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The Gamer Chapter 1339 – Upgrading ALL the AS/NS
🕑 Added 2022-12-02 08:17:44 +0000 UTC“Alright, we go alphabetically,” John announced to the eagerly waiting Artificial Spirits. “Aclysia, Bae, Claire, Metra, Momo. Should be pretty quick, it’s only 2 choices per person and the AS 50 Perks are typically not as powerful. So, let’s go.”
There was not exactly a choice there. Satisfaction may have been powerful in the right circumstances, but John really was not a battlefield fucker. It was difficult to get in the mood when there was death and destruction around him. There may have been limited Raid uses, but that was not enough to take a Perk.
Juggernaut 2 was alright. An increase of 5% meant that the remaining duration of any Status Effects that did affect her were reduced by a fifth. Really good, all things considered, but Status Effects in the real world were not as numerous and not as straightforward as they were in video games.
Maid Knight Aura was interesting. He had passed it up last time in favour of Shieldmaid because that one was pretty insane. This time around, it only competed with a buff to an already powerful ability. 5% Endurance to Beatrice, Claire, and (maybe) Momo was pretty good – potentially even Aclysia herself. The wording wasn’t exactly clear on that. The real kicker was if Aclysia started to really put her combat maid team together. The aura made that more feasible than ever.
‘Hmm, not sure how morally justified it is to put the female orphans Beatrice picks up on a path to become combat maids…’ John thought, as he imagined the future. ‘…Well, how moral it is depends mostly on how coerced they are into doing it. Which they won’t be. Should just leave flyers around so they know they have options.’
Whether that was a program that had any success or not didn’t really matter, the Endurance bonus on its own was good enough to take it. After confirming the choice, he threw a quick Observe at Aclysia, and she did indeed benefit from it herself. That made it doubtlessly worth it.
‘Hmmm, well, none of these are bad but none of them are all that useful either,’ John thought. Both Ice Claws and Frost Fangs suffered from having no synergy at all with Aclysia’s primary weapons: swords. Frost Breath at least served as an alright ranged attack option, so he was leaning towards that. “Your thoughts, Aclysia?”
“I would prefer the claws,” the weaponized maid reported. “It would please me to have an easily accessed weapon with which I can threaten those that bother you, Master. Utilizing my weapons for that endeavour is often overkill and I need to clean them afterwards. Letting the ice crack off my fingers would be more hygienic.”
John was not entirely certain he subscribed to that train of reason, but he was not so married to Frost Breath that he would try to steer her off her chosen path. Besides, it was never wrong to have back-up melee weapons. The claws would make for a good off-hand threat, if nothing else.
And with that he was already done with Aclysia. “Alright, Bae, let’s see what Gaia has in store for you.”
Another set of two repeat choices and a replacement for a previous one. Swing Transferral was okay, but John did not want to press it at the moment. Swing was a rapidly regenerating resource and it was important for Beatrice’s gameplay loop to keep it that way. Cutting it by 25 would have hurt her offensive capabilities tremendously.
Clockwork Gear was a good choice. For most other people, the Gamer would have said that the timing was too tight to pull it off. For Beatrice, it worked perfectly. The problem was that the buff provided was just not that great. 15% damage increase barely made up for a 10% resource decrease.
Freeze Buffs, that was way more interesting. With all the benefits that Perfect provided, freezing the buffs just before she took a hit or missed a strike, causing certain buffs to fall off, and using this Skill moments before the impact to get one more buffed hit in was incredibly valuable.
John gave Beatrice a moment to protest, then he confirmed his choice.
It came as no surprise that Beatrice’s choices were similar to Aclysia’s. It just went with the whole twin aesthetic.
“Demand: Claws.”
“Is it because Aclysia also took the claws?”
“Partly. Explanation: I will not enter headbutts into my combat routine and the electricity breath is typically unsuitable for close quarters. The claws may provide minimal benefit.”
“That is fair enough,” John agreed and pressed the button. “Two done, three to go. Claire, it’s your turn.”
