Chapter 42: Chapter Forty One.
Chapter Forty One: A selfish Request…
That sly bastard! This was the thought that crossed Greg's mind about the Town-head, when he woke up the next morning to find Shalia standing outside the door to his home. The man had cleverly found a way to keep his daughter attached to Greg for the next three months or so of summer. His thinking was probably that, a boy and girl forced to hang around each other for that long was bound to spark something between them. And even if at worst it didn't, they would at the very least learn to get along, perhaps even become friends. Either way, the man had, in one move, gotten past any objections Greg might have made. Both as Town-head and as a father to Shalia, he had every right to punish her. And since all he had asked was that she become a servant, there was no objection to be raised since it didn't cross any bounds of propriety. As far as he was concerned, all he had said was that she'd become a servant to him. Should anything else happen after that, then he couldn't really be blamed for that.
Of course, Greg could have asked that she be assigned to another house, but that would have been seen as not giving the Town-head any face. He had gone out of his way to punish his daughter on Greg's behalf. If he turned around and snubbed the Town-head, it would have just led to more problems that, in all honesty. Greg didn't want. But while he couldn't outright reject the man, he could set some conditions. He had given three.
"I understand and see the wisdom in humbling your daughter," Greg had begun. "Still, I doubt you'd be willing to see me punish her for disobedience as I would any common servant. A servant that cannot be disciplined has no reason to obey their master. I will take your daughter as my servant, but if she chooses to disrespect or disobey me, I will send her back to you and no longer acknowledge her as my servant. I have no need for the headache of a recalcitrant servant. Secondly, if she insults, disrespects, or threatens any member of my family, I will once again send her back to you and void this arrangement. Just as you protect your family, I have a responsibility to do the same for mine. Lastly, if her service in any way interferes with my training with the healer, I'll have to respectfully send her back to you" he laid out in a tone that left no room for negotiation.
Despite his displeasure at being made to accept conditions just to make his daughter Greg's servant, the man seemed to understand that Greg wouldn't take Shalia as his servant if he didn't. With a nod, he had given his assent. And so, left with no reason to decline the offer, Greg had acquiesced to the Town-head's demand. The girl had risen from the table and ran away crying. Rising from her seat, the Town-head's wife had gone after her daughter, though Greg suspected that she was running away from the table as well to keep her husband from noticing just how flush she was. Olivia hadn't even had to distract the man from anything. The dinner ended shortly after that.
Now, as Greg left his house to go begin his daily lessons with the healer, Shalia was right there at the door waiting for him. Despite her best attempt to keep her expression neutral, Greg could see the deep dislike in her eyes. Greg, however, didn't care in the least. "Walk with me," He commanded and without waiting to see if she would comply, he walked past the girl. For a while, Greg could only hear his own steps before a quicker set of steps resounded as she rushed to catch up to him. They walked in silence for a few seconds before Greg spoke up once again. "Do you want to be here?" He asked.
"What?" The question seemed to catch the girl off guard as she asked more out of surprise than lack of comprehension of what he was asking.
"It's a simple question, do you want to be here, serving as my servant," he posed once again with clarification.
"You know damn well that this is the last place I'd want to be," the girl shot back, unable to keep the venom out of her voice entirely.
"Good," Greg replied nonchalantly, not the least bit bothered by her words or the tone of her voice. "Because I don't want you here either," He calmly revealed. "Sadly for you and I, your father has forced us into this situation. You are forced to do whatever I ask of you, and I am forced to endure your presence for longer than it takes to say good morning," Greg voiced, paying no heed to the darkening expression on the girl's face. "However, just because we've been placed in a situation that we both don't like doesn't mean that we can't somehow make it work for the both of us. I could give you menial tasks around my house to do and take full advantage of the authority your father had given to me over you. But I won't, only on one condition. Fulfill this condition and your only task will be to escort me to the infirmary in the morning and escort me back home in the evening. What you do with the rest of your time will be entirely up to you," He relayed.
