Prep Grinding 7 – A swarm of Artificial Spirit Perks (Patreon)

‘Can’t blame her for that one, but did it have to be the first thing I see in the morning?’ John groggily grumbled something to himself, while he dismissed the window. It left his vision in total darkness, for the reason that he currently had no vision. Game windows ignored that he was blind. They probably were closer to illusions than regular light. Except that they were also fully real, as John’s powers proved.

A while later, during breakfast, John came to the conclusion that paying the cost for 100 Skill Points was still worth it. Getting an extra wave of upgrades for four of his combatants couldn’t be sniffed at. The only drawback would be the total burial of windows he would receive the moment he started. There would be three per Artificial Spirit (Aclysia, Beatrice, Momo and Metra) and a Reset Perk at the end, for a total 25 windows.

The harem convened around the living room. Much of the interest in witnessing the Perk acquisition came from the question of how the monstergirlification would continue. There was also some interest in new Skills, but not quite as widespread.

“Alright, we go the usual order,” John announced and turned to Aclysia first.


Easy choice there, staying on the committed path.


Two repeat choices and a Build Passive of the ‘John did not like’ variety. Combat, especially the kind that asked for desperate measures, was one of the few places where he was not thinking about fucking someone. Personally, he was still intrigued by Maid Knight Aura, especially since Aclysia was training a new generation of them, but realistically that one was pretty niche in its application. Juggernaut was much better and he had his eye on it for a while. Aclysia agreed to the choice and it was made.


Dragon of Diligence was the winner. Dragon of Dicking was practically useless (a large disappointment after the last Metracana Master Perk said monster girl Perks would be more powerful now). Dragon of Destruction was serviceable and John would have maybe picked it, if Aclysia had not insisted that sharp horns were NOT an option. They had to be friendly on the palms.

She got what she wanted. Her black horns grew pronouncedly longer, graduating from being barely large enough to fit his hands. There was a whole extra swing to them. Her scales now expanded all the way to the base of her limbs, serving as a natural armour even harder than her metadermis regularly was.

The second round of choices was sure to expand even further on this.


Still staying committed there.


Gaia was being a bit lazy with all of these repeat choices. ‘Can’t really blame her, since she has to come up with like 20 of these right now,’ John admitted. His saltiness was currently held at bay by how good Shieldmaid was. It synergized perfectly with all three of her spenders and her combat role as frontliner.


Those were a lot more interesting. It had been a while since a Perk had gotten a direct combat ability and it was a first that the ability was not a Skill but a natural extension of what they did. Lightning core would go to Beatrice (John was beyond certain these choices would be copied). For Aclysia, it was between Frozen Core and Molten Core.

It wasn’t much of a choice really.

First point against Molten Core was that it gave Fire Immunity, which Aclysia already had in the form of an Attribute. Taking Molten Core would free that slot up, but what better Attribute would they find than a specific damage immunity. Next important point was that ice damage was the most effective damage type against Artificial Spirits. Immunity against it was consequently valuable. Lastly, the breath attack would scale with the defensive Endurance stat, getting double value out of it.

The strongest argument against Frozen core was that two different shades of blue for the gemstones embedded above the twin maids’ sternums would meddle with the contrast aesthetic they had going on. While this was true, both of them going blue was not as much of an issue when taking Nathalia into the mix. Right now, when all three of them serviced him together (as happened practically every day), the gemstones would be aligned as red-red-blue. Blue-red-blue would be superior and blue-blue worked well enough as long as the horns and scales remained black-white.

Perfection could be reached if they managed to dye Nathalia’s horns grey rather than the orange-tinted black she had going on. That was, sadly, not an option.

In addition to the colour change to the gemstone, her scales could now cover her entire body. Elongating just a bit further, her horns were now the same length as Nathalia’s. They were, however, still smooth and sleek, a lot thinner than the ridged texture of the dragoness’. They were the kind of polished that couldn’t be found in the wild. A fitting contrast between a dragon maid and a primal goddess.

“No tail or wings?” Lee asked, looking up at the ceiling. “I demand tails and wings for dragon maids.”

“There’s always more Perks to come,” John stated and continued on with Beatrice.


Staying on the bonus Swing train here was the obvious choice.


There were two new choices here. Swing Transferral was the repeat, and while John knew that there was a time at which it would be a good offer to take, he didn’t think that time was now. Instead, he looked at the two other options.

Clockwork Gear was interesting on paper but pretty much unworkable in practice. If there was someone who could pedantically nail the timing no matter the combat situation, it would be Beatrice, that was not the issue. Resource generation, however, was. After just a few stacks of Clockwork Gear, Beatrice’s Swing regeneration would be too low to fill the bar again in time. Given additional ways to regenerate Swing, the passive might become attractive one day, but wasn’t at the moment.

By process of elimination, Chronoshift was the only choice. Thankfully, it was also a fairly solid one. It required situational awareness to know when one could just go back in terms of position. Situational awareness was the basis of Beatrice’s whole fighting style, so that worked out well. Twist Position had restrictions to it that made it impotent in certain situations, primarily that it required a straight, unblocked path. Chronoshift would make for a better escape tool and mind-fuckery in most situations.


