Academy of Legends [A LitRPG Harem Adventure]

“I’ve never heard of this proficiency,” I said, my body tingling with the sensation of mana running through newly opened channels within me.

“Marked often have proficiencies that don’t appear in history textbooks,” the Headmistress explained. “Yours, Nexus, is an extraordinarily rare one. Powerful, but it comes with a plethora of risks. It is recorded in a number of volumes about the secret history, both here and in the three elite academies.”

“I knew I was right,” Alice said, pumping a fist.

“You have good eyes, Miss Lark,” the Headmistress praised. She turned her gaze on me. “You should get some rest soon, Mister Ward. Classes begin in two weeks, and it will be a significant adjustment for everyone, especially you.”

“I figured that much,” I said.

“The first male Marked in a millennium,” Laurent said, shaking her head in wonder. “You have a target on your back, Mister Ward. Are you familiar with the concept of the Marked curse?”

I shook my head. “Never had a reason to learn, ma’am.”

“I told you to stop calling me that.” Despite her words, the Headmistress smiled. “As a Marked, you will draw attention not just from other humans but from demons as well. There’s a reason behind Ascension Academy being close to the front; anywhere we set up would become that very front. As the only male Marked in living memory, they will take a special interest in you.”

“Fun,” I said. “I was expecting to be sent to the front anyway.”

“Your talents will be of far more use here than the front, Mister Ward. However, on the human side, we cannot stop news of your Mark from spreading. Suppressing it would do more harm than good, and rumors always take a life of their own. There are thousands who would kill to be in your position, and they will. Miss Lark, would you mind stepping outside for a moment? Just outside the door, please. I’ll have you back in just a few minutes.”

“Of course, Headmistress,” Alice said, seeming a bit confused at the sudden change of topic. “Don’t worry, En. She doesn’t bite.”

“I would hope not,” I said.

Alice walked outside, leaving me alone with the headmistress.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Sore, ma’—er, Headmistress,” I admitted. “Like I’ve been scrubbed with acid from the inside out.”

“That would be your Mark burning away any impurities in your mana,” she said, leaning over the table. “Your magic will be more refined than a typical Climbers. More powerful, too. Don’t let that make you think you’re invincible. Talent without hard work will always lose to concentrated effort.”

“I expected nothing less,” I said. To be honest, I had kind of visualized Marked as invincible, but even though I had a Mark of my own now, I couldn’t really think of myself as one of them. It just didn’t quite feel real yet, even after the ritual. “You have something else to say, right? I’m sure it would have been okay for Alice to be in the room for that.”

“Perceptive,” the Headmistress said. “It pertains as to your proficiency. Nexus. If I presume correctly, you have the starting spell Bond?”

“I do.”

She clicked her tongue. “That makes things riskier for you. Most Marked carry unique proficiencies that grant them great personal power. Miss Lark and myself both do, for instance. Nexus, however, is one that relies on others. Right now, you may be able to use any basic magic you have practiced, but your proficiency will only reveal its true use when you find those willing to Bond with you.”

“From how you speak of it, I assume that’s not so easy.”

“The spell has manifested itself in various ways throughout history, so I do not know the exact parameters of yours, but one consistent factor is that it requires trust between the user and the target. A bonding makes each of you vulnerable to each other.”

I grimaced. “I see where this is going. If a demon comes after me, and I have no bonds…”

“Marked are no less mortal than the rest of us.” Headmistress Laurent nodded grimly. “You especially. We will provide you with the best equipment, of course, but even that is no guarantee.”

“Then what should I do?” I asked. “Train harder? Hide more until I build enough trust with someone to bond?”

I wondered if Alice would agree to it. Just from how the magic sat in my body, though, I couldn’t imagine she would. She’d been friendly—more than friendly, even—but this was a couple of steps further than just a flirtatious conversation.

“The safety of Ascension students is my top priority,” the Headmistress said. “I will permit you to do a low-level Bond with me. It will be less effective than a true Bond, and I must warn you that as I cannot allow my primary source of power to be siphoned from, it will not grant you power on my level, but it should suffice for a while.”

“That would be a pretty great help,” I said. “Are you sure that’s okay?”

“En. You are not a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Your existence is the type that you see once per era. I will not let a single demon break-in end your life.”

“I appreciate it,” I said genuinely. “So… are we going to do that now?”

“If you can use the spell, yes,” the Headmistress said. “If not, I will keep you in a protected sanctum until you are capable of doing so.”

