Chapter 168 - Explanations 1 – The Gamer (Patreon)

 John woke up in a clean bed. He had used Craft on the bedsheets to instantly clean them, which was great because at the end they had been stained with sweat and all kinds of sexual fluids. As per usual Rave was still asleep. Normally he would have tried to wiggle his way out of bed without waking her up. That was impossible this time around as she had him in a full-nelson. How exactly Rave had managed to get John into this grip while sleeping was beyond him, but he felt neither of his arms right now so it must have been a prolonged situation. 

“Hey, Jane,” he whispered and carefully poked her with his foot. “Grhm,” Rave made an unwilling sound but slowly opened her eyes. “…What am I doing?” she asked when her sleepy eyes fell on the pose they were in. “I don’t know, but it’s not comfortable for me,” John said, “so, could you maybe…?” “Ja-aaah,” Rave yawned a conformation and let go. John’s moved his hands to try and get some feeling back into them as he sat up. 

Rave slung her arms around his hips when he tried to leave the bed. “Wait!” she said, “I wanna cuddle!” “Uhm, sure?” John said and sank back under the blanket. Rave snuggled up to him, “room is ultra-cold,” she explained, “You will warm me up.” It wasn’t that cold; however, the blanket was a warm heaven of all things good in life. 

“Well, they don’t use thermostats over here. We would have needed to turn the heater on ourselves,” He said with a glance at the metal construction. “That is stupid,” Rave pressed herself even stronger against him. Her breasts pressed against his side and her soft hair on his shoulder John couldn’t help but become aware of his morning wood. 

“I could be persuaded to stay her for a lot longer,” John began in a seductive tone. His girlfriend’s hand already touched his dick before he could continue. “I am open to anything, as long as we stay under the blanket,” she answered, “in fact I think this is a great way to warm up!” they exchanged a perverted smile and rolled over so that John was on top this time around. He was about to push into her when the door flew open.

“I’ve had it!” Lydia, one hand on her rapier, the other behind her back, shouted as she entered. She was back to wearing her old military uniform. Her eyes fell on the shocked couple. Her lips narrowed and she blew air out of her nose, angered. “It is after 10 AM, get out of bed!” “It’s freezing in here!” Rave protested. Lydia looked at the heater, the sound of shifting pressure echoed through the metal body as the valve suddenly turned. “You have 10 minutes,” she said and stood there staring at her watch. 

John looked at Rave but she was just as baffled. “You want to watch us dress or what?” he then asked. “Depends, do you think you can manage to do it on your own?” the princess asked, her iron eyes daring the couple to make fun of her. John decided to go with appeasement, “Yeah, we can do that,” he calmly stated. “Good, see you in 9 minutes 33 seconds,” Lydia said and turned on her heels. The door just magically pulled close behind her. 

“The hell is wrong with her?” Rave said as John rolled of her. “She lives by her schedule, apparently,” John said as he pulled his everyday clothes into their slots and then put the settings back on auto-equip. “Well, no reason to command us around,” Rave mumbled, making no motion to get out of bed, instead wrapping herself instead the still warm blanket until only her head stuck out. “You? Maybe not. Me? She has about 500 billion reasons to command me around,” John sighed. “You coming out of there?” “Not until it is warmer!” Rave said with a look at the heater, “You think she is gifted with telekinesis or something like that?” “I think it is metal control,” John said, “her title is princes of steel after all.” Rave nodded, that made enough sense to her. 

“If you want heat maybe I can help?” Salamander asked after suddenly lighting herself into existence. It was a quick materialization. Not immediate, but fast enough for him to have very little reaction time. 

John looked out of the window. Despite Lydia’s assuring that the house was protected he still didn’t approve of Salamander just appearing like that. However, no person was running around in front of their lawn and nobody else was likely to look into this room, so it was fine. 

“As long as you don’t burn the house down, I have enough debt as is,” John warned her. “What?” Salamander seemed offended, “Me? Burn stuff down by accident?! You think I am still Tier 1 or what? I am Salamander, daughter of Krieg, fucker of dragons.” “I fucked Nathalia, you just were around one time.” “Shut the fuck up!” the blaze elemental demanded and the air started to shimmer as she radiated heat. 

