The Sixth School Ch. 017

Author's note.

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All Characters in the story are 18 years of age and above...

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Chapter Seventeen: Title items...

Greg came to a stop half a kilometer away from the town. The potion of heightened sense that he'd taken just three hours before was about to lose its effect. Still, even while it faded, it was potent enough to let Greg know that there was no one within a hundred meters of him. As such, Greg didn't hesitate to take three items out of his storage ring.

The first of the three items was the carcass of a three-tusk boar. Greg's initial plan had been to buy whatever meat his family might need from the shop. After getting the floating dagger set, however, hunting had become all too easy for Greg. All he needed to do, was to dip one of the blades in one of the powerful and fast-acting paralytics that Olivia had had him buy from the system. After that, all Greg had to do was get within a hundred meters of his prey. Whenever Greg picked a target and had the daggers fly toward them, the targets would be struck by the three knives even before he could blink. That was how fast they were. The three-tusk boars usually weren't paralyzed immediately, owing to how big they were. They, however, never made it more than a kilometer from where they were stabbed before they could no longer move. Tusk boars tended to avoid blood as they instinctively knew that it attracted predators. As such, when a member of the group was bleeding and not moving, the rest of the group tended to move away from the victim to avoid being caught up in an attack by a predator that was drawn near. After that, all Greg had to do was walk over to the downed boar and slit its throat. Simple.

For Greg, it would have been far more convenient to just walk to his home and take the carcass out when he got there. He, however, would have no way of explaining his new abilities. Given that this was a world of magic, having magic, in and of itself, wouldn't be considered that much of an issue. After all, the healer, was a magic user and no one batted an eye at this fact. The issue where Greg was concerned, was the fact that, before the injury, he'd had no magic to speak of. If he started demonstrating powers that he shouldn't have, it would raise questions that he couldn't afford to have raised. He planned to slowly start to demonstrate the abilities that he had over the course of his apprenticeship with the healer. It would still be shocking to the members of the town, but seeing as she was already a mage, more people would be willing to believe that he had awakened his abilities as a result of training under her. Until such a time, however, Greg would have to keep his abilities hidden.

This was the reason why Greg had taken the boar out of his ring. Roughly half a kilometer was as close to the town as Greg was willing to get and still risk using the storage ring. After all, the closer one got to the town, the higher the chance that he'd encounter others. He wouldn't be able to explain pulling a whole three-tusk boar out of thin air. The second of the three items was a strength-enhancing potion. A three-tusk boar could easily weigh over two hundred kilos. As he presently was, there was just no way Greg would be able to carry the beast without the potion. After he'd taken the potion, Greg would quadruple his strength for roughly half an hour. Enough time for Greg to carry the boar on his back to the town.

The last thing that Greg pulled out was a wooden mask. While he was out in the forest for a hunt, Greg saw no need to keep his face hidden. It wasn't like he was trying to make friends with the beasts. Now that he was coming back to the town, however, the mask was a necessary part of the plan that Greg was weaving together. Looking at the plain wooden mask in his hands, one wouldn't be able to tell it apart from the mask that Greg had gotten his sister to get from the town carpenter. It, however, was nothing like the first mask, this mask was one of the twelve items that had appeared when Greg unlocked the elite Eros shop. In fact, this mask was the reason that Greg had asked his sister to get the wooden mask from the town carpenter.

Six days prior, Greg bought the 'AROUSING', title for five million lust points. Following that, he'd naturally wondered if there were more titles that he could obtain from the shop. After all, unlike the magic shop, Greg had unlocked all levels of the Eros shop. While he might not expect to find titles on the basic level of the magic shop, there was a good chance that he could get them from the elite tier of the Eros shop. And sure enough, seven of the twelve items that had appeared when he unlocked the elite tier of the Eros shop were items that would grant him other titles. However, unlike the 'AROUSING' title that Greg got from the feat of lust, these new titles were attached to the items themselves and not Greg. In other words, so long as Greg had the particular item correctly equipped, then the title would apply to him. However, as soon as he took the item off, he'd also lose the title that came with it.

Of the seven items, there were three rings, two bangles, one pendant, and one mask. Each of them granting a different title:

Ø CHARMING -- MASK.

