Chapter 226 - Mend her broken wings. (Patreon)

“Just do it,” John groaned, and on Momo’s face, the hope was ignited. “Oh, don’t be so hasty,” the Horned Rat closed its fanged mouth, and the smile snapped back into the natural shape of a skull; “I can’t do it right now, there will have to be preparations. I will visit you in Rome tomorrow,” the Rat’s tone sounded like he was talking about which scented candle he would use tomorrow, not invading the capital of his sworn enemy.

John glanced over to Lydia, who was rubbing her forehead in a hope to get rid of the headache that announcement caused her. “Can I even stop you?” the princess asked. The Horned Rat’s fingers danced over the armrest of his throne, “Can you? My estimate would be no.” “Just be careful not to be seen then,” Lydia demanded. “Who do you think you are talking too?” Richard laughed.

“Enough of this, however,” the Horned Rat then changed tone and tossed the small things he had materialized towards John. He caught the three dice with ease; “To refresh you on the rules: On an even number, you shall receive the number times 7’000 experience. On an uneven number, you shall be granted that number of skill points randomly distributed amongst your skills times one. If you roll a 1 you will lose a level but if you roll a 20 you shall gain one and 5 Skill points to spend on your leisure. You get three tries and you may pick the one you like the most. Now, throw the die.”

“There are some rule changes there,” John noted. Beside from the obvious change to the number of experience he would get, there was also a reduction of the skill levels (it used to be the number times two) and the 20 now had 5 Skill Points attached to it.

“Gaia decided to patch it up a little to make the 20 more desirable. Aside from that, you should get used to the idea of these things getting less impactful over time,” the Rat shrugged; “Feeding you mana to become stronger becomes an increasingly costly task.”

‘Makes enough sense,’ John, swallowing down the rest of his anger, thought; ‘There will be time for justice another time.’ He threw all of the dices at once. “Aw, John,” Rave complained as they bounced over the floor, “where is your sense of entertainment?” “Currently buried under the fact that I don’t want to be around him,” John pointed at the Rat, “longer than necessary.” His girlfriend glanced at the offendedly gasping god, “That’s fair.”

“I can already see that hanging around with you will be of great fun,” Richard mused and looked at the dice; “19, 17, 4. Pick your number.” “Before I do that,” John said, “I have a multitude of questions.” “Figured. But you will have to ask them tomorrow. I have things to do,” the Rat said in a bored tone.

John closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “The 19 then,” he spoke. The Horned Rat nodded, still incredibly bored, and conjured power as a bolt that hit John in the chest. “Until tomorrow,” were the last words he heard before he and the whole group were thrown out of the room. Well, thrown out wasn’t exactly correct, it was like what they saw suddenly twisted and then was sucked down the drain, stretching until it ultimately vanished.

They found themselves back in the rundown house where the mansion’s barrier to reality was found. Nathalia reflexively changed herself into her human exterior, feeling the change in the air. That made her a naked, incredibly hot redhead. The former part would maybe be seen as weird, but the kind of weird nobody (in their right mind) minded. Thana, the groups other member who should do her best not to be seen by normal-folk, just made sure her robes sat right. She knew that they would be somewhat safe here.

“So, what now?” Rave asked. Before he could answer that John needed to check where the skill points had landed. He raised an eyebrow at the result. 13 had went into Artificial Spirit, 6 into Sneaking. The chances of them landing in just two skills was insanely low in the first place, but he wouldn’t complain about getting that.

“I want to sit down for a moment and do some Artificial Spirit magic,” John said and already went ahead, fidgeting with his key at the door; “Afterwards we should grind some more, clear the different kinds so I get the quest completed. Then I will go with Thana and beat the time run quest. Then, when the quest part about me being abstinent is completed, I will fuck until midnight. I get the inkling that I will get 24 hours without sex next and that is literally going to be the hardest thing on the list.”

“Ya have become a tad addicted there, tiger,” Rave pointed out with a grin. “Look at you all!” John pointed at his ensemble of hot women; “I am drowning in the highest of worldly delights! I owe it to the men of the world to live it up to the highest degree possible.” “The only thing you owe anyone is two favours at the dragon goddess and 500 billion dollars to the princess,” Momo reminded him of the existence of reality, “and soon one favour to the Horned Rat.”

“Urgh,” John rolled his eyes as he opened the front door of the mansion, “don’t remind me.” Nathalia walked by him. “If you are going to be occupied for the foreseeable future, I will need to be entertained,” she announced and looked for somebody to step forth. At least one of the girls would have to lewd the dragon goddess.

“Siena, if you would help our guest,” John spoke. An angry jolt ran through his spirit. ‘What do you intent with that, master?’ she asked, her flirty words betraying a repressed rage. ‘That’s your punishment for not aiding us in the last battle. Get used to it,’ John answered; ‘Now, will you obey me or do I have to make you?’

It was the latter. One rules change later Siena rose from John’s shadow. “I am…honoured,” she tried to choke the reluctant words down her own throat her hair standing on end as she glared daggers at everyone. “You are not satisfying on your own,” Nathalia pointed out, causing Siena to bare her teeth, her eyes a yellow glowing white. She couldn’t do a thing against this, however.