There was a bit of silence after his words and glancing at her, Greg could see that she was skeptical of him. She seemed to be expecting some sort of trickery from him. This didn't bother Greg at all as he knew, given a thousand cycles, the girl still wouldn't be able to figure out what he was up to. "What's your condition?" The girl asked, not bothering to hide the distrust in her voice.
"Simple, be nice," Greg answered her. "When we meet in the morning, you will smile and say good morning. I don't care if you don't say anything else right up until we reach the infirmary. I'm perfectly okay with silence. However, if you choose to speak about anything, you will be nice and respectful. Same thing in the evening. You smile, say good evening, and escort me back home. Whether in silence or with some pleasant conversation, I'm okay with either," Greg proposed. "One snide remark, one mean or sarcastic comment out of you, however, and this agreement is off. I'll endeavor to make this experience as miserable as it can possibly get, Do you understand me?" Greg asked.
"So all I have to do is smile and greet you and I can proceed to ignore you for the rest of the time I'm walking with you?" The girl asked.
Greg nodded. "And you get to spend the rest of your day however you want to!" he added.
"And you won't ask anything else of me?" She further prodded, clearly not believing that this was all Greg wanted of her.
"Apart from pretending to your father that I've been giving you tasks to do, nothing," he answered without missing a beat.
"Well then, good morning," Greg turned to find an obviously fake smile on the girl's face as she greeted him.
"Good morning to you," he greeted back with a smile. The smile was gone from the girl's face barely half a second later as she turned to look ahead, completely ignoring him.
With a smile, Greg turned to look ahead as well. Of course, Greg wasn't doing this because he needed a partner to walk with. As far as he was concerned, he'd have been much happier had she not been forced on him. The arrangement he'd just set up was, one part, a way to get rid of her for most of the day and one part an experiment. Seeing as Greg spent most of his day learning under the healer, he didn't need her hanging around the two of them. Not only because the healer had her own secrets to keep but also because Greg would be stymied in his attempts to seduce the healer, seeing as she had an image to uphold.
The experimental part of this arrangement had to do with his innate title AROUSING. Greg never wore any of his title items whenever he went to see the healer. The only item he wore other than his clothes was the wooden mask that the town carpenter had made for him. And while the thing hid most of the damage, it didn't hide the fact that he was disfigured. Without any of the title items to build on the effect of the AROUSING title, he wanted to see how long it would take for the title to work. How long it would take to break through the will of someone who not only thought herself above him but actually hated him? If Shalia managed to make it through the whole season without succumbing to the title, it wouldn't bother Greg in the least. It would just be a data point as to how strong or weak the actual influence of the title is.
In the silence that followed the greeting, Greg finally had the chance to look at his COMPLETED MISSIONS tab. After getting back home the day before, Greg had still gone through his willpower training before once again diving into the dungeon. It's only now that he got the chance to see what he'd managed to obtain from his clandestine indiscretions with the Town-head's wife.
———
Ø BASIC - Interact with the Town-head's wife for five minutes.
Lust points: 6
Danger Grade: Average (X5 multiplier).
Total lust points: 30.
Ø BASIC - Hold the Town-head's wife's gaze for ten seconds.
Lust points: 8
Danger Grade: Average (X5 multiplier).
Total lust points: 40.
Ø INTERMEDIATE - Turn the Town-head's wife on.
Lust points: 70
Danger Grade: Suicidal (X100 multiplier).
Total lust points: 7000.
Ø ADVANCED - Grope an intimate part of the Town-head's wife's body.
Lust points: 680.
Danger Grade: Suicidal (X100 multiplier).
Total lust points: 68,000.
Ø ADVANCED - Have an intimate part of your body groped by the Town-head's wife.
Lust points: 840.
Danger Grade: Suicidal (X100 multiplier).
Total lust points:84,000.
