Chapter 1183 – Prep Grinding Finale – Loot, Levels, Class Perks


    John was level 495 now, four levels from the boss and four levels from Experience of Love, for a total of eight during the last seven days.@@@@


    ‘No additional reward selection, guess that’s only after we made our way through the genres,’ John noted, after the victory scream had abated. This had been an exceedingly clean kill, with no deaths aside from Momo who re-entered the Raid. Someone must have dropped her a quick message on the Harem Comms. ‘Four levels are... well, this really wasn’t worth it just for that,’ the Gamer thought and turned his gaze to the chest at the centre of the room.


    It had the same black plastic look as the walls, with neon bars decorating the corners. The lid was decorated with tubes of light, outlining the shape of the Pop Queen. A select few of the lights flickered on and off, creating the image of her raising and lowering her leg.


    “I ain’t touching it, touching it,” Rave declared, then groaned when she realized she had sung along the now removed beat.


    “You’re so easily influenced by music,” John hummed.


    His girlfriend swung her hips left to right in the least happy dance ever. “As if it isn’t stuck in your head.”


    “It’s stuck, but I just get annoyed, you are dancing and singing,” John pointed out and smacked her on the ass. “How is the Restorative Heat?”


    One of the Attributes on Illuminare, Rave’s bodysuit, regenerated both her body and the item at a respectable pace (especially for a human), but in return it gave her a stacking Libido debuff. Said debuff could be disabled, if the user was in grave danger, reducing the regenerative power to a quarter in the process. Between the stomping and the instant death mechanics, that effect had not triggered. Instead, they took care of what stacked up in terms of Restorative Heat between attempts.


    “How about ya say my favourite word and find out?” Rave purred.


    “John?” the Gamer asked, jokingly. “Tiger? Master? Stud? Slut? Good girl?“


    Rave had been shaking her head the entire time and then remarked, “That’s two words.”


    “Oh, well, since I can’t count anyway...” he snapped his fingers. “Jane, do you love my cock?” The answer to that was Rave immediately dropping to her knees in front of him and practically tearing down his pants. The flaccid cock she found underneath was already in the process of growing and quick kisses of her pink, pillowy lips accelerated that process.


    “One minute,” Momo remarked drily. “One minute after combat, and already you have someone sucking you off.”


    “Long Assaults, regular Assaults, short Assaults, what are we talking here, stud?” Salamander asked.


    “Regular Assaults, so about four to five hours two times a day,” the Gamer responded. That was their usual grinding strategy, essentially turning Assaults into a job with a lunchbreak. Such a separation allowed both for a good chunk of experience and to unload stress with the eight hours of ‘required’ sex a day.


    There were no disagreements around. Everyone realized that this was the best path forward. Not only because it would be difficult to get another Raid boss down in seven days, but also because they would have to strain themselves to do so. The entire purpose of this exercise was to be in top form when facing Arkeidos. Being tired from bashing their head against another target would have been counterproductive.


    “I’m getting my two Class Levels with the rest of today,” the Gamer explained, when general agreement had settled on the room. “So, you can try to get the pop music out of your ears. Then we do Assaults.” Everyone nodded, John dumped a load down Eliana’s throat, and then he got to work.


    The Class to focus on was Golemcrafter, for the primary reasons that John was curious and that he needed to get it to level 3 for Starforger. The latter was a convenient excuse to satisfy the former.


    Class Challenges, as was usual for the early Perks of a Class, were easy and relatively quickly done. They were like the quests in starter areas in MMOs, existing to teach the most idiotic or inexperienced members of the player base the mechanics slowly. In the specific case of the Golemcrafter, the first two Class Challenges were to craft a golem with any material and then to give it an order to execute. John had done both beforehand, so all he had to do for the first Class Level was to press confirm.


    Quickshape was out for two reasons. One, John wanted to have a dedicated golem body with him at all times, so he would have no use for this. Two, when he did not have a dedicated golem body, Gnome could already do what the Skill described. In the case where he did not have a dedicated golem body or Gnome around, John assumed his best bet was running away rapidly, rather than create some alternative bodies.


    The question between Sole Dedication and Split Dedication was a difficult one. Fundamentally, it boiled down to what John wanted from the golem. If he mainly wanted to use the Skill to create additional bodies he could use to work through, then Split Dedication was superior. If he wanted to attain proper combat functionality, then Sole Dedication was downright necessary.


    Ultimately, he decided to go with the Sole Dedication Perk. Yes, additional bodies were always useful, but he did not want to sacrifice the physical power behind the entire Skill in order to get one more body. Better to put his eggs in the one basket and make sure that basket was inside an Elementium reinforced tank.


    The second Class Level was acquired through some time-sinking tasks that mainly consisted of giving precise orders to have something achieved.


    The uncontested winner of these three was Mouth of John. It was practically required in order to have the Creator Puppet function as a proper second body. That it had to be created in a separate mode was an annoyance. Doubly so because it couldn’t switch between them. With any luck, that would change down the line.


    With that decision made, John returned to the house and from there everything went according to the simple plan as discussed. They spent six whole days doing Assaults. One five hour Assault netted John just below half a level, so combined with the half level he got from fucking, he got about one and a half levels per day. By the end of the six days, he was level 503 and some extra lewding during the seventh day got him to 504. That allowed him to get one more Class Level in.


    Body Puppet was exactly what he wanted, down to the orgasming aspect, so that was the instantly made decision. The other two options weren’t nearly good enough to compete. John would have loved to give the three-body sex experience its proper opening.


    But with the battle on the horizon, he was not quite in the mood.