The Sixth School

Author's note.

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

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Chapter Twenty four: A Pact...

Greg had understood it logically when Olivia had been explaining to him about life orders and the fact that all living beings fall into separate life orders, some with higher and some with lower. Right then, however, Greg understood right to his very bones what a difference in life orders entails. The very presence of the being observing him, even without exhibiting any malice, was enough to make his soul quake with fear.

Greg suddenly felt a sharp pain erupt right from the core of his being. He wanted to shout in agony, but in the presence of such a being, Greg wasn't willing to even breathe loudly, lest he incur their ire. Turning to look down, Greg found himself looking at the oddest injury he would probably ever see on himself. Running from his left shoulder down to his belly button was... a crack. It was almost like his body was a porcelain vessel that had been subjected to just a little too much pressure, enough so that it cracked.

"I'm sorry about that," An alluring feminine voice reached him.

All Greg had done was look away for a second and, somehow, everything had changed around him. He now found himself in a luxurious room furnished with the best that money could buy. He didn't even remember doing it, but Greg was now seated in a supremely comfortable high-back chair facing a woman that looked like she was in her early twenties, with a face so perfect that it was almost eerie to look at. She was calmly sipping a clear liquid from what appeared to be a white porcelain cup. Looking at the table before him, Greg could see a similar cup with the same liquid before him.

"Even in my realm, soul fractures are a nasty business," she said before waving her hand in his direction.

Greg felt the most potent, and at the same time gentle feeling wash over him. Greg would never in a thousand years look down on his teacher, the healer. But there was no doubt, that the kind of healing he'd just received was of such a higher grade that there was just no comparison. As the feeling washed over him, the cracks on what he now knew to be his soul slowly closed up, and the pain he felt ebbed away. Before long, his soul was perfectly whole again. How are they such a nasty business if all it takes is a wave of your hand to heal them? Greg couldn't help but lampoon within himself. He, however, would never say it out loud to the being before him.

"I meant to bring you directly to this construct the moment you touched the staff," the being before him explained. "Who knew that you wouldn't even approach it? Instead, you used the mana construct copy of yourself to try and get rid of the staff. I was forced to pull your soul directly into my presence," She explained. "I did my best to rein it in, but for a fraction of a second, you were exposed to a little of my aura, hence the injury," She continued. In the mouth of anyone else, the words may have come off as extremely arrogant. With the one before him, however, they were just statements of facts. Greg wasn't even sure why she was explaining herself. With the power gulf between them, she could tear him into a thousand pieces and there would be nothing he could do about it.

"I've found that getting off on the wrong foot with someone can make things a lot more complicated than they have to be," She said. "You humans, despite being acutely aware of how weak you are, can be a rather strong-willed and rebellious bunch when not properly motivated," She said "It may have been unintentional, but perhaps being hurt on your first interaction with me might be the only excuse you need to have a bad impression of me. Which would in turn make you reticent to abide by any agreement we have. You would drag your feet, and try to do the utmost to do the least that you can get away with and nothing more" She relayed. "An all-around headache that I would eventually have to torture and kill just to vent my frustration," The words were spoken so casually that Greg almost missed the threat. Part of him knew that the being wasn't even trying to threaten him, she was just plainly reporting what she would do in such a situation, a fact that somehow made the whole thing far worse. "Most of my kind would never deign to humor the whims of you mortals. But, over the eons, I've found that a simple, straightforward interaction with your kind tends to yield much better results than being mysterious or forceful. With your soul being that of a mortal and not another being like me, if all it takes is a wave of the hand to heal it, why not wave it?" she posed rhetorically. Both his wondering at why she was explaining anything to him and his lampooning of her healing him with the wave of her hand had been answered. The being had directly answered Greg's thoughts making him realize that not even those were hidden from her.

