The Gamer Chapter 1630 – Raid and Adventures Finale – Goals Reached (Patreon)


“Urgh.” John felt almost visceral disgust at just how dull these Perks were. Was that really worthy of a ninth level in a Class, base as this one was?

Student of many Weapons was probably the best. John was apt at using Inkaryl these days, thanks to Weapon Expertise. He wasn’t even sure if Student of many Weapons would do anything on top of that Passive Skill. Neither was he sure if he would ever end up wielding another weapon.

The thing was just that it didn’t really matter. Herculean offered a bunch of free Stats, but it did so in Stats that he hardly cared about. Poison Resistance 1 was still kind of terrible. It was especially terrible in context.

John changed his mind and picked Herculean in the end. Student of many Weapons could have been okay, but Weapon Expertise already did the same thing. Free Stats were boring, but at least they were a definitive benefit.

‘One more Perk,’ John thought.

Getting through the Class Challenges was a task that took the majority of the remaining day. Gaia wanted him to engage in a series of spars against his various haremettes and earn a minimum of points per engagement. What the points were given for was fairly straightforward. Throws, maintained grapples, and clean hits, all of the usual.

John did not have to win, he just had to get enough points and he could do it using the Creator Puppet. It was still difficult, courtesy of the number of points Gaia wanted and the opponents he faced. Lydia was relatively easy, as the queen wasn’t that fast, and Beatrice may have been fast, but she was not an unarmed fighter.

Eliana? That was difficult, although not quite as difficult as raw numbers and melee experience would imply. The blood mage had the habit of using her regeneration to justify an unorthodoxly violent assault strategy. When it came to landing point hits on her, that was doable.

Siena? Now they were moving in the part of the day that cost John upwards of an hour. Here, too, psychology was his ultimate helper. Siena was not one for prolonged engagements and she liked goading people, him specifically, a bit too much. One arrogantly delayed dodge too many brought John the victory.

Rave? Rave… John began to think fondly of the time he hopelessly outscaled her. In a purely physical fight, his first fiancée outclassed him so utterly it was like trying to catch a hypermobile carry with the least mobile tank. Except it was not yet that bad. Rave did not have any bad habits that John could exploit. She had some unusual ones, like her listening to music during battle, but that only made her unpredictable, not vulnerable. In the end, he managed to catch her by reading her moves correctly. Only had taken about 35 rounds.

Sylph?

Sylph.

Fighting Sylph 1 on 1 with only melee tools was like trying to grab a wet piece of soap slathered in olive oil with hands covered in bacon grease while trying to skate on ice with rollerblades. Sylph was fast. Actually, that was understating it. Sylph was speed. With every passing level, it became more and more likely that Sylph was the actually fastest entity on Earth. Tempesta would likely remain ahead of her daughter, but the Mother of Air was bound to her realm and thus did not enter the race.

Sylph was a speed demon. Worse, Sylph was an accelerating speed demon. They had to stop between short bouts just so John had a chance to keep up with the volt bunny.

After a few hours, he managed to catch her too and that was that.


‘Useless,’ John thought, after reading through the first Perk. ‘Useless,’ he thought, reading through the second. ‘Seriously, Gaia, I don’t need anymore Techniques, so why even offer me theeeeeeeeeeeeee-‘ “WHAT?!”

“What’cha screaming about, tiger?” Rave wanted to know and looked over his shoulder. “Seems useless to ya… also seems useless to ya… why does Gaia even offer you more Techni- What the fuck?”

“Can you fuckwits stop freezing up like a comedy duo?” Eliana asked and took a gander at the window herself. “Fucked, dumb – SHIT, really?!” The pretty little psycho started the most shrill, unhinged cacophony of laughter that her body could produce. “GAIA, YOU HAVE SO NO FUCKING IDEA HOW TO BALANCE ANYTHING, YOU LITTLE TWAT!”

By and large, John found that Gaia wasn’t the worst at it, but the Way of the Hand was not just absurdly more powerful than anything in the same category, it was also powerful enough on its own that John would have accepted the entire rest of the Class being even more shit than it had been if it meant this was the end result.

Two additional Equipment Slots were enormous, especially in the hand department. Finding something worthy of taking those places would take a while, but it was so much better than the competition that John could hardly comprehend it.

