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The Gamer Chapter 959 – Jumping Continuation
🕑 Added 2021-03-16 15:06:22 +0000 UTCJohn felt a bit weird about what he just witnessed. Not because of any privacy aspect or because it felt like forbidden knowledge, but simply because it reminded him just how odd his Gamer powers were. Somehow, he felt robbed of the opportunity to learn things through incremental improvement. Of course, he wasn’t. His powers weren’t so all defining that he got a Skill for literally everything he did. Otherwise, his Character Sheet would long ago have turned into a list the length of the bible.
‘It begs the question though if I would get a Skill for anything I did if I tried hard enough,’ he thought, ‘and, by extension, if I have a hard ceiling for things that I do not have a Skill for.’ Whether or not that was the case, when it came to things that he really invested into, he didn’t really ‘learn’ in the traditional way. He fulfilled a prerequisite and then he simply knew how to do it properly. All mastery on his side was the application of a Skill, not the execution of it. Arguably, even the application only came from him having raised his Stats to the point where they were their own prerequisite.
None of this was bad by definition and John wouldn’t have exchanged his powers to regain this sensation of incremental improvement. It just reminded him how odd he was, progressing in clearly measurable steps. When it came to Skills and Stats, those were small enough that he didn’t mind on a day-to-day basis. Classes, however, the leaps were pretty significant.
John had a few hours to kill, which was a rare pleasure. There were many things he could have filled that space with. Video games and sex were the top contenders, but the Gamer was feeling productive. Even on a busy day, he took time out of it for the latter anyway. If he had been more stressed, video games would have definitely been an option. The last thing he wanted was burnout. Right now, he was feeling healthy and could put some extra work hours in.
Technically, he already was doing that. Jack was hammering away at providing feedback for a 2500-page document regarding the economic development plans of the Federation. Fundamentally, Fusion was a free-market economy, which meant that there was not too much central planning to be done. However, Fusion, or Collide to be the most exact, was also highly unusual in that the government actually produced something. Because the Guild Hall provided a steady outflow of resources and (now that the Token was starting to come online) cash, Fusion had the option to invest into infrastructure projects without raising taxes higher.
It was quite unfair to other states of the world. When they wanted to get something of a large scale done, they either had to ask or extort their population for additional money. Fusion could let capitalism work largely unhindered (a modicum of safety and quality regulations made sense) and still gain some of the benefits of central planning through the Guild Hall’s production.
John didn’t want to put the endless resources of the Guild Hall in competition with the market though. Careless intervention could crash a market he only meant to prop up for the short term. It was best to limit the resources of the Federation to projects investors would only hesitantly pick up. Something like developing an unstable neighbourhood or setting up the foundations for a new town. Those things usually needed a shove, like a still heart could be reanimated by a powerful jolt, and then went on by themselves. Matthew principle and all of that economical wish-wash.
Joining his double in that task would have doubtlessly raised his productivity. Knowing that he had to do more paperwork next week anyway, John opted out of making his Sunday another weekday. He could have gone into a few Instant Dungeons. Assaults would be way less effective when he went in there on his own, though, and he didn’t really need anything outside of EXP at the moment. A Skill Evolution Point might have been nice, but he could always buy one, if he and Gnome managed to sort out what was blocking them. Starting a new Adventure in hope of getting one didn’t seem worthwhile.
All of those potential activities eliminated, John was left with one good choice: getting this Max Class Level filled out. Because he had already locked on Unfound, he didn’t have to consider what to go with there either. He could just start doing it.
The Unfound Challenges were generally easy for John. They took many shapes, but always involved him doing something without his sight. Gaia manifested a lock for him that he had to open with only his hands and ears. Then she gave him the task to sort forty noise-exuding objects in the order of their ascending tune. Both combined took him about an hour. Because his senses were generally superhuman, things like these were more of a time challenge than one of skill.
Since this was only the third level of the Unfound Class, John didn’t think this was anything to brag about.
‘Interesting choices, but Basic Elemental Perception clearly wins,’ the Gamer thought.
Extended Perception wasn’t bad, but the Mandala Sphere just didn’t get the same benefit from those senses that he did. It wasn’t nearly as important for Jack to sense an ambush, because the Mandala Sphere getting destroyed was little more than a monetary loss to John. By now, he had a replacement sphere lying around that was an exact replica of the one he currently used. Losing both in the same month could be an issue, because of the cooldown, but otherwise it really didn’t matter.
Basic Aura Reading was going to take him closer to Lorelei’s ability to perceive emotions, John reckoned. That was valuable, but John wasn’t certain that was where he wanted to take the path of his Class Perks. With Observe offering much of the same functionality, it only served to force enemies to wear two kinds of protection against his information gathering. That aside, the range was pretty limited.
As for Basic Elemental Perception, it had the disadvantage that its bonus was a bit nebulous. The passive bonus the Unfound Class offered for the Elemental Perception had been minimal so far. The description just went from ‘basic’ to ‘clear’ and now, at level 3, stated ‘detailed’. Because John didn’t usually keep the Unfound Class active, he hadn’t benefitted from those bonuses for long enough to really notice the difference.
Fact of the matter was, though, that this was a passively growing bonus to his senses and it was in line with his current plan. If he wanted to sharpen the supernatural senses to the point he could perceive the other side of a wall well enough that he could Magus Step through it, then this was likely a necessary step on that path. Therefore, he took it.
