The Sixth School.

Chapter Eight: Eros familiar…

Alena sat in the darkness with a dazed look on her face. Her mind was yet to compute what had taken place a few minutes before in the boy’s room. She had always prided herself in being professional and capable of being level-headed in all situations. Hell, part of the reason she had been betrayed was how unbending she was in her ideals. Being called names wasn’t an experience that began in this town for Alena. Even back at the academy, she was aware of the various names that she was called behind her back. Ironically, they were the exact opposite of what she was called in this town. Prude, stiff, stick in the mud, and a whole slew of other names. Just because she wasn’t willing to lower her standards or do anything that she didn’t think was right. Her personal favorite among the names she was called back at the academy was miss mannequin. The claim was that while she looked every bit human on the outside, she had none of the feelings an actual human had. A flame of rage burned in her eyes as she remembered this. If only they’d known just how acutely she felt it all. Her hand unconsciously clenched so tight that it shook. Some day… someday she’d make them all understand.

The rage and thoughts of vengeance, however, quickly seeped out of the healer like a deflated ball as she turned to look up at the screen before her. On the screen, the boy was lying on the bed looking up at the air. Once again his eyes seemed to be moving from side to side as if he was reading something that no one else could see apart from him. From time to time, for no observable reason, the boy’s expression and mood would shift randomly from calm to either surprise, joy, disappointment, or slight trepidation, before becoming calm once again. It was weird and slightly concerning. However, in the long course of her career as a healer, it wasn’t even up there in terms of odd things she’d come across in her line of work. The reason Alena was seated in the darkness with the screen as the only source of light inside the lab, was because she was trying to understand why she had done what she did with the boy.

Part of her wanted to believe that the boy had done something to her to cause her to do what she had done. Every time this thought crossed her mind, however, she couldn’t help but shake her head, a self-ridiculing expression crossing her face. Even injured as she presently was, the boy was little more than an ant in her eyes. If she wanted to, she had an almost endless number of ways that she could end the boy's life without even breaking a sweat. To try and claim that someone that didn’t even have enough magic to light a candle had somehow done something to affect her was nothing more than a joke. An excuse so flimsy that it would be torn apart at the slightest scrutiny. Alena couldn’t help a feeling of shame every time she even considered it. She was simply running away. Running away from what this little event revealed about her.

She had done what she had done simply because it made her feel powerful. Alena couldn’t help but grit her teeth as she forced herself to face this simple but at the same time very shameful truth for her. She had always believed that she didn’t care about all the acclaim that came with being as powerful as she had once been. That she was above it. She’d even hated all the people that had tried to kiss up to her just because of how powerful she was. She never gave them the time of day. But then, what was this? Why was it different with the boy?

Alena didn’t know how he knew. It was part of the mystery about the boy that she was trying to unravel. Whenever she was around, he did his best to hide it and act normal around her. Every time she looked into his eyes, however, she saw it. The fear. The cold dread of someone who was standing before a beast that could take their life at any time. She knew the look because she had seen it many times back when she was still powerful. Alena didn’t know how the boy possibly could, but somehow, he did know. Even if he had no idea exactly how powerful she’d been, he seemed to know enough to be scared,

Shameful as it was for her to admit it, this was a simple case of valuing something only once you have lost it. When she had the power, she acted as if it was a bother to be praised because of it. Now that she had lost that power, when a boy looked at her the same way people did back then, she found she deeply craved to have the regard that she once had. Alena was respected in this town, of that, there was no doubt. Their respect, however, was on the condition that she continued being a healer. Soon as she stopped, she would be quickly forgotten. Not that she could exactly blame them. Why would they care what she once was? It didn’t really matter to them or affect their lives in any way. With this boy, however, the deep respect he had for her was independent of the fact that she was a healer. Even if she stopped being a healer right this moment, he’d still look at her with the same measure of awe and reverence… and desire.

A small smile crossed her face along with a slight blush when she remembered the way he’d looked at her cleavage. The clear, almost tangible lust that had been oozing from the boy had sent chills through her. A look of confusion, however, soon replaced the smile on her face. Even if the boy hadn’t somehow made her do what she had done, there was something different about him. Of that, Alena was convinced. In the course of her life, many men had desired her and looked at her with lust. It, however, had never affected her the way this boy did. It was almost as if he awoke something deep within her that had always been there but she had never really been conscious of.

