Booting Up

John’s alarm woke him up, and immediately he jumped out of bed, as awake as if he had just run a marathon. Apparently, Gamer’s Body completely removed the need for sleep, but he still could sleep, it just wasn’t required. That is going to be super useful for grinding once I’m powerful enough to do it without worrying about dying every time.

He went into the shower, and masturbated to the memory of yesterday, remembering Jenny’s suggestion that they’d finish what they started, today. He came quicker than ever before, an impressive feat, and came all over the shower wall, pretty much exactly where he had yesterday. He decided to clean himself thoroughly, if he had any chance of getting with a girl, he wanted to be as clean as possible when he did it.

Stepping out of the shower, he noticed his thorough hygiene had earned him a temporary buff.

Squeaky Clean: +1 Charisma, 0:29:59

That wasn’t going to matter, since he wouldn’t even be on the bus for another twenty minutes, but it was nice to know that something so minor could still give buffs. He put on a fresh uniform, and for the first time in a while, thought he didn’t look bad in the mirror. A mixture of new confidence and his temporary buff no doubt.

The moment he finished getting dressed, he got a popup for a daily quest.

Daily Quest: Unsightly to Dapper

Improve your Relationship Score by at least +10 with ten people today! (Each set of people past ten will add to the rewards)

Rewards: +1 Charisma, Uncommon Enchanted Item

Consequences of Failure: You don’t become more charming. Loser.

[Accept]/[Decline]

He hit accept, as that seemed easy enough. Hopefully he could discover some sort of skill that would affect Charisma. Getting an idea, he figured he may as well spend his mana before eating breakfast, as the buff from eating would make him regenerate faster.

He cast Augment Body on his face, improving the overall symmetry of it and moving it closer to the “Golden Mean” he had read about. He thought about putting the points he had gotten yesterday into Charisma to help with the quest, but figured that would be counterproductive, as the rewards for completing it were more Charisma.

Walking downstairs, he could smell bacon frying, and he saw his mom making breakfast in a white apron and a light yellow morning dress. He sat down at the table, glad she seemed to not notice him sneak out or in.

“Hey sweetie, you look so handsome this morning! What did you do last night? Tell me all about it!” she said as she slid bacon and eggs onto his plate. He poured both of them orange juice which he retrieved from the fridge before replying.

“A girl invited me out to a club, and afterwards we took a walk,” there was pretty much no lie in that statement, so he said it with confidence. Though she was expecting something good, her face lit up at that news.

“That’s great! Is she your girlfriend? How long have you known her? Are you two going out again soon?” She gushed, and he tried to avoid questions as he quickly ate his food and washed his plate off. The shower had taken him far longer than he thought anyway, so he had an excuse for rushing out of the house, other than not wanting to answer her questions.

“Not yet, a few days, and yes, today. I’ll be home late today,” he replied to the questions in order as he moved to the door, making sure to pick up his bag. He opened the door and looked back at his mom, “Love you Mom, I’ll see you later.”

“Don’t stay out too late! Love you too!” she called after him as he ran out toward the bus stop, casting Augment Body again to make his face more appealing once more.

Augment Body Level 2, 45 mp: Reinforce permanently by 6% the part of the body targeted. Limit of 6% x (skill lvl+1)

He also noticed the quest had ticked up, meaning he had improved his score with his mom by at least ten points. That’s a good start.

There was a new girl at the bus stop today, she was short, probably just over five feet if he estimated correctly, with brown hair and eyes to match. Her figure was the definition of slender, with boobs that just barely showed through the jean jacket she was wearing. She was pretty hot, and though he had self-control, he was glad he had jacked off in the shower.

He cast Spy on her as he approached her with a confident smile.

Amy Tensung

Beast Tamer, Level 10

Promising adolescent beast tamer of a long thinned out royal bloodline. Generally upbeat despite a harsh life, and tries to keep on the good side of everyone.

