‘And there we go,’ John thought, having made sure everything inside his temporary quarters were as good as he could make them. That he could only communicate through text the next few days was going to be annoying. He could make calls, it would just sound very stretched. ‘Well, there are always recorded messages,’ he thought as he flew over the short announcement.

He had somewhat mixed feelings about this. It was a straight-up buff to him, most things considered. Being able to buy SEP, even if they were quite costly, was good. Having more Skills he could use them on was also useful. With those new targets, he could now evolve, listing them in their totality: Nightmare, Ocean, Soil, Endflame and Thunderstorm elemental summoning, Arcane Echo, Possession, Mana Protection, Shardbound, Mana Blade, Arcana Strike and Shifting Momentum.

These newly available evolutions piqued John’s interest quite a bit. What could come of Shardbound or Mana Blade, both quite powerful in their own right already? Whatever would follow Arcana Strike’s orbital bombardment? Maybe an actual bombardment from orbit, rather than just a hundred metres off the ground? What could Mana Protection become?

However, he was currently looking for an SEP to use on Siena. The Nightmare Elemental had been sitting on Max Skill Level for a while now, which was horribly inefficient. A lot of Skill Levels on her new stage could have been earned already. The change to the strength of the Skill Evolution options scaling with the Skill Level was something John had anticipated for a while now. He was actually surprised it hadn’t been that way sooner.

Seemed to be a case of ‘this is supposed to be easy for your starting times’ that had been left in place way past its need.

The changes to Artificial Spirit gave him somewhat mixed feelings on this. The Skill was already levelling considerably slower, thanks to the repeats it had gone through, so he was getting Perks at a way slower rate than he once did. Having the Special Perks, the only ones that really mattered in his experience, be reduced from 4 to 2 was pretty harsh. Especially since one of those was supposed to be the Skill Reset choice.

On the other hand, he could now get a Special Perk whenever he had enough superfluous SEP. Thing about that being that SEP were a resource phenomenally limited in supply and rich in other uses. That he could now buy them changed fairly little about that fact. The limitation on when he got to power them up didn’t bother John that much, he had bunkered up on AP previously anyway, to spend them whenever he felt he could make some massive gains for Aclysia, Momo or Beatrice, whoever was around at the time.

The reduction of Special Perks aside, this looked all dandy. ‘Who knows, maybe the Special Perks got rebalanced to make this all worth it?’ John theorized with some hope. As much as she could be a total teasing piece of work, Gaia wasn’t a monster and she seemed to have some sort of soft spot for him, given that she threw him the occasional soft ball or gift, even. Those niceties stopped at reasonable levels, though. There was theoretically nothing stopping Gaia from instantly levelling him to 1000. She just wasn’t that nice to him.

She must have looked at him as an entertaining person. He was amusing, watching him do the right thing made her happy and sometimes she could toy with him a little bit to get a kick, or an orgasm, out of it. All of that said, he was just a person and she watched over and was invested in the fates of billions. His powers just gave her an excuse to be more directly involved.

This was John’s analysis of her character anyway. At the end of the day, she was sheer infinite power pushed into the body of a baby, left to grow up as a human but so much more than that. Who knew what sorts of logical conclusions somebody with the power to instantly kill anyone on earth could draw? What sort of information on a cosmic level she might have that John couldn’t even grasp?

‘Thoughts for future me with more clarity on the matter,’ John decided and stretched. Now that the Hotfix was through, he could finally get started. Well, he could have gotten started immediately, this didn’t give him any debuffs for a change, but he wanted to get comfortable first. Walking through the copy of his house was always nostalgic. All the furniture inside were unblemished copies, more complicated things like computers and TVs were missing. The fridge worked though, so that was nice.

For everything else, John had his gaming laptop.

The layout for this week was the standard grinding procedure. Of the 16 to 18 hours he was awake 8 to 10 would be spent grinding, with the remainder being dedicated to relaxation and eating. While this did sound pretty wasteful, John really just didn’t want to stress himself out too much. He could kick it into high gear for a few days here and there, but it was best if he didn’t strain himself unnecessarily.