Ø EXPERT - Bring the Town-head's wife to orgasm.
Lust points: 7,900.
Danger Grade: Suicidal (X100 multiplier).
Total lust points: 790,000.
Ø ADVENTUROUS - foot-play,
Lust points: 130
Danger Grade: Suicidal (X100 multiplier).
Total lust points: 13,000.
Total Lust Points Obtained: 878,070.
NINE FEATS OF LUST ACCOMPLISHED.
Ø Arouse more than a hundred women at a single event.
Ø Bring the Town-head's wife to her first-ever orgasm right under the nose of her husband.
Ø Bring the Town-head's wife to multiple orgasms right under the nose of her husband.
Ø Lost your virginity to the healer.
Ø Took the healer's virginity.
Ø Creampied the healer.
Ø Cum on the Town-head's wife right under the nose of her husband.
Ø Creampied the Town-head's wife right under the nose of her husband.
Ø Impregnated the Town-head's wife right under the nose of her husband.
DO YOU WISH TO MERGE THEM?
YES/NO?
———
It took every ounce of will that Greg could muster to keep the shock from showing on his face when he read the last feat of lust. For a few seconds, it felt like the gears in his head had rusted over and Greg could no longer think. But while his higher head was lagging, unsure what to make of this news, his lower head was much more honest as Greg could feel the blood rushing to below his belt. The Town-head's wife had his child growing in her belly and going by how hard his dick felt at that moment, the thought turned him on to no end. It was a lucky thing that Greg had chosen to wear the SEXUAL INTENT pants that he bought the day before, otherwise, he'd be pitching a monster tent right about now.
Did he have a breeding kink? Or was it the fact that the one he impregnated was someone else's wife? Some small part of Greg couldn't help but wonder at the question. The larger part of him, however, wasn't willing to open that can of worms. A part of him knew that what he'd done was wrong. At least, according to conventional morality. At the same time, however, a darker and yet truer part of him knew that he didn't care. He wasn't the least bit remorseful for impregnating the Town-head's wife. What was worse was the fact that, given the chance to do it again, Greg would gladly take it and pump the woman full of his baby batter.
Turning his mind away from the final feat of lust, Greg turned his attention to the one that came before. 'Did I really creampie her?' Greg couldn't help but mentally direct the question at Olivia.
'Did your cum end up in her pussy or not?' came the short reply from Olivia.
The reply left Greg stumped. Whether a dick needed to be inside the pussy for it to count as a creampie or not, is the kind of philosophical question Greg had never thought he would ponder. Greg found himself feeling happy at just how pragmatic the system was. So long as a certain condition was met, it didn't overly concern itself with how exactly it came about.
'Nine-tenths of the way there,' Greg thought as he realized that he was just one feat of lust shy of the maximum number of feats that can be merged. Greg would have loved to take credit for being patient and exercising self-control. He, however, knew that it was more the result of circumstances that he had managed to not cash in the feats for rewards sooner. In every instance in which he'd gained new feats, something had come up that took his attention away from the feats. The first three feats were obtained on the day he had his father's send-off party. That, however, happened to also be the day that he gained access to the dungeons. A feature that took the entirety of his attention off the feats of lust.
The next three feats were obtained from losing his virginity to the healer. His lessons with the healer, however, had started soon thereafter and Greg had fallen into a routine that he saw no reason to break. After all, Greg was just barely managing everything as it presently was. Between being pumped full of mana, being half-tortured to train his willpower, and the toll that the dungeon had been taking on him, Greg had been too occupied to even think about the feats. Besides, six was much closer to ten compared to the initial three so some small part of him had probably been unwilling to take the reward of six merged feats over that of ten. Now that he had managed to add another three to the tally and the total count was nine, Greg most definitely wasn't going to stop just one feat shy of the max. Until he managed to attain that last feat, Greg would hold off on merging them.
