Chapter 102 – To Grind more! [Saturday]

Three days.

They had spent the past three days planning and training. Herman said he would take care of the logistics of getting that tank out of there. As long as the rest of them were able to move it to the surface, he could have it taken out of the Illusion Barrier and then moved to somewhere safe. He also promised to ask some of his friends to help them. Which meant that John had one goal and one goal only: being stronger than Igor and Gent, the two most intimidating fighters in the Bloodfallen.

Funnily enough that didn’t look that unrealistic at this point.

Because he had learnt one thing, one easy and simple thing: his powers were bullshit.

He had acquired the other two basic elementals, air and water, yesterday.

First was Undine, a girl made entirely of water, or well, actually it was more some sort of slime. She was about the same height as Gnome, her light blue form shifting most of the time but maintaining humanoid proportions. The only two things that interrupted her otherwise smooth surface was her short hair that twirled around a maelstrom at the back of her head and her white glowing eyes, the colour of mist. She was much like Gnome, only even quieter, responding with waves of emotion instead of words most of the time. She kept to protecting John from ranged attacks with her viscous body.

Which was direly needed as Gnome was simply not quick enough for that kind of job, especially in this environment. A sharpened steel pipe flew at John's head but was washed to the side by one of Undine’s arms. It extended and stretched, until the small girl's limb was a torrent of water and goo. That took care of the steel pipe. Not, however, of its origin.

That was the job of his second new elemental. A stupendously fast streak of pale green swirled around the Building Boar, slicing its surface hundreds of times. Small cut after small cut tore the monster apart. With one last, intense attack, the structurally compromised creature was blown apart into wildly diced chunks.

“What was I saying, right, are you listening? I think you are. So. What I am saying is that Sally is such a bitch, right? She only talks about burning stuff, all day, every day. You know what is going on inside your head all day? Because I sure do. Lemme tell you, it is FUN. Because you thought about Tetris so much in your life you actually have an Arcade machine up there…. Uh! Uh! Did I tell you about the high score yet, Gnome actually holds it and and and…..” The words of the small green girl started to slowly meld together into white noise. Maybe green noise was more accurate for her. Sylph didn’t seem to mind that he wasn’t actually listening, she just enjoyed talking.

John found it interesting that the two elementals too small to do anything with were adult in appearance and the two others were minors in appearance. All of that was deceptive, none of them grew up like humans did, but it did turn John away from having sexual interest in any of them.

‘Sylph.’ That was Gnome inside his head, ‘Get back to it.’

The green girl in the air saluted at the fellow elemental in the yellow sundress. “Yes, ma’am!” She played obedient before turning in the air and flying at the next foe, of which there were more than enough. Gnome had turned into some kind of commander; John had no idea if that was because of seniority or some other factor was at play. Orders were given seldomly, however. Gnome avoided speaking.

With two more elementals at his side, John’s power had risen tremendously. His upkeep costs had risen in equal measure. It wasn’t alarming, but cause enough for him to concentrate on getting Intellect to 75 next after he had reached the 25+ mark in Agility. ‘Which was really disappointing.’ John sighed, all that milestone had gotten him was higher flexibility and his reflexes were quicker by 10%. Not bad, just boring.

“Jane, how is it going on your side?” John shouted at his girlfriend. Rave was busy blasting light at the other kind of enemy in this Dungeon.

“I just love having a challenge for a change!” Rave grinned as another well aimed laser burned the wing off a crow.

“Amen, sister!” Salamander attested and finished the thing off with a ray of fire from her hands while giggling.

“Ya could be more like her in fights, you know?” Rave asked Copernicus.

“That would involve moving,” the cat yawned and rolled on its back . Currently, it occupied a coffee table, “You got this, Lightbearer. Well, you or your friend there.”

Aclysia swung a sword that was taller than she was downwards at another Building Boar. The attack cut and shattered the enemy in equal measure. The sword was more a hunk of steel with edges than an actual sword. Well, steel was not the right description. Observe had the proper formulation.

