“Shut the hell up, buddy,” John laughed. “That did not happen.”

“No, I’m serious,” Maximillian responded while spreading some butter on his bagel. “I went to the Gobbo Nation and checked out the Great Sex Arena and requested to be the only man in a public orgy.”

“Who would invite you to an orgy?” the Gamer poked friendly fun at his buddy.

“A bunch of green-skins with big tits and standing at dick sucking height,” he said swiftly. “To name only the easiest crowd to be swayed by my sheer masculinity. More surprised that you didn’t ask about the Great Sex Arena.”

“I know the Nympholympics are a thing, so the fact that there is an arena for something like it doesn’t surprise me whatsoever,” John stated and leaned back into the fantastic cushion of Salamander’s bosom. Being a much greater boob enthusiast than he was, Maximillian had already done as much with his single date for tonight. She was the same elf, with the giant tits, that John had met before. It was fairly obvious they were only together for the lust of it. “I’ve actually been asked if I wanted to participate. Didn’t you watch my interview with Worlina?”

“Believe it or not, but I’m not interested in watching porn with you in it.”

“There is a sizable interview section that’s mostly safe for work.”

“Believe it or not, but I’m not interested in listening to your smug baritone for more than I have to,” Maximillian immediately switched to the next excuse. “Worlina is a fucking great dicksucker though.”

“I guess so,” John kept his answer brief, out of a mild feeling of discomfort. That the former king had also slept with the goblin interviewer was pretty unsurprising. Worlina was a slut in every sense of the word and promiscuity may as well have been her middle name. With her as with all other women John only had flings with, he preferred to know as little about their other partners as was possible.

Much like John’s aversion towards fucking his women in front of other people, even his friends, Maximillian chipped away at this barrier. “Are you not going to give me another lecture about how her blowjob skills are only a six out of ten, like you did for asses?”

“If I did, I couldn’t prove it,” John tried to steer away from the topic of Worlina. “I can show you the butts of my women and then we can agree what is and isn’t fantastic. I’m not about to let you test my claims that Nia gives way better head.” Normally, his prime example would be Lydia, but given the former relationship status of the two, that was another slightly awkward line for John.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t ask for it either,” Maximillian made clear with a dismissive wave. “Your women are your women – a slutty goblin is a slutty goblin. They seem to have one of the most sexual cultures on earth anyway.”

“Which is pretty interesting to me, to be honest,” the Gamer followed another non-Worlina route. “Goblin society is a fever dream. The men crave combat and business, the women crave sex and business. The men go out and become mercenaries, the women become prostitutes. Somehow that works out for all of them, and when they decide to settle down, they’re just loyal to each other. Unless there is some written agreement that they can see other partners or something.”

“And they still only have children with each other in those situations,” Maximillian added, while pouring himself a glass of the many offered juices. “Not that it matters much, female goblins only give birth to goblins, apparently.”

“If you tried to build a human nation on mercenaries and the prostitution of young women, that thing would go up in flames in less than ten years,” John put his thoughts out.

“Totally. What would you rate Worlina’s blowjobs, though, honestly speaking?” The grin with which the skilled actor ended his sentence clued John in that he was doing this very deliberately.

Sighing, the Gamer just pushed his hesitation to the side and answered, “Seven out of ten sounds about right? Honestly, blowjobs are complicated, so I have no idea how to properly rate those. Dedication, technique, deepthroating, texture, tongue usage, all of those are important.”

“Tongue usage is a lot of fucking fun,” Salamander agreed and stretched hers out until she almost licked her cleavage, only for it to quickly slither back into her mouth.

“What are the odds I could find an elemental like you if I learned fire magic, Salamander?” Maximillian wanted to know.

“Honestly, pretty high,” the apocalypse elemental responded and squeezed John’s shoulders. “Us elementals that are contracted to this guy are pretty quintessential representations of the average spirits of our respective domain. Stirwin is probably the most unusual out of all of us and that’s saying a lot.”

“You’re using quite big words there, Salamander,” John mocked lightly.

Her tail hit the side of his leg with a warning slap. “Fuck you, you’ve seen my Stats! I’m smart, I’m just not wise!” She turned her unequal eyes, one black as coal, the other red and orange in a dark sclera, to Maximillian. “Anyway, chances are that you could get a fire elemental that has big tits and an attitude half as awesome as mine. No guarantees on the tongue though.”

“With your luck, you’ll probably get an elemental as unusual as Hawpler though,” John pointed at the gravity elemental. The sapient black hole was in the process of eating spaghetti, which was a hilarious sight. The entire mass of noodles and sauce were swirling around the black sphere, slowly getting pulled underneath the light-eating surface. Because of the selective pull the magical being enacted, all of that happened without any mess getting spluttered over the polished floor. “That is, if you even succeed in learning enough fire magic to allow a contract to happen.”

“I might as well try,” Maximillian said. “Not becoming one with Hawpler is leaving me a bit weaker, but it also gives me access to a few different opportunities.”

John nodded. Melding with an elemental left one as a much stronger entity, as the power of two was consolidated under one mind and in one body. However, in doing so, a couple of things were lost. The elementals lost their immortality, that which made them return to their respective planes whenever they were without a summoner. That they were willing to pay that price still struck John as odd, but elementals were, just like goblins, only human-adjacent. There was more than enough overlap between the two groups to get along, but there were pronounced differences as well.

For humans, the fact that they became half elementals meant that they could not contract any new ones. Elementals could not summon other elementals and that rule stuck.