There was the argument to be made that he should really spend the minimum amount of time eating and sleeping, grinding up to 15 hours each day. While it was true that this would yield the greatest results, John didn’t want to live that kind of permanently whipped existence. Yes, being stronger would mean he would have less to fear for his loved ones. Perhaps naively, John opted to live not just the safest but also the most fulfilled life.

‘If God had to rest on the seventh day, then I can take my afternoons off,’ he reasoned to himself and opened something he hadn’t looked at in a way too long time.

A nice, clean slate, courtesy of the levels he had gotten via Achievements after the Small Lake Pact affair had concluded. Felt rather fitting to start there. Gnome spoke up while he was making his choice about which dungeon to pick. “M-maybe you should, ehem,” she cleared her throat to properly harden her resolve to speak, “you know, go for something below your current level for now?”

“Tsk,” Salamander clicked her tongue, hovering in a lying position as she waited. “We already did that when we were out in Amacat, what John needs now is to challenge himself.”

“She isn’t wrong,” John agreed with his fire spirit here. Always interesting to check who was giving the advice he went with on any decision. Usually, each elemental stuck to a certain theme in their advice.

Gnome’s being cautiousness, Salamander kept to boldness, Siena usually cared about his advancement, Sylph aimed for what was entertaining and Undine counselled him on what it was worth to actually be invested on. Stirwin probably would have given advice similar to Gnome, although more along the lines about what was realistic, not what was secure. If he could talk more than one or two words at a time, that was.

“At this point, I just want to get this whole thing done with and that means going beyond what I’m comfortable with,” the Gamer stated in a way that put an end to the discussion before it could really start. “That aside, I was never our main fighting power. My defenses are strong enough that, even if things go south, you have enough time to save me. Worst case, Escape Rope is off cooldown, so there’s that.”

With his lifelines laid out like that, there was no more resistance. Now the question was just what to push himself with. Obviously, he shouldn’t go with the Corruption dungeon yet. Not only was getting into a Random category a horrible idea, he also didn’t feel ready yet to face even faux-Lorylim. Especially since these faux were of the simulated power level that could seriously influence his psyche.

Assault was out for the simple reason that there was pushing himself and then there was asking for failure. Unless he employed the usual tactic of fort building, there was no way running from monsters for hours on end was a good idea. If he did employ the usual tactic, well, then he was sitting around and giving orders most of the time, which was the opposite of the intention here. Waves were out for the same reason, they were just easier Assaults, after all.

Arena was worth a thought, but also discarded relatively quickly. Fighting boss monsters did involve a lot of running, but only in a limited, typically flat area. The kind of enemy also dictated how much moving was actually necessary.

Better to have lots of small enemies in a changing or challenging terrain. Siege was also out because of that, given that it was all about making a plan of attack around breaking into a stationary thing. It was a step-up from Arena fights, but still not quite as good as the remaining two options. One being Floors and the other being Capture.

Floor was obviously one of the classics. It involved a lot of moving, numerous enemies of varying strength and a crawl towards a boss. That was just the thing, however, the way to the boss was, more often than not, a crawl. Huge areas of the dungeon had to be explored and that usually was done via walking.

Capture, however, seemed exactly what John wanted right now. The entire thing was about getting an objective and then carrying it back to the point they had spawned at. It was a kind of dungeon he had liked to try and cheese in the past, just aiming at taking out all anti-air measures the dungeon spawned in with and then sending Sylph or Salamander to make quick work of the objective. Gaia had quickly taken measures against that, such as lowering the ceiling of the dungeon, giving basically every enemy reliable anti-air tools and other such things.

Anyway, he didn’t want to cheese it this time around. Given the generally obstructive, parkour-like layout of the dungeon, it was already great from a running perspective. That he had to also adapt to enemies while on the move and he had to get in and back out as quickly as possible, all fed into this being the best option for his current predicament.

