John put his windows aside for a moment to check on everyone still around. Outwardly, only Gnome looked truly worse for wear, missing a chunk of her stomach. Dirt was gradually filling up the gash and soon the appearance of skin would return to it as well. For the Artificial Spirits, their health bars were depleted, but their forms had mostly regenerated. Nia’s translucent state was much more worrying.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a quick kiss. She tasted and smelled like nothing and even touching her was only a faint feeling. Soft hair under his palm, smooth skin brushed over by his fingers, the soft, smooth, ephemeral texture of her dress, all three of these were as faint as the smell of the last flower on winter’s dawn.

The kiss was a bit forceful, motivated by all the love he had for her. The idea that she could drift away from this world, to be lost for years or eternity, it scared him. Alice had made it back and Nia had learned from her. One success was not enough to truly dissuade the Gamer. Any unplanned time apart was too much anyway.

Warmth and sensation returned to her form. Platinum blonde hair returned to its full colour. Her pale, fair features solidified, until he could no longer see his hand through her head. Finally, he could feel the arms she had wrapped around him in return. “You went dangerously far there,” he complained. “I hope you calculated that risk carefully.”

Nia squeezed him with as much power as she could muster. “A calculated risk is no risk at all.”

Exhaling amusedly through his nose, the Gamer shook his head. “Well, as long as you were certain of what you did,” he sighed and took a step back.

Starlight lit what hung in the empty void, the remains of a gorgeous city. A gorgeous assembly of set pieces. There were no lost lives in those remains, no personal items, just rock, metal and arcane power. The moment he left all of it would cease to be. A reality he rarely thought about it too much, it was the equivalent of closing a program on his PC extrapolated to his Gamer powers. Today he felt like dwelling on it for a little bit.

“Let’s get back to the others,” the Gamer said and raised his hands.

The third Raid was finished.

________________________________________________________________________

Obviously, John went with the Cleanse option. Corrupt not only went against all of the decisions he had made previously, it wasn’t even that good of a value. Had John picked up additional corrupted items wherever he could, he could have gotten who-knows how many Legendaries out of the ordeal. Instead, it was a decision between one or two, and given the further implications of corruption, that wasn’t a choice at all.

It also meant John didn’t have to throw the items he didn’t want (save for the remaining Epic item) into the Maw. He could instead give them to members of the army or feed them to Aclysia and Momo. That was certainly a more productive use for them.

The question was just which of the two Epic items to Cleanse. Both the Ring of the First Traitor and the Voidtouched Maker’s Hand could fit his open Right Hand Slot. The reason why he was even considering these two choices was solely because of the Augmentation Attribute on the Maker’s Hand.

Had it not been for that, the Maker’s Hand would have been picked up in a heartbeat. It had an Attribute that reduced the number of Artificial Spirits that counted towards upkeep cost by two. In other words, it would free up 30% of his mana regeneration on its own. That was absolutely incredible.

Downright necessary even, considering that he would likely add Delicia to his cadre of Artificial Spirits. How long she would stay was an open question. Whether she was going to get her body created by him at all was still an open question. He wanted to be prepared for that eventuality, for several reasons, not least of all was that Delicia had looked to be a sassy, bratty shortstack. John helped her for several reasons and that it was the right thing to do may have been a big one, but he would never have said he was a saint. He wanted to show that he could outclass Romulus, he definitely could use an alchemist in Fusion, and he was always interested in welcoming another smart, interesting woman into his bedroom. That he was the best person to create a new body for her just conveniently allowed him to spend the time until the next Reset Perk checking out her personality and flirting with her if he found out he wanted her. If they weren’t compatible, he could just shut her out of the mental network until he could kick her out.

‘To even entertain all of that, I need the cost reduction,’ the Gamer thought. ‘Otherwise, when I do make her new body, she’ll increase the mana cost to 80% of my mana regeneration and at that point I’d have to dismiss all of the elementals. Obviously not an option.’ He sighed, resigning himself to the inevitable. ‘Guess I should be thankful I even get something that lets me manoeuvre around this dilemma. It’ll take forever to find a better item anyway.’

