The Sixth School Book II Ch. 025

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

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Chapter Twenty Five: Leaving Seclusion...

A willpower battle is a strange thing. There are no blows exchanged. No punches, no kicks, and no weapons that one can wield with expertise to grant them an advantage over one's foe. From a certain perspective, it's almost comical just how childish a willpower fight could be. One says uh-huh, and the other answers nuh uh, in an endless loop. Each party in a willpower fight tries to impose their truth on reality and negate that of their opponent. In the end, the most unyielding one carries the day. After months of death and rebirth, Roka, Greg eventually learned how to connect to his law body. The battle against the law of desire was happening at this level after all. To try and come at it in any other way would have been pointless. Like trying to catch a fish at the bottom of a river by waving your hands in the air.

Connecting to his law body was a strange experience. On the one hand, he felt like he was separated from reality in that he wasn't operating on the mundane level. Instead, he was connecting to the deeper laws that governed his very existence. At the same time, however, he felt like the obscuring layers had been stripped away and he was now in contact with the true reality. As strange as connecting with his law body was, however, losing it to the law of desire was even stranger.

In his previous life, Greg once saw a video where a person was convinced that a fake hand was their real hand. By being stimulated in similar ways, the brain came to perceive the fake hand as being real. Losing his body to the law of desire was the exact reverse of that experiment. One moment, his right arm was his own. In the next, however, this was no longer the case. Attached to his body was an appendage that belonged to desire. The natural reaction anyone has when something foreign attaches itself to you is to try and remove it. At the level of law, however, simply not recognizing the arm as his own proved enough for him to relinquish any claim over it as it was immediately lost to the law of desire.

Before Greg could even make sense of this strange phenomenon he'd suddenly realize that his legs were also not his. Before he could figure out how he had lost his legs, he'd realize that he wasn't looking out through eyes that weren't his. One by one, pieces of him were taken away. First was his body, but quick to follow was his mind. His thoughts felt foreign to him, memories that he thought were his suddenly felt like they didn't belong to him. What he thought of himself and the world around him were suddenly the thoughts and perceptions of a greater force separate from himself. Like someone caught in a rapidly shrinking room, Greg found himself feeling like he was slowly being crushed out of existence. In the end, all that was left of him right before he was snuffed out of existence was the singular thought... no, it went deeper than thought, it came from the very depths of his being... a pure and unadulterated hatred for the fact that he was under the thumb of forces that he couldn't ever hope to overcome.

That was months ago... probably. Inside this little dark room, Greg had lost all track of time. Rather than day and night, time had morphed into periods when he was fighting and losing to the law of desire and times when he was resting and recovering from the battles. It took him close to three hundred attempts before Greg was able to keep a part of him from being taken. He'd had to train himself to believe that every single part of himself, physical or conceptual, was him. This was a truth as firm as existence itself and any reality in which this was not the case was to be rejected totally. He'd kept trying to force this belief into his very depths so deeply that not even something as powerful as natural law would be able to change it.

The first time it worked wasn't on anything physical but on the memory of his family. Greg could feel the image of his mother fading in familiarity to him. He, however, clung to it and refused to let go. Just as the memory of her was about to be lost completely it snapped back into sharp focus as everything inside Greg refused to lose her. She was his, and not even the laws of the universe were allowed to take her from him. Of course, the law of desire won in the end. No matter how firm his resolve, Greg was still a mortal going up against a law of the universe. He didn't have anywhere near the willpower to hold it off for long. Greg, however, wasn't bothered by this. If anything, he was over the moon. Sure, the law of desire had in the end snatched the memory from him... but two seconds later than it usually did.

Greg didn't have anyone present keeping track of the time for him, but he'd died enough times that it was burned into his brain how long each part of the process took. Two seconds might have seemed paltry, but only if one didn't take into account the vast gulf between himself and the law of desire. This was like throwing a punch that stopped a tsunami in its tracks for two seconds. Even if the tsunami still swept you away, you still managed to stop millions of tons of water with just your fist. To Greg, this wasn't just an amazing feat, but also a turning point. After months of death after death, he'd finally done it, he'd proved to himself that he could forge his willpower into something that could contend with the very laws of the universe!

The other thing that Greg learned from that small victory was just how flawed his approach had been. Right up until that point, he'd been trying to reason himself into greater willpower. The problem with logic and reason, however, was that it was open to being wrong. When the memory of his mother had been threatened, however, all that had gone out the window. Greg had ceased to care what was right and what was wrong. At that moment, even if the entire universe and everything within it had been on the side of the law of desire, he wouldn't have cared. The universe and everything within it could burn. That was his mother and nothing would ever change that! It wasn't about greater truths or more convincing lies. The only kind of willpower that worked was one that didn't care about either. A willpower that was impervious to reason, one that scorned logic. It spat in the face of truth and disdained the most convincing lie. It didn't try to adjust the universe around it, rather, it left the universe with no choice but to adjust to it.