Grants the title of 'CHARMING' to the wearer.

CHARMING -- All members of the opposite sex who gaze upon the owner of this title will find them to be attractive.

Cost: 85,000 Lust points.

Ø TEMPTING -- PENDANT.

Grants the title of 'TEMPTING' to the wearer.

TEMPTING -- Members of the opposite sex that are in a committed romantic relationship are attracted to the owner of this title proportional to how committed to the relationship they are.

Cost: 92,000 Lust points.

Ø SENSUAL TOUCH -- BANGLE.

Grants the title 'SENSUAL TOUCH' to the wearer.

SENSUAL TOUCH -- Causes the touch of the owner of this title to be very arousing and pleasurable to the opposite sex.

Cost: 88,000 Lust points.

Ø ADDICTIVE -- BANGLE

Grants the title of 'ADDICTIVE' to the wearer.

ADDICTIVE - The more the number of encounters of a sexual nature one has with the owner of this title, the more one will crave to experience more sexual interactions with them.

Cost: 97,000 Lust points.

Ø DISCERNING -- RING.

Grants the title of 'DISCERNING' to the wearer.

DISCERNING -- The owner of this title can instinctively tell what will arouse a member of the opposite sex and how aroused they presently are.

Cost: 93,000 Lust points.

Ø VIRILE -- RING.

Grants the title of 'VIRILE' to the wearer.

VIRILE -- Every time a man with this title has sex with a woman, they will inevitably get pregnant.

Cost: 96,000 Lust points.

Ø STERILE -- RING

Grants the title of 'STERILE' to the wearer.

STERILE -- No amount of sex with the owner of this title will lead to conception.

Cost: 82,000 Lust points.

Of the seven items, none of them cost less than eighty thousand lust points, the cheapest being the ring of sterility which cost eighty-two thousand lust points. The most expensive of the lot was the addictive bangle which cost about ninety-seven thousand lust points. After buying the Eros sigil and Eros familiar, Greg had been left with two hundred and seventy-five thousand lust points. When Olivia reminded him to go to the missions tab, he gained another two hundred and three thousand lust points leaving him at four hundred and seventy-eight thousand lust points. A hundred and fifty-five thousand lust points shy of what he'd need, to get all the seven items. Each of the seven items had its own appeal and Greg had agonized for long trying to decide which ones to buy and which one to leave for later.

The mask was a must. Even though Greg had no plans of curing his disfigurement in the near future, he had no desire to have it interfere with his ability to accomplish the system's missions. Greg wasn't naïve enough to believe that other women would be as indifferent to his disfigurement as the healer had been. As such, the choice had been down to which of the other six items he would buy along with the mask. In the end, Greg chose to buy the TEMPTING pendant, ADDICTIVE bangle, and DISCERNING ring, which came to a total of three hundred and sixty-seven thousand lust points. This left Greg with a hundred and eleven thousand lust points. It was enough that Greg would have been able to buy another title item if he'd so desired. Olivia, however, had advised him against spending all of his lust points away. As such he'd left it at that. He would get the other three items later.

When Greg had first gotten the mask, it had been made of the clearest glass and thin as a cicada's wing. Greg had been afraid that the thing would shatter at the slightest pressure. A few minutes of interacting with it, however, had made it clear that even if Greg expended every ounce of strength he could muster, he'd never be able to even make a dent on the item. What made the mask even better was the fact that it wasn't just limited to giving a title. Not only could the mask change to look like any other mask that Greg wanted it to, but also, it could do the same with faces. In short, the mask doubled as the perfect disguise item. Heck, if Greg wanted to, he could have the mask just merge with his face. The mask would disappear but the title would remain. This ability of the mask to take on any look that Greg desired was the reason why it looked no different from the mask that his sister had gotten from the town carpenter.

After taking the strength-enhancing potion, Greg pulled on the mask. Greg was still for about fifteen seconds as he allowed the strength-enhancing potion to take effect. He wasn't sure if steroids back on earth felt like this, Greg however doubted it. As the potion took effect, he could feel his muscles bulking up and tightening like steel cords. He felt like he was tapped into a bottomless well of energy that would never run out no matter how much of it he expended. Without wasting time, Greg put on the mask he'd bought from the Eros store, bent down, took hold of the three-tusk boar's legs with both hands, and with one heave, lifted it into his shoulders. When he first got them, Greg had liked the quiet steps enchantment of the subtlety pants more than the dainty steps one. It was only in the days that followed that Greg had come to value the dainty steps enchantment far more than he did the quiet steps one.

