach me something new.

'Maybe she has the pedagogical talent or inclining or sorts?' I thought for a second before focusing right back on her words.

"I mentioned this part before, but those temples are not only serving as a tribute to the city's governor, but they also come with..." Claire thought for a moment while putting yet another new look on her face for me to enjoy, "benefits? Like, when you pay tax, you get healthcare, roads et cetera.

Here, when you offer your spiritual energy or treasures at the altar of your temple, it is turned into all sorts of services. And those lights," Claire muttered as and raised it, yet kept her hand low as she searched the skies for something, "are just one of the many different benefits that we get in exchange."

"That orb," Claire shook her arm and finally moved her hand up and pointed it at a specific floating light, urging me to look up, "that golden orb I'm pointing at is powered by my father's temple. On the other hand, that one," her hand moved over to a much dimmer orb that was extremely hard to notice with all the different lights dancing around...

"Claire?"

Before she could finish up her story, someone called Claire's name, first making her go all stiff before quickly dropping her arm and looking around, all tense up until the moment when she saw the other party.

Yet, while that instantly made her face relax and ended up with her smiling from ear to ear...

Her body only tensed up even further, something that I could not only see with my own eyes... but also feel with how hard she squeezed down at my hand.