The Gamer Chapter 1386 – First Result (Patreon)

“What do you think sounds better, ‘honoured members of parliament’ or ‘respected members of parliament’?” John asked. Metra rubbed her chin and read over the page intently, while Lorelei stood off to the right of John’s massive office chair, colourless eyes staring into the infinite.

The two were currently on shift for under the table activity, but sometimes (regularly, really),  John stopped receiving this service in favour of asking their opinions on current drafts. Brilliant as he was, he both liked to share his life with his women and appreciated their varied input.

“I believe honour is more appropriate here,” Lorelei gave her answer. “Respect is earned, honour is given and so it is what is attached to their title. An elected person cannot ever truly be respected for what they are.”

“Interesting perspective,” the Gamer said and leaned back. “Worth thinking about… Do you mean the individual person cannot be respected for the position or the position itself cannot be respectable?”

“The former,” Lorelei stated.

“I agree with Rel,” Metra weighed in. Friendly, she grabbed the seer by the shoulder. Lorelei’s entire body swayed back and forth from the simple shake that followed. “Like, fucking big deal, you got elected into a position, great. Now do something with it, if you want people to respect you. Getting elected is barely even an achievement. So the person that’s elected isn’t respectable because of what they did.”

“If I may, an institution can, however, be respectable if it had a track record of creating positive outcomes. Further, while elected representatives may not be respectable for what they are, they can still be respected for who they are.”

John wrote in honoured in the placeholder field. “A lot of thought into a single word that maybe 2 people will glean the proper meaning from.”

“One of them will be Emrik. I believe that it will be proper to inform him of his position,” Lorelei informed John. The Speaker of Commons continued to be his main political adversary. As far as internal enemies went, Emrik was far and wide one of the best ones to have. His primary goals were to expand the influence of the Lake Alliance within the Federation and make sure that John’s political influence stayed confined in the executive.

The former goal was against the spirit of the Federation, but there was no such thing as a politician that did not try to kickback to their voter base. It was how they stayed elected. To prevent them from favouring their electorate required to fundamentally alter the incentive structure of the system. Which, in turn, would require a different system with different issues. There were never any true solutions, only trade-offs. Reality was complicated that way. Every choice had an opportunity cost.

As for the latter goal, John had no right to complain about it. The current limitations on his power came from his own pen. To be held to them was only reasonable. In a way, John was thankful Emrik was doing this job. Critics were terribly annoying but it was good to have a smart one in the opposition.

John continued writing the email. It was his first message since returning from vacation, so it had to be extra impressive when it came to the formulations. The subject matter was fairly important as well. Due to the way Fusion functioned, the matter of it joining the Divided Gates was simultaneously up to and not up to the parliament. It was a foreign alliance, of sorts, but it was also a body with no formalized political power. The Divided Gates were more of an interest group. The most powerful interest group on the planet, that every Abyssal had heard of.

It was best not to trigger a lengthy constitutional debate of whether or not John had the unilateral authority of committing the Federation to that pact. All he had to do was to put it to a vote. There was just about no reason for them to refuse. To be part of the Divided Gates was worth enormous prestige and came with no binding obligations for the nation.

‘Actually, one reason to deny it may be to signal a wish to smash that system,’ John considered. ‘I don’t see why anyone would at the moment… If there were more member states like the Blood of the Proletariat or the Great Sultanate, there would be reason to reconsider.’

Someone slammed against the door. John furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the shadow behind the opaque glass that filled the upper half of his office entrance. Everyone knew he had the door locked when he wasn’t in the office which, until tomorrow, he officially was not.

The smallness of the form behind the glass already made it clear who he was looking at. “Metra, can you go get that?” John requested and the wolf warrior obliged.

“Way to take the enthusiasm out of someone!” Delicia rubbed her forehead as she strutted up to the table. Before John could ask what she wanted, she placed a wooden box on the table. An exceedingly simple one, holding a pill bottle. “I told you I’d have something for you by the end of the day.”

“Never doubted that, only that it would be worthwhile,” John responded flippantly and picked up the bottle. The pills inside were of a strong green colour, like algae. “So, what am I looking at?”

“Can’t Observe tell you?” Delicia asked.

“Only if I opened the bottle and I’m not sure it won’t explode in my face if I did that.” John put the bottle back and looked at his alchemist expectantly. “Plus, you don’t expect me to believe that you don’t want to gloat, do you?”

“Weeeell…” Delicia averted her gaze guiltily. “I suppose if you want an explanation, it can’t be helped.” She shuddered and directed her attention to Lorelei. “I can literally feel you stare, Rel!”

“S-sorry,” the seer apologized and bowed her head. “You’re an interesting knot of contradictions.”

“Ain’t nothing contradicting around me!” Delicia declared and crossed her arms.

“So, what are these?” Metra asked and grabbed the bottle. Without any of John’s second guesses, she unscrewed the lid and took a whiff. The Gamer could smell it too, the fragrance of brackish water rapidly filling his office. “Smells like the Baltic.”

‘Looks like I was spot-on with the algae?’ John thought and waited for the explanation.

“It’s a regeneration pill,” Delicia told them. “Basically, puts you under prolonged but weaker effects of a healing potion.”

“That so?” John hummed, now thoroughly engaged in the subject. He took one of the pills out of the bottles and gave it a quick Observe. 20 HP a minute, it said. Not particularly useful for John or any of his haremettes, but for the average person that was a solid help. Especially since each of them lasted for a whole day. “These would be fantastic as part of the military equipment. Pills are much easier to transport than entire bottles. Can this be mass produced?”