Resolution made, he pressed the confirmation on the Cleanse selection and then pulled the previously corrupted item out of his inventory. It looked the same, minus the black snakes coiling around it.

‘Hmm, there are some new Attributes replacing the corruption ones,’ he thought and looked through.

That one was nice and meant that John could now block with either hand without worrying about efficiency. Previously it had always been more effective to block with the left, courtesy of Purgatory’s dragon scales.

This one was what John had wanted and it had even been upgraded to go to three. Needless to say, he was incredibly happy with that development.

“Equip it,” Aclysia demanded, stepping closer with depraved, love-crazed eyes. Levelling by cuddling and having sex with him obviously spoke to her deepest desires. “Equip it now!”

Normally John would have responded with something like, ‘If you’re so eager, start serving me right now’, but his dick was preoccupied. The moment they had gathered everyone else, Nia had started sucking him off. As the MVP of their boss kill, she deserved whatever reward she wanted, so she got to enjoy that by herself for the moment. “Patience, let me read all of the Attributes first,” he softly reprimanded Aclysia, who pouted. “Aclysia, are you a bad girl?”

“Of course not, Master!” Aclysia responded in a mild panic and took a huge step back, before bowing deeply. “Please forgive my transgressions. I was, am, deeply excited about the prospect of finding more power to serve you with from serving you with my body.”

“Good girl,” John hummed and kept on reading.

This was okay. He could already try and wrestle control of golems with Possession. Difference between this and that was that Reprogram was permanent, while Possession only lasted until he cut the Skill. It was a niche thing.

That was the same enchantment that was on the Box of Rocks and John would test later if it could be used to carry a human-sized golem in it. That would be very useful, if Creator Puppet was something he wanted to use regularly.

Before John equipped the Maker’s Hand, he let Nia finish him off. He had no idea what it would feel like and, in case any part of it was unpleasant, he didn’t want that to distract from the methodical ecstasy that was the pariah’s blowjob. For someone who got off repeatedly while sucking him off, she did so in a remarkably clean fashion. Sloppy blowjobs were most common in John’s harem and he enjoyed them quite a bit. The mess and wet sounds added to his enjoyment. Having his pole polished in such an attentive, tight and slow manner was its own variety of pleasure.

It all ended the same though, with him filling her mouth with his absurdly sized load and her gulping it down after presenting her tongue swirling the thick, delicious spunk. “Is there more for me later?” she asked, looking up at him with puppy eyes.

“As much as I can give,” the Gamer promised her. She rose from the starlit grass, they were doing all of this outside. That was where those who had been killed during the encounter had waited and where those who had been inside the mansion had joined them. It was a nice summer night, a great one to nakedly lounge around in the open.

She took a step backwards and John aligned the silver item with his right arm. The extension at the side partly covered the Lorylim scars at the top of his arm. The Maker’s Hand became hotter and hotter, until it started to sink into his skin. The extensions spread out, curved around the sides of his arm, and dug into him. The silver spine of the construction elongated until it spread from his wrist to his elbow.

It wasn’t exactly painful, but it wasn’t pleasant either. The Mithril bonded to his bone, wrapped around it and made itself unremovable. Once it stopped expanding and was embedded flatly into his skin, silver started spreading out from the Maker’s Hand. The wave travelled all the way to his shoulder. Gradually, it faded, completely blending with the colour of his skin by the time it hit his chest.

John did not like the look of a silver limb whatsoever. He wasn’t a fan of bright colours in general and the reflective surface only further offended his vision. The zone of his comfort was indoors, in front of a computer screen, and the only sparkling he wanted around him were the eyes of adoring women or the fizz in energy drinks.

Swiftly, he opened the Appearance Setting menu and tapped on the ‘default to skin colour’ button. Immediately his whole arm looked normal. Normal meant that it didn’t look the same as before, however. Neither the Lover’s Will marks, nor the Lorylim scars were visible. After a bit of fiddling, he found the ‘transparency’ option. Trying further, he probably could have covered up the scars and left the Lover’s Will marks on his fingers and wrist. He had come to terms with the mark, however, and would rather have it on himself. It served as a reminder that he was neither invincible nor infallible. Even he could be corrupted. Whether that was by eldritch mushroom creatures or his own ambition, in the end it all twisted his personality and decisions.

