-George Carlin

Nothing seemed to faze the very brash woman about her creation, which was quite a relief for John. John had enjoyed introducing Seras to the Abyss alongside himself, but repeating that a few dozen times would've gotten old, so he was grateful that it didn't seem to be necessary now. Honestly, he wasn't entirely sure which part of his instructions had made her comfortable with magic, but he wasn't going to question it for the moment, especially since he had a much more pressing question on his mind.

Why was she acting this way with a relationship score that high? Why did she even have a relationship score that high? It went against his Purify mechanics…

Well, John knew the obvious answer, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe he had somehow broken his power’s rules and created a massive tsundere. He’d have to continue getting to know her. Until then he simply introduced Lerianna to the camp, showing her their home, their surroundings, and the world in a brief tour. Lerianna seemed shockingly disinterested, right up until John finished showing her the land immediately surrounding the lake and then took her toward their house to show her the interior.

"W-what, you think I'm gonna sleep here?" the long-eared woman scoffed, brushing at one of her arms dismissively. "I can sleep on the grass just fine, thank you! I don't need to share one of your beds."

"You wouldn't be sharing… we actually have an empty bedroom," John said, shaking his head. Though the place was modeled after his home and they didn't have many bedrooms, one had very recently become vacant.

"I mean, I guess if you're gonna be all sad about it, fine! I'll take the damn bed, but if you try anything, I'll kick you into next week!"

John shook himself out of his thoughts, glancing over toward the woman. She stood with a hand on her hip, one ear half-bent forward and an annoyed look on her face. All the same she sounded almost eager, and a slight blush colored her cheeks…

"So, you've got pretty strong legs, then? You seemed interested in fighting, I take it you're pretty good at kicks."

"Only the best! Way better than any of you," the woman bragged, turning just slightly and flexing one of her legs. "I can run, jump, and kick so hard it'll leave the earth shaking!"

"I'm sure you can," John said with a chuckle. "But let's save that for later. I'll let you get settled in for now while we finish our training. No need to rush you to fighting just yet-"

"No way!" the woman exclaimed, seeming more shocked than actually offended. "Like I'm gonna let you leave me here in some strange place, all alone, thinking about how…" The woman trailed off, squinting oddly at John, leaving him to stare at her in silent confusion until she eventually relented with a sigh.

"Alright… well, if you really want to, you can come with us. But it's gonna be dangerous, even-"

"D-dumbass! Do you think I can't handle myself?! I can break anything that stands in my way!"

"You know what? Fine, let's see how you do. But if you get into trouble and we have to save you, you have to say something nice about me."

"Like I'd ever do that," the rabbit-girl snorted, huffing and twitching her ears.

"Whatever you say."

"Just make the Barrier!"

”By Gaia… how did I make such a tsundere? It doesn’t even make sense! It breaks the rules of Purification! My powers are bullshit…”

The training session that day went way better than John expected. Everyone was a bit worn out from fighting the rabbits, even though they hadn't lost much health to the weak ninja attacks, so he had thought that things would be kind of a drag after that. Between everyone wanting to see what their newest ally could do and the rabbit's odd enthusiasm, though, things went swimmingly.

John had maxed out their group at five now, which was a good feeling to have. It would have been six but Maera and Mithra were still swapping out when one got bored of fighting to take turns with the Neko babies. John always kept the two older Nekos close to him since they were the lowest level of his group, letting the others go out on their own, but he was starting to consider keeping Sophia with them.

She wasn't extremely high-leveled compared to the others to begin with - even after their dedicated training and all her time spent grinding with Seras (pun absolutely intended), she was only up to level 14. It was mostly her fighting spirit and her stat bias toward physical combat that let her match up to John and Seras. John honestly felt a little bad about it - if she had been around for the early days before his Creation Experience patch, she would have probably been a properly terrifying warrior.

