Harem Training System: Every Girl I Train Makes Me Stronger!

Chapter 44: 44. My System Evolved Being A Little Sarcastic... Maybe I Shouldn’t Get Laid...

[The Harem Training System recognizes a threshold event.]

[The candidate has demonstrated the primal essence required to wield the System: the courage to face the unknown, the strength to endure the storm of passion, and the raw, unyielding power to claim a soul through sheer, unbridled intensity. You have not merely survived the night; you have conquered the essence of devotion itself.]

"Okay," he said out loud, his voice sounding small and absurd in the vast, empty sitting room.

He stared at the glowing text, his mind reeling. "That’s... definitely new."

"And... wait just one second... ’Claim a soul’? Is the System talking about the dungeon... or the Vice Headmaster?"

"What does it mean to endure the storm of passion?! I LITERALLY FUCKED UP!"

[But eh... you manage to survive for a bit, right? Now... shush... the system is going to evolve best on your choice last night and these whole days of instructing.]

[System Evolution: UNLOCKED]

William stared at the notification, arms crossed, feeling the particular mixture of amusement and exhaustion that had become his default emotional state ever since a mechanical voice had first introduced itself inside his skull.

"Evolution," he repeated. "Alright, I’ll bite..."

"What does that mean exactly?"

[Allow me to explain,] the system said, and William noted with some interest that its tone had shifted, less clipped and mechanical than before, something almost conversational creeping into the way it phrased things now.

[You have officially proven yourself worthy of properly holding the Harem Training System.]

[This is, to be clear, not something every host manages. Most either abuse the power or waste it entirely.]

"Should I be flattered or worried that clearing that bar apparently makes me exceptional?"

[Both, probably,] the system said, which struck William as an oddly personal thing for a piece of magical infrastructure to say. [The truth is that your prior life gave you an unusual foundation.]

[Decades of combat experience, leadership, and the specific skill of building trust with people who had every reason not to trust you.]

[Combined with the boosts this system has already granted, you currently qualify as one of the more capable individuals in this world, a place the natives call Helios, incidentally.]

William blinked. "Helios...? Nobody’s mentioned that before."

[Nobody had reason to. You’ve been busy.] The phrasing may have contained an element of amusement. [Regardless. As a reward for reaching this threshold, I am prepared to offer a significant system upgrade, one that shifts our entire framework away from stats and levels toward something considerably more direct.]

"Aight... I’m listening."

[The upgrade grants you the ability to bestow skills and magic directly onto yourself and onto anyone you train.]

[Not gradual improvement through repetition, but genuine, immediate capability, drawn from a shared pool of resources that both of you contribute to.]

[In simple terms, you and your students grow stronger together, faster, and with more precision than the old system allowed.]

"So... let me get this straight..." William considered this. "The stats and levels bullshit thing... they’re gone?"

[Hyyuuppp~! Gone entirely.]

[No more strength plus two, stamina plus one, incremental nonsense.]

[You’ve said yourself it felt tedious.]

"I did say that," William admitted. "Numbers ticking up in a little box got old fast."

"Fine... I’m in. What’s the catch?"

[There is always a catch,] the system agreed cheerfully. [But this one, I think, you’ll find considerably more interesting than tedious.]

...

The screen shifted, reorganizing itself into two distinct headers, each glowing faintly with different colored text.

[AFFECTION PROGRESS] sat in soft rose gold lettering on the left.

[TRAINING PROGRESS] sat in cool silver blue on the right.

[Let’s begin with Affection Progress,] the system said, [since I suspect you’ll have questions about this one specifically.]

"I already have questions," William said flatly. "Go ahead."

[Affection Progress tracks the emotional and romantic bond between yourself and each individual you train, all of whom, I should clarify immediately, are consenting adults of appropriate age under the laws of this world and any reasonable standard you’d apply from your own.]

[This progress increases through genuine connection. Meaningful conversation. Acts of protection and care.]

[The specific kind of charm you displayed toward Catherine Blackwood yesterday, whether or not you were consciously trying to display it.]

William felt his ears go slightly warm despite himself. "And what happens when it hits a hundred percent?"

[When Affection Progress reaches full completion with a given individual, the bond crystallizes into something the system can draw power from directly.]

[Both of you gain access to a unique skill or ability, one you select personally, tailored to strengthen your partnership going forward.]

[It is, functionally, the emotional equivalent of the training breakthroughs you’ve already witnessed, except rooted in trust rather than repetition.]

