Harem System in an Elite Academy

The transition between floors wasn't smooth this time. The portal that led to the sixth floor flickered unnaturally, pulsing like it was trying to stabilize itself. Arios noticed it first. He looked at the others and said nothing for a moment, his eyes narrowing slightly at the faint distortion. The air around the portal wasn't the same dull blue hue as before — it rippled with streaks of red mana, faint but visible if one looked closely.

Liza, already holding her weapon at her side, frowned. "Why's it doing that? The last few floors were stable."

Pokner looked at the distortion for a few seconds before responding. "It's not supposed to look like that. The instructors wouldn't have programmed something unstable. Unless…" she trailed off, not finishing the thought.

Lucy tilted her head, slightly uneasy. "Unless what?"

Pokner sighed. "Unless someone tampered with the system manually."

Arios said nothing. He simply stepped closer to the portal and waved his hand through the edge of the ripple. The surface flickered briefly but didn't harm him. "Whatever it is, we'll know once we're through." He looked back at them. "Stay close. Don't split until we can confirm the floor layout."

They nodded one after another.

The group stepped through the portal together.

The transition was rough. Instead of the usual seamless shift of space, the portal pulled them in violently. The pressure around them tightened. The scene warped. For a few seconds, all Arios could hear was the faint hum of mana rushing past his ears. Then everything went dark.

When he opened his eyes, the others were gone.

Arios stood alone in a dimly lit corridor. The walls were made of black stone with faint glowing runes carved across their surfaces. He turned around quickly, expecting to see the rest of his team — but there was no one. Just empty space and the faint echo of dripping water somewhere ahead.

He reached for his communicator on his wrist and tapped it twice. The signal light blinked red. No connection. He tried again. Same result.

"Cut off completely," he muttered.

He waited for a few minutes to see if any of them would emerge through the portal behind him. Nothing happened. The air was still.

Liza would've called out by now, he thought. And Pokner would've already been analyzing the floor pattern.

He knew something was wrong.

Arios started moving forward, scanning the environment. The air was denser here, the kind that carried mana irregularities. His eyes glowed faintly for a moment as he activated his Nether Eyes. Shadows of mana trails became visible — streaks of faint blue energy scattered through the hallway. None of them matched his team's resonance. Whoever or whatever had been through this area wasn't them.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the dungeon — Liza, Lucy, and Pokner found themselves in a completely different section. Theirs resembled an old temple chamber, with large square pillars and a faint golden glow illuminating the center. Liza immediately looked around, noticing Arios wasn't with them.

"Where's Arios?" she asked quickly.

Pokner looked at her communicator and tapped it several times. "Signal's dead."

Lucy's tone was uneasy. "You think the portal… split us?"

Pokner nodded once. "The instability before we entered… It must have segmented our mana signatures. The dungeon recognized us as different parties. That shouldn't be possible unless…"

"Unless someone tampered with the dungeon's control system," Lucy finished.

Pokner didn't reply but her silence was confirmation enough.

Liza exhaled sharply and adjusted her grip on her spear. "Then we move. We'll find him. If this floor is built like the last few, there'll be a convergence point."

Pokner examined the floor markings. "If the dungeon logic hasn't been corrupted too badly, yes. But I'm starting to think this isn't a simulation anymore."

Lucy frowned. "Meaning?"

Pokner stood up straight. "Meaning something is controlling it manually from the outside."

Back with Arios — he had already mapped two hallways and found three branching paths. Every direction seemed to lead further down. The architecture changed the deeper he went. What started as black stone walls became metallic surfaces with pipes running along the ceilings. The deeper sections emitted a mechanical hum — a hybrid of magic and machinery.

He stopped at an intersection where three faint red crystals floated above pedestals. They pulsed slowly, like heartbeats. Each one emitted a faint field of mana, and all three were linked to the same central point in the ceiling. Arios analyzed them quietly.

"Energy regulators," he muttered. "But why three?"

He activated his Nether Eyes again, letting the mana patterns reveal themselves. The crystals pulsed irregularly. One of them showed corrupted traces — black streaks within the red glow. Someone had tampered with this floor's structure.

He placed his hand over one of the pedestals. His system interface appeared faintly before him, flickering with text.

[System Notification: Anomalous mana source detected.]

[Attempting trace synchronization...]

[Error: External interference.]

He canceled the command. "So someone doesn't want me tracing this back."

The hum grew louder.

A few moments later, the wall at the end of the corridor split open. Out stepped three figures — constructs shaped like humanoid guards, each carrying spears formed from hardened mana. Their eyes glowed red, targeting Arios immediately.

He readied himself, summoning a basic mana barrier. The first construct lunged forward. Arios sidestepped it easily, striking its arm with the blunt end of his blade. The limb cracked, breaking into fragments of energy. The second came from behind, swinging downward — he ducked, countered with an upward slash, and destroyed its core.

The third construct was faster. It stabbed toward his chest. He caught the spear mid-thrust, twisted his wrist, and forced it back. The construct lost balance — Arios stepped in, slammed his foot into its chest, and crushed its mana core with his palm. The light faded.

He stood still for a moment, scanning the surroundings again. The noise subsided.

When the constructs disintegrated, their remnants left faint trails of mana on the floor — the same corrupted streaks he'd seen in the crystals.

He frowned slightly. "This isn't part of a standard academy dungeon. Whoever tampered with this wants it to malfunction."

He thought of only a few people with the influence and technical access to do such a thing — members of the faculty, or possibly the student council's upper division.

