Green pasture, two houses, everything was as always with the grinds sponsored by Magoi’s awesome time dilation abilities. “Okay, everyone, let’s-” John wanted to address the gathered girls, when a window popped up in front of him and rained on his parade.

Granted, it was a good interruption. To keep with the parade metaphor, it was a rain of dollar signs. Although unlikely to be attained, if John got the optional reward, he could finally break his stalemate on Elementalist.

Not like there was any reason to deny the quest anyway. He clicked yes and then raised his eyes again. “Okay, sorry about that. Everyone, let’s-” Another window popped up.

And now somebody was just blasting snippets of gold foil into the air. John accepted that quest too. He already had a Max Class Level he could spend right now, from the church quest, plus the one he still had lying around precautionary. Basically, he could beat the quest pretty soon, both of the mentioned classes were already at level one, so only the challenges he would have to beat to get there were in the way.

“Okay, let’s make this quick,” he tried a third time and almost expected some window to interrupt him again. Nothing, however, did. Except for Eliza.

“What are you even going to fucking say? We were in this exact dumpster fire of a situation two bloody weeks ago, you cum-stained ass fucker,” she laid out. “It’s going to be the same shit as last time. Don’t waste anyone’s time with your dumbass speeches and go grind already.”

“What she said,” Metra agreed, Nia nodding next to her.

Well, that was pretty clear. “Okay then,” John said, suddenly becoming self-aware about how often he had said ‘Okay’ in the last minute. “I’ll just be on my way.”

“Come back soon,” Rave waved him off with a smirk, her boyfriend heading towards the white light gates in the distance. For the most part, Eliza was right. Those who wanted to train martial arts would do so out here, fighting each other, while John was going to take advantage of his busted experience mechanics and give them the Soulpotion every now and again. The only difference was that John was going to invest in a Class Level before.

Now, he had absolutely no idea what the challenges for the Gamer class had been, but since he had last touched it months ago, he must have just accidentally cleared them on the side. Not surprising in the least, since early challenges were incredibly easy. Now, the better question was whether he wanted to invest in Lover Boy or Gamer.

In Lover Boy he wanted to invest to due to the whole tease that there might be something fending off death by age in there. Something he had barely thought about, but now that he had to make the choice… Lover Boy was still more of a long-term project while he was after relatively short-term gains. Gamer sounded just more attractive for this moment, no matter how much John wanted to bulk-up his sexual abilities.

And those choices were just as boring. EXP Pots were the most interesting on the face of it, but John was pretty sure that he could get more experience reliably from disabling loot entirely. Not to mention he didn’t want to gobble those down at the end of any run. The advantage was that he could share them, but the Soulpotion he had was doing a good enough job at that. Improved Escape Rope cut the cooldown by four days, but John was pretty happy with the seven day version he had right now. He wasn’t in the habit of overstepping his boundaries like that, especially since he dictated the difficulty of engagement.

So, Weight on the Scale it was. Just a passive, not particularly strong, ‘take and forget’ kind of effect, but useful nevertheless.

‘And what do I have to do now?’ John wondered, looking at the Gamer Class.

‘Well, that will be a time sink,’ he thought. Exploring an entire Floor-based dungeon tended to take a long time. Generally talking, at least. There had been a previous iteration of an Alchemy dungeon that had been three arms and then led straight to the boss fight. For a moment, John actually considered whether or not this was worth it now.

The quest rewards had to be weighed up against the probably two Assaults he could run in the meantime. In the past, that would have easily gotten him one and a half levels. With the latest spike in experience requirements, he wasn’t even sure if he got the one. So yes, this would be worth it.

Okay, that was nice. Unexpected, but nice. John opened his stat screen to check the exact difference. It was way more massive than he expected. That patch had reduced the experience he needed for this level from over three million to exactly fifteen-thousand. Well, ‘reduced’, it was doubtful the actual effort needed to level up was reduced in any way, but the number on his screen was smaller, so that was nice.

