Collide Gamer

Chapter 61 – Sapience

Three hours. It took three hours for Aclysia to devour the thing in its entirety. The first few bites took the longest, as her teeth just weren’t hard enough to do more than nibble. Once she had gotten enough to reinforce her teeth it accelerated a bit. John and Rave killed the time by fooling around and telling stories. John had much less to tell, but somehow she laughed even at his stupid gaming rants.

Once Aclysia had swallowed the last bit of scale, the flood of windows came in.

These he was already used to. The following was new and frustrating.

“Man,” John grumbled and dismissed the window.

“Waddup?” Rave wondered.

“Aclysia can’t get over my level and the Dragonscale would have given her more than the five she got from it.” He tossed his hands into the air theatrically. “Not like I could have done anything differently, but it still bothers me.”

“Ya live, ya learn, ya move on,” Rave said with the certainty of a mantra.

That was the easiest choice he had to make yet. The Dragonscale was so superior, it didn’t even warrant thinking about. Interesting was the ‘currently’ in the wording. Could he gather more bonuses from materials down the line? If so, how?

The Attribute was a bit more complicated.

This choice wasn’t that hard either. Clearly, ‘Strong Mana’ was the one he was least interested in for Aclysia. Ironhide and Inner Fire, he could guess fairly easily. Fire Immunity was just absurd to get this early. Elemental Resistance 3 was just plain good.

What John found interesting as well as disturbing was the fact that he could remove Learning Spirit. What would happen if he did? Would Aclysia get stuck at her current level of learning or just forget everything and become a mindless puppet, unable to do anything but what he ordered? He wasn’t interested in finding out. He wanted her to become her own person, for many reasons. The ulterior motive was that he could flirt with a real, existing A2 once she had established herself as… herself. Beyond that he just wasn’t interested in a mindless puppet. Possession was there for the throwaways.

After she was done eating, Aclysia was three metres tall. She grew to max height to eat the scale more efficiently (after asking for permission) and grew even taller while eating the scale. She stopped at three metres though so that was either her current or her absolute max height. Either way John didn’t like the pain in his neck he got from looking up at her. “Can you go back to being normal sized again?” He had her standing at the preferred height after two minutes. “Thanks.”

“You…are welcome?” Aclysia responded with uncertainty.

John smiled at her progress, then decided to move on all of the things he had stored up at the moment. There was the Skill Evolution Point, the 25 Stat Points Aclysia had available and the 10 he had.

He decided to start with himself. Evidently Possession needed more attention in levelling if he wanted to use it on enchanted items or wrest control from someone else. First and foremost, he needed more MP/Sec for that endeavour. A constant trend and expected, considering he kept acquiring new things that needed upkeep cost.

‘I can’t reach 75 Wisdom with my current points.’ He sighed to himself. Another efficiency boost was likely to take care of his problems. That would have to wait until the next grind though. Between the time they had spent wandering the forest and then the time they spent waiting for Aclysia to finish eating, it was now well into the afternoon.

All 10 points wandered into Wisdom. That put his MP Regeneration at 12,5 per minute, which would allow him to keep Gnome (Incorporeal), Possession and Aclysia running all the time. That would leave him with a miniscule 0,5 regeneration beyond that which meant that he would burn through his Mana Pool when he had Gnome go corporeal.

Still, he could constantly level Possession now.

“Ya know I can feel that, right?” Rave asked.

“Part of the goal.” John smirked at his girlfriend. The most entertaining thing to Possess around had been her bra and he was now gently rubbing her petite breasts.

“Ya better watch out or Imma pin ya down. Might make this the first day we have sex four times.”

“You’re already planning 2 more times?”

“I’m high maintenance.” Rave crossed her arms and smirked at him. “Ya complaining?”

“Would not dream of it.” John put a quick kiss on her cheek, then returned to his windows.

It was time to use that Skill Evolution Point. With a click, he checked if there was anything new among the available choices. Possession was listed again. So was Sneaking and Mana Power Attack.  Of the two new Skills he had acquired since the last usage, Artificial Spirit and Earth Ele. Summoning, only the latter was available. However the + next to Gnome’s Skill was silver instead of gold. Curious, he tapped it.