Following this set of easy Challenges and the easy choice, John was subjected to the worst Class Challenge of all time.
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“And then he said that he was interested in my cloud.”
“No way.”
“Yes way.”
“Your cloud?”
“Did anyone check out what Methenia was doing today? I think I had an appointment with her. Something about building some flower houses with her. Or maybe it was flour houses? I am not sure, was I supposed to be a baker or a breeder or a seeder or a renter?”
“My cloud. My fluffy wuffy cloud.”
“Is very fluffy wuffy. I am also interested in your cloud.”
“Has anybody seen the weather forecast for the day? Shiny hot weather! Love the shiny hot weather, but maybe it could thunder around here some more. I miss the crackle from home. Oh, oh, maybe I’ll go home for a week or fifteen.”
“You are cute, so you can be interested in my cloud.”
“Did you know that puppies are absolutely adorable?”
“There’s a sale over at the Earth Island. They’re selling lots of adorable cuddles for free! Can you believe that? Cuddles! Adorable cuddles! The ruler there is a cuddle season!”
“Like cloudy weather nice or sound-drowned wastes deafening?”
“Did you know Mother Thunder banned Sullyvan from her court? Creep totally deserved it, yes, yes.”
“Preach it, sister! Anyway, where were we about those puppies?”
“Did you know that cotton candy is a THING?! I always thought that was just, like, dream substance. Like Lady Sylph’s hair. Sylph’s hair is so nice!”
“”Preach it sister!”” all of the wind elementals around agreed immediately.
John was feeling his sanity getting chipped away by the constant buzzing sound of the air spirits chattering on all around him. That was the Challenge, to sit perfectly still in the Air Shrine and just listen to them do their usual babbling for an hour.
It was torture on several levels.
To start with, although he had gotten a lot more sociable since his eighteenth birthday, the Gamer was still an introvert at his core. Prolonged social interaction with strangers exhausted him mentally. Listening to all of them could hardly be called interaction, but at this current level of sheer sense-overburdening noise, that didn’t matter.
That was the second dimension as well. The sheer variety of sounds. Most of the air spirits were female, but their voices were distinct enough from each other that they didn’t blend together. There was also the steady buzz of electricity in the air, gusts of winds flowing over the floating rock on top of which the Wind Shrine was located and the random beatboxer drifting by.
If all of that wasn’t enough, the air spirits also continuously prodded him with their tiny or normal sized fingers. A different kind of people would have eventually grown bored with the ‘meditating’ man that didn’t react. Not so the wind elementals. Every 30 seconds or so, they were interested in him again, like a bunch of flies that had forgotten they had spent the last three seconds already bumping against that wall.
He was used to all of that behaviour, in a limited fashion. Sylph embodied her kind almost too well, after all, and spent most of her time babbling and being a buffoon. What made the arcvolt elemental digestible, her immense cuteness and the fact that there was only one of her, was absolutely trashed by the swarm of palaver around him.
Truly, air spirits were something best enjoyed in a limited capacity.
Luckily, the one he loved was also the ruler of this place, and came to his rescue after a little while. “Alright, girls, and the few boys here, I guess, if you care about that, I can just call you all girls like guys call their female friends guys, ‘cause humans are weird… Anyway, pack it up! Master Johnny John is mine to poke and cuddle!”
“”Yes, Lady Sylph,”” the immense chorus of voices unified for those three words before breaking down into a thousand conversations again.
The rest of the ‘meditation’ was more pleasurable. Largely because Sylph decided to feel up her silent contractor. Something that gradually transitioned into her sucking on his knob and then to her sitting on his dick. That was not against the spirit of the Challenge, as long as he kept listening.
One large crack in his sanity and many orgasms later, John got the fourth Perk of the Unfound Class.
‘And there it is,’ John thought, reading through Advanced Elemental Perception. Given that the other two were repeats, him taking that was already guaranteed. ‘Or, well, it’s at least the basic enabler. This will only allow me to sense that there is another side of the wall. I’ll have to check if it’s enough to actually teleport through.’
He made his choice. He tested it.
It wasn’t. Most of the time, anyway.
He attempted it throughout the Palace. His own home was the perfect testing ground. Because of the sheer absurd size of the building, there were more unused parts to it than otherwise. Sure, every one of his girls had their own apartments, but when one built a home into an expanded foundation for the Statue of Liberty, space became a superfluous resource. Especially since the entirety of the star fort below was available for potential rooms as well.
Most of these unused rooms were currently sealed off. If he gave them a door, Aclysia would have felt obligated to clean them every now and again. Since he could limit the thickness of the walls with only a mild amount of cash, he could check exactly how thick a wall had to be in order for him to ignore it.
The answer was: about as thick as a finger. Any more and John was able to perceive that there was a room, but not enough of what was inside it for Magus Step to allow him to teleport through. That made this currently untenable, very few places had walls that thin, but it was a good start. While solid walls remained an obstacle, doors were now an obstacle he could easily clear. Particularly the kind that didn’t seal completely and left some air flow between two rooms was easily jumped through.
‘Advancement to my goal is always nice, whether that comes jumpingly or steadily,’ the Gamer thought, wrapping up the testing. Then his steps carried him towards the Sex Dungeon.
He had an appointment with Eliza.
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