As expected, this was a complete copy of the previous choices. Only the names were switched out. Dragon of Destruction was still an option. Knowing what came next, however, the fire breath wasn’t as attractive. Also, Beatrice would never forgive him if he ruined the symmetry between her and Aclysia.


Still sticking to the Swing.


Pendulum Stop was so good, John dared to call it overpowered. Giving Beatrice 3 seconds to plan out her next move in the middle of combat was already incredibly busted. That she would regenerate HP and Swing in that time made it absolutely incredible. Both regenerated at an incredibly high rate, so she would get a good chunk of healing and a full Swing bar out of the three seconds. Lastly, although John could not be entirely certain about this one until they did testing, her buffs would remain frozen for those three seconds. That would enable some shenanigans with things like Clockwork Gear.


Credit where credit was due, Gaia did at least come up with one alternative. Shadow Core was an actually interesting option. Immunity to Shadow Damage didn’t sound that useful, it was one of the less common enemy types they ran into in both reality and grinding. The ability to mask her presence and bestow a mental confusion effect, however, made up for that. Wisdom was also a Stat Beatrice benefitted quite a bit from, as much as she could spam her abilities.

Lightning Core was still the one they went with. As much as Beatrice liked her effectiveness, she was equally as obsessed with proper aesthetics. Her having white scales and a black gemstone, according to herself, would be an unacceptable breach of design differences between herself and Momo. The absolute difference it created between her and Aclysia was further unacceptable.

That was too weak a reason on its own, even for Beatrice. Matter of fact was that, although Shadow Core was interesting, Lightning Core was still better. Electric Damage was slightly more common than Shadow Damage and Agility was her highest Stat by far. It harmonized better with Beatrice’s general combat role.

Two done, two to go, John moved on to Momo. Metra would be doubtlessly the most interesting of the bunch, these being her first Artificial Spirit Perks, so he kept her for last.


They stuck to Intellect here to play to her strength of having a vast mana pool.


Two repeat choices and Fountain of White replaced the Directional Defence he had gone with last time. Fountain of White was also what they went with. Neither Longevity nor Pitch were bad by any stretch of the imagination. One was a general buff, which was never really bad, and the other was a situationally impressive power increase. The condition of Black Spells being cast was just a bit too constricting, since Momo was supposed to be their dedicated support. Their group did not lack in the damage department.

Small as it was, the resource regeneration boost that Fountain of White offered was potent. The boost of White Spells made the spell completely viable. How it was worded implied that the spells remained boosted even if they left the area, since it was an ‘on-cast’ trigger. All around very nice, especially for grinding where they could often choose where they took a fight.


A change of titles was interesting, otherwise these Perks were just Stats, apparently. John had no particular horse in this race and Momo insisted on keeping the Viscountess title. Therefore, she got her 50 Charisma.


Nothing new here.


Two different choices here, both passive effects. Although the same logic still applied, wanting to have Momo be a dedicated support, Tarred was the choice they went with. It had the upside of being both supportive and boosting Momo’s solo combat strength.


The Darkmoon Fairy was immediately out. That was just a bit too menacing-sounding for either him or the sassy support. Whitesky Fairy sounded, by contrast, a bit too friendly and the extra arms like an underwhelming bonus. All that deterred them from Ambassador of Contrast was the mention of ‘APPEARS normal’. Because that was sealed behind this ‘full fairy form’, that wasn’t too intimidating, so they picked that.

With a loud ‘PAAAH’ as if someone was audibly pushing air out of their mouth, the Fireflies in the room suddenly turned into small fairies. It was like watching corn pop, in a way, except small insects turned into tiny, cute women. There was a lot of giggling, as the suddenly sapient Firefae gathered up and inspected one another. Extending from their lower backs were the abdomens of fireflies, still glowing with the colour they were assigned. The colour was mimicked in the butterfly-esque wings they had.

“Quiet, girls,” Momo ordered the full fifty of them.

“”Awwwww,”” the Firefae exclaimed in unison, but sat there on the back of the couch.

“Alright, show us that full fairy form thing,” John asked. He was intrigued, as was everyone else.

Momo shifted on the couch, a little bit uncomfortable due to the attention. Nothing outwardly happened. “This is weird,” the fairy support said and raised her hand. “I guess we’re on three forms now?”

The Artificial Monster Girls Perks had cut down their ability to shapeshift to changing their clothes and assuming a pre-set human disguise. When it came to their monster parts, many of those could be hidden, even without switching into their human disguises. Now they had Perks that mentioned ‘draconic form’ and ‘full fairy form’, with the mechanic of breath attacks actually tied to the former. Fundamentally, that was just them not hiding any of their monster parts. Mechanically, it was its own category.

Thing was, Momo still looked the exact same way. “Whaddaya mean, ya look no different?” Rave voiced the general confusion.

“She totally doesn’t!” Sylph exclaimed.

“She is different,” Nia supported.

“Tantalizing,” Siena added.

“Am I crazy or are they crazy?” Rave asked.

John scratched his head. “Well, if Nia feels something, there has to be something there. Under the surface.” The moment he said that, a small, blind snake slithered out from behind Momo’s neck. It reared its head, tasted the air with its forked tongue, and then disappeared. The sassy support had noticed, but clearly did not mind. ‘Guess that’s just a part of life now.’ John accepted both that and the Firefae that bounced around on the couch.

It was Metra’s turn.