“Loitering outside will do you no good,” Val insisted.
I hummed, walking in. Valentine was at the front of the class, his desk opposite the door.
Glancing around, I saw it was an actual lecture hall, with steps leading up to various desks. A great deal of glowing red eyes and some other non-vampires looked at me.
“Sit anywhere,” Valentine said.
I took a single step toward him before he shook his head at me. His expression wasn’t annoyed.
“Except my desk,” Valentine clarified.
Ah.
Okay.
Turning, I slumped into the nearest available seat to the door. A vampire was next to me, the notes in front of him not written in any language I knew.
I looked at the chalk board, seeing very neat and beautiful handwriting. At the top, the largest of the script, was Amateur Soulmancy: Theory.
There was a lot written on the black chalkboard. Valentine’s fingers were covered in chalk dust, a piece of chalk held loosely in his fingers.
His clothes were neat, the midnight blue sharp and the white button-up under it crisp in the white light covering the room. His cool-toned purple hair matched his ensemble more than I expected it would, his blue eyes piercing in the light.
“As I was saying,” Valentine continued boredly, gesturing.
He continued speaking, but I got distracted by a piece of paper sliding in front of me. I glanced over, seeing short ginger hair and red eyes.
You smell like blood. Are you injured?
I didn’t have anything to write with, so I just glanced at the vampire. He rolled one of his spare quills toward me. My response was simple.
Yes.
Before I could pass it back, the paper was torn from my hands. The paper flew away. I glanced up, at Valentine. He read the short note.
Valentine sighed, “Should you pass the entrance exam, you will be required to take this course, Percy.”
“Dude,” I complained.
Valentine gave me a look, “You will also have disciplinary action taken against you should you continue to disrespect me and other professors. While in the Academy, you will refer to me as Professor Porter, or Professor Lance.”
“Dude,” My voice was a lot quieter the second time, my face burning as I sank into my seat, “Really? That sucks. I have to refer to every professor like that?”
“Yes,” Valentine explained, “You will find that you do not like my form of discipline.”
I pouted. His eyes took in my pout, but he didn’t otherwise react. He turned to regard the class.
“As I was saying! The body stores your magic, but the soul is where magic is generated. There are many different ways to increase magical power, one of which is through soulmancy. Another is simply exhausting your magic constantly, however due to the effects of magic exhaustion, many decide not to do so. The more you—or others.”
Val glanced at me.
“—interact with your soul, the more energy your soul produces. This can be done in many different ways, from observation to intentional pressure put upon the soul. The most painful way, and the method I use for my disciplinary action, is called soul-scouring. It is a type of observation and interaction that touches every part of the soul, poking and prodding it.”
My eyebrows rose, a smile pulling at my lips. Sounds accurate for a world that was written as an erotica novel, I mused. I rested my face on my fist, staring at Valentine. “Poking and prodding every part of the soul“ sounded highly sexual to me, at least.
No wonder this world was called Eros. Even calling this world Cupid wouldn’t have fit so well. Maybe XXX-Romance would be a good name for this world.
Fuck, this world was so unbelievable. Jesus, I said that too much. But it was true! Magic? Gods? Sexual soul-stuff that made magic work better? It was ridiculous. It was…
It was…
Ugh, did the world really work like this? Oh great god of magic, is that really how magic worked?
To my surprise, my thoughts shifted, a man’s voice appearing.
While it sounds suggestive, the process is beyond painful for the receiver. This world does not revolve around sex, though your concerns are valid.
My eyes widened, and I looked at the desk.
Wait! God! I’ve been dragged into some random chick’s body and the apocalypse is about to happen and if everything goes to shit could you take me with you when you leave for another world?!
What?
A silence appeared. I hesitated after a long moment. Did he need me to repeat myself?
Oh. Yes, I can feel that your soul is not from this world. How… hm…. I doubt the world will end as you think it may. I suppose if the world truly does devolve into war, I will happily take you with me to another planet. Simply come to the Tower of Magic before the other realms get involved. I plan to bring it with me, should things get as bad as you seem to think they will.
I blinked, feeling something leave me after the voice left my mind. God has left the chat, I thought ironically.
The tower of magic? Where was the tower of magic? Was he referring to the Mage’s Tower? The one that the main character couldn’t even get near?
… Well, if a god was there, that would make sense.
YES! An escape plan if everything doesn’t work out!
I looked up and leaned back in my elation, just barely preventing from standing and cheering. I realized that Valentine was staring at me a bit too late, my grin fading into a sheepish one.
Sorry, I mouthed as he continued talking.
Valentine’s gaze shifted from me after a stern look, and he continued speaking. It was hard to pay attention to something when the professor himself looked bored out of his mind, though.
