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The Gamer Chapter 1621 – Raid and Adventures 17 – Loot, Perk, Boar?
🕑 Added 2024-02-12 12:22:04 +0000 UTCThe natural response to this was for the entirety of the Raid party to descend upon Sylph and very carefully pat her. It was fortunate that friendly fire protected them from any accidental shock, otherwise touching the highly charged volt bunny may have been the unwanted kind of stunning. Inevitably, lewding would follow, but first John had to go through the windows.
A fairly simple choice. The Loot was out, the Levels were attractive, but the Skill Evolution Point was the rarest resource here so he picked that up for later use on one of the mechanics that could utilize it. ‘5 more levels in total, not bad at all,’ John thought and went to distribute his Stat Points.
For the time being, he was focusing on Intellect and Wisdom. He had considered raising his Physical Stats instead, but at this point that felt like a waste. He had reached a level where he could keep up with 99,99% of the Abyss and those in the remaining 00,01% that specialized in the Physical Stats were so far above that trying to narrow that gap felt like he was just wasting points. Better to double down on mana, trust his defensive spells, and fuel the attacks of his elementals. Plus, thanks to the Creator Puppet, Mental Stats were Physical Stats.
John also had 1 SEP and 2 Class Levels to spend now. That had to wait until after he got to the Loot, though.
“Let’s open the chest, open the chest, I shall open the chest!” Sylph blabbered, grabbing the lid of the carapace-crafted container and flinging it open. “There’s darkness in the chest, audible gasp, how surprising!” Tongue playfully extended, she reached into the conceptual void and pulled out one item after another.
In Common they had three Camouflage Plates and one Shapeshift Potion, all of which did exactly as advertised. While the Camouflage Plates would go to Nightfall for agent equipment, the Shapeshift Potion would go to Delicia for analysis.
In Uncommon, they had the Impermanent Mutagen and the Salt of Man both. Another two items that Delicia would be interested in. The Salt of Man was, by its description, something that John would be entirely against creating. It described being extracted from various biological processes that required heavily mutating a human into an alchemical furnace, to summarize it, which was up there on the ‘fucked up’ scale as far as he was concerned. Since it existed now, however, the local alchemist might as well take a look at it.
In Rare, they had three times the Ichor of the Vanguard. It was a straightforward buff item that raised the Endurance of a person to 250 for a limited time. Not of any use to John and his harem, but good for limited army equipment.
Lastly, in Epic, they had Ended Potential. It was a one time Mutagen that induced rapid growth of Stats in a person but prevented them from learning or growing for the rest of their life afterwards. John felt like outright destroying it, but decided that it may be useful in some fringe case down the line. At least the description made it clear that it couldn’t be force-fed to anyone.
Pretty dull Loot, all things considered.
John quickly opened the requisite menus and went through the distribution of the other resources right now. Chances were that Sylph would not give him a chance to do that once the true rewarding started. One Class Level obviously went to Martial Artist.
‘Oh God, could these possibly be more boring?’ the Gamer thought. The obvious answer here was Robust. Student of many Weapons just was not useful to him, Poison Resistance was too niche and too weak even in that niche, and Robust was just Stats and Stats were never bad. Plus, he would take being a bit taller again. It put him at the proud height of 1,87 metres.
The second Class Level, he would have to hold onto until he beat the Class Challenges for level 8 of Martial Artist. Because of the Astrian Administration Quest, investing into anything else was a no-go.
As for the SEP, John knew exactly where to put that. “Alright, let’s leave for now and continue on later,” he told everyone. “We’re ahead on time which means we can afford a break.” He raised his hand to leave the Raid, only to be hit with a window that said ‘Event Pending’.
That was new.
Scratching the back of his head, John walked up to the very edge of the stone and checked around for what Gaia wanted him to see. Movement in the nearby water caught his attention first. A number of ships surfaced from below the waves, forming a makeshift bridge of wood and metal between the sand and the nearby graveyard of ships. A not so subtle hint of where they were expected to go next.
Barely had that event concluded, that John’s eyes were drawn to a different happening. Between the two tusk-like protrusions of the stone, two spheres of runes lit up. Even viewed from above, the shape of eyes was evident. A hellish squeal echoed through the entire Instant Dungeon, soon replaced with a series of stirring grunts.