"Indeed Greg, nothing about you is hidden from me," This was the first time in a while that someone had called him by the name that he had back on earth. Greg immediately understood that she was indirectly letting him know that even his life back on earth was an open book to her. "So, I'd kindly ask that we skip the testing and prodding that you mortals try to do whenever you come across beings such as myself. As soon as the thought enters your mind, I will know of it. Any trick you might wish to try would be pointless," She informed him. There was no threat in her voice. She might as well have been reading the words off a piece of paper. And yet, Greg couldn't help the absolute terror that seized him at the warning. She might appear calm and composed now, but Greg didn't want to know what she was like when she became angry. A smile slowly crossed her lips. "I'm glad we understand each other," She said calmly.

"Y... you seem to appreciate candor," Greg forced himself to speak up, unable to help the slight tremor in his voice. "So I'll just come right out and ask," He said. "Who are you and why did you bring me here? And what do you want from me?" he asked one after the other.

"I can only answer one of those questions," Came the reply. "The simple fact of knowing who I am will draw the attention of beings that, believe me, you do not want to look your way. So, I can't tell you that," She informed him. "What I want from you, I also won't say as of yet as you are too weak to even be of use to me right now," She said. "Telling you right now won't achieve anything. You might even try to act in cross-purposes to my plans in a misguided attempt to break free of me. You humans do love your illusion of freedom," She said, adding the offhand comment at the end. "Ask me again when you are at the same level as the healer," She said, causing Greg's eyes to widen. Just knowing what this being wanted of him required that he be a seventh-tier mage! Greg got the distinct impression that the being didn't think much of the healer's power. But to him, who hadn't even touched on the first tier, it was like looking up to the peak of a mountain from its foot. "Until then, you are free to live your life however you wish," She stated.

"The answer to the question of why I brought you here is simple. You and I never had the chance to talk before I sent you into Roka's body," She informed him with a smile. Despite the fact that it had been a suspicion at the back of his mind, Greg still couldn't help the shock he felt when the entity before him outright revealed that she was the one responsible for his new lease on life. There were a thousand and one questions that he wanted to ask. Part of him, however, suspected that she wouldn't be willing to answer ninety nine percent of them. As such, he only settled for the only obvious question before him. "You just said that I am not powerful enough to know what you want from me," he said. "Why bring me into this realm then?" He posed.

"Three reasons," she replied. "The first is to inform you, the second is to warn you, and the third is to reward you," She went on. Greg nodded for her to go on. "I gave you a second chance at life, Greg," She spoke calmly. "I didn't do it out of the kindness of my heart or because I like you or some other flowery reason, I did it because I plan to use you," She spoke plainly. "I have plans. Plans that will require your participation at some point in the future," She informed him "When the time comes, I will call, you will answer, and do as I say, no questions asked!" She declared. "If you can agree to this, I will send you back to go on living your life as you please. Like I said before, I probably won't call on you before you reach the same tier as the healer," She relayed. "However, if you find this objectionable, now is the time to speak up. I won't harm you in any way, I'll just find another soul that is willing to abide by my plans to replace you," she said. "Don't answer immediately," She cautioned. "I would advise that you think on this very carefully. Because if you say yes now and then, later on, try to backtrack on your word, you will have me as an enemy," She didn't add any threats on top of this declaration. She didn't need to. The look in her eyes was enough to send chills coursing through Greg's soul. "I will allow you the duration of this conversation to think it over," she offered.

"Next is the warning," She continued calmly, causing a look of confusion to cross Greg's face. Hadn't she just delivered the warning? He wondered. An amused smile crossed the being's expression. "No, Greg, I didn't. I was just informing you of the paths before you," She replied calmly. "The warning, Greg, is that, For reasons that I am as yet unable to pry into, you have crossed paths with an inordinate number of powerful entities in a rather short amount of time. A seventh-tier mage, a primordial turned sentient, a Herald of the abyssal realm, and myself," She listed out. Of the four listed, Greg only knew of the first one, the healer. And the last, simply because she was currently seated before him. Which primordial the entity was referring to, Greg didn't know. And a Herald of the abyssal realm? Was that who was behind the staff that turned his uncle into a tier zero mage? Greg could only wonder.

