In the morning.

John didn't sleep much throughout the night. He barely even tried to, and when he did try, he used his new gamer's body to only sleep for a few hours. He made sure he was just passed out long enough to fulfill any possible need for it that remained inside him. The rest of his time was spent catching up on the stuff that he hadn't gotten to over the past two days. He worked on nearly everything, from actions and items that he had not gone over yet with his powers to the simple everyday occurrences of a student, like dealing with his homework.

The worst part was that he didn't go through it all one problem at a time. With morning and school just mere hours away, John let his impatience get the best of him and tried to tackle it all at once. It was like he charged headlong into the mountain of work ahead of him and decided that giving up or changing tactics was just the wrong thing to do.

The first thing to get done was his crafting and inventory organization. Surprisingly, the hours he spent meditating and regenerating his mana turned out to be one of the things that finished early. He wasn't able to do much. As hard as John tried, he didn't really have the materials for making much of anything.

The stuff he did have was mostly just a bunch of iron, leather, and wood. They were his main sources for crafting by this point. He did, however, get one particular material from one of his quests that he had all but forgotten about up until this point. It was a small amount of material, stacking no higher than ten in his inventory but useful nonetheless.

Arcane Rocks. 10
Some simple pebbles infused lightly with the power of mana. One of the first stepping stones used in abyssal masonry. 'Stepping stone, get it?'
Arcane rocks can be used to lower the cost of mana that's needed when crafting.

The more important thing about this, other than the fact that he only had such a small amount of the material, was the fact that it was extremely useful... almost valuable really...

That item alone was almost like a way for him to just cheat to get ahead. He loved it.

In the end, John wasn't able to do much with what he had. He didn't have enough to make anything new that would have been extremely useful, and what items he did have to improve upon desperately needed the boost, so he fixed them up.

The first one to be altered was the item known as The Golden Band. A simple, cracked, golden ring that improved a stat of his choice by five percent while worn. He quickly set it to Agility. After all, if he was going to apply it to one of his stats and hope for it to be useful in a fight, then it only made sense to him to put it on the physical stat with the highest number so far.

When the time came for him to use his Craft ability on the ring, John didn't really 'fix' the ring. He didn't even try to repair it in any way actually. He just put a layer of iron over it, so if Vanessa saw it, then she wouldn't have noticed the ring as actually being hers.

His other item was different. The item, he spent nearly all of his simple crafting materials on.

Padded Sport's Sleeves.
These stretchy, arm-warming, black, and over-sized arm-bands are made of a soft, comfortable material that gently compresses to the wearer's limbs. Each one clings to the arm with a smooth simple band on the inside to keep it from sliding down the arm and maintains a specific temperature in almost any environment to keep your arms from ever being too cold or too hot.
+1 to Agility while worn.

Nearly every last piece of iron, leather, and wood was used in the upgrading of the sport's sleeves. When he was done and his mana bar was completely empty again, John only had two units of wood left, and none of the the scraps of leather or metal remained on his desk. It was all just put into his new equipment, upgrading it to the point that it even warranted a new name for the item.

Simple Iron Bracers
These magically tailored pieces of armor fit the wearer perfectly, never pinching or pulling awkwardly on the wielder thanks to the way they were made. Unlike it's previous form, these leather-strapped bracers provide an actual form of defense from the heavy metal plating that wraps around the top of the wearer's forearms. The wood-reinforced metal on it smells of a fresh, minty cleanness and glints when the light reflects off of it.
+15 HP while worn
+1 Agility while worn

Strangely enough, they did actually smell nice. While he hated the idea of doing it, John had been **** to use wood while crafting his new bracers. It required something so the leather straps could actually be applied to the item, and for some reason, what little metal he had wasn't good enough for that. It just constantly wanted more from him. To make matters worse, when John actually looked at the item, he realized that using some simple wood wound up weakening the bracers somehow and gave the item a preposterously low durability.

They were barely going to be useful for more than one or two fights.

He started to catch up on his work after that. The rest wasn't difficult; it was just easier to do without his crafting to worry about. He dealt with the stat points he had yet to spend which, while difficult to decide, could only go one way in his mind. Strength. He had a high agility for sure, and an even higher intellect, but strength promised the most for him. If he could read and predict the movements of other people through the use of Fighter's Eyes, then he didn't need Agility as much. On top of that, his powers had been physically focused so far, so building into intellect or wisdom like a proper mage didn't make much sense to him.

He considered endurance, and increasing his health, with the idea of constantly upgrading his newest punching ability for damage but... he didn't have the mana to always rely on that. He was an experienced gamer, and he knew how suicidal it would have been to spread his points out. He needed a focus. A specific stat that all of his fighting was supposed to be largely based on.

Strength was the only one that made sense for that. He was turning into a glass cannon.

So he dumped all ten points he had into strength. Five from one of his previous quests and five from his level up. His statistic change was shortly followed by another change physically. John's eyes widened and watched as the levels of fat in his body visibly diminished, shrinking down to the point that anyone watching could have seen as his muscles similarly shifted. They grew taut and firm as John sat there over his homework, his eyes soaking in the sight of his new body. His body, which had already been kind of slim and bony, filled out slightly. He became lean and fit, his abdomen hardening with the soft signs of muscle while he just sat there! He didn't look bulky or threatening like he imagined he would have. He just became...firm and toned in a way.

After a little while, he figured that if there was a way for him to bulk up or get taller, it would have come from his endurance stat. His strength just... well it increased his strength. It was like he had spent months just focusing on casually toning out the muscles he already had instead of making them grow, but he kind of liked it.

It felt roguish in a way, and that made him smile.

The last two things that John had to do after that were homework and naming his fighting style. Naming it didn't seem like something that would have been difficult. Off the top of his head, he could have come up with a number of different things that would have fit or helped to get him out of that particular rut. It could have been anything, ranging from something to do with animals to something attitude or personality focused like a trait.

Yet none of it seemed to fit. It didn't feel right, and it wasn't until he was finishing up with his homework that he stumbled across an answer.

Arete.

It was a Greek word...or a Greek based word... something like that.

As far as John could understand, based on what his schoolwork was telling him, it meant excellence... or perfection of some kind. In his head, he could only relate it to his fighting style. It felt perfect or like it was trying to reach that state. It was like all these bits of knowledge and practice he had been obtaining had all been a part of some larger picture, a larger style that all fit together like a puzzle. It felt like it all belonged.

It didn't matter how many other styles he practiced or learned; it didn't matter how many other fighters he went up against... so far, it had been like they all had something for him to learn about. All just another piece to eventually fit into the puzzle that was his style...

It was Arete, so he named it that.

The pop-up he finished typing the name of his fighting style into disappeared suddenly in a flash of blinding, golden light for him. His mother, who laid naked in his bed on the other side of the room, didn't even budge when the magical light burst throughout the room. She couldn't see it, even if she had been awake.

In the first pop-up's wake, a different one appeared. One that had him confused at first... and then even more confused when he actually read through it. There was no description for this one. It was straight to the point.

New Quest: A Modicum of Control

• Do not kill anyone today.

Reward:

• 1 Random item of Rare quality
  And
• 15 Units of a Random Material

Accept Quest?
YES | NO