Claire hissed at the sun, as if she could uproot the heliocentric status of their cosmic paradigm by getting just angry enough. The Gar wondered just how powerful a person had to get to work that wonder. For all the power of the Abyss, they were ultimately still subject to the laws of physics and its most extre forms, such as nuclear explosions, fission, and black holes.
“Say, it took ten-thousand years for to co around after Romulus, right?” John thought out loud. “So, we can hypothetically assu that another person of our power level will be born in another ten-thousand years. Well, more likely one or two thousand because of the massive difference in population, but let’s not get into theorizing how that formula cos about.”
“Yeah, let’s instead ask: what are you getting at, dude?” Lee wanted to know. “And can we talk about that sowhere less on literal fire.”
“Figurative fire,” John corrected her.
“I – hate – the – suuuuuuunnnnn.” Claire detached from John’s side, but only to hide behind his back and get as much shade as she possibly could.
They were currently at the north-west pier of the star fort. Although John could get practically anywhere in the Guild Hall via teleporter, which was universally faster, for the rare occasion that he either needed or wanted to take one of his ferries, he had installed two piers around his ho. A useful addition for visitors as well – which was why John kept the corresponding doors sealed at most tis. The massive moat served well to keep unwelco visitors out and he did not want to compromise that.
Because he had executive privilege and was the absolute owner of the entire Guild Hall, usually there were a bunch of ferries available for him at all tis. The current activity made that a tad difficult. All of the waterways were in constant use and all of the ferries either occupied or on their way to a request. Adding more boats was an option – which they had taken – but even with magical coordination, there was only so much they could do before things got clogged up.
Consequently, John and his dates currently had to wait on the wooden pier. Even if they had privileged status in the queue, aning that the ferry system would prioritize getting to them over anyone else, they still had to wait for a bit.
“We will get sowhere shady,” John promised and checked the tir. It said thirty seconds. Not enough ti to justify sitting down on one of the benches.
At over thirty kilotres per hour, a ferry moved towards them. Its elegant, long shape parted the water without notable spray. Aiming towards the segnt of the pier right by them, the boat slowed down and ca to a perfect stop right in front of them. After they had boarded, John did Claire the favour of pressing a few more buttons and spawning a sun roof above them.
“Thank you,” the vampire sighed in relief. There was no physical pain, because she was no longer flesh and blood, but the sun did still burn away her mana and familiars. All of the little spiders skittering around the Guild Hall these days had to either remain in the shade or move so swiftly that they weren’t destroyed. Levels and Perks had raised their resilience notably, but that remained true anyway.
The boat drifted off the pier and soon picked up speed. Between the roof, the moving air, and the naturally lower temperatures around large bodies of water, the heat of the Guild Hall’s eternal sumr was considerably more bearable. In the first place, John had overruled Rave’s control over the thermostat for the duration of this weekend. It was one thing to have the residents, who got used to it, subjected to the borderline extre heat. When dealing with thousands of visitors, the last thing the Gar wanted to deal with was heatstroke. Therefore, the temperature had been lowered to a more serviceable 27 degrees, and a moderate amount of clouds added for drifting shade.
“What are the chances you could make a Natural Spirit?” Lee suddenly asked.
John raised an eyebrow and looked at his dark-haired, relatively short, perfectly healthy lover. “Why would I do that? So you can be immortal without bothering to grind your Level?” Of all his harettes, Lee was among the bottom three in terms of pure Stats. In terms of Observe, she was only level 98. A notable increase from when they had gotten together (65), primarily caused by Experience of Love also granting a percentage of currently required EXP to the harettes he was having sex with.
Fateweaving, being such a theoretical and fine-tuning craft, did not lend itself well to achieving raw power. Especially not when one was primarily studying and not practicing it, as Lee still was.
A drawback of this was that Lee did not have the sa level of magic coursing through her veins as other harettes. In turn, her aging didn’t slow as much. Considering she was only 19, that wasn’t an issue. Even with magic, people continued to age normally until they looked around 25, rare cases notwithstanding.
John wasn’t worried about her, Lorelei, or Scarlett continuing to age while everyone around them stayed young. Just Experience of Love would make it so they would keep up enough to prevent notable differences. Worst case, he would continue down the Harem Gar path and dig for sothing that would let him power level them with a more effective version of Experience of Love. He wanted to do that anyway, especially for Scarlett. If he could raise her from ‘likely the most powerful technomancer in the world’ to ‘doubtlessly’, that would give Fusion imnse reach.
