John was humming as he stepped out of the shower, staring at his Classes. “What’cha thinking about?” his girlfriend asked, right behind him. Well, she was behind him for the one step outside the slippery wet floor, then she took three dancing struts around him, booping him on the nose in the process. At the end of that movement, she stopped in front of the sink or, rather, the immense construction consisting of a sink, closets and large mirrors. “One second we have a shower quickie, the next you’re already thinking about Gamer stuff,” she gave him a playful pout, followed immediately by a grin.

“It is very important stuff,” John defended himself, hugging her naked body from behind as she checked herself out in the mirror. While he was as ready as always to bend her over and take her another time, he was currently satisfied just feeling her warmth and softness against his chest. Despite rumours to the contrary, John Newman was a man with quite a bit of self-control for his age. Gently, he stretched his neck and kissed hers.

Rave lovingly ran a hand through his short hair. “Better do that quickly, tiger, I am going to need your advice with some girly stuff.”

Postponing the question about what and since when his girlfriend was interested in that sort of thing, John did as asked and went to solve this particular question. Of course, he did it while breathing in the pink haired bombshell’s scent and exploring her body with the one hand he didn’t need to tap on windows.

He was level 150 and that meant he had an extra class level to spend. Technically two, but Elementalist precautions still applied. The question was what to level. For a start he decided to separate them into categories; the usual elimination process would lead him to a nice conclusion.

There were three classes he regarded as vanity, being Housekeeper, Lover Boy and Disciple – from least to most likely to be useful. Housekeeper was just a dead class with Aclysia around, doing everything he could do with immense care and loving devotion. Lover Boy’s only argument, aside from making him an even better fuck, was that Gaia had teased something about the upper levels helping him with his ‘people you love right now are going to grow old and die around you’ problem. Disciple, lastly, was the class that increased his maximum amount of Blessings he could get from gods, like the Horned Rat and Nathalia had already given him. He still had another one slot empty before reaching the base maximum of three, so levelling was unnecessary, but if he got that working, it would doubtlessly lead to some nice bonuses.

However, they were vanity, so they were out. One day he would invest in Lover Boy, just in the hopes to make those he cared about stick around him for as long as he could make it (with their consent of course), but right now all of the girls in his harem were either young, immortal or tethered to his soul already. He just needed to get it done before any of them started getting wrinkles. Given the absurdity that were Abyssal genes, that would be a long time off.

The next category were then the niche classes. To those he counted Gamer, Fateweaver and Martial Artist. He had no wish whatsoever to touch Fateweaver again. The bonuses it gave were quite nice, but they didn’t seem worth it to invest his limited class points, especially since he had people to time dilate for him now. Unless there was another cherry on top, like the mobile barrier maintenance, it was something he felt his build didn’t need.

Martial Artist he would level only to get access to Arcweaving eventually, something so far off that considering that class right now felt factually foolish. Lastly, Gamer had a widespread amount of bonuses and, what was more important, it was actually unique to John and his more unorthodox abilities. Anyhow, as much as he liked it, the argument could very well be made that it actually belonged in the vanity category.

Then he was left with Elementalist, Arcanist and Puppeteer, all three were about the same level in regards to his combat build. He favoured Elementalist up until now because classes seemed to give more powerful bonuses the deeper one got and Combination was truly a disgusting tool in his toolbox that he wanted to develop to the end. Now that that option was blocked to him, the other two needed to be explored.

“Mhm, do help me,” John whispered into Rave’s ear, cupping her marshmallow soft ass. “Should I make the investment that is smart now or smart for the future?” Arcanist was clearly a strong pick and the choices would strengthen him right now, that much was clear. On the other hand, Puppeteer came with the problem that he didn’t have a suitable vessel right now – Although he had shown Scarlett a very ambitious idea and she had assured him that it was possible. It would just take time. Adding to that that this next level would not wield a perk due to the choice he made with resetting Aclysia and it would be a mostly dead level.

However, he had little doubt that Puppeteer would be a better class for his style all around. There was just no underestimating the stupendous power behind being able to cast spells from basically any angle he wanted. If he could somehow increase the soft barrier in the skill, making the perception through his possessed object less and less accurate once it was several kilometres away, he would eventually be able to partake in battles he had no business being present for.

Although that also relied on him being able to enter barriers with only those objects. Currently he either needed to be around or the barriers needed to pull the objects in. He had found a potential workaround for that though, the viability of which was yet to be tested.

Rave grabbed both of his hands in her own. “I say…” she began guiding them towards her stomach, “… ya should bet on the future.” All four hands met underneath her navel. She turned around and gave John a long, deep stare. The blue of her eyes pulled him in like he was slowly sinking into an ocean. “On our future,” she squeezed his hand.

“You aren’t…?” John began the question; this whole thing was very ambiguous. From the earnest tone to gesture, it made the Gamer feel like she was trying to tell him she was pregnant.

“I have been thinking about it a bit more lately,” she admitted but shook her head. “But nope, still on birth control. I won’t just bulldoze you with news like that.” Something about the way she ended that sentence caused John to lean in and kiss her on the lips. With the weirdly wonderful wet smacking sound of parting mouths, she finished, “So, I have no idea what’cha mean in detail, but that’s my choice.”