Relationship Score: +4

“Oh hello! I’ m John Newman, I don’t think we’ve met.” he said with what he hoped was a charming grin. He offered his hand and unlike yesterday, felt completely normal shaking hers.

“I’m Amy!” she beamed, and the quest ticked up once more as she continued, “nice to meet somebody else from the Abyss so early on!”

He had to keep in his explosive response, and instead just barely managed to calmly get out, “What is the Abyss?”

A panicked, surprised look briefly crossed her face before she babbled, “Oh, nothing! Nevermind, pay me no mind! Crossed wires in the morning you know. And uh-”

He chuckled at her misunderstanding before replying “No, I mean, I have powers too, I just don’t know what Abyss means. People just keep saying that.”

A relieved look replaced the panicked one, and her babbling became sensical as she replied, “Oh, that’s just what people call everything that has to do with the supernatural. If you see somebody with powers, they’re part of the Abyss. You’re new then?”

The thought to lie crossed his mind, but if he didn’t know something that simple, she’d probably see right through it. From her description it seemed unlikely that she’d use that information against him anyway. “Guess I can’t make it seem otherwise, can I? Yeah, I got all my abilities yesterday.”

Another surprised look crossed her face, and he smiled inwardly at how cute that made her look. The way her brow creased for just a moment, and the childlike expression of shock on her face. “What!? That’s crazy! It’s practically unheard of to get abilities at our age if you don’t have any already! Most of the people beyond small children who get supernatural abilities are the people who train years to get them. They just appeared for you?” he was about to answer, but the bus arrived, and she said “I’ve got more questions, will you sit next to me on the bus? I don’t know anybody yet.”

That was the first time somebody had asked him to sit next to them, and he laughed as he replied, “Of course! I might have to hold off on the answers though, because I don’t have most of those myself.”

She giggled as she stepped on the bus, and his quest ticked up several times as people saw him climb onto the bus with a cute girl holding his hand.

Murmurs ran through the passengers, but neither Vanessa nor Frank commented, which was unexpected. As he sat down in the seat behind them with Amy, he heard why.

“Daddy won’t give me any more money so I only have $500 to last the week! And you lost your toy! I can’t believe you lost it. You’re never getting out. Never. You people are so difficult.” Vanessa whined as John snickered to himself, as he guessed the context, before tuning out the rest of the conversation.

“So you’re a mage then?” Amy asked beside him, and he thought about it for a few seconds.

“I don’t think so. I have a couple spells right now, but the only spells that have appealed to me have been utility spells. I’ve been using guns to fight and that’s been going pretty well, so I think I’ll stick with that.” John responded, as he pulled up his stat sheet. He had planned to use the bus ride to input the points leveling up and quests have gotten him.

“My powers are based off of video games, so I’m inputting my stats right now,” he said as he wondered what to improve. He knew he was going to get each stat to ten, but beyond that he had no idea.

“That’s so cool! Father doesn’t let me play video games very often, but I always liked them!” Amy replied as a popup appeared in front of John.

Invite Amy Tensung to your party?

[Accept]/[Decline]

That was almost too convenient. “I guess I can show you. I just got a notification that’ll let me invite you to a party.”

“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds cool!” She replied as the popup appeared in front of her. “Wow, you can just make these things appear? That’s even cooler!” She hit accept, and he noticed that her name, health bar, and mana bar were added to his peripheral.

Achievement Unlocked: Sociable

Successfully create a party of more than one person.

• You may now see the health and mana of non-boss entities by using Observe (or its variants)

“So I leveled up twice yesterday, and now I get to spend my stat points. I normally get five per level apparently, but a quest got me one extra.” He explained as he brought all his stats up to at least ten, leaving him with six points and a popup.

Achievement Unlocked: Well-Balanced

Through training, achievements, or stat point allocation, upgrade all your stats to ten or higher!