The room warmed up quickly enough and by keeping Salamander close to her, Rave could be moved to leave the bed.  Downstairs they were greeted by Lydia sitting at the breakfast table. Looking at her watch like she had never taken her eyes off of it. “12 minutes,” she said, “Acceptable deviation,” after a sipping on a cup of tea she added, “made acceptable by that superb servant of yours, John Newman.” Aclysia bowed, “Thank you for the compliment, mistress.” “princess,” corrected Lydia, “Lydia in public.” “As you wish, princess.” 

The noble girl threw a much saying glance at the couple that had just entered. Mono didn’t care she was chatting with Aclysia, who in turn vanished back in the kitchen after asking John and Rave what they wanted. Mono followed Aclysia, John and Rave sat down across from Lydia. 

The princess took another sip of her tea before addressing them. “So, John Newman,” she started and he carefully raised his hand. “Just John will be enough,” he said, getting called his full name all the time would get annoying really fast. “Very well, what should I address you as?” “Rave will do,” answered the pink haired girl. Lydia nodded, “A codename then. You can call me Lydia in public, preferably address me by princess, however.” “Sure thing, priiinceesss~!” 

Lydia’s eyes twitched ever so slightly as Rave stretched the word needlessly. She did not follow it up with anything else though and just turned back to John. “Anyhow, I want you to inform me about your ability in detail,” she said and then glanced over at Rave, “I will hear about yours if you are still of the mind to fight for me.” 

John waited for a moment, sorting his thoughts before answering. “Well, to start with my ability has changed my body into a video game characters. All of my wounds will heal pretty much instantly, but it costs Health Points, once those are gone, I presume I die.” “You presume?” Lydia asked. John shrugged, “I haven’t gone to zero yet and some games have second wind mechanics where you get HP back for doing certain stuff. I doubt that is the case with me but I haven’t found out yet.” The princess nodded, signalling him to continue.

“Then there are also other things such as quests and my ability to generate items which are seemingly very unusual. That is better shown in practice but basically, I get items for killing enemies in Illusion Barriers,” John let that sicker in for a moment but Lydia didn’t seem surprised in the slightest.. 

“My ability also allows me to grind experience. This has two parts, one is levels and the other is skills. A level allows me to spent 5 points on the seven stats that everyone has,” John stopped when Lydia rose a hand. “You say everyone has those stats, does that mean you can identify them on other people?” John nodded, “Yes, I can see the level and stats of other people. Also, that ability allows me to see the opinion a person has of me as well as me some basic information, such as their guild and a bit of their history.” Lydia grabbed her cup and drank the rest of the tea inside. “That is a rather impressive ability,” she said, her eyes betraying her interest. 

John shrugged, “It seems pretty good but the information I get from it is very broad and I can’t choose what I learn about the target. Sometimes I learn very important things, at others next to nothing. It is not something I can rely on too heavily.” “Not even the stat part?” “No, the stats are just rough numbers and while they give me a good indication of the enemies’ strengths they don’t take skills into consideration. You would call what I mean with skills abilities.” John explained. 

“I see the problematic,” Lydia said, “it sounds like your ability would be very helpful against somebody who relies purely on their physical abilities.” The princess raised a hand and suddenly the spoon that had lied next to the teacup flew into it. “Against people that have strong abilities these numbers may be misleading, however,” she guessed. John nodded. “The opposite is true as well, I was afraid of facing a man called Igor, whose level was beyond mine. However, he didn’t possess anything but that level, so in the end the fight was laughingly easy.” “And you raise that level just by defeating monsters?” she asked. “Not only that, also quests and occasionally achievements, which are random increases in power that I get for doing certain things. How do you know about the monster part?” John asked, as far as he knew that was never in the files that SecretBlonde published. 

“I had Magoi Magus sent me a report,” Lydia explained, “I am confirming what he said as well as filling eventual gaps. Continue.” John was a bit disgruntled, she could have said that from the start. However, he did continue. “The level-up mechanic can be shared with people that I add to my group, although group members level much slower than me and they cannot spent the points how they wish.” “And how would one get added to that group?” “I just have to sent you an invite. Here, let me demonstrate: Invite Princess Lydia.” 

