Velka excitedly charged at the Gamer’s double as he entered the Magryph’s room. Leaping from one of the platforms, she dropped on top of his head and cawed when he caught her shortly before his face. Her legs possessively wrapped around his hand, as she rubbed her face against him in an effort to mark her property.

“Why is she so hyper whenever you get in here these days?!” Eliza demanded to know. Previously, when the two of them had come to visit, Velka had always preferred to get the blood mage’s attention. The reason for that was pretty easy, as the Magryph understood that she got nicer treatment from Eliza. Four days ago, when he had left for Florida and his Extension had been put in charge of these visits, that had suddenly shifted.

“I guess she senses that I’m the Mandala Sphere,” John explained his theory regarding this. “Since I’m both a person she trusts and a pretty valuable object, she is instinctively drawn to me.” Velka purred like a feline exposed to catnip, while gnawing on John’s fingers. Warbling happily, she proceeded to climb up his arm and then sit on his shoulder. She was just barely small enough that that was still possible. Another week or two and she would have outgrown that possibility, as she was already the size of a small housecat.

“Maybe I should cover myself in glitter or some shi- stuff like that,” Eliza grumbled, biting back the curses like usual. “Love me!” Her demanding cry came with throwing up her arms. Not wanting to disappoint the pretty little psycho, John moved in to hug her. Reading the mood, Velka proceeded to rub her soft furred and feathered hide against Eliza as well. “Ehehehe,” the white-blue haired girl let out a series of semi-creepy cackles in response.

Velka then stayed on Eliza’s shoulder and nibbled at the blood mage’s hair in some sort of cleaning service. Satisfyingly appeased, the baby-crazy beauty tip-toed over into the kitchen to give the bird-cat her Wednesday breakfast. “It won’t be much longer until we can stop feeding her,” John pointed out.

“Whaaaaat?” Eliza sounded disappointed about that. “But she’s adorable when I feed her! I don’t want to stop.”

“I mean specifically that we can stop pushing a syringe into her throat,” John continued, as Eliza prepared to do exactly that by sucking up some semi-liquid bits of cat food. “If you want to continue throwing treats at her, that’s fine, but she’s coming to the end of her early life growth spurt. Basically, she’s about old enough to get off breast milk. We should put a bowl with solid cat food somewhere in the room and see if she eats it.”

“Awww, I kind of like seeing her double in size every week.” Eliza continued to be disappointed by the state of affairs. “How the fu- fudge are you so sure about that shi- that anyway?”

“Look at her wings,” John said and walked over to show what he meant. Currently immobilized by the feeding syringe, Velka couldn’t really protest when the Gamer pulled open her black and white wings and gently brushed over them. A few of the feathers were so loose that that simple motion made them fall off. Small and fluffy, they tumbled to the ground. “She’s developing her flight feathers. Once she’s about a month old, she should be able to fly and that’s when the growth slows a fair bit. Well, she’ll still grow about a metre over the next year and then another ten centimetres over the year after that. That’s about 8 centimetres per month for the first year.”

Since she would end up at about 1,60 metres in length, that was NOT including the tail or tail feathers, she currently had about 1,20 metres to go. John doubted that her growth would be neatly distributed equally throughout the months, but the average was the best information he had at the moment. His contact among the breeders had said it varied from Magryph to Magryph.

“Anyway, that’s also where in the natural lifecycle, as natural as things can get for chimeras, she would start hunting for herself. Therefore, she is going to get off liquid foods soon.” He let go off her wings and Velka folded them back. Eliza emptied the rest of the syringe into Velka, then retrieved it, only to get a number of complaining meows that roughly translated to ‘more!’.

Once the belly of the hungry beast was filled, Velka was in for her usual morning regimen of cuddles, scratches and pats. It was important that the Magryph was entertained, just for her sanity. To that end, John installed a new toy for her to play around with when she was alone.

