"Yes, Creator."

Eating the damn scale took three hours. Three fucking hours. Yes, it made sense. Honestly, the first bite took the longest because Aclysia had trouble actually gnawing a piece of the thing. Afterwards she could reinforce her teeth with the Dragonscale and that sped up the process slightly. Slightly being the operative word.

Gaia withheld the windows from John until Aclysia was done eating. He got a total of eight windows. Five of which were the boring.

Windows, he already was used to, although the sheer number was impressive. Even more so when looking at the next window he got.

“Man, I just lost experience, this sucks!” John lamented as he closed that window. “Whaddaya mean?” Rave asked as she sat under a tree. “Aclysia can’t go over my level and the Dragonscale would have given her even more level-ups than the five she already got.” “Not like you could have gotten a quick few levels while she ate.” Rave mused, “So why worry about it?” “Just frustrating in a min-max kind of way.” John mumbled and looked at the last two windows.

Okay, the Attribute Bonus was the easiest choice in the world. Those where some high fucking bonuses, there was no way anybody with a brain would pass them up. He also noted the ‘currently’ in that text. Could Aclysia stack bonuses later on? If yes what was the requirement? He would have to find that out eventually.

The attribute thing was a bit more complex. He looked at the list of Attributes Gaia gave him.

Okay, actually the choice wasn’t that hard. Clearly ‘Strong Mana’ was the one he was least interested in for Aclysia, although he had no clear idea what Ironhide and Inner Fire he could make an educated guess that one gave her some kind of fire attribute while the other was a physical defensive buff. Fire Immunity and Elemental Resistance were just plan good.

What John find interesting as well as disturbing was the fact that he could remove Learning Spirit. What would happen if he did? Would Aclysia get stuck at her current level of learning or just forget everything and become a mindless puppet, unable to do anything but what he ordered? Well, he didn’t want to find out so he removed Strong Mana and was done with that business.

Mostly. There were still one or two things to address. First of Aclysia was currently three metres tall. She grew to max height to eat the scale more efficiently (after asking for permission) and grew even taller while eating the scale. She stopped at three metres though so that was either her current or her absolute max eight. Either way John didn’t like the pain in his neck he got from looking up so he told her, “Can you go to normal size again?” and quickly had her standing at the preferred height.

“Thanks.” “You…are welcome?” Aclysia responded with uncertainty. John smiled at her progress, well time to address the other issue in the room: He needed to spend all the points he had right now, which included 10 Points for himself, 1 Skill Evolution Point and 25 Points for Aclysia.

He decided to start with himself. Evidently Possession needed more attention in levelling if he wanted to use it on enchanted items or wring the control from someone else. First and foremost, he needed more MP/Sec for that endeavour, which seemed to stay the trend for now.

‘I can’t reach the 75 Wisdom with my points.’ He sighed to himself. Another Efficiency boost was likely to take care of his problems, as it stood though that would have to wait for his next hunting trip. He diligently put all 10 points into Wisdom. That put his MP Regeneration at 12,5 per minute, which would allow him to keep Gnome (Incorporeal), Possession and Aclysia running all the time but crippled his regeneration down to 0,5 which meant that he would burn through his Mana Pool when he actually used Gnome. Still he could constantly level Possession now that so he used the spell on a piece of Rave’s bra that was peeking out at the wide neckline.

“Ya know I can feel that, right?” Rave asked as his instincts got the better of him and he started massaging her small breasts. “Part of the goal.” John smirked at his girlfriend. “Well, ya better watch out mister, if ya get my engines running again this might be the day where we have sex four times.” “Wait, you are already planning for two more?” “I have a high maintenance.” Rave crossed her arms and smiled. “Mhm, I am not complaining.” He said and returned to his window.

Time to use that Skill Evolution Point. He clicked on it and looked at the available choices. Possession was available again, so that was something to think about, Sneaking still had no use in his arsenal, Mana Power Attack was definitely a candidate as he could very well do with some individual fire power. Of the two new skills he had acquired since the last time, Artificial Spirit and Gnome, only the latter one was a candidate for evolution, although the + next to Earth El. Summoning was silver instead of gold. Curious to what that meant he clicked on the question mark in his menu and then on the skill.

