Chapter 259 – Imagine a twelve.
John was speechless. Not because of the number, well, partially of the number. He had been able to make that calculation himself, but seeing it on... whatever his windows were made from was a different thing. No, the thing that he was bamboozled by was the lack of diminishing returns.
He had spent three real hours inside the I.D., which had translated to that and an extra of 45 minutes due to Create I.D. decreasing the flow of time inside the I.D. by 25%. Essentially, he had been in there for almost four hours, and thanks to Gamer’s Body and the level ups, the only kind of fatigue he was feeling was a slight tiring from being awake for twelve hours.
In other words, he could repeat this again today. John had successfully found a new way to power level. Now to see what his experience scaling had to say about that. Also, to spend those points on Wisdom.
Well, his experience did ramp up a whole 140k needed to get a level up, but he still could reach another level by going through that play again. Not to mention that he could probably kill even more enemies this time, as he got more used to this dungeon. He wouldn’t get surprised by an artillery line again, for example.
‘The lava strat is really broken for that I.D.,’ John thought as he went back to the house to drop off the halfway filled Soulpotion. Logically speaking, it being halfway filled meant that there was another 250k experience inside, meaning that he just got a sum-total of 800’000 experience points.LaaTest novels on (n)ovelbi/n(.)com
Now if that wasn’t major bullshit, John wasn’t sure what was.
This also meant that he had to ‘convince’ Nathalia of giving him some of her scales again. A task that would surely involve his dick, a wall and her body getting bent into several erotic positions that the human body barely could handle. In all due honesty, he lost nothing in that trade.
“So, how is she doing?” John wondered when he came back. The question was directed at Thana, who was overseeing Rave doing dodging training via Lydia throwing blunt metal objects at her. Thana looked at him with crossed arms and a wide grin, but said nothing. “Are you trying to tell me that you haven’t said a word since I told you to?” he asked, a smile slowly spreading on his face.
A very proud double-nod was his answer. Lowering her chin, she gave him eager puppy eyes.
“Wow, and here I thought you would suffer Sylpheritis if you stopped cursing for more than 20 minutes,” John marvelled.
“What is that?” the elemental in question asked; “What is this Sylpheritis? Does it have something to do with sex? Is it a candy? Ooooh, please tell me it’s a flavoured condom named after me. No wait, condoms are evil, they put your cum somewhere that’s not me. Uhm, how about condom flavoured candy? No, wait, that sounds disgusting... Wait! How about gummy bears flavoured like gummy bear flavoured condoms? I am a genius! Get a marketing team!”
“Those are just gummy bears, you idiot,” Salamander told her.
“Nuh-uh,” Sylph shook her head. “Silly Sally, it is gummy bear flavoured gummy bears with an extra note of sex. That is awesome, it will sell dozens of gummy bears, guaranteed!”
“Yes, that would be one pack,” Salamander agreed.
“Yes, and I would buy it! That makes one! Perfect! Now, to begin mass production! John, I will need you to use your magical super seed to flavour some gummy bears for me!”
“I decline,” John said. “Also wasn’t this about Sylpheritis?”
“About what now?” Sylph asked. “It has my name in it, whatever it is, it must be awesome!”
“It’s what I call the disease of your head exploding if you don’t talk for a certain amount of time,” he explained.
“Does that exist? Well, I wouldn’t know, since I am under no danger... OH NO, Undine! What if you have Sylpheritis! Quick, talk to me! Say something! Anything! I haven’t heard you talk in... dunno, 12 decades? Three at the very least!”
“Aside from Siena, none of us are even a year old,” Salamander told her. “As individual entities, anyway. Did you forget that already?”
“Uuuuuuuh,” Sylph thought, “How long was a decade again?”
“10 years,” came the dry answer from the blaze elemental.
“Right, so Undine hasn’t talked in at least 45000 seconds!” her younger sister declared with confidence.
“...It’s days like these I know why I don’t visit your Airter profile,” Salamander said.
“Whaaaat, but you followed me!” Sylph said.
“And I haven’t logged in since, how many followers do you have anyhow?” Salamander wondered.
“Nobody ever said I was good at flirting,” John said and leaned down to kiss her.
Her lips were hot and tasted a bit metallic, either because of blood or maybe some mithril was still somewhere in her mouth. Either way, when John pulled back, Thana freed herself from the hug. She made a sour expression, “Was nice and all, just don’t... feel that comfortable so close to people and all that shit.” John understood, so they just watched the fight talking about this and that. Eventually, he was side-lined as Siena took to talking to Thana.