Interesting. He searched for the knowledge of the Skillbook in his brain to find a reason for this. A passage came to the forefront of his thoughts: ‘To increase the strength of an elemental the Summoner and the Summoned Spirit must develop a high amount of trust and be attuned to each other through shared history. While the strengthening of an elemental can be forced, it usually results in crippled elementals that may never reach their full potential or, arguably worse, taint the elemental through contact with the plane of the Lorylim. Such tainted elementals are damaged at the core and will have a difficult time recovering, if they aren’t infested to the core.’

“What’s a Lorylim?” John asked Rave.

“Uhhh, weird question out of nowhere… don’t really know how to answer that either. Have never seen one and would like to keep it that way.” Rave tilted her head. “Dad says they’re kinda like spongey Lovecraft creatures?”

That sounded highly unpleasant and best avoided. In clear game terms, all of this translated to: get the Skill to a proper level first or risk unleashing something unspeakable. John decided he would get the Skill higher.

That meant his decision came down to Possession or Mana Power Attack. He had a rough idea what to expect this time around and the other two options Possession had offered at the time were not things he wanted. If they even were there again. Evolving Mana Power Attack, on the other hand, was downright necessary to get something usable. Sure, he had his familiars, but he would like something he could use independently of them. A press of the button and the next window opened.

Okay, those were some interesting choices. If he understood these three Skills correctly Option 1 would make him a middle-ranged mage that supported with suppression fire, Option 2 would turn him into the mage equivalent of a Sniper and Option 3 would support a similar fighting style to Rave’s where he got up close and unloaded a devastating close quarters blast.

He pretty much immediately crossed out Option 3. Sure, it sounded awesome but at this point changing to be melee focused was unwise. He had made Aclysia as a tank, his girlfriend was a melee DPS and Gnome did have her own, fairly solid Physical Stats – even if he did not use her as a combatant yet. No, he was happy to be a backliner, summoner, and coordinator.

One Mana Ray had the same cost as ten Mana Bolts, so he reasoned that the damage of Mana Ray must have been impressive to make up for it. Mana Ray was also described as precise and the last thing John wanted was to have his mana be worthless because he failed to hit. Another issue was friendly fire which, in reality, he could not simply turn off. ‘Yeah, Mana Ray it is,’ he decided.

“Rave, I just got an upgrade for Mana Power Attack!” He proudly exclaimed.

“Is it any good?”

“It better be, it costs 5 times as much MP.” John said and pointed his hand at the tree Rave had tested the Sword of Glory on earlier. He activated the Skill and just like with Mana Power Attack energy gathered in his hand…for three whole seconds.

“Man, this takes lo – Oh wow!” Rave shouted out when a blue laser rushed out from John’s hand and hit the tree with enough force to rip open the wound Rave had left. What had been a simple gap was widened into a charred hole. Crackling, arcane lightning jumped over the splintered and malformed innards of the tree in blue and light purple. The tree slowly collapsed in on itself.

“That is…pretty impressive.” Rave said, after the tree hit the ground. “And you can use that how many times in a row?”

“Currently six, but I need about four minutes to regenerate without any passive spenders and about nine with my usual two. I really need more MP Regeneration,” John explained the whole process. “Now I have one more thing to take care of.” He looked at Aclysia. “How to spend your points…?”

He really wanted to increase her Wisdom. Her state of near sapience made him uncomfortable. It was that uncanny valley feeling. The confused look she gave him only furthered his resolve. Despite his priority list, he would push Wisdom all the way to 25.

“Aclysia, you might feel weird in a second.” He had no idea how much that warning would help. With that basic courtesy given, he pressed the button 15 times and then looked for her reaction.

Aclysia’s expression went through many emotions. Fear, wonder, understanding, satisfaction, sadness before finally arriving at a vacant despair. “W-what…” She looked at her hands like she was seeing them for the first time. In some sense, she probably was, much like an animal that came to understand that it was looking at itself in the mirror. “Creator… John… No, wait, just Creator, what is this?”

“Well, I raised your Wisdom to 25, in my experience 25 is the threshold for a lot of stuff in this system.” John tried to explain in a calm tone.