“Can I suck your dick while we do this, Master?” The vampire maid came straight at him with her usual perversion. In the rank order of ‘things men wanted to hear’, that was really high up there. With Delicia elsewhere, he also had no reason to refuse. Eagerly, Claire hastened to his feet and proceeded to take out his cock. When she had it in front of her, she gave it a long, loving lick. For a few moments he saw her sharp canines, then she swallowed his manhood whole in one stroke.
John continued the process without any delay, his hand was steady throughout all but the most intense blowjobs. For the moment, Claire kept things nice and casual. By her standards that meant she kept him sheathed to the hilt and moaned at the sensation of his girth. She was a good girl like that.
This choice broke the formula a bit, not having a General option. Not that John minded. There was one repeat here, in Ghostly Mist. While he fundamentally liked the idea of that one, he did not want his Palace to be constantly submerged in mist, within which bats, wolves, and spiders crawled and prowled. Bad optics, all around.
Networking was better. Claire’s spiders spent a lot of time tucked away in corners anyway, as any prolonged exposure to the sun would see them bleached out of existence.
Night Whisper was good in certain circumstances, but it also had that whole mind control theme going on that John really did not appreciate. “Thoughts?” John asked Claire. When she connected to his mind, he quickly pushed her back out. “Speak to me.”
Reluctantly, along a bunch of lewd slurping sounds, Claire glided up his shaft until it popped out of her mouth. A throaty laugh and a kiss to the tip were required, before she remembered she had been asked a question. “This cock just makes women stupid with how good it is,” she flirted with his erection. “Ehem, anyway, I would like the Night Whispers, please.”
“…You’re aware that I will keep you to a word that you won’t use it or any other mind controlling powers you get for anything nefarious, right?”
“I just want to build you an even greater harem… just kidding, I’m stupid, but I’m not that kind of stupid. You wouldn’t want mind controlled, insincere women.” Claire kissed the tip of his cock. “Truth is, it’s my personal insurance. Truth is, I am not certain you will forever have your luxuries of morals. Truth is, I want to be prepared if ever you don’t. You may need someone capable of mind control, and be it only once.”
John had a hard time arguing with that. It was bad for his mind to even have the option around, but if the strange tidings of history had shown anything, then it was that people who left the cruel tools entirely untouched did not survive to accomplish anything great. “I want you to promise me that you will not use – or let me use – that power for anything casual.”
“I swear every oath, Master, that I will not encourage you to become a tyrant.” The grave look in her red eyes was all the assurance he needed. “Back to fun things?” she asked, in a sudden, upbeat tone, and gave the tip of his cock a smooch.
His erection had started to go down over that conversation. That single kiss brought it right back up. “Back to fun things,” John groaned in agreement and she sucked him back inside her throat.
John gave Claire a long look and she slowly nodded. The Gamer sighed, then pressed the button on the left option. The inventory would have been his personal choice, but if they were going to specialize her for the case where he needed to employ mind control to either extract information or ‘convince’ someone to infiltrate a place for him, then it was between Mesmerizing Voice and Enthrall. It was doubtless they would take Enthrall at some point in the future. John had refused to accept it as the backbone of Claire’s Skill Focus, but as a singular Perk it was really difficult to pass. There was too much potential there.
“I trust you with these things – do not make me regret it,” John redoubled his warning. It was difficult to be serious with his dick down her throat, but he managed and got another assuring nod from her. “Alright… two left. Metra, you’re up.”
“Fucking finally,” the wolf woman said and prowled over.
Those were three quite attractive choices. Ragefire was an AoE option. Limited as it was, Metra lacked any proper way of dealing with multiple enemies besides hitting them with Rex Magnar’s enchantments. Which, objectively, had worked well enough in the past. It could never hurt to be prepared though.
Break was a fairly standard ability for aggressive tanks. As long as the strike hit, Metra would come out as the winner in the trade, there was no doubt about that. Any additional Fury Builder was always appreciated, although she could just build Fury by doing ‘auto attacks’ and tanking damage.
It is Done was a repeat choice and it still wasn’t bad, but it still wasn’t great either. The problem John had was he couldn’t complete the phrase unless he took it.
“Just fucking take it,” Metra told him.