Of course, the real reason he was now considering it was because she seemed particularly competitive now that there was another woman around helping John train and fight, especially one of such a high level. Lerianna's primary stat seemed to be Endurance, with a minor following in Strength, and the rabbit made wonderful use of both of them. Rather than Seras' vampiric speed and Sophia's mobility, or even the Nekos' raw acrobatics… Lerianna just had the absolute staying power of a fucking rock.

John watched the first time she was caught by an attack, the slow-moving but powerful golem pinning her under its massive fist. He was concerned, but not really worried - she wasn't crying out in pain, only kind of grunting in exertion as the golem exerted its full weight on her, and she had the health to take a lot of hits compared to even Seras. But what shocked him was that even though she didn't have the strength to stand up while the golem struck her, after falling to the ground, Lerianna just cackled madly and kicked the golem square in its wrist. A blue glow surrounded her feet a moment before impact, and the golem's entire arm shattered - even the floating, magically connected rocks that her feet hadn't actually touched.

John confirmed his observation by checking Lerianna's mana, and sure enough… it was depleted. Sophia was the only other of his creations to be able to use mana, and even her feathers didn't always seem to use up her mana, for whatever reason. This rabbit had some kind of magical technique, and it was-

"H-hey! Stop staring, what are you, a pervert?! Of course you are, damn humans! You're staring at my tits right now, aren't you?"

John's thought train was interrupted by Lerianna's recovery. In fact, she was completely ignoring the golem behind her reeling at the loss of its arm, more concerned with John's gaze as she completely turned around and faced away from her foe. Despite her words, she made no effort to conceal her barely-covered body… if anything, was she… was she actually crossing her arms under her breasts to accentuate them?

"N-no," John said honestly, raising up his hands in defeat and turning away. He started to stroll around the hallway as the golem stirred and Lerianna ignored it to continue yelling at him… until it reached out for her.

"Hey, come back here, I wasn't- agggh, you stupid thing!"

John walked away as the sounds of the rabbit dealing with the recovered Arcane Golem echoed through the cave system. He made a note to check out her character sheet later and try to figure out what ability she was using, sometime when she was a little more occupied. Apparently a massive, angry golem wasn't enough to distract someone as tough as she was.

John had bumped the golems up to level 14 in the hopes of increasing the drop rate of those pebbles, and also to increase the experience they were gaining now that things were constantly split five ways. It actually had worked on the first count, but not the second thanks to the ever-diminishing returns of completing the same level of dungeon. By the time they completed their third dungeon, the gains were barely noticeable over the prior day's efforts.

When John at last called an end to the training for the day, after almost three hours of grinding, they had nine of those stones, at the cost of a few close calls where he'd had to heal Sophia and Mithra after they took too many blows. It left his mana weary and his health low due to resorting to Siphoning his own health away, but thankfully it had gotten them even closer to finishing the stone, and hadn't cost them anything permanent. And the gains hadn't only been material.

John was pleased to note that while Lerianna hadn't gained any levels from their grinding, Seras had gained a new level - something she hadn't done in a very long time - putting her up to 22. Sophia was now up to level 14 and very nearly 15, thanks to her constant eagerness to train. Thanks in part to John's Creation Experience boost, both Maera and Mithra were now level 11, once again matching like proper twins. And completing the dungeon they'd Purified Lerianna in, along with raising the level of the golems to temporarily overcome the diminishing returns, had allowed him to replenish the experience in a single session.

However, that also put John in a troublesome spot now. The same completion bonuses that restored his Creation Experience had put him over the hump and into level 20. That meant that now he was locked in at his current maximum. Normally he would have been excited about Reincarnating, but he was in a difficult situation now. The Albidians were potentially knocking on his doorstep, and he was farming items to finally offer Tricia her escape. For now neither of those issues were immediately pressing, but together they created new troubles John hadn't anticipated.

If he Reincarnated, he was going to be handicapped in personal power for at least a few days. That would make completing multiple dungeons of a minimum level of 13 extremely hard, and they wouldn't be able to go for very long. Tricia's item could be completed in two days if they were similarly lucky with drops. But if he didn't Reincarnate, he had damn well better hope he was strong enough as he was, because his leveling was effectively blocked until further notice. Since none of his creations even got the completion bonuses shared among them anymore and he had to split it with his Creation Experience, that meant their growth and power scaling would be massively delayed. If the Albidians didn't actually show up, or if they bided their time and struck when John had halted his training for weeks - or months - they'd have him by the balls. Figuratively and possibly literally.