The fight ahead of him was still an uphill one but Greg didn't mind. He had already proven to himself that it could be done, and more importantly, could be done by him! All thoughts of the target that Morpheus had set for him had vanished. Rather than just holding off the law of desire for ten seconds, Greg was more interested in fighting the law of desire itself. He was like a predator that had caught the scent of blood. Greg had no plan of letting go until he had his jaws around his quarry's throat!

After making this first, most crucial step, the next thing that Greg was forced to learn was how not to falter even when he lost ground. At the start, he'd always be firm as a mountain, unwilling to be moved by anything or anyone. As soon as one part of him was taken away, however, it'd be like the first domino in a sequence. His willpower would falter as he started to doubt its strength under the onslaught from the law of desire. Everything after would fall faster and faster right up until the very end. It took almost three months and several thousand deaths, by Greg's rough estimate, for him to learn how to make his willpower strong enough not to falter even in the face of what went on around him.

That was why even now, as the law of desire took his arm from him, his face remained completely impassive, unbothered by this fact. Just a second ago, he'd been fully committed to the idea that that arm was his and there was no reality in which that wouldn't be the case. Now that it was taken, however, Greg acted like nothing had changed, his focus instead moving to what remained of the rest of his body. Each of these was a losing fight and Greg knew this. One by one, the bits and pieces of himself that he claimed as his were eventually taken away by the law of desire.

And still, he didn't falter in the least.

Greg didn't have the mentality of a fighting retreat as that allowed for the possibility that he would eventually lose. He didn't think of this ordeal as making the law of desire fight for every inch it took as that carried the unconscious idea that ground would be ceded bit by bit. No, Right up until the very moment Greg lost a part of himself, a hundred and ten percent of him was committed to the idea that it was his and he'd never give it up. It didn't matter how much of himself he'd lost or how many times he'd already gone through this and lost. What was his was his and he'd never give it up...

When Greg opened his eyes after dying once more, he was startled to find Morpheus seated cross-legged across from him in the guise of the monk. Greg wasn't sure if he was reading into the deity's expression too much or not, but there seemed to be some genuine surprise in his features that he was trying to hide. Why that would be, Greg couldn't even begin to puzzle out. "Twenty-one seconds," he stated, with measured approval in his voice. Greg couldn't help the smile that crossed his features at the quoted time. Greg had long since stopped keeping track of the time he spent fighting the law of desire. Instead, he'd been entirely consumed with refining his willpower into an even more and more unshakable thing. He was thus, just as genuinely surprised by this time as Morpheus seemed to be. "Perhaps there was something Mother saw in you that I am failing to," He muttered, seemingly more to himself than to Greg.

Greg arched an eyebrow. "Is there any particular reason you've reappeared after so long? Or did you just suddenly feel the need to give backhanded compliments?" Greg questioned. When the deity first disappeared, Greg had refrained from calling on him. Morpheus had asked him to try and chart his own path and that's exactly what he tried to do. After a while of isolation inside the room, Greg had sent mana to his eyes seeking to call on him. It wasn't even that he wanted answers all that much. Instead, the isolation inside the small dark room had started to get to Greg and he'd been hoping to have the deity's company, at least for a day or two while he rested from the frequent willpower battles. All that had met his calls, however, was silence. Unable to compel the deity to do things he didn't want to, Greg eventually gave up and turned his energies and attention entirely to sharpening his will.

"I thought you'd want to know that the life order promotion elixir will start losing its effect in about a week or so," Morpheus answered after a while of regarding him. Greg didn't know why, but he got the impression that the deity was having a hard time reconciling himself with the fact that he could last as long as he had. This left Greg unsure of how to feel. On the one hand, it stung that the deity clearly never expected him to actually hit the ten-second target that he'd set out for him. On the other hand, it felt good to prove to Morpheus that he was wrong to look down on him.

It took a second for Greg to turn his attention away from his observations of the deity to what had been said. When he did, however, Greg could feel his eyes go wide. "A... a year has gone by already? " He questioned, having long since lost any means to track the time. Greg hadn't been able to tell how long he'd been in the room or how much time remained. At first, he'd struggled with this as the time seemed to drag on. Greg, however, eventually lost himself to the willpower battles with the law of desire. Time had morphed. Rather than day and night, there were now only times when he was fighting the law of desire and times when he was going over previous battles trying to figure out where he could improve. The thought of this time in seclusion coming to an end hadn't even crossed his mind in months.

