The Sixth School Ch. 039

Author's note.

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

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Chapter Thirty Nine: Invitation.

Greg slowed in his approach to the infirmary. He arched an eyebrow when he spotted Shalia standing by the door to the building. This action, however, was hidden by the wooden mask attached to his face. This wasn't the CHARMING mask from the Eros shop. Instead, it was the mundane one that he got from the town's carpenter. Greg would never wear any of the title items in front of the healer. It was partly out of respect, the larger reason, however, was because he didn't want her to think that he was in any way trying to manipulate her. She'd already been betrayed by people she thought to be her close friends before. Greg didn't want to give her any reason to doubt the genuineness of their interactions.

From the way Shalia's eyes zeroed in on him, it was clear that he was the one she'd been waiting for. This struck Greg as odd seeing as other than the first day when she called him to the room where the healer was, they hadn't interacted with each other for the past month since. Why she would be waiting for him, Greg couldn't puzzle out. Still, he came to a stop before the girl, curious to hear what she wanted from him. "What? You are not going to greet me?" the girl asked waspishly, her snooty tone already halving Greg's interest in whatever it was she wanted to say.

Greg turned to look eastward toward the sun which was only just peeking out from the horizon. "I doubt you woke up at the crack of dawn and came to stand here just to hear me greet you. So, how about you just tell me what you want!" He said, doing all he could to keep his voice neutral.

"You should learn how to speak to your betters!" The girl snapped at him when she noted the complete irreverence in his tone of voice. She clearly was used to everyone trying to flatter her, if not getting tongue-tied, in the case of most guys Greg's age. That this guy seemed completely unimpressed by her, got under her skin in a way that no one else ever had, not even the healer. At the very least, the healer was beautiful, this guy had to walk around in a mask to spare people the sight of his wrecked face, and yet he acted like he was somehow her equal.

Without another word, Greg started to walk past the girl, the rest of his interest in whatever she had to say going up in smoke.

"Stop!" The girl demanded, stepping in his way to keep him from leaving.

"You have the next three breaths to tell me what you want," Greg spoke in a chilly tone.

Despite the displeasure that was clear to be seen on her face, she seemed to realize that Greg was being serious and as such, didn't waste any more of Greg's time. "My father, the Town-head," she began, putting extra emphasis on the title. "Invited you to dinner more than three weeks ago! He's curious to find out why you haven't shown up?" She asked.

Greg let out a sigh as he remembered the invitation by the Town-head. Part of the reason that Greg didn't go was because he didn't want to be dragged into the town's political games. The healer had promised to help him onto the road of magic, beyond that, however, Greg would have to find his own way. As soon as his foundations were set, and Greg was able to strike out on his own, he planned to leave the town to explore this new world. As such, the question of who the next town head would be was a moot one. It was of zero interest to him which of the three families took over after he was gone. So long as his family wasn't harmed in any way, then all three could take turns at leadership for all he cared.

The other reason for his failure to attend the Town-head's dinner was simply because of how busy he was. For someone with a powerful system to make use of, Greg hadn't anticipated just how hard the whole magic thing would be. His days started with him getting up at the crack of dawn to get to the infirmary. The healer had given him a token that would allow him passage through the wall into the small teleportation room. Channeling Olivia's mana, Greg would teleport over to the healer's cave where his morning infusion would begin. After getting the scroll from Olivia's original, the healer didn't immediately use it. Instead, she had said that she would need a few more days to finalize the details on it. Greg, however, suspected that she was going over the scroll with a critical eye trying to see if there were any hidden elements or traps in it. After being betrayed once, the healer wasn't one to trust easily. It was three days later that they began the actual training. Whether she found any issues with the scroll or not, the healer never revealed.

According to the scroll, the subject, in this case, Greg, could be subjected to three infusions of mana in a day, each separated by a six-hour gap in between. The infusions would only last for around ten minutes by Greg's estimation. Short as it may sound, Greg was glad for it. Any longer, and Greg didn't think he would be able to withstand the process. As it turns out, one's body being flooded by pure mana isn't the sweetest of sensations out there. When the process starts, it's usually painless. The concentration of mana in one's body is so low that one can barely feel it. As the build-up continues, however, it slowly morphs into a tingle all over one's body. The closest sensation that Greg could liken it to is when one sits in a certain position long enough for their legs to grow numb and then stands up. The tingling sensation that one gets as the limb wakes up, is the same sensation that Greg feels as the mana builds up. Only, in Greg's case, it's all over the body.

It's a little past the midpoint that the process starts to get uncomfortable. By this point, Greg would usually be feeling like an overstuffed toy. It is a lot like every single cell in his body had engorged on mana and couldn't possibly take any more. Only the infusion doesn't stop. Somewhere between the seventh and eighth minute is when the pain begins. As his body continues to be saturated by mana, it starts to feel like every single cell in his body is being washed in the purest form of energy there is. Each of his nerve endings feels like they've been doused in oil and set alight. Greg would have a piece of wood that he bites into to keep him from biting his tongue off. The screaming usually starts at the very last minute.