"The majority of people go their whole lives without even seeing the least of these, the seventh-tier mage. And yet, in a little less than a month, you have come across four such entities," She informed him. "Normally, when the strings of fate become so tangled, you are either meant for great things... or fate has noticed an anomaly that it is trying to amend," The being calmly warned him.

"And by amend, you mean..."

"Kill you," She finished Greg's statement with barely any hint of concern for him.

Greg was quiet for a long while before he spoke once more. "You speak of fate as if it's sentient," he said.

"It's starting to be," Came the cryptic reply.

Greg was silent for a while waiting for her to go on. She, however, remained silent, not willing to reveal more than she already had. "Who is the primordial?" Greg instead asked when it became clear he wouldn't be getting any more answers about fate out of the being before him. Rather than answer him, Greg felt a flood of new memories flow into him. Unlike his normal memories, however, this wasn't from his own perspective. Instead, it was as if he was someone invisible standing inside the room. Those inside didn't pay him any mind despite him being in their midst. Greg easily recognized this as the infirmary room in which he recovered. Greg got to watch himself as his face went pale white and he passed out. Immediately, Greg remembered that this was when he gained Olivia as a familiar. Was this the scene of how she came into being? Was she the primordial? Greg couldn't help but wonder even as he watched Olivia's form take shape.

This was only a memory, but every detail within it seemed to have been perfectly preserved allowing Greg to experience it firsthand. Which was why Greg froze when Olivia's aura washed over her. Having been around her for the past few weeks, Greg knew that the aura of his familiar was nowhere near as powerful as what she was currently exuding. The differences, however, didn't stop at her power. Greg was in soul form, but even he could feel the thick aura of lust that clung to this unfamiliarly powerful Olivia! She wasn't just a sexy woman, it was almost as if Greg was looking at the very embodiment of lust taken form. Even though Greg knew that this was a memory and that the actual Olivia wasn't here with him, Greg felt a deep unrelenting desire to copulate with her. Everything within him was crying out to fuck the woman. Greg was about to succumb and try to reach for his dick to jerk himself off when he felt a cooling sensation wash over his mind and rid him of the entrapment of lust that seemed to have taken hold of him. Greg knew that this was the being's doing. She had cleared his mind and given him the resistance necessary to help him keep his mind and not be reduced into a lust-addled idiot.

With his faculties of reason restored, Greg could go over the memory with clear eyes. Greg couldn't help his shock at what the short memory revealed. First was just how powerful Olivia's original form was. When the being had called her a primordial instead of a ninth-tier being, Greg had suspected that it was because she was already more powerful than the ninth-tier. What he felt when she finally took form only confirmed this guess on his part. Even without having ever met a ninth-tier mage, Greg found himself suspecting that not even they were this powerful. Olivia's original was in a class of power far above the nine tiers.

The second shock was the fact that the Olivia he knew wasn't the original familiar that he was supposed to get from the system but a much weaker version of her. A part of him wanted to feel cheated by Olivia's original. Greg, however, quickly remembered what had happened just a few minutes prior. Just the memory of her aura had been enough to render him bereft of reason and force him to succumb to his own lust. Had the original Olivia stuck around, Greg doubted that he'd even remember who he was by now. Rather than being Olivia's master, he would have been a slave to her original. Ready to do anything she asked just for the chance to bed her. Greg couldn't help the cold chill he felt at the thought. The fact that he was still lucid was only because Olivia's original was interested to see how far he could go with the Eros system.

