Why do people smoke cigarettes? Even though they know it’s bad for them and everyone around them, they still do it. Most of the time, they became addicted when they were young and naive. A single mistake due to peer pressure or curiosity would cause a person to go down a long, painful road of despair.

Sure, some people are predisposed to certain drugs or activities that are harmful to themselves or others. It’s always a choice at first though. Before the addiction starts, unless someone literally forces you to for whatever reason, you should be able to avoid most chemical substances.

Unfortunately, there are some things that we’re just born into… From as far back as I could remember, my sex drive was always abnormally high. I’ve always been prone to violence, regardless of how much society convinced me to repress my true nature. Even if I never had access to video games, I would have probably loved board games or simple word puzzles. These are things that usually aren’t harmful and sometimes can be extremely beneficial.

However, there is always a point where the addiction becomes dangerous. Even if it’s something like exercising, there’s still a limit to how much is ‘healthy’.

“Levi, stop worrying so much! It’s only a year… I’ve known people who were willing to sacrifice ten years of their life in order to raise their level a tiny bit, so don’t feel so bad about it.” Mei was smiling, as she gently caressed my junk. We had gotten rid of our ruined futons and were simply laying on the hardwood floor.

It was nighttime on the second day of our voyage. Neither of us had slept much, considering we were fucking for at least fifteen hours. After that we needed to shit and piss out the window. We also had to eat lots of food and drink plenty of liquids. There really wasn’t enough time for us to do much else.

I sighed dramatically, muttering “Yeah, it’s… It’s probably not that big of a deal, right? I mean, think about it this way… If you can make it up to the peak of the Apprentice Stage, then you’ll be able to survive much more easily. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be able to breakthrough and become an Adept by using this extremely broken Cultivation Method?”

We both knew that it was probably impossible. Deep down, I understood that I was just making excuses in order to feed my own addiction. Never make decisions when you’re hungry, horny or tired. It’s such an important rule, but how many of us really follow it?

When you’re in an altered state of mind, you start to place more or less importance over certain things. I wasn’t afraid of the upcoming battle at first. Unfortunately, the less sleep I got, the more I started to worry about what might happen to the two of us. I already lost an eye in a basic skirmish. For fuck’s sake, I was just sniping at people from a relatively ‘safe’ location! Mei was planning on picking up a cutlass and charging into battle like an idiot!

Maybe if she was an Adept I would have had some hopes that she could use her skill and strength to survive. However, as an Apprentice, even if she was at the peak, her chances of dying were almost a hundred percent…

I couldn’t help thinking “What’s the point in worrying about a few years, when we both might die within this week? Wait, what am I so afraid of? I know what happens afterwards, right? It’s going to be the same… I’ll just float around in that empty abyss for a while… I’ll never see her again though. Mei, Xiaotong, Di, even Jiang and Liara… My parents, my brother, sister, cousins, friends… I’m never going to see them again, and if I die, even if I can live again…”

Well what did you expect? I had a lot to live for and I definitely didn’t want to die any time soon. If it was possible for me to get stronger, even through slightly sketchy means, I was willing to do it and so was Mei. We weren’t perfect, no one ever is. Everybody makes mistakes eventually, even Immortals and Deities.

***

For twenty years I placed sex on a pedestal. Honestly, I thought that I might have actually become a wizard by the time I lost my virginity. Yet only a few months after I arrived on Genesis, I had already gotten a ‘girlfriend’ and was able to satisfy my lusty desires regularly.

Our days passed by pretty swiftly. We did sleep for a few hours every now and then, but our time was mostly spent eating or fucking.

I wasn’t quite as much of a shut-in as Mei though. Since she never left the room, I always had to go down and pick up food from the galley. Which meant that I was able to get to know Liara, Johan, Granny Arin, Vice-Captain Jing, Hua Li, Jacob Stash and a few others. Although there were a couple douchebags who tried to mess with me occasionally, they never really did anything too memorable, so I can’t recall their names or faces anymore.

For the most part, everyone was relatively nice. There was a sense of camaraderie that was building up amongst the crew, soldiers and non-combatants. However, I could obviously tell that the newbies were starting to get agitated.

On the seventh night, Captain Li abruptly entered our room and yelled “What the hell is going on here?!” There was a furious tempest of ridiculously thick Qi swirling around within the room, with Mei and I at the very center of the vortex.

It took me a few seconds to realize that she was there and come to my senses. The shark-girl who was laying underneath of me wasn’t nearly as alert. In fact, she totally ignored the giantess who had intruded within our cabin and was still thrusting her fishy pelvis up at me.

“Oh hey captain, umm, what’s up? Do you need anything?” I covered Mei’s eyes with my left hand and turned back towards the person who was still standing in the doorway.

After staring blankly for a moment, she furrowed her brows and told me “I’ve got no clue what kind of nasty Shamanic horseshit you’re up to in here and I really don’t think I want to know, but you’ve only got an hour to finish it up. We’ve arrived at Silver Moon Island… I’m going to give a briefing in my room, so don’t take too long.”

Once she left the room, I smiled wryly at the depraved, half-conscious, cum-junkie who was glaring at me. Outside of her dark-violet irises, the sclera had turned pitch-black and her pupils were white. Her nose had sunken into her face and just looked like four slimy slits. There were gills along her bony ribs, but they were closed up, since she wasn’t even underwater.

I gently caressed her bald head and whispered “Mei, are you still in there?” She only grunted and tried to bite my face off. “Okay then, don’t worry, I can still cum a few times… But after that I need to go.”

Yeah, so as much as I love mermaids, she was starting to kind of… ‘devolve’. I mean, she did reach the peak of the Apprentice Stage. However, when she was in that shark-like form, her thought processes only really included: “Nom nom nom~!”, “Fuck me harder!” and “Too tired, I’m going to sleep.” At least that’s how I imagined it, since she didn’t really ‘talk’ while in that state anymore.

Those webbed fingers latched onto my arms and squeezed down with enough force to make me shout “Ow, stop, seriously, ugh~! Cut it out!” The difference between the fourth and tenth level wasn’t too massive, but it was definitely enough to for her to hurt me pretty easily.

My addiction to sex and mana wasn’t nearly as bad as Mei’s, especially when she was in her sharky-mode. If I didn’t keep fucking her… Well, I didn’t really have a choice anymore. I didn’t have anywhere near the willpower required to resist her, not to mention the fact that I physically couldn’t, even if I wanted to.