Just another day in Ashcroft.

The false reality was thankfully gone by the time Miss Summers, still with a bit of salad dressing on the corners of her mouth, rounded the corner to peer into the supply room. John stood there, all but sandwiched into the corner between easels and a rack of acryllic paint squeeze tubes. He was without an excuse for being here, much less for however long she had been. John looked about for an excuse, and found none that impressed. "I-I was... just meditating," he confessed, "and I didn't realize someone else would be... I mean, was here."

"I checked the supply room before sitting down to eat," she said slowly, looking all around the room. Sure enough, there was really no place for a human body to hide itself. John swallowed hard. "I can't have just missed you... especially after yesterday."

Yesterday? Yesterday... shit. John stood her up, of course. "About that, I'm... I'm really sorry. I wasn't feeling well, and I didn't want to see you and not be..." John grinned. "... ready to perform."

She let his deflection slide... but was not amused. "I have to wonder how dedicated your performance might be if you can't even keep a tutoring appointment, Mr. Newman." Her RS dropped to +44, the lowest it ever had been and even when given his Charisma boost since then. John stopped smiling, realizing too late to be sincere. "You're just going to have to make it up to me over the weekend, as we planned... and no excuses this time."

John nodded earnestly and said his goodbyes, augmenting her trust in, and lust for, him by 20% apiece before leaving and raising her back up to a more comfortable +64. Wanting to set a reminder to not screw that up, he pulled his phone out of his inventory, stashed there for safety as it was before entering his barrier. Service was restored, and the phone vibrated with new notifications, none of which were from his mother or his recently quasi-abandoned raiding group (a new phenomenon for John).

The first he received was from an unknown number, only a minute after he went to face the goblins: "my butler is going to pick u up in the back in a Caddy, so get in so he brings you 2 my house. Were going to talk about u-no-what. If you talk 2 anyone else, ur dead"

Not hard to guess who that is...

Another unknown number... which then transformed, before his eyes, to someone named Danielle Kislev. A picture of Tricia staring blankly back at him manifested next to the name. More surprised by the reveal than whatever tech-magic gave him a contact, he remembered how he got dragged into her life: he isn't supposed to know her name is Tricia. Danielle... so that's what she's called at school. I forgot to even ask...

Tricia/Danielle: "Good day, Mr. Newman. Please do not be alarmed: your phone is unharmed. I request your consent to perform another battery of tests, this time with no sexual misconduct or sexual experimentation whatsoever. Please confirm. This message is prime-encrypted, such that only the intended reader can perceive it."

John weighed the promise of sexless experimentation against going to a hot bully's mansion to... talk. Could it lead to something more exciting? Which one would help him fill this ring of hunter's delight? He didn't like the idea of trying to play with someone as seemingly benign as Tricia, but his new item's promise made him eager to hit the max bonuses quickly. The choice, then, seemed clear: with Vanessa already inviting him into her home, how much of a leap would it be to fulfill the ring's desire, one way or the other? He replied to Tricia, promising to try and make time for her, and went on to get some kind of real lunch in before he faced off with, among his last teachers, the enigmatic Mrs. Wentworth.

Fifty minutes later...

Civics was, shockingly, normal. John was sitting on edge the moment he saw Mrs. Wentworth again, still wearing her strict outfit from his early encounter, still largely ignoring him as long as he remained attentive in class. Since he couldn't figure her out, John dared a few experiments on himself: first he dumped his waiting stat points into Intelligence, finding himself ever more curious what raising it to 50 might bring. From there he had spent the rest of the period increasing and decreasing his confidence from its normal level, increasing and decreasing his thumb size only to return it to normal, all just to limit his victims in front of her to only himself. She didn't so much as blink. He started to grow accustomed to the sensations, and enjoyed his level-ups.

Biomancy lvl5, passive
Augment body lvl5
Telemancy lvl5, passive
Augment emotion lvl5

Meditating for the third brief period within her class, he was nearly caught unawares when Wentworth sprung on him. "Mr. Newman," she declared, "which layer of our federal government decides your dress code, here in the Academy?"

John blinked at her in a blank stare... but remained sharp enough to realize the trap, easing out of his focus on regeneration as he thought his answer through. "None. The Academy is private, and independent of every government's regulation on all school codes of conduct." She nodded thoughtfully, and continued her lecture.

Achievement unlocked! "Strict Machine"!
Meditate under duress without failing!
Meditate gains a free level.

Meditation lvl3
Meditation: you can now meditate while performing simple tasks. Health regeneration is tripled, and mana regeneration is quadrupled. Meditating moderately increases chance of learning new magical skills.

Happily he continued to meditate through the class, and on reaching full received yet another reward, this one under Biomancy:

New skill: Augment physiology lvl1, 75mp
Augment physiology: change the properties of a living body by targeting how their body works. Increase the desired property by 5% per [skill lvl + 1]. This spell cannot inflict damage.

