Chapter 1088 – Final Grind of the Year Finale – Forging ahead


    The pleasant thing about difficulty curves was that tapping into a new segment of the game usually came with a grace period. For example, after a flight mechanic was unlocked, the first usage of it usually came in the form of flying a course with a small amount of obstacles, while the jump and run passage that preceded it was already of notable difficulty.


    Similarly, the first level of Silver Arcanist, albeit harder than the first level of the original Arcanist Class, took a lot less time than the final Unfound Class Challenge he had just gotten through. ‘It was more fun though,’ John thought and carefully positioned his fingers. To his right was a stone wall, erected by Gnome, above him was the Mandala Sphere, around the corner was an empty tin can on a pedestal.


    John activated Arcana Ray with both index fingers. The two angled lasers fused at the corner and cut around it. Not at a 90 degrees turn, that was impossible to do at the distance involved, but enough to hit the can and slice it in two. John deactivated the spell. The window confirming he had dealt with the Class Challenge popped up a moment later.


    As he opened up the Silver Arcanist Class, Lee stepped up to him. She was uncharacteristically slow and insecure in her steps. This was not an aftermath of the earlier spanking, although it doubtlessly would have left her lying on her stomach for a couple hours had it not been for Undine’s healing magic. Instead, it was a pair of vibrators, sitting comfortably inside both of her holes. The set came with panties that were magically more absorbent, preventing any excess love juices from staining the tight, grey jeans she was wearing. Her top was a simple black shirt with the simplified Fusion logo at the front. John had put some of them into the closet as a joke. Lee found them comfortable enough to wear. It covered her with the mixture of curve-accentuation and looseness that tailored t-shirts tended to have.


    What she clearly found less comfortable was her current situation. “Is this really a good idea?” she asked, glancing over to the tower where the majority of her close family was hanging out.


    “If you don’t like this, you should head back inside,” John advised her. Via the remote in his pocket, he disabled the vibrators. Lee walked the rest of the way freer, and hugged his side. Conspiratorially, as if her family could somehow hear them across the over a hundred metres, he whispered, “We’re just experimenting. No need to force yourself.”


    “It is really hot though,” Lee responded just as quietly. She softly bit her lower lip and looked up at him. The demand was clear.


    “You’re such a gorgeous little freak,” the Gamer hummed and bowed down to kiss her. “So, what do you like about this?” He turned the vibrators back at half the previous intensity.


    “That you can embarrass me whenever you want, weirdly enough?” Lee sounded not quite sure about this. That was entirely normal for someone exploring their kinks. “It just feels so good to give you control.”


    John could not pass up that opportunity. “Alright, go make me a sandwich, woman!”


    “Sexually, ya cunt.” Lee softly hit him on the shoulder. “If you want a sandwich, make it a bet during our next gaming session.”


    “You sure I can’t convince you to make me a sandwich?” The Gamer hugged her a bit tighter.


    “No,” she responded. “Second point: outdoor orgasms feel way better for some reason.” She got on her toes to wrap her arms around his neck. “That’s your fault. My first time was too exciting.”


    “Is today too exciting?” John wondered. They had been experimenting a lot today. There was a lot of sexual satisfaction to catch up on after the Court Dust aftermath. That had just happened to coincide with both of them having time and Lee’s endurance getting high enough.


    “I don’t think so.” Lee gave him a quick smooch before attempting to step back. John only let her after giving her a kiss of his own. “Alright, I think it’s just that I don’t want my parents watching when we do it. Hella awkward. Otherwise, I’m game for this.”


    “That’s respectable,” John nodded, then raised his hand to shoo her off. “I’ll play with you later, needy gamer girl, I have work to do.”


    “Oy, you’ll pay for that!” she responded. Before he could have the last word, she turned around. Her dark brown, almost black, hair flew and then bounced when she walked away at a quick stride. She stumbled when John suddenly increased the intensity up to the previous level. A lewd gaze over her shoulder later, she was back in the apartment.


    With the distraction gone, John could finally got his first level in Silver Arcanist.


    ‘That’s an interesting selection... although I don’t know how Elevation of Mind is supposed to even compete here. Improvements down the Perk line?’ John stroked his chin and then shrugged. ‘Whether that’s true or not, it’s not good enough to ignore two scaling increases. Let’s see... Elevation of Intellect is the obvious safe choice. How does Elevation of Wisdom fare mathematically? It costs me 0,016 mana regeneration per Intellect per second and gives me 0,036 per Wisdom in return. I would gain about 60 MP per second right now. Alternatively, I’d gain about 2000 Max Mana. Yeah, I think the choice is obvious.”


    John tapped Elevation of Wisdom. Sacrificing the base regeneration wasn’t a big deal, if it put him so far ahead of his current Sustain Costs. He went from a mere 28 MP per second excess to a respectable 70. His constant struggle to get enough mana to cast himself while keeping his elementals active was helped considerably by this.


