Preparations

"What are you smiling about?" Naomie asked him, and John looked up from the appearing messages. He decided to look at them later, now that they no longer tortured him while waiting to be read.

"Just my thoughts. So, how do I activate your power? What do I need to do?" Now it was her turn to smile.

"You make a fist. Harder. Close your hand with all your strength, and then with some more. Don't only use your arm muscles. Use your legs. Your neck. Your entire body. Focus all your energy from your body into the part where you need it. It doesn't really matter where you focus it at, since you will gain strength everywhere at once. The more you focus on it the stronger you become until you finally... CHYA!" She punched in the air, and John stumbled backwards just from the air pressure. Had he really survived a punch like that?

Not the right thing to focus on! He cleared his mind and did as she told him. Closing his eyes, gathering his strength, clenching his fist, collecting energy... and then... pling.

John opened his eyes again to see a new popup. Why was it making a sound again? Fine, he read it.

New skill: Sidekick

Use the energy given to you by the contract, to form a power similar to the hero you got it from.

Note: This skill transforms, depending on the Hero you have an active contract with

Skill transformed: Sidekick

The contract with Naomie gives you:
+2 strength
+2 agility
+1 endurance
As a passive permanent bonus. Activating this skill will grant you a further bonus of:
+25% strength
+25% agility
+15% endurance
Activating this skill takes 5 mp/second.

Note: You can activate this skill multiple times at once. Only the active bonus will be applied again. The bonus is additive. If you use this skill multiple times, the costs per usage get doubled.

John swallowed and relaxed his muscles. "This is insane," was his silent judgement of the new skill. Sure neither did he have the mana nor the strength, agility or endurance to make this skill worth it, but he was still the Gamer. He knew how crazy this bonus was. If he had put all 15 points from earlier today in his physical stats... Wait, no in his mental stats so he gained more mana... But then... Argh, this skill was just too good to give up on, but it didn't fit his build at all.

"What is?" Naomie asked, while reading the skill description. Oh yeah, John almost forgot how his contractors could do that. "Is 5 mp a lot? Cause if it is not, I feel cheated." John laughed.

"I currently have around 70, most of that was a gift from Gaia. I started around 50, but I never really tried to go for much mana." It seemed little enough for her to be pleased.

"What does active contract mean? Can we put the contract on pause? Is this like a dating thing?" John almost choked on his tongue as she asked.

After coughing out half the contents of his throat, a shiver ran down his spine. Sure, he understood why she had done what she did. He forgave her, maybe he was even grateful to a certain limit, but one truth remained: this girl had tortured him. He did not feel good when she flirted with him like that. "No idea, but I got a ton of popups earlier, so maybe there was something on those." He still felt sore, and it didn't help that Naomie stood right next to him now, looking at the screens.

They found what they were looking for on the very first message. The others just gave him updates on the changes on his skills. He made a mental note to read them in detail later.

"Reaching your max rank as a demon master gives you the ability to freeze contracts already formed at will. The content of the contract is irrelevant for this ability." Naomie read out loud what both of them saw.

"A frozen contract will not count towards your limit of 5 contracts. You can re-activate a contract at any time, as long as you currently have 4 or less active contracts. A frozen contract gives you no benefits or bonuses. The potentially lost power of your contractor will not be returned while the contract is frozen." John finished the description and nodded. "Well, I guess we know what active means now," he added but Naomie looked less happy.

"So you can switch our powers on and off like toys, hm?" She asked and raised an eyebrow at him, prompting John to raise his hands in defense.

"I didn't decide what that power gave me. Also I can't just switch between you as you said but only between those who already contracted with me. Also you know that I don't see you as toys or I wouldn't have changed the contracts I had before, would I?" John said, realising a bit too late that it was a mistake.

"You... what?" She looked less friendly by the second.

"Don't freak out, okay? I just offered them a new contract, but I changed it. Like the one we made. They can end it on their own at any time. Also they won't come to harm anymore and don't have to obey me. Trust me, I changed them in their favour." John took a few steps back, trying to get out of reach of the very dangerous young woman.

Instead of yet another beating however, Naomie suddenly turned around and marched off. "I will confirm this and if you lied, I will kill you. See ya later." Sure. Let's have coffee while you throw some more threats. Psychopath. Why was he even considering this woman as a moral coach again? Because she would kill him if he didn't. Right. He would see how long it would stay like that.

John sighed. This was a weird day. First he got briefed on a mission, then assaulted, kicked off the team followed by being **** by the team's secretary, only to end up almost dieing when realising he had fucked up in his base assumption for the last three days. Now that he thought about it, those days were not much less weird. Was this his future? Constant weirdness and situations in which he had no idea how he survived them? He couldn't even say anymore that it was because he had done something bad, because even his apologies almost got him killed.

Or maybe they didn't? Naomie said she confirmed his words. So they must be the right thing? Yeah, that made more sense. Just seeing him change his complete character in mere seconds was nothing she bought of him, so she double checked. It was only logical. Besides that he hadn't changed. Not really. He never was really evil or a bad guy. He merely was under a false assumption. He considered everyone an illusion. He acted as if he were in an erotic RPG. He managed to score the girls, one way or another. Was he evil because of his methods? No, only ignorant at most.

As John entered his room, he had come to a conclusion. Today he had experienced the lowest point in his mind but he would not let it get to him like that again. Yes he made mistakes. Yes he was sorry for them. But he would not hang onto them forever trying to repay for what he thought was the right thing. He knew to consider the feelings of the people around him now and he would, but he would not let them drown himself in it. At the end of the day, the thing that mattered most to John was John, and he wouldn't want it any other way.

Once he came to that conclusion he felt better. With a smile on his face, he went through the new skill descriptions and abilities.

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Okay, first things first. What was it with the colour change, AGAIN. He hadn't said anything earlier with Naomie around, but this was the second change in colours in less than that many hours. At least this one was somewhat readable, but it just looked dirty. Couldn't Gaia just stick with something nice? Well, at least the skill became neat. He basically had the Tardis thingy in his head now. Don't notice it, but you speak everyones language. He wondered what happened if someone came up with a new language. Or what if some creatures talked telepathically, would he learn that, too?

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Clearly a boost, as it now was no longer taking from everyone just to heal him, but could be used as a tool to safe everyone. Also cheaper now. The old one probably would have gotten better with a higher level, but since he never grinded that skill, he was glad he got this one instead.

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This one made him smile. 'The best liar is the man believing in his lies' was apparently just as valid in the abyss. And if he gained 10% per level, then he should better get the habit of convincing others of some bullshit, 'cause once that hit level 10, he would basically walk around with double Charisma. Triple if he was being honest.

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Alright, all the things before this were neat and _'nice to have'_s, but this one took the cake. Sure, the requirements sucked, but fucking immortality! Straight up cannot die! No restrictions. And if he had anything to go by, given the last two items that made him immortal, that didn't mean 'hardly dies' or anything, but straight on real immortality. John's hand was close to shaking as he checked the last pop-up to see what had changed about his main skill.

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He sighed, silently cursing Gaia. Why would she tempt him like this? He just had agreed to himself not to enslave others anymore, and be on a more team related basis with his contractors, and now this! He decided to quickly close the window, before anyone else could see it. There was no need to use this new effect any time soon. Not that he could, given the intense cost it had anyway. But maybe if...