Back in John’s home.

John came home to Aclysia bowing twice as deep as usual. “I am so sorry, Master.” She apologised. He was so confused he postponed getting rid of his shoes for a moment. “What for?” He wondered. Aclysia raised her head and showed an ashamed expression. “The pizza will need two more minutes until it's ready. I was delayed by several factors.” Probably cosplay fans and streetlights. She never crossed those even when there was not a single car around. “Happens.” John decided to not bother with the details and instead put her at ease, “Also two minutes is not bad. I am very thankful that you cook anyway, you know?”

The prompted a wide smile. He was surprised to see such an expression on her face; she usually reserved herself to smaller gestures. “I am happy to be of use. Regarding cooking might I ask a question?” “Of course.” John said and finally slipped out of his shoes. “In a family, one is supposed to cook from what I have read but neither you nor Mistress Rave do. Why is that?” John rolled his shoulders to relax a little, despite Gamers Body keeping him in a somewhat good condition he was still human when it came to it. “Well, aside from the fact that we aren’t exactly a family we do have somebody that cooks.” “Really?” Aclysia looked at him with confusion, now that expression he was used to, “Who? I never met that person.”

John laughed, she was so cute when she was this oblivious. He pointed at her wondering stare. “It’s you. I think I need to check if I raised the correct Stat earlier.” He made a slight joke at her expense, but he was sure she could handle it as he passed her to get his pizza. He expected Aclysia to follow, but instead, he heard another question from behind himself. “Do you mean that I am part of your family, Master?” Was that even up for question? “Yes, of course, you are.” He shouted over his shoulder. A moment later he felt something very happy and heavy hug him from behind.

‘Thank you.’ He received in his thoughts. It was a mental call of gratitude that echoed in his soul and made him smile. ‘You are welcome.’ He thought back, trying to muster even half the honesty she had sent him those words with.

They stood there for maybe twenty seconds. Aclysia’s face pressed against his back John didn’t want to move until his Artificial Guardian calmed down from whatever was going on. She did so when a high-pitched alarm rang from them kitchen. “The pizza!” Aclysia said almost panicked and hurried over.

John followed in a slower pace and arrived just in time to see Aclysia take the pizza out of the oven with her bare hands. He wasn’t particularly alarmed; she was Fire Immune after all so she could do stuff like that with her spatula like hand.

Wait, her spatula like hand? John watched very closely as she hurriedly put the pizza on a plate, after which her hand morphed back into a normal human one. She put the plate on the table and waited for her master to sit down and start eating or to listen to his choice of beverage. “Aclysia, hand.” John said instead and extended his own.

Aclysia put her hand into his without an expression. “Make it flat.” She did, it looked like a spatula again, “Thorny.” A singular very sharp looking needle, “Claws.” Small curvations of Obsidian at the fingertips appeared, they looked dangerous, not as dangerous as Nathalia’s but that was a high standard anyway. “Since when can you do that?” John asked. “Since you raised my Stats earlier, Master.”

Okay, so it was most likely the agility. Interesting. “Is that all you can do?” “No, I have greater control over my body shape as a whole and deviate further from my blueprint,” Aclysia explained. “How much further?” Aclysia kept the claws and grew the dress out another ten centimetres. “About this much further, Master.”

As he had to keep in mind, the changes to her body that covered the black parts of the original that was still not that impressive. It begged the question though how much further she could go if he raised Agility further. Would she become one of these Liquid-Metal Andrioids from Terminator eventually? Because that would be both badass and terrifying. Questions for later.

“I want to try something later,” John said as he finally sat down to eat. “Is it a new position in the bedroom?” Aclysias voice sounded almost hopeful. “Nope, sorry.” John said and added, “We can do that too though.” Between two bites after seeing her slightly downtrodden body language. “No, I want to see what Enchant does to you. The Skill says I can do stuff that way and I want to find out what.”

About twenty minutes later in his room John and Aclysia sat on his bed, opposing each other. “Are you ready?” John asked the Artificial Guardian. “I am always here to fulfil your commands, Master. Therefore, I am ready whenever you are.” Aclysia responded, and so John used Enchant.

Okay, that seemed simple enough. He got 1 AP for every level in Artificial Spirit. The thing operated on the same three choice principle as his Skill Evolution as well. Yep. He could work with that. Tank was the obvious choice here.

Invincibility frame was straight out the window. It cost too much Mana, had very fringe usage and cost a lot of points and with Steelskin already active Sturdy Exterior was not as good. Regenerative Tissue was where it was at.

