Interlude - Melli

Melli

“You enter into the All Seeing Eye for the first time twice, once as a prospect, and once as a member." Master Tedrigal says, as he ushers me through the hallowed halls. The bald man had been true to his word. They did let people in on the strength of their practical exams alone. Especially when those people were applying to be a Battle Mage, it's hard to argue that you need a strong magical foundation when you can make big explosions.

It's still overwhelming. Mages just like me hard at work at desks, copying spells, discussing theory. It's everything I dreamed it would be. For much of my life the only other mage I knew was Master Kalibo, and now here I am.

None of it would be possible without The Herald.

That's a sickening thought.

If I'd turned him in, had him executed, I would have had the thanks of my people, and nowhere left to go.

Well maybe that was true.

Maybe I had needed him once, but I'm in now.

Master Tedrigal is right, efficient formuli, the foundations of magic all of that can be learned here, and I will learn them. I can if I want sever my ties to The Herald and be on my way.

The master leads me around the complex, the testing grounds, the ranges for spell casting, and of course the grand library. "Over there is the star collection." He says gesturing to a rather busy section of the library. There's lots of mages around that section transcribing sections of books, and cross referencing their own notes. "The world's most complete collection on stars, every skill or talent we know about is detailed in there, as well as their effects as they rank up."

"Impressive."

"Of course your section leader will expect you to acquire the 5 basic stars first."

"What are those?" I ask.

"The All Seeing Eyes has been doing this for a long time." He says proudly, leading me to The Battle Mage's complex on the campus. "In our time we've discovered the stars most useful to a mage, and the methods for obtaining them. Most mages here have this as their default skill set."

"Do you?" I ask curiously.

"Of course, all cultivated to the second level, say for one which I've gotten to the third."

My eyebrows shoot up. "A third level star?"

He smiles, and I don't blame him. I'd have pride if I'd accomplished something like that. "I don't mean to brag."

"I would!"

That gets a chuckle out of him, and he waves his hand towards the entrance of The Battle Mage's building, the smallest of the compounds it looks more like a bunker than the cathedrals dedicated to the other orders. Waiting for use are four other Fall initiates. As well as the section leader for the battle mages Marawilla Spoke, a woman who had a grey dead eye framed by three sharp scars down the left side of her face.

I’d done my research on her, a veteran of many conflicts with the chaos in the north. Vast mountains ranges that extended to the tip of the content. Plenty of crevices and valleys for the enemies of humanity to hide in. Diplomacy was simply impossible in those environs. It was so full of tiny tyrannies and princedoms absorbing and dissolving one another that long relations with any of them was Folly. Instead the Kingdom provided military assistance and not a small amount of economic assistance to several barbarian states.

That’s where mistress Spoke had spent her service, painting the mountain sides with the limbs and viscera of forgotten races begat by the very goddess I now served.

"This is where I surrender you." Tedrigal smiles one last kindly smile, and pats me on the back.

I join the other initiates, and Spoke eyes me with her one good eye. I don't dare meet her gaze, and so look to see who my companions will be for this experience. I'm vaguely aware of the two boys in the group, but my eyes are immediately attracted to the pair of women standing before me. The two of them are wearing silken blue dresses, that look quite pricy. They have long black hair, and the pale white skin of northerners. I always heard that northern women were fat, but not these two. They were skinnier than me, and I'd always been the center of ridicule for being boyish in frame.

I'm not really sure how to describe what I feel as I see them. It's like... I don't know. A dog locking onto a scent maybe?

I just see them, and I see that they're... twins. And I remember what The Herald told me to do while I'm here and I just...

I get wet at the sight of them.

---

Twins.

It's like a god... The Herald's god had dropped them on my lap.

Mmmm the two of them on my lap...

Stop! Stop!

Focus.

Actually thinking about them between my legs is me focusing.

I'd found that over the last month the two of them provided me with excellent masturbation material. I'd also discovered that The Herald wasn't completely honest when he said he was the only who supplied me with mana. Surprise Surprise. I'm sure he's the reason for this ability but... heh well this is kind of embarrassing. But I discovered one night while fantasizing about the twins that I gain mana whenever I orgasm.

So yeah... huzzah for me.

We're trying to get stars at the moment.

Us, the um new battle mages.

It's hard work, ya know? Marawilla Spoke won't allow us access to any of the Battle Mages resources before we get the five stars, Master Tedrigal had mentioned.

Star Acquired

Mana Reserves- Type: Passive - Effect: The User's Max Mana reserve is increased

You gain that star by having twice your maximum mana reserve at any one time. I don't even know how you're supposed to do that because a mana potion won't take you pass your max.

