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The Gamer Chapter 1404 – Fluffy Monday Awakens 8 – A moment to himself
🕑 Added 2023-03-10 17:07:11 +0000 UTCJohn had time to kill. Only Lee remained to visit and he wanted to pick her up after her university classes were done. Although the kind of effect was vastly different, for him to sit in a university class had a similar effect as attending one of Lydia’s court meetings.
Besides, John still loathed classrooms. Putting aside his (mostly beaten) bullying aftereffects, time spent in those rooms just hadn’t been that interesting. One of John’s few mundane blessings had been a good head on his shoulders. Since the education system was designed around average intelligence, he spent most of his time in class wondering where he would go today to level his third character. This had somewhat become better as he went up the educational ladder, but even Ashcroft was more defined by money than intellect. Frank’s presence had proven as much.
The point was that John was happy to avoid the university. Perhaps he would find that particular style of education more serviceable, he never got to try, but he doubted it. Just sitting and listening in general wasn’t his style. These days more than ever before.
‘Well, if there isn’t another haremette to visit, there’s always another girl that should get some attention,’ John thought and walked to the southern corner of his Palace. Through the sound of running water, the sharp sound of his whistling cut. His head turned, ever looking for his pet.
The Beast Binding let him sense that Velka was somewhere around. Undeveloped as that mechanic may have been, courtesy of him not putting any levels in Tamer, it nevertheless existed. It assured that the Magryph was capable of levelling to 50 and remained otherwise in prime condition for her species. A free boon he had gotten at the time for keeping her and all the investment he had made in the Class. He didn’t see himself changing that anytime soon.
What he did see was Velka peeking out behind one of the many stones that surrounded the Clearwater Fountain. Their eyes crossed. A dark red, hers were totally focused on him. Only her ears moved. The straight-beaked chimera just sat there and waited.
‘Alright, we can play that game,’ John thought and turned his back to her. Immediately his keen ears picked up the excited tapping of talons and toe beans. A look over his shoulder, and Velka froze, her white-black wings halfway spread and one of her front legs in the air. Again, only her ears moved, flicking away some of the water that sprayed in her general direction.
The Gamer directed his eyes to the top of Lady Liberty. He distracted himself by thinking about all the fun and interesting times he had had up on that torch. Then an adolescent Magryph pounced on him.
John shouted, as if he was genuinely struck by surprise and reached behind himself. His fingers were caught by the beak of the warbling animal. Front legs gripped onto his shoulders, hindlegs pressed against and slipped down his back. The soft kicking did not bother him at all, neither did the soft biting. He tumbled around, then fell.
With a less intelligent animal, getting as vulnerable as he did would have been a terrible idea. Velka knew better than to peck at his spine out of instinct – not that she could have done any damage even if she did. Instead, she backed off and then prowled around him, head lowered as if she was looking for any sort of opening to attack.
John sat up and raised his hands, not in surrender but as an invitation. Velka tried to peck at the buttons of his shirt and was firmly pushed aside by his palm. A protesting warble preceded the next attempt. Again and again, the Gamer shoved his pet back. “Time to remind you who the owner is here.”
Velka hissed and then went for a charge. Triumphantly she meowed when she grabbed onto one of his buttons. Defiantly, she flapped her wings when he hugged her under the front legs and proceeded to place a number of kisses on her black-and-white head feathers.
They were incredibly soft, almost as soft as Nightingale’s wings. Well, they were probably softer, but John was biased towards one over the other. The Magryph attempted to knock him over, refusing to accept the attention without a fight. Her big wings kept beating against John’s shoulders. Impressive as they were, effective at hitting people they were not. At worst the beating was disorienting.
John let her push him over regardless. Rough and tumble play was a most enjoyable exercise when the stronger party gave in sometime. Parents that wrestled with their children and never let them win were terrible parents. To be a pet owner was related in concept.
They continued to play their little game of pecking and shoving, until Velka was panting. Suddenly disinterested, the Magryph tapped over to the fountain. She settled down near the water, where the moisture served as a natural cooling factor. John followed. He put his shoes and socks into his inventory and put his feet in the water. It was pleasantly cool. Then it tickled. A school of fish was rapidly swarming his feet, nibbling away what meagre amounts of dead skin they could find. As a man who enjoyed regular full body massages, there wasn’t much for them to feast on.
Velka extended her head over the surface. The panting was replaced by slow, concentrated breathing. Her beak parted. She shuffled back and forth. Then she plunged into the water.
The fish scattered in all directions. All except the one that was stuck in Velka’s beak, after she resurfaced. It was a small species, easily fitting in John’s palm and just as easily sliding down the Magryph’s throat. Swallowing her prey whole, Velka paddled up to John. A deep warble formulated a question. John sighed and gestured for her to come at him.
One and a half metres of wet animal clung onto his legs. Not an apt climber, Velka would have struggled to lift herself the distance between the surface of the water and the stone. She would have succeeded at some point and still she wanted him to drag her on land. Adding insult to injury, she shook herself out right next to him. Water flew everywhere.
John groaned, overplaying his annoyance. Truthfully, it was nice to be covered in moisture in this weather. It was another hot day in the Guild Hall, the sun bearing down with all the intensity of the summer, artificial and real. “Disrespectful, money-eating thing.” He grabbed Velka by the beak and pinched it closed.
