Looking Forward

The moment John was outside of the mansion’s door , something barrelled into him, throwing him off to the side and blowing the air out of his lungs. Landing on his back, something green, white and yellow was standing on his chest, happily licking his face. He couldn’t stay mad at the little dragon-wolf hybrid, he was obviously just excited. Picking him up by the neck, John got confirmation for the thought he had this morning.

Thorn actually had gotten bigger and heavier in the span of the last 24 hours. He was a lot heavier than yesterday, still light enough to be picked up but noticeably heavier. So the little guy would soon not be so ‘little’ anymore probably… John would have to think about accomodations then…

Speaking of accomodations, he should really either invest into some beds or make them with the Mana Well… not just that but some more electricity and some sewage system or something would be nice… His thoughts were interrupted when a boot set down next to his head and a blonde Valkyrie’s face came into his field of vision.

“Having fun down there?” Brun asked with a wide grin.

John nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders, “Could be better.”

Brun’s grin only got bigger, as if she was expecting an answer like that, “Well I can help with that.” She immediately sat down on his face, crotch-first onto his mouth. The action shocked John, but quickly regaining his wits, he started to softly suck on the jeans between her legs, distracting her from his actual plan.

It seemingly worked, as she ground her lower body into his face, “Oh yeah, boy, I’ll be interested to see what you learned in the last couple of days.” She was clearly enjoying this, which only made this next part oh so much sweeter.

With a little help of his Magic Rope, John tied a tough knot around her hands, hoisting her into the air with her hands above her head, pulling the rope to the branch of the tree above them. Her moans and squirming made it clear that she liked this, very much.

Gently putting Thorn on the ground beside him, he rose to his feet, looking into Brun’s eyes, whose head was about half a meter above his thanks to her elevated position. Her face was flushed red, and her look was wild. Quickly pulling on the world-changing abilities of the Nexus, he elevated the ground on which he stood so that he was on eye-level with her. Taking her face into his hands, he softly growled, “You want to know what I learned in the last couple of days? I can show you everything. Do you want me to?”

Her mouth slightly agape, her tongue hanging out a bit, she slowly nodded. Her body tried to find some kind of hold on him, trying to pull him onto her, grinding against her, but he simply kept enough distance so that she couldn’t do anything.

Moving his head closer to her ear, he whispered, “Then wait till tomorrow.” And with that, he simply dropped her back down on the ground, lowered his own platform back into the even ground, and turned to the stunned witnesses of the scene, “Did you enjoy that show?”

Astrid’s mouth was hanging open, her face visibly devoid of any concentration. Judging from the color of her face, she was probably imagining this exact situation with her being in the role of Brun. Aloy on the other hand was crimson red and tried to look away, covering as much of her face as she could. She was obviously reminded of the similar situation she had been in just a couple of hours ago. None of them, however, said anything, making John laugh loudly as he kneeled down to scratch Thorn behind the ears. He had no idea how much fun it was to tease the girls, and they didn’t seem to mind it that much either.

Before he could say anything else, he was once again knocked from his feet, this time pinned to the ground at his hands by the Valkyrie. She had a hungry look on her face. “I don’t like being teased like that. Especially this heavily. That’s evil, and you’ll pay for that. You’ll pay for that in kind. Understood?”

Without breaking eye contact, he shrugged his shoulders as best as he could, “I was planning on doing so anyway. Remember, we do have a thing tomorrow?”

The blonde on top of him simply bent down and crashed her lips onto his. After unlocking their lips again, she said, “Oh, I do remember, and I’ll milk that evening as much as I can.” As she emphasized the word ‘milk’, she pushed her body down on his erection, sending a shiver through John’s body before letting go.

’This woman will be my end at some point’

Slowly getting up from his position on the ground once again, he decided to simply stay seated on the soft grass, enjoying the texture under his body. The other girls joined him on the ground, each trying to get close to him in their own way. Aloy and Astrid put themselves against his sides, leaning on him in a relaxed yet slightly sensual manner, while Brun simply plopped her head down on his crotch, looking up at him with a grin.

“So, I wanted to ask this since we’ve been outside here: how much can you change this place, and what are you planning on doing with this place?”

