Chapter 167 – Explanations 1 – The Gamer

John woke up in a clean bed. He had used Craft on the bedsheets to instantly clean them. A great necessity, considering they had been stained with all kinds of fluids by the end of their reunion.

As per usual, Rave was still asleep. Normally, he would have tried to wiggle his way out of bed without waking her up. That was impossible this time around. By whatever arcane means, she had managed to get behind him and put him in a full nelson. This must have happened some time ago, since he could not feel either of his arms. At least this was the wrestling version, not the sexual position. His legs were very much still free.

“Hey, Jane,” he whispered and carefully poked her with his foot.

“Grhm,” Rave made an unwilling sound but slowly opened her eyes. After a few seconds, she realized what was going on. “…What am I doing?” Her sleepy eyes gave the position of her arms a critical muster.

“I don’t know, but it’s not comfortable for me.” John rolled his shoulder as best he could. “So, could you maybe…?”

“Ja-aaah,” Rave yawned a confirmation and let go.

John moved his hands to try and get some feeling back into them as he sat up. Gamer’s Body fixed even this swiftly, which was fortunate. It wasn’t quite on the level of having his chest carved open, but the needles covering his limb were still deeply displeasing.

Rave slung her arms around his hips when he tried to leave the bed. “Wait!” she said, “I wanna cuddle!”

“Uhm, sure?” John said and sank back under the blanket.

Rave snuggled up to him, holding onto his chest in a more girlfriend appropriate way. “Room is ultra-cold,” she grumbled and pulled the blanket up to her nose. “You will warm me up.”

John had to disagree that it was that cold – although it definitely wasn’t warm either. “Well, they don’t use thermostats over here. We would have needed to turn the heater on ourselves,” he said with a glance at the metal construction.

“That is stupid,” Rave pressed herself even more strongly against him. Her breasts squished against his side and her soft hair tickled his shoulder. If John hadn’t had a morning wood before, he definitely did now.

“I could be persuaded to stay here for a lot longer,” John began in a seductive tone. His girlfriend’s hand was already en-route to his dick.

“I am open to anything, as long as we stay under the blanket,” she stated her case. “in fact, I think this is a great way to warm up!” they exchanged a perverted smile and rolled over so that John was on top. Last night had covered the cravings of the opposite dynamic.

He was about to push into her when the door flew open.

“I’ve had it!” Lydia shouted as she entered. One hand was behind her back, the other held a pocket watch. The princess once more wore a Napoleonic era military uniform, complete with a rapier this time around. Dark grey eyes glared at the surprised couple. Ruby red lips narrowed until their striking colour was pressed out of them. John only now realized that she wasn’t using lipstick. Any fascination he had towards that fact was lost when her nostrils flared in anger. “It is exactly 10 AM, you have overstepped the acceptable time to sleep and sleep in. I demand an end to your frivolities and a beginning of the day.”

“It’s freezing in here!” Rave protested. Lydia looked at the heater, the sound of shifting pressure echoed through the metal body, the regulating wave suddenly turning. “You have 10 minutes,” she declared and crossed her arms.

John looked at Rave but she was just as baffled. “You want to watch us dress or what?” he carefully asked.

“Depends, do you think you can manage to do it on your own?” the princess returned with a question of her own. Her iron eyes were heavy with criticism, too heavy to retort with a joke.

John decided to go with appeasement, “Yeah, we can do that,” he calmly stated.

“Splendid, I expect you downstairs within 9 minutes 43 seconds.” Lydia turned on her heels and pulled the door close behind her with her magic.

“What’s wrong with her?” Rave grumbled, while her boyfriend rolled off her.

“She lives by her schedule, apparently.” John pulled his everyday clothes into their slots and then put the settings back on auto-equip.

“Well, no reason to command us around,” Rave continued her complaints. She made no motion to even start moving out of bed. If anything, she was wrapping herself tighter in the blanket. Only her head stuck out of the bundle she made from herself.

It was adorable and in any other situation, he would have been pulled right back to bed. “You? Maybe not. Me? She has about 500 billion reasons to command me around,” John sighed. “You coming out of there?”