This looked incredibly potent. Looking about to make sure no one was still looking at him (a few relationship scores ticked up when they perceived him as sharp enough for the teacher's trap), he targeted himself, augmenting his metabolism by 10% and, upon remembering his goal for the afternoon, augmenting his sperm production for a critical 20%. Nothing physical seemed to change on the outside, but the success messages assured him that it was so. Wanting to risk it further, he sacrificed more health so he could also boost something else... and then John realized he really couldn't think of what else he'd want to augment. How dangerous was this? Even his choices so far could prove deadly over time, if Gamer's body didn't somehow shield him... what then could he safely boost? He considered his vision, his senses... and decided to gamble with his sense of taste. If this sucks... man... Still, it was far safer than screwing with his eyes or sense of touch. A message reported success, and another confirmed that he could fix it if he didn't like it, as the skill gained the same "reduce" alternative use as the others. Class was dismissed shortly after, and John was eager to escape.

"I'm impressed with your stamina for magic," Wentworth whispered into his ear, "so I've done you the favor of hiding your childish experiments so far." John nearly leapt from his seat as he looked up... and saw her continuing her final, verbal reminders of assignments due in two days' time. The whisper still remained at his ear, no matter how much he turned his head to and fro. "But my curiosity is satisfied, and I will now withdraw that protection. Consider my class, henceforth, off-limits for magic. This is not an option. Understood?"

Looking straightforward, John looked at her back as she cleaned the blackboard. Quietly, he nodded.

"Good."

After school...

The Cadillac was waiting for him by the back of the school, discreetly parked across the way in a handicap space, as promised. John made no fuss about walking up to the driver's window, tinted illegally dark, and waiting for it to roll down. An older gentleman with light brown eyes manifested as the barrier lowered, and he seemed to smirk at John.

Hubert Jerry Kallister
Level 9 butler
<Hawthorne Estate>
95/95hp
5/5mp
Relationship: +4

"John Newman," he greeted in a rusty voice. "The backdoor is open. Please get in, and watch your step." The man's level and health didn't surprise John... but mana? Most people he had ever met or bothered look at with awareness lacked any mp whatsoever. Did this man have some kind of capacity? It was another reminder that John was still groping in the dark of this awesome new world. What about everything he saw in those enemy descriptions? A bog hag of ropes, with a title more like a queen or a goddess than some other mob... and the elf, with all her nuances and violated norms, of which he still wasn't sure he understood. He checked the status of his summons - both had recovered in his mental temple - but decided it was best to leave it for the night.

The drive to the nice, gated community in which the Hawthornes lived was long enough to let John prepare himself, restoring all of his mana and occasionally spitting out the occasional odd move to practice the ill-used spell on moving one of the goblin coins between his hands. The effort was considerable for so marginal an effect, but his ignoring the spell until now meant the level-up potential had become absurd, even on so passive an exercise.

Move lvl3
Move lvl4

Move lvl5, variable mp
Move: now affects objects or persons of small or smaller size categories. Mana cost to ratio improved significantly.

John reviewed the skill's history and realized that the word "small" wasn't the same capacity as before: instead of buttons (fine) or small animals (diminutive), he could now move anything roughly the size of a child. He wanted to test its claim about mana efficiency, and looked out for an opportunity while recharging. The car stopped at a red light, and he spotted a middle-aged woman in a sundress walking her dog across the Cadillac's path. John noted her features as he weighed using her as his guinea pig: a fake redhead, bereft of make-up and fairly fit. He focused on the dress, which by itself must have qualified: how much to rip it off of her body? The interface reported: 178mp.

Christ, that's hardly efficient... But given his curiosity, and the new scale of the power, he couldn't resist. He cast the spell, expecting a strong skirt flip or the shoulders slipping down and dropping the dress to the floor or something less like his wording... and watched, in shock, at just how literal it had been. The sundress, a lovely sky-blue thing that was airy enough to hide her bra-less state, less lifted and itself off of her and more exploded, ripping roughly into two and fluttering away in opposite directions high above her reach and any hope of recovering them. The dog fled the woman as she tried to cover her sagging breasts, and her fat ass, and her massive bush that peeked out from the front of her panties. The row of cars before her, save for polite Mr. Kallister, honked repeatedly at her as she fled the scene, covering her tits and face as she ran home. That had gone notably farther than John wanted... but he didn't entirely regret it.

Achievement unlocked! "Just to push you down"!
Torment someone with little to no gain or purpose! Your cruelty is showing.
+2 STR
+10% crit chance versus lower-leveled enemies.

John dismissed the pop-up angrily, and tried to deal with the guilty feeling in his chest as he meditated silently for the rest of the ride... or such was what he wanted. "It's rare to see a gentleman your age, these days," the driver chuckled. John flinched, but kept his focus as the man continued. "Lord only knows what happened to that poor woman, but the way everyone just goes on and humiliates her further, I tell ya... it's just nice that you were polite enough to look away. Not many men young as you would do the same."

"I'm... nothing special," John muttered.

"Well, Miss Hawthorne wanted to see you, so you must be something... I'm just glad you seem like a good kid. It'll take you far... heh, though maybe having a butler tell you that isn't the best."

John offered a weak smile to the rear-view mirror, but kept silent. What was he going to do to Vanessa once he got in, and had her alone? Surely she'd try to use him, not realizing how easily he could have her life spiral out of control, all to satisfy his base urges. He rotated the band on his finger as he pondered.