Stealth had its utility, no doubt. However, for most of his day, Greg wasn't trying to be stealthy. If anything, for the past four days, he'd been moving about in the forest hoping that his uncle would come for him. As such, the stealth aspect hadn't proved all that useful. However, inside the forest, he had always been on the move. With the dainty steps, Greg was able to move far more efficiently. At first, he hadn't noticed it. However, the more he moved the more he noticed the effects of the enchantment. They didn't actively affect or interfere with any of his motions. Instead, it was more of an unconscious influence on how he moved. Like 'step here and not there', 'only stride this far forward', that spot is soft, you won't have a firm footing', that spot is full of brambles, that will slow you down,'. None of these were voiced or active thoughts. Instead, whenever he moved, they would just float up into his awareness based on the terrain around him. If he wanted to, he could consciously choose to ignore the feeling. He, however, would always be left with the uncomfortable feeling that he wasn't moving as efficiently as he otherwise could. Slowly, without a single word being uttered, Greg was learning the best way to move in different terrains. Greg wasn't sure if this was part of what Olivia had in mind when she had him buy this pair of pants. Knowing the familiar's thoughtfulness, however, Greg wouldn't be surprised if it was. Olivia often acted like sex was all that was on her mind. Greg, however, could also see that the familiar was a lot smarter than she let on.

Even with the guidance of the dainty steps enchantment, Greg was sweating by the time he got to the town. He, however, didn't mind this. The town didn't have a wall around it, as such, there wasn't anything like town gates. There was, however, only one road leading in and out of the town, and except for those that already lived close to the edge of the town, most of those who lived deep within the town tended to use that road. As such, a large number of eyes were fixed on him as he walked into town with a three-tusk boar on his shoulders. The mask was the only one of the title items that Greg usually took off whenever he went hunting. This was because it was the only one of the title items that he currently owned that impeded his ability to take potions. Even when it merged with his face, Greg wasn't able to take anything with it on. According to Olivia, when Greg became a first-tier mage and could use mana, he would be able to overcome this shortcoming. Until such a time, however, he'd just have to take it off whenever he wanted to take any potions. The TEMPTING pendant, ADDICTIVE bangle, and DISCERNING ring, however, always stayed on him at all times. As such, even while he moved through the house toward his home, Greg was the center of attention.

Greg wasn't stupid. He knew that walking into town with a two-hundred-kilo boar on his shoulders would be a spectacle that would draw eyes his way. But while the men were looking at him with some respect and awe for the feat of strength, that wasn't what was burning in the eyes of the women that looked his way. Each of the four title items was playing its own particular role in the scene that was playing out. The mask, despite completely obscuring his face, still left the women that looked at him with the impression that they were looking at someone attractive. The pendant made the wives, fiancés, and those being actively courted among the women even more enamored by him.

At the time, Greg hadn't given much thought to it. But at the party that his mother had thrown over his recovery, Greg had interacted with almost twenty different couples. That was roughly twenty different women that were affected by his 'AROUSING' title. The reason this was important was because there was a milestone mission that kept track of how many women Greg had aroused. The first target was usually one woman, followed by ten women. The target for this milestone mission right now, however, stood at one hundred women. Greg already had the innate 'AROUSING' title. On top of that, he now had two completed milestone missions whose reward was to make it easier for Greg to arouse members of the opposite sex. And from the ring Greg had on, Greg could get a very clear sense of the lust that was slowly building up in the women around him.

The lust sense that Greg gained as a result of the 'DISCERNING' title was a mysterious feeling as far as Greg was concerned. It was as if a new sense had been added to his body, and his brain didn't know how to interpret the information it was getting from this new sense. It was almost like a warmth that wasn't quite a warmth, a scent that tickled at his nose but wasn't quite a scent, an intense feeling that suddenly became illusory whenever he tried to get a grip on it. Greg just simply couldn't capture exactly what this new sense for lust translated into, he however could feel it intensify the longer that the women looked on him. In most other settings, a sweaty man carrying a boar on his shoulders wouldn't have been considered an appealing sight. In this town in the middle of nowhere, however, a strong man capable of hunting and taking care of their family was the most appealing kind of man to the women of this town.

