Well, that was marginally useful. It would help him aim Shardbound, but that was about it. If he was a ranged centric build where aiming was more important instead of a summoner, where using his own spells was really more of a thing he did with excess power, it would have been quite good.
And now he was back to the question of what stat he should up next. Since his conviction on Nia had changed, he effectively was out of Relationship Slots now. While that was foregoing the possibility that Nia could reject him or sothing, John just calculated with what he had in mind.
That aside, he had already gotten her into bed once, so chances were that he could win her over. It wasn’t like he had nothing to offer in return: he was sowhat charming, had the body of a Greek half-god (and getting ever closer to an actual god), was powerful and could satisfy pretty much every sexual need in existence (as long as it was in his own comfort zone).
But Relationship Points were less an actual thing than an abstract representation of how many girls he could keep happy thanks to his heightened Charisma without them fighting over his attention. In other words, he wasn’t hard-pressed to change the current situation, and 25 points also weren’t the world to farm. If push ca to shove, he could dedicate like a week to constant grinding, and he should get there no questions asked.
He should have that sort of ti once this tournant concluded, and he wasn’t likely to et any more girls before then. Charisma was postponed once more.
Intellect was then the next choice he had co to last ti. He also felt like it was ti to raise that thing; his weaknesses, while still there, had been raised from ‘abyssal average’ to ‘pretty decent’, so now he at least didn’t have to worry about people much weaker than him outperforming him on a lee standpoint.
‘Although I should pick up so martial arts… I wonder if there is a Skillbook for that,’ John thought as his decision fell on Intellect. Getting it to 250 would take a while, and he was open to taking a detour into Charisma if needed along the way, but for now that would be his course of action.
Actually, he should just hit up the Abyss Auction and look it up. He had the spare money anyway. He hadn’t bought skillbooks in an eternity, primarily because there was nothing that was either better than what he had or was sothing he wanted.
There was no defensive Skill that could be bought that outdid Mana Protection. Shardbound was apparently a Skill that was reserved for people that had practiced manipulating their own mana for 50 years. Whatever he could find using skill books in the ‘ranged mana based attacks’ category just couldn’t compete. Sa applied to Arcana Strike and Mana Blade.
He already knew that he could get a high tier light elental whenever he wanted by getting himself the Perk in Elentalist. The route of getting himself a Skillbook instead led to those elentals that were always Tier 1 and freshly created. As Siena had shown, her terribly dysfunctional personality aside, previous life experience was pretty useful. At this point, the best spells he had were those he already had or upgrades that money couldn’t really buy.
What else could he get? Well, it was ti to look into the areas where he didn’t already have stuff.
Crowd control spells were an argunt, but between Gno and Undine, he felt like he had that field covered in earth and water prisons. He had Momo for buffs (and the ones he could buy on the Abyss Auction were kind of h anyway). For most spells that even sounded remotely interesting, there were no Skillbooks but a way to buy contact info to go on a journey to find a school and then try to impress the teacher enough to teach it to him.
While that sounded pretty interesting, it wasn’t John’s style.
Next up were crafting professions, but Craft and Enchant already covered most of those, and he only ever used the forr to patch up equipnt or wash his bedsheets. Alchemy, that was a thing he could probably learn, but for what use? He didn’t feel like a potion seller.
The knowledge itself was worth it, in a way, but currently, he didn’t want to waste his ti on it. Maybe when he was, like, level 543 and he literally had nothing better to do on a day he took off from grinding Assaults.
As he stepped through the gateway and into the gardens, he was looking for so martial arts books, which was a thing he should have done way sooner. He so rarely got into lee fights that he forgot how much he sucked at them. With that experience having been made in front of the world, he was now self-conscious enough about it to fix the problem.
‘Here goes hoping that I can actually just learn it,’ John thought and awaited the books’ arrival. The drone ca as diligently as always. Books, because he had ordered three of them. He sliced the box open with the sharp index finger of his clawed left, Purgatory still equipped from just having left an Assault.
Luckily, he could disable the fire of the fully stacked weapon with the ease of flipping a switch with his brain. If that hadn’t been the case, he would have set fire to the gardens, which would have been a sha as he was making great progress in regrowing the damn thing. That was thanks to the fusion between Undine and Gno, a nice, very quiet girl that just blushingly did what he asked of her.
Seeing his elentals combine into expected (and sotis not expected) characters was very interesting to behold. Well, sotis it was amusing or terrifying as well. It also served as so effective bonding for them; they all seed to get along quite a bit better. John was a bit worried they would ‘normalize’ into a single personality over ti, but so far there were no problems.
He picked up the first book and was promptly greeted with a window.
Disabling his mana regeneration was an absolute no-go. With Possession, his elentals and the artificial spirits active, it wouldn’t just be 0 either, he would run an impressive deficit for a stat boost that was less than what Purgatory provided.
Granted, it would eventually grow to 50%, but the mana cost wouldn’t change, and that was his main problem with it. If he could push the cost down to sothing like 50%, then he would consider it useful, but anything above 90% pushed him in the negative (with the other passive things costing around 10% of his mana regeneration).