In saddening news, it had also kept the EXP he had held at that moment to the same value in percent. Would have been amusing if his overhang caused him to level several times the next time he got any experience at all and the confused system checked the numbers. No quick exploits here, however.

Anyway, that changed nothing about his decision. The level was likely quicker gained through getting the class level, although that depended heavily on how the other 50% of the Class EXP were acquired. Additionally, John had already sunk a level in the Gamer class and turning around now would have meant that one was pretty much wasted. That and 500 GP went a long way. He could almost buy 25 Skill Levels with that, which he could use for several things.

‘Alright then, decision made,’ John thought and stepped through the gate of light into the empty plane that was to be filled with his own barrier. The creation process went by quickly, and he and his group found themselves back in a red lit room.

While the lights, located in the corners of the ceiling, were originally white and blindingly strong, most of their long forms were covered by glass pipes. Pumping a dark red liquid through them, those pipes were thusly responsible for the dim, crimson light that bathed everything in a slightly unnerving atmosphere. The quiet only reinforced this. The only sound to be heard was the distant humming of large generators, keeping the pumps running.

Occasionally, pieces of something solid would rush through the pipes, causing a shadow to hush over the unevenly plated walls. The first time this happened, Gnome yelped and got into a defensive stance, despite knowing that the first room in a floor-based dungeon was almost always a safe room.

They stood on a mesh of steel, solid but letting them look at the pipes that also ran under their feet. Without a light source under them, their colour reminded John of clotted blood. In all likelihood, given that this was an alchemy dungeon, this was some sort of shady elixir based on the life-sustaining liquid.

“I expect homunculus or something of the sort,” John said out loud as they began moving. Aclysia took the front, while Gnome guarded their back. As the soil elemental positively hated the creepy atmosphere, this was the ideal position for her. Every few moments, she would look over her shoulder, to make sure nothing was approaching her from behind.

Their steps on the steel echoed loudly in the otherwise quiet dungeon as they walked through the corridors. Sylph cut through the same, often too narrow for more than two of them to walk side by side. John used what she saw to add details to his map. Fully exploring didn’t mean he had to have been at every point inside the dungeon himself, just that he was aware of the complete layout. As such, separating in search was a legitimate strategy.

Normally, he would have sent Siena out as well. The nightmare elemental was a bit slower, but her movement through the shadows allowed her to scout unseen. As it turned out, however, the floor of this dungeon was designed to torment the sadistic shadow spirit. Not with the intent to do so, probably (who knew with Gaia), but effectively.

The light everywhere, as reddened as it was, caused very little shadows of the needed depths for Siena to use to be around. What little there was was under the floor, and Siena couldn’t access those without crawling under the mesh or going down there incorporeal, which would have left her stuck. Normally that would just have meant that she needed to walk, but with her natural high-heel shaped feet, that was bound to end in a catastrophe. Unwilling to even attempt and be embarrassed when she eventually did trip, Siena simply hung around as her incorporeal self and complained, ‘Who even had the idea to make a floor with holes in it?’

‘Sucks to be you,’ Salamander mentally cackled. ‘Maybe get proper feet when you evolve.’

‘Mhm, but footjobs are so much less fun without heels,’ Siena mused, causing John to shudder, imagining getting one from her. He wasn’t into that sort of stuff in the first place, but there was a difference between the normal footjob and one where a spike he had seen impale hands like they were marshmallows at the height of his balls. ‘They will stay as they are, it is the world that needs to change.’ The shadow spirit’s tone made this sound like the more likely outcome.

They continued walking around through the absolute absence of enemies. ‘Pretty odd,’ John thought as he added more and more lines to the paper. For every 5 metres, he made one line on the chequered paper. Absentmindedly, he trotted after Beatrice, who in turn followed Aclysia. His back was covered by Salamander and Gnome. Baring a VERY effective surprise attack from above or below, he was safe. Even in those cases, Mana Protection would keep him safe. ‘We also haven’t found a single room yet.’