“Wouldn’t it be smarter to try and learn water magic though?” the Gamer asked. There was much about magic that wasn’t deciphered yet, but a popular model of categorizing the Innate Abilities of people was the soul-type model. According to this, there were eight types of souls. The four basic ones (water, fire, earth and wind), two basic mixtures (light being made from fire and wind, and shadow being made from water and earth) as well as the two oddities, being the life soul type (such as Eliza and her blood magic) and the empty soul (encapsulating pariahs, such as Nia).

This model had its obvious flaws. The life soul type was a muddled mess of things nobody quite understood yet, having only the manipulation of biological matter in common. Plant magic was more expected in the water and earth category, yet it was bunched up with blood, bone and germ magic. This wasn’t due to a philosopher’s musings about what belonged to which category, but because people had observed that it was much easier for someone who knew how to manipulate their own flesh to stimulate the growth of plants than it was for someone who knew how to move water. The observation was sound, but clearly incomplete.

John personally theorized that the life types were, in reality, connected via the convoluted mess of all elements that was necessary to create life. Plants were easily thought of as needing only water and soil, but the correct level of heat, light, shadow and wind all played into their health as well. Similarly, people might have thought of blood as a thing mostly related to water and fire, given its liquid status and warmth, but given its job of carrying oxygen and nutrients, things were obviously more complicated.

The biological connection was merely an outgrowth from there, so John thought. He wasn’t a scholar in the field and had only done shallow research in the matter. At the moment, he was a lot more interested in devouring more works on political philosophy. Those were a lot more applicable to his current path in life, albeit that might change in the future.

Another obvious flaw in this eight-type model was that it didn’t include people with a talent for the arcane or martial arts. A natural ability to pick either of these non-elemental categories of magic up was not widely agreed on to be an Innate Ability. For martial arts, the argument was that it couldn’t be an Innate Ability because it often came along with elemental talent. To this point, John could only shake his head. Elemental Innate Abilities mixed to create an easily identified result. Mixing martial arts with elemental magic could have devastating effects as well, as Rave regularly demonstrated. It just wasn’t understood within the traditionally used categories.

Arcane magic on the other hand was a point of widespread argument. Many argued that arcane magic was just raw mana and the Innate Ability was therefore just a reflection of naturally more developed magic circuits. Being that this was a ‘physical’ state, it had to be counted outside the soul types model. Others argued that the potential for arcane magic was an Innate Ability every human possessed, to differing degrees. The most Innate Ability, one could say.

Those problems with the eight soul types model and humanity’s still fledgeling understanding of magic aside, it was at least pretty clear when it came to the six elemental types. As the model clearly laid out, shadow was adjacent to water and earth. “I get that Gnome is not your type, but I think you could work with a slime girl of your own.”

“That does sound like a good idea…” Maximillian hummed and looked up to his date. “What do you think?”

“Whatever sounds good to you,” the elf answered with a carefree smile.

John didn’t like that expression. It was all too obvious that this woman wasn’t invested in Maximillian’s future and therefore couldn’t give a damn what he spent his effort on. The gravity mage hummed with an empty face and turned away from his date. ‘Yeah, those two aren’t going to last a lot longer,’ the Gamer thought, feeling even more appreciative of his harem than usual. All their bantering, berating and even the devotion were signs that they cared. When Aclysia told him that she trusted his judgement, her smile would never have been so devoid of investment.

“Why not both?” Rave, stepping up to the table, suggested. “Come on, ya just got out of Hollywood. Not like ya don’t have time to spare. Try the triple elemental combo!”

“Hmmm,” Maximillian rubbed his chin, “I guess I could… but I also don’t know if this is wise regarding my future plans….”

John glanced at the date, considered being respectful, but decided that it wasn’t going to matter. “You mean the bit where you want to have just one partner when you are actually married?”

“That was how I aim to live my life, yes,” Maximillian fingers moved further to scratch his neck. “At least I wanted to carefully consider whether this polyamory is sustainable in a relationship. Not everyone can or wants to live like you.”

John glanced over to a certain French woman. “No need to tell me.” His gaze returned to Maximillian and he grinned. “If you were me, you could also consider just marrying the elementals. I have my ways to get them pregnant.”

“Yes, yes, no need to lord your superiority over the rest of us superhumans.” Maximillian waved a number of times. “I am seriously thinking about practicing other elements, regardless of what spirits I might contract. Diversifying and expanding my powers sounds smart… especially in times like this.”

“It is,” John affirmed. There were three reasons why Maximillian was there in the first place. The obvious one was that John had invited him. The second was that he, as planned, had recently broken with Hollywood and was now reorienting himself. The third was that he wasn’t foolish enough to live somewhere isolated while Lorylim were on the prowl. Until further notice, the self-exiled king was going to stay around the Hudson Barrier. Potentially, he was going to serve as a broker between John and parts of the Sons of Rome. The Gamer was still intending to build a coalition against the corrupting threat.

“I was gonna take a trip over the Elemental Islands over the next couple days,” Rave chimed in again. “Cappy and I are looking into whether or not we can boost him to Tier 4. Maybe ya should tag along?” The Lightbearer nodded at Salamander. “I’m sure one of us can introduce ya to the elementals that hang around. Ya should get some basic idea about the magic types out of it, if nothing else.”

“That… sounds like a good idea.”

“What’re ya sounding surprised for, huh?” Rave asked in a playfully challenging fashion. “I’m the icon of femininity, I’ll have ya know, I give great advice!”

“Careful, your pride is swelling faster than mine,” John giggled. “You’ve only been giving interviews for a week.”

He had more to say on the matter, but a new group of arrivals caught his attention. They seemed out of place. Their clothes weren’t as fine, they didn’t wear them ‘properly’ and just generally they looked like deer in the headlights.