Interesting. He searched for the knowledge of the Skillbook in his brain to find a reason for this. He remembered a passage of the book that was fitting: ‘To increase the strength of an elemental the Summoner and the Summoned Spirit must develop a high amount of trust and be a attuned to each other. While the strengthening of an elemental can be **** it usually results in crippled elementals that may never reach their full potential or, arguably worse, tainted elementals that start to rebel against their summoners and are keen to go berserk. The traditional path is advised.’

Clearly stated that pretty much meant that he needed more levels in the Summoning Skill before he used a SEP on it. That was fine, he would get another one sooner or later so he shouldn’t rush things if he didn’t need to. The decision came down to Possession or Mana Power Attack. Unlike last time he knew partly what he had to expect and he knew the remaining two choices of Possession already (If they hadn’t gotten shuffled or a new one got added) and he wanted neither Body Swap nor Control.

Mana Power Attack on the other hand was his own attack skill. Sure he could squash enemies with Gnome but he eventually ran out of Mana doing it. While Mana Power Attack had proven fairly useless against quicker and more durable opponents it was his best choice of attack. He clicked on the Plus and waited for the window.

Okay, those were some interesting choices. If he understood these three skills correctly Option 1 would make him a middle-ranged mage that supported with suppression fire, Option 2 would turn him into the mage equivalent of a Sniper and Option 3 would support a similar fighting style to Rave’s where he got up close and unloaded a devastating close quarters attack.

He pretty much immediately crossed out Option 3. Sure, it sounded awesome but at this point changing to be a more of a melee when he already had Aclysia as a Tank and Rave as a Melee Damage Dealer was pretty redundant. No, he felt good at the backline.

He could cast ten Mana Bolts for the price of one Mana Ray, so that shit must do a fuck-load of damage to be worth it. Not to mention that Mana Ray was described as precise, meaning that he could be much more certain that he would actually hit. Mana Bolt was a shower of quick attacks which may or may not be a hindrance to friends who were currently engaging the enemy he had his eye on. All in all the longer he thought of it the more he warmed up to Mana Ray, so he pushed Accept and was done with it.

“Rave, I just got an upgrade of Mana Power Attack!” He proudly exclaimed. “Is it any good?” “It better be it costs 5 times as much MP.” John said and pointed his hand at the tree Rave had tested the Sword of Glory on earlier. He activated the skill and just like with Mana Power Attack energy gathered in his hand…for three whole seconds. “Man, this takes lo – OH HOLY SHIT!” Rave shouted out when a blue laser like attack broke from John’s hand and hit the tree with enough **** to rip open the wound Rave had left to a huge hole. Blue bolts of lightning jumped over the splittered and malformed innards of the tree, which was slowly bending forwards as it collapsed under its own weight.

“That is…pretty impressive.” Rave said as she looked at the broken stump, “And you can use that how many times in a row?” “Currently six, but I need about four minutes to regenerate without any passive spenders and about nine with my usual two. I really need more MP Regeneration. I guess my next goal is to reach 75 Wisdom or 100 if I still need more.” John explained the whole process. “Now I have one more thing to take care off.” He looked at Aclysia.

“How to spend those points…?” He mumbled. He really wanted to increase her Wisdom so that she would be able to understand more stuff in the future. She also either was confused again or had been ever since they had left the Arcade, which only furthered his decision to raise the Stat despite his priority list and he would raise it all the way up to 25.

“Aclysia, you might feel weird in a second.” He warned despite not knowing if that would help in any way before pressing on Wisdom fifteen times in rapid succession.

