The air between the two girls grew heavy with a sudden, sharp tension. Elsa stared at Toph, her eyes wide with a mixture of disbelief and a growing, desperate loneliness.
"You..." Elsa trailed off, not knowing how to respond, though she couldn't find a flaw in Toph's pragmatism. No matter how powerful her magic was, she was still a creature of flesh and blood; without food, she would eventually starve in this geometric wasteland just like anyone else.
"Fine. Maybe you're right," Elsa said, her voice barely a whisper as she looked toward the distant, jagged horizon. "But I still intend to look for another way... a way out of here that doesn't require... that."
Toph gave a casual shrug, the corners of her mouth twitching with a cynicism Elsa didn't yet share. Her intuition told her there was no other way, and she had long since learned to trust her instincts over blind hope.
Toph shrugged. Her intuition told her there was no other way, and she chose to trust her instincts. "Good luck with that," she said, waving a hand dismissively as Elsa prepared to leave.
"Just... don't do anything foolish until I get back!" Elsa shot a worried look at Toph, but she bit her lip and decided to go. Toph had saved her life; she didn't want the girl taking more risks, and she figured that if Li Ke really had some grand scheme, Toph would be safe enough for the time being.
"I'll be back soon!" Elsa called out before heading toward the site where they had first crashed. She wanted to study the area again and climb the mountain to see if there were any signs of civilization on the horizon.
Once the sound of Elsa's footsteps faded, Toph let out a long yawn. She hopped down from her perch and started walking toward the rhythmic clanking where Li Ke was working.
Li Ke heard her coming from a mile away. He turned around to see her strolling toward him, casually carrying an empty tin can. To an observer, she looked no different from a person with perfect sight.
"I know this is sudden," Toph said the moment she reached him. "But my gut and my head are both telling me this is the only way out. I'll do it—it's just a hand, anyway. But if you're lying to me..."
Toph's expression darkened instantly. She crushed the tin can in her grip into a jagged ball of metal, then immediately flipped back to a menacing smile. "I'll do the exact same thing to yours, got it?"
"..."
This girl is definitely not cute, Li Ke thought.
"You've really thought this through?"
"Obviously. Stop wasting time—get your pants down and show me what I'm working with." Toph gestured impatiently, looking thoroughly annoyed.
"Fine."
Li Ke sighed and sat down beside her in the newly carved cave. He used some of his bottled water to wash her hands, then pulled out his phone and hit play on a video.
Immediately, the cave was filled with the distinct, suggestive moans of a high-quality adult film Li Ke had downloaded back in the Food Wars world. Toph's face turned bright red instantly. Her hearing was incredibly sensitive; she had heard her parents through walls back home and seen enough during her travels with the Avatar to know exactly what those sounds meant.
"What are you doing?!" she barked.
Li Ke watched the screen, settling into a comfortable spot on the dirt floor. "Think of it as... setting the mood. To be honest, I don't have much of an 'appetite' for a flat board like you. I need the help."
He was being brutally honest, but Toph wasn't about to take that lying down.
"A flat board?!!" Toph's fist clenched, a vein throbbing in her temple.
Sure, she wasn't as curvy as Katara, but she was a grown woman! She might be short, and people might mistake her for a kid, but she was an adult, dammit!
"Yeah, how else am I supposed to describe you?" Li Ke shot back, glancing at the barefoot girl's petite frame. "And don't even think about trying to get revenge. I'm the only one who can see the energy points. If you try anything funny, I'll just skim off your total—though I'm taking a cut regardless. I need to get out of here too."
Li Ke glanced at the barefoot girl in front of him, then at her flat chest, and stated his request plainly.
"….."
You'd better be fucking kidding me!
Toph was already itching to hit someone.
"Shut up! Just hurry up and take it out already!"
Toph plopped down on the floor, stretched out her hand, and left the rest to him. She figured she'd just move once he got things started.
"Wait a sec."
Li Ke was still watching the movie. He couldn't understand the dialogue, but the action scenes were pretty entertaining. Soon enough, his cock began to twitch and harden noticeably. Beside him, Toph—who was now listening to those strange, wet sounds—felt her cheeks growing hotter and hotter.
She might talk tough, but no girl could possibly do something like this without feeling embarrassed. She was only doing it because reality had forced her hand.
So when Li Ke finally took her hand and guided her soft palm onto something hot, slick, and throbbing, her heartbeat and breathing seemed to freeze for a second. Even her hand—still damp from the mineral water—stiffened right there, completely unable to move the way she'd planned.