After the infusion, the healer will usually allow him fifteen minutes to get through the worst of it. It's not that the mana dissipates after just fifteen minutes. Instead, the fifteen minutes is the time given to Greg to acclimate to what his whole body had been thus far subjected to. Over the next six hours, his body will slowly be trying to digest the infusion of mana it's been subjected to and to get used to the feeling of the mana coursing through every cell in his body. Six hours later, after the former infusion had ebbed by about ninety percent, Greg would be subjected to another infusion, and his body forced to start the process all over again. The worst part of all this was that they were only employing first-tier levels of mana.

Given that Greg was just starting out, his body could only handle the lowest concentrations of mana. Anything stronger and his body would quite literally break down from the overload. According to the healer, it would take him anywhere between six to nine months for him to get used to the first-tier levels of mana. Only then would they move on to second-tier levels. Given how much of a challenge acclimating to tier one mana was, Greg shuddered to imagine what second-tier, or worse yet, third-tier mana would feel like.

Between the infusions, Greg would continue with his literacy lessons. Greg had been under the impression that forming his core and mana pathways would involve some form of meditation. He had been right. According to the healer, if they had been using one of the normal methods of forming a mana core and mana pathways it would involve Greg actively trying to circulate the mana throughout his whole body. In the method that the healer had devised, however, not only was this unnecessary, it was ill-advised. The mana pathways that formed as a result of the first method were usually closed circuits that didn't allow for the spillover effect that the healer had discovered using her new method. By refraining from any attempts to consciously control the mana inside his body using meditation, Greg would be allowing the mana to find the most appropriate pathways to take in circulating his body. Doing this would lead to the formation of natural mana pathways. And with the spillover effect, this would also slowly temper Greg's body as well.

The literacy lessons were the most enjoyable part of the day for Greg. With Olivia capable of communicating directly with his soul, Greg was able to imbibe the human tongue at almost twice the speed he otherwise would have. Whenever Greg read any words, the familiar would communicate the meaning directly into his soul making his reading comprehension almost as good as one that has been speaking the human tongue all their life. Speaking the language, however, wasn't as easy. To his ears, Greg felt like he was speaking the language okay. Given the way the healer was continuously wincing and sometimes even bursting out in laughter, it was clear that he didn't have it quite pinned down. The hardest part of the lessons as far as Greg was concerned, was the writing. Not only had Roka never written anything in his life, but even Greg from Earth was having a hard time with it. This is because he'd never had to use a quill in his former life. He could see the characters clearly in his mind. Whenever he tried to write it out on paper, however, it'd come out looking like chicken scratch.

Despite their relationship, the healer was a stickler for perfection! While she would praise him for his comprehension speed, and be encouraging when it came to speech training, she would turn into a demon instructor from hell when it came to writing. Greg had come to learn just how colorful the human tongue can be owing to all the cuss words that the healer had employed whenever she reviewed his dreadful handwriting. For all her castigation, Greg knew that she wasn't placing unrealistic standards on him that she didn't live up to herself. Greg had seen the healer's handwriting and for the first time in both his lives, Greg found himself just staring at a page for the beauty of the written characters on it as opposed to the meaning of the words. Holding the page with the healer's handwriting next to his own was almost a travesty in itself. If thousands of years later an archeologist came across the two pages, they'd probably be convinced that they were of two different languages.

Three infusions a day means that there is one in the morning, one at midday, and one in the evening just before Greg leaves. As painful as being pumped full of mana is, that isn't where his day ends. Leaving the infirmary just as the sun is setting, Greg would usually head straight home and give his mother the piece of meat he'd bought from the system that day. Greg knew that his mother was confused and wondering how he usually got the meat seeing as he rarely went hunting anymore. The woman, however, seemed prudent enough not to ask unnecessary questions. She'd only sought reassurance from him that he wasn't placing himself in undue trouble to get the meat. After Greg had reassured her that he wasn't doing anything that would land him in trouble to get the meat, she hadn't questioned him any further.

After having dinner with his family, Greg would head to his room for his willpower training with Olivia. Over the past month that Greg had been subject to these training sessions, Greg had had his eyes opened to all the ways that a man can be both tortured and tempted. Olivia was yet to have Greg do the same training activity twice. The familiar seemed to have an almost endless number of ways to torment Greg in the pursuit of forging his will such that it wouldn't be broken by anything. One night, Greg would have to ignore an almost mind-breaking itching sensation all over his body. In the next, Olivia would have him fight the urge to grope her. Only for the next day to have him fight his urge to attack her despite turning his violent urges all the way to eleven. In short, Greg never knew what he would be facing whenever he walked into his room for a willpower training session.

And despite being at it for about a month now, Greg was yet to make it through all the hundred breaths that Olivia had set as the duration of the training sessions. The closest that Greg had gotten to this goal was eighty breaths of time. This was during the session where Olivia had instructed him to resist the urge to attack her despite being artificially flooded with violent impulses by the familiar. Greg made it to the eighty-third breath before he cocked back and threw the hardest punch of his life aimed at the familiar's face. Of course, Olivia caught his hand in midair with almost humiliating ease. And despite all the force Greg had put in the punch, her hand barely even moved back an inch. As she always did, as soon as Greg failed to resist the particular test of the day, she withdrew her influence immediately. Greg was in the awkward position of not knowing whether to be proud of how long he'd managed to last or to be ashamed of how weak his attack seemed to be in the eyes of the familiar.