It was nothing big, a translucent tube made out of plastic that had a bunch of sticks and little knobs inserted into it. By removing or twisting the protruding things, Velka could make a shiny pearl fall further and further down, until it rolled out of a little rail at the base, for the Magryph to claim. It was a kind of toy generally designed for parrots.

The reward was something Velka immediately wanted to add to her hoard. The puzzle, however, was a bit too hard for her to solve at the moment. It was extremely easy for John, but he was also a bit older than three weeks and humans were also smart animals. Rather than bother with any of the movable bits, the Magryph just pecked at the top in search for some sort of lid or entrance. Of course, it wasn’t that easy.

Eventually, she gave up and pecked at John once instead and let out a protesting caw. “Well, just stop being stupid and solve the puzzle,” he told her, before giving her a final few belly rubs. That reduced the amount of frustration the chimera chick displayed, but she still ran away eventually to curl up somewhere and sleep outside the reach of the mean man that presented her an unreachable shiny.

The Gamer rose and left the room, Eliza coming with him. “Think she’ll solve that easy fucking thing?” the blood mage asked.

“Give it two or three days,” John answered. “Once she realizes that she can remove one blocking part, she’ll get through all of them. Whenever she does, I’ll get one that’s a bit harder. Keeps her entertained and teaches her basic problem solving while also growing her little hoard. Everyone wins.”

“Speaking of winning, what’s the next challenge of those fucking morons over in crazy-state?”

“Good question,” John responded. “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

___________________________________________________________________________

His main body pulled out of Aclysia’s pussy. Quivering, his cock was unattended for all of half a second before Beatrice and Undine, in the shape of Beatrice, kissed either side of it. Aclysia turned around and kneeled, joining the other two in worshipping his manhood for the three seconds it took to finish him off. Cum flew up into the air, landed on the faces of the three white-haired maids, and was immediately washed away by the steady stream of water that fell on them from the shower they had cramped themselves under.

Satisfied, he turned the shower handle. The stream ceased and they got out. After drying themselves up, they got clothed (except for Undine, logically). It was that time of the morning during which they expected to get fetched at any moment. True enough, the moment John had his shoes on, there was a knock on the door.

John opened up to find Vita standing there. Who was sent to get them was wildly inconsistent. The first day they had been guided to the room by Wendy, on the second it was a random, and today it was only the pariah. “Morning,” he greeted. “Are we ready to continue?”

“Just about,” Vita responded. Her black hair suddenly rose and twirled into a snail house pattern behind her. She paid it no mind and John did his best to not question anything. “We’ve received a request by Moira of the Order of the Golden Rose to personally attend the challenges from here on out. We would oblige, but figured we’d better ask you first before we give our final confirmation.”

That only came as a minor surprise. Moira had said she would follow the challenges as closely as she could and yesterday’s ‘censure’ had likely spurred her into action. “Well, it depends,” the Gamer answered slowly. “Do you have any more challenges planned that could potentially show things I’d rather keep secret?”

“No, we only have challenges that she will likely be unhappy to witness,” Vita answered.

“Then she can attend for all I care,” John answered. Whatever Moira didn’t want to see about him wasn’t his concern. It couldn’t have been as much of an affront as telling her he didn’t want her around, anyway, so this was the smartest route to take diplomatically.

“Alright, then we can start just about now.” Vita clapped her hands together and turned around. Silently, she marched ahead, and after exchanging a glance with his girlfriend, the Gamer and his group followed behind her.

John was excited about today’s challenge, without knowing yet what it even was. This was because of the Quest he had gotten regarding it and the optional objective accompanying it. He was to attend, win and fulfil the Lover Boy Class Challenge while doing so. Now, the Class Challenge he had arrived at after going through the ‘easy’ ones for the remainder of yesterday was perfect for the current situation.

Gaia wasn’t in the habit of giving him Quests he couldn’t beat. Even if it turned out that today wasn’t fit for beating this Class Challenge, he could just gin up the necessary interest by announcing another appearance on the CPDI or SSSN. Not that he would necessarily need to do that, as he got a free Class Level Up for Lover Boy if he just won whatever Florida had in store today.