‘I know she deserves it…but it feels so mean,’ Gnome pointed out what John felt at his core. ‘But she does fucking deserve it,’ Salamander spoke his justification. ‘She’ll be fine, sex is fine, maybe I should join? Yeah, I’ll join!’ Sylph chirped and flew over to Nathalia. Undine followed closely, a feeling of interest about how this would pan out in her mind.

That group went upstairs to find Nathalia a room to stay in, the rest then also splintered further until John sat down on the couch in the living room. Well, actually he took one of the armchairs for this occasion, Aclysia and Momo sat closest to him while Rave and Thana were the only people who stuck around to watch this go down.

“Let’s start with you Aclysia,” John said and opened her skill choices.

These choices were still around from before he went to fight Thana. Back then he only had 10 points available, which weren’t enough for any of the choices. So he had postponed thinking about it, now, however, he had to make a choice.

Invincibility Frame was out of the window for the same reason it had been last time: Aclysia did not have the mana for it and he wasn’t going to invest into her Intellect to make it work. Way too niche in its usefulness for that.

‘Although I should get some spender for her eventually, since she has that Aggression to Mana passive that gives her mana every time she parries,” John thought; ‘Either that or Mana Battery so that it goes over to me. Either way, her mana needs to be useful for something.’

Well, this decision wasn’t going to help with that, however. It was either going to be Sword Specialization 2 or Defensive Teleportation. With how hostile the Abyss was, and with yesterday’s reminder that he was still getting stalked by other interest groups fresh in mind, he chose Defensive Teleportation.

Even more old choices. Adaptive Blade is what he picked after a short pondering. Reason being that she should be able to wield Ashkandi and Vol’Jin’Zul at her own leisure. That left 10 more points to spend.

Defence Stance. There, now she had something to spend mana on. Time for the juicy part.

Nice something for magical situations to spend Aclysia’s mana on. Anti-Magic Shell it was. Time to raise her Stats. After some debating John decided to raise her Wisdom to 50, putting her total Wisdom above her total Libido. That should give her a bit more self-control. That left him with 15 points to go into strength.

“Now over to you, Momo,” John announced and checked her perks.

These were all pretty good. Copperskin had a low AP cost and a decent effect. Novice of Magic broadened her mana pool and by proxy, thanks to Mana Battery, the pool of the whole group. Firefly, however, had something neither of these skills had: It gave Momo offensive capabilities. Not a whole lot of them, but enough.

“What do you think about this?” John asked once he had told Momo about what his decision would be. He asked her because he genuinely wanted her to decide herself. If she was going to be independent from him one day, this was a must. Momo blinked twice, getting used to the thought of dealing with her own stuff. Silence ensued as she pondered. It wasn’t a panicked process, just Momo carefully weighing her options.

“If I am to be independent of you I can’t run around unarmed…I will take Firefly,” Momo agreed in the end and the perk was chosen. Raising a barely closed hand, Momo concentrated, and a moment later five fireflies spawned into existence.

“It is really weird how my head just fills with the knowledge to do these things when you press buttons,” Momo pointed out as she explained the fireflies to him. They were quite realistic, little insects with different coloured hindquarters. Even in the well-lit room, John could make out the soft glow. They were probably very pretty in the dark, but a giant warning light if he was ever to try and ambush someone. “Red changes physical attributes, blue is for mental and green for social. The white ones are critical strikes, boosting all stats, while the colourless are flukes that can only deal damage.”

“How long do they last?” John wondered as they whirled through the air for a bit; “How do you control them? Can you de-spawn them and prepare a wave of just the white ones? Do the buffs stack? How long are they active?” “Indefinitely. I just control them with my mind, like how you control your Possession. I can actively de-spawn them, but I don’t get the mana back. But yeah, I could probably prepare just white ones, if given enough time. The buffs don’t stack and are active for 5 seconds,” Momo rattled down a list of answers in response; “I guess we should check the strength of the buff next?” “Hit me,” John said, opening his status.

The red firefly went for him and vanished the moment it came into contact with his clothes.

“10%, pretty good,” John said, the buff ran out a few seconds later. “That’s nice,” Rave chimed into the conversation; “Ya know, I will take all the buffs that I can get, keeping up with the dungeon mobs will not become easier.” “That’s fucking disgusting if you use it on me,” Thana commented with a wide grin, “just saying,”

“Yup, anyway,” John turned back to Momo, “one more choice to make.”

“I don’t like the last one’s name, but could you give it to me?” Momo requested, causing John to make a sour expression. He really wanted that double on buff length. Alas, however, this was her decision, and he understood. She was really preparing for her eventual departure. He clicked the button, and Momo put away her new staff.

“You’re fine with me just raising your Intellect further?” John asked. “Yeah, that I don’t have problems with,” Momo agreed, and so it was done. John had her hold the staff again for a moment to figure out how strong her stats altogether were now.

The remaining fireflies hid themselves underneath her poncho. John wondered if they were able to stop glowing or whether Momo would look like a Christmas tree in the dark. Well, anyhow, this was done.

“Time to finish my quests,” John announced.