Aclysia herself was also stronger than ever.

She had +20 Strength. Twenty. Percent Bonus Stacking was insane. That was nothing new to John but it was just something else to see it in action. John wondered what Gaia had in store for him at level 75 of the Artificial Spirit Skill. At the current pace, that was still a bit away. Important was that he got it before the main confrontation with the Bloodfallen.

After Aclysia’s sudden escape from the Headquarters, Victoria and her companions had vanished. Literally. They had entered an Illusion Barrier. John (unwilling to give away the secret of his bird, which SecretBlonde still kept to himself for whatever reason) had circled the area from the outside. He had not found them again. Whatever they were planning, they were keeping a long distance.

This put a dent into John’s plans to take her out before reinforcements arrived but he simply filled that gap by training more. After having beaten the third floor of the Skaven Under Empire (again, same enemies with an additional 5 levels on top), John and Rave had decided to try waves instead. Forest Elemental was a disabled option in the city, so the next best choice had been City Elementals.

Which was exactly what they were fighting now. Aclysia’s new sword was a drop from the second wave boss. Currently, they were competing against the fourth wave. They hadn’t beaten this boss before, they usually just repeated the first three. However, with the addition of the two new elementals to his arsenal, John felt quite confident. Especially because the enemies were once again the same as the previous waves, which meant that the Boss was probably also the same.

Despite the enemies being of similar or higher level to the group, they weren’t exactly difficult. They were not easy either, like the previous three waves had mostly been. They had numbers going for them, in addition to different enemy types that harassed the party with attacks both up close and from afar.

John sent Undine most of his MP to create a wave of mana-reinforced water. It enveloped two nearby Building Boars. The magic in the liquid increased surface strength and the general impact of the momentum, making it effective despite the weight and supernatural strength of the creatures. John emptied the rest of his mana pool to help Rave by taking down another Scrap Crow with Mana Ray. Normally, emptying his reserves like that was inadvisable, but he was waiting for…

Exactly that. Well, there were not a whole lot of enemies left so any second now….

…that would happen. ‘I am on point today,’ John thought.

The streets cracked, bent and the rubble tumbled. Chunks of asphalt all gathered in the same location. New and old, black and grey, the material began to swirl and fuse, ultimately forming a 5 metre tall humanoid.

It had human proportions, long legs and arms covered with white lines that looked like street markings. The primary difference between it and humans, besides the obvious size and material, was that it had no head. instead a slight bulge was located where its neck should be, an eye made of small white pebbles resting there.

In all honesty John thought the thing looked more ridiculous than intimidating, still it was 5 metres tall and capable of high levels of destruction. It reminded John that he himself was capable of levelling buildings at this point, through the power of his familiars. It would take him a little time though.

“Usual strategy?” Rave asked.

“Yep. Sylph, Salamander, if you would.” John gestured towards the two tiny, female elementals. Not that John had any male elementals. The elemental planes must have sensed his desires to that end.

Sylph took this as an invitation to start talking again, “Let’s a go! Of course, only if you are ready. I know how much of a slow burner you are. Heh. Get it? Slow burner? Because you are made of....”

“Get fucking going, airhead!” Salamander kicked her fellow elemental in the butt and then followed her to the Asphalt Golem’s arm. There, the two elementals started to rapidly circle around, blasting their individual attacks at the arm of the beast.

The strategy was tried and tested. Sylph and Salamander would circle around one of the limbs, gradually sawing it off while the rest of the group kept the Golem occupied. Once that was done, the destroyed limb would morph into two smaller Golems they needed to quickly defeat. After that, there was a window where one side of the boss was wide open. Given time, it would absorb what asphalt was around to regenerate. Still, this was the safest and most reliable method they had found.

The Asphalt Golem moved in to swat the little elementals away like mosquitoes but John was already on the case. Gnome took a good third of his mana and a pillar of earth enveloped the arm at the wrist, stopping the Golem in its movement. The boss’ priority shifted to getting its arm out of the restriction. Aclysia immediately moved to intercept.

