Chapter 65 The Test
Chapter 65
We were in my recreation of the dojo from the Matrix in my mind space. I selected a Gi that was black with a white belt. Pandora selected a white Gi with a black belt. I joked, “Already a black belt already after reading a few books.”
Pandora took a stance and made the Neo come hither gesture, saying, “I know kung fu.”
I laughed and said, “I only added karate books so far to my mind space.”
She smiled, “Well, your sense of humor is my sense of humor, so if the joke was lame, then you can only blame yourself.”
I shook my head and just said, “Shall we begin?”
The next eight hours had me learning from Pandora’s very hands-on approach. It was semi-instructional and erotic. It just had me question my inner psyche more and more as Pandora’s roaming hands aroused me.
At least I made significant progress. Pandora was a good teacher, distilling all the books into relevant information, practical exercises, and lessons. It made me want to expand my library even more. Combat training with my inner psyche was a lot more fun than aether manipulation.
On Wednesday morning, I went to check on Abigail before picking up Rob and Sophie. I knocked and entered the house just after 6:00 am. Everyone was in the kitchen while Abigail was making everyone breakfast. Abigail noticed me first, “Caleb, there is sliced fruit over there, and I am making French toast for Vida and everyone else! It is her first time trying it!” I noticed Bedelia also seated at the table and sent a questioning look to Iris.
“Bedelia came over last night to help with Abigail,” Iris explained.
Bedelia interrupted, “I have excellent aether sight, Caleb. Her core is pretty fragile right now. She shouldn’t be doing any magic. I think she should be fine going to school.”
“Yeah, I already told her that. Did you use the device to check her new core size?” I asked casually.
Abigail spoke for herself, “I wouldn’t let them. I wanted to make sure it was ok with you first.”
Bedelia looked at me questioningly, and Iris had an expectant look in her eyes. Maybe an eagerness. I knew Abigail was going to need their help learning magic anyway. “Abs, you can let them check your core if you want to. They are going to be the ones teaching you magic, so they probably should know,” I offered my point of view.
Bedelia looked confused, “Why hasn’t she been tested before?” Kiri’s eyes went up in surprise. Bedelia knew I was a demon but not that I had the ability to increase someone’s aether core.
I decided to field the question, “Yasmin,” I started by using her real name, which got her extremely focused on me, “What we are about to tell you is a secret. One that can not leave this room.” She nodded, eager to be involved. “I have an extremely agonizing and excruciating way to expand someone’s aether core,” I said straight-faced.
Bedelia didn’t believe me, “Aether cores can not be expanded. They grow minutely over centuries.” She dismissed my statement.
Abigail chirped in, “I didn’t think that was agonizing or excruciating, Caleb.” When Bedelia turned to face her, I put my finger to my lips to shush her. Her eyes went wide, and she nodded, understanding. Bedelia spun around to see what Abigail was nodding at.
I just smiled at her. Vida asked a question, “Can I get a bigger aether core, Caleb?” I flushed at her seemingly innocent question.
I decided on a safe answer, putting the question off, “When you graduate from high school, we will see about it.”
Eilina, who had been quiet, had a lecherous grin on her face. I assumed Kiri had already talked to her about my abilities. Hopefully, she wouldn’t tell her new best friend, Vida, or I might find the young orc woman waking me up in the middle of the night. Iris left to get the reader device, and when she returned, she fixed it on Abigail and activated the device.
Her eyes popped, and she erased the screen and then took another reading. After the third one, she said, “It must have gotten broken. It is reading 1.114, but that is impossible. Bedelia rushed out of her chair to get over to Iris and take the device. She then used it on Abigail, who appeared to be bashful at the attention.
Bedelia said, “I have another one on my bike. I will go get it.” She rushed out and came back shortly, and the device she had looked closer to a phaser from Star Trek. She pointed it and fired, “Holy dragon shit! It is the same, 1.114!” Her eyes swung to me and then to Abigail. I think she thought it still had to be a joke as she had disbelief written on her face.
The kitchen was abuzz, and Bedelia rasped, “You have the potential to be more powerful than me, Abigail!”
Abigail joked, “So I am a good enough mage to get accepted to Hogwarts now?”