I got distracted, messing with the quill the vampire next to me lent. The vampire plucked it out of the air the moment I accidentally sent it skyward.
My attention waned further. I ended up staring at Valentine without actually hearing anything he was saying. He really was attractive. He looked noble, his cold tone only adding to his allure.
Right now his hair was pulled back, some strands left loose. His hands weren’t as long nor so delicate-looking as Silas’s, but they were still elegant and refined. His body itself was tall and thin, legs long and movements smooth as he paced and spoke, occasionally writing on the board.
His face had high cheekbones and wonderfully pink lips that looked soft.
My eyes continuously scoured his form, drinking in the eye-candy as he instructed the class. I watched as he walked up to me.
His hands planted themselves on the desk as he stared down at me.
I blinked, glancing around. No one else was in the room.
“Oh, hey, wassup?” I wondered, looking back at Valentine.
His gaze searched mine for a long time, and he spoke softly, “Were you listening to anything I said?”
I thought about it, watching the way his mouth formed the words he spoke.
“Nope,” I answered easily, looking back into his eyes, fingers tapping at the desk, “Why, wassup? You didn’t ask me anything, did you?”
Valentine sighed, “I can see why Silas had no faith in you passing the entrance exam, if you find it so difficult to pay attention to simple lessons.”
I shrugged, standing up if only to climb over the desk and use that as a seat, looking up at Valentine from my now much closer perspective between his arms.
His eyes kept mine, following me as I shifted positions.
“I have no issues paying attention if the person speaking seems interested in what they’re saying. You look like you’re literally dying of boredom when you talk about that stuff, though, so my mind tunes it out.”
“You seem to have no issues acting inappropriately, either,” Valentine muttered, hands falling from the desk.
He sat on the desk behind him, staring up at me.
I thought about it, humming. After not coming up with a response, I hummed again, confused, “What does that mean?”
Valentine waved it off, voice airy and dismissive, “Nothing, nothing.” His tone changed, “You looked amused at what I said, earlier.”
Oh! Right! A god talked to me! Wow. That was really cool. … They just did that, here? Wow. Damn. The gods must hate the planet I came from. I prayed like twice here and got a response. Damn. Poor religious folk.
“Uh, yeah…” I thought, “The punishment thing you said sounded kinda fucked.”
“The greatest way to grow one’s magic?” Valentine specified.
I nodded.
“Yus,” I agreed.
My mind was still spinning at the realization that I’d spoken to a god. That gods existed. That I was in a whole different world which thankfully wasn’t created solely to be a perverse world of nothing but sex.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
At least according to the god of magic, who I had a lot of faith in. No way he would just lie. What would be the point in that? He seemed like a cool guy. My savior if things went south.
Definitely someone I could admire and trust with my entire future.
“How so?” Valentine asked, seemingly expecting me to remember what we were talking about.
I hummed, shrugging, “Dunno,” I responded, “What were we talking about?”
Valentine’s blue eyes focused intently on me for a long moment. Then he sighed, reaching up. His hair left its pony tail, falling down his form to his waist as he turned.
“Let us go, then. I need to research your soul further, to see whether my observations had truly been helping you, or whether there was some other underlying cause to the deterioration between your body and soul.”
“Sure,” I agreed, hopping from the desk and following him.
I glanced at the lecture hall, staring at the plain colors. There weren’t any windows in the room. It went dark when Valentine reached out, fingers brushing against a spell engraved into the wall next to the door.
“I will not give you preferential treatment, should you fail my tests,” Valentine said as we walked into the hallway.
“My main goal in coming here isn’t to actually pass my classes,” I replied. I glanced up.
The floating orbs of light that were gently gliding around were just as beautiful now as they had been before. They cast shadows along the ceiling.
“Your goal is to prevent a war, is it not?” Valentine asked.
“Yup,” I agreed, thinking aloud as I stared up at the beautiful lights, “I already accidentally stopped the garden party conflict. That just leaves me to see if any strained political relationships are happening here that might turn into full-blown wars. If there are, then I’d probably need to pass my classes so that I don’t get expelled, but that’s not really going to be an issue, since I’m just going to follow every class Aphrodite takes, just in case my information is right and she’s the cause of the war. From what I know she doesn’t take your classes until her third or forth year.”
“Your information is incorrect, then,” Valentine corrected.
I looked at him to see that he wasn’t paying much attention to me, walking along the halls. I looked back up at the pretty lights, my bare feet faring well against the cold tile flooring.
Valentine continued speaking, “Aphrodite has my class this year.”
I hummed, thinking about my knowledge. Well, all of her Academy years were crushed into one book, the second book, so it wasn’t like I would be all-too-aware of many discrepancies. I shrugged.