“Not until it is warmer!” Rave said with a look at the heater, “You think she is gifted with telekinesis or something like that?”

“I think it is metal control,” John said, “her title is Princess of Steel after all.”

Rave nodded, that made enough sense to her.

“If you want heat, maybe I can help?” Salamander asked after suddenly lighting herself into existence. It was a quick materialization. Not immediate, but fast enough for him to have very little reaction time.

John looked out of the window. Despite Lydia’s assurance that the house was protected he still didn’t approve of Salamander just appearing like that. However, no person was running around in front of their lawn and nobody else was likely to peer into this room. It was likely fine, but he still drew the curtains just to be safe.

“As long as you don’t burn the house down, I have enough debt as is,” John warned her.

“What?” Salamander seemed offended, “Me? Burn stuff down by accident?! You think I am still Tier 1 or what? I am Salamander, daughter of Krieg, fucker of dragons.”

“I fucked Nathalia, you just were around one time.”

“Shut the fuck up!” the blaze elemental demanded. Around her, the air began to ripple from the sheer heat she radiated.

The room warmed up quickly. By keeping Salamander close to her, Rave could be convinced to leave the bed and get dressed. Both of them would have much preferred a shower first, but they were on a tight timetable.

Downstairs they were greeted by Lydia who sat at the breakfast table. “12 minutes,” she announced and closed her pocket watch with an audible snap. “Given the circumstances, an acceptable deviation.” After sipping on a cup of tea she added, “Made acceptable by that superb servant of yours, John Newman.”

Next to Lydia stood Aclysia. John’s heart beat a little faster with love and guilt, upon spotting the maid. Wearing her usual cosplay, his first Artificial Spirit was every bit as beautiful and diligent as last he had seen her in the metal. Long white hair, a butt of immense juiciness, emerald eyes and pink lips that were moved in just the right degree of a pout to really make him feel bad about not tending to her yet.

She kept that up for a second, then she bowed, “Thank you for the compliment, mistress.”

 “Princess,” corrected Lydia, “Lydia in the mundane public.”

“As you wish, princess.”

The noblewoman threw a loaded glance at the couple who had just entered. Mono didn’t care, she was sitting off to the side, using one of the provided laptops to read something else. Aclysia vanished back in the kitchen after asking John and Rave what they wanted for breakfast. Mono followed Aclysia, John and Rave sat down across from Lydia.

The princess took another sip of her tea before addressing them. “So, John Newman,” she started and stopped when he raised his hand.

“Just John will be enough,” he assured her. “My full and last name are a mouthful. Plus, it feels weird.”

“As you wish.” Lydia’s gaze moved over to his girlfriend. “How would you prefer to be addressed?”

“Rave will do,” answered the pink haired girl.

Lydia nodded, “A codename then. You can call me Lydia in public, preferably address me by princess, however.”

“Sure thing, priiinceesss!”

Lydia’s eyes twitched ever so slightly at the way the techno lover pronounced her name. Whatever thoughts she had on the matter, she chose not to speak them at this time. Instead, she turned back to the Gamer. “Anyhow, I want you to inform me about your abilities in detail,” she said and then glanced over at Rave, “I will hear about yours if you are still of the mind to fight for me.”

John waited for a moment, sorting his thoughts before answering. He had often described his abilities in broad strokes, but never in total detail, and much had become clearer or expanded since his early days.

“Well, to start with, my abilities have changed my body into that of a video game character. All of my wounds will heal pretty much instantly, but it costs Health Points, once those are gone, I presume I die.”

“You presume?” Lydia asked.

John shrugged, “I haven’t gone to zero yet and some games have second wind mechanics where you get HP back for doing certain stuff. I doubt that is the case with me but I haven’t found out yet. I don’t plan to either.” The princess nodded, signalling him to continue.

“Then there are also other things such as Quests and my ability to generate items which are seemingly very unusual. That is better shown in practice but, basically, I get items for killing enemies in Illusion Barriers. I call it Looting,” John let that sink in for a moment but Lydia didn’t seem surprised in the slightest. She likely learned it from Magoi.

