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The Gamer Chapter 1365 – Hot Spring Weekend Finale – So quickly, it was over
🕑 Added 2023-01-14 20:30:33 +0000 UTCMuch as John enjoyed the weekend there, ultimately it was not that exciting. Besides the hot springs, there was nothing there he could not do back at his temporary home. Renting a kayak had been interesting, but it really was the same lake that his property bordered on. If he bought one of the boats himself, he could use it whenever he wanted. The forest was the same kind as his farmstead and arguably less wild than his own property. Even if this was a state park, the rangers running around had some influence. A neglected private property? All nature.
It was a nice mini vacation during his vacation. Two days away from the seduction of working on the house. They flew by, spent lying in grass, soaking in warm water, grilling and laughing.
Monday morning, they were out. The owners did some last minute inspections whether they had kept their word. Aclysia had seen to it that every house they had touched was cleaner than they had found it. She had even polished the windows, the diligent one that she was.
Then, they started their trek home. John’s two doubles had left hours prior, taking the short route by creating an Illusion Barrier across the lake and then crossing it. The rest of them would take the same mundane path again.
“Why do I put up with this again?” Scarlett asked.
Claire had a swift answer, “Because even you like change sometimes. Consistently similar experiences dull the mind.”
“Fair point,” the redhead gave in and they began their march back.
John, again, led the sizable group. The path was not complicated, anyone could have led them. He still felt the best if that someone was him. ‘Same mentality that made me burn out in the first place, yet can’t switch it off entirely,’ the Gamer thought. ‘That’s just me, I guess.’
Delicia was the only one to keep up with him again. Marching along, with a bounce in her step that was a delight to behold, she smirked at him with the broad grin of the lovestruck. John reached over and patted her head. She laughed triumphantly and said nothing. There was nothing to be said either. Her cuteness had seduced him fully and they both knew it.
Turning his head, the Gamer took in the sight of his harem in their country girl outfits once again. He even shot a few photos with the Harem Comm Perk. How lovely it was to be able to just make pictures with his mind. Photographic memory would let him revisit them anyway and yet he wanted a physical memento to hang up somewhere. The next time they did a trek back like this, it would be a repeat of this first experience. It would never again be quite the same, for better and for worse.
There were 12 days left in his vacation and he got the feeling that they would be eventful. There was much to sort out still. There was the entire hurricane dragon situation they still had to deal with, first of all. Less urgent, yet still continuing, was the house building. Unforgettable was that he wanted to have a commitment from Hailey before he left. A soft yes would be enough, then he would help her sort things out with her parents and give her a place to stay in the Guild Hall.
Part of this obviously depended on how her parents were faring by the end of the month. Nothing John said or did would be able to move Hailey out of her home if she was not convinced her mom and pop were fine on their own. Hailey would not have it any other way.
The Gamer glanced for a moment at the blonde. He caught her mid yawn. The martial arts training was a struggle for her. It was yet to have an effect, from the looks of it.
John left her to her yawning. He had been paying a lot of deliberate attention to her since he first discovered her, for many a good reason. Introducing someone to the Abyss took time. Much of what he did around her was not the flirting he would have liked to spend his limited time on. Rather, he was explaining concepts to her that he had previously only mentioned, if that.
Right now, she had enough on her plate without him going into one of the many history lessons he could still give her. Instead, he tapped around in his menu for a bit. It had been two weeks since he last did a proper check-up on himself, which meant he had two weeks’ worth of levels from Experience of Love. 7 levels, in other words.
‘Where to put my Stats?’ he asked himself. ‘…Not that I have a lot of choice…’ Grumbling something about the drawbacks of a committed build, he pumped 35 out of the 56 Stat Points available into Wisdom. The sacrifice to his Sustain Costs. “Do you have any idea what I’m giving up for you?”
“Huh?” Delicia turned her head. “Where did that come from?”
“Just realizing how much financing your existence costs me.” John leered at her cleavage. “I’ll extract my payment later.”
“Not even being subtle about it, wow.”
“You don’t like subtle.”
“No, I don’t.” Delicia grinned widely. “Well, do your best to entertain me!”
“I’m getting paid, you should do your best to entertain me.”
“Eh, I’m such a delight, I can just be around and you’ll be reimbursed ten times over.”
John mockingly blew air out of his nose. “Sure you are, an utter delight that no one ever gets annoyed by.”
“You can always tell me if it gets a bit much,” Delicia responded with sincerity. Cutely, she put her arms behind her back and marched with overexaggerated steps. “It’s just so entertaining to get a rise out of you people. You have so many funny reactions.”
