Chapter 54 – How to build your Android (Tank)

Chapter 54 – How to build your Android (Tank)



25 points available. A sizable chunk and enough for John to go over his decisions again. Because he wanted a tank, there was a reasonable order of priority he should put the Stats in.

Strength: Traditionally, tanks favoured Endurance or other defensive Stats. The reason why John elevated Strength above Endurance was that this was reality and there was no such thing as a convenient taunt mechanic. If Aclysia couldn’t threaten an enemy into engaging with her, she was useless no matter how many punches she could take. Plus, since she would be taking a lot of damage, the Stat that increased HP Regeneration should have its uses. Endurance: Even if he reasoned that Strength was slightly more important, he did understand that Endurance was still high up there. Agility: Similar to Strength, this was needed to keep Aclysia relevant for the enemy. If they could just ignore her due to her lack of speed she wouldn’t be able to fulfil her task. Wisdom: Of the two Mental Stats Wisdom was the one that had more relevance in fighting as it should make her able to retain more fighting experience. Maybe a bit more Wisdom would also increase her social understanding. Intellect: Aclysia wasn’t supposed to be a caster, so she had no need for the mana. However, Intellect would probably be needed to make intelligent decisions when John couldn’t give her orders. Not that high on the priority list but still something to consider. Charisma: He had no intention of having Aclysia do much in the way of talking, nor did he need her to be particularly interesting for other people to look at. Libido: He put this last in the ranking of reasonable Stat priorities. Subjectively, he wanted to put this way up there, if only to see what would happen. First, he had to have that talk with Rave though. Plus, he wanted her to develop more of a personality. If even possible, he wanted the decision to sleep with him to be a choice, not a robotic duty. Making her a working tank was more important in any case.

With all that in mind, it was time to divvy up the Stat Points at hand. Libido, Charisma, and Intellect were skipped out on. Only Intellect was slightly tempting at this time and he simply had other things to raise. Of the four Stats remaining, Wisdom stuck out because it wasn’t even in the double digits. He alleviated that, pushing it to 10.

“What happened, Creator John?”

The Gamer raised his head to inspect Aclysia. She stood there, blank faced as ever. “I raised your Wisdom,” he explained to her. “Do you feel different?”

“...No?” she answered uncertainly. It was the first time he heard this tone in her voice. Matter of fact, it was the first time she really sounded like she had any emotion beyond ‘servile’.

‘I guess I crossed another threshold?’ he asked himself. ‘Unsurprising, there should be something at 10 for each of these. Would really appreciate it if this game would come out of Alpha and be consistent in what I get windows for.’

“Creator John, what is wisdom?”

“Ah, this again.” John scratched the back of his head, not knowing how to really answer that. “It’s a difficult concept to summarize.” He looked to the other people in the room for help.

Jimmie responded first. “Basically, it describes how much a person has experienced. A wise person is someone who knows a lot of stuff by heart.”

“Guess experience and kinda, like, knowing the rhythm of life?” Rave explained as poorly as ever.

“Wisdom is to know what must be done in order to preserve what is important,” Victoria presented with certainty.

“Something like that,” John agreed.

“I will attempt to comprehend these answers,” Aclysia stated and then fell silent. That was John’s signal to turn back to her Stats.

20 points remained. To raise her Wisdom even higher seemed unnecessary, best to let her grow accustomed to what sapience she now experienced. That only left her Physical Stats to be raised. Strength was currently the highest and, as per his priority list, it should remain that way. Endurance should supersede Agility though. He decided to go 5 into Strength and Agility, 10 into Endurance.

“Ya know, to farm some more.”

“We will harvest crops?” Aclysia wondered.

“No, we’ll go kill some more ghosts or other monsters,” John told her.

“Ghosts... ghosts...” Aclysia mumbled, eyes closed as if she was trying to recollect something from a long time ago. “I vaguely recall the feeling of danger... fulfilling my prime directive...” She tilted her head and furrowed her eyebrows. She seemed to be bothered by something. “After that... cold dark... vast emptiness...”

“You’re still in the early stages, your memory will probably become better as we go on,” John assured her. “Anyway, she meant farming in the videogame sense.”

“Ah, the repeated killing of respawnable enemies or harvesting of resource nodes to amass Loot and Experience,” Aclysia rattled off a definition. Probably because it was he who had created her, she had a rudimentary understanding of most gaming terms. “What shall we be fighting?” she wondered.

“I don’t know yet,” John responded.

“I understand. Thank you for answering my questions, Creator John.” Her tone was, once again, neutral.

“Can we go now?” Rave asked, impatiently tapping her heel on the concrete. “I ain’t here to hang out with Jimmie.”

“Get bent, Rave.”

“I’ll do that later.” His girlfriend poked John’s shoulder and he blushed.

While all that went on, Victoria stepped up to them. Guitar case over her shoulder, she asked, “Would you mind if I accompanied you? I’m interested in this whole ‘Gamer’ thing. Most of us don’t get a lot of chances to see a Latebloomer in action.”

John wanted to agree immediately, yet he stopped himself. He remembered that they were skipping mostly so he could have a day with Rave. “Sorr-“ he began, ready to explain he wanted to spend the day with Rave (+Aclysia).

“Yeah, sure, whatevs,” Rave agreed with a carefree shrug. “Ya can come right along.”

John was massively confused. Still, the decision was made and he wouldn’t be complaining. The three of them left, Aclysia back in the inventory, and Jimmie returned to tinkering.