It was a dream, really. The kind of adolescent power fantasy that lodged itself in the back of every boy's skull and never quite died, even after reality took a crowbar to your expectations.
Because reality was stingy and mean, and most boys of his caliber and looks were lucky if a single woman glanced their way twice, let alone agreed to orbit them, collect, accumulate.
A harem was the stuff of late-night shame and browser history deletions. Not plans. Not outcomes.
Phei had been one of those men until—what—twelve hours ago? Less, if he was being precise.
Now?
Now he had a system.
Powers.
A dragon cock that didn't just fuck but converted, that could permanently tame women, rewire their bodies to crave him and him alone like an addiction they'd never known they were missing.
Abilities with itemized bonuses, no less. Taboo interactions came easier. Married women leaned closer without understanding why. Weak-willed men found themselves backing down, eyes sliding away, instincts screaming that they were outmatched.
Twenty percent easier, the system had said.
As if desire could be reduced to a coupon.
He was going to do the impossible. He felt it with a conviction that bordered on religious, the kind that settled deep in the bones and refused eviction.
And if there was ever a young man who didn't harbor that dream—who didn't fantasize about conquering beautiful women with the inevitability of some harem-anime protagonist—then Phei would gladly call bullshit.
Everyone dreamed it.
The difference was that it stayed a dream.
Fantasy.
Late-night fuel.
Something you indulged in privately and laughed off in the morning like a bad idea.
Until now.
Time to see what happened when fantasy stopped being imaginary.
The hardest part wouldn't be the obvious targets. Not the young, rich, fully grown socialites already circling Paradise with nothing better to do than be admired. Not even the family-relations in his orbit, all adults, all walking emotional minefields dressed in designer clothes.
No. The real challenge lay higher.
The mature circle.
The women who actually ran Paradise. The MILFs, the cougars, the immaculate widows who ruled brunch tables and charity boards with wine glasses and surgical gossip.
Adriana, the hot rude neighbor with a tongue like a switchblade.
Rowan, permanently sun-drenched and perpetually bored.
Mara, jogging past every morning in outfits worth more than used cars.
Mrs. DeGraw, sealed off behind noise-canceling headphones and plausible deniability.
That was where Melissa mattered.
His marked aunt. His first acquisition. His first harem member, a phrase that still sounded unhinged when he thought it too hard.
She was his key. His introduction. His proof of concept.
She knew the hierarchy, the habits, the quiet dissatisfactions they laughed about after the third glass of wine. She could open doors no outsider ever touched.
All he had to do was make sure every encounter paid dividends.
No wasted seductions.
No missed openings.
No fucking it up through arrogance or stupidity.
And he had the abilities to make damn sure he didn't
Phei's attention drifted back to the status window, to the abilities tab that had been glowing with monk-like patience while his thoughts went joyriding.
[PASSIVE ABILITIES:]
Charm Speech Lv.1 [0/150 EXP to Level 2]
Dominance Aura Lv.1 [0/150 EXP to Level 2]
Taboo Multiplier Lv.1 [0/3 Taboo Conquests to Level 2]
Cucklord's Dominance Lv.1 [0/2 Cucked Victims to Level 2]
All level one.
All unimpressive.
All promising.
Weak didn't mean useless. Weak meant early. And early was fine, because early was when things scaled.
More importantly, he had six hundred and fifty EXP sitting there, idle and smug, like unspent inheritance money begging to be misused.
The arithmetic wasn't exactly advanced calculus. Even with his brain still floating somewhere between dopamine and dehydration, he could handle this.
One ability from level one to level two cost 150 EXP.
Which meant he could take four abilities to level two for 600 total and keep fifty in reserve, like a responsible adult. Or at least like someone pretending to be one.
Alternatively, he could push fewer abilities harder. Specialize. Min-max. Become That Guy.
He frowned, recalculating.
Level two to level three wouldn't be the same cost. Systems never worked that way. Progress always got more expensive the closer you got to anything worth having.
"System," he murmured, pitching his voice low so it wouldn't carry. Melissa was still on the floor, still cleaning with the frantic diligence of someone trying to scrub away consequences. "What's the EXP requirement from level two to level three?"
The answer came instantly.
[LEVEL 2 → LEVEL 3: 200 EXP REQUIRED][LEVEL 3 → LEVEL 4: 300 EXP REQUIRED][COSTS INCREASE BY 50 EXP AFTER LEVEL 2]
Of course they did.