Bedelia didn’t seem amused, “Not just Hogwarts. Any magic school. Tier 2 cores are rare. I am barely a tier 2 mage, and I was offered massive scholarships. And no, there is no Hogwarts, Abigail!”
I interrupted the group chatter, “Yeah, well, you are going to have to teach her, Bedelia. You and Iris,” I added. “We already sent one mage to get trained by the Magus Arcanum. We can’t send another, or it might put a spotlight on us.”
I noticed Bedelia slowly raising her device in my direction, “If you do that, Bedelia, then we are not friends,” I warned. Bedelia carefully dropped her hand and put her device in her pocket.
“I have to go pick up Rob and Sophia. I will see you all at school,” I left the house and could hear Bedelia asking questions.
I picked up Rob and Sophia and brought them to school. When I got to school, I had to meet with the school superintendent and answer more questions about Coach Sam. I didn’t give him anything, but I had to talk with an outside counselor most of the morning instead of attending class.
At lunch, I was happy to see a smiling Abigail, who Bedelia was pestering. At lunch, Bedelia was talking non-stop about Abigail’s potential. Iris looked upset, but there was nothing I could do. She had her one shot at getting her core enhanced by me. After lunch, I had my class with Molly. She seemed ok after the dance. We just chatted amicably.
Most of my day was getting pointed and whispered about behind my back. All the hockey players had to deal with the same treatment from other students. This scandal to hit our school wasn’t the biggest, just the newest. The attention didn’t really phase me. I went to the public library when the school day reached the last period.
I started adding as many different martial arts books as possible. Sixteen various books were all this library held. Some seemed useless, but I took them all into my mind space. It was late afternoon when I left and decided to go to the massive bookstore in the shopping plaza. I figured they had to have a number of books on martial arts.
When I got to the bookstore, I was disappointed but added six more books. I answered a call from my dad and told him I would be home for dinner. When I got home, the contractors were still working on the sauna room in the basement. I ate and talked with my parents before heading up to my room. I ordered twelve highly-rated books on martial arts from Amazon and had them shipped to Iris’ house for next-day delivery.
That night my combat lessons in my mind space ran for hours. Pandora had enough information to start to blend the forms. We must have been training for over twenty hours when I asked, “If you can teach me from the text for martial arts can you teach me magic? How to form and cast spells?” I looked at Pandora, who had a thoughtful look.
Finally, she answered, “Yes. But I need more reference material. I need at least twenty spell books and many more of the basics of human magic. As Andromeda told you, demonic magic forces aether to its will. What you want to do is more like sculpting the aether and building a spell from the ground up. I agree with Andromeda that using life essence to form a spell effect is much easier.” Pandora paused and then asked, “Have you determined what your next purchase will be?”
“Don’t you already know? Can you tell me?” I asked. I was still undecided, but maybe my subconscious already knew.
“Decisions like that are not in my realm. I just process information,” Pandora replied.
I walked to the banner and sorted everything I could invest 100 life essence in.
Abyssal Strength
Upper
Tier 1
100 life essence
improved muscular strength
Abyssal Endurance
Upper
Tier 1
100 life essence
improved fitness
Abyssal Smell
Upper
Tier 1
100 life essence
pick out and identify faint smells
Abyssal Taste
Upper
Tier 1
100 life essence
identify poisons
Chronomancy
Upper
Tier 1
100 life essence
alter your apparent age
Incubus Tail
Upper
Tier 1
100 life essence
control your tail and it’s form while in incubus form
Incubus Wings
Upper
Tier 1
100 life essence
improve the strength and appearance of your wings
Melodic Voice
Upper
Tier 1
100 life essence
soothe and calm your target
Contact Queen Andromeda
Upper
Tier 1
100 life essence
Contact Queen Andromeda
Elixir Seed of Strength
Lower
Tier 1
100 life essence
If your seed is absorbed by your partner, they get stronger
Elixir Seed of Endurance
Lower
Tier 1
100 life essence
If your seed is absorbed by your partner, they get fitter
Discern Truth
Lower
Tier 0
100 life essence
read a person’s thought to confirm what they believe is true
Unlocking my basic ability to know if someone was telling the truth would be useful. But after reading the list, I knew I was going with a physical upgrade. “Pandora, would increasing my abyssal strength increase how fast I can fly? Abyssal speed increased my flying maneuverability, so would this allow me to go faster?”