“It’s not good enough a reason…” John mumbled. Chain-killing opponents was really only viable in Instant Dungeons. Ragefire was pretty unlikely to be useful outside of Instant Dungeons too, but not as unlikely. Break was probably the best choice.
“I told you to take It is Done, John,” Metra complained. “Just press the button already. Get that out of there so you stop being annoyed every time we do this.”
“…Well, if you insist,” John caved and pressed the button. If it had been a truly terrible choice, he would not have played along. It was just good enough that he was happy with it.
“I suggest we go with the inventory,” John told Metra. The claws were alright, Hunger was solidly underwhelming, and an inventory was never bad.
“…Can I have the Hunger instead?” Metra requested.
“It’s your choice.”
“It’s really fucking awkward to want to eat some of the time and just enjoy the smell at other times,” Metra told him. “So give me the Hunger.”
That was essentially a dead Perk, but if anyone could afford taking things just for the luxury, it definitely was Metra. “Alright, only Momo left. Come here.”
“We are not doing this while you’re getting a blowjob!” Momo decided.
John rolled his eyes and smiled. “Fine, just give me a minute.” He was just about ready to burst anyway. Redoubling her efforts, Claire bobbed in his lap until he finally felt the release of his orgasm wash over him. After that adventure and Delicia’s recovery, that one left him in a state of downright tranquil relaxation. ‘Man, I needed that.”
“Man, I needed that,” Momo repeated his thoughts mockingly. “Yeah, I can read your thoughts – because you’re that basic.”
“God, I love being surrounded by brats.” John smirked and tapped his lap, after Claire had unwillingly pulled away. “Come here.”
Momo grumbled a whole lot of things, as she obliged him, turning red as she did so. “You’re a big mean perv,” she finally slotted in on the insult of her choice. It was so terribly adorable to see her be this bashful. There were so many different ways brattiness could manifest, from pure sass, over smugness, to the cute shyness underneath. John drank it in, while he opened the final set of windows.
John had to blink a couple of times to make sure he was seeing this correctly. Gaia was willing to give Momo her own version of Arcana Strike? Turning the supporter of the group into a tactical nuke was a very interesting decision and one that appealed to John in the first instance.
In the second instance, he was questioning it. One of the big reasons why he had been able to get away with spending all of his mana on Arcana Strikes in the past had been that his build was primarily about mana regeneration. When he emptied his entire mana pool, all of his familiars were still covered by his active regeneration, which meant that his combat power was maintained, for the most part.
Momo did not have the same luxury. When she was out of mana, all she could do was send fireflies to buff people. A worthwhile contribution. Still, she did not have the build to really support an ability that took all of her damage-prevention resources away. Plus, obliterating a landscape synergized poorly with the Mind Damage she could do thanks to her Monster Girl Ascension Perk.
He and Momo debated a little bit about the pros and cons of taking or ignoring it and ultimately decided that it did not fit her build as it currently was. Instead, they went with Longevity. Increasing buff durations was always good.
“Why do I get a breeding Perk?!” Momo cried out, to the immediate attention of Aclysia and Claire. “I’m not even one of the baby crazy ones around here! Oy, Gaia, stop messing with me!”
“Don’t give her such delicious reactions then.” The Gamer kissed her on the cheek. He wasn’t even mad about the dead choice in this selection. In return, he got to see Momo be all fake-angry and pouty. He kissed her three more times in quick succession.
“Stooooop,” she cried, weakly pushing him away.
“Nope,” John denied and broke through her defences. Another kiss, on her forehead this time. “What do you think will make your job easier, the larger inventory or the smarter helpers?”
“I’ll take the inventory this time around,” Momo told him. “The smarter Firefae would probably be more useful, but I really need more storage space for documents, projects, and books.”
John confirmed the final choice, and with that, they were through. He spent a few minutes just snuggling with Momo and enjoying the camping life, until he felt Delicia reach out to him. The mental touch was awkward at first, like a kid trying to figure out how a lock worked by repeatedly turning the key. Patiently waiting, the Gamer let her test things, then she actually addressed him, ‘Ehem, if you could find me and Nightingale… in the bedroom. You are hereby allowed to fantasize, gracious as I am, about what you may find.’
That sounded promising.
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