“I want to apologize to you,” John thus said when he was alone with Aclysia in the living room. Except he wasn’t alone, as the bunch of prying creatures most of his girls were, he just knew that at least half of them were listening in. Whether that was Eliza using her supreme hearing, the elementals just listening in or Rave straight up sitting down beside him with a lollipop in her mouth, they were keeping their ears straight. They had the decency to keep quiet though.

Aclysia looked puzzled at that. “What do you have to apologize for?”

“The fact that I picked a nonsensical build for you,” John answered. “Or, rather, a very poorly optimized one. You are basically just a stat ball, the only two active abilities you have are completely defensive and not particularly strong. Honestly, I don’t even know when the anti-magic shield even did something worthwhile.”

When he had picked it, he had done so with the assumption that all the little damage reductions would add up over the course of a fight, but that had turned out to be thinking too much in game terms. Real fights were rarely defined by an array of little damage and it didn’t even work unless she was also blocking physical attacks to refill her mana on the side. It was time to admit that he should have gone with Ultimate Body a while ago, that at least would have played to Aclysia’s strength as a high-statted frontliner.

“A lot of that comes from the constant switching of what exactly your role is in combat,” John continued. “I created you with the intent of using you as a tank, but real tanks don’t exist in proper fights because real enemies don’t have any threat mechanic forcing them to attack you. So I thought I would have you stay close to me so you can protect me while I bombard enemies with spells. What you really became was a sturdy frontline fighter, indirectly protecting me by being too dangerous to ignore, and because I later got Gnome and Undine as close-range protectors, you actually fight further away from me. In the fight with Sigmund, you directly engaged him in the field, which is the proper way to go about this as I now realize. Yet I still gave you Defence Stance and Anti-Magic Shield as perks, just because I thought I should still optimize you as a damage sponge.”

Throughout this lengthy explanation, Aclysia nodded several times to signal she was still listening. “I have not ever found any lack in my current abilities, but laid out there is dissonance between what I usually do and what you designed my skillset to do.” John was both happy that she acknowledged what he was saying and embarrassed that they even needed to have this conversation. This was all his mistake; it wasn’t a big one (it wasn’t like Aclysia’s build was non-functional), but in hindsight he should have just done things differently.

“So, we will try to get a reset or something,” he finally stated.

“And how are we going to do that?” Aclysia asked; such a mechanic hadn’t even been teased at until now.

“Well, there is only one thing we can do,” he clapped his hands together and assumed a praying pose. “Please, Gaia, grant me this one miracle.”

Those were some hefty costs, as was to be expected, but John clicked yes anyway. Despite Aclysia raising halfway out of her seat on the black leather couch across from him in an attempt to stop him. “John, that was a great price you just paid without any of your usual overthinking – I mean analyzation.”

John chuckled at the little jab, although he was convinced it was actually just a slip of her tongue. “I was already prepared to pay a lot to do this, Aclysia. I am not going to be stingy if it is about you being as perfect as you can be. I was prepared for some giant questline and I would have done it all – for you.”

“Oh, John…” Aclysia began, but the moment was ruined by the sound of three swords and a bunch of random stuff (including sex toys, wrapped food, a bunch of money and other such things) falling to the floor as the inventory that was meant to hold them ceased existing. The giant white cleaver gracefully broke the table between them by falling on it edge first. While unfortunate, it reminded John that he hadn’t given it an Observe yet.

“Fucking hell,” John blurted out as he went over all the Attributes. Swordmind was what was described in the History area. Surveillance Blocker and Mind Protector needed little explanation, as did Eversharp. Indestructible 5 was odd, but upon inspecting it made perfect sense. Normal Indestructible just prevented things to fall to 0 Durability. In other words, it kept them from being permanently destroyed. Indestructible 5 kept the weapon from falling below 50 Durability.

Soulrend was Touch of the Abyss on steroids. Not only could the weapon cut immaterial beings and incorporeal elementals, it also hurt beings living inside someone’s soul. In other words, if someone were to cut John with that thing, it would also hurt all of his familiars. That was disgustingly strong.

True Death prevented people to use the corpses this weapon produced as targets for necromancy. It also, and that was also dumbfounding, had the capability to permanently kill contracted elementals, if the wielder wished so. John was suddenly incredibly thankful that Sigmund had targeted him over his elementals, if Marath had that Attribute, then – so John theorized - Tietan had it as well.

Devourer of Life was a buff that increased the wielder’s Strength by 1 for each being killed, up to a maximum of the wielder’s level.

Sacrificial Cleaver allowed the wielder to sacrifice health to empower their next strike, creating shockwaves that could be used for ranged attacks. It sounded like a more brutal version of Eclys’ Reality Cut.

Spellslicer was the same as it was on Eclys, allowing the blade to cut through spell work.

All in all, it was a piece of equipment that was on par with Eclys and definitely outclassed it in the raw power department, which was good because that’s what John had wanted a new cleaver for. Eclys would remain Aclysia’s go to weapon, simply by being more versatile and easier to wield. Also, Aclysia needed more Strength to properly wield that thing.

“I feel considerably less horny,” Aclysia commented out of nowhere.

“No wonder, with the Consumption Slots and Refined Body falling away, you have 100% less bonus Libido,” John reminded her.

“Weirdly, I kind of miss it,” Aclysia tilted her head quizzically while looking at John. “It feels wrong to have a lessened want to have intercourse with you, Master.” She looked over to Rave, “Or stick my penis into Mistress.”