'No need to rush. Even if you had all ten feats accomplished, until you hit twenty to thirty million lust points, I'd advise you to hold off on merging the feats,' Came the mental reply from Olivia.
'What do you mean?' came the confused reply from Greg.
'Three of the feats you wish to merge involve a seventh-tier mage, whereas you are still a mundane human. You already have an idea of what just one feat of that kind can give in terms of rewards. Even if you took out all the other feats and just merged the three of them, the rewards are sure to be phenomenal. If you don't have enough lust points to buy the options you don't directly pick, you will regret it for a long, long time,' The familiar advised.
Understanding dawned on Greg as he remembered the fact that his soul bow and the title AROUSING, had been bought from the system because Greg didn't pick them directly. While the system would give him one free pick out of a list of rewards, Greg could still get the other rewards by buying them. 'Wait, but won't it be like the last time?' Greg found himself asking through their link. 'Won't lust points be among the possible rewards?' He clarified his query.
'It may very well be,' Olivia replied, passing a shrug through their mental connection. 'But I don't have any control or foreknowledge of what the system might choose to give you as possible rewards. However, there is no harm in being prepared. That way if lust points are among the presented rewards, you get to keep more of your earned points. And if not, you're not caught flatfooted and can still get the other rewards. On the other hand, if you go in with no lust points, banking on the probability of getting lust points as one of your options and you don't, you won't have anyone to cry to,' She laid out.
With the same silence that they'd walked with to the infirmary, Greg and Shalia walked into the room where Greg got his first lesson from the healer. The reason Greg didn't go directly to the teleporter was because, once every three days, the healer would come to the infirmary to check on the Town-head's daughter. She was, after all, still her teacher. She'd give the girl pointers, correct her where she was making mistakes, and leave her with tasks to do for the next two days until the healer returned. Greg knew that Shalia didn't like the healer or the healing arts. Still, the healer didn't shirk her responsibilities as she went into details whenever the girl needed it. Today, was another of those days where the healer made an appearance to teach the girl, hence her presence inside the room when they walked in.
Once they were both behind their workstations, they bowed at the same time and greeted. "Good morning teacher."
"A good morning to you as well," The healer replied before turning her attention toward Shalia. "I just talked with your father. He asked me to excuse you from the lessons for the rest of this season as you are under punishment," She voiced with a glance at Greg. His increasing familiarity with the healer made it so that Greg could pick up on more of the cues she gave off. And that one glance told him that she already knew the nature of the punishment the girl had been put under.
Greg wanted to say something to set the record straight, to let the healer know that she didn't have to change anything. That the girl could continue with her lessons. It's only at the last second that he realized that he was projecting his love for the lessons with the healer onto Shalia. Greg would be devastated if the healer told him to take a season-long break from her lessons. The same, however, wasn't necessarily true of Shalia. The girl only took the lessons because her father had forced her into them, not out of any actual interest in the healing arts. And so, with simple curiosity, he turned to see what the girl's reply would be.
"Forgive me teacher, but it's true," She offered with a bow. Standing to her side, Greg could see the slight smile that graced her lips when her face was hidden from view by the bow. A solemn expression was back on her face when she stood back up. Turning to Greg, she offered a slight nod before speaking. "I'm off to do the tasks you assigned me. Excuse me," She politely offered before slowly walking out of the room.
Once she was gone, the healer turned to him, a look of curiosity on her face. "What tasks did you give her?" She asked.
For a second, Greg was tempted to tell a lie to cover for the girl. In the next second, however, he realized he didn't have to. The healer was diligent in teaching the girl out of respect for the Town-head's wishes, not because she liked Shalia all that much. The cessation of lessons for Shalia would be a reprieve both for the student and the teacher. So with a shrug, Greg answered honestly. "Nothing. Her only task is to walk with me to the infirmary in the morning and walk me back home in the evening. She can do whatever she likes with the rest of her day," Greg succinctly summarized.
There was a pause as the healer took his words in before a radiant smile crossed her lips. "Well then, shall we?" She asked.
