Clever move

When the day finally came I woke up at dawn as was fairly usual in this world as that was the most natural time to awaken. I filled my mouth with my flames to remove anything that wasn’t a part of me which was WAY better than brushing my teeth. With that done I got dressed in my scaled tuxedo and ate a casual breakfast of toast and eggs with a side of lemonade. I spent the rest of my morning playing with the cat by creating a mouse out of my flames for it to chase about the church while I waited.-

My mastery of my flames was so great that even this could be done without worry for the flames spreading to burn down the church. My fire burned only what I willed it to or nothing at all if that is what I desired. In concept this was a simple thing but in execution it was anything but. Flames by nature were wild willful things with an insatiable hunger so commanding them like this was to go against this nature and that was no simple thing to accomplish. Any educated mage who saw what I was doing as a result would likely freak out.-

Still the fun had to come to an end as was promised someone came to get me.

“What is that made from, some sort of variant?” Tsubaki asked as she looked over my tuxedo curiously.

“Minotaur hide and Wyvern scales actually.” I said honestly.

“Not common species for variants but un unheard of either, did you artificially create them or find them?” she asked with a nod.

I shook my head “You misunderstand, the materials are from normal members of the species that I treated to become like this. Trade secret unfortunately.” I said with a smirk.

She groaned in annoyance “Ah man this might have been exactly what I need to make my next masterpiece!” she complained.

“Blame Hephaestus for not sharing the materials she regularly gets from me that undergo the same treatment. Besides it’s not like the materials are particularly high level either as so far I have only managed to treat level two materials and below in this manner and even then only barely for the level two materials. As a result they are comparable to level three materials but that’s about it.” I said with a shrug.

“Only level three? Not nearly high enough for a masterpiece. Still the materials are interesting if nothing else.” she said slightly disappointed.

‘Oh you have no idea’ I thought amused as she lead the way to wherever it was Hephaestus waited for me.

I was a little surprised to find that the forge goddess was waiting for me in her office in the great tower of all places. She was wearing a lovely red dress that hugged her ample curves and left little to the imagination as she leaned against her desk casually.

She raised an eyebrow when she saw my outfit as a flash of recognition went through her eye “Using ascended materials on mere clothes?” she said curiously.

“I figured you’d appreciate the fact they double as armor. Not quite up to my normal standard for armor but then again I’m not exactly going to use Goliath hide on something like this.” I say with a grin.

“You’re right of course, I DO like the utility it offers. It suits you too, a sort of arrogance about it that you fit like a glove.” she said with her own quirk of the lips.

“Is it really arrogance if I can back it up?” I asked with a predatory smile.

“Ugh, could you two flirt when I’m not here?” Tsubaki asked while making a face.

“Oh that’s not flirting. If I was really flirting she’d be as red as her hair, always amusing to see if I’m being honest.” I say with a chuckle and Hephaestus blushes a little.

She cleared her throat to bring my attention back to her “That aside we should probably get going, I’d rather not keep Ganesha waiting.” she says as she stands up fully.

“Ganesha? What could he have to do with our date?” I asked genuinely surprised.

“No point in hiding it but I have asked for a private taming show as the first part of our date. From what I understand you’ve never seen one.” she said as she looped her arm under my own and started to lead the way.

If looks had power I would have been burned, frozen, electrocuted, castrated, beheaded, drawn and quartered and many other unpleasant fates as we walked down the tower. Hephaestus’s familia had a great deal of people with romantic asperations towards the red headed goddess but as none could create something that impressed her genuinely like me they had no chance and knew it.-

That didn’t mean they weren’t going to be jealous as fuck and pass me all sorts of loathing looks as Hephaestus basically paraded me past them all. It was a manipulative move on her part but one that I was frankly helpless to do anything about as she was in control of this date. It was easy as pie to see what she was hoping to accomplish here. It had several parts really but they were all more or less beneficial to her.-

The first was that this was a way to sort of motivate her familia’s members with those aspirations to try even harder. The second was that she was practically broadcasting to everyone “Look at this, we are together!” which would serve to intimidate most other women of lesser status into dropping any aspirations towards me. The third was more or less tying my own familia to hers since she had absolute authority over her familia and I was the captain of my own. Her friendship with Hestia only served as further evidence that she wasn’t just going stand there if someone tried to target us.-

The final purpose of this display was advertising her business. This one was mostly because anyone with a brain would see us together as the ultimate equipment chance. My reputation as an unrivaled at the same level craftsman plus the solid centuries old foundation of her familia meant anyone who saw us together would assume I was getting teaching straight from her or something similar. They would be wrong of course as even Hephaestus had admitted that she couldn’t really teach me anything as the way I crafted was simply too different from her.

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