Before Alena could go further down this path, her train of thought was cut short by the look of pure agony that crossed the boy’s expression. The boy had brought his hand before his face and was looking at it like it was on fire. From where she sat, however, Alena couldn’t see anything on his hand. Due to her injuries, Alena couldn’t cast spells beyond a certain level of power. Her magical senses, however, weren’t nearly as damaged, especially when the target of her inspection was as close as the boy was. As such, she didn’t hesitate to spread out her senses to see if she could pick up something that her eyes couldn’t. With her achievement in magic, there was no way the boy would be able to pick up on her magical probing. Even if he had the capacity to do so, however, Alena doubted he’d notice, given how much pain he seemed to be in.

Much to her confusion, however, despite her careful sensing, Alena couldn’t pick up any disturbance, magical or otherwise, in the boy’s room. The boy was alone in the room and had no idea that she was spying on him. He thus had no reason to pretend that he was in pain. If anything, from how tightly his jaws were clenched, Alena could see that he was doing his best not to give voice to his pain. He probably assumed that she was sleeping and was trying to avoid screaming which would alert her to what was going on. After about a minute of this, Alena had been about to get up and go see what exactly was going on with the boy. The look of pain on the boy’s face, however, slowly started to fade. He was still inspecting his right hand, clenching and unclenching it. He, however, no longer seemed to be in pain.

Alena’s brow couldn’t help but knit slightly as she withdrew her magical senses from the room. “What the hell is going on with you?” She couldn’t help but mutter to herself under her breath. Alena quietly observed the boy as he seemed to be inspecting his body. By the look on his face, he was clearly expecting some sort of change after whatever it is that had happened to his hand. Once again, another look of disappointment crossed the boy’s features. Clearly, whatever changes he’d expected to find, he hadn’t.

Alena had been about to relax once more when she picked up on the nervousness on the boy’s expression. On the boy’s face was the look of someone who was preparing themselves for an unpleasant experience. Was there going to be another bout of pain incoming? Alena couldn’t help but wonder. The healer rose to her feet ready to head toward the boy’s room. That’s when it happened.

Alena had never in her whole life seen a face lose color that fast. One moment, the boy seemed completely normal, if a bit nervous. In the next, his face had turned an almost ghostly white. A grimace of one who was in mind-breaking pain crossed the boy’s face for only an instant before he passed out. Whatever had happened to him, it was bad enough that his mind could only handle it for a split second before shutting down. Taking a step towards the door, Alena sent her magical senses ahead of herself. This time, she was determined to figure out what exactly was going on. In the next moment, however, the screen that had been showing the boy’s room went completely black and Alena froze mid-step.

The healer’s magical senses had been just about to breach the walls of the room the boy was in when they stopped dead and alarm bells started ringing in her mind. Cold sweat broke out all over the healer’s body and she couldn’t stop her body from shaking. Not that she even had the presence of mind to try. Her instincts were blaring. Telling her not to dare approach the room in any way, whether physically or magically. Given how powerful she’d once been, Alena couldn’t remember the last time that she’d been made to feel like this. Even a decade ago, when she was stabbed in the back and besieged by her friends, Alena hadn’t felt the level of powerlessness she currently felt. To compare it to a rabbit being cornered by a ravenous wolf wouldn’t even begin to scratch the surface. To Alena, she was a rabbit faced by something that was not only powerful but also very ancient. On the other side of the walls to the boy’s room was an existence that Alena, even in her prime, wouldn’t have been able to face. And as sure as the sky was blue, if she allowed her senses to cross into the room, she would die…

***

The woman standing by Greg’s bedside turned her gaze to look at the wall. Or at least, that is how it would have looked to someone inside the room. If someone took off the roof of the building and looked down from above, however, they’d quickly notice that the woman seemed to be looking directly at the healer. There was no anger or malice in the woman’s face, just pure curiosity. A small smile crept onto the woman’s face when she felt the magical senses just outside of the room withdraw. The healer then took a step back and sat down in the chair she’d been in, clearly, no longer interested in, or rather, not daring to come to the boy's room. “Smart,” The woman by Greg’s bedside commented in an amused tone before turning back to Greg.

After the initial joy of coming into being had subsided, the woman by Greg’s bed carefully looked the boy over. A slight look of confusion crossed her face as she regarded the boy. “Why is he so weak?” The being asked no one in particular. Looking at her change in demeanor, no one would believe that just a few seconds before, she had referred to the boy as master. Anyone who tried to apply mundane logic to a creature such as her, however, would be engaging in a fool’s errand. “If he’s this weak, he shouldn’t be able to afford anything within the special shop,” The being mused out loud. If Greg had heard her words, he’d be shocked at the familiarity with which she spoke of the system. His most closely guarded secret since reincarnating in this world seemed like an open book to her. “And yet, he already has the sigil,” The woman went on, her eyes which were of a golden hue, turning to the back of the boy’s hand. Where the healer couldn’t see a thing, this woman could quite clearly see the opening flower design of the sigil.