Li Ke kept his eyes on the screen, waiting for her to start. But after a full three minutes of nothing, he finally turned his head. Seeing her face flushed crimson, he hesitated before speaking.
"Um… if this is really too much for you, we can just forget it. I mean, I only just arrived in this world. There might be a way back, you know…"
This is so fucking awkward!
But Toph had zero intention of backing out now. She needed to get home fast—her parents would be worried sick otherwise.
"Shut UP!"
She shouted in embarrassment, then roughly rubbed her palm down his length in one hard motion.
Li Ke hissed in pain and sucked in a sharp breath.
"Gentler!"
"No way!"
Even though she snapped back like that, the next time her hand moved it was noticeably softer. Finally, Li Ke felt a wave of actual pleasure—though it was still a bit lacking. Not enough slickness.
With no other choice, he poured some of the cold mineral water directly onto his cock. Only then did Toph's clumsy, inexperienced strokes start to glide more smoothly.
The ideal lubricant would've been her saliva, of course—but Li Ke wasn't about to push his luck that far.
What he didn't realize, though…
"Damn it, this guy…"
Listening to those low, involuntary moans and feeling the strong, rhythmic pulsing against her palm, Toph's own heartbeat began to race faster and faster.
Even though this was the first time meeting Li Ke, some deep, primal instinct was kicking in. She swallowed hard without thinking, growing more and more restless. A dangerous thought kept creeping in—if this kept going…
Li Ke didn't see any reason to drag things out. The moment the sensation peaked, he let go. A thick warmth spread across Toph's palm, and before she could even fully process the sensation, she felt the rigid "spear" in her hand suddenly lose its tension and go limp.
"Alright, we're done," Li Ke said.
He pulled out some tissues and began cleaning Toph's hand as he spoke. "Let's see... that session generated thirty-seven points of energy. Now, let me check the cost to send you back. Hmm, still just one thousand points. Not bad."
Li Ke nodded outwardly, but internally, he was hurling every curse word he knew at the system. The pricing in this thing is an absolute joke! There was no consistency, no logical scaling, and no clear rules. It was as if the system was just making up numbers on a whim.
He kept his face a mask of calm, knowing he still had the World Fragment as a massive safety net. If things truly got desperate and he couldn't wait for the slow grind of energy points, he could simply refine that fragment. One click and he'd have enough World Power to convert into a mountain of energy points, allowing him to leave this void whenever he pleased.
But just as he was calculating his options, he felt a sudden shift in the air. The physical contact had triggered something unexpected. A brilliant light erupted from Toph's petite frame, and that familiar, rhythmic resonance he had felt earlier surged through the cave, flowing directly toward him.
Li Ke's eyes widened as the feeling intensified. He realized then that the act hadn't just generated energy points—it had acted as a bridge. The World Power from 7 Days to Die that had contaminated Toph during the collapse was being pulled out of her, finally responding to his touch.
As the light intensified, Li Ke stared in shock at the glowing Toph. Instinctively, he tightened his grip on her hand, and in that heartbeat, threads of shimmering golden vapor began to coil around his fingers.
A system prompt flickered into existence before his eyes:
Detected: Scattered World Power (7 Days to Die). Absorb?
Without a second thought, Li Ke hit 'Confirm.' His World Power counter ticked upward by one point.
A triumphant grin pulled at his lips. Perfect! One point of World Power was equivalent to ten thousand energy points. This changed everything. Whether it was sending Toph home, jumping to a new world himself, or finally settling into this one, he didn't have to worry about the "bill" anymore. He was, for all intents and purposes, a rich man.
But just as he was basking in the mental image of his growing reserves, he felt a small, firm hand wrap around his "spear" once again. He looked down, startled to see Toph staring blankly toward his voice.
"What are you doing?" Li Ke asked, his mind still half-buried in his inventory screens.
"Continuing, obviously," Toph replied, tilting her head with genuine confusion. "Don't men usually go for the whole night? Why'd you stop after just one?"
Kid, why on earth do you believe everything you hear?! Li Ke screamed internally.
He remembered the times he'd bragged back in the day about lasting three hours, when in reality, his best record was barely fifteen minutes. Men always had an irrational obsession with inflating those numbers, but he hadn't expected someone to take that locker-room talk as gospel!
"Have you ever considered," Li Ke said, gently catching her wrist—since he didn't have a high-speed recovery skill yet, he was physically out of commission for at least a few minutes— "that those guys were just blowing smoke?"
Toph gave a small, thoughtful nod. "Fair point. But even if they were exaggerating, surely at least half of it is true? Nobody lies by a factor of fifty, right?"
Li Ke: "..."
"You'd be surprised," he sighed.