If he, however, managed to fulfill all three objectives, then he could get Lover Boy from level 8 to Level 10 immediately, as he was on the cusp of level 250. Just a bit more fucking with the marked girls later today and he could max out the Class in one go. He couldn’t hide his hopes for today and smiled as they approached the usual door.

The hall was emptier than ever before. That seemed impossible, given that yesterday had only seen a basin and a chair standing in the spacious room, but now the centre was completely empty. Not even the jury was around. Neither Jeff nor Wendy were anywhere to be seen. Vita strutted over, passing under the hovering screen, and took her usual seat on the left-hand side of the table. The only thing that was different from usual were the two chairs in the corner in which Moira and Lorelei sat. The cameras flying around seemed to deliberately avoid getting them in their frame.

Given that the Warden didn’t raise her voice or otherwise made her presence obvious, John guessed that they were already live and that she didn’t want to appear on the screen. The Gamer did her the favour and looked away almost immediately. “No jury today?” he asked about the absence of the other usual suspect.

“We told Jeff that today’s activity would be in the afternoon, so he’s still asleep,” Vita told him. “Either way, there is no need for a jury today. The challenge will end with someone’s surrender because today…”

“…today!” the somewhat bratty voice of Wendy suddenly boomed out of the speakers as something fell out of the dark ceiling. Something quite wide, black and with a square base landed just a few metres in front of John and bounced a couple of times before coming to a rest. It was a pool of some description, very wide and with a quite shallow outer rim, all of it made of rubber and plastic.

More innocent minds would have taken it as a pool for children, but John knew what he was looking at immediately. Especially once two rectangular tanks hovered down from the ceiling and settled on either side of the rubber construction. Taps extended from the sides and valves turned automatically, causing a steady flow of a translucent, viscous fluid to descend.

“TODAY!” Wendy’s voice echoed out again and she suddenly appeared from the same darkness. She landed in the middle of the entire display, just in time for the oil to spill around her naked feet. Her usual outfit had been replaced with a white bikini, with vertical, blue stripes covering it. It wasn’t the riskiest bikini, definitely not a micro variant, but even the average beachwear succeeded at showing off her goods and services. She was every bit as delicious as one would expect from the fast food goddess. “We’re going to get messy! You’ll face me in an oil wrestling match! Whoever makes the other surrender wins!”

“We remind everyone that this is an adult program,” Vita added.

John sent a prayer of thanks to Gaia and her many great wisdoms. Before he was completely consumed by his enthusiasm, however, he asked for a simple clarification. “So, the only condition is that we have to get the other one to surrender? Whatever way we do that is permissible?”

“No over the top violence or combat magic,” Wendy specified. “I know you need that said, because you always question everything, even if it is SUPER obvious where I want this to go.”

“We remind everyone that this is an adult program,” Vita repeated like a broken record, pulling a bag of crisps from the space hidden from John by the tablecloth. “Just make your bet already, I want to see something to masturbate to. I’m bored.”

The screen flickered to life and showed the usual table.

There was an inkling at the back of John’s mind that this could have been a trap. However, when it came to Physical Stats, he and Wendy were about evenly matched, and combat magic was outlawed. Although he assumed she knew her grease a bit better than him, John had engaged in more than one bout of oily fun in his career. That aside, when it came to making horny women surrender, he was a close-quarters combat monster.

He decided to go all in. “Fusion demands that Florida pays the normal federal tax rates,” he announced, and the words appeared on the screen. Then he quickly changed from his usual outfit into nothing but a pair of swimming trunks. He didn’t have to get naked in the process. That would have to wait for just a moment longer.

“I totally get what she meant with challenges that Moira won’t be happy to see,” Rave snickered behind him, his girlfriend slapping his ass. “Have fun, tiger.”