The first day that Greg had come back with a boar on his back, it had been attention-grabbing. The people, however, had probably thought it a fluke. When Greg repeated the feat the next day, people had taken notice. When he did it again on the third day, they began to anticipate it. Judging by the amount of attention that he was garnering, he'd clearly already set himself up as a powerful hunter in the minds of those around. And from the mounting lust that Greg was picking up on, he had caught the sight of quite a number of the women in the town.

The bangle was the last nail in the coffin. Due to the lust that was almost oozing off most of the women that were looking his way, the nature of the interaction morphed from a mundane one to one of a sexual nature. The title granted by the bangle made it so that the more one engages in any kind of sexual interaction with the owner of the title, the more one would desire to engage in the same behavior going forward. At present, all this amounted to was that the women would want more and more to ogle Greg. However, anyone that knew anything about addiction, or human nature for that matter, knew that eventually, people wanted more. Lust led to ogling. Ogling would lead to fantasies. Fantasies would fuel desire. Desire would inevitably draw them to Greg like a moth to the flame.

The only wrinkle in this picture, for Greg, was the fact that the system required him to have interacted with someone before they were added to his mission lists. Apparently, lusting at him from afar didn't count as an 'interaction', to the system. Otherwise, given the amount of lust he was sensing, Greg was certain that he would have easily blown past the 'arouse one hundred women' milestone. Seeing as the town was comprised of roughly three hundred families, which came to about two thousand people, Greg was certain he would have made it a good portion of the way toward his next milestone, which he assumed was a thousand. Greg, however, planned to solve this wrinkle at his ceremony to honor his father. By now, it had probably spread around town that he was planning to have a ceremony at the end of the week. With the amount of hunting he was doing and the reputation he was building for himself, Greg wouldn't be surprised if a majority of the town attended the ceremony. Heck, there was a chance that someone from the three big families, perhaps even from the town head's family, would be in attendance. It wasn't expected of him, but Greg planned to greet every single one of those that attended. His target, of course, was to get the brief interaction that would get the women on his mission lists. He, however, couldn't just greet the women and ignore the men as it would raise eyebrows. Instead, he'd have to interact with everyone that came, and in so doing, cover up his true intentions.

When he got home, Greg's mother was already at the gate ready to greet him. Greg had been coming back home at pretty much the same time every day, so it wasn't too surprising to find her there. The compound was already full of meat racks that were drying out yesterday's hunt, and turning the meat into jerky before it was moved to the smokehouse, where it would be smoked in a bid to keep it fresh until the day of his father's send-off ceremony. "Mother," Greg called out in greeting, even as he pushed past the gate.

"You've worked hard my child," His mother answered him in a genial tone even as they moved around the house towards the back. At the back of the house, there was a Y-rack upon which Greg could set the three-tusk boar to allow one to work on it more easily. "I've had your sister prepare you some warm water," She declared. "After you've set the boar on the rack, you can use the water to clean yourself off and rest," She instructed.

On the very first day that Greg went out hunting and came back with a three-tusk boar, he had argued with his mother over this. Thinking the job of skinning, disemboweling, and preparing the boar to be dirty work that he didn't want his mother to be doing, he had insisted that he be the one to do it. His mother, however, would have none of it. She had told him that she'd been the wife of a hunter for years. Long before Greg even knew how to walk, she'd already been dealing with the game that his father brought home. This was nothing new to her. Despite this, Greg hadn't been willing to give in. He'd still wanted to be the one to take on the task of taking care of the boar. But while the woman before him was calm and soft-spoken when she wanted to be, she could also be quite stubborn at times. Of course, as the head of the house, Greg could have forced the issue based on his authority and she would have been powerless to stop him from doing as he wanted. This, however, was his mother. Much as he had the right to do so, it wouldn't have felt right to pull rank on her. Especially when all he was trying to do was help.