The third and fourth shocks were tied together. The third shock was that, from the way Olivia's original spoke, she was the creator of the system. And if that wasn't bad enough, it was followed by the fourth shock. Roka, it seemed, wasn't the only one that had the system. From the way she spoke, it was clear that she considered him to be among the more promising of her seeds, he, however, was by no means the only one. Greg didn't know how to feel about this. He had never thought of himself as some kind of chosen one. Still, it would be a lie to say that he wasn't a bit disappointed at the fact that he wasn't the only one to have such a unique boon.

At the same time, however, Greg couldn't help feeling a sense of threat and caution. Greg may not have been that old in terms of years, but that didn't make him naïve. Just as the being before him had plainly laid out, most good things weren't given out for free. Olivia's original was clearly after something. What would happen to him if he failed to deliver? What if one of the other 'seeds', as she called them, managed to achieve what she was after and she no longer needed the rest, what would happen then? Not to mention the fact that it wasn't even a certainty that the one that helped her achieve her goal would meet a good end either!

A whole bevy of questions and concerns filled his mind even as he finished reviewing the memories. "Wait a moment," Greg spoke up as something else occurred to him. "How come she had never commented on the fact that I am from a different world?" Greg asked. "So far, she treats me as if I've been in that small town all my life. It's almost like..."

"She can't see the memories of your past life," The being before him finished his statement. "It's almost as if an entity more powerful than her has sealed away those memories so that no one other than you can access them," She added with an amused smile. Clearly, she was referring to herself. "Did it never strike you as odd that you've never felt the need to discuss your former life with her?" She asked him.

Now that she mentioned it, Greg couldn't help but notice it. It was indeed odd that he'd never once mentioned such a big thing as the fact that he wasn't actually Roka. He was a soul from a completely different world and yet he'd never felt the need to touch on such a monumental subject! As it turns out, this was the doing of the entity before him. Still, Greg's confusion remained. "Wait but if she has no access to my memories of my former life? Then how can she have made my system?" Greg posed. He could remember the look and feel of his system. No matter how he looked at it there was no denying the fact that the thing looked like a computerized interface. The mechanics of the thing may not have been a computer per se, given the fact that it was somehow merged with him at the soul level. But there was no denying the fact that the interface that had been presented to him thus far was of a twenty-first-century computer. If Olivia's original had no way of accessing those memories, then how did she manage to make the system look that way? Were there computers in this world?

"No Greg, there are no computers in this realm," came the calm reply. "Did you not notice the way she referred to the 'systems' as you call them?" The entity posed, clearly not baffled by the issue. "Seeds," She answered her own question. "What you have within you is what we call a soul seed. Advanced magic that even your healer wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of," She declared. "The thing about soul seeds is that each has a unique way of presenting themselves and interacting with the one that they are linked to. Yours may appear to you like a computer interface. Someone else's, however, may appear to them as a book, a scroll, or even a library for some. All that matters is that they present to the particular individual in whom the seed has been placed, all the information that they were supposed to," She explained.

"Hold up," Greg stated as something else occurred to him. "You sent my soul into Roka's body just a month ago, how could Olivia's original have planted a seed in it?" He asked.

"You weren't listening, were you?" The one before him calmly replied. "I never said I replaced Roka's soul, I said I grafted you into his body," She said.

It took a second for Greg to process what the simple, innocuous-seeming, word 'graft' meant. When it did, however, Greg couldn't help but blanch. "Wait! You don't mean to say that Roka is still trapped inside the body?" Greg posed. Greg couldn't imagine what it would be like to be a prisoner in one's own body. To watch as someone else took it over and lived it while you were relegated to the position of observer for the rest of your life. The answer that came from the entity before him, however, was somehow even worse.

"Not for long," She replied in a nonchalant tone. "Other than the small bit of Roka's soul needed to keep the soul seed going, you are slowly assimilating the rest of Roka's soul as nutrients for your soul," She stated. Despite the macabre nature of what she was saying, she spoke with the air of one that was commenting on the weather. "How else do you think you have his memories and feel the same bonds of connection that he did?" She posed rhetorically.