The Gamer Chapter 1408 – Thorough Grinding 1 – the little things (Patreon)

Sylph poked Undine’s hair. Once, twice, thrice. Her face reflected the plain wonder of a child that had found a particularly interesting plot of dirt. Although her hair was just as much part of her perceptive system as the rest of her, Undine did not do anything about it. That was, until the volt bunny zapped the deep blue slime girl.

The hair, half blob and half elegant strands, parted into many tendrils, which smacked Sylph’s hand back, before Undine turned her head and gave her the most annoyed glare. Rather than apologize, Sylph gave the water spirit another charged poke. Undine’s face transformed like Bilbo’s when he had reached for the One Ring. Her eyes were surrounded by a deep black, her teeth turned pointy and sickly.

“Eeeep!” Sylph zapped back and hid behind Salamander’s shoulder.

“Stop – doing – that,” Undine demanded, her features returning to their regular appearance.

“But, but it’s so fuuuuuuun!” Sylph cried, as she was grabbed and pulled out from behind Salamander. Dangling by her bunny ears (something that did not hurt her for a lack of mass), the arcvolt elemental continued, “You make all of these interesting faces now when you’re agitated! And you grow extra eyes everywhere.”

Undine furrowed her eyebrows, yellow slits appearing in the curves of her horns. “My reactions are not for your amusement,” she stated.

“Awwww, why nooooot?” Sylph whined. Just barely she managed to pull her legs away from several tendrils that spawned underneath her. The liquid shadows rolled back to Undine, like a particularly Lovecraftian ooze, blinking and gnashing its teeth the entire time.

Undine’s power up had, just like with Sylph, not manifested in any direct Stat upgrades. Rather, she had gathered a new set of skills, focused around the manipulation of her body. Tendrils and teeth gave her more offensive tools, even in her normal state. The eyes spawned with more ease than shaping entirely new heads did. There was also something to be said for the raw visual intimidation of it all.

How exactly all of this would reflect on her Unleashed state, they did not yet know. They had only done basic testing, and to allow Undine to Unleash, she needed to heal a fair amount of damage first. Since they hadn’t been in the mood yesterday to inflict damage on each other, they had put it off until the grinding.

Which they were currently waiting to begin. The harem, Lydia included, was standing by the I.D. Gate, bags packed. There was more need for clothes than their inventories could take care of. For everything else, there was Magoi and his barrier manipulation skills.

“John, are you an edgelord?” Lee asked out of nowhere.

“Pardon?”

“Just thinking, you’ve started with four basic elementals, yeah?” He nodded to that. “And one turned into an apocalypse elemental, the other into a water spirit that’s more shadow than your shadow spirit, and the other two just stayed normal.” Lee pointed at Siena and Stirwin. “And the two you contracted later are one massive sadist and the ‘Celestial Devourer’. Sounds pretty edgy to me.”

“First off, stop trying to turn my life into your Sonic OC. Second off, I’ve let them have their own choices, so you bogger off with that.” John pointed Lee back at the Palace. “Go clean my bathroom!”

“Oy, no mocking me for my new lot in life!” the young Fateweaver complained and put a hand into her hips. “Or do you want me to take this off?”

Lee wore her new housekeeper uniform. It was obviously inspired by a schoolgirl uniform, specifically the black and white one she had been wearing previously. The adjustments made increased the amount of white in the balance, to try and give it just a faint feeling of a maid uniform, while keeping the schoolgirl part intact.

“Do not dare,” John threatened. He wasn’t even sure why she was wearing it at the moment in the first place. She wouldn’t be doing much in terms of housework for the next twenty days, if any at all. That did not change the fact that she looked fantastic in it. It just double-upped her lowkey goth vibes. Lee usually didn’t quite qualify for that, she wasn’t gloomy or pale enough for it, but these clothes let it work just well enough.

A stray hum from Rave caught his attention. There was always chatting all around when the haremettes were gathered. It wasn’t like they shut down when John wasn’t paying direct attention to them. Although he was present a total of three times, present in more conversations than normally possible, he still couldn’t catch all of it. When there was a lull, he turned to whoever caught his attention first.