John honoured the terribleness of that skill by making it the first one he added to the ‘do not display’ function of his skill list.
Next up were two books about actual martial arts. One was simply about boxing, the other an actual abyssal fighting style called Arcweaving. He picked the first one up.
So that worked and was easy enough on the requirents. He accepted and was presented with a new passive.
Not the greatest thing in existence, but the pure knowledge of how to move his body more effectively was nice. He took a typical boxing stance, fist raised to protect his face, and took a few quick jabs while being light on his feet.
He stopped, largely happy with the results and looked at his hands. Purgatory he knew would be able to resist a lot of impact, so his left hand was protected. His right, typically reserved for and currently covered by Undine, he was less certain about.
‘Can you make this glove as hard as your water barriers?’ John asked the water spirit.
‘Even harder,’ Undine promised as she poured mana into the exterior of what was her own transford body. Physically, there was no difference, but he could feel the power flow over his skin.
“Aclysia, would you mind if I punched you?” John asked; “Just to estimate the hardness of this glove.”
“I much prefer it over the reverse, Master,” Aclysia answered with her typical little bow. They faced each other, and John threw a punch.
While it was far from perfect, it was at least properly aid and used his muscles in a systematic way instead of just flinging his fist forward and hoping it would connect and do so damage. His right hit Aclysia’s shoulder.
He definitely felt the impact rattle his bones more than with Purgatory, but it also wasn’t all that bad. It was like the difference between wearing a proper glove and just having tightly wrapped bandages over his arm. Although the bandages had the advantage of imdiately healing whatever damage he had done to himself.
‘Surprised the rings don’t get in the way though,’ John inspected the Ring of Ash on his left and the Ring of Fire on his right. The black twins with the small orange gemstone on top should have done so rather an things to his ring fingers, even if they were on top of their respective gloves.
‘So extension of Gar’s Body maybe?’ John thought. Ga characters didn’t usually get hard no matter how impractical their set-up was. While he was sure that he couldn’t pull an animation mistake and draw a sword through his own head, there seed to be at least so leeway here.
At that mont, he noticed yet another window. Tinkering with new things always caused so sort of flood.
Well, he might as well check it out, even if he was certain he would not level it any ti soon.
Was okay, but nothing that persuaded him to change gears.
Anyhow, he had one last book, and that one he had picked with care. It was one of the few that broke with the ‘go to a teacher’ rule while also looking satisfyingly powerful and had cost him a whole 50 million dollars. While that may turn out to be wasted money, John started to lose connection to value.
The fact that money was sothing he could just generate (and magically not cause massive inflation in the process) was a slightly worrying topic, but the fact was that John didn’t really have anything to use the money on. Maybe he should start a loaning business or sothing?
‘Huh, that is new,’ John thought. He had been under the impression that he could only acquire classes through doing things; the idea that he might have needed books or teachers in addition to other requirents had not crossed his mind.
It made sense, from a perspective of his powers. Lots of gas had classes that required you to know a certain person or fulfil a quest to get access to it. It was a bit random, but that was forgivable. The fact that the attempt was even made to force a ga engine into reality was daring, and it largely worked in John’s favour.
‘Well, that goes straight into my inventory,’ John thought and put it away. That thing would be on the backburner for a while, as he was currently using the skill levels to continue Elentalist. At the earliest, he was going to be able to use that book with level 210. That was if he got the next levels of Combination with every level of Elentalist, then stopped at level 9 of the class and then went right on with the requirents for the Arcweaving class.
Which wouldn’t happen. The goal was to get Elentalist to 20 and make his elentals free. Afterwards, they would see what was going to happen.
His phone rang with Prussia’s Gloria, a ringtone he had, very tastefully, picked for Lydia. Absent-mindedly, he picked up while still checking his numbers. “Where are you? As per schedule we have to arrive in the arena early. Causing trouble with organizers is impermissible!” the princess imdiately laid it down on him.
“Relax, I am on the front-lawn,” John told her and waved at the opening door.
“I see,” he heard Lydia’s voice, seeing her red lips move in the distance thanks to focusing on them. He would enjoy that Agility Perk more than he thought, he realized, as he followed every movent of the lusciously curved things.
He turned to Aclysia as he put the phone down. “I will be off then,” he said his goodbye.
“I will follow your fight on television and prepare a vast al for your return,” his weaponized maid said with a bow.
“That sounds like my victory is already assured,” John said.
Aclysia stepped close and smiled at him. She placed a quick kiss on his lips, “You are my Master. I believe in your victory.”
“And if I lose regardless?” John said; there was at least one-matchup where that was a very real possibility.
“In that unlikely case I will be here to soothe you,” Aclysia embraced him and then danced away after he took a deep breath of her scent.
She had picked oranges for today, a scent he linked to a nice ho and their early days spent in the house his mother had left them in.
“I will be ready to respond to whatever mood you are in when you get back,” she promised with a badly executed wink that lasted too long. So parts of Aclysia still had problems with mimicking, it seed. “But I would be very eager to please you if you return hungry from battle,” she added and then passed the rest of the group coming out of the house, her short skirt revealing her perfectly round bottom.
The greatest motivation a man could ask for.
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