The first question was easily answered. “From what I know so far, I can change pretty much everything. I can expand this island as much as I want, and I can add as many magical machines as I feel like in here; the only things stopping me are time, mana, and imagination. This place is basically my own sandbox that I can actually live in. If I were to shut myself off from the world, I could live here until I either die or go crazy. I can make food, clean water wouldn’t be a problem, I can easily make some kind of sewage system probably; I could be autonomous in here.”

The second question was a bit more difficult though. He had thought about that one himself for a while now. This place was, as he just said, basically a blank space, something he could shape however he wanted it to… but shape it into what? “And for the second question, honestly, I don’t know yet. My first step will be to make this place liveable, for my little friends here and myself, and maybe experiment with all the stuff I can do here. But other than that, no idea. But then again, do I even need to have a plan? I’ve just got a job yesterday, I’m barely acclimated to the Abyss, so why should I decide what to do with this place if I have no idea what I will have to expect?”

Brun slowly nodded her head to that, “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Why rush anything when you can literally do anything in here when you want to? But, I guess what my question really was, can we have a say in what is going on in here?”

He immediately nodded to that, “Sure, you got the keycards, you can come in here any time you want, so you should feel comfortable here as well. I’m not sure how much you can change here, but I could certainly do those things for you. Any wishes right now?”

Astrid took the word after that, “Actually, I have something that I would like from you in here… I want to become stronger, I want to be able to defend myself. I don’t want to worry my parents by training in our backyard, so could I train in here? Could you build me some kind of training area?”

The blonde valkyrie in his lap was obviously surprised by that suggestion but said, “That actually pretty much sounds like what I wanted to ask of you right now. I want some place where I can train in peace and somewhere where I can maybe bash your face in once in a while.”

That suggestion reminded him that he wanted to do something like that this morning anyway to train Thorn and Gary. He was kind of surprised that that kind of wish came from Astrid though, “Are you sure it won’t be a problem with her?” The young girl shook her head with determination. He wasn’t quite sure about that, but she would probably have a reason to be this sure about that. Maybe the training she had with that Order representative had already been successful?

Not really wanting to get up from his comfortable position between three lovely ladies, John simply thought about the Construction menu that held the Training Field this morning.

Construction

Current Mana: 1559 MP

Mana Well Level: 2

Available Constructs (filtered)

Training Field, 200 MP, 3 MP/h while active. Generate a dome of protective magic around a specific place where no physical damage will be taken during combat. Various modes for training purposes can be selected in a menu.

Training Dummy, 160 MP, 2 MP/h while active, only constructible on Training Field. Automated sparring partner that can be set to specific levels. Dummy will be humanoid shaped by default but can be created in different forms. Training with the dummy will yield XP for creatures and Skill EXP for you. Authorized humans can activate the Dummy.

Training Weapon Stash, 128 MP, 1 MP/h while active, only constructible on Training Field. Create any weapon the user desires out of the stash. The weapons will only work inside the Training Field. Training Dummies can also use these weapons, arming themselves. Authorized humans can use the Stash as well.

Yeah, he would probably invest in all three of those; they all made sense. Seeing as how he still couldn’t get up and didn’t want to, John used his Transreceptive Eye to get a view of the world from above, making it look a bit like a map editor from some strategy game.

Looking over the island and at the projected size of the Training Field, he would have to increase the size of the island to make space. Thinking about creating a new patch of land on the eastern side of the ground, he could see the stone and rocks bulge out exactly where he just thought about adding ground. The ground spread silently and slowly, flowing like molten rock that immediately hardened once it had traveled to where it was supposed to be. Once the hard stone had formed in the way that John wanted it to, softer dirt and grass crept over the barren stone, giving the new part of the island life.

Island Expansion Successful!
Mana Cost: 250 MP

So if he actually wanted to expand the island, then it would cost him, good to know.

With that out of the way, John concentrated on the Training Field again, creating it on the new patch of land that was pretty much the perfect size for the field.

To the right of the group, a bright light indicated the creation of the field to the girls, who quickly got up to look at what was happening. Meanwhile, John added a humanoid Training Dummy and a Weapon Stash to the field before joining up with the girls.