"Okay," William said slowly, turning that over. "And Catherine’s is at...?"

He didn’t even need to finish the question. The system answered before he could.

[Catherine Blackwood’s Affection Progress currently reads zero percent.]

William frowned. "Huh... zero... that seems wrong."

"We spent all of yesterday together... to the point we go wild last night."

[It was, in fact, one hundred percent as of this morning,] the system said, and something in its tone suggested it was rather enjoying delivering this particular piece of information. [The threshold event triggered specifically because that bond reached full completion during the events of last night.]

[The system then reset to allow new bonds to form and existing ones to deepen further from a fresh baseline.]

[Consider it a graduation rather than a loss.]

William stared at the notification for a long, agonizing moment, the glowing letters burning into his retinas. As he watched them, the memories of the previous night didn’t just return; they slammed into him with the force of a physical blow, settling into place with a sudden, uncomfortable, and terrifying clarity.

The couch was there, and the fire was burning low. The way Catherine’s hand had gripped his sleeve, her eyes wide and shimmering with a desperate, wine-soaked vulnerability.

He remembered thinking he was being the noble protector, the steady hand in the aftermath of the dungeon’s carnage. He remembered the intention: to be the man who stayed because she was terrified of the silence, the man who offered a safe harbor after the monsters had nearly torn them apart.

But the System wasn’t talking about "protection." The System was talking about the conquest.

"That wasn’t..." William began, his voice cracking as he gestured wildly at the empty room as if the System could see the sheer carnage he’d left behind in the master bedroom. "That wasn’t ’devotion’ in the way you’re implying, you glowing piece of bullshit!"

He ran a hand through his hair, pacing the floor, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The heat of the memory, the sweat, the scent of her skin, the way her screams had echoed off the stone walls rushed back so intensely he felt a phantom ache in his hips.

"It wasn’t some grand, poetic romance!" he hissed, his face flushing a deep, embarrassed red. "She was drunk and she was scared!"

"She was practically begging me to break her!"

"I didn’t ’inspire devotion’ through noble action; I unleashed a goddamn beast because she wouldn’t let me leave!"

"I didn’t just ’claim a soul’; I practically tried to claim her entire lineage!"

He stopped, leaning heavily against a wooden table, his breath coming in short, jagged bursts. He looked toward the hallway, thinking of the silver-haired woman currently sleeping in the wreckage of his passion.

"I was supposed to be the gentleman," he whispered to the empty room, a desperate, hysterical edge to his voice. "I was supposed to sleep on a couch that was aggressively too small for me and wake up as the honorable protector."

"Instead, I... I fucking flooded the vice headmaster... so there is a massive difference!"

[The system does not measure intent by the narrow, moralistic metric you are currently clinging to,] the screen pulsed, the text shifting from a triumphant gold to a calm, almost condescending blue.

It felt as if the voice were echoing directly inside his skull, smooth and infuriatingly composed. [Affection Progress is not a tally of your lust, William.]

[It measures the foundation of genuine trust and the capacity to provide sanctuary in a moment of vulnerability.]

[You offered her strength when she was shattered, and you provided a tether to reality when her world was spinning.]

[You demonstrated both the protector and the lover thoroughly, without demanding a single thing in return.]

[That is the precise alchemy of a bond this system was built to recognize and reward.]

William froze. He let out a long, shuddering exhale, the frantic tension in his chest loosening just enough to let him breathe again.

The sheer, overwhelming weight of his panic began to subside, replaced by a strange, dizzying sense of validation.

"Okay..." he breathed, rubbing his face with his large, calloused hands. "G-got it..."

"That actually makes a lot of sense. God... that’s... that’s actually good." William exhaled. "Phew... That’s a relief."

[You do sound relieved,] the System replied, the text flickering with what could only be described as a digital smirk. [Perhaps because you realized you aren’t a common lecher but a man of profound, albeit... highly intense... impact.]

"I sound like a man who briefly thought he’d committed a crime he was entirely unprepared to pay for," William muttered, his face still burning.

He straightened his massive shoulders, trying to regain some semblance of dignity while standing naked in a room that smelled of his own conquest. "Let’s not get ahead of ourselves."

"If we’re done with the psychological analysis of my ’impact,’ can we move on?"

"Explain the training half of this thing. If this is a system, it better have more to offer than just a scoreboard for my sexual escapades."