The menu in front of him exuded a strange glow. It was an optical illusion, created by the ever-consistent colour of the magically created screen in a windowless and poorly lit room. A single lightbulb hung from the ceiling, as naked as the concrete walls were. It was the first asset that had come up when he had opened the room editor for his Palace, in the lighting sub-category, and he had placed it in the chamber without thinking much about it.


    It was one of the many, many rooms of the Palace that lay behind the walls of the long corridors, sealed to prevent accumulation of dust and to not confuse any guests or drunken inhabitants. John knew for certain that he, if inebriated enough, would not mind that he found an empty square instead of his apartment. When the world swirled, a hard floor was sometimes better than a soft bed.


    Only when John had purpose for these rooms, did he bother unsealing one of them and started to decorate. For proper decoration, he had no time today. All the time-wasters he afforded himself were of the lewd variety. Regardless, he had wanted to start this new segment of his home. Partly to have a quiet corner to work, partly for security reasons.


    What he wanted to create in this room was a gathering of bodies for Creator Puppet. While the Strength and Agility of the Gamer’s third body was tied to his Intellect and Wisdom respectively, the Endurance and specialized defences were brought about by the material the body was made from. Due to a previous lack of alternatives, John had stuck to simple rock when making his Creator Puppet.


    Inside his Guild Hall, that was a different story.


    John scrolled through what had been stored in the Guild Bank. Tons upon metric tons of variants of stone, stockpiles of various metals, ranging from a few grams to yet more tons, crystals and gems of all elemental affinities, wood of every rarity grade, there was practically everything he could have asked for. The only limitations John had were time, his creativity, and what could fit into a frame copying his own proportions. Had he been a normal man, he would have also been limited by how well his brain could absorb and retain the Attributes of all of these materials. Erudite as he was, he already knew the basics of all but the newest of them, and the advanced details of most.


    Alone in the room, John’s lips moved, silently formulating the calculations going through his head. Every material had a density. A variety of them, due to the funky effects of magic on how solid matter behaved, could be expanded or shrunk, to various effects. John was using all of his brainpower to get through various volume calculations, combining, adding, subtracting, and dividing the space occupied by individual materials in search of the perfect body to face Arkeidos with.


    The Emperor of the Iron Domain had many ways of attacking. All six elements were at his disposal, as was necromantic magic and sheer physical brutality. Of the common types of magic, only martial arts and arcane seemed to be outside his range of ability.


    Blunt force was a fundamental issue with every enemy and John found the best way to ward against that was to give his Creator Puppet a core of Spongewood, a peculiar kind of tree that turned soft when hit and quickly assumed its natural shape again. That core was fantastic at absorbing kinetic energy. It needed to be layered in something that made sure the energy was dispersed on impact and to protect it from the elements.


    Flexibility was largely provided by the animating magic of the Skill. Some, however, had to come from the materials themselves. In their initial stages, John’s Artificial Spirits may have looked soft, but they had needed silicone to match the appearances. This was similar. Although the body could move as if alive, careless construction would leave the surface brittle.


    The surface of the wooden ‘skeleton’ was covered in Slimelime. These pale blue gemstones were usually ground to dust and turned into an alchemic binding agent that not only adhered two elements but meshed them together at the surface like felted wool. The limitations to it were that it only bound what was of organic origin to what was of inorganic origin and that the inorganic material had to be majorly filled with water energy. That worked just fine for John, who enveloped the entire body in a layer of Undinium, a particular blend of shadow and water metals that the Gamer had claimed as a discovery of Fusion. It was, essentially, the poor man’s Poseidury. It was not as malleable and nowhere near as powerful. What it offered in flexibility was enough to John’s end.


    After a core that could absorb shock well and a middle layer that could help distribute that shock, it was time to figure out an outer layer that could defend against it. The primary problem there was to have the outer layer bind to the middle layer, so that it all would stick and not crumble off like a layer of chocolate on a balloon at the first impact. The hardness, and with it the rigidity, of the materials had to be increased in layers and the layers had to be thick enough to mean something.


    As an intermediary between the middle and outer layer, John used Fallbrass. This metal, coloured like the autumn leaves, contained traces of all elements, with earth being the most dominant. It blended well enough with Undinium and could be fused with a great array of rocks and other silicates. As the penultimate layer, John used a mixture of Spectlights and Blackrocks. The former were dull-white, translucent crystals that absorbed elemental energies, radiating them back out as light over some time. Blackrocks had an outright resistance to all forms of energy, including necromantic, but were extremely hard. By placing those rocks between frames of the, funnily enough more flexible, crystal, John got a mixture that could deal well with elemental energies.