“Because I am not wasting one of the two remaining Sylkarions on you being lazy. Plus, I don’t think white hair would suit you.”
“Why do I have to get white hair?” Lee asked. John and Claire just looked at her in the ‘do we really have to answer that’ way. “Wasn’t the point anyway. I was just thinking about how nice it would be to have ga-thed powers.”
“…Would certainly suit you,” John conceded. Of all the harettes, Lee was certainly the one most fitting to gain her own nus and such. They had the power to make that happen at the mont.
John gave it a serious consideration. What were the rits of taking this decision? For one, it would make Lee a lot sturdier. Even if she didn’t go big into Endurance, having a body of tal and other materials ca with natural defences and regeneration. He could demand that Lee wore a maid outfit all the ti. Power would be easier to co by. Natural Spirits, like Artificial Spirits, lost access to so abilities, like Martial Arts.
“Actually, this is sothing I don’t know,” John realized, while contemplating. “Can Artificial Spirits do Illusion Barrier manipulation?” When she had been weaker, Aclysia hadn’t even been able to enter or exit Illusion Barriers on her own. Nowadays she could make them, but that was the peak of her related abilities. Even Rave could do more, instinctively, than Momo, and of those two, it was clear who was the more magically gifted.
“Not as far as I know, but we’re talking your BS powers and Natural Spirits here, so who knows?”
“…Claire, have you tried?” John wanted to know.
“Hasn’t been a priority so far.” The vampire maid shrugged. “I’d be useless in this anyway, Illusion Barriers are a pretty new concept for . Didn’t exist where I ca from.” She raised one hand. “I could pop out and try.”
John chuckled, amused at the idea. “You’d spawn sowhere in the water and raise a lot of eyebrows, so let’s not do that. Anyway, I don’t think this is a good idea. What kind of monster girl would you even want to be?”
“Oh, that’s a fun question,” Lee responded and pulled out her smartphone. With just two taps, she was on the Monster Girl Encyclopaedia wiki.
“Why do you have that bookmarked?” John wanted to know.
“Why don’t you have that bookmarked?” she returned, sassily, while scrolling through. “You’re the one turning all your maids into monster girls…” Her voice trailed off as she continued to scroll through. “…surprised you don’t have this permanently open as so kind of shopping catalogue.”
“Believe it or not, I am very happy with human won.”
“I do not believe you.”
“I see the way you look at my fangs,” Claire supported the young Fateweaver, much to Lee’s surprise. “Hey, just because he’s perfect doesn’t an I can’t disagree. My perfect man lets tell him he’s wrong.”
“My life would be so much easier if I could just be a tyrant,” John grumbled.
“Maybe, but then I wouldn’t want to kiss you all the ti.” Claire wrapped her arms around his chest and gave him big, green puppy eyes. “Kiss ,” she begged, her eyes flashing red for a mont.
“…Did you just try to srize ?”
“Mhhhmaybe?”
“…Are you trying to make punish you?”
“That’s ridiculous…” Under her breath, she whispered, “yesplease…”
“Maybe so kind of genie?” Lee asked out loud, her eyes still glued to the screen. Setting priorities, John first gave the redhead her kiss. Then he continued with the conversation. “Maybe an alraune?”
“…Is it because you could feed yourself by keeping two feet in a bucket of water?”
“And sen, yes,” Lee responded.
“You are aware that you don’t need to eat at all anymore when you’re a Natural Spirit, yeah?”
“Normally you can’t either, from what I hear. A terrible fate. Imagine not being able to eat pizza!” Claire shook her head. “The only part of Aclysia I am not jealous of.”
“That’s a good reason not to pursue this thought process any further,” Lee conceded and shut off her phone.
“I don’t even know why you were looking, the answer of what I would make you is obvious anyway.”
“Spit it out then, dude.”
Staring her dead in the eyes, John left her wondering for a little bit, before slowly and clearly saying, “A fawn.”
“Oy!” Lee’s reaction was as instinctive as it was imdiate and amusing,
“What?” John inched a little closer to her, a teasing smile on his lips. “You’re just like a deer. You go around, doing whatever you please, but rather than be confident about it, when soone puts you on the spot, you freeze up.” The young Fateweaver was stunned into silence as John pushed her against the pillar that kept the sunroof up. “Also, what do you enjoy more than being hunted, hm?”
“Uhm… uhhh…” Lee stamred, proving his point completely. Through her eyes, he could see the gears turning in her head, trying to find a coherent, non-submissive thought.