Two minutes later, Greg was seated in the lotus position at the center of the sigil, calmly watching as the healer began to pour mana into it. The outermost layer of runes on the sigil glowed a vibrant green as a reflection of the healing mana from his teacher. As the mana flowed towards the center, however, the green color was leeched from the mana. This was the first part of the corrected sigil that the healer got. The outermost ring of runes was like a sieve that would filter out any alignments of the mana with any particular school of magic. This made it so that there were no limitations on what type of mage could be used for the process. The fact that the healer was the one powering the sigil wouldn't affect Greg's affinities or alignment seeing as the mana would be stripped of its healing qualities right from the outset.
The next layer of runes in the sigil would take the purification of the mana a step further by removing any aspects that the particular mage may have inculcated into his understanding of magic. As the healer had said, one's aspects affected the very mana they produced and had the potential to affect the one on the receiving end of the mana if unfiltered. These unfiltered aspects may hinder, alter or even taint the formation of aspects for the new prospective mage in ways that were as yet unknown in the present. As such, this layer was meant to ensure that no aspects from the one supplying the mana would affect the one receiving it.
The third layer of the sigil could best be described as a de-concentrator. While she was a seventh-tier mage, at present the healer's mana pathways could only support a mana concentration of up to the third tier, and so that is what she produced. As a mundane human being, however, Greg's body couldn't handle that level of mana. Heck, even tier-one mana would kill Greg if it went over a certain limit. And so what this layer of the sigil did was to break down the mana that came it into lower and lower tiers of mana. No matter what tier of mana came into this layer, it would just keep going round and round this ring until it was brought down to tier one mana. This third ring was the reason why the process could last for ten minutes even though the healer could only maintain magic output for about five minutes at best. It would take between fifteen to twenty units of tier-one mana to match one unit of tier-three mana. As such, despite the process lasting for about ten minutes, the healer never really had to supply more than a minute's worth of mana to the process.
The fourth layer was a containment layer. This layer would create an invisible dome that would separate and isolate the space in the middle of the sigil from the outside world. That way the mana that was concentrated in this small area wouldn't disperse into the atmosphere. The final and centermost layer of the sigil was the injector. Apart from just containing and saturating the area around the subject with mana, this final part of the sigil would ensure that most of the mana would be injected directly into the body of the one in the center of the sigil for maximum effect. It was on this last layer that Greg sat cross-legged.
Fifteen minutes after he'd been pumped full of mana, the pain ebbed enough for Greg to open his eyes and look around himself. Usually, the healer would still be seated just outside the sigil ready to begin their lessons. This time, however, Greg found himself sitting alone. Looking around, Greg saw that his teacher was standing at the mouth of the cave looking out at the mountain. Greg didn't go up to her immediately. Instead, he opened his system and had it absorb the remaining ambient mana held in the containment dome that his body couldn't absorb. The fact that the sigil broke down the mana into tier one mana, over ninety percent of which was injected into his body, meant that very little was left over for the system to collect. The total amount coming to about fifteen thousand magic points.
Greg could get almost eight hundred thousand magic points whenever his teacher healed him directly. As such, fifteen thousand mana points was barely a pittance. Still, given that Greg went through this process three times a day for the past thirty or so days, the numbers had quickly grown. Fifteen thousand multiplied by three came to forty-five thousand magic points a day. That number multiplied by thirty came to about one point three-five million magic points. Greg's current total magic points stood at one million and some change after he'd spent around three hundred and twenty-seven thousand magic points to buy the reinforced tier three flask that Olivia needed to store the essence of corruption that they'd gotten from the last dark crawler they'd killed.
Greg had gotten excited thinking that if it only took a month to gain a million magic points, it would only be five months before he could gain access to the next tier of the magic shop. That, after all, had been the trend with the Eros shop. Every higher tier had cost ten times what the tier that came before it did. And given that the basic magic shop had cost five hundred thousand magic points, he'd guessed that the next tier would cost five million magic points. Olivia, however, had thoroughly burst that bubble by letting him know that the next tier would actually cost him five hundred million magic points.