Now that he'd heard that the time was about to come to an end, however, Greg couldn't help the weight of the past months pressing down on him, the desire to be with his family and others close to him was almost overwhelming. A part of him was sorely tempted to just say screw it, the two weeks didn't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things, and walk out of the room. He had after all, not only hit the target set out for him by Morpheus, he'd more than doubled it. No one could say that he had slacked off for this past year. A sigh, however, left Greg as he turned his gaze to the edge of his vision. A small screen that was always at the edge of his vision grew to cover most of it. With a few mental clicks, Greg found himself looking at a screen that he hadn't seen in years.

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ONE-TIME PURCHASES ARE AVAILABLE.

41,000,000 Lust points.

Cost: 0 Lust points.

Receive?

Yes/No?

DO YOU WISH TO BUY LUST AURA?

COST: 11,000,000 Lust Points.

YES/NO.

DO YOU WISH TO BUY THE TITLE: RESONATING CHARM?

COST: 9,000,000 Lust Points.

YES/NO.

DO YOU WISH TO BUY SPREADING MARK?

COST: 11,000,000 Lust Points.

YES/NO.

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It had been almost two years now since Greg last looked at this screen. It was why he'd chosen to go into seclusion. Greg had always known that strength mattered a lot in this world. However, it wasn't until he was forced to run away from his home and be chased across continents that Greg became keenly aware of just how weak he was. Worse yet, with Fate having it out for him, he didn't have the luxury of taking things slow or easy. He needed to be strong and he needed to do so yesterday. This was part of that. He had chosen to seclude himself so that he could receive the rewards he'd earned from merging ten feats of lust.

When he first got the rewards, the first option hadn't been forty-one million lust points, but a card with the image of an eye on it. The name of the reward was MANA SIGHT, and according to the card, it would have allowed him to directly see mana rather than just sensing it. If he was being honest, Greg would have loved such an ability. The number of ways such an ability would have been useful to him was almost endless. As it turns out, however, it had been a trap. Bait set by Olivia's true self as she tried to get Morpheus' eyes. After an elaborate ploy by the deity, however, she backed off believing Morpheus to be an Elder. That first option had been replaced with forty-one million lust points. The exact amount that the other remaining items would have cost, including the pocket space that Greg had already purchased.

The first and easiest purchase after receiving the forty-one million lust points was the title, RESONATING CHARM. According to the description given on its card, it was meant to act like a snowball. The more women that he managed to charm, the more women would be drawn to him. Simple as the description was, Greg could see the great utility of this title. Great as his system was, at its core, it was all about racking numbers. The more women he bedded the greater the reward he would get from it. While riskier targets were far more rewarding they were also few and far between. The vast majority of women that he bedded didn't come with lethal consequences. This title would help him leverage numbers to his favor.

When Greg bought his first title, AROUSAL, he didn't feel a thing. It was only when he began seeing its effects that he became certain that the title was working. This time, however, with the life order promotion elixir increasing his sensitivity to the laws, Greg could feel his law body shift subtly. New laws were being added to his being that changed the way he interacted with the world around him. A part of him was tempted to pause and look inside to try and analyze what had changed. Greg, however, gave up the thought just as quickly as he knew that he'd very likely get sucked back into trying to further sharpen both his will and concept of self. He, however, didn't want to have to spend any more time in seclusion than he absolutely had to, so, he turned back to the screen.

Other than the slight modification to his law body, the title didn't have any other effects, Greg thus moved on to the next item on the list, the upgraded lust mark. Greg hadn't made that much use of it while in his hometown. There hadn't been much need to, or at least, that's what he'd thought. Greg no longer held any such delusions. He couldn't afford to give up any tools or avenues of power that he had at hand. Besides, he was now the equivalent of a third-tier mage which meant that his soul was far more tempered than that of a mundane human. This would allow him to support more connections without straining his soul. To not make use of this boon, would be to give up power for no good reason. With a mental click, Greg accepted the purchase.