The only option for Capture was Lizardmen, so that question was answered before it could be asked. Moving into one of the Gates, John immediately spawned the dungeon. There was no need to ready themselves beforehand.

John and his eight familiars suddenly stood in a circular ruin. Withered pillars, covered in vines and moss, framed a cobblestone floor. In the centre of it lay a basin of untainted white plaster, something like an oversized golf hole at the bottom. Doubtlessly the place where the objective was to be placed.

Said objective was an orb. Even from where John was standing, he could clearly see it, shining with azure brilliance atop a tall pole. In turn, that pole stood atop a mixture of forest and fortress. Pathways slithered upwards through tall walls and past watchtowers, decorated with tropical trees. The architecture was vaguely Aztec in design, grey and light brown stones. Wooden platforms or barriers had been erected in addition, making the winding path even more of a slalom. The whole thing was rather heavily slanted as well. It would be a slog, sometimes even a climb, to get up and a contest of balance back down. Doubtlessly, a number of currently invisible traps also awaited them along the way.

Attempts to go around all of that would be unsuccessful. Past experiments had shown that an Illusion Barrier wall was around the premises. The only way to get up there was to take the intended path.

That was just the landscape anyway, there were also the enemies. Swarms of Pterodactyls circled over the hill like vultures. On the ground, giant lizardmen and women alike were holding large, stone-tipped spears. Save for a cloth wrapped around their groins and golden decorations to their many small horns, they were naked.

Not that this gave John anything to look at. The women didn’t have breasts or anything. Since these were egg-laying specimens, they were quite the opposite of what John, a mammal down to the instincts, expected of the opposite sex. These females were generally two heads taller, bulkier and had a bright red colour, while the males were of a moderate blue. Not to say they were small, the lizardmen were at least two metres each, covered in thick scales that outclassed many armours. They were muscular and stood in a hunched over way, accenting their short necks.

Lastly, a green type of enemy was rustling around in the underbrush, occasionally sticking their heads out before quickly disappearing again. Sometimes they came into view in their entirety, running around, sitting on a watchtower, watching the Gamer and his entourage. They were comparatively tiny creatures, only as tall as a lizardman’s knees, that resembled geckoes. Huge eyes, bulgy heads, the only difference seemed to be they had bodies more like monkeys, scales aside.

‘The typical triumvirate, air-guards, ground-guards, objective-returners,’ John thought as he looked over everything. The pterodactyls’ Observe titled them as Razorteeth Divers, the lizardmen were Brocteans and the tiny geckoes were Slerkins. Doubtlessly, the first would harass with dive attacks, while using their sheer numbers to make air attacks unattractive. The Brocteans would be the standard obstructions, trying to stop him from advancing through lethal means. Meanwhile, the Slerkins’ entire job was to make sure that, should he get the objective, he didn’t get too far with it. They would try to wrestle it from him and, should he lose it, carry it back to the origin point. A rather simple dynamic, which by no means meant that it was easy.

The enemies kept watching the group. John doubted they were above sending at least a few people out in a defensive assault. It was just that they wouldn’t do anything until anyone left the spawn area. As long as they hadn’t crossed the pillars, things wouldn’t begin.

That layout was the reason why John normally didn’t run Captures. Nothing about his toolkit was based on speedy victories. Since Sylph-cheese was out, there was no way they could even get to the objective in five minutes or less. The realistic thing to aim for was 16-30 minutes. If he averaged out at 20 minutes per clearing and ran without pause, that would be 9% per hour, 90% in 10 hours, so not even a guaranteed level up on a complete work day with overtime.

By comparison, Assault gave him a third to half a level for a four-hour stand-off. It wasn’t a whole lot more effective, but it was way more reliable and he could always stretch out the timer a little bit further if he wanted to for even greater rewards. Capture would be the unquestionably best way to level up, if he specialized in things like speed and stealth.