“That’s all the reason I need,” John assured her and picked Puppeteer. “Okay, so what girly things?”

“I want to make a good impression on your mom, so tell me what I should put on,” she stated, opening a large closet to her left. Dozens of little bottles stood there, labelled with aesthetically pleasing pictures of whatever fruit or mixture of aromas their insides were meant to relay in fragrance. This was where Aclysia stored the perfumes she currently had drank up on, freely available for public usage.

“For a start, I think my mother loves you, seeing how your phone calls last like the quadruple of mine with her and are about the same factor as frequent,” John stated, passively swinging slightly with his girlfriend between his arms, the pair doing a swaying, nude dance to whatever beat Rave had stuck in her mind today, “and you already met her in person.”

“Yeah, okay, but I was nineteen then,” Rave joked, “I also had brown hair and my boyfriend looked more like a guy with spaghetti for arms than a 9/10.”

“What? What am I missing for the perfect score?!” John demanded to know.

“Your face is still kinda bland,” she gave it to him straight. “Like, your body is just straight-up out of my wet dreams now, but above the neck, just kinda… I don’t want to say average, you look good, very good, but not exactly memorable? Like, if I just passed you once on the street, I would think, ‘What a handsome guy,’ and then forget about what exactly made ya handsome. 10/10 gets seared straight into the ovary memory.”

“I don’t think there is something capable of memorizing down there,” John grumbled, stung by the announcement. “New point of policy: raise Charisma to 100 after Wisdom is done to get your girlfriend to admit you are a perfect ten.”

“Hey, I am just a 9 too,” Rave admitted, cupping her breasts. “These are a tad too small.”

“That is so absolutely debatable,” John stated. “To me all of you girls are tens in your own right.”

“Because you are a guy and you are just happy to dip your dick into all of us,” his girlfriend laughed. “Anyhow, reason why that is important is that ya clearly improved in life. You look healthier, adultier and successful and ya come in there with a whole array of girls. Don’t wanna look like I just stagnated next to ya.”

He could try to persuade her that there was no reason to feel that way, but they had had this conversation with different themes before. “Alright,” he reached over and closed that closet. “Well, if you want to look as good as you can.” The Lightbearer followed his movements as he opened another closet, one that had similar but larger bottles filled with a more viscous array of liquids. “Let’s get you on the couch instead and massage that smell in as deep as I can make you relax.”

“Mhm, that does sound nice… we gotta pick some clothes afterwards,” his girlfriend was leaning more heavily on his chest, letting him make the decision of what oil.

“I am sure we will find something nice,” John assured.

________________________________________________________________________

It was a nice and warm day in Washington DC. Late April blew away the remains of winter, a slightly clouded sky slowly increasing the heat as the sun turned towards noon. In such weather, John managed to talk his girlfriend into wearing a summer dress and it was glorious. The baby blue fabric had the same colour as her nail polish and resonated nicely with her eyes and hair. The ample skin this sleeveless piece, with its above-kneecaps height skirt, revealed was glowing seemingly from within.

All impurities were gone from Rave’s skin, be it by the magic inside her, her extensive martial arts training reaffirming the effect or her boyfriend’s sensual message that had not involved any dicks for an exceptional case. The pink strands of her chaotic mane absorbed the sunlight, the light strands of individual hair creating a crevice of caught gold around her head. Everything about her seemed at a natural perfection that no amount of makeup could hope to achieve.

However, she was scowling, “There is no way I am fighting while this dolled up.” The comment came with the scene that greeted them in the harbour.

Being an actual power, it was only sensical that the Little Maryland had a proper harbour barrier set-up. John found it mildly disappointing that this was only a level 2 barrier, meaning that it was large, just not city-encapsulating large, but after having gone through the preparations for a level 3 creation himself, he understood that it was perhaps not in everybody’s economic interest to pay that much money to Fateweavers.

All of that aside, John had mentally prepared himself for some haggling, forms to be filled and people to be convinced for him to be allowed to anchor. Instead, he was greeted by thin fog and the sounds of battle.

Evidently, a separate swarm of Noodles had made their way over to this barrier. While that name made it hard for John to take the threat seriously, not that it was to him, these creatures were, once again, a massive inconvenience. “I don’t want to get any guts on me either. I don’t want to take yet another shower, especially since I am smelling nicely like hazelnut and dark chocolate right now.” Being the massager, a naked one at that, much of the oil had stuck itself onto the Gamer’s own body. “Don’t want to replace that with fish.”

He sighed and mentally divided the girls that would come with him to his mother from those who wouldn’t. With him would be his girlfriend (obviously), Lydia, Eliza, Aclysia, Beatrice and Metra. Those were the ones who looked human and could, in the latter three cases, also change their composition in a way that made them indistinguishable in weight and body feel. Originally, he also wanted Scarlett to come with him, but the Technomancer had absolutely insisted on staying on the ship, best guarded by the elementals.

As said elementals were guaranteed to not come with them, it was a pretty easy decision to let them do the fighting. “What an annoyance,” John sighed heavily as all of them, save for Stirwin, headed out and cleared the harbour. “I want to speak to their manager.”