After the initial confusion passed, a small smile crossed the woman’s lips. “This should be interesting,” She stated as she placed two fingers on the boy’s head. For a being of her caliber, accessing the boy's memories required as much effort as blinking would. Heck, if she wanted, she could easily replace every single memory that the boy had and convince him that he was somebody else. It didn’t even have to be a person, he could leave the boy believing he was a duck if she wanted to. In the space of the next five seconds, everything that had happened in the last ten days flashed in her head.

When she was done, a burst of silvery laughter escaped the woman as she saw all the impossible things that had come together to make this moment possible. A town in the middle of nowhere unknowingly had a seventh-tier mage as their healer. A boy with barely a lick of magic within him, who by all rights, should have been dead, was kept hanging between life and death by this seventh-tier mage. A state in which, while the boy could earn large amounts of lust points from the seventh-tier mage, he had no way of spending them. In so doing, he was able to amass large amounts of points and gain access to levels of the shop that he shouldn’t have been able to access for at least another three or four decades when he was much more experienced and powerful.

Unbeknownst to this strange being, however, was the fact that there was a whole chunk of memories that she didn’t see. From the boy's accident to the present moment, everything seemed continuous without the slightest break. Even the time that the system took to stabilize Greg’s soul in this body didn’t raise any alarms as it just seemed like it was the soul of the former owner of this body it was referring to. After all, with how serious the injuries had been, the fact that the soul’s tether to this body had been shaken wasn’t too far out of the realm of possibility.  Everything to do with Greg’s previous life, his reincarnation, and the fact that the original owner of this body was dead, was somehow completely hidden from her probing.

“My carefully laid out plans, all foiled by a random act of fate,” The woman stated. “That girl has always been such a spiteful bitch,” She went on. Listening to her talk, one would be forgiven for thinking that she actually knew someone called fate. Despite her scathing words, however, there wasn’t the slightest bit of displeasure in her voice or expression. To her, rather than a problem, this was just an amusing turn of events. For someone as long-lived as she was, not much could faze her. “At the very least, this gives me the chance to guide his development from a powerless human into the perfect vessel of lust,” The woman continued with a pleased smile. A second later, however, a frown crossed her face. “Sadly, he is too weak to have me around him. My presence alone will be too much. A day around me, and his mind will be completely eroded by lust,” She continued to think out loud.

Reaching up toward her head, the woman pulled out a single strand of her hair. With a flick of her hand, the woman let the strand of hair go. The strand slowly floated through the air but never descended toward the ground. After a few seconds, the strand burst into pink flames and expanded into another copy of the woman. This clone of the woman, however, had nowhere near as much power as the original. By this world’s standards, the clone had just enough power to qualify as a second-tier mage. “You should be enough to keep an eye on the boy and guide his growth,” The woman spoke to her clone.

The clone, however, didn’t respond. It just kept on looking at the boy on the bed with an almost child-like curiosity. “Of all the seeds I’ve scattered, this one seems by far the most interesting,” The woman spoke, this time more to herself than anyone else. “I’m curious to see how it’ll develop,” She added with another glance at the boy before turning around ready to depart. “Oh,” The woman intoned, turning back to her clone. “Keep an eye on the healer,” She instructed. “She may have set the boy on the trajectory he is currently on, but she could just as easily end it,” The woman spoke before disappearing in a burst of pink flames…

***

In the dark room, Greg was left alone with the much less powerful clone of the woman. It wasn’t just the original's power that the clone had been deprived of. Even the thousands of years of memories that her original had, weren’t given to the clone. The original wanted to watch the development of this boy and see how far he could go. What would be the point of that if the clone she left behind had all the answers to any of the boy’s questions at the ready? No, he needed to grow and learn on his own. Whether it be magical, historical, political, or any other kind of knowledge that her original had amassed over the centuries, the clone had been left with very little of it. Just enough that she wouldn’t be a bumbling idiot that knew nothing, but no more than what any moderately informed person out there would know. This way, the boy wouldn’t have an unfair advantage over other seeds that her original had scattered all over this world.