We’d done a lot of magic practice before awakening at the prep school. Even children could manage to use a small amount of mana, just enough to practice without hurting themselves, and I had been reasonably diligent in mine. That gave me an intuitive understanding of the spell that had been engraved into me by the Mark.

I closed my eyes, focusing within me and pushing through my newly awakened mana pathways. The amount of energy that flowed through them was unlike anything I’d experienced before, and I winced as the soreness intensified. It was manageable pain, though, so I grit my teeth through it and used the spell.

Arcane circles formed in front of me, drifting towards Headmistress Laurent. As they did, though, a spike of uncertainty shot through me, and the spell faltered, dissipating.

She sighed. “I suspected this would happen. The spell recognizes your lack of trust in me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, not sure what I was apologizing for.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. You have, after all, just met me. I assure you that everything I say is the truth, but assurances mean little. I do have a method that should be capable of accelerating this process, if you would like.”

“I’d love that,” I said. “Assuming it doesn’t involve me cutting an arm off or anything.”

“It does not,” she said, smiling slightly at my weak joke. “A simple way to increase the soul’s trust of another for the purpose of this kind of spell is physical intimacy.”

That actually stopped me short. Headmistress Laurent laughed softly at my reaction, watching the gears in my head turn.

“Physical intimacy,” I said, managing not to stammer. “You mean, like…”

“Nothing so lewd as what I imagine you are imagining,” she said, stepping around the table. “For the purposes of this Bond, touch should be sufficient. Your hands, if you wouldn’t mind?”

She took my hands in hers, clasping our fingers together. After a moment, she moved them, disentangling herself and placing mine onto her exposed cleavage.

“If you’re uncomfortable, we can stop this at any time,” she said.

“I’m fine,” I said, electric heat shotting through my brain. “More than fine. Um. Are you sure this is okay?”

“I’m the Headmistress,” she said. “Like I said, I will do whatever it takes for my students’ safety. Our bodies are just one more tool in our arsenals.”

She loosened the straps of her bra, using her fingers to encourage me to slip mine under the cloth.

I couldn’t believe I was doing this. Less than six hours ago, I’d been ready to get the notice that my fate would be the same as my parents’—to die on the front after a short career as a Climber. Now, here I was, Marked with my hands under the bra of the Headmistress of Ascension Academy.

Her breasts held the same warmth that all of our mana-infused skin did, firm but soft and impossibly pleasant to squeeze. I wasn’t exactly inexperienced with women, but I found myself getting lost in the sensation, kneading and massaging her skin.

The Headmistress didn’t seem to dislike the sensation either. She bit her lip as she looked at me, face steadily coloring.

“Do you think you could try again?” she asked after a bit, jarring me out of my revelry.

“Right,” I said, closing my eyes and focusing as much as I could with my passions inflamed this much.

This time, pushing the magic out felt easier. Was I adapting to the awakening already?

No spike of uncertainty came this time, and the circles sank into Headmistress Laurent’s skin, dissolving into her.

You have formed a low-level bond with [Eva Laurent].

Spell acquired: Finger of Death.

New feature of Bond discovered: Heal Bonded Ally.

“It worked,” I breathed, slowly taking my hands off her.

“Excellent,” the Headmistress, whose name was apparently Eva, said. “Thank you very much. I appreciated that.”

She tightened her top again, which brought my attention back to her dress, which wasn’t exactly modest but did cover her midsection.

Eva (Headmistress? Laurent? I wasn’t sure what to call her) saw me looking. “You must be wondering how I manage the heat.”

I nodded.

“Many students wear something like this during the day,” she said. “It has a cooling charm built into it. In instances where we need to exert their full power, however, we prefer to have other enchantments in our clothing. There’s only so much magic you can put into any one item, you see, and a cooling charm is a waste when one could simply use the air.”

“That explains Alice’s tiara,” I said.

“Bracelets, necklaces, charms, and the like are also very popular,” the Headmistress said. She snapped her fingers, and the door opened again. “Thank you for waiting, Miss Lark.”

Alice stepped in, dipping her head. She looked suspiciously from me to the Headmistress, whose face was still a bit flushed, then back to me.

“Please escort Mister Ward to his dormitory. Take a back path. There are rumors enough, and we do not need to fuel the fire more just yet.”

“Of course, Headmistress,” Alice replied. She moved to leave, then paused. “Wait, his dormitory? Where is that?”

“I’m afraid that every single is in use,” the Headmistress said. “Miss Lark, you are currently without a roommate, correct? Mister Ward could use a reliable protector, especially one he knew from before the Mark.”

