Chapter 639 – Gamer grinds again 10 – The boss could be easy…

Chapter 639 – Gamer grinds again 10 – The boss could be easy...

‘Easy choice, Physical Double and done,’ John thought. The rest was good, but that left thing was exactly what he wanted going forwards. Activating it, the Mandala Sphere warped into the copy of him in a matter of three seconds. Unlike before, the outside was no longer a shifting mass of blue and purple, but now had the proper colour of John’s clothes and the tanned, light brown of his skin. It all still looked a little bit translucent, with the plates of the Mandala Sphere visible under the surface if he really tried to find them. Regardless, it was progress in the right direction.

And, as Gaia had promised, his dick was there. It was hanging limply, but John was pretty happy that he didn’t get an erection while staring at a mirror, essentially. He was a bit of an egomaniac, that was undeniable, but there had to be a limit to everything.

Anyway, it was there, it was a bit see-through and John couldn’t test right now whether he actually felt things that secondary cock felt like it was a sexual organ. ‘I kind of hope yes, but that begs the question whether it will also hurt terribly when someone kicks me in the secondary balls... wait, I am immune to basic physical pain, that wouldn’t even bother me, no need to worry about it. Wonder if it shoots like arcane jizz though?’

Things to test after he had beaten the boss. After all, he had said he wouldn’t have sex in any way until that was done.

One might think that the first day would have been the worst. That would be wrong. The first half of the first day of his announcement, he was still riding out the previous night. For the rest of the day, his motivation was still high. It was the second day on which John was seriously tempted. Going to sleep between his girls, waking up cuddled by naked bodies, taking a cold shower only to see Salamander flying around in nothing but her flaming underwear.

Also, Beatrice seemed to find it funny to tease him. Her actual manners or ways of speaking never indicated anything, but she seemed to spend a lot of her time around him fixing the positions of flowerpots or other things low to the ground. Every time, she bowed by keeping her legs straight and folding down by the hips, making her fantastic ass stand out like the piece of art it was.

Nothing was outside of her usual modus operandi, but John could just feel that she enjoyed teasing him, and he was a bit happy about that. Beatrice showing she enjoyed anything she did of her own volition was good. However, he would have been thankful if it hadn’t been built on his misery.

He could have caved at any point, of course, but since he had said it out loud, he now had to go through with it. Just to prove it to himself. None of the girls would hold it against him. Some of them would use it as the punchline for jokes, but that was expected between friends and lovers. Only John’s own pride held him to his word.

The third day was also quite bad, but not as much. By the fourth, he had himself under control. It was an interesting feeling. He was no less horny and his eyes were drawn to boobs and butts and sultry lips at all times, but he just felt a certain clarity. It was like passing that point when being hungry, where the body just accepted it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, so it went and suppressed the feeling for the moment. Being sated would have been much nicer though, so John didn’t suddenly turn into some sort of sage.

He was nicely distracted running numerous dungeons though. Arena, Floor and Assault, he mixed and mingled those while Magoi and Magnus worked on figuring things out. It built him a nice backlog of loot that he could feed to the Artificial Spirits, got him a total of 4 more levels, getting him to 199, and his money stacked up high again.

As for the extra 28 Stat Points, he put them into Strength and Agility. For now, he decided to get all Physical Stats up to 125. It was an arbitrary number, but he felt that going for 250, the next threshold for a bonus, would have been a bit much for a short-term goalpost.

There were 9 days left, when Magoi and Magnus finally had everything adjusted. Apparently, they had gotten done a day earlier but double and then triple checked everything. Given what was at stake, John wouldn’t have it any other way. They just had to close and recreate the barrier with that new Fateweaving in place.

“In old times, Fateweaving had to be tuned to the individuals within a barrier, rather than just sapient beings in general,” Magoi explained how it worked. “The quickest way to find their soul pattern in there is to look for things that had parts of yours, because you’re connected and all that. The same can be said about the elementals, so we decided to simply do that as well, while we were at it. The drawback is that only the people in the barrier right now are covered though.”

The boss was nowhere to be seen. Given the general likeness to Onyxia’s Lair that this Raid had, John had expected the boss to be a large black dragon lying sleeping. The boss arena looked a lot like the World of Warcraft equivalent as well. However, there was no enemy to be seen. The only thing that John spotted that was odd was a throne at the far end of the room, standing on a platform across the lava moat.

As the group stepped further towards the central stone platform, the segments of the pathway disappeared one by one, sunk under the lava. “Can you raise them back up?” John asked Gnome, not expecting a good answer.

Only very slowly, she nodded. “Yes... but the earth here is hard and seeped with magic. It would take a lot of strength to control anything.” That was about what he had predicted to happen in terms of balance. Gnome’s magic being reduced in strength was expected. At least her physical power had increased to compensate slightly, apparently that was the bonus a soil elemental got from being in a volcano landscape.

Gnome wasn’t the only one suffering from the environment. Himself, he was properly glistening with sweat now. The air was surprisingly humid, making it stick to him in all kinds of gross fashions, even though he hadn’t even really run yet. Undine was in her glove form, sticking to his hand, and he could still feel her discomfort radiating from her surface thoughts. Sylph and the Artificial Spirits seemed fine, however, and Salamander was unsurprisingly happy in this environment.

“And there you finally are, my dear guests,” a female voice suddenly greeted them with a mocking, courtly tone that only self-entitled aristocrats and great actors could produce. Although the voice came from nowhere and anywhere, John’s and everyone else’s attention immediately turned to the throne. It was still a good four-hundred metres away, so the figure that now sat down on the red-tinged stone seat wasn’t all that easy to make out.

Sylph was ready to make her way over, but John held her back with a mental command. ‘Let me,’ he told her and the Mandala Sphere began flying. Unlike through Sylph, Observe could be cast through Possessions, so sending it out there was going to give them more information, even if it would take longer.

“I must say, I have enjoyed my existence, as unceremoniously as it started, I would be rather sad to see it end now,” the woman’s voice continued to speak for everyone to hear. The group kept a look around, John adjusted his stance, lowering his centre of gravity to have a better reaction time. His feet almost got stuck in one amongst the myriad of tiny cracks that covered the ground.

“Are you saying you have been here this entire time since I created the Raid?” John asked in a moderate tone. Whether he shouted or not, the lady could either magically hear him or not.

“Certainly. I guess I should thank you for that rather than kill you, but I yearn for the world outside. Ah, such a base desire I indulge in, but alas, the only way for me to become an entity to leave this place is to kill you and take your life force. Such is the covenant Gaia establishes with us creatures your Instant Dungeons create.”

“So, I’ve heard, whether or not I believe it,” John answered and only got a moderate chuckle in response. The Mandala Sphere was now close enough that he could see her quite clearly. She was intensely beautiful, a woman with black hair, long, elegant limbs, in a dress of red satin. However, her eyes were entirely filled with a glowing orange, a simple, slit pupil of black in the middle. When she smiled, she revealed shark-like teeth, triangle shaped things unfit to eat anything but fresh meat ripped from bones.

He was really happy he had made the Fateweaving preparations.

“What you believe or not, what is true or not, I don’t really care,” Presta announced, clapping her hands together. The earth began to vibrate softly. “This is the only path to reality I know, so I will take what I must.”

The cracks in the floor radiated the colour of molten rock.