“I see,” I said slowly.
I was looking at the hall we walked through, empty of people. I looked at the floor, watching the tiles pass beneath me.
“Well, the more incorrect my information is the better, I suppose.”
Did the war really only happen because of the garden party? No, wait, didn’t something happen at the freshmen orientation? Just like Orphos appearing, it was something chaotic that caused a giant uproar.
What was it again?
“Well, whatever,” I thought aloud with a quiet sigh, staring at the spells engraved into the tiles, “So long as I attend the orientation I doubt anything will happen.”
Oh! No, wait, I remember! It had to do with Persephone! She was the main villainess in the first two books, the first 500k words being solely about her conflict with Aphrodite.
“You will not be able to,” Valentine rejected.
I shrugged, looking at him, “Will you?”
Valentine hesitated, looking reluctant, “Typically I do not.”
I hummed, “I’ll just ask Kai for the details, then.”
If Aphrodite was controlling Persephone for the beginning of the book, then that means that Aphrodite did all that for a reason. It means she might do that again, even.
What could she have gained from hurting her family’s reputation? Why would she have me attack her?
… I just didn’t know enough.
I knew all of the people she had sex with by name and appearance, and their backstories were telling, but it wasn’t enough information to really understand anything.
Everything I knew was too disconnected from each other. It was too separated. I bet the words the author hadn’t written tie everything together, but I didn’t know what I didn’t read.
Deceptive writing was a common thing authors did, so I couldn’t even trust what I did read. All I could really trust was the unbiased facts about the people I knew.
Valentine himself was living proof that I had no idea what any character could or would do.
Kairos, too, with how stupid his actions have been. No one intelligent enough to impress the gods would put himself in danger twice for his own goddamned pride.
Was everything I knew a lie? Was it just some fanfiction someone who traveled the realms wrote, using the people I knew? But Silas acted exactly as his character in the story did.
He was righteous but stubborn. While he was slow to change his opinions on people and things, he was still an all-around moral and good person.
Maybe if he didn’t apologize to me, I would change my opinion of him, but I highly doubted it.
That was just one person, though. Everyone else I’ve come across—no, that wasn’t true.
Lucius acted much the same too, didn’t he?
Agh, this was frustrating!
I feel like I’ve been given a blank white thousand-piece puzzle that had twenty pieces missing. A person with a gun to my head was telling me to solve it before the time ran out, but I’d never looked back. I couldn’t actually tell if the thing held to my head was a gun or not. They didn’t tell me how much time I’d had, just leaving the clock to tick loudly in my ear.
It was stressful and it was dumb and I didn’t even know if twenty pieces were missing or if I was just blind or—AGH.
Fuck, man.
My thoughts snapped as my foot met air. I fell into darkness. Shouting echoed out as I fell.
Tumbling to the cold, harsh ground, I looked around. I was at the bottom of the stairs.
CRASH!
At the top was Valentine, a spell at his fingertips. Dizziness overcame me. I glanced up, toward the noise. Toward the thing that made the ground shake.
“D-Desmond…?” I wondered.
All around me in the dark, glowing red eyes were focused on me.
Desmond wasn’t speaking. The same spell at Valentine’s fingertips was pushing at him, the wall cratering as he reached out to me.
A very, very bad idea came over me. I spoke easily.
“You know the agreement,” I said, staring into his eyes.
I reached out, ignoring Valentine’s shout as I used my own magic to disrupt his spell like I’d seen Herald do.
Desmond dove forward, shoving me to the ground I just stood up from and hovering above me. Unlike my expectations, though, no teeth sank into my neck.
…
Damn.
“Not that easy, then,” I mused, staring into glowing red eyes.
Orion had no issue with it, so why didn’t it work? I guess Orion was stronger, right?
“No, it isn’t,” The most powerful vampire growled out, clearly struggling with his own hunger.
“Then how about for the next thousand years, the debt owed to my soul?” I pondered.
That was the amount of time it would be for me if I freely gave my blood without the agreement, right?
The vampire looked away, closing his eyes and bowing his head. His entire body was shaking with the desire he felt. His breathing was coming out in audible gasps. With the hunger of a starving man being offered a six-course meal at the price of his freedom.
“Five hundred,” He begged, eyes opening to plead with me.
I scoffed, grinning.
“What, so you can get the last five hundred to yourself?” I refused, my grin a bit too cocky for my own good, “I know what willingly offering blood does. You’ll be mine, not the other way around. That is the deal, open at any and all times, no matter whether I am unconscious or dead. If you drink the blood coming from this body, be it on someone else or not, you automatically agree to those terms. The deal is open to any other vampire, too.”