John saw the window materialize in front Lydia and the princess staring at it. She tried to look at the thing from different angles but it always turned to have the text presented to her. For a moment it vanished, then it came back, “If I wish it to vanish it does, interesting,” she mumbled and raised her hand. Before hitting that accept button she looked at John. “And joining your group will give me access to this levelling system you say?” she asked for clarification, “nothing else?” “You will also get a basic view of all other party members Health and Mana Points,” John laid down, “nothing beyond that.” With that out of the way Lydia joined the group and her name was added to the list: John, with the two sub points for his Artificial Spirits, Rave and now the princess.

John continued the breakdown of his abilities, “I can also use skills I acquire either through books, mechanics like skill evolutions or -rarely- through action. These skills get stronger the more often I use them, usually capping at a level 100. That’s the broad of it.” 

Aclysia returned from the kitchen and but scrambled eggs in front of both Rave and John while Mono refilled Lydia’s tea. “Thank you, Aclysia” said John while Rave was already stuffing her face. “No problem, master,” the artificial guardian said with a bow. “I thank you too…Mono, correct?” “Yeah, no problem,” Mono answered. After a moment of silence John heard Aclysia’s voice as she used him as a bridge to speak to Mono. ‘No problem, princess’ she added to the supports previous sentence. “No problem, princess,” Mono then quickly repeated. Lydia nodded and picked up her tea. 

“To me it seems that skills are more important than level, yet you seem to have concentrated on the acquiring of levels when you were preparing for your fight with -and excuse me if I get the name wrong- Thana,” Lydia said. She pronounced Thana with a hard T, making it sound like she was saying Tana. “Th-ana,” John therefore carefully corrected her. “Thana, I will try to remember it. Out of interest, what happened to her?” “She died,” John answered with the least amount of words, starring at the piece of scrambled egg he had on his fork. “You are saddened by this,” Lydia noted. “She didn’t deserve her fate. Couldn’t even bury her, she turned to dust,” John explained and forced himself to eat. “Mhm,” Lydia hummed, “I do not wish to give you false hope but this is a popular saying in the Abyss and you will hear it sooner or later anyway. Never trust death unless you have a corpse.” 

“Do people come back to life frequently in the Abyss?” John asked almost hopefully. “No, it practically never happens,” Rave interrupted, glaring at Lydia, the techno-lover had known that saying as well but withheld it from John. He knew that she only wanted to protect him from false hope by doing so, but he still wanted to hear about it, so he put a hand on her leg in smiled calmingly. Rave sighed and just went back to eating.

Lydia raised an eyebrow at the exchange but answered his question. “Rave is correct, there are few documented cases of a person actually returning to life and almost all of them end in a cursed and very short second life. However, these always begin with a corpse being missing.” “The shaying ish morr about people hiading sho,” Rave mumbled with a full moth, then she swallowed the food in her mouth and spoke clearly. “Like, how’ya shouldn’t assume one of your enemies is dead just because the newspaper says so. Better check on their grave, just-ta-be sure.”

“Back to the topic at hand however, why did you go for levels over skills?” Lydia asked. “From what I have seen almost everyone has stats that roughly equal their level times five. As long as that remains true levels are more effective at the lower end,” John explained, the princess gestured her agreement. However, Rave was now confused, “uhm, why?” she wanted to know.

“It’s very easy math,” Lydia said, “what is the difference between level 10 and level 20?” “10 levels?” Rave voiced an unsure answer. “Correct, but not all of it, what is the difference between level 500 and 1000?” she glanced at John, “is that how high it goes?” John shrugged, “I guess, the strongest being I met up to today was level 900 and she was a goddess, probably doesn’t get a lot higher than that.” Lydia nodded and they turned back to Rave. “Well, the answer is 500 levels…also both of those are double the first number, so I guess that has something to do with it?” 

“Yup,” John said and raised a finger. “Basically, the important part isn’t the number difference, but the power percentage. A level 20 has 100% more stat points compared to the level 10, just as the level 1000 has twice as much as the level 500. As levels raise they become less and less important. At least as much as growth is stellar. There is little difference between a level 750 and a 780 in overall raw power. The higher you get the more important the correct application of your skills becomes.” He turned to Lydia, “That is part of the reason why I went for levels, but mostly it is because levels are way easier to get and the majority of my skills level from me just using them passively, while the rest will be used in combat naturally.” 

Lydia drank her second cup of tea in a single gulp. “I think I understand your powers broadly,” she stated and pointed at Rave. 

“Now what can you do?”