Now that was interesting. Despite choosing Tank, he did not get a shield specialisation, only weapons. Well, he wasn’t sure if he even wanted a shield specialisation. It wasn’t that useful when Aclysia’s whole body was nearly impeccable. Regenerative Tissue II would have been not all that useful and as he gave her the Sword of Glory most of the time Weapon Specialization was his choice.

Swords. That was easy.

Now, this was very interesting. Blade Dance looked like a pretty good offensive skill, but he wasn’t looking for those right now. Defence Stance, however, was pretty useful if he wanted her to guard him against ranged attacks. He typically had Gnome for that though and also Defensive Teleportation looked really damn good. Sure it also cost 20 AP (He wondered if that translated to Ability Points or Aclysia Points, but anyway) but he had no desire to ever end up without her in a fighting situation again, and this skill would help greatly with that.

There was what he was hoping to see. An Extra Item Consumption Bonus meant that he could get the other Dragonscale Bonus in there for a total of +25% Strength. Even though Adaptive Bladery just screamed Nier; Automata to him and his inner Nerd wanted him to get it the Stats from the Extra Consumption were too good to pass up. John chose the left option and the Dragonscale in the window that followed.

It was a toss-up between Defence Stance and Adaptive Bladery. In the end, the Nerd won over the cautious side of John. With Gnome around, he was safe to most projectiles anyhow. Defence Stance was useful but not useful enough to ignore Cosplay Accuracy.

Well, now it was either Defence Stance or Sword Specialization II. Honestly, of the two he liked the Sword Specialization more, but he got the feeling that he was slowly drifting towards aggressive choices and he didn’t want that. Therefore, Defence Stance it was.

Interesting. Both Sturdy Exterior and Regenerative Tissue had skipped a level now that he had gotten Defence Stance. Speaking of which the second level of that skill was really good. 50% Higher reflexes and a lower mana cost. He took it and was presented with a slightly different window.

Well, that told him two things. One, Aclysia got Bonuses at the same levels as his Stats did give Efficiency upgrades and Two he would need more AP before he could use Enchant on her again. Good to know.

To the choices presented though. They all looked pretty good on a tank, Refined Body was just all around nice, Ultra Rapid Regeneration made for a pretty nasty Regen Tank, and Revanchism could provide some surprise turn arounds. Mechanics like Revanchism had the problem however that Aclysia would need to take in a lot of attacks before it was actually useful. He would much prefer dealing with the enemy quickly than to wait until Revanchism was good. While Ultra-Rapid Regeneration was tremendously good Aclysia’s HP-Regeneration was honestly the least of his worries. While being the most boring bonus, Refined Body looked like the best foundation.

And there was the expected second one. Absolute Protector was insane if he used her like that. Sadly, he didn’t do it all the time. Aclysia more often engaged enemies than she was actually guarding him, that was still more Gnome’s job. He could change his strategy, but he felt like it wasn’t what he was looking for, especially as he would make another elemental contract in a bit.

Sworn to Carry your burdens. Utility. That is what that was. Pure Utility. Which he didn’t need. His inventory was big enough at this point, and while it could have been useful, it didn’t seem particularly needed.

Refined Body II though. John looked up. “You are able to push materials inside your body out again, right?” “Almost all of them, yes.” Aclysia nodded. John raised an eyebrow, “Which can you not remove?” “The Dragonscale and the Shard of Destruction, Master.” Came her answer, leaving John wondering whether that was because of the items immense power or because of the fact that they were her current Item Bonuses.

Whatever may be the case if his idea was right he would be able to feed Aclysia things like rusty metal and get stainless bars out of it. Theoretically. It was worth the experiment and an extra 5% to all Stats wasn't bad either. Yeah, that was the choice he was going with.

And with that, he was finally done. That was a lot of quick decision he had to make there. Well, time to look at Aclysia.

His mouth hung open. “Well, slap me on the kneecap and call me a Nicolas.” He finally managed to mumble, “I just created the philosophers stone.” Yeah, sure the Stat Bonuses that stacked up were also pretty insane, but her main component had just changed from Steel to Titanium. She had taken the Elements in her body and just rearranged them.

“Aclysia….just out of interest can you change the components of your body actively?” She shook her head, “No, it seems to be an automatic process, master.” Aclysia explained. Well, some people had diarrhoea, and others fucked with the periodic table through magic. Why the hell not.