The Gamer simply smiled in response. “As long as you have an off-button,” he joked, then returned to his levelling.
The remaining 21 points, he put into Endurance. It was just what he was increasing at the moment. More HP was rarely a bad path to take.
Not a lot of movement on his sheet otherwise. Much of that was because he hadn’t been doing any fighting recently – not that he had a lot of Skills to level anyway. What he could do, however, was get another Class Level. Another two, to be precise. ‘Now, what to spend that on?’ the Gamer thought. There were a number of Classes that he had ready at the moment.
Starforger was the obvious first choice. Its last Challenge had been to get Golemcrafter to Level 3 and he had exceeded that by 1 already. Therefore, the god-given Class was to be raised. John continued to wonder what would await him at the end of it. Until then, the Starforging itself would be its own potential use. He hadn’t used it yet, for numerous reasons, but upgrading his capacity only would make it more worthwhile when he finally did.
An easy choice, this time around. Stareater was useful. Effectively, it was a once a day 25’000 MP refill. Two problems: John did not have an SEP at the moment and that choice only benefitted him. Star Enchantments was something he still wanted, but it just was not as good as the central choice here.
Starkiln improved the structure and gave him access to creating Arcane Stars that had two and four times the capacity of his current, only option. 100 Room Slots also were something he had lying around. The price was easily paid. One tap and he made the decision.
He wondered if the Basic Starkiln back in the Guild Hall was upgraded right that second or only once he returned. It was hidden in the same complex that housed the Guild Heart. If no one was around to see a Starkiln upgrade, did it truly happen? The answer was yes, because John would find it either in the previous state or the upgraded one.
‘Now, what to do with my second Class Level?’ John wondered. He pulled up the new Starforger Challenge for guidance. That Class always needed other Classes to reach certain levels before he could increase it further.
A choice, that was somewhat new. Both paths were tempting. On the Silver Arcanist side, he was likely to upgrade the Companion Cube, get more arcane spells, decrease their costs, and maybe even get a general mana efficiency upgrade. As for Golemcrafter, that would definitely and probably only lead to upgrades to his Creator Puppet.
Between the Companion Cube and the Creator Puppet, the choice was pretty obvious what was more useful. John rarely even used the Companion Cube. In a serious fight, its ability to shoot spells from an angle outside his body was useful. In regular life, it could only be used to push around coffee mugs. Increasing that capacity could lead to somewhere interesting, maybe it could even start to grab stuff.
How did that compare to upgrading his third body, his most efficient way to make himself a physical force to be reckoned with? Poorly, it compared poorly. Adding that he was already at Golemcrafter 4 versus Silver Arcanist 3 made the decision even easier.
Another easy choice. Mode Switch was definitely what he would go with. Earth Regeneration supported the use of having many cheaply produced bodies and John preferred his high quality fabrications. Hand of John II added another 5% to the scaling. That was good, but it was not as good as the utility of Mode Switch. It was a massive pain to release and reapply the spell to a body, if he wanted to fight with it. With Mode Switch, he could just keep Creator Puppet running unless he either had mana issues or he wanted to switch to a new model.
1’000 mana was more of a token cost anyway. Something that prevented him from switching back and forth wildly, but not so much that it would bother him. ‘Man, I hope someone tries to assassinate me again so the Creator Puppet can switch and deck them in the face.’
‘John…’ Stirwin warningly growled in his head.
‘Right, no hoping to be assassinated,’ the Gamer sighed and dismissed his windows. ‘It has been quite a while since somebody tried though.’ In the early days of Fusions, attempts on his life had been an irregular occurrence. His power had deterred most people, but there was often someone deranged enough to attempt a futile endeavour.
Between Scarlett, Aclysia, and Siena, his security detail had gotten so tight that any attempts were squashed before he even saw them. Not that a lot even happened these days. As Fusion had rolled on and the law had been established, the number of people who resisted dropped.
“I was more concerned about the assassin getting their face caved in by a stray elbow,’ Stirwin explained.
‘Also valid,’ the Gamer conceded. 80% of his Intellect was 800 Strength. A crater for a face was not an unlikely outcome after close contact.
The trek continued. Forest was on either side of the road. In the distance, John spotted a deer. They just marched along, until they reached that fork in the road where Hailey went one way and the harem another. Ten minutes later, they were back where they had left 3 days ago.
It was all idyllically peaceful.
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