Meanwhile, Liza's group had encountered a similar situation on their side.

As they pushed through the temple chamber, several stone golems emerged from the walls. Their bodies were layered with thick rune plates. Liza immediately took point, charging forward with her spear glowing with mana.

Lucy supported from the back, casting minor wind-enhancement spells to boost Liza's movement. Pokner stood near the rear, analyzing the golems' movement pattern.

"They're not following standard dungeon parameters!" she shouted over the noise. "Their mana flow is irregular — someone's forcing manual control through the summoning core!"

Liza didn't respond verbally. She struck one golem across the head, cracking the stone surface and revealing the glowing crystal inside. "Then whoever's doing it better stop before I smash the rest of these things!"

Lucy's tone was tense but composed. "Don't overextend. These things are drawing from the floor's main network. If you break too many at once, the floor might destabilize."

Pokner's gaze hardened. "It's already unstable."

By the time they destroyed the last golem, the golden light in the room dimmed. A passage opened at the far end.

"Looks like we move forward," Liza said.

Pokner hesitated for a second before following. "Stay alert. The floors are reacting unnaturally to mana output. The distortion levels are increasing the deeper we go."

Back in the metallic corridors, Arios found a stairway leading downward. He stopped halfway down when the air pressure shifted again. The runes along the walls changed from red to green.

Then his communicator blinked for the first time since he entered. A faint signal came through — static, but recognizable.

"...rios… you there… signal's bad…"

He froze. That was Lucy's voice.

He quickly tapped the communicator. "Lucy, can you hear me?"

Static.

Then a faint response: "We're… moving… temple-like hall… mana flow… unstable… Pokner says—" The signal cut out again.

He tried reestablishing it but failed. At least now he knew they were alive.

He resumed moving forward, this time faster. The deeper levels grew more complex — the corridors split into branching mazes, some filled with traps that triggered on mana detection. Arios disarmed several by using localized nullification bursts, disrupting the mana circuits before they could activate.

At one point, he reached a large circular chamber. The floor glowed faintly with runic markings. In the center stood a single pedestal holding a white crystal sphere.

He walked closer cautiously. The sphere pulsed, then emitted a voice — not human, but generated.

"Unauthorized participant detected."

The runes on the floor brightened instantly. The chamber sealed behind him.

Arios tightened his grip on his weapon. "Here we go again."

The floor trembled. The runes glowed brighter. Then, from the shadows around the chamber, a massive creature began to form — part golem, part beast, its body composed of metal and stone intertwined.

He didn't waste time analyzing it. The creature lunged forward immediately. Arios sidestepped, using his speed to circle behind it. He slashed at its leg joint, leaving a dent but not a full break.

The golem roared — or something close to it — and slammed its arm down, the impact shaking the entire room. Arios jumped back and raised his barrier just in time. The ground cracked beneath his feet.

He countered with a burst of condensed mana, striking the golem's chest. The attack blew away several plates of armor, revealing glowing internal cores. That was its weakness.

He sprinted forward, using short bursts of mana at each step to accelerate. He aimed straight for the exposed section and drove his weapon into it. The core flickered violently before the creature staggered backward and fell.

The explosion of light filled the entire chamber. When it faded, the white sphere dimmed and the runes vanished.

The sealed door reopened.

Arios exhaled quietly, lowering his weapon. He looked at the broken fragments of the creature on the ground and studied the residual mana. The patterns were still corrupted — the same interference that plagued the rest of the floor.

He turned and continued forward.

By the time he reached what seemed like the midpoint of the floor, he found himself in a vast open cavern. The ceiling was high enough to resemble an underground sky, dotted with faint glowing crystals that acted as artificial stars. A wide bridge extended across a chasm filled with fog.

He hesitated for a moment before stepping onto the bridge.

Halfway through, he stopped.

The fog below stirred. Something large moved beneath it. He couldn't see clearly, but the presence was unmistakable — something alive.

He waited, watching the fog shift. After a few seconds, it stilled. He moved again, step by step, crossing cautiously until he reached the other side.

When he finally found another portal-like exit, he saw that it wasn't glowing the same as before. The colors shifted between red and blue rapidly.

He realized what it meant. The portal wasn't stable — it was pulling from two mana sources simultaneously.

Someone outside was manipulating the dungeon while the system itself tried to maintain stability.

Arios took a slow breath, watching the distortion pulse. "So that's it… someone's inside the control framework."

He reached for his communicator again, but it was dead once more.

He glanced around the cavern one last time, then stepped toward the unstable exit.

Across the dungeon, Liza and the others had reached a similarly distorted portal. The two scenes mirrored each other — the instability, the color shifts, the uneasy silence.

Pokner looked at it with a frown. "If we go through now, we might get sent somewhere unpredictable."

Liza clenched her fists. "We don't have much choice. Arios could already be ahead."

Lucy nodded quietly. "Then let's move."

As they stepped forward, the entire dungeon trembled — a low rumble that spread across every floor simultaneously. The floor itself started to crack under the strain.

Pokner looked up. "This floor's mana matrix is collapsing. Someone's breaking the synchronization between the dungeon's artificial layers."

Liza tightened her grip on her weapon. "Whoever's doing this better pray I don't find them."

They stepped through the portal at the same time as Arios entered his.

The world flashed white.

And just before everything faded, Arios heard the faint echo of a voice — a deep, distorted tone, as if coming from beyond the system itself.

"You're getting too close, Arios."

Then — silence.

The dungeon reset.