He smashed that button as hard as he smacked Eliana’s bottom during their kinkiest nights. “And now you’re out of excuses,” Rave pointed out.

“Out of excuses for what?” John asked. She only had to raise her left hand and tap the ring on her finger. “I was always going to get a wedding ring, but you’re correct that I could now wear it all the time if it has worthwhile combat bonuses.”

“Gives ya +25% fiancée respect if ya always wear it.”

“Hmm, that’s a rare Stat… might be worth it then.” John turned around, picking both of the girls up as he stood up. He already noticed that little bit of girth gained and so did they. It wasn’t much, maybe five centimetres shoulder to shoulder, but it rarely took much to alter an impression or silhouette.

“Hrerehadasdahrasdajnn,” Eliana generated a secure password with her horny ramblings. “Your hand is bigger!”

“Is that important?” John asked with a grin.

“PUT IT ON MY FUCKING THROAT!”

John was hardly one to deny a lady her wishes, so he pulled his larger hand from her ass and put it around her neck. The way the masochist grinned at having her windpipe constrained was nothing short of ecstatic. She even started drooling, the naughty little thing.

John left her dangling there for a little bit while he checked the remaining windows.


Effectively useless.


After a little consideration, Chi Reader was the obvious answer. Brawler and Ki Student were both meh. Granted, the Passive benefits they provided were pretty fantastic, but Chi Reader just had the awesome factor plus it might actually offer him something that was at least useful in his sex life, if not in actual combat.


And that one went into the ‘useful in a specific situation’ folder.

As he closed the last window, Rave opened up the buttons of his shirt. “Yup, that’s it,” she stated after inspecting his chest muscles. “Now your chest is as perfect as my ass. Gaia, look at those abs. Gotta get ya oiled up and present ya to everyone else.”

John had not expected gaining a bit of width to have that much of an effect on his girls. Then again, he was a guy, a straight one at that, so what did he know about what was physically attractive to women?

Ten minutes later, Eliana and Rave had indeed oiled him up head to toe. Two hours later, he was done filling everyone’s holes. Reactions had been varied, as per usual, but none had been negative.

On his own, John stood in front of the mirror and beheld himself. He couldn’t help but pose a bit. The oil had since been absorbed into his skin, but there was still a bit of sheen to him from the sheer healthiness of his lifestyle. There was still an underlying lankiness to his build, a bit of plausible deniability that genetics could have delivered him from what he used to be to what he was now. Even with the Perk, he was no Arnold in his prime. He didn’t need to be either, that was generally regarded as too much muscle as far as he knew. John was slim but not too slim. He was toned but not too toned. Now, he was also bulky but not too bulky.

John opened the Character Editor and moved all of the sliders all the way back to origin. He deliberately stayed away from the confirm button, just so he could easily revert what he was looking at.

Frail – that was the first word that popped into John’s mind when looking at himself. His face was the least changed of everything. The structure was the same, but what separated the average looking nerd from the average looking women’s magazine model was a number of things layered on top. There was less fat in his cheekbones, making him appear somewhat gaunt. His eyes had dark bags under them, standing out doubly so because of how pale he was. His skin tone betrayed a lack of sun and balanced meals and his head sat on a thin neck, giving it a slightly disproportionate feeling. His lips were just a tad too dry. Also, his posture was terrible.

John only now realized how difficult it was to stand properly with withered back muscles. His shoulders were slumped. Without the extra width he had just gained and any of the muscles he had been amassing over the past two years, he was probably twenty-centimetres less shoulder to shoulder. He was also almost ten centimetres shorter.

Where pectorals had been a moment ago, there was just skin stretching over often visibly ribs. His legs were stilts. What was between them was certainly less impressive than what he had now. His midriff didn’t look too bad, despite the lack of trained muscles. The benefits of always having had low body fat.

John looked at his old self and just felt disappointment. He wasn’t disgusted by the sight of it, he wasn’t even disgusted by living in it, he just felt like he was looking at untapped potential. ‘I’m not letting my kids go without a gym membership,’ he thought, looking at his old face in the mirror. ‘Bless my parents, wonderfully nice people, but my God did they not give me any discipline in life.’

Behind John, the door to the bathroom opened. In stepped Ehtra, stopping dead in her tracks when she found him standing there.