    Finally, the outermost layer was completely covered in Elementium. The golden metal had the greatest average elemental resistance, except maybe for Astrotium, and had roughly the same hardness as the blend used directly underneath it. Because of the way John had placed the chunks of Blackrock, the final result looked like a gold-coated mannequin in the shape of a toned young man, as John was. It wasn’t (just) a testament to vanity. The Skill was cast on puppets that had John’s dimensions, and by using every last bulge of his frame, he could cram in a little more plating.


    Still, the final result only had his measurements. Had the two of them stood side by side and struck the same pose, the resemblance would have been clear. Without that, its face was empty, its form nothing but gold, its ‘muscles’ just a practical imitation, and many unimportant details, like toes, missing.


    ‘A growing hodgepodge of a list too long to rattle it down right now. You’ll see when you have the strategy briefing tomorrow. Concentrate on your tasks.’ With that, Momo shut down communications from her end.


    John was tempted to overpower her resistances or turn to any one else, but he knew she was right. There was enough for him to think about when it came to getting the Class Challenges done, without also drafting battle plans using the resources he did or did not have at his disposal.


    It took him the entire day to get through the Class Challenges, for various reasons. Much of it was simply due to the grindy nature of the tasks presented. Regardless, he got through and eventually was presented with the eighth selection.


    Even if it hadn’t been for his current interest in immediate power gain, AS Efficiency would have been out. Looked at in regards to decades, it was probably the most powerful of the three. Three more regular Perks could have been more powerful than a specialized one, but it was just less fun.


    Between Monster Girl Evolution and Metracana Rise, the decision was difficult. Obviously the enrichment of Astrotium was an incredible boon, and if those unique Attributes were anything like Metra’s duelling capabilities, then that was incredible. On the other hand, the Monster Girl Evolution was the culmination of previous Perks, which likely made it more powerful.


    John had no way of knowing which of those two was the greater immediate power gain. Soberly looking at Metracana Rise guaranteed only one thing: the Astrotium enrichment would not come alongside any of the power gains. It was an ‘either or’ situation. When taking Astrotium out of the equation, the only thing that remained was the theme of the power boost. As much as discarding the potential for Astrotium hurt, he would have to do it if he wanted to maximize his chances at victory.


    And so he picked Monster Girl Evolution.


    The first set of choices was already incredible. Regenerating armour on top of Aclysia’s already high defences and regeneration paired with a ramping debuff aura was the unignorable combo every tank begged for. Flight was the gold standard of movement, particularly magical flight. The ‘mostly’ made John think that she couldn’t hover and turn freely the same way Momo could, but even without that, flight was incredibly powerful. The breath attack and cold winds were just a neat bonus to the mobility. Claws of Black Ice were ludicrous in their own way, adding an effect that was, effectively, both damage over time and crowd control on hit.


    All three were so good that John actually struggled to make a decision. For Aclysia’s combat role, Glacial Exoskeleton seemed to be the greatest. Yet, Claws of Black Ice had the advantage that its effect was conditional only on one solid hit, not that the enemy stayed out of Aclysia’s range. There was a question as to how difficult it was to remove the shards, just like there was a question of how quickly the aura ramped up and what exactly the range was. Even while he debated which one of the two was better for a tank, the obvious advantages of flight kept creeping up in his mind.


    In the end, he went with the Glacial Exoskeleton option. It felt like it would aid her the most against Arkeidos. On closer inspection, the Black Ice was likely to be most useful in a 1 on 1 situation. Aclysia found herself in those occasionally, but it was not her main purpose. In group fights, the Black Ice was unlikely to achieve much or it could even serve as an accidental layer of defence for the enemy. Flight was still incredible. John just had hopes that wings were the one thing out of this selection that could show up later.


    The choice here was a lot easier. Lady of Thunder and Energy Spires did not have the necessary oomph to compete with flight. Especially when that flight came with an omnidirectional dash. Beatrice was already a speed demon and that would only further boost that reputation.


    ‘Can Gaia stop trying to turn me into a horrible monstrosity?’ Momo complained. She was the first of the three that had something to say about her Perk selection.


    ‘She’s not giving you any physical changes, isn’t that good?’ John asked, although he knew exactly what she meant. Under the Surface and Terrifying both had ‘creepy crawlies’ vibes.


    Her choice was therefore unsurprising. ‘Make me Bewitching.’


    ‘As you wish,’ the Gamer responded and pressed the button. All three were alright to him. Probably because her fairy aspects were as vague as everything else about the fae was, the bonuses were less definitive than what the dragon maids got. That being said, as little as John liked mind control, using it on his enemies in combat was one application he was entirely fine with.


    Only one of those three allowed her to take at least one of Arkeidos’ bodies on her own.