John checked his character sheet, distributed his points, and then marvelled at the amount of mana he had available.

‘Let’s see how long it lasts this time,’ he thought. Whenever his mana regeneration hit a state of comfort, something came along and knocked it back down to a sliver again. It made perfect sense, wherever there was an excess of resources, something would come in to use them up. Yet, John wished that something would remain him throwing spells out in battle, not a new mechanic too good to pass up on or Gaia pulling out part of her support of his systems. ‘Speaking of mechanics too good to pass up on….’ “Gnome, can you make a basic body with my dimensions?”

“Yes,” she answered, confidently. A bit too confidently, given who was talking. She raised her hand in a sudden gesture and out of the dirt shot a rock pillar. Over the course of thirty seconds, Gnome shaped it into a mannequin and then something that had a rough resemblance to John in the overall features and the way the stone hinted at the definition of muscles. Even the bulge in the non-pants seemed about right.

Everyone had the same thought and Sylph was the one to speak up first. “Wow, you got so much experience in this! I knew you were good at statues and stuff, but to make a semi-realistic stud in half a minute, go Gnome! Go Gnome! You totally would never make these giggly and lovey-dovey or anything. Nope, not you!”

“S-shut up!” the leader of the elementals stammered and waved wildly in the direction of the statue. “There it is… please don’t make fun of me…”

“I would never.” That was a lie. “It looks really good.” That was not. John placed a hand on the shoulder that looked like a brown imitation of his, then was his, in a way. The stone became animated with his will. He raised a fist, then opened it, wiggling the fingers with more precision than a regular Possession of rock was afforded.

The Creator Puppet could not speak, expectantly. That its fingers were nimble already made it useful to use for basic office work. John retreated his mind from the puppet, while leaving his magic intact. The raised hand slowly lowered, as the unwilled golem assumed a neutral pose. “Get me a whiskey,” he ordered the puppet. Nothing happened. John rubbed his chin and turned to Aclysia. “Do you have any whiskey in your inventory?”

“I have stored some in my Guild Bank,” Aclysia revealed.

“Get me a whiskey from Aclysia,” the Gamer changed the order slightly. Still nothing. “Go to Aclysia and scratch the word whisky into the ground in front of her,” he changed his approach. Finally, the autopiloted golem did as its creator demanded. When the first two letters had been ploughed into the grass, John rescinded the order with a simple mental switch. “Get me a cold beer,” he ordered something else, and the golem started moving towards the house, where several beers were sitting in the fridge. “Out of interest, Scarlett, is there whiskey in the house?”

“I’ve got some sitting in a cabinet, yeah,” the Technomancer revealed. “Evidently it operates on your knowledge. Can’t decide to communicate on its own either.”

“Yeah, otherwise it would have come up with scratching the word by itself,” John glanced at the first two letters, “and the letters would be the right way around.” The golem had started ‘writing’ the word from its perspective. It was technically in front of Aclysia, proving its simple, rudimentary mind. “Let’s follow it, for all I know it might smash the fridge to get to the contents.”

Aclysia and Beatrice, kitchen equipment threatened, got ahead of the golem and observed it very closely, while the majority of the harem waited in the nearby living room. It turned out that the Creator Puppet was capable of opening the fridge, but it did not care to close it. Pulling the handle was the easiest way to get to the beer, the rest was not part of its priorities.

“I’ll have to be mindful of the orders I give this thing,” John thought, while assuming full control again. He used the stone hands of the golem to flick off the lid and then handed himself the bottle. He took a sip. “Alright, we’re taking day six off,” he announced, when returning to the living room. “I’m getting Aclysia and Momo to my current level again.”

“What an elegant excuse to fuck us, eh?” Momo asked, sarcastically.

“It gives you less reason to complain, you lovable brat,” he responded with a grin and sat down on the couch. “Anyway, let’s relax for a day, recharge our batteries. Day seven I get my Class levels and then we check out the next Raid.”