A vampire seemed to teleport next to me. Desmond reached out, and they went flying back. The basement shook as the vampire vanished into the darkness.
“She’s mine!” Desmond growled in a shout as he glared around at the others.
The other vampires backed off, but didn’t leave. After all, if he accepted my offer then he was mine, not the other way around. They’d be able to take the offer as well, if he did.
After a moment, Valentine reached the bottom of the stairs. Desmond was dragged off of me, light illuminating the entire hallway. I was dragged to my feet.
“Heal yourself. Now,” Valentine ordered furiously. His hand was tight around my arm as he glared at the vampiric students, “Either get to class or go to your dorms.”
I hummed lowly, doing as asked. Some of the vampires scattered, as ordered. What I did was a very, very stupid idea. Vampires were technically a part of the Fae.
Specifically, they were the result of a particularly stupid branch of humans and elves and other humanoids that gave themselves to the Fae in order to gain immortality. So now they were cursed to crave the blood of mortals to continue their miserable existences at night.
If the king had given in, then I would have immediately gained the attention of the Fae King. Also known as the sovereign ruler over all who gave themselves to the Fae, as well as the ruler of the Fae themselves.
Obviously using their own rules against them wouldn’t have gained their ire, but any attention was bad attention when the Fae were so dangerous to deal with.
If I didn’t accidentally gain the Fae King’s attention by thinking his name.
Oops.
…
Well, whatever, actually.
I was generally ebullient about it. So what if I gained the attention of the Fae? So long as I stayed out of their forests and didn’t speak to them I’d be fine.
A series of cracks made me grimace. Pain flared up inside of me. I whimpered as my body pulled itself out of shock. Gasping for air, my spell sputtered out of existence only after the pain finished.
Tears streamed down my face. My hand reached out, wiping at myself. I stared at the blood coating my hand, then looked up at Desmond.
“You sure?” I asked, offering my blood-soaked hand out to the vampire.
“You are as dangerous as the Fae that cursed me,” Desmond muttered, looking very tempted. He gave my hand a longing look.
Oh, right. He was one of the Original Vampires, wasn’t he?
I grinned, “Aw, thanks. If I were that smart I’d have taken over the world by now, though.”
I was just doing what someone else did. That’s how he died, after all. He got enslaved to either Rowan or Orphos for some small amount of time and they ordered him to die the moment before the verbal-magical contract was up. Or wait. Wasn’t it Orion? The angel, not the tyrant or the werewolf beastkin.
“C—“ Desmond coughed, voice losing its powerful quality as he continued, “Clearly.”
“I can add in a clause that guarantees I won’t—“
A hand wrapped around my mouth. Huh? Why?
“If you continue speaking you will be executed for attempted enslavement of a student of the Academy,” Valentine interrupted, “As you are not one, yet, maybe you should stop speaking.”
I huffed, pouting as I shoved his arm off of me, “It’s not attempted enslavement if he agrees to it.”
“Coercion into enslavement is considered within the law,” Valentine refused, reaching out and grabbing me roughly.
I scoffed, annoyed as Valentine dragged me off. Glowing red eyes were left behind in the darkness, several people staring at us.
To my surprise, I was physically thrown into the soulmancy room. The door slammed shut. I tumbled to the ground, not catching myself right.
I whimpered at the pain that branched up. I healed myself again, closing my eyes and curling up as more pain and cracking sounds echoed out.
Magic swarmed around the room, privacy spells being placed as magic dragged me to the center of the soulmancy circle.
“You are lucky he did not agree,” Valentine hissed, glowering at me as he stormed up to me.
I couldn’t think of a response before my life became a living hell. My soul felt like it was being torn to shreds, every nerve in my body screeching. No matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t look away as Valentine’s magic invaded my body and clawed at every part of me.
Being burnt alive, then revived and stoned to death, then revived again and skinned alive with a dull knife before being thrown into a pool of alcohol and drowned would be painless in comparison to what I was going through. Hell knew not what torture was.
Each of my nerve endings were hyperactive and simultaneously being individually flayed by butter knifes scraping along their length.
Despite my hopes of passing out, my mind remained painfully aware of every single thing happening to me. Tears streamed down my face, burning their way out of my eyes.
My breathing was ragged and wheezing, each breath I took in sounding like it came from an asthmatic in the middle of an asthma attack. Like it was a plastic tube scraping against rough cement.
O-one, t-two, three… four…
I started counting every second, wishing I’d been more into torture in my old world, so that I would know literally any method to endure it.
Unfortunately that was not the case.
I got to 11,862 before I was released. I collapsed bonelessly to the ground.