He listened to that with a keen ear, especially as Undine was part of the conversation. Kind of. Actually, she just stood next to them and occasionally nodded or shook her head when she was asked something. It was a surprisingly normal conversation, with lots of innuendos (the occasional back and forth of ideas between the hardcore masochist and sadist aside).
When he saw a break occurring in the training, John went over. “How ya doing?” he asked, mimicking his girlfriend’s speaking quirk.
“Fan-tas-tic,” Rave said and fell on the floor, breathing heavily. Her jacket protected her from getting injured.
The mansion had many things, but a training facility wasn’t one of them. Instead, they were training in a part of the garden that was literally just a wide green area. Training outside in the winter, even with the lack of snow, was understandably cold. Therefore her and Lydia were wearing their winter clothes. Hypothermia wasn’t much of a concern at their level, but it was still uncomfortable in the cold.
The was that Rave’s jacket was not made for fighting, not in the slightest bit, and she hadn’t trained with it either. The result was that it was covered with small cuts and ripped open at several points. John fixed them with Craft as he handed her the potion.
“That’s a lot!” Rave noted.
“Yup,” John agreed and watched her gulp it down; “I got a whole two levels today... and I am probably going to get another one.”
“Assault is that good?” she asked as she gave back the potion. “That’s bullshit!”
“To be fair, to get it I had to invest into a non-combat class. Class perks in general are just really good.” That reminded him that he could get another Class Level now. ‘Here I come, Elementalist Level 4!’ he thought.
“Anyway!” Rave said and jumped to her feet, mostly restored; “Now I have to fight some more! Nia! Come at me!” The blonde in question slowly, almost hesitatingly walked towards Rave.
“I was taught to never hold back,” the pariah told Rave.
“Good, don’t... but also don’t murder me, I need to keep my boyfriend in line,” she winked at him.
“Who keeps who in line,” John grumbled with fake annoyance and went to search for Nathalia. Even if he wouldn’t immediately use the scales (it was likely smarter to postpone that until he was actually done for the day), it was good to have them already.
He looked over his shoulder and saw Nia, her face hidden by the black visor and her weapons out, charging at Rave. Ready to turn away and bury his dick in the dragoness, John only needed to see fluttering back robes to sigh and turn back to the battlefield.
Thana tried to catch the tip of Nia’s spear, currently aiming for Rave. Now thankfully, she didn’t attempt do it with her teeth, like so often, but used her right arm instead. The blade sunk right through her arm, cutting nothing in the physical realm, but Thana giggled as she always did when she experienced pain in battle.
“Motherfucker, I can’t feel my hand,” she noted.
“THANA!” John shouted. “The hell are you doing?!” He was stomping his way back over. Had he not just told her to behave?
“I am trying to get along with this girl,” the blood mage screamed at the top of her lungs. “So shut the fuck up.” Thana pointed at Nia, “Look, you despicably gorgeous blonde, French, blue-eyed, superpowered fuck. I want you to attack me again!”
Strange way to get along, but John would let this play out.
“...Okay?” Nia said and raised her dagger. In a swift motion, she brought it down, aiming at the smaller girl’s shoulder.
This time it failed to sink in. Nia’s eyes opened slightly in something that could have been shock, surprise or the realization that she left a cup of coffee in the living room and now it was slowly getting cold. Honestly, John couldn’t tell.
“I get it, okay, this fucking helps,” Thana grinned. “You know, I didn’t like you because I didn’t understand your powers, and I hate shit I don’t get. Like feelings and love and that,” she made a helpless gesture, “whole social cock-sucking stuff. But you just cut magic. So all I need to do is have more magic than you can neutralize. I can do that...” Thana fell silent, her smile slowly dropping. “Huh, but I still think you are an unsympathetic bitch. Maybe cause you look like fucking cold turkey when you have the opportunity to feel but never use it? Fucking feel something, you dumb bitch!”
Nia’s face stayed vacant. “I do,” she slowly said; “I am just not... open about it.”
“Don’t fucking care, I learn to live with you evolutionary stains, so you can learn how to shift your assholish good looking facial features, you porcelain doll... SERIOUSLY HAVE YOU LOOKED AT YOUR SKIN?! IT’S SO FUCKING WHITE AND PURE!! STOP MAKING ME JEALOUS!”
Thana continued to grumble curses as she stomped away and over to John.
“Give me something to think about, please?!” she half begged and half commanded.
“Thank you and I will try?” Nia said behind them.
Thana just flipped her off, then dragged John into the house.