Despite how hard each of the willpower training sessions was, they weren't the end of Greg's day. After each session, Greg would next delve into the only dungeon he now had access to, A DINNER PARTY. And of all his daily activities, this was the most frustrating one. Over the several attempts that followed his first foray into the dungeons, Greg had come to discover just how lucky he'd been on his first run.

The first challenge had come in finding his way back to the merchant's house in the noble district. The first time Greg had gotten there it had been after being chased all over town by the spider gang. The dungeon shop allowed Greg the option of buying a map of the town. This however was one of the perks that would affect the assessment of his performance in the end. They placed restrictions on his ability to gain good results, or performance modifiers as the system called them. For example, buying a map would immediately place a twenty percent penalty on the assessment of one's exploration within the dungeon. The more detailed the map, the more expensive and, even worse, the higher the penalty placed on Greg's exploration assessment. In fact, if the map covered more than seventy-five percent of the terrain, then he wouldn't earn any exploration points. And there was no way of tricking the system. Greg had bought a detailed map on one run thinking that he could memorize it and use the memory on the next run to avoid the exploration penalty on the next run. Unfortunately for Greg, on his next run, the system had completely changed the layout of the city. The map he'd bought before became completely useless.

The next challenge after finding the merchant's house was timing. If Greg came too early to the merchant's house, he would find that the merchant was still home. Greg only needed to die once at the hands of his bodyguard to know that the man didn't appreciate strange men walking into his house asking to be employed as his wife's manservant. Arriving too late, however, also didn't work as Greg would find that the husband had already employed a servant for his wife, making it impossible for him to be hired. After repeatedly observing them, Greg had figured out that there was only a thirty-minute window of time in which he could make a move. Miss it and the chance of interacting with Zarra for that dungeon run is completely gone. Greg's troubles, however, didn't end there.

After figuring out where the merchant lived and what time to approach the merchant's wife, the next hurdle in Greg's path was gaining Zarra's trust. On his first run, the merchant's wife had been willing to recruit him because she saw that he was on the run from thugs and didn't think that he was in any way related to her husband. With him walking into her house looking for a job, however, the dynamic completely changed. First, Greg had to convince her that he wasn't some spy sent by her husband pretending to be unrelated to him in order to deceive her. As soon as that had been established, Greg would then have to explain why he wasn't dressed suitably for the position he was seeking. Greg hadn't even known that what he was wearing would matter. Although when he thought about it, the first place the woman had sent him the first time around, was to the tailor. Walking in while wearing 'commoner clothes', as the woman had called it, hadn't won him any points with the woman.

After another round of convincing the woman, Greg came up against another problem that rendered all his previous efforts pointless. The contract that he was offered by the merchant's wife was just as lopsided as the one he got on his first run. The only problem was that this time, all the positives were on the employer's end and he as the servant would be little more than a slave to serve at his mistress's pleasure. Now that he was the one asking for a job, she saw no need to give him a good contract. The thing wasn't even one percent as good as the contract that he got the first time around. There were no protections for him either from being randomly fired or from being put in harm's way by his employer or her family. After reading the thing, Greg threw it back in her face before turning around and walking out of the mansion.

On subsequent runs, Greg had tried to recreate the events of the first dungeon dive. He, however, had come to find out why the system considered the blonde girl he'd bumped into to be an elite thief. Repeatedly, Greg had tried to pretend to be a hapless bystander just walking by. She, however, seemed to be able to sniff out his pretense, no matter how convincing Greg tried to be. She'd always just run past him or cross to the other side of the road if she could. All this led Greg to believe that she hadn't really run into him by accident the first time it happened. Instead, she'd probably marked him as her target and used his inattention against him.

At one point, Greg had grown frustrated and desperate enough that he made the mistake of physically trying to stop her. Greg didn't see how she did it. All he caught was the glint of a blade in the morning sun. Next thing he knew, he was on the ground clutching at his slit throat, trying to keep from bleeding out... he didn't succeed.

This was the other part of the dungeons that made each run such an ordeal, the deaths. While the system wouldn't allow Greg to cause serious harm to his soul, it didn't spare him from experiencing each of the deaths. Bleeding out on the sidewalk was actually among the more tame deaths he'd experienced. The time the merchant had his bodyguard kill him for trying to become his wife's servant was among the most gruesome of deaths he'd experienced. It turns out that the muscle-bound freak that the man keeps at his side is a sadist. Greg shuddered every time he remembered the slow death that the man had subjected him to. Knowing that this was an imaginary world and that as soon as he died he would be back in his bedroom, was the only reason he managed to keep his reason despite the excruciating pain.

After that particular dungeon dive, Greg had come to thank his stars that his soul bow had become somehow corrupted. It had become his get-out-of-jail-free card. Whenever things started going in a direction that he didn't want, he would just summon it, and pull on the string for roughly three minutes before trying to let go. He would immediately find himself on the clouds above the city of Torrin with the message that he had died.