But while she had not received her original’s worldly knowledge, she had been granted access to the system. This wasn’t any kind of hacking or back door accessing of the system. As his Eros familiar, her original would have always been able to access the system and help the boy in running it by doing all the tasks he delegated to her. Her original had simply transferred this role to her, the clone.  She had been granted an in-depth insight into the ins and outs of the system, exactly where everything was, and how everything worked. In other words, she was the perfect personal assistant to the boy.

Her original would also have been a powerful ally to the boy and part of her role would have been to fight for and protect the boy. With how limited her powers were, however, the clone knew that she wouldn’t be playing this role as much. Of course, if the need arose, she would do what she can to save the boy. Most of the time, however, she planned to allow the boy to fight his own battles. After all, strength was one of the ironclad rules of this world. The strong had their way and the weak could only blame themselves for not being strong enough to object. If the boy remained weak and couldn’t stand up for himself, then no matter how much of the system he unlocked, his journey would be a very short one. The clone knew that her original self didn’t really care whether any of the seeds lived or died. She, however, had been tasked to work with the boy’s best interest in mind, as such, she had no desire to see the boy fail. As much as was within her abilities, the clone planned to see the boy go as far as he possibly could…

***

Greg couldn’t help but wince as he slowly regained consciousness. His head was still throbbing and his brain felt groggy. It took a few seconds for his mind to piece together how it is he ended up in this state. When it finally clicked, Greg couldn’t help but open his eyes to see what the Eros familiar looked like. Even with his limited knowledge of magic, Greg knew what a familiar was. A helper of sorts, that a mage could summon to do their bidding. Of course, there was a chance that in this world a familiar represented something different. He, however, didn’t think it likely based on what he had seen in the special shop.

In the catalog, the image that represented the Eros familiar had been the dark silhouette of a woman. No features could be made out about the woman other than her outrageous curves. This little bit of information, however, was enough such that Greg wasn’t all too surprised when he found a strange woman standing by his bedside looking down at him. What left him speechless, however, was how fucking sexy she was. The breasts on her had to be at least F cups and somehow defied gravity despite their size, making them appear as perky as possible. Just by the way her hips flared out from her impossibly thin waist, Greg was certain that this woman could hypnotize a man simply by walking away from them.

Her hair was bubblegum pink and reached all the way down to her waist. Though Greg didn’t doubt that there had to be ways to magically change the color of one’s hair, somehow, he got the feeling that this was the woman’s hair in its natural state. Her bright golden eyes were eyeing him with just as much intensity as he was doing her. Her full pink luscious lips couldn’t help but fill Greg with images that one couldn’t share in polite company. Earlier in the night, the healer had gotten him off with a heavenly handjob, Greg however, could feel how stiff his cock was just by looking at this woman. “W… who are you,” he asked. Being wholly unfamiliar with how one interacted with familiars, Greg could only come up with this lame conversation starter. Besides, he had passed out! Who’s to say that some strange, super-sexy woman hadn't ventured into his room while he was unconscious?

“I am your mistress!” The woman spoke with such an air of authority and finality that Greg felt like he couldn’t disagree. Before his mind could work out what he’d just heard and how to best respond to it, however, the woman’s expression changed. Faster than any human should have been able to, the woman’s expression went from powerful and overbearing to an almost fanatically servile one. The change was so fast that Greg almost felt whiplash just witnessing it. “I am your slave,” She spoke like this was the highest praise she had ever achieved in her life. “I am your closest confidant,” She went on with another faster-than-light change of expression. “I am your cock sleeve,” She went on. “Your friend. Your toy. Your guide. Your cum drainer. Your lover. Your whore…” Greg silently watched for a whole minute as the woman continued to rattle off a whole chain of titles and roles that she believed she could play. By the end of which, Greg was almost certain that some crazy woman had walked into his room.

“In short, I am and can be anything you want me to be master,” The woman stated with an almost manic smile. “I am yours to do with as you please,” She went on, clearly not satisfied with just assigning herself titles. “Do you want to have a romantic evening with me?” She asked. The question was completely out of left field and Greg didn’t even know where to start in answering her. He, however, needn’t have bothered. “Or do you want to fuck me like a whore?” The woman went on. “Do you want to hear me sing? Or do you want to fuck my throat until my voice box is full of your cum?” she continued, clearly not bothered by how graphic she was being. If anything, by the subtle way she was rubbing her thighs together, Greg couldn’t help the suspicion that she was turning herself on. “Do you want to spend every night with me cuddled in your arms?” she posed. “Or have me sleep at the foot of your bed like a loyal pet? She asked, somehow, seeming more inclined towards the latter as opposed to the former. “The only limit is your imagination, master,” The familiar declared…