This was doubly weird as the path so far was a straight part, with only a single split. They had taken the left side, while Sylph had gone right. Both of those paths, so far, had been straight themselves. After flying for another minute, Sylph finally came to a door.

‘Hey, hey, there is something written here, it’s a number, it’s a 1, why is there a 1 here? Is that important? There is also something glowing and blue that has an image of a hand on it, should I put my hand on it?’ the air spirit chirped.

‘No, just wait for a little bi-‘ John began but stopped when he saw that Sylph was already doing it. The scanner reacted to her tiny hand, flashed green and then deactivated.

‘Aaaaaw, it went out, I liked that green,’ Sylph blabbered.

‘Sylph!’ John made sure he caught her attention this time around. ‘Be VERY careful when going in there. Okay?’

‘Yes, boss, sir, master, chef, master, master, roger, roger!’ came the response, and Sylph acted like she was in a cartoon about superspies all of a sudden. Landing on the floor, she carefully looked around the corner. Audible sounds, that she fabricated herself, accompanied her blinking as she took a dramatic look around. Then the tiny, fairy-esque elemental began sneaking. Not in a proper way, but the overacted, knee-raising steps Tom and Jerry would use.

It was pretty impressive that she managed to balance on the grates while doing that. To her, each individual bar was like a very taut walking rope. At least she was moving slowly and kept an eye on her surroundings, so that was in keeping with John’s wishes.

It was a broad, rectangle shaped room. The white light was dominating here, giving this whole thing an aesthetic like the middle of a surgery room, as all of the red pipes converged above and below some sort of tank in the middle of the room. As it was forged entirely from steel, the only exception being a thin line of glass on the side, Sylph couldn’t see whatsoever what was going on inside.

Walking around the outside rim of the room, the thunderstorm elemental slowly made her way behind it. An empty glass pipe was connecting that tank to a door on the opposite side from the entrance, a circumstance mirrored underneath the floor as well.

Until she took one of her little steps too close to the centre of the room and triggered something. With the sound of unlocking hydraulics, the front of the tank began to slowly part. The bloody liquid spilled out, emptying quicker and quicker as the gap between the two halves of the door widened. It vanished under the mesh, the glass line at the side clearly indicating how much was left inside the tank.

Once the metal had completely opened, out stepped a metal skeleton. A dark grey framework of a humanoid, forged from steel and stripped of most flesh. Minimal amounts still stuck to it, particularly the arms, connecting the different parts that needed sinews and muscles to work, but they were all thin. Red glowing eyes turned towards Sylph. Its shiny metal teeth were grinding to the work of biomechanical tendons, shaped like tiny steel pillars, where the cheeks normally were.

‘DU DU DUN DU DUN!‘ the palavering air spirit thought the melody of that robot-assassin movie, as she flew up. As to not have John yell at her, her plan here was to throw a single, strong shock at the enemy to keep them momentarily incapacitated and then fly away as quickly as she could. “Alrighty, take this!” Sylph announced putting her hands together at the base, the palms pointing at the target. “HAAAAAAAAAA!” she screamed out loud and unnecessarily as blue lightning gathered and then rushed out as a beam of energy.

Although her Stats didn’t indicate this, Sylph had incredibly strong offensive magic. John had observed this in the past, but the elementals didn’t play by quite the same rules as normal people in regards to their scaling of Stats to offensive power. Salamander’s spells varied with her Strength, Gnome’s rocks got harder depending on her Endurance, as did the surface of Undine’s water spells, although they all still relied on Wisdom and Intellect for the regeneration and size of their mana pools. Sylph’s magical attacks, following that logic, depended on her Agility.

Even with how heavily she was invested in that Stat, it was surprising to the mentally watching crowd that she one-shot her opponent. “Huh, uh, hey, you are supposed to be sturdier than that!” the thunderstorm elemental flew over to the fried corpse. “I mean… you’ll be back, right?”