Collide Gamer

Chapter 32 – Skilling

While he had to wait, he could just as well distribute his Stat Points. He was tempted to dump all of it into Wisdom and call it a day. By standard RPG logic, a milestone at 25 implied that he would get another bonus at 50. That would only take 5 points, so he allocated those first to test the theory.

And now his Mana Reg was 8,5 MP/Min, 9 if he kept the item equipped. This meant that he could keep Possession up endlessly and still have 3 Mana to spare. Would it be possible to have two Possessions active simultaneously? A question for another time.

10 more points to spend. ‘It would probably be wise to get Strength and Endurance to 10,’ he thought as he pondered over the window. Neither contributed directly to his gameplan. Last night had proven that it was valuable to be diversified if things went off the rails though. Plus, he did want to stop being a total wimp.

There was an immediate tingle all over his body. His back hurt for a moment, then he realized that a minor pain he had been experiencing for a long time was gone with it. A correction of his posture, born from back muscles that he did not have before. He pulled at his shirt to see that he had the basic definition of pectorals. Looking at his arms, there was a mild bulge where the wire string of his biceps had been. ‘Wow, it worked,’ he thought, excitedly. ‘So this is what muscles feel like.’

‘World’s worst tutorial. I almost died twice and I still have next to no clue what is going on.’ John dismissed the window and pulled up the second page of his Character Sheet.

It revealed that he had gained 4 kilograms of muscle. It must have been evenly distributed. Not a surprise, there was nothing to any of him that had been remotely trained. 4 kilos sounded like a lot, until he considered just how underweight he had been. ‘At least I look and feel less like a skeleton now.’ He poked at various parts of himself and found himself repeatedly surprised when there was the firmness of relaxed tissue covering his bones. ‘I hope Rave will like this.’

Five points still remained. Mana Regeneration was no longer an issue, so he didn’t have to chase that immediately. Altogether his build was in a good spot right now, he needed Skills more than Stats to accomplish something. He decided to put the last 5 points into Intellect as well, so he was closer to the next milestone there.

The shower was still running. Previous experiences told John that she would be in there for a while. ‘Let’s check the inventory for something to do,’ he thought. He had 8 Slots worth of canned food, that Artificial Crystal thingy, two silver necklaces, seven Ectoplasms, and his clothes in there.

Looking at his inventory, the thought occurred that he could Enchant the necklaces to get some progress on that Skill. He had originally wanted to sell them. With the 20’000 dollars sitting in his inventory, that no longer felt like a necessary path. Might as well see what the crafting business was about. Gear was another avenue to get stronger, even if he would have preferred not being the crafter.

‘Is the Quest reward useful for crafting?’ he wondered and pulled the crystal out.

It was a beautiful, diamond-shaped gem of a deep black colour. It was about as long as his pinkie and flat on both sides. John carefully let his thumb glide over the surface. It was perfectly smooth, not a single imperfection.

‘Living Material Attribute?’ John thought with interest. Because of the Skillbook he had absorbed, he actually knew what that meant in detail. It was used in items that could self-upgrade as they were fed better and better materials. That it was on a crystal was unusual though. ‘I don’t think I can make a proper item with this right now, maybe if I get Create higher.’ He put the crystal away for the time being and pulled out the necklaces. Those and Ectoplasm, he did not care about sacrificing for the sake of levelling.

A straightforward interface. Turning ‘Only Show Best’ off quadrupled the length of the list, because of all the lesser variants. He swiftly toggled it on again. Then he tested the ‘Use Item’ button. It offered him to use Ectoplasm to reduce crafting cost by 10 each. Terrible deal, he dismissed it out of hand. He selected a Mana Regeneration Enchantment and it popped on over to the left side of the window, taking up one of the empty Slots. He confirmed the Enchantment and three quarters of his mana vanished.

John clicked yes, called it ‘Experimental Necklace 1’ and hung it around his neck. A new window opened up.

Okay, so he couldn’t just stack tons of necklaces and their bonuses. Sad to see and yet expected. Another showcase of standard RPG logic. He chose the old talisman as it had the better bonus. Then he took another look at his Equipment window in detail.

Okay, so that was the list. As a long-time WoW player, no shoulder pads felt like a sacrilege. That aside, it was a good list. What he wanted most in life was a very sturdy pair of underwear. He was rather attached to his manhood, especially now that he got to use it. That did make him wonder if he could be emasculated? Would Gamer’s Body prevent that from sticking? If he ever found out the answer, it would be after a terrible incident.

He took down the new talisman and used Create on it to see if he could make a ring out of it or something.

Bummer. He placed the Talisman in his inventory and pulled out the other one. This time Create was usable.

Usable it was, but he was out of mana. Not like he was in a hurry. He put that talisman back as well. After a couple more minutes of sitting there, a “Ding” filled the room, followed by an announcement over the TV speakers. “The mana battery is fully charged. You can now remove your hand from the device.”

He did as instructed and now had absolutely nothing left to do. There was the obvious problem of his hunger. There also was the woman of his dreams taking a shower. Certainly he could slip in there with her? It wouldn’t be the first time they shared cleaning utilities.