“Perhaps the most important part of my Innate Ability is grinding for Experience. This has two parts, one is levels and the other is Skills. A level allows me to spend 5 points on the seven Stats that everyone has,” John stopped when Lydia raised a hand.

“You say everyone has those Stats, does that mean you can identify them in other people?”

John nodded, “Yes, I can see the level and Stats of other people, although it seems that common measures against other kinds of clairvoyance magic, or whatever that category is called, also work against my Observe. Also, that ability allows me to see the opinion a person has of me as well as give me some basic information, such as their guild and a bit of their history.”

Lydia grabbed her cup and drank the rest of the tea inside. “That, on its own merit, is a powerful ability. Information extraction is rarely this succinct or direct.”

John moved his head left to right to express his misgivings about the Skill. “It seems pretty good but the information I get from it is very broad and I can’t choose what I learn about the target. Sometimes I learn very important things, at others next to nothing. It is not something I can rely on too heavily.”

“Not even the Stat part?” Lydia asked.

“Especially not the Stat part, princess. It's just raw numbers and those are difficult to apply to actual people who don’t have the same direct scaling I do. It’s just numbers. The best way to use it is to give me a general idea of where a person’s strengths and weaknesses are. Plus, they don’t reflect how apt someone is at using their own abilities.” John paused for a moment to let Lydia comment.

“I see the problem. Physical strength is relatively easily categorized in terms of numbers. However, magical aptitude and the various ways a person can exercise their capacities cannot be reflected just by numbers.” The princess raised a hand. A spoon lifted from the table and began to stir the contents of her teacup. “Against people who have strong abilities these numbers may be misleading, if relied upon.”

John confirmed with a clear nod. “The opposite is true as well, I was afraid of facing a man called Igor, whose level was beyond mine. However, he didn’t possess anything but that level, so in the end the fight was laughably easy. The numbers are useful, but they’re nothing to go off of on their own.”

“And you raise your level just by defeating monsters?” she asked.

“Not only that, also Quests and occasionally Achievements, which are random increases in power that I get for doing certain things. How do you know about the monster part?” John asked, as far as he knew that was never in the files that SecretBlonde published.

“I had Magoi Magus send me a report,” Lydia confirmed John’s suspicion. “I am using this conversation to fill out potential gaps and double check the available intel. Continue.”

“The level-up mechanic can be shared with people who I add to my group, although group members level much slower than me and they cannot spend the points how they wish.”

“And how would one get added to that group?”

“I just have to send you an invite. Here, let me demonstrate: Invite Princess Lydia.”

John saw the window materialize in front of Lydia and the princess staring at it. She tried to look at the thing from different angles but it always turned to have the text presented to her. For a moment it vanished, then it came back.

“If I wish it to vanish it does, interesting,” she mumbled and raised her hand. Before tapping the ‘Accept’ button she looked at John. “And joining your group will give me access to this levelling system you say?” she asked for clarification, “Nothing else?”

“You will also get a basic view of all other party members' Health and Mana Points,” John assured her. “Nothing beyond that.” With that out of the way Lydia joined the group and her name was added to the list: John, with the two sub points for his Artificial Spirits, Rave and now the princess.

John continued the breakdown of his abilities, “I can also use Skills I acquire either through books, mechanics like skill evolutions or, rarely, through an action I take. These Skills get stronger the more I use them, usually capping at level 100. That’s the broad of it.”

Aclysia returned from the kitchen and put plates filled with scrambled eggs in front of both Rave and John while Mono refilled Lydia’s tea.

“Thank you, Aclysia” said John while Rave was already stuffing her face.

“No problem, Master,” the artificial guardian said with a bow.

“You also have my gratitude… Mono, correct?” Lydia addressed the second servant.

 “Yeah, no problem,” Mono answered, receiving a mildly displeased stare. After a moment of silence John felt Aclysia reach out through his spirit to Mono.

‘No problem, princess’ she added to the support's previous sentence.

“No problem, princess,” Mono then quickly repeated. Lydia was immediately appeased and returned to her tea.