“Something interesting?” he asked his girlfriend, who was reading something on her phone.

“Ya remember the gala we were at yesterday?”

John looked up at the moon. “Hard to forget something that happened three hours ago. Standard affair, fundraiser for a forest building project. What about it?”

“Apparently they’re missing some chairs, they asked me if I had something to do with that.”

“Did you?”

“Nah, didn’t beat anyone over the head with one today.” Her fingers moved over the display as she said that. John loved that she was absolutely writing that back to whoever had contacted her. One of her cat ears turned and she raised her head a moment later. “And there’s our ticket in.”

John turned around to see Magoi and Mabirl approach from the elevator at the corner of the Palace. It took them almost half a minute to cross the distance from the corner of the building to where the I.D. Gate stood. The wife pulled ahead, soon stopping in front of John. Her mask was tucked under her shoulder.

“I hear you’re to blame for my daughter becoming a drop-out.”

John opened his mouth to respond, but Lee already shouted, “Mom, really? Really, Mom?”

“Yes.” Mabirl glared at John with the intensity of an aged mother. However, John was certain he had done nothing wrong in this case. Therefore, he stood his ground and kept his eyes steady. Magoi took his wife by the shoulders and gently pulled her aside.

The two had a quick, quiet exchange, which John deliberately skipped. Then Magoi stepped forwards. “Alright, shall we start?”

“Whenever you’re ready,” John said and gestured at the door. He was positively brimming with excitement. It had been so long since his last grinding session, he’d power through this like no tomorrow. Magoi opened the door and the rest of them followed swiftly inside.

The darkness, as was typical, was replaced with a vast green plain that stretched to the horizon. In quick order, two houses appeared, one much larger than the other, and a row of golden gates opened, to let the Gamer create his Instant Dungeons within this Intermediary Barrier. “If you have time in a couple of todays, I’d appreciate it if you and Lee came over for dinner,” Magoi announced after he had set everything up. “We’d like to talk about our daughter’s future.”

“Absolutely,” John promised with a strong nod. He had expected nothing less and nothing less was appropriate.

With that being said, they had unpacking to do. The first thing John checked out was whether Magoi had integrated the schematics of his new bed. He had, which meant that an entire wing of the large mansion they had gotten from the High Fateweaver was dedicated just to that immense sleeping construction. Although the same in shape, it had none of the luxuries. Magoi could magic a great many things into existence within these barriers, but fully enchanted items were not among them.

“Ladies!” Aclysia clapped her hands twice, causing the four other maids to orderly put down whatever they were doing and then stepping up into a row. “Lee!” the head maid shouted when the gamer girl missed that she was part of this gathering. Hastily, Lee joined the housekeeper meeting. “For the duration of our stay here, Beatrice, Claire, Momo, and I will be busy helping Master with his grinding for anything between 0 and 18 hours a day. It therefore falls upon you two,” she looked expectantly at Delicia and Lee, “to keep the household in order. We have three sets of bedsheets. Due to the size of the bed, we’ll change it in segments. The whole bed should have had all of its sheets replaced over the course of 5 days, for a total of 4 cycles. Always keep the laundry machine busy. Further…-“

John zoned out of the lengthy summary of the housekeeper schedule for the next twenty days. Vague familiarity with the amount of work this operation took to maintain was all he needed. For his part, he moved on to the living room, where the rest of the harem was getting comfortable. It had the typical configuration of a U-shaped couch, extended coffee table, and TV that they were accustomed to.

The Gamer sat down at his rightful place in the curve of the U-shape, put his arms around Rave and Salamander, and tapped his clothes away. “Take it we ain’t starting early then?” the feline Lightbearer purred, and pulled her shirt over her head. For once, John was the first person naked in the room.

“Nope, because I get ten levels for ‘free’ if we just have sex eight out of 24 hours a cycle,” John reminded them. That had been the first Perk of the Harem Gamer Class and it had paid off big time already. Instead of the two cycles he would get after midnight had passed, as was normal, inside time dilation there were proper 24-hour countdowns.