“I guess I did take the bathroom closest to the back entrance,” he audibly excused her.

“John?” Ehtra asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“In the old flesh,” he told her and rolled his shoulder. “That is a much less satisfying gesture to make when I am more skeleton than muscle,” he complained out loud.

“This is what you used to look like?” The First of Hatred now stepped fully into the room, neither caring that she had barged in nor that he was naked. “This is the President of Fusion? The basis for Metra’s king candidate? This was you?”

It occurred to John that it was odd that she did not question how he took this form. Then it occurred to him that she was a Metracana and shapeshifting was part of her fundamentals. “Frail, disappointing, thin.” John looked at himself in the mirror. He pulled at his lips. “Did not quite reset how bad my skin used to be. Sitting indoors all day with the windows closed made sure the air was dry as hell.” He rubbed his throat and laughed. “You’re also being spared m-my old stut-stutter. Can’t even replicate that properly. My voice is too deep and even now.”

“This?!” Ehtra gestured at him up and down. “You came from this?!”

“I’m not sure if that tone is supposed to be flattering or insulting,” John commented.

The First of Hatred stopped herself for a moment. “Flattering, I guess?” she answered. “I heard your tale, but you said you came from a family of wealth. You look like you were emaciated for most of your life.”

“There’s something to be said about me having a below average food drive… or maybe my parents weren’t around enough to instil proper eating habits. Probably the former, considering my dad’s build.” He tapped the ‘Deny’ button and all of the settings snapped back to what he currently was. He rolled his shoulder again. There was so much more weight to that gesture, it was wonderful. “So, how was that supposed to be a compliment?”

“…You really come from nothing, do you?” Ehtra asked.

“I come from a rich, stable country, from a family with an unbalanced work-life relationship, I went through an education hellish by being below my ability and shared with people that picked on me for what I was,” John gave the breakdown of what he used to be. “I was an apathetic loser that decided it was fine enough to just exist until times became better on their own. In a way, I was proven right. In another way, these abilities gave me a traceable way to measure improvements I still had to do of my own volition. I won’t deny that they made it a lot easier too. The Abyss gave me the chance to become this.” The Gamer beheld his fit, taller, broader form in the mirror. “I could have become half of this without the Abyss. The Abyss also took from me the innocence of youth. I thought the bullying was bad before Travolta died… Do you still underestimate me, Ehtra?”

The First of Hatred did not answer the question for a long time. She just looked at him, expressionless, pondering, focused on his face above all. Her lips slowly recounted every word he had just spoken, silently tasting the honesty in each of them.

“I’ve known a few mundane-born Latebloomers in my day,” Ehtra eventually said. “In my experience, the best of them were the arrogant spawns of noble lineages. They viewed the abilities they were granted as the delayed manifestation of their blue blood. That made them insufferable, but at least they had the noblesse oblige to keep them in line. The worst I’ve known were the children of the impoverished, who finally thought they had the tools to take revenge on all of society. It surprises me that you were so little and yet… became so much.”

“Well-“

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Ehtra interrupted him. “You’re still arrogant. You’re a shameless embodiment of debauchery, your eagerness for glory is only overpowered by your eagerness to spill your seed. Never in my several millennia of existence have I ever met a man so singularly driven by his need to fuck women and to impress more of them… but,” she let that word hover in he air for a second, “I think I understand now. For what you were, for what you have been, you actually are the best you could be and that is… amicable.”

John couldn’t help himself but respond to that with a smug grin. “So you do not underestimate me anymore?”

“No.” Ehtra managed to get that word out before the usual sneer reconquered her face, alongside a visibly blush darkening her brown cheeks. “Now get out of here! Can I take a shower in this house without stumbling over a cum-leaking orifice?!”

John did her the favour. He stepped out of the bathroom. After that, events were dull. Having accomplished his goal…


…John did not feel motivated to peek into another Raid Segment for just a single day. Therefore, they used the final day to just hang out and about. Lulu got to sleep and to enjoy the harem life some more. Everyone got to sleep and to enjoy the harem life some more. Then, at the time of their choosing, they packed up all the permanent bits in their environment and left. Nightingale brought the empress back to her palace in the cover of night. Lydia made her way back to Germany. Everyone else went into the Palace, to sleep in their actual bed.

In the morning, John would install the Guild Hall upgrades.