‘God, I love her.’ Getting closer and closer, the Gar kept her from recuperating with his assertive presence. Years of gaming self-isolation gave her that wonderful combination of quick-wittedness and social awkwardness that seed to be incurable at this point. Perhaps this was just her nature and part of why she had been drawn to online gaming over traditional ways of socializing in the first place; John felt that there was sothing similar going on with his personality. The difference was that his girlfriend had encouraged him to be more assertive, while he rewarded Lee for these adorable monts with deep kisses.
This ti was no exception. With the taste of Claire still on his lips, he made out with Lee. Completely overwheld by him, the young Fateweaver lted away under his kiss. Soon, John was lying on top of her in the cushioned fra of the boat.
“Bonk!” Claire said and lightly hit him on the back of the head. Mildly displeased, John turned his head and looked at his maid. “No horny!”
“…I’m so proud of you for picking up on culture,” he conceded and got off Lee. It would have been a bad idea to keep going, there were children running around everywhere at the mont. As many indecencies as John was willing of, nudity and lewdness around minors was completely out of the question.
He was also proud of her being herself, in the sense that she wasn’t letting her obsessed side take the wheel the entire ti. There was sothing between the ‘yan’ and the ‘dere’ and that sothing was what had originally attracted him to her. Pulling Lee back up, he put his back against the rest and tightly hugged both of his dates.
“No Natural Spirit for you,” John summarized the talk. “Sorry, but you’ll have to get more powerful on your own rit.”
“But that’s work,” Lee groaned. “Can’t I just be a sleepless being that feeds off your mana, gas while you sleep, and tends to your dick thirty minutes a day to justify my existence?”
“Thirty minutes? What do you take for? The average man, limited by his virility?” John shook his head. “If you exist only for my carnal pleasure, I’m using you two hours a day, minimum.”
“Deal!”
“That wasn’t a suggestion…”
“I am taking it anyway.”
“Denied.”
“Urgh,” Lee rolled her eyes.
“What uses do you actually have in mind for the remaining Sylkarions, my John?” Claire asked.
“Nothing specific at the mont.” John went through various ideas he had and checked if any of them had matured into sothing more serious. “No, really nothing. For now I will keep them dedicated to research. I doubt we can replicate them, but we might as well try.”
“I’m sure you’ll do good things with them, whatever you decide on.” Claire kissed him on the neck.
“…Oh, wow, totally forgot about that, but what were you getting at with the whole ‘people like and Romulus’ thing?” Lee suddenly asked. “We totally moved past that.”
“Just a thought experint about what kind of superpowered people could be born down the line,” John answered. “I wonder if level 1000 is just the softcap of humanity and humanity related entities, like our gods, or if there is a potential for even stronger entities.”
“I an… why shouldn’t there be.”
“Sa reason why land animals only reach a certain size: perhaps there is a limitation to how large a ‘soul’ can get before it starts to collapse in on itself. The weight of magic is just too much for the rest of the body to handle, so no matter what kind of entity it is, it must obey that law of the world that there can be no more power.” John gave that so more thought. “As far I know, the only entities stronger than Romulus would be a unified mass of Lorylim and Gaia. The forr circumvents the entire issue of being too powerful for its own body by not having one set body and the latter is reality herself, so rules are more suggestions.” He thought a little bit further. “Well, there’s also Stirwin, but his power is… unstable.”
“You think the Lorylim are that powerful?” Lee asked, with a doubtfully raised eyebrow. “I an, I know they’re strong, but stronger than Romulus?”
“You haven’t seen the Death Zone and how Tiamat festered out of her son’s flesh like a fungal cancer,” John told her. “If the Lorylim have the power of an entire extinct species behind them, then they’re more powerful than Romulus or Thana, for that matter. Thinking about it, Thana is probably the best proof that living beings are limited in how much power they can wield. Several million souls should be able to create an even more destructive entity.”
“Must be like pressing an ocean through a manhole,” Claire suggested.
“Sothing like that,” John agreed.
The boat continued to sail on northwards, prompting Lee to ask another question. “Where are we going anyway?”
“Well, as it so happens, I thought we might have so fun sowhere dark and cool – and where you can train a little,” he smiled at Lee, “oddly topical after the talk we just had.”
“The only place to train Fateweaving in your Guild Hall is the I.D. Gate though?”
“Oh, I’m not talking about Fateweaving – I an your Innate Ability,” John responded.
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