Since it was just past Friday midnight, putting them a few minutes into Saturday, the last Lover’s Will had just reset and now they could go ahead and get him one guaranteed level every 24 hours just by fucking. Obviously, he was very enthusiastic about the prospect.

Salamander had the advantage that she could just put out her clothing with a thought. While Rave still peeled her bubble butt out of her yoga pants, Salamander was already on the floor, wrapping her fat tits around his manhood. Annoyed, Rave clicked her tongue, pressing herself against his side. He got the memo, and would have pressed his fingers against her slit anyway. Quickly it grew wet, the labia swollen.

Gnome soon took the empty spot on his left, already touching herself by the time she got comfortable. Her eyes dashed from the way Salamander’s enormous tits hid his large cock, to where Lydia stuffed her throat with the cock of one double, and finally to Siena mounting the last. Moans and the smacking of lips soon filled the room. Where haremettes could not get a spot next to him, they gleefully engaged with each other.

While John received the service, he pulled up his Character Sheet, to get a general idea where he currently was.


Having to divest 7 out of 8 points per level on Wisdom to stay ahead of upkeep costs certainly put a dent in his levelling plan. Either he was very close to fixing that issue at 2000 Wisdom, or he was in for a disappointment. Following established trends, the logical next point for a scaling increase would be 2500. He just really hoped that wasn’t the case.

‘I also have one Class Level to spend,’ he reminded himself. Getting all of the elemental ruler’s names had given him that, alongside a titbit of intel that neither he nor anyone else in the room knew what to do with. It was neat knowing a seventh elemental ruler could exist. It was also yet another thing in the current age that could change everything. ‘Best not to get hung up on that. Better question is what Class to invest in.’

Starforger was, of course, still blocked by his need to get 100 Room Slots. His choices were narrowed down to Metracana Master and Golemcrafter. One was at level 8, the other at 7. He was reconsidering the enthusiasm with which he levelled Golemcrafter, now that he was capable of swinging Inkaryl around. Was doing that really worth more than either buffing four of his core combatants or decreasing the cost of the contracts?

‘If I level enough during this session, I might be able to finish both Classes. That would be a considerable power boost,’ John thought. A total of 5 Class levels meant that he needed to get 21 more levels from where currently was. Since 10 were guaranteed through sex, that meant he only had to get 11 more. Perfectly doable, especially if he focused on a few Assaults. ‘…I could use Court Dust….’

The resistance to the fae cocaine had worn off in early April. He hadn’t had much time to take advantage of it since, neither had he felt the pressing need to. Memories of his first bender were still difficult to put in the correct order, much less to comprehend. He was afraid he might have the brilliant idea to try and shit on a boss’ head next time. There was lowering his inhibitions with alcohol and then there was goring them out of his system and pouring hyperactivity into the resulting gaps.

‘If I deem that necessary, I should do it in the last few days anyways,’ he resolved and instead invested his Perk. Metracana Master was the choice he went with, purely because it was closer to maxing out.


‘Is this even a question?’ John asked himself as much as the maids and Metra, which he prodded with a mental image of the choices. Furnace of Impossibility was obviously out, he was not going to gamble on them exploding just so he could potentially find a bullshit metal that was even above the Fusionals. That left the choice between Monster Girl Enrichment and Monster Girl Apotheosis.

Could the materials compete with the Perks?

Long term? Probably yes. Given enough of any endlessly generating resource, its value would eventually exceed that of any non-endless choice. That was basic math and a very common noob trap. In theory, the infinite value would supersede the non-infinite eventually. In practice, that eventually was typically so far away that it was just not worth it.

Also materials did not provide potentially cute or badass monster girl parts so… the choice was made as far as John was concerned.

Unsurprisingly, he got 5 agreements and one undecided. Only Delicia was interested in the materials, but not enough so to actually disagree. Getting another Monster Girl Ascension Perk must have been too tempting.

And so one choice turned into many.