Chapter 31 – A Slew of Messages

John awoke for two reasons.

One was the sun shining into his face. In their hurry, neither he nor Rave had even considered closing the curtains and so the sun was glaring in through the window.

The second was that something was pressed against his chin. In his sleep-drunken state, he imagined that it was Rave. They would have a romantic waking up, her snuggled up to him, with a kiss to greet the morning. Only as he blinked awake and was about to press his lips onto her, did John realize that he had been half right. It was Rave. However, feet were not good at kissing.

Rave had turned around in her sleep. Completely. She was sprawled out over John in the most lovable mess imaginable. The foot finished dragging over his face. “Nooooo, Jimmie, stop building Michael Bay movies… they don’t even taste good…,” she mumbled. For future reference, John made a note of Rave being prone to a lot of motion during sleep. The talking nonsense he deemed as relatively normal.

John was wondering if he could fall asleep again, when he was softly kicked in the temple. Even soft kicks to that particular area rang and although there was no damage, he was wide awake afterwards. ‘Well, I am thirsty anyway,’ he thought and carefully untangled himself from the half-Asian bombshell.

Once outside the bed, he stopped for a moment. Rave was sprawled out, except for one of her legs that was angled in an odd way. It looked uncomfortable. Her face was at peace though. She was neither a snorer nor did she drool. The only spot on the bed was almost certainly from where the excess of his seed had dribbled from her overnight.

‘I really did it, I slept with… this!’ John thought, staring at the absolutely gorgeous creature before him. Her hair still looked the same as always. Whatever she did to make it look this stylishly dishevelled, it was lasting.

John felt like letting out a victory scream, but he had a little bit of common sense. Similarly, he did not start taking care of his morning wood. Instead walking over to the kitchen and gloating in silence. He found a glass and the tap and tried to get himself some water. Nothing came out. That was mildly concerning. He decided not to start worrying until Rave woke up. Instead, he checked if their field rations contained some more packaged juice alongside all the jerky.

He found some and sipped on it while checking the windows that he had ignored yesterday. There were a few more than he had thought.

He had gone with the dick size last time he was offered a choice. Part of him wanted to repeat that. However, John was feeling fairly confident in his sexual ability at this moment. Last night could’ve been a disaster but he’d managed to make her cum twice and she’d looked very satisfied at the end. A primitive part of his brain still would have liked the bigger tool. His ego didn’t outright demand it at this moment.

Then there was the matter of the alternative. 5% Charisma had been really good. What a Skill Evolution Point was, he did not even know. The name gave a good idea. Only having it would confirm his suspicions. ‘Let’s go with that one,’ John thought and pressed the left option.

And the weird things just kept rolling in. Relationship screen? Okay? Sure, he wanted to try and get to max relationship with Rave anyway, he was feeling very attached to the girl whom he had just lost his virginity to. Both because that had happened and because she was so much fun to be around.

Attached enough to drop his plans to create a harem?

…

Yes. Yes, he was. He would still hope for a harem though, but not if it meant he couldn’t have her. Maybe he could broach the subject carefully at some point in the future? This felt like a dangerous talk to have. Made a lot of sense that so few people in history had harems.

Okay, nice, but this raised his Libido and he was kind of afraid of what would happen if it got too high. Also, curious. If WIS and INT were anything to go by, something would happen once the Stat reached 25 base. ‘So much to consider,’ he thought. ‘I need more mana. I’d also like to… not be this anymore.’ He looked down at his thin form. By the miracle of Gamer’s Body, he was not sore all over, but he had struggled mightily to perform and he wasn’t sure if he could do that reliably, without the adrenaline of a near-death experience circulating in his system.

Anyway, there were still more windows.

And with all that his Stat Screen now looked like this.

He would distribute the Stat Points later. For now, he needed food and clothes. Jerky was available, but if he ate that now they wouldn’t have any more during the grinding. ‘Clothes first,’ he thought and pulled fresh ones out of his inventory. The ones from yesterday, he left there. The preservation of his inventory meant they would be just as sweaty as when he had peeled out of them.

Dressed in a black shirt and blue jeans, both slouching off his lanky form, he walked up to the stove and played around with the nubs. No reactions. ‘No water and no power, was Rave wrong? Is this place broken?’ He had several cans of lasting food in his inventory and he did not care to eat any of it cold. Although he probably could. ‘Well, let’s just assume Rave was right, which means there must be a switch or something.’

His eyes moved quickly to the weird contraption at the centre of the room. It was so utterly out of place from a design and utility perspective that it must have had something to do with the odd way this place was supposed to work. Observe would provide clarity.

‘That answers electricity and water. I’m still not sure how the internet works in here.’ John trotted over to the machine and inspected it a bit more closely. ‘Guess I just stick my hand in there?’ he thought, looking at the hole in the front. With no other idea, he did exactly that. He found a handle inside and grabbed it. A soft sucking feeling, aimed at his mana, was the consequence. An odd sensation, roughly comparable to sucking at his teeth. He let it pull at his mana.