Linear growth would've been generous. This was classic game logic: escalation disguised as opportunity.
So. The clean math shook out like this:
He couldn't take two abilities all the way to level three. That would cost seven hundred, and he was fifty short. Close enough to be annoying, far enough to be impossible.
But he could do something better.
Three abilities to level two would cost 450 EXP.
Then one of those three up to level three for another 200.
Six hundred and fifty total. No waste. No leftovers. Efficient enough to make his old teachers proud, assuming any of them had ever been proud of him to begin with.
The real question was priority.
Charm Speech stood out immediately. That one had already proven its worth. His words had landed differently with Melissa, heavier, more persuasive, as if truth itself had leaned in to help him out. He hadn't just told her things.
He'd installed them.
And Melissa had already been primed. Already aching. Already unraveling.
Charm Speech leveled up would be for women who weren't.
Women who still saw him as background noise. As the quiet boy. The afterthought. The inconvenience with a name they forgot mid-sentence.
Paradise was full of those women.
DominanceAura was tempting too. Passive pressure. The kind of thing that made people hesitate without knowing why, that rewrote body language before conscious thought got involved. Useful for men. Essential for social spaces. The invisible difference between being ignored and being deferred to.
Taboo Multiplier… that one made him smile despite himself. Slow burn, but explosive returns. Every forbidden conquest feeding back into the system like interest on sin.
And Cucklord's Dominance—
He stopped himself there.
One thing at a time.
This wasn't about impulse. This was about construction. Laying foundations that wouldn't crack the moment he put real weight on them.
He glanced down again at Melissa, still scrubbing, still silent, still wearing his mark.
Yeah.
Charm first. Control second. The rest could wait their turn.
Power was coming fast enough as it was.
And for the first time in his life, Phei wasn't just reacting to the world.
He was planning how to conquer it.
If he pushed Charm Speech to level three… what then?
Did the numbers just get fatter? Marginal gains, diminishing returns? Or did it cross some invisible threshold where the ability stopped being helpful and started being dangerous?
He swallowed, eyes flicking back to the glowing interface.
"System," Phei said under his breath. "Show projected effects. Charm Speech at level two and level three."
The blue text obliged.
[CHARM SPEECH LV.2]+15% persuasion (all targets)+50% persuasion (aroused targets)Passive ability – always active
Example:Victoria during normal conversation: +15% effectiveness.
Victoria while vulnerable and attracted: 50% total effectivenes.
"Reasonable. Potent, even. The kind of edge politicians would sell their souls for."
Then his gaze dropped to the next block.
[CHARM SPEECH LV.3] +20% persuasion (all targets)
+60% persuasion (aroused targets)
Minor effect on hostile targets (previously near-immune): +5% persuasion
Passive ability – always active
Example: Target actively hostile (Sierra): your words carry 5% persuasive weight.
Neutral or positive disposition: 20% effectiveness.
Aroused target: 80% effectiveness.
Phei stared.
Actually stared.
Level three didn't just improve the ability. It broke a rule. A big one. The kind everyone assumed was hard-coded into reality.
Hostile targets weren't immune anymore.
Five percent didn't sound like much on paper, but that was the wrong way to think about it. Five percent was a crack in the wall. Five percent was the difference between automatic rejection and reluctant consideration.
Between being dismissed out of hand and being… heard.
"Between Sierra spitting in my face, like she'd done more than once, and Sierra hesitating. Pausing. Actually processing my words instead of reflexively hating them because they came from me.
And eighty percent on aroused targets.
Eighty.
That wasn't persuasion anymore. That was gravity. That was the conversational equivalent of standing too close to the edge of a cliff and suddenly realizing the ground was sloping.
"Jesus," he muttered.
At that point, words stopped being suggestions. They became instructions with plausible deniability. The kind of thing that let people tell themselves it was their idea all along.
Not mind control. Not officially.
Just influence so overwhelming it stopped feeling like a choice.
Phei leaned back slightly, heart thudding, the implications stacking up faster than he could dismantle them.
Level three wasn't about smoother conversations or better first impressions.
It was about rewriting dynamics. Turning enemies into undecided voters. Turning attraction into compliance. Turning rooms that had always rejected him into rooms that… listened.
And the worst part?
The system called it a minor effect.
He exhaled slowly, a grin tugging at his mouth despite himself.
Yeah.
Charm Speech wasn't optional anymore.
It was foundational.