Looking over the Training Field, John felt kind of cheated. It was nothing more than a round circle of polished stone with a bench on one end and a chest standing next to it. On the other side of the field was a metallic construct that could be vaguely described as being humanoid. It had two legs and two arms, but there were no distinct feet or hands.

All in all, it looked pretty boring… But, John had learned to never just trust the look of something to judge it. Thinking about ‘changing’ something about the Training Field opened a new window.

Turn on Training Field? (Y/N)

Ah, so this was its off-state, made sense that it would be this unassuming during that.

Hitting the Yes button immediately gave life to the field. A translucent, slightly blue Barrier erected itself around it, and the dummy seemingly came to life. Other than that, nothing happened though.

So he once again tried to open some kind of settings menu.

Training Field
Settings

Terrain: Default
Gravity: x1.0
Mode: 3 Strikes
Dummy Mode: Unarmed, No Magic, Lv.5

Okay, so he could configure the Terrain and the Dummy through that menu, neat. Looking at Astrid, he asked, “Well, wanna try it out now? Want to fight against the dummy or someone else?”

Pondering a moment, the younger Gjoskenholm then nodded her head, “I’d like to try it with the dummy, I’m curious to see what it can do.”

Nodding, he gestured towards the Training Stash, “In that case, grab a weapon from the chest; if I read that description correctly, you should be able to find any kind of weapon you can think about in there. It’ll only work on the field, though. I’ll set up the field in the meantime.”

The Terrain settings were really expansive; he could almost do anything with the terrain from arctic icefield to a hellscape of molten rock and bones. For now, he decided to simply let the terrain be, but added waist-high walls to the edges of the field, so that the onlookers had something to sit on.

John decided to up the dummy to a higher level, making it Level 10, but kept the other modes the same. He didn’t want to throw too much at Astrid for now.

Astrid was seemingly done with her selection, as she returned to the ring with a simple short sword. Her face showed that she didn’t really feel confident about her choice.

“Do you have any training with such a weapon?” he asked the question before he realized that she was basically conscious for about three days now… maybe the clan had her train with some kind of weapon when she was younger?

Shaking her head, she denied his assumption, “Some basic combat, but nothing that would put me towards any specific weapon… I was hoping for you to have some kind of stockpile of weapons like this so that I can try a lot of them out… I want to be able to defend myself. I want to be useful.”

Understanding that sentiment, John activated the Test Dummy to start their fight.

The dummy instantly sprang to action, leaping towards Astrid, who could only squeak and bring up the sword to defend. The automaton assaulted her with unrelenting strikes, that John could visualize being able to easily dodge them and retaliate with a counter strike, but Astrid and her inexperience in fights were obviously not able to do that.

The whole fight lasted maybe a minute or so with the blonde not getting a single strike in before receiving the third hit on her body, a hammering fist to her dome. The dummy immediately stopped and returned to its original position.

Astrid sat on the ground, rubbing the sore spot on her head while pouting. John probably had set the dummy too high with Level 10. “Sorry, I didn’t expect it to go this hard…”

“It’s okay, it just shows me how much I need to learn to be somewhat proficient,” said Astrid from her point on the ground.

“Also, you should probably take another weapon. That sword doesn’t fit you at all,” chimed in Brun from the side.

John had to agree with that sentiment. Astrid’s whole stance didn't just scream insecurity but also discomfort, as if her body actually resisted to fight with that weapon…

“Okay, new plan: I'll lower the power of the dummy, you think of another weapon you want to test, and we'll try to find something that fits you. Sound good?”

The blonde's face lit up on that suggestion, her whole body becoming a bit more energized. “That sounds great! Is that okay with both of you as well?” That last question was directed towards Aloy and Brunhilde.

Aloy shrugged her shoulders, “I don't mind. I think I will use the time to inspect the little spider a bit more. I want to see how it differs from the machines of the world I come from.”

“Please don't harm him though. His creator would kill me if I'd willingly let him be dissected…“

Brun meanwhile eagerly nodded to her sister’s question, “Sure, I'll gladly help you! It's my duty as your by now big sister!”

The younger girl beamed at the proclamation of her former twin sister and ran back to the stash.

John took that moment to change the level of the dummy back to five. He would probably take the time to split his attention to the training efforts and use the time to advance his Craft.

Not only would he finish that damn quest now, he would also finish the second optional quest!