“To me, it seems that Skills are more important than level, yet you seem to have concentrated on the acquisition of levels when you were preparing for your fight with, please excuse me if my pronunciation is incorrect, Thana,” Lydia said.

She pronounced Thana with a hard T, making it sound like she was saying Tana. “Tha-na,” John therefore carefully corrected her. “T-h like in ‘the’, long a, then n-a. Thana.”

“Thana,” Lydia repeated to herself. “I will try to remember it. Out of interest, what happened to her?”

“She died,” John answered with the least number of words, staring at the piece of scrambled egg he had on his fork.

“You are saddened by this,” Lydia noted.

“She didn’t deserve her fate. Couldn’t even bury her, she turned to dust,” John explained and forced himself to eat.

“Mhm,” Lydia hummed. “In the Abyss we have a saying: that which leaves no corpse behind can never be trusted. I do not mean to give you a false hope either though, so take it with a grain of salt.”

“Do people come back to life frequently in the Abyss?” John asked, hopeful despite her words.

“No, it practically never happens,” Rave interrupted, glaring at Lydia, the techno lover had likely known that saying as well but withheld it from John. He knew that she only wanted to protect him from false hope by doing so, but he still wanted to hear about it, so he put a hand on her leg and smiled calmingly. Rave sighed and just went back to eating.

Lydia raised an eyebrow at the exchange but answered his question. “Rave is correct, there are exceptionally few documented cases of a person actually returning to life and most of them end in a cursed and very short second life. A famous example of a successful resurrection would be Eglystas, current ruler of Prometheus. Resurrection tends to begin with a missing corpse.“

“The shaying ish morr about people hiading sho,” Rave mumbled with a full mouth, then she swallowed the food in her mouth and spoke clearly. “Like, how’ya shouldn’t assume one of your enemies is dead just because the newspaper says so. Better check on their grave, just-ta be sure. Also common illusion trickery.”

“Back to the topic at hand, however, why did you go for levels over Skills?” Lydia asked.

“From what I have seen almost everyone has Stats that roughly equal their level times five. As long as that remains true, levels are more effective at the lower end,” John explained, the princess gestured her agreement.

However, Rave was now confused, “Uhm, why?” she wanted to know.

“It is a reality of linear progression viewed through percentual differences,” Lydia stated. When Rave just blinked in response, the princess continued in a teaching tone, “What is the difference between level 10 and level 20?”

“10 levels?” Rave voiced an unsure answer.

“Correct, but not all of it, what is the difference between level 500 and 1000?” she glanced at John, “is that how high it goes?”

John could only shrug. “I guess, the strongest being I have met up to today was level 900 and she was a goddess, probably doesn’t get a lot higher than that.”

Lydia nodded and then turned back to Rave, waiting for her response. Which, after some more thinking, she gave. “Guess the answer is 500 levels… also both of those are double the first number, so Imma guess that has something to do with whatever point ya trying to make?”

“Yup,” John decided to take over from there. He raised a finger. “Basically, the important part isn’t the number difference, but the power percentage. A level 20 has 100% more Stat Points compared to the level 10, just as the level 1000 has twice as much as the level 500. As levels rise, they become less and less important. At least as long as the growth factor is static. There is little difference between a level 750 and a 780 in raw numbers. Level 10 to 40, however? A massive difference, despite the gap being the same. The higher you get the more important the correct application of your Skills becomes.” He turned to Lydia. “All of that is part of the reason why I prioritized levels, but it's mostly because levels are easier to get. The majority of my Skills also just level while I fight, so I can combine the two seamlessly.”

Lydia digested that info for a few seconds, then asked, “Anything else?”

“When the Patch concluded, I also got a new system called Classes, that gives me Perks for things I can do outside of combat. That seems like the intended downtime activity, so to say. I haven’t worked out just how good this aspect is, however.” John scratched the back of his head. “So far I am able to expand into various different fields of magic, from arcane to increasing my sexual ability.”

Lydia stopped in the motion of lifting her teacup. “Like that requires any increasing,” she muttered into her cup, then gulped the entire second serving down in one go. “I think I understand your powers broadly,” she stated and pointed at Rave. “Now, what can you do?”