Greg's disappointment at the revelation had been short-lived when Olivia laid out just how lucky he was to even have access to the first tier of the shop. Some of the items in the shop that he could just buy with magic points, were items that most others in the magic world would give a hand and a leg for. For some, it wasn't an issue of lacking the money to buy it, the items were just so rare that to even hope to get it on the open market was pure fantasy. Even if it was just the first to the third tier, Greg had something that couldn't be quantified in terms of value.
Grimacing slightly in discomfort from how packed with mana every single cell in his body felt, Greg rose to his feet. All the mana in the containment field had been siphoned away by the system. Forcing himself to ignore the pain, Greg walked over to the mouth of the cave where the healer stood arms folded, as she looked out at the land before them. Greg had more than once come to the mouth of the cave himself, just to take in the breathtaking view that lay just beyond the threshold of the cave's entrance. Walking up behind the woman, Greg circled his arms around her waist and pulled her close, his head resting on her shoulder.
Just a few feet from where they stood, everything was covered in snow. An unsurprising fact given how close the cave was to the peak of the mountain they were on. If not for a combination of runic sigils at the door that kept the cold and snow at bay and others within the cave to keep the temperature bearable, the place would have been bitterly cold. From where they stood, one could see a sprawling vista of colorful trees that covered the mountainside in a thick forest. A few trees could withstand the cold this close to the peak. The lower down the mountain one went, however, the more vibrant the flora and fauna of the mountain became. Every once in a while Greg managed to catch a glimpse of some exotic animal among the trees that not even the former Roka was familiar with.
The reason for this was quite simple. This wasn't the mountain Roka grew up in. Every time he was sucked through the straw of the teleportation rooms, Greg felt like he'd moved hundreds of kilometers in a few seconds. Still, it was hard for Greg to wrap his mind around the fact that the mountain the town was on was off in the distance close to the horizon, looking like a small hill compared to the one they were on. The distance between the two points was such that Greg suspected that it would take almost three months of walking to cross from one mountain to the other.
Despite holding the healer close and being so sorely tempted to try and push things further, Greg restrained himself and instead asked. "What's wrong?"
"What makes you think something is wrong?" the healer asked in return.
"You are neither sitting waiting to teach nor are you at your workstation," Greg replied simply. "I've had the chance to watch you over the days I've been learning from you and as you said, you seem drawn to magic and magical research. Whenever you are dealing with people, there's always this … barrier, between you and them. It is almost as if some part of you can't quite connect to them. Perhaps it's the part of you that was hurt and betrayed, perhaps it's something else. That awkwardness, however, disappears whenever you are doing research. I've watched you work. I've seen the pure curiosity, fascination, and love for magic that animates you whenever you are on the workstation side of your lair. The first time I came to this place, I thought that one side was for work and the other for leisure. However, I was wrong about which side brought you more pleasure. I quickly came to see that one side is for the thing you love doing the most, and the other is only there for those few moments when you can't do it. Either because you've hit a snag and need to clear your mind, or because you are too tired to keep on researching. That you are here looking out of the cave rather than at your desk doing what you love best, tells me that something's bothering you," Greg laid out his reasoning.
There was a bit of silence following Greg's words before the healer let out a somewhat defeated sigh. "Have you given thought to what school of magic you wish to follow?" the healer asked.
A small frown crossed Greg's expression at the somewhat unexpected question. "I thought you said I'd have a few cycles to think about it?" He asked.
"That… that was before I had something extremely selfish to ask of you," The healer replied. This might very well be the first time that Greg had heard the healer stammer as if she was unsure of what to say. Greg could hear the deep conflict in her voice even as she spoke. "I… I want you to become a healer, Roka," she said…
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