What swayed his hand oddly enough wasn't the Albidians, or Tricia. It was actually Moira… because as much as Tricia might have hated being under the Warden's thumb, it was undeniable that Moira had softened since then. Tricia needed help with her emotions, and a way out of the Brighton Manor that wouldn't put her into the hands of anyone seeking to exploit or find a way to steal her abilities… but they weren't as pressing as a threat to John's family. Not at the moment. John had seen some sides of Moira he did not approve of - a Warden willing to do anything, almost anything to strengthen her Order, and a woman with a zealotry that he hadn't understood for a long time. But lately, she had started to open herself to John a bit, even show concern for his creations, and to respect his choices not to abandon his conscience to create an army or gain power.

John was doing something that a month ago would have seemed insane - he was trusting Moira with more than life, but with happiness and compassion. John Reincarnated with a smile on his face. His new points went into his physical stats - nine into his Agility, and five each for Strength and Endurance. With his blade now being such a massive part of his arsenal and one of the runes being able to store mana, he was hoping to make the most of his physical stats for once.

What actually shocked John the most was seeing what his stats were after the Reincarnation. He was only level 1 but he had over three hundred health, thanks to his gear and Sophia's bonuses, as well as all the stacked stats he was slowly building over multiple resets. While he was definitely less formidable than before, he had forgotten what a difference keeping 20% of his stats gained during the current incarnation instead of 10% would give him. Perhaps his Reincarnation hadn't actually been all that risky after all…

"Ya gonna go trainin' to put on a few levels after that bit, Mastah?" Seras asked. John jolted a little, not realizing how closely his vampiric lover had been watching him as he debated his options and combed through his menus.

"…No, actually," John said, shaking his head. "I think I have something better to do with my mana." The Reincarnation had reset his health and mana to full, and he probably could've carved his way through a pretty decent leveled dungeon to level himself a few times, but he had no need to do so. Instead his mana could be put to a much more noble cause. John popped open the creation menu he'd been going over with Evellyn earlier and finally mashed the creation button.

After plowing through two full days of golem farming and the addition of the extra level the second day, as well as the bunny dungeon, John finally had enough ZCP to not only create the new species, but spawn its first member. He did so gleefully, plopping down the very first bush across the lake from the house, with Seras, Sophia, and Maera in tow to witness the first non-Purified creation of John's as it appeared. It popped into existence as little more than a sprout, its downy cushions of tiny leaves covering an area of the ground no larger or taller than John's head, but that was easily fixed.

Leaning down, taking advantage of his restored mana, John took some of the tiny sprout into his hand and began to channel his mana. The reaction was immediate, explicit, and exponential. The bush expanded until it was nearly as wide as John was tall, was just over three feet tall, and so lengthy John could not reach the other side from where he stood. Once it had expanded to that size, it began to grow fruits identical to the previews John had seen, heart-shaped and succulent. John's mana ran out before the last of the fruits had fully ripened, but already two or three of them seemed ready to burst, and the bush had reached full size well before John's mana was depleted.

"It's not much now, but I think when we aren't busy grinding out levels, we can pour whatever mana we feel like sparing into it… It'll allow the plant to grow, blossom, and replenish itself. I'll work on a way to get mundane plants to function too that doesn't involve beehives or other annoying bugs… until then, though, we have our first official renewable resource for the world!"

"This is a true wonder. Father, your ability to provide is not only appreciated, but honored. Thank you."

"Y'know, no matter how many times ya do it, creatin' somethin' out of nothin' or warpin' weird rabbit samurai into pretty women… nevah stops bein' amazin'."

"Myaster gonna fuck the bush?"

"Okay, seriously, Maera, what kind of pervert do you think I am?!?!"