The sand of the beach, already grey and desolate, turned black in a blink. Red runes surfaced on the pitch background, drawing an infernal circle down in the arena where they could have fought the boss instead. From the circle rose a creature, dragging itself out with burning hands. Thick were its arms, thick were its legs, thin was its brown fur, stretching over the human body. Only the head was densely covered in the bristles, the head of a boar with hooked tusks and curved horns. The hunched figure carried on its back a half-circle of runes, ever alight, as if the monster itself was an infernal gateway.
‘Well, that’s something to deal with later,’ John thought and left the Raid.
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“I strengthen the hand that crushes my enemies.”
The words of power crossed John’s lips with the gravitas of a military order. The Creator Puppet before him straightened up all on its own, despite the Gamer’s will very much still possessing it. A new window opened, the SEP sacrificed allowing him to select a new Perk for his third body.
Between those three, John considered Grasp of the Elements the best. The argument could be made for all three, as it almost always could be. Elemental Advance offered a splendid mobility option, while Elemental Torrent gave the Creator Puppet a powerful area tool. The latter was much less attractive, the Creator Puppet was not John’s chosen body to deal with groups of enemies, but it still was not bad. The reason why John ultimately went with the Grasp of the Elements was twofold. One, he considered CC to be more useful than mobility for what he wanted to do with the Creator Puppet. Two, he just found it cooler.
“Reward time?” Sylph asked.
“Just a little more patience,” John requested.
“Awwww, but I’ve been waiting fifteen minutes alreaaaaadyyyyyyy,” the arcvolt elemental complained. “Do you know how long that is? You should, you’ve been there the entire time. It’s a short stretch of eternity, I tell you, and Sylph does not like waiting eternities and neither do I!”
“Since when are you not Sylph?”
“I was talking about Sylph, not me, silly John, silly, silly John. There’s so many Sylphs, probably like… a tenth as many as there are Johns!”
“I would love to say that’s not that many, but I would be lying.” John stepped away from the Creator Puppet, to have it go back to observing the general progress against Lu Zhi, of which there was little at the moment. “The problem is, once I give you your reward, I’ll be occupied for hours, so I want to sort this out first.”
“I’ll make it a quickie!”
“First off, your quickies are not short. Secondly, even if you want to make it a quickie, I do not believe that you won’t go into heat halfway through and then I’ll be busy for at least thirty minutes pounding you out of that state.”
“Going into heat is sooooo fuuuuuunnnnn,” Sylph moaned, playing a little with herself as she said that. “Feels like just breathing could make me cum then, it’s so hot, I love it so much. Hmmmm…” Snapping out of her daze, the air spirit shifted gears slightly. “Okay, you get your time to do your grindy stuff, Johnnie, but I want to be on top!”
The Gamer raised an eyebrow. Sylph having a dom streak wasn’t news to him. Broadly speaking, Sylph’s kinks could be described as ‘Yes’. Because she could take any position with delight and he was so firmly more interested in being the top himself, it panned out that she was his submissive in practically all engagements.
Seemed like she wanted to change that for today.
“Alright, fine,” John allowed her. He was curious where this would go. He was also pretty certain she wouldn’t be able to stay on top once the heat kicked in, so he would get what he wanted anyway.
About an hour later, he had beat the necessary Challenges to get the next level in Martial Artist.
Those were all absolutely useless. A random Technique was never going to be of use to him. He had two pretty awesome Techniques in the form of Remnant Strike/Kick and he barely ever used those. Even if he was given incredible Techniques by the luck of the draw, they were going to be absolutely useless to him.
It was, somehow, better to get the Sword Usage Perk on the off chance that he got a usable sword at some point than it was to get either of the other Perks. ‘God, this Class is so disappointing… then again, it has already given me immunity to burnout, so maybe I shouldn’t complain too much.’
Choice made, John dismissed the window and rolled his shoulders. Now he was out of excuses to have his entanglement with Sylph. That would probably take about half the time they saved by having her solo the boss. Grinding against the air elemental would be a much more pleasant activity though.
So he went right to that.
Comments
gordianTangle
Yeah, I agree that John is undervaluing unique loot. When it was gear that would be outclassed in a few months, that was one thing, but these days, many pieces of raid loot are permanent guild hall updates. Plus, given how much bonus stuff he gets, rushing levels really decreases eventual power. It just seems foolish.
Phraxius
I feel like John is severely underestimating the 'more loot' options - I agree with picking SEP over it, but surely another chance at Legendary raid loot is better than two levels? He can and does get levels by fucking - and it isn't even a slow process.
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