The last Monday of August. The one following Travolta’s funeral and John’s promotion to Guild Master. A Monday like most in every regard aside from what had happened yesterday. Because he was, once again, hanging out in the forest with his girlfriend.

They had spent Sunday just cuddling, playing video games, and celebrating life in all ways they could. After that, the urgency of their situation had set back in. Regan projected limited protection over them, but that was only worth so much when dealing with a local powerhouse. The Abyss Auction had a wide reach, but it did not have a deep one. If the Bloodfallen didn’t care about getting on their bad side, then there was nothing stopping them from taking the rest of Collide on.

Which meant they had to get stronger.

John had his hand raised to the sky and kept using Create and Escape I.D. as quickly as he could. Which was not that fast. What mattered was the Skill levelling. “So how long are you going to do this?” Rave asked.

“Until I push beyond this weird ‘Gap’ and we can challenge something that actually gives EXP.” John explained and the world shattered around them only for a new wall to be erected in its place.

“And how long is that supposed to be?” Rave was apparently bored out of her mind.

“I dunno, Gaia is a bit finicky. I don’t even strictly know if this’ll work. It’s either this or we have to kill all the Tier 3 bosses but… that feels like too little of a challenge to be it.” John had an idea, “How about you try patting Copernicus while I keep doing this?”

“Ya know he won’t come out if he doesn’t feel like it. Also, if there’s a hiker around, Gaia will curse me with several days of bad luck. Maybe make me trip on the road and die.”

“Point taken.” The world shattered over and over while they kept talking.

“Have ya spent the newest points yet?” Rave asked, just to keep some form of conversation going.

“No, I will once I get this done though.” John knew that it was stupid but he felt slightly bad about spending the points he got by killing Travolta. What he found much more distressing however was the fact that he even got EXP for killing somebody. That set a terrible precedent. A less moral person with his powers might start assassinating high level people to grind EXP. “Gaia is not a particularly nice being, is she?”

“Hell to the no.” Rave laughed, “Ever seen reality and thought ‘the person in charge of all of this must be real nice’? She is a natural law more than an entity. Without her the Abyss would run over the day-to-day society.”

“Undoubtedly.” John used his free hand to scratch the back of his head, suddenly froze in the motion, and lowered his hand again. He was still trying to get rid of that habit.

“What about Aclysia’s points?” Rave asked and pointed at the Artificial Guardian with her head. He let Aclysia answer that one, “Master has not yet spent the points my ‘level-ups’ have granted me.” The living figurine explained.

“Whyyyyy thoooooooo?” Rave drew out the sentence as a lamentation of boredom.

“Because I am not sure whether to increase her Strength or her Intellect. Aclysia you have trouble with your long-term memory, right?”

“This is correct, master. Things older than one week get hazier as times go by. I don’t forget completely however.”

“Sounds normal to me, I can’t remember what I ate a week ago.” Rave chimed in. “Yeah but you can remember the more interesting parts of each day, can’t you?” John put out the question.

“Aaah, so she forgets stuff without differentiating between what is important or unimportant, gotcha.”

“If I may, Master, I’d prefer if you raised my Intellect first.” Aclysia stated. John was surprised, that must be the first time Aclysia voiced her preference regarding herself. “If that is okay with you, Master. It won’t be too helpful for my prime directive, but I believe I’d enjoy living more if you did that.”

“Of course! Okay, so the next goal with you is getting you to 25 Intellect, shouldn’t be hard, all things considered,” John happily agreed. If there were any magical item drops, it should pull Aclysia up to his level and thus give her the remaining four of the needed fourteen points. Which reminded him of the hate he had for odd 1 floating around in her Stats. John was not a true perfectionist, but that was just offensive.

Now that was interesting on numerous levels. First off: time dilation was a new one. He looked up what he could do with that. The answer was: not too much. Currently his maximum dilation was 5% apparently, interestingly he could only make it so the time inside the barrier passed faster than outside – prolonging the time he had available for grinding. That meant 3 more minutes per hour. Little things add up. He informed Rave about the new state of affairs. “Bullshit.” Was her answer, “That is Fateweaver stuff. Okay 5% isn’t that great, the higher guys are said to make time almost freeze. Still knowing your bullshit ability, you will get there over time.”

She probably wasn’t wrong. Or maybe she was. When it came to his ability and the reliability of her knowledge, few things were absolutely certain. “We will see. Anyway, let’s look at what the Monster Spawn List says now.”

“Interesting. So we can either go into a Dungeon with Floors or Waves. Floors usually are better for farming items in a relaxed fashion because they allow you to take breaks while Waves are better for hardcore grinding while you fight endless assaults.”

 “John, my man, my nerd, my boyfriend.” Rave laughed, “I play games too, why are you telling me this?”

John blushed a bit before clearing his throat, “Just making sure. So I think we should try the Floor first.”

“Sounds good, what’s on the menu?”

“Skaven.”

Rave raised an eyebrow and waited for further explanation. “What? I thought you also played videogames.” John teased, “You should know this.”

“It’s probably one of those Warhammer things, isn’t it?”

“Ding Ding.” John acted like he hit a small gong. “100 points. Skaven are a race of underground dwelling rat-men that try to get their greedy little hands on Warpstone and-”

“Rat-people.” Rave interrupted in an annoyed tone, “Got it.”

John sighed. It was a tad macabre that he missed Travolta a bit more now. He would never get a chance to nerd out with the man. Chasing those thoughts aside, he remained in reality. Nothing good would come of getting stuck on grief. “Okay, before we go there I should probably spend those points.”

Ten points would go into Wisdom. That was his goal: Wisdom 100. If that didn’t fix his mana problems he would concentrate on getting Intellect to 100 as well and see where that got him. If it did, he would start pushing his other Stats. Particularly, Endurance and Agility needed some work. With Aclysia and Gnome around he didn’t have much use for Strength but dodging and actually living through stuff was important. He was way too much of a glass cannon. ‘I should try pushing that Endurance Achievement I got in the early days a few more levels,’ he thought as he raised his Wisdom to 100.

Oh, holy mother of everything WHAT?! John quickly added the 1% to Wisdom and that put his total Mana Regeneration at 81 per Minute.

He tapped the right option and now it was a much smaller number that made him feel less grand. Still, what a jump!

“You look like Gaia showed her butt to you,” Rave’s puzzled comment reminded him of reality. “What did that button pushing give ya?”

“Well, I just more than quadrupled my Mana Regeneration.” John realized the absurdity of it as he said that, “Apparently Stats at 100 also make similar Stats better.” He quickly broke down what the windows had said.

“Yeah, still bullshit. I guess that means your mana problem is taken care of for now?”

“Well…. I can use Mana Ray once per Minute so I guess that is good enough for now.” John said, a bit hesitatingly. He would only be truly happy if he could throw skills around without thinking much about his MP at all. This would have to suffice for now. Besides, he should probably increase Intellect next to see what the 75 and 100 Synergy Bonuses would be. Well, if he wanted mana, that was. After a short contemplation, he decided against it.

“Okay, next goal is Endurance 25!” An Efficiency Upgrade for his Health Pool should make him sturdier and afterwards he would start jogging or something to get ‘The Muscle of the Operation’ up. The combination of the two should make him capable of taking at least a few stray hits. Maybe his physique would get a bit more impressive too. He started on that immediately, putting the remaining 5 points into the Stat.

“Okay, I am ready, how about you?”

“Way ahead of ya!”

“I will follow, Master.”

‘I am here, John.’

With the agreement of all parties, save Copernicus who probably didn’t care, John opened his first actual Dungeon.