Pandora cocked her head like a dog and then replied, “I think it is highly likely. All signs point to yes.”
So I wouldn’t spend hours going back and forth, I selected strength. My life essence dropped to 9/160. My muscles pulsed with new energy, and I knew I was gaining remarkable strength in the real world. Upper tier 1 was a human limit. I was going beyond the human limit. This was going to help with my tetsubo combat, unarmed combat, and my flying ability in incubus form. I couldn’t wait to spend some time with Kiri training.
I exited my mind space and found it was just 9:33 pm. Even though I had spent hours training with Pandora, less than an hour had passed in the real world. I went to my mind space and got a full eight hours of sleep before returning to the real world. I woke from the nap to find Pandora in a silk nightgown curled next to me.
I grabbed my phones. My Apollyon phone just had a message from Amelia. The house closing was confirmed for Friday. All the paperwork was done, and she was already starting to order furnishings. I also had a text from Dexter saying he was looking forward to meeting me in person on Saturday.
My Caleb phone had dozens of text messages. Mary was trying to get her and Rose out of the erg test on Thursday, but I think the texts were just flirting on her part. I needed to see if my incubus enhancements worked, so I was not going to skip the test. Rob wanted to borrow my car on Saturday. Yuki’s parents got in an accident, so they were using her car and Rob and Yuki had a date. I texted him no problem, and I needed to remember to clean all the gear out of the back. I answered texts from Paige, Maya, Ashley, Abigail, and Jade. Jade had been given a phone. She wanted to talk and said she was flying in on Thursday night, which was tomorrow.
I called the number, and it picked up, “Caleb? Is that you?” Jade asked on the other end.
“Jade, I got your message. Mandy gave me the gist of what was going on. Can you tell me more?” I asked.
“Yeah. My mother had me with the Corleonis mages for a week. They couldn’t find anything wrong with me, and then my mother got the bright idea to marry me to the son of the Koshkin clan. They are a bunch of Russian assholes,” she fumed. “Well, I challenged his father to a dominance match, and I won easily,” she beamed through the phone. “Well, instead of getting his territory, the catkin council let me establish my own territory in the states. After a lengthy discussion with the established clans in the America, I got southern Virginia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee.”
“Wow. They just gave you those states? No one else wanted them?” I asked, interested.
“It just means I am responsible for all the catkin in the region. One pride alpha ruled the entire east coast, but he was really old, and I threatened to challenge him, so he gave me a piece of his kingdom. I am one of seven catkin in the world with a tier 2 core, greatly magnifying my adept ability. Caleb, I can’t wait to challenge you on the climbing wall again. If I win, you will be my plaything for the evening!” She was getting excited.
“Sure thing,” I started, “and if I win, I can think of a number of things I would want to do with my little feline.” She started purring on the other end of the line. “I will see you Thursday, Jade. Do you need me to get you at the airport?”
“No, I am selecting three bodyguards now, and my mother released some funds to me,” Jade replied seriously. “Any suggestions?”
I thought about it and wasn’t quite sure why she was asking me. I did come up with a reply, “If you are going to continue coming into transits with me, then bodyguards that are capable of handling that environment. Agile athletes with good awareness,” I offered.
“The transits…you will still take me? Yes, I will select some bodyguards that can handle that. I have got to go, Caleb. I will see you tomorrow night.” She hung up, and I was actually looking forward to it.
The next day school got a little rougher. The two players whose parents wanted to sue the school were proceeding. So the gossip train was in full effect. Both those players were transferring to another private school, according to James. James told me that the video the police had of the two men were of them DPing Coach Sam at her house. The legal issue is the divorce was not settled, so her ex-husband was still on the deed until January 1st, so he was claiming the video was his property, and the filming of the act was legal, and he could turn it over to the police. On the other legal side, he was supposed to have all his possessions out of the house before the weekend, so Sam’s lawyers were claiming the tape as hers and an illegal seizure.
I already knew this was not the first time her ex-husband had caught her cheating. The rumor was the divorce happened because he had a tape of her having sex with a senior from last year’s team. Since he was over 18 it wasn’t this clusterfuck. In the end, it was not my problem.