I know how I did it though.

On my back in my hotel room, thinking about about Twin A and Twin B taking alternating licks at my sex.

They're named Ruby and Sapphire by the way, so it's not like Twin A and Twin B is any more horrible to them than what their parents already did, as far as names go.

It took some doing, and my fingers were prunes by the time I finally came enough times to fill me up, but that was one star checked off the list!

Star Acquired

Efficient Spellcasting- Type: Passive - Effect: The mana cost of casting as spell is reduced for the user.

You see I needed that increased mana reserve because for this one, you needed to cast ten spells within a certain amount of time. Now as we've already established my spells aren't very efficent. They take a lot of mana so...

Look.

I was masturbating probably ten times a day during my training just to get enough mana to try and pull these things off.

And it wasn't easy.

I mean it was, all I needed to do was even think of the twins, and I was ready to go.

It's just I didn't have the time

The Induction into The battle Mages included eight hours of physical conditioning and eight hours of working on star cultivation. That meant I was losing sleep to masturbating sequences. I was rubbing one out during trips to the chamber pot. I even got... kind of good at masturbating during study time, under my desk in a noisy part of the hall.

It was exhausting, and not just for my clit.

They wanted us to be able to wear heavy armor, breast plates you know? Big chunks of metal on our body. Wizards and armor don't mix, but the battle mages insisted they did. We slaved away all day every day wearing training plate, doing things regular soldiers did. I'd always imagined the battle mages had enchanted plate that made it feel lighter, but I was sorely mistaken.

We had to train with our staves too. We had to learn to jab with them like spears, and flail them around ourselves like real weapons.

Star Acquired

Mana Refill- Type: Passive - Effect: The User constantly gathers a small amount of mana, regenerating to full mana.

This was was actually easy to get, for me and everyone else. You just needed to completely drain yourself of mana, and then refill yourself back to full. The hardest part was casting the right combination of spells that left you completely drained. After that you could just down a few potions and get yourself topped off.

I um... decided to just masturbate myself back to full.

It was cheaper that way.

All I had to do was think about having Ruby tied to my bed, while I dripped wax on her stomach drawing out magical formula. Then Sapphire opens to door, and sees her sisters in such a compromising situation, but is that desire I see in her eyes?

No of course not.

Her critical eye catches my formula and she tsks. She marches over to me, and takes the candle from me, and instead begins to draw cirlces on her own sister, headless of the squealing and squirming her lesson is causing in her...

Heh, sorry fantasies again.

They're just twins you know?

How could I not?

Star Acquired

Variable Casting- Type: Passive - Effect: When casting a spell the user to chose to expend extra mana to enhance the effects of a spells.

If you planned things out right, you could actually score this star and the last one together. All you had to do is cast a single spell that completely drained your mana in a single go. For me that just meant making my flame wave even worse. It still took a lot of tries to get it just right. If you made the spell too bad then it just wouldn't fire off. If you didn't make it bad enough then you would cast it, and still be left with mana. So you'd have to fill back up, for the other students this mostly meant waiting the day out until you recharged as you slept.

Well for me...

More masturbating.

I have no idea if this is true in reality, but in my head I've come to accept that Sapphire is more my girlfriend. You know more my intellectual equal, more my speed. Ruby is just sort of our pet... who we fuck a lot. She's just such a slut. You should see the way she talks to the boys in our group I mean, really. The Herald will be happy to see her I bet.

Geez, and I really doing this?

Am I going to just deliver him two more mages.

I kind of think about it every night, guilty as sin. I think about it while I'm mastubating.

I think the idea turns me on, but I'm too scared to examine it.

I think just any scenario with them turns me on.

But those scenarios are fantasy.

And if I bring them to the Herald it could be real.

Really real.

A Flare for Formula- Type: Knowledge- Effect: The User gains indepth knowledge on the subject of magical formula.

This is the one I'm working on now, and it's the easiest to get. You just have to write a formula some unknown amount of times. Again and again, until the stars shine down on you. You just keep going until you get it right.

I'm still masturbating all the time I don't know why.

I really don't need to.

---

I finally got some time to study The Star Collection.

There's something I've been meaning to check on.

I elbow my way through the clustered mages. That's the bad thing about our kind, we really will just pull a book off a shelf and read the whole thing right then and there. Never mind if someone else wants a book on that shelf.

Regardless I check the index, and find the book on the shelf that contains all Stars starting with the letter W.

Witch King...

Witch King...

Witch King...

No witch king.

I check the publishing date.

Yep, sure enough, out of date.

I check for and Errata for the book, and find it.

Still no Witch King.

I now find myself with the uncomfortable truth, that he hadn't be lying to me.