• Bonus rewards for upgrading each stat to 25, 50, and 100
• A job well done :)

Achievement Unlocked: Knowledgeable

Know a lot of stuff. Or have an Intellect of 25 or greater. Both work.

• Efficiency of Intellect increases, you now get twice as many mp per point (retroactively)
• From now on, stat increases to Intellect will have a substantially lower effect on your IQ

Amy chimed in from beside him, “That’s so amazing! I’m so jealous! What are you going to put your other stat points in?”

John thought about it for a moment before going into a long-winded explanation, “Good question. I think I can skip Strength and Endurance for now because I don’t have any plans to be a melee fighter. Skip Libido because it doesn’t help me at all. I have a quest active that will give me better Charisma if I complete it, so that’s out too. That leaves Wisdom, Intellect, and Agility. My Intellect is already pretty high, so I’ll put off raising that for a while. Agility is good because I think it helps my with my coordination. Wisdom is good because it helps my mana regeneration, and I need that very badly right now, because I hardly regenerate anything.”

“I’d go with Agility! That ‘quest’ you just got would give you a bonus for raising it to twenty-five, that’s what your closest to other than Libido, right? You can upgrade Wisdom after the Agility bonus, Agility seems more useful in day to day life anyway .” Amy thought aloud, and John thought that was pretty solid reasoning. He also expected to level up at least one more time when he went out with Jenny later. So, he put six points into Agility, and watched it tick up to twenty one.

Immediately, he felt as though his general reflexes and vision improved. Not vastly, but enough to make a difference. Looking out the window, he noticed that the city’s landscape seemed clearer. He could pick out more individual details, like the lines between bricks on a building as the bus passed it by.

Yeah, if I’m going to be a sharpshooter, I’m definitely going to need to improve my Agility. I wonder how much better my vision can get.

He was snapped out of his thoughts by a popup, which Amy read quietly in disbelief. John could hardly believe it either. This day just keeps getting better and better.

Hotfix 1.02:You have officially reached level five (thanks for taking so long to spend the points… you were really testing my patience there)

• Perk System added. You receive one perk point every (100/Intellect, rounded up) levels (to a minimum of 1)
• One perk point added

Bringing up his character sheet, he noticed that there were a bunch of grayed out perks, and a few which were a bright black. Those were clearly the eligible ones. The four he had the requirements for were:

Ambidextrous: You do every task with both hands as if they were the dominant hand. *Does not give the mental capacity to write with both hands at once

John of All Trades: You have equal skill at any task. Removes drawbacks from your natural disposition, but advantages as well

Lady Killer: Social interactions with females gain +10% to relationship score and suffer 10% less damage. Females gain 10% more sexual pleasure from any stimulation involving you.

Seducer of Men: Social interactions with males gain +10% to relationship score and suffer 10% less damage. Males gain 10% more sexual pleasure from any stimulation involving you (excluding yourself).

Well that last one was immediately out, as he had absolutely no intention of having sex with men, and it was otherwise a waste of a point. From what he understood, he only got these every four levels, so they had to count. The same could be said about the second one. It would be nice to be average at everything, but he didn’t want to lose any talents he had. He showed the list to Amy and told her as much, who blushed upon reading the last two options.

“They all have their good sides, but I’d say the third one is the best for that quest you have. The only other one is ambidextrous, and that isn’t particularly important right now anyway, is it?” She asked as he clicked Lady Killer.

“I guess you’re right. Are you sure you don’t want me to get that one for the second half of it?” He teased, something he would never even consider doing to a cute girl two days ago.

“Well- I-” she stammered, and he laughed before she punched him in the arm, “quiet you.” He still chuckled to himself, and she giggled as well, unable to resist joining in.

The shower buff and his confidence ran out as the bus stopped in front of the school, and John walked off with Amy as he headed toward his first class of the day, the quest ticking up several more times as he walked out of the bus with a cute girl still holding his hand, pulling him along.