It spoke to how deeply the countless deaths he had experienced over the past close to one year had warped his psyche. As soon as Greg had accepted the prompt to buy the SPREADING MARK, the back of his hand where the mark was, began to glow slightly. An excruciating pain shot through him. Rather than wince or cry out in pain, however, Greg found himself turning to look at his hand indifferently. It wasn't exactly that he didn't feel the pain, rather, he'd had his body destroyed so many times that he was having a hard time caring about this version. It was a dangerous mentality that Greg would have to discard as he wouldn't be taking this formation with him after he left seclusion. If he died outside of this room, or with the formation deactivated, there would be no coming back for him. That being said, the time to leave hadn't yet come. After he'd received all his rewards, he'd probably go a few more rounds with the law of desire. The body he was currently in would probably be once more corrupted by it and destroyed before it was again restored by the stasis formation. One could thus understand his indifference.

Once again, the changes weren't just surface level. Sending mana to his eyes so he could see deeper than the surface, Greg watched as a formation that looked a lot like the tattoo on his skin was carved into his spirit body. Unlike the changes to his law body, which didn't translate into pain, any formations etched directly into his spirit body seemed to come with a mind-numbing amount of it. The same had been true of the personal pocket space when he got it two years back.

In a way, it made sense that, unlike the RESONATING CHARM, the SPREADING MARK was a formation etched into his spirit body and not a change to his law body. The title was about him and how he affected the world around him. The mark, however, was in essence a hidden link between him, those he slept with, and those that they in turn slept with. It was the thread to an invisible web that would be gathering lust points for him. More lines were added to the formation, making it more intricate and alluring to look at. Enough so that Greg wouldn't have minded having it as a visible tattoo. According to Olivia, however, the two of them were the only ones that could see it. After all, it would just be asking for trouble if everyone he slept with suddenly had a visible tattoo, especially given his proclivity to go for already claimed women.

Greg's attention turned back to the screen before him when the pain on the back of his hand started to ebb. The last item and the one Greg was most on edge about was the LUST AURA. Nascent insight into the aspect of lust was the explanation given on the card. The laws of desire dealt with all manner of motivations. Anger, greed, hatred, jealousy, desperation, and yes even lust. Greg had thus encountered laws dealing with lust in his exploration of the laws. He, however, hadn't focused particularly on them as he sought to understand the greater law of desire. With the insight that this card promised though, Greg hoped that he'd be able to get a firm grip on one corner of the greater law. Who knows, it might prove to be the first domino that would guide his understanding of the law and his mastery of it.

This particular reward was also part of the reason why Greg had chosen to interrupt his fight with the law of desire. The elixir he'd taken had pushed his sensitivity to the laws up to eleven. After the elixir had run its course, Greg wouldn't be able to sense the laws with the same clarity that he could now. It guaranteed that he'd be able to rise at least one rank, which would move him from the mage rank of the mortal tier to the resonance rank of the demi tier. But while he'd still be able to sense laws he had a great affinity with, laws that he had little to zero affinity with would become completely undetectable to him. Greg wanted to create a synergistic interplay between the two rewards. With the elixir heightening his sensitivity to the laws, Greg would be able to gain a lot more from the LUST AURA reward. With a calming breath to center himself once more, Greg mentally clicked on the 'YES' option.

Greg immediately felt the difference. His connection to the law of desire was personal. The life order promotion elixir only opened the door and allowed Greg to reach out and interact with the laws on his own. As soon as he clicked on the LUST AURA card, however, a mix of sensations, emotions, revelations, impressions, and truths flooded his mind. None of what he was sensing was in any way deceptive or meant to misguide him. Greg could even feel the profound truth lurking in the barrage of information that was flooding his mind. He, however, could feel a slight disconnect in what was coming in.

If not for the sensitivity that the elixir allowed him, Greg would probably never have been able to pick up on the subtle difference. With it, however, Greg could feel that no matter how profound they were... these weren't his truths. Right at the start of this process, Morpheus had told him that his path had to be one of his own making. Greg suspected that the truths he was being bombarded with were probably from the Primordial, Olivia's true self. But no matter how in tune with the law of lust she seemed to be, these were her truths, not his.

Still, these were the insights of someone far more powerful than he was. Even if he wouldn't take them in their entirety, Greg knew he'd be a fool to toss them all out of hand. According to Morpheus, Olivia's true self was at the ascendant rank, the next life order tier after the demi tier, the rank that Greg had cracked the door on. And if what the deity had said was to be believed, Olivia's true self had already hit the limit of that tier and was looking for a way to break into the deity tier. The insights that Greg was taking in may have been tainted by her perspective, true, but they also carried in them core truths that he couldn't afford to ignore. With time, he'd be able to parse out what to keep and what he could let go, but for now, nothing could be discarded as useless.

Greg was vaguely aware that he was in this state of epiphany for what must have amounted to days. He, however, wasn't that surprised by this. These were the laws of the universe he was dealing with. As the past year had proved, they weren't easily grasped, let alone controlled.