The effect was immediate. Aclysia’s expression went over several stages. Fear, wonder, understanding, satisfaction, sadness before finally arriving at a vacant despair. “W-what…” She looked at her hands like she was seeing them for the first time. She probably was, John thought to himself, after all before this she probably just thought of them as normal appendages. “Creator…John…No, wait, just Creator, what is this?” “Well, I raised your Wisdom to 25, in my experience 25 is the threshold for a lot of stuff in this system.” John tried to explain in a calm tone. The guardians fingers trembled as she understood the weight of her existence. “I am your Creation. I always knew that. Why does it only occur to me now?” She asked herself and after a few more second of staring at her hands calmed down to a mumble. “Why am I speaking my thoughts without expecting an answer.., No so this is…Creator is this sentience?” She questioned him a tone more reminiscent of her usual passiveness, although with a shiver of uncertainty in her voice.

“If you can ask that kind of question I guess so.” John shrugged, “although I thought you were pretty sentient three minutes ago as well.” “I need time to think about this.” Aclysia said, “Think about…everything.” She hesitated for a moment, looking at the ground then back at John, “Can I make a request, Creator?” “Sure.” “Can you not put me into your inventory on the way back?”

That was actually exactly what he expected to hear. Still he hesitated for a moment, Aclysia was one of the, like, two secrets that he still had from the rest of the Abyss. The second he stepped out of here with her that cat was out of the bag. Aclysia mistook his silence for denial. “Please. I recognize now what that feeling is that I have in that place. It is loneliness. I don’t ever want to feel it again.” She pleaded and grabbed his hand. He was surprised to find that it was warm, just like a human. The insecure glint in her eyes, the way her fingers pressed down on his, how they shook. John had just stumbled right into a moral dilemma and he was bent on giving, what he felt, to be the correct way. Damned be the Abyss, they could know every detail of his life he would not imprison this artificial spirit, this almost human like being, in his inventory for his own gains. “Yes, you can stay out of the inventory.” John said.

“I hate to ruin this moment.” Rave said from the side-lines. “but you need to fix her dress in that case.” John looked down on Aclysia, her dress was torn asunder at multiple points where the lashes of the Treants had hit her. He had taken that price in order for the safe progression of the group but now his eyes got teary as he thought about the money this had costed him. Ironically it made the cosplay more authentic as it revealed vast amounts of her pale skin, especially the subtle curve of underboob a particularly nice tear in the dress revealed. Oh dear, there his dick went hard again.

“Why is this piece of fabric a problem?” Aclysia asked Race with her head tilted in confusion. Well, at least some things didn’t change even with her gaining the human range of emotions. “Well, normal people might take offense to somebody running around in your outfit already. Having it torn and revealing skin is going to get us a lot of attention. We don’t want attention.” “Isn’t your pink hair also outstanding?” “First off, yes, second off thank you.” “You are welcome?” Aclysia looked more confused than at the start of the conversation.

“Anyway.” John stepped in. “We are in quite a pickle right now. I can’t use Craft on enchanted items so I can’t fix that.” Both Rave and himself thought about that problem, “We could just run using several Illusion Barriers.” Rave suggested. “You could do that, and Aclysia probably as well, but I would take at least an hour. It works but that is the final solution.” John returned “Linking your lack of some proper muscles to the **** of millions of people now?” Rave teased, “You know I didn’t mean it like that.” “Do I?” “If I might suggest something.” Aclysia said. “If it is just the appearance that matter I could just consume the dress and shape my exterior layer like it.”

John blinked at her a few times. “You can do that?” He always had assumed that she could only reform around her original figurine body but if she could change her skin making a dress actually wasn’t that far-fetched. Aclysia nodded. “Yes, I should be able to make such a minor adjustment to my original form.” “How far can you distance yourself from that original form?” John asked, “Not much. I might change the form of my exterior but I am not able to grow a third leg for example. An extrusion is possible at best.” “But that dress is possible?” “Barely.”

John wondered which, if any, of the stats would allow her to shapeshift more. Whatever, he wasn’t finding out by hanging out in this forest any longer. “Do that then…oh I will have to buy a bus ticket for you on the way back.” He realized as Aclysia started munching on the costly acquirement.