I left school during the last period and stopped at Iris’ house to get my books. Kiri had opened the package and was paging through them, somewhat interested. I just told her she could have them tomorrow. It would take me less than two hours to get them in my mind space later tonight.
I got to my house and eagerly set up the rowing machines. I figured I would be in the middle on the old machine, and Mary and Rose could be on either side of me.
When they arrived, they spent an hour warming up. I wasn’t sure why they were so nervous about rowing 2000m on the machine, it would be hard, but it would be over in about seven minutes. When they were finally mentally and physically ready, Mary set up her phone to record the test in case they got a new PR.
It took a lot of cajoling on my end to have them set their pace to be 10 seconds faster than their prior PR. They said that was too big of a jump for only two weeks of training. It had only been a month since their last test. I told them to just do it and stop arguing. I was not going to use my voice or charm ability on them. This was an experiment to see how much I improved them physically.
We finally started the test, and we got off to a strong 1:46 on both their screens. I was holding a steady 1:45 without much effort and was able to cheer them on. When we reached the halfway point I told them ‘to go all out.’ ‘Finish it as quickly as possible.’ ‘Save nothing and go.’ Mary muttered it was too early to start the sprint, but she increased her stroke rate, and the split dropped. Mary had been reluctant but followed a few seconds later. They dropped their split to under 1:40 and held it there. For the last 300 meters, they kicked it into high gear and pushed to the line, dropping their split under 1:35 the entire time.
When the meters reached zero, Mary had a time of 6:52.5, and Rose had a time of 6:54.9. They were exhausted and could barely move. Both were in utter shock at the screen. Rose mumbled, “I think I could have gone harder.” Mary muttered, “Me too.” Mary unstrapped herself and moved past me to jump on Rose, and they both started crying. It was a joyous emotional cry. Mary grabbed her phone and brought it, clearly showing both screens in turn.
“Caleb, do you realize these times are faster than probably every other woman in high school in the country! When we show this to the college coaches, we can write our own ticket anywhere!”
I sighed. “I am sorry, but that can not happen.” I activated my voice and eyes in concert. When I had them enthralled, I said, “You two just had a great erg test. You didn’t record it, and you both were slightly slower than your previous best times.” I took Mary’s phone and stopped the video, and deleted it. It had been running for almost 20 minutes. I broke the charm thread and had to listen to Mary, and Rose tell me that they should have lifted weights today instead of doing the erg test. I took the abuse, and it was bad enough that I didn’t get any life essence from them. They left unhappy.
It was a hard decision, but I would draw too much attention if they were suddenly posting Olympic fast times. At least I knew now that I had turned them into much better athletes. It was worth using my seed. I would have to talk with Abigail if she decided to run track. She could do it but she could only win by slim margins. I walked into the working sauna and was a little disappointed we didn’t get to try it out tonight.
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MARY POV
Mary had high hopes this afternoon when she visited Caleb’s house with Rose. She had been feeling phenomenal and knew her strength had greatly improved. She wasn’t sure if she was going to get a new PR on the test Caleb had planned, but she wanted to impress him.
There was something about Caleb that drew her. His body and dick were amazing, but also his nonchalance when dealing with women. That first time in the park was the most intense orgasm she had ever had. After reliving the encounter over and over in her head at night, she realized it was the thrill of almost getting caught. It seemed every time she was with him, she had the opportunity to get caught.
She was still considering letting me take her anal virginity. If Caleb’s pennis wasn’t so imposing, she would have already caved. She had made a pledge to only give up her actual virginity to her husband.
She had showered at home, was under her covers, and opened her phone later that night. She had been recording her blowjobs of Caleb on her phone and then deleting them. But she had set up her cloud to automatically download the video so she could log in and watch it before bed to get her high back.
Something was wrong. She hadn’t recorded anything today, but a twenty-minute video was on her cloud. She must have accidentally hit the record button. She was about to delete it but decided to play it. Oh, it was the erg test that they had done, and she hadn’t done great on it. But she couldn’t remember what her final time was. She decided to fast forward to the end to jog her memory. Something warred within her that it was not worth her time, but she did it anyway.
Chills went up her spine as the camera moved over her rowing machine screen, 6:52.5…that couldn’t be right. Rose also broke seven minutes! This was impossible. How could she forget this? She played the rest of the video till Caleb turned it off….