Arc 3 Start/Grinding.

A Monday in August, the one following Travolta’s funeral and John’s promotion to Guild Master, and once again he was hanging out in the forest with his girlfriend. After spending the past two days hanging around and celebrating being alive through copious amounts of sex and video games. Sacrilegious as it was to say it, but even that got boring after two days, especially for Rave who liked the kick of brawling.

John had his hand raised to the sky and kept using Create and Escape I.D. as quickly as he could, which was not that fast. Still quick enough to get the skill ticking up though. “So how long are you going to this?” Rave asked. “Until I push beyond this weird ‘Gap’ and we can challenge something that actually gives EXP.” John explained and the world shattered around them only for a new wall to be put up in its place.

“And how long is that supposed to be?” Rave was apparently bored out of her mind. “I dunno, Gaia is a bit flimsy.” John had an idea, “How about you try patting Copernicus while I keep doing this, huh?” “Ya know he won’t come out if he doesn’t feel like it. Also, if he walks around Gaia will make me trip on the road and die. He is made of light.” “Point taken.” The world shattered over and over while they kept talking.

“Have ya spent the newest points yet?” Rave asked just to keep some form of conversation going. “No, I will once I get this done though.” John knew that it was stupid, but he felt slightly bad about spending the points he got through killing Travolta. What he found much more distressing however was the fact that even got EXP for killing somebody. That was all kinds of fucked up.

“Gaia is not a particularly nice being, is she?” “Hell, to the no.” Rave laughed, “She is a natural law more than an entity. Without her, the Abyss would run over the day-to-day society.” “Undoubtedly.” John used his free hand to scratch the back of his head, suddenly froze in the motion and lowered his hand again. He was still trying to get rid of that habit.

“What about Aclysia’s points?” Rave asked and pointed at the Artificial Guardian with her head. He let Aclysia answer that one, “Master has not yet spent the points my ‘level-ups’ have granted me.” The living figurine explained.

“Whyyyyy thoooooooo?” Rave drew out the sentence as a lamentation of boredom. “Because I am not sure whether to increase her strength or her Intellect. Aclysia you have trouble with your long-term memory, right?” “This is correct, master. Things older than one week get hazier as times go by, I don’t forget completely, however.” “Sounds normal to me, I can’t remember what I ate a week ago.” Rave chimed in. “Yeah but you can remember the more interesting parts of each day, can’t you?” John put out the question, “Aaah, so she forgets stuff without differentiating between what is important or unimportant, gotchya.” “If I may, Master, I’d prefer if you raised my Intellect first.” Aclysia stated.

John was surprised, that must be the first time Aclysia voiced her preference regarding herself. “If that is okay with you, Master.” She hastily added. “Of course! Okay, so the next goal with you is getting you to 25 Intellect, shouldn’t be hard all things considered.” John happily agreed. If there were any good drops, it should pull Aclysia up to his level and thus give her the remaining four of the needed fourteen points. Which reminded him of the hate he had for odd 1 floating around on her character screen. John was no perfectionist by any means, but that was just offensive.

Now that was interesting on numerous levels. First of: Time-Dilation was a new one. He looked up what he could do with that. The answer was: Not too much. Currently, his maximum dilation was 5% apparently, and interestingly he could only slow down time, not speed it up. Still, that meant 3 More Minutes per hour. Little things add up. He informed Rave about the new state of affairs. “Bullshit.” Was her answer, “That is Fateweaver Stuff. Okay, 5% isn’t that great, the higher guys are said to make time almost freeze. Still knowing your bullshit ability, you will get there over time.”

She probably wasn’t wrong. “We will see, anyway let’s look what the Monster Spawn List says now.”

“Interesting. So we can either go into a Dungeon with Floors or Waves. Floors usually are better for farming items in a relaxed fashion because they allow you to take breaks while Waves are better for hardcore grinding while you fight endless assaults.” “John, my man, my nerd, my boyfriend.” Rave laughed, “I play games too, why are you telling me this?” John blushed a bit before clearing his throat, “Just making sure. So I think we should try the Floor first.” “Sounds good, what’s on the menu?” “Skaven.”

Rave raised an eyebrow and waited for further explanation. “What? I thought you also played video games.” John teased, “You should know this.” “It’s probably one of those Warhammer things, isn’t it?” “Ding Ding.” John acted like he hit a small gong, “100 points. Skaven is a race of underground dwelling rat-man that try to get their greedy little hands on Warpstone and….” “Rat-people.” Rave interrupted in an annoyed tone, “Got it.”

John sighed, “Okay before we go there I should probably spend those points.”

Ten points would go into Wisdom. That was his goal: Wisdom 100. If that didn’t fix his mana problem, he would concentrate on getting Intellect to 100 as well and see where that got him. If it did, he would start pushing his other Stats. Particularly Endurance and Agility could need some work, with Aclysia around he didn’t have much use for Strength but dodging and actually living through stuff was important. He was way too much of a glass cannon. ‘I should try pushing that Endurance Achievement I got some time in the future.’ He thought as he raised his Wisdom to 100.

Oh, holy mother of everything WHAT?! John quickly added the 1% to Wisdom, and that put his total Mana Regeneration at 81 per Minute.

He clicked yes, and now it was a much smaller number that made him feel less grand but still holy hell. “You look like God himself showed his face to ya.” Rave was puzzled, “What did that button pushing give ya?” “Well, I just more than quadrupled my Mana Regeneration.” John realised the absurdity of it as he said, “Apparently Stats at 100 also make similar stats better.” He quickly broke down what the windows had said. “Yeah, still bullshit. I guess that means your Mana Problem is taken care of for now?” “Well…. I can use Mana Ray once per Minute, so I suppose that is good enough for now.” John said a bit hesitatingly. He would only be truly happy if he could throw skills around without overthinking about his Mana but this would have to suffice for now. Besides he should probably increase Intellect next to see what the 75 and 100 Synergistic Bonuses would be. Well, if he wanted mana that was.

“Okay, next goal is Endurance 25!” He decided, and Efficiency Upgrade in his Health Pool should make him sturdier and afterwards he would start jogging or something to get ‘The Muscle of the Operation’ up. With that, he would take care of his currently meagre Health Pool.

He, therefore, put the remaining 5 points into Endurance. Making his overall Stat-Screen look like this.

“Okay, I am ready, how about you?” “Way ahead of ya!” “I will follow, Master.” ‘I am here, John.’ With the agreement of all parties, safe Copernicus who probably didn’t care, John opened his first actual Dungeon.