    ‘Onto the second level of Starforger,’ he thought and opened that Class.


    If John were still an independent actor without the money or influence to buy the services of Fateweavers, all three of these choices would have been very interesting to him. As it stood, none of these three were particularly pressing. Rarely did he ever create Illusion Barriers that lasted more than a single Assault session, about four hours long. Basically, because he wasn’t in need of creating bases, all of these base-directed utilities were fairly useless to him.


    ‘Well, I do have the Create I.D. Overclock to do my own grinds every once in... a year,’ he thought. ‘That’s the only useful application of those Perks, and out of those three, Networking would be the best.’


    ‘At least Gaia makes it easy for me,’ John thought as he looked at the choices. Eclipse was alright. The Opportunity Cost made it awful, who knew when John would max out the Class he had gotten the first level in that day. Akkadian Metalworking was worth the consideration, but not the immediate priority. Ultimately, he would need it to reshape Astrotium, which, according to all sources he had found, only Enki and Prometheus had been able to do. The Basic Starkiln worked well enough. He would have to get 53 Room Slots to build it, but that wasn’t going to be an issue. The upgrade to Tier 5 for the Guild Hall was practically around the corner.


    So he picked the Basic Starkiln and called it there for the day, leaving him with one more to get some Classes done.


    To get level 4 in Starforger, he was required to reach level 2 in Disciple. That was a Class he had never thought he would have to interact with. It existed in synergy with the mechanic with which gods could infuse a part of their power in John, giving him their Blessing and a fair amount of experience. While the usefulness of those Blessings could not be denied, they rubbed John the wrong way. He didn’t like getting power gifted to him. It rubbed against his pride. That aside, with the power difference between him and gods steadily shrinking, it was less useful now.


    ‘But I want Starforger levels,’ John resigned himself and worked on the first Challenge: to be heard when praying.


    Prayer in the Abyss was an odd thing. Obviously, certain gods were real, and if they weren’t those known from mythology, then there were at least those that embodied certain aspects. Prayers sent a wave of Faith from a person directly to the affected god. Should the person praying be lucky, the god might listen and decide to engage with what was being said. Most gods didn’t and John could respect that. It must have been like a famous celebrity trying to answer all of their fan mail, without any way to escape that mail. Better to just ignore all of it.


    Luckily, he had a way to bypass that. “Nathalia, goddess of volcanoes,” he said, kneeling in front of her, “I pray for a blowjob by you, flaming, gorgeous redhead.”


    “I will oblige,” the dragoness said and grabbed him by the shoulder. A moment later, he was aggressively tossed onto the couch and put into a 69 position.


    He could generally cheese the requirements thanks to the presence of the Flame of Destruction. The only drawback of that approach was that Nathalia was insatiable and every time he needed her for a Challenge, it ended in fairly lengthy sexual engagements that delayed his progress. Regardless, he managed to get the required two levels, just in time for their final ‘night’ in the time dilation.


    Two were trash and one John would have taken even if the other two were good. Prayer was a gamble and John didn’t like gambles in his powerset. Faith Bolt might have been a serviceable Skill at the time he had been meant to take the first level in the Class, but nowadays he had much better alternatives and felt no need to add another one.


    Select Few added an additional lifeline for Nathalia. As unlikely as her death was, it wasn’t a zero chance, and anything that made her respawn more likely was perfectly serviceable in John’s eyes. Of course, she hadn’t actually pledged herself as Fusion’s Patron Goddess yet. Sometime during the eternity they would spend together, he was going to convince her.


    Those three choices were all incredibly potent. The Blessing of Nathalia was out, as it provided the least useful of the three as far as John was concerned. Yes, an extra 20% Fire Resistance was incredibly potent and free Stats were nice, but neither were as good utility wise as the other two offered options.


    ‘I want to take both,’ he whined mentally. Obviously, a defence against enemy Observe-esque spells had been something he wanted for a while. The sheer amount of wealth the Observatory could bring to Fusion was absurd, however. John had the advantage that he was taking over North America. Had his realm been Germany or another European country, the Observatory would have been less tempting. With a continent-spanning realm, not to mention one so barely explored through organized effort, there had to be a fair number of untapped meteorites lying about.


    The paranoia was fighting against the greed inside John. Ultimately, the paranoia won. It was just too good to have the guarantee that nobody was spying on him. He needed that, for peace of mind.


    He took Akkadian Metalworking there, just to have it for the future. It was unlikely he would go down the route any further, he wasn’t a crafter, but at least he now had the potential to reshape Astrotium if he needed to. From there on out, he would concentrate on the Arcane Stars.


    And that was the end of that, highly successful, grinding session.