“Thanks to my revolutionary new technique… maybe,” Delicia started boasting and then ended on a serious note. “I’ll have to teach a few people and I don’t want to get stuck on these. I’m working on the Delicia Compound.”

“And what is important enough that you decided to attach your name to it?”

“Mass-producible, stable, non-alchemist, temporary transmutation,” Delicia responded. “Always remember, alchemy is way more flexible than enchantments when it comes to biological stuff! Want a tree that grows paper sheets as leaves? Clams that serve as air filters? Stop sleeping for three days straight without side-effects? I can do all of that for you with a potion or a pill.”

John was starting to see the true appeal of alchemy when she put it like that. Biomancy was a magical art that already existed, but it required someone learned in the field to use. As long as it could be bound in a potion, Delicia could ship her mutagens anywhere and they could then be used whenever and wherever they were needed.

“Sounds like a craft we should be careful with though,” the Gamer cautioned. “I guess you’ve added ‘temporary’ to your list of goals for a reason.”

“Eh, not really, it’s just the easier of the two goals,” Delicia scratched her chin. “Only thing I don’t want is people bothering me about designer babies.”

“Could you do that?” the Gamer asked.

“It’d be pretty easy to concoct something that changes the ratio of sperms with X and Y chromosomes in your balls, just to start with.”

John breathed in deeply. “Not sure you should have shared that with me.” Already he was imagining what the world would look like if he could guarantee that there were three women per one man. Harems would become the norm, a paradise for everyone.

At least that would be his intended outcome. When messing with the balance of an entire species like that, there were so many moving pieces that it could not be guaranteed. For example, what if the increased competition on the women’s side spiked general jealousy levels, thus leading to a rapid decline in trust in society? Would manual labour jobs still be filled at an adequate level if there was a considerably lower percentage of men? How would it affect general happiness levels if it became much harder for guys to hang out with ‘the boys’?

‘Yeah, best not to meddle with any of that,’ John concluded. “Maybe we should pass a law that forbids the general meddling with genomes.”

“You think Gnome would like that?” Metra asked with a broad grin. “For her to discriminate against her cousin like that?”

“Hilarious.” John’s dry sarcasm only made the blonde prouder of her pun. While she giggled away, he turned back to Delicia. “I’m not fine with making any alterations to inheritable traits, but could you make mutagens work on literally anyone?”

“Once I crack the sequence, probably.”

“On a permanent basis?” John wondered and Delicia nodded again. “Any drawbacks to that?”

“Same as with any alchemist that swallows too much of the stuff. Better not cross transmutations unless you wanna go, you know, WAAAH!” Delicia tried to look scary by raising her hands in a claw motion. “Or ggrrgrgrgrgrgl!” she gurgled like a murloc. “The usual body horror stuff.”

John folded his hands and considered. That did not sound terribly threatening. People were already trusted with many chemicals and tools that could end their life, especially on the Abyssal side. “So, assuming your research bears fruit, basically the entirety of the population could permanently alter themselves, individually, in one way without consequence?”

“Yep, yep – you getting why alchemy is great?”

“I’m starting to see the appeal,” John put it mildly. This was the kind of revolutionary application that he was looking for. If the entire population was capable of, be it temporarily or permanently, altering their bodies in ways they wished to, that would have incredible effects. Abyssals were already used to living next to non-human people, so to have more fellows with cat ears in the streets would hardly matter.

Delicia left John with much to think about. As incredible as those effects could be, there was also the question of what downsides widespread body morphs could have. Would they grow psychologically dependent on their new identities? Would they grow more callous with the way they treated their bodies if they could always be fixed with a bit of coin and a functioning swallowing mechanism?

The only way to find that out was to run the experiment. Even if Delicia managed to uncover the necessary compounds, it would take her a while to get running the necessary facilities to cover an entire nation’s worth of demand. Hopefully, between it starting up and it being widespread, it would become apparent what the drawbacks were. If the culture didn’t adapt, the legislation would have to.

Much fun as John liked to make of Delicia in stating that enchantments just did everything better than alchemy, she had already proven to him that it wasn’t the case through various other examples. First and foremost, transmutation by itself fundamentally altered the question of any resource shortage.

When one was normally presented with the problem of a low supply of a material in the nation, the question was where to get it from and how to get it. Introducing alchemy into the mix was like unlocking a cheat code. Suddenly, getting iron from a neighbour had an additional option. Rather than going for diplomatic, economic, or military engagements, one could simply take something one had in excess and change it for something else.

That no one had abused this feature so far spoke to the superabundance of resources in the Abyss. When crops could be grown by the handwave of the ruler, thinking about the guy that could turn lead into gold suddenly became much less impressive. John, for his part, was going to abuse transmutation to the ends of the earth and he had every capability to do so.

Because the Guild Hall produced endless raw materials.

Which could be transmuted into basically anything else with enough energy and time.

‘Honestly, I want to put her to seeing if she can create the Celexiums,’ John thought. ‘First, her passion project though.’ “Fusion is getting more ridiculous by the hour and it’s all thanks to me,” the Gamer hummed to himself.

“John…” Lorelei made him aware he had just said that out loud. The mild disappointment in her tone did more to correct his behaviour than any growl of Stirwin ever could.

“Sorry, just gloating,” he apologized. “Obviously I would not be capable of doing this without everyone doing their part. Credit to those that achieve what they achieve.”

“Please do not forget humility,” Lorelei pleaded.