My Taboo Harem System

Chapter 138: Third

Day three.

Denzel hit the ground the same way he’d been hitting it for two days — hard, graceless, with his cheek in the dirt and his lungs deciding whether they wanted to cooperate. The grunt left him before he could stop it.

He lay there a second. Just a second.

The Knight’s hand appeared in his vision, extended down toward him.

He looked at it. Took it. She pulled him up like he weighed nothing.

’Still forest,’ he thought, getting his feet under him, blinking the blur out. The trees were the same trees. The light was the same early morning light cutting sideways through the canopy. Three days and the forest had not changed at all. Only he had, and not in ways he could point to yet.

"Warmup’s done," the Knight said, stepping back. She wasn’t even breathing hard. She never was. "Now we start from basics."

Denzel wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I thought that’s what we’ve been doing."

"That was warmup."

He stared at her.

’Of course it was.’

"Your body’s decent," she said, looking him over the way someone looks at a building they’re not sure is up to code. "For a normal person, it’s actually fine. But you’re not going to be competing with normal people. The entrance exam pulls in people with years of magical training, natural affinities they’ve been developing since childhood — people who were built for this." She paused. "You were not built for this."

"Right," he said flatly.

"So before form, before anything else — we need to understand your ability. Really understand it." She looked at him. "Tell me more about it."

Denzel opened his mouth. Closed it.

"I already told you everything I know," he said.

"You told me it was elemental."

"Because that’s what it is."

"That’s a category," she said. "Not an answer." She held his gaze for a moment, and something in her expression shifted — not softer exactly, but more careful. "I’ll be honest with you. When I watched you against Patrick, there was a surge. A real one. Not a small thing — the kind of output that doesn’t come from someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing." She paused. "And yet somehow I actually believe that you don’t know what you’re doing."

Denzel almost laughed. "Thanks."

"It wasn’t a compliment. It was an observation." She folded her arms. "So. Try again. What exactly happens when you use it?"

He exhaled through his nose. Looked at the ground for a second.

’She’s his mentor,’ he thought. ’He decided that. He’s the one who agreed to this. At least give her something real to work with.’

"There are conditions," he said.

"What kind of conditions?"

"I can’t just — generate it. I can’t push mana out on my own." He looked at her. "Someone else has to use an ability first. Once they’ve expanded mana into the space, I can pull from that. Work with what they’ve already put out. But I can’t forge it from nothing."

The Knight was quiet for a moment.

"Have you tried?" she said. "Actually practiced generating your own output?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

"Nothing. Doesn’t work."

She nodded slowly, something moving behind her eyes. Not disappointment. More like she was filing it, finding where it went. "That’s a problem," she said. "But it’s also not nothing." A beat. "You said you can pull from any elemental ability they use?"

"Far as I can tell."

Her brows lifted slightly. Just slightly. "All elements."

"All of them, yeah."

She was quiet again. Longer this time. Then — "That’s actually significant. You understand what that means in a fight? You’re essentially turning your opponent’s own attack against them. Whatever they put into the air, you can use it."

"As long as the output isn’t too high," he said. "If someone’s really pouring it on — I can’t keep up with that. Can’t match the volume."

"Not yet," she said.

He didn’t answer.

She unfolded her arms, turned slightly, thinking. Then she looked back at him. "Alright. Let’s test it. I’ll use my ability — you try to work with it."

Denzel went still.

’She wants to use her ability.’

"I’d need to know what it is first," he said carefully. "If I’m going to pull from it, I need to understand what I’m pulling."

The Knight looked at him for a moment. Something crossed her face — not quite amusement, not quite coldness. Somewhere between the two.

"No," she said simply.

He blinked. "No?"

"I don’t intend to tell you my ability." Her voice didn’t change. "You’re my student, not my partner. Just like you don’t fully trust me — I don’t fully trust you. I’ll give you what you need to train. I’ll keep what’s mine to myself." She met his eyes. "That’s how this works."

Denzel looked at her for a long moment.

Then he nodded. Slow. "Fair enough," he said. "But we can’t actually test this without an elemental ability in play."

The Knight smiled. Small. The same smile from day one.

"I know," she said. "Which is exactly why we’re going to need to get creative."

"Right," the Knight said. "We’ll figure that out. For now — forget the ability. Focus on your reps."

Denzel nodded, rolled his shoulder, and got to work.

---

He used the time the way she told him to. Reps. Form. Movement drills between the trees until his legs burned and his arms stopped listening. He’d been treating his body like an afterthought his whole life and it was telling him about it now, loudly, in every muscle that had an opinion. But he kept going. She watched, corrected, occasionally knocked him down to make a point, and he got back up each time without being told.

The light shifted through the canopy as the hours passed. Morning to midday. Midday to something heavier and golden. By the time the Knight called it, Denzel’s shirt was soaked through and his hands were shaking in a way he was pretending not to notice.

---

He made it back to the village on legs that felt borrowed.

The walk took longer than it should have. He didn’t rush it. The evening air sat cool against his face and he let it, moving through the quiet streets with his head down and everything in his body filing simultaneous complaints.

By the time the familiar outline of the village settled around him he was running purely on stubbornness.

’Day three,’ he thought.

Three days. And she was still putting him down as many times as she had on day one. Not fewer. Not even slightly fewer. The same number. Maybe more. He’d been telling himself he was improving, building some internal ledger of small wins — he’d lasted a little longer here, seen a move coming there — but the ground kept finding him at the same rate it always had.

He exhaled.

’If the Knight is this strong,’ he thought, ’and she’s just one person — what exactly is waiting for him at the top? What does the world look like when you keep climbing and the people around you are all like her, or worse?’

He didn’t have an answer. The question just sat there, heavy, and he carried it the rest of the way.

He needed to get out of his head. He knew that feeling — the specific kind of tired that sleep didn’t fix, where what you actually needed was to exhale somewhere that wasn’t inside your own skull.

Two options.

He could go home. Maria would probably have food. She’d ask how training went and he’d say fine and she’d look at him like she knew he was lying and the evening would pass quiet and warm and simple.

Or.

He could find Aisha.

Denzel slowed slightly. Turned the thought over.

’Aisha,’ he thought. Something in his chest loosened just at the name. Yeah. That might actually—

He paused in the middle of the road.

Stood there a moment, genuinely weighing it.

Then — "I think," he said to no one, quiet, almost like testing how it sounded out loud —

"I’m going to go with..."