In the whole wide world, The Herald really was the only one who could make me this strong.

---

In the course of a month I've gone from barely passing my exam to The Battle Mage's most impressive newcomer.

I've unlocked all five essential Stars.

Not bragging.

How could I brag?

None of it was me.

Except for the hundreds of pages of spells I had to write out.

It's all him, or rather the powers he's granting me.

While the other members of my group are still whittling away at their cultivation, I've finished. Marawilla Spoke has released me from basic training, no more push ups, and clanking armor. I'm free to access the resources of The Battle Mages, and the army is free to call me up whenever they please. That would certainly complicate my relationship with the herald, but it would also get me away from him.

I can't help but feel guilt eat away at me as I see my groups tired faces working away at the problems before them.

I really don't belong here.

I cheated, I just masturbated and cast spells.

There guys were doing real magic, real problems. I could imitate it, pretend, but I'd never really have the genius to be here.

Feels bad man. It takes some initiates years to collect all five. Casting Efficiency is particular is almost impossible without the other four, and lots of practice perfecting formula.

I graduated three days ago, and haven't done anything with my new freedom but rest. I'm too depressed and too unsure to do much more.

I'm on the other side of things now at The All Seeing Eyes. Now people will start expecting me to come up with projects, and bid for funding. I'm expected to push the boundaries of magic and find ways for The Battle Mages to better serve The Kingdom, and I find myself woefully unequipped to do any of that.

I could ignore these feelings during the race for the stars. That was competition and fun, but it was over now. I'd won, and by doing so had somehow robbed myself of the valuable knowledge they were all still gaining. How did I raise my mana beyond the maximum? How did I craft a spell so efficient I could cast it ten times in a row?

"You've got to be the saddest mage I've ever seen." Ruby said, sitting next to me on my table. I had a spellbook before me that I hadn't bothered to crack open, and I'd been sitting here for half an hour.

"I guess I'm just kind of lost all on my own." I say, nodding to Sapphire as she sat across from me.

She smirks. "Well if you're lucky the army will call you up, then you'll have orders plenty to follow."

Ruby agrees. "Words getting around fast about you. I'm sure there's going to be a line of officers hoping to punch your ticket." She spreads her hands wide. "The fastest graduating Battle Mage in the history of The Eye."

"You guys are sweet." I say. My fingers are itching to descending beneath the table.

"Not too sweet." Sapphire says with a coy smile. "We're hoping you'll show some pity on us mortals."

"Pity?" I ask, surprised.

"Yeah." Ruby nudges me. "We want to know your secret."

"My secret?"

Sapphire rolls her eyes at me. "Everyone knows you have one, we just can't figure out what it is."

"It's another system isn't it?" Ruby grins.

I cock an eyebrow. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"You know." She nudges me again. "Like the star system. A magical interface for gaining power." She then pokes me in the chest. "Only you've got a second one, don't you? Like the Grand Philosopher of Golden Sands."

My eyes go wide. "You think I'm like that?" The grand and godless tyrant of the world's oldest dungeon. Not only is he his nations only 5-Star making him an immortal god amongst men, but he also has access to another form of power beyond what's known about his stars. Something that isunique to him, or at least was made unique by him during his rise to power.

They think I'm like that.

"I'm nothing like that." I say with a surprised laugh. "I just..."

Then a cold rushes over me.

That's it.

The Herald has access to another system. A form of power beyond what we can see through the star interface. He somehow used it to change me, to make me gain mana when I orgasm.

Of course! His sex god.

She'd granted him a form of power unique to him, and I'd gotten pulled into it.

I'm benefitting from it.

I can't help but think of the grand philosopher, an immortal king with godlike powers, and at some point he'd been a lowly 1-star like The Herald.

"Are you alright?" Sapphire has a good angle to see the emotions warring within me.

"Yeah I don't know." I say, not meaning much of anything by it. "I was just thinking that if I were like that... this would be the birth of something very grand or terrible."

"I guess?" Ruby cocks her head.

"When he was coming to power." I'm thinking aloud now. "There were people who could have stopped him, and didn't. Now Golden Sand has been under his rule for five hundred years." I pause before saying the thing that really terrifies me. "Then there were people who supported him... and became very powerful for doing it."

Ruby laughed, and scooted next to me, close enough to where I could smell her. Hot and tired from a day crawling in armor. "Well you don't have to worry about us, we support you all the way."

"All hail Melli!" Sapphire agreed with a laugh.

"There is a secret." I say, my voice feeling husky. I looked up at Sapphire begging her to run, but she just leaned in like a fly to honey. "But we'd have to go on a road trip to see it."