The Artificial Spirit’s fingers trembled. Through their mental connection, John could feel her realize the weight of existence. A mere echo of that felt crushing. “I am your creation. I always knew that. I always was just that but… what else am I?” she asked herself. A few seconds passed and she forced her digits to clench into fists. “Why am I speaking my thoughts without expecting an answer? Is this being awakened? Creator, why have you given me this capacity? How will it aid in my mission to loyally serve and protect?” She questioned him with a tone more reminiscent of her usual passiveness, although with a shiver of uncertainty in her voice.

“It probably won’t,” the Gamer told her, he raised a hand to stop her, but she asked anyway.

“Why then?”

“Because I think it’s the right thing to do. Because I created you as a guardian that won’t make me feel paranoid, but I don’t mind you being yourself too.” He tried his best at a reassuring smile. “I don’t have any certain plans for you, Aclysia. I’m improvising on this. I know that isn’t the most satisfying answer, but I’m flawed too.”

A long silence, during which Aclysia repeatedly opened and closed her hands. She took a few steps. Turned on the spot. Bent her neck until it would have broken on a human.

“I need time to think about this. Think about…everything.” She hesitated for a moment, looking at the ground then back to John. “Can I make a request, Creator?”

“You can ask anything of me, even if it’s selfish,” John encouraged her. He wanted to see her further develop into a new person. If he could make her loyal because she wanted to serve him, not because of her mission, that would be optimal.

“Can you not put me into your inventory on the way back?”

Aclysia was one of the few secrets he still had from the rest of the Abyss. The second he left the Illusion Barrier with her, that was likely gone. That made him hesitate and she mistook his silence for denial.

“Please. I don’t want to be in there again. I don’t want to be alone again. I understand now, it’s not just that I’m away from my mission, it’s that I’m alone. All alone.” She pleadingly grabbed one of his hands with hers.

She was warm.

Plastic skin and metal bones, but still she was warm. Her green eyes shone with insecurity, her entire being trembled with dread. How could he even hesitate. He swallowed to wet his lips and cursed his low Charisma. Apparently, he still couldn’t speak the way he wanted to. “I won’t put you into the inventory ever again.”

Aclysia let out a quick relieved sigh. “Thank you, Creator,” she expressed her gratitude.

“Hate to ruin the moment,” Rave chimed in, “but if ya want to have her walk around, ya gotta fix up her clothes.”

John and Aclysia both inspected her. The dress was indeed torn in multiple places. Too many to walk around publicly and definitely too many not to get the police called on them. There was a scandalous amount of underboob on display.

“Why is the lack of fabric a problem?” Aclysia asked. Increased understanding did not equal spontaneous knowledge.

“Your cosplay is outstanding enough, but showing too much skin is gonna garner all kinds of attention. We don’t want attention.”

“Is your pink hair not outstanding as well?”

“Yes and thank you.”

“You are welcome?” Aclysia looked more confused at the end of the conversation than at the start.

“Anyway, that is a pickle… I can’t use Craft on enchanted items yet, so I can’t just repair it.”

“We could open and close Illusion Barriers as we move,” Rave suggested.

“We have to walk quite a bit, but I guess that could work as a final solution.”

“Ya seriously gonna link your inability to pack extra clothes to the death of millions of people?” Rave teased.

“You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Do I?”

“I thought I decided to date someone with a modicum of brainpower.”

“If I may suggest something?” Aclysia interjected in their banter. “If the appearance is all that matters, I could consume this outfit and recreate it in part or in full as my exterior layer.”

“That is… an excellent suggestion,” John told her. “Good thought, Aclysia.” The Artificial Spirit showed the slightest of smiles, as she preened at his words. “Is that possible though? Won’t it deviate too much from your base form?”

“I believe it should be possible. I would ask to remove some of the unnecessary decorations.” She gestured at the feathery bits on her sleeves that were, although stylish, also highly unnecessary. “Fabric further away from where my exterior would be will likely be incapable of being controlled and lose much of its tactile feedback. It would be… similar to regular clothing, I suppose. Just a part of me.”

“Alright, go ahead then,” John said and Aclysia immediately stripped out of her clothes. The naked appearance she still had underneath was no longer that of an aesthetically pleasing doll. It was hers. That made all the difference.

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