Alice’s eyes widened. “You can’t possibly mean…”

“Miss Lark.” There was a bit of a warning in the Headmistress’ tone, but also a bit of mischief. “I do believe you, specifically, would benefit from a good friend.”

“O-of course, Headmistress. Is that all?”

“For today, yes. Rest well. You are dismissed.”

“Um, this way, En,” Alice said. “Are you blushing?”

“No,” I lied.

I followed her out, my mind focused on the new magic inside me. The Bond had worked, and it had given me one of Eva Laurent’s spells. I wanted to try it out, but something told me that attempting to cast a “Finger of Death” in the hallways was not going to go well.

True to her word, Alice took us through a pathway that went straight to the second floor of the dormitories, where there were far fewer people to gawk at us—well, mostly me.

There were still a lot of hushed whispers when she opened a door marked 212, but at least it wasn’t the same panopticon that we’d walked through on the first floor.

The room was very pink, which I probably should have expected from how Alice dressed. It was more spacious than the four-person dormitories we’d lived in at the prep school by a fair bit, with an included kitchen unit and bathroom. She’d done some decorating, mostly through magical lighting and an entire section of the room dedicated to what looked to be a wardrobe with a dozen different outfits hanging from it. Both beds in the room had been pushed together in a corner.

“Sorry about the mess,” she said.

“What mess?”

“Um, I pushed the beds together because I was alone in here. I don’t know if you want to move them, but—“

“I’m the one intruding here,” I said, holding a hand up. “I won’t mess with how you set up your room. It’s not like I have anything to set up, anyway.”

As the son of two desperate Climbers, I knew the virtue of being able to pack all of your worldly posssessions into a single bag. Even that bag had been left back at the prep school, but it was fine. I didn’t have that many things worth bringing. A faded, rusting amulet, the only memorabilia I had to remember my parents by, was still around my neck.

“I don’t have any men’s clothes for you to change into apart from some underwear,” Alice said apologetically.

“That’s fine,” I said. “I can buy some clothes tomorrow.”

Alice rifled through her wardrobe for a bit, then tossed me a pair of underclothes. “I’m going to take another shower and sleep. Is there anything I can get you?”

“No,” I said, suppressing a yawn. “I’ll probably do the same.”

While she showered, I meditated, using breathing techniques I’d practiced for years as I focused on the magic circulating inside me.

I would be capable of using the Headmistress’ spell when it came time to, I was sure. As I calmed myself, I found myself feeling better than I had in years. The awakening had truly changed me.

That calm got much shakier when Alice stepped out of the shower, wet hair sticking to a thin pink shirt rendered translucent by water. She readjusted the towel around her waist, then tilted her head towards the shower. “It’s open.”

I went into the shower before I could say something unwise. It was much nicer than any other shower I’d ever used. Were they putting something magical in the water?

The underwear had a cooling charm placed on it, which was a nice touch. I assumed Alice’s sleepwear was similar.

When I got out, Alice was already asleep, splayed out on one of the beds with a blanket half-covering her midsection.

“What a day,” I murmured to myself, crawling into the other one.

The bed was shockingly comfortable, and I found the entire day’s exhaustion collapsing onto me in a second as I laid my head down.

I was asleep in seconds.

My sleep was dreamless and deep, but apparently not deep enough.

I woke up to the sound of a strangled scream that trailed off into a desperate sob.

Adrenaline suddenly flooding my body, I bolted up, reaching for a knife that wasn’t there.

Beside me, Alice’s body quivered like a leaf in the wind, and I realized quickly that the sounds were coming from her. She was curled up in a ball, squeezing her pillow tightly.

“Alice?” I asked softly. “Are you okay?”

She let go, head rolling to meet my eyes. “I’m so sorry. I must have woken you.”

I shook my head. “It’s fine. Bad dream?”

Alice looked down. “Bad dream.”

“I get it,” I said, thinking back to the sleepless nights that had plagued me for years after I’d lost my parents. “Don’t apologize for something you can’t control.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I mean it. I’m supposed to be the responsible one here, but…”

“You’re doing great,” I replied, crawing back into bed.

“En?”

“Yes?” I asked, halfway to sleep already.

“Could—could I ask you to hold my hand?”

A moment passed, and her blanket rustled.

“Sorry, that was stupid,” she mumbled into her pillow.

“No, it wasn’t,” I said. “Here.”

I put one hand onto her bed, and she took it, squeezing gently.

“Good night, Alice,” I said.

“Good night, En.”