Nightmare

"That mage would later be known as Merlin, the world's strongest magician."

Taking another sip, she saw that she had no more tea. Waving her hand, the floating teapot started to levitate over.

Pouring more tea into her cup, she added some sugar cubes and started to mix them using a spoon.

"There was even a rumor that Merlin's last words before he died were that if a demon was to surface again, the second Demonic War was to follow it."

Jayce spontaneously tensed up, sweat started to flow down his face, with one thought racing through his mind. 'I couldn't be that demon, right?'

Misinterpreting the look on his face for fear, she instantly tried to cheer him up.

"Don't worry, demons haven't been seen since the war. And besides, it's just a rumor."

Buying her excuse, he was able to calm down and ask a few things he needed to know about.

"What are ranks and guilds exactly? You said that my rank was C but that doesn't tell me anything."

"Sorry about that, ranks are assigned based on the person's strength. With F being the lowest, it goes F, E, D, C, B, A, S. F rank is the strength of a normal human, E rank is the strength of 10 humans, rank D has the strength of 100 normal humans so on and so forth."

"Each rank has three stages, it goes First Stage, Second Stage, and then the Third Stage. The difference between each stage is significant but can be overruled with proper technique and skill."

"Supernaturals have ranks but they are a little different compared to mages. Monsters are assigned a Danger Level based on their difficulty, a Danger Level C means that a magician in the Second Stage of C rank can most likely defeat that given monster."

"The danger levels are sorted just like ranks of magicians minus the stages."

"Now Guilds, there are many different guilds so for the sake of not taking too much time I'll talk about the three major guilds. There is Noble Heart, Brightdane, and Lion's Grove. These Guilds are also S rank, which makes up most mages.

Those with the most talent are sent from their guilds to this Academy in hopes of nurturing their strength. The Academy could also be considered a major Guild but the headmaster doesn't like being involved in politics."

"Most of the people in the Academy are in the Middle Stages of rank D. So I got a little happy when there was someone else who was also the same rank as me, even if you are a stage below me." She talked with clear excitement in her voice.

Jayce completely ignored the change in her voice as he took a sip of his tea.

"When you found out about me being the transfer student, you didn't seem happy."

"Well, the students in the Academy are competitive, so much so that it gets out of hand. With no Guild backing you, they will most likely target you."

"Even with you being stronger than them they'll just end up using their Guild's name to make your life miserable."

She wasn't wrong, the strong will always rule over the weak. Jayce had first-hand experience of how cruel the world can be. Seeing what the time was, Jayce decided this was enough for info for now.

"Thank you for taking the time to explain these things to me." Standing up, he started making his way toward the library's exit.

"Wait! My name is Yuko, Yuko Kitagawa."

"I'll take note of that," Jayce said as he left the library. A few minutes later he arrived back in his dorm room."

"It was the afternoon but Jayce was already mentally and physically exhausted, opening his menu he just glared at his new skill."

---

[Skills]

[Demonic Eye of Truth]

[Life Absorption]

---

If he wanted to get strong fast, this skill was the easiest way to do it.

'System, is there a way to gain mana from using this skill without harming the other person.'

[Answering Host's Question]

[Question 1. Yes, any form of sexual contact should grant you the ability to absorb their mana but not their stats. Having full sexual intercourse will grant you the ability to absorb much more mana and to absorb stats than just sexual contact.]

This was great news for him, but the initial problem remained. Not having any experience in this type of field was making this extremely challenging.

The only solution he could come up with was dumping all of his points into the charisma stat, but that would defeat the entire purpose of using the skill in the first place.

Not being able to come up with a solution, he decided to just go to bed early. Changing out of his school uniform, he lay under the cool, comfortable sheets as he fell asleep.

Opening his eyes, Jayce was back in his old residence. In front of him was the lycanthrope, chewing his sister's mutilated body. Just like last time, he froze in fear of the beast.

'Move! Move!' Jayce kept telling himself but his body wouldn't take a single step and would only shiver uncontrollably.

"ALICE!" Ryan screamed as he ran towards the beast in a fury.

'NO! RYAN STOP!' Jayce screamed but no words came out. The beast turned around and cut Ryan's head clean off.

Standing up the beast walked over to Jayce and moved his face close enough that Jayce could smell the raw meat from its breath.

"W..e...a...k." The beast growled these words as it backed away.

Ryan's headless body and his sister's corpse which wasn't even recognizable, grabbed his feet as they climbed up.

"It's...yo...ur...fau...lt. If...on...ly...y...ou...were...stron...ger...we...wou...ld...be...a...live." His sister's body gargled due to the immense amount of blood in her throat.

Alice kept repeating those words until she had climbed up to his head.

Jayce closed his eyes he tried to look away, but his sister grabbed his head and forced his eyelids open. Turning his head until her lifeless eyes stared into his.

"It...shou...ld...have...been...you."

Waking up from the nightmare, Jayce looked around to see that he was still in his dorm room. Taking a few deep breaths, he was able to calm himself.

Looking at the time, he still had a couple of hours till school started.

Putting some track clothes on, he decided to run around campus to clear the nightmare from his head. Finishing his 2nd lap around the campus, he was panting as one lap was about 30 miles.

As he was done with the morning running, a notification appeared.

[Endurance has increased]

[Endurance 13-> 14]