***

Calyn couldn't help the nervousness she felt as they all stood outside the door. All through their travels, this fifth floor had remained exclusively for those allied with Roka. His family, his guard, his teacher, Lothar, and herself. If there was ever an unspoken indication of who was in charge of their little group, then this scene was it. One could excuse his family for being here. Roka had been secluded for a little over a cycle after all. It's only natural that they missed him. Olivia could justify her presence here by the very fact that she was his guard. It was her duty to protect Roka at all times, where else would she be? She was also the one who had let the rest of them know that Roka would be coming out today. Apparently, they had a secret means of communication that he'd used to convey this. But while his family and guard had reason to be here, the question of why everyone else was here was much less straightforward.

Calyn had had many teachers over the years guiding her both in fighting and in her ascension through the tiers. None of those teachers would have gone out of their way to stand outside her meditation room when she was coming out of a long meditation session. Healer Alena, the woman that Roka called teacher, however, was also present, clear anticipation in her gaze as she awaited the return of her student. When she first joined them just a cycle prior, Healer Alena had been a mundane woman without even a speck of magic to her. Sensing her aura now though, Calyn couldn't help the shock that rocked her as she realized that the woman was on the verge of breaking into the third tier. Calyn could remember wondering why someone as powerful as Roka would have a mundane woman as his teacher. Looking at her now, it only made sense. The woman was a monster.

When it came to Lothar and herself, their presence here was the most telling. There was no reason for the flame mage to be present. After one cycle of being with this group, Calyn had worked out that Lothar was actually under Healer Alena and not Roka. Nevertheless, he was standing here with everyone else, probably unwilling to give any slight to the mage that was linked to a deity. When it came to herself, there was ostensibly no reason for her to be present. Roka had made it quite clear that he didn't consider her a slave. The deity he was attached to hadn't emerged to assert otherwise. And yet, here she stood just as on edge as the rest awaiting Roka's reemergence.

Sure, part of it was motivated by her ulterior motive. She wanted to grow closer to Roka. She didn't expect anything drastic to happen in the near future. But in the course of the next one hundred cycles she hoped to bear him a child or two. Knowing her father and the clan head, they'd almost immediately see the opportunity in this. They'd do everything to be involved in the children's lives and thus through them, form deep ties with their father, Roka. Not only would her clan benefit by gaining such a powerful ally, but all the merit for this alliance would be accorded to her. It more than justified her presence here. Calyn, however, knew that it wasn't the only reason she was here. Much as the deity hadn't raised any objections when Roka had tried to free her, he also hadn't endorsed it. Roka might not see it that way, but, until one hundred cycles were up, she was still his slave. And what other place did a slave have other than at her master's side? Calyn was drawn out of her musings by the sound of the doorknob turning. She glanced at it before looking back up in nervous anticipation, her heart suddenly beating faster. When the door was pulled back, the Roka that stepped out from behind the door was not the same Roka that she'd met a cycle ago.

There was a subtle pressure coming off Roka even as he looked at them all with some measure of delighted surprise. Calyn couldn't quite put her finger on it, but the closest way to describe it was that Roka was imposing himself on the world around him! It wasn't mana. Roka wasn't exuding mana powerful enough to suppress them or to push back at some external force. If anything, his mana didn't show any sign that it had grown in the least since they last saw each other. And yet, it almost seemed the world was subtly shifting around the object that was Roka. Calyn wasn't sure if she was experiencing an illusion of some kind or not but, it was almost as if he was more... real than the rest of them. That, while they faded into the background, the world acknowledged Roka's presence. Calyn could see by the smile that was spreading on his lips that Roka wasn't trying to show off or exert his power on anybody. If anything, he seemed unaware of the effect he was having, and yet there was something that almost seemed to demand that everything else yield before it.

At the same time though, the allure of the man before her seemed to have shot through the roof. Something about the unquestioned authority that he seemed to effortlessly wield caused her blood to run hot. The first time Calyn saw Roka, she'd gotten the vivid image of him pinning her against the wall and ravaging her. Never had that image been more clear or desirable in her mind than it was in this moment. Calyn didn't even notice how the distance between them vanished. One moment she was standing a few paces away from him watching him emerge from his meditation room. In the next, she had crossed the distance between them, thrown her arms around him, and pulled him into a deep soulful kiss. Calyn barely noticed the way he stiffened or the shock in his eyes, given that her own were closed. But when their lips parted, she couldn't help but breathlessly speak.

"I... I want to have your baby!" She said...

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