“That sounded all sorts of weird,” Rave laughed, swirling the lollipop around in her mouth suggestively. “Does that help?”

“Well, I know what will help,” John said and began the process of going down his old choices.

The skill tree choices of the first go through barely mattered, simply because it would take Sisterhood by the end anyway, meaning that John could carry only three of them over. As such he concentrated on getting the things he hadn’t regretted carrying over both resets, namely Sword Specialization and the two extra Consumption Slots. He got them through the choices, picked the same Material Bonuses as before, and went into the Special Choices. Here he picked Refined Body and Refined Body II, same as before, and finally Ultimate Body.

“I am now slightly hornier than before the reset,” Aclysia announced, rubbing her legs together in that typically turned-on fashion. “These rapid changes to my Stats are a weird experience.”

“The largest changes should be done now,” John promised and went into the second round. This was more interesting, as the choices he picked here were likely to stick. With that in mind, he carefully walked down the road of giving her all the things that would make her sturdy and self-reliant. The Skill Tree was the part where he found he had done less bad choices though, it was the Special Choices where he felt he had done goofed. It was interesting to see how the pick of Ultimate Body rippled throughout the following windows.

Well, she already was down to 17 mana. John had to question Gaia’s decision to make Intellect and Wisdom irrelevant Stats, but he kind of felt like he would get a future choice that would deal with that problem. Gaia had proven to be a flawed designer, but she still figured out fixes for most things.

No matter how slow that conversion was, it was also good on a monetary level. John hadn’t gone big on feeding Aclysia metal and selling the refined stuff on the Auction yet, but that was totally a thing he could do. It was interesting to note that she needed a perk to upgrade to this level though.

And there it was, an actual important choice that made Aclysia more than a statball. John had the lingering suspicion that it wasn’t just him not going down the Ultimate Body route until now that allowed him this choice but also Gaia not having designed something like that until now. Of course, that was pure guesswork, for all he knew he would have gotten choices for different anti-mage classes if he went for the Anti-Magic Shell route at the end.

Fact was, this was a bit of a hard choice. Style cultivation screamed at him as the right choice, purely on the basis that it changed Aclysia’s focus from Tank to Maid Knight. However, he wasn’t the one who had to use those abilities in the future.

“I would prefer the Maid Knight,” Aclysia gave her opinion once asked. “Most of my fighting style resolves around guarding points or stalling the enemy. Soulblade and Sworddancer both sound like more offensively weighted classes with flashy tricks. I don’t want to have flashy tricks, I want to be a wall between you and your enemies, Master. Maid Knight seems to be a good compromise between me still being a damage sponge, as you stated earlier, and giving me offensive power.”

“I can only agree with all of that,” John said and picked the Style Cultivation.

Oh, how much John wanted to take Sex Servant. It was basically a perverse fantasy of any man. However, he was basically already living that fantasy. Would it be fun to see Aclysia climax just from telling her to suck his dick? Absolutely. Did he want her to feel even greater when having sex, making her increased Libido attractive? Of course. Did the promise of an AMAZING pussy intrigue him, seeing how Aclysia was already surrounding him like a glove every time? Better bet a billion dollars on that, because he would have been a moron not too.

But he really already had all of that, this thing just promised to make what he had even better. The Housemaid one did the same, but it sprinkled a giant inventory on top, one which he really liked and Aclysia also wanted. Another thing Aclysia wanted: his children. This was obvious from the fact that she jumped over the table and grabbed John’s hands to prevent him from making a choice while she thought about this. He would have waited anyway, and she knew that, but she wanted to make extra sure.

“You are still not ready for kids, correct, Master?” the weaponized maid’s voice was intense, almost inquisitive.

“Are you joining Eliza on that crazy train?” John asked nervously; he wasn’t used to Aclysia staring at him like he was about to ruin the cake she was baking by pissing on the dough.

“If I had a womb, I would,” that was a clear statement. “Your answer?”

“I am still 18,” he pointed out the usual.

“And you have a Wisdom of 250 and took control over an organization that controls large amounts of New York by being so sexy and intimidating that its leader instantly wanted to be banged by you,” Aclysia kept being rather intense, pushing ever closer. “You are not to excuse yourself with the words of the average, Master, you are too different for that.”

“Sorry, you just look very scary right now and giving a straight answer is difficult,” John admitted in a bit of a high-pitched voice. He cleared his throat and then stated in his usual tone, which was actually a deeper, manlier tone than he had before raising his Charisma, “Anyway, no, I am still not ready.”

Aclysia backed off with a disappointed look on her face. She plopped down on the sofa next to him and began to cuddle with him. “It better show up again when you are then,” with those words she gave him the indirect permission to pick the Loving Housemaid one.

“Uhm…” John looked at the choices. Those weren’t the same as last reset. They were also an arrangement of pretty bad stuff. Sacrifice was back and he really wished it wasn’t. Reducing the burden was less terrible than last time but still not good. Sisterhood was actually the best decision here and he also kind of felt like taking it. After meeting Scarlett (and seeing her nude), he was feeling in a harem growing mood. That may have just been his dick talking though. The disadvantage there was that he was back down to the two Consumption Slots and Sword Specialization. They would need to get her new skills in the future. Then again, maybe that wasn’t so bad seeing how all future choices would have a new focus.

However, a look at Aclysia, then at Eclys, then at Marath, the two blades looking like they actually came straight out of the game that Aclysia’s looks were based on, and John had an idea.