The apparatus sprang into action with a series of clanking noises. John heard gears turn inside the metal shell, the air began to softly vibrate around his hand. ‘6 Mana per Minute?’ John thought and checked his Character Sheet with his free hand.

Thanks to his latest stat increases he was regenerating 5,4 Mana/minute. After equipping the Necklace of the Haunted Woods that went up to 5,9. Just out of boredom he calculated how long exactly he could sit there.

“So I pay 0,1 every minute with my mana pool of 182. 182 divided by 0,1 is the same as 182 times 10 so I can sit here for 1820 minutes, that in hours is 30,3 repeating. So, I can sit here and give mana to this thing for about one day and 6 hours.”

Gaia could gently go find a cactus to sit on. This calculation was very important, -6 MP/minute was exactly the same as Possession’s cost. Now he knew he could actually keep levelling that while he slept. Provided that he could keep the Skill running while he was unconscious.

How would that work? Would his body be sleeping but his mind be active? Would that allow him to have reasonable rest? What did the Achievement mean by ‘right next to him’ anyway? Rave was still lying in be-

“Morning!” Rave suddenly hugged him from behind.

“GOD ALMIGHTY!” John exclaimed, jumping hard enough to bang his wrist against the generator. His left wrist. The right was still holding onto the grip.

“Jane’s fine, John,” Rave joked, “No need to start worshipping me or anything.”

‘Wait, did she just call me by my actual name. Wait, wait, did she just tell me to call her by her actual name? Observe, I need advice,’ John used the Skill quickly.

‘Okay, okay, wait, wait, what? Wait.’ John suddenly felt very conflicted about the development of his life. Not in the ‘I shouldn’t be doing this’ but in the ‘This was actually too good to be true’ kind of way. A girl had a crush on him? That was possible?

“New Achievement?” Rave asked.

“U-uhm, yeah,” he lied. He did not know how to broach that he had just learned about her having a crush on him through Observe. He wasn’t sure if she felt that would violate her privacy. John considered Observe as an extension of his ability to read people. Some people were better at it than others and he had a window that made it all certain. He wasn’t sure if Rave would share that viewpoint though. More importantly, her eyes were beautifully sparkly things that he could just gaze into for hours.  She was kneeling next to him, covered only by the blanket she had carried with her. “Where have you been all my life?”

“That’s gonna take a moment to answer,” Rave chuckled. “I was born in England, but we moved to Rex Germanaie – uh,  Germany, when I was about five. Then we moved back to England after a few years. Then we moved back to Germany, but never stayed in any city for long. We gradually went south to north, lived a bit in Denmark, then Sweden. When I was about fourteen, my parents started to fight a lot. Mom took me to Japan to show me the history of her family or whatevs, but I ended up just staying with my grandparents while she was busy, then they divorced. I wanted to stay with dad and we moved here about one and a half years ago. So, yeah, that’s where I’ve been.” She got a little closer and added, in a whisper, “Don’t think I’m going anywhere else any time soon.”

Suddenly, the lightbulb above them sprang to life. “The room just had a bright idea.”

Rave snorted. “That’s terrible,” she giggled. “You’re terrible.” She stood up, leaving the blanket behind. Stark naked, she strutted over to the light switch. “Dad must have forgotten to shut off the lights last time he was in here.” She did it for her past father. “Can ya keep going for longer?”

“I can just sit here for 30 hours.”

“…Ya mathed that out?” He didn’t even need to answer. “Nerd,” she chuckled. “And pretty impressive.”

“You can’t do that?”

“Not even close.” At this point John would have loved to know what her numbers were. There was an HP and MP bar for her in his interface, but they came without numbers. Assumedly, other people weren’t as easily broken down into numbers as he was. He already knew that was the case from the Stats. Rave’s Intellect was fairly high, for example, but she wasn’t smart in the same way he was smart. She didn’t care much for numbers or technical learning and there was nothing in the Stat that reflected that. “I’d have to take a bunch of regeneration breaks.”

“Right, how do you regenerate mana? I saw it go up and down repeatedly yesterday.”

“I do the whole breathing thing to stimulate my mana flow. It’s pretty quick. Downside is if I do it while casting magic my flows get crossed and I shred myself from the inside. So, ya know, gotta have my breaks.”

“You’re too pretty to die.”

“I know right? Anyway, ya say ya can keep feeding it 30 hours straight? Because that’s some bullshit.” Rave smirked as she walked over to her backpack. “But you’re my source of BS right now. Now, if ya can just keep sitting there, imma go take a shower.” Hips swinging, she walked past him. He was entranced by the sight of her jiggling bubble butt the entire time. “Keep being interesting!” she said, before entering the bathroom.

The door closed and he was alone. His stomach growled. “Can… can I get up and use the oven?” he asked. No answer, just the sound of falling water as he was left alone with a boner and an arm stuck inside a mana generator. ‘Curse that hypnotizing butt and its muting powers!’