She did not like that and tried to pull away. The Gamer did not let her. After shaking her head a couple of times, she surrendered by plopping her bottom down on the flat surface. “And what now?” her eyes seemed to say.
John did not know, so he just let go, having won that particular struggle for dominance. That put the ball in Velka’s court. The Magryph could have done anything. She chose to lay back down and put her head in his lap. Neck scratches were the obvious next step. The feathers in that area were almost indistinguishable from fur.
The rumbling of her purrs vibrated through his leg while he patted her. The constant wiggle of his fingers dishevelled her fur, occasionally replaced by long strokes from between her cat ears to as far down her back as he could reach. Velka dozed off, as cats tended to do. Her feathers dried quickly under the sun.
John enjoyed the scenery. In the Clearwater Fountain swam water spirits and the varieties of marine life that Nia had put in there. The fountain itself rose high into the sky. Beyond it was the endless blue and, in the distance, the hovering parts of the Air Island.
Gorgeous as the view was, John had a difficult time entertaining himself with it alone. His mind was moving too fast to be happy with just a landscape. He needed someone to share it with or something else to do. Patting Velka didn’t quite qualify for either.
There were two Class Levels to distribute. This was as good a time as any to get that done. Starting, obviously, with the Starforger Perk he had lined up.
Celestial Kiln was out on default. Its benefit was simply not powerful enough to justify paying that cost.
White Stars were good. Matter of fact, they were truly what he wanted out of this Class. That was an amount of mana that could power a normal city for years. However, the Heartkiln was the truly powerful option here.
To double the passive mana output of the Guild Heart was to give him an additional 1’000’000 mana to work with. It would mean he could activate the Floaters and… nothing else, the Floaters were that expensive at full capacity. To be fair, they allowed the entire 15 kilometre Guild Hall to fly, so he did not find that price unreasonable. Add to that the passive creation of Stars from excess mana and it was a real winner.
Problem: John did not have the necessary Room Slots. He currently had 37 available and he could only buy more for 100 GP a piece. Way too expensive. Therefore, all he could do was dismiss the window, leaving the level invested and no Perk selected.
The good news was that he had Room Slots potentially on the horizon. The Quest to get Fusion into the Divided Gates was going to pay out 1’000 of them. To wait until that condition was cleared was an alright delay since he knew it would happen in the coming months. Until then, there were always other Classes that could use some levelling.
Starting with Golemcrafter, which he was doubly invested in now that his third body could wield Inkaryl. Even though he was satisfied with his mage build, he was absolutely looking forward to the simple pleasure of having a part of him that could just wreck things from the frontline as an unstoppable tank. To have that fantasy truly come together, he had to make the Creator Puppet more than a Stat stick.
Material Resonance was the clear winner in John’s mind. Storage was a repeat and he had already worked out why it was useless for him. Material Resonance also was a repeat and it had lost out to Tool Usage last time. This time around, the competition was not good enough to ignore it.
Brawler Mode was another one of those Perks that was of the greatest benefit if he created a great number of easily replaced puppets, rather than a select few really powerful ones. Since John was going with the latter approach and he had the excess resources to spare, Material Resonance would provide greater benefits. The few situations where it didn’t were those in which John had his back to the wall already. Situations in which he rarely found himself in, schemer that he was.
‘Three levels until the next Perk,’ he thought and sighed. ‘Man, I wish I could get more of these… but I already get twice as many as I used to and I don’t see Gaia giving me even more. If I got Class Levels even more frequently, I could stack the modifiers rapidly.’ He looked over the list. ‘Really wished I had the room to max out Metracana Master though. Only 2 more levels on that.’
Thinking about Metracana Master put his mind to Ehtra. The First of Hatred was still in her sealed state within Medelnick’s laboratory. It appeared to be a primarily psychological issue at this time, since she had been supplied the materials and energy to repair herself. John could not blame her. He would have lied if he said he understood what she had gone through. To be infested and warped by a parasite controlled by her own ‘mother’, broken into a failed vessel, and then left to fester in that state for years upon years… definitely not something even an ancient weapon came out of unscathed.
There were many loose ends like that in John’s life. Remus’ ongoing consolidation, the Divided Gates, the greater scheme of the Lorylim, the Horned Rat’s designs, Maximillian’s wedding, the King Candidacy, to name only those that immediately came to mind. All of them things that he had limited or no control over. Some of them were terrible, others events he looked forward to.
It was interesting to have these threats and promises on the horizon. Before he had gotten his powers, even for months after he did, his days had been filled with clearly traceable events. He had so little relationships and so little duties that few unexpected things could have come his way. There was only him and grinding, in real life or in video games.
Since then so much had accumulated. He was changing the world as much as it was changing him. It was terrific, terrifying and fantastic. There was something liberating in not being entirely free, self-defeating as that sounded. ‘Maybe I just love being in charge a bit too much… a change that I grew into. From coordinating my familiars, into making the calls for my growing harem, to a guild and then a nation… always forward.’
Velka meowed happily and John smiled.
The world was pretty good.
Comments
Funatic
Yeah, I keep getting those mixed up
Hellfire2099
Don't forget Eliana's melding! I'm so excited to see how all of these resolve!
Banric
possible typo, it says Stargazer perk right before the Starforger image
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