It swung its mighty fist at the dirt pillar, only for Aclysia to strike the wrist of the arm with a jumping strike. The impact of the Cleaver of Streets brought the limb off its aimed trajectory. Swiftly, the balance of the entire creature was compromised. Aclysia jumped back. The red and pale green streaks kept swirling around the boss’ shoulder.

Rave was next to attack the enormous foe. While Aclysia and John had spent time controlling the beast, she had climbed a nearby building. All of that, only to leap right off it. “Woooohooo!” she shouted, as she executed a double somersault. It ended with her extended heel crashing straight in the Golem’s face. The kick from the aura-engulfed heel was one thing, the shockwave that followed a whole other. Copernicus’ blessing slammed down on the Asphalt Golem with a secondary descent, strong enough to force the creature onto its knees.

Impressive as it looked, it did fairly little. The semi-liquid creature sucked part of its legs into its body and used the additional mass to expand its confined arm. The earthen prison cracked and shattered. Rave stood on top of the boss, the dent she had created filling in before she hit the ground.

The Golem swung its now club-like appendage around. Aclysia jumped away, through a building's window and hid inside. Rave on the other hand did her best to keep her balance at the top of the Golem, “I have a lot of experience with rodeo, ya stupid dust head!” She said and John could physically feel the wink that followed that innuendo.

John himself just looked at the whole thing with a nice big grin on his face. He was at a safe distance, not willing to sacrifice HP or MP when he had basically nothing to add in melee. What rubble came flying his way was taken care of by Undine.

One could accuse him of barely contributing to the fight, but he preferred to say that he used his Skills tactically. On top of that, technically Aclysia’s and his elementals’ contributions were his, so he was actually doing a lot. He was about to make an even bigger contribution though.

The Asphalt Golem’s frenzy came to an abrupt end, when its right arm finally fell off. There was only so much regeneration could do against melting and cutting. The heavy limb dropped to the ground with a loud crash. Much of the street was gone at this point, absorbed into the boss to repair itself.

On the barren dirt, the arm broke into two pieces and formed smaller foes. One of which was immediately killed under the impact of Aclysia jumping from a third story window. There were many nice things you could say about Aclysia, that she was cute, that she had a great figure, an awesome arse, clean skin, radiant eyes, all of that and more, but when she was heavy she was HEAVY. Therefore, the first Golem got crushed by a whole load of Titanium and Dragonscale forged into human form.

The second one, Rave quickly took care of much in the same manner. While the boss golem struggled to compensate for its compromised centre of gravity, Rave jumped off and landed on the smaller version's shoulders. Before the Golem could do as much as react, Rave was already stomping down on its head. Over and over again her heel connected, each impact sending out waves of light that added destruction to injury.

John sent Gnome more of his mana. Moving earth was a lot cheaper if he didn’t need to break through the street first. An obstacle the boss was nice enough to remove, if only because they were abusing its behavioural patterns. Earth piled up around the pillar until it was as large as the Boss, at which point it started to meld into a giant human. “Whatever you can do, I can do better.” John declared and used Possession on Gnome’s creation. Sylph and Salamander, the cutting-edge duo of this fight, moved on to sawing off the Golem’s left leg.

John, now a five metre tall earth golem, attacked his ‘kin’. Although John was not exactly experienced with this kind of body or punching as a whole, he had four unfair advantages. First was the fact that the Asphalt Golem only had one arm, which was oversized and slow to swing. Second was Rave and Aclysia, attacking the open side of the boss even as it was occupied with John’s Possession. Third was that John had done this fight on easier difficulties before and the strategy was executed flawlessly this time around. Fourth, and last chronologically, was that the golem toppled over forwards when its leg was cut off.

If a boss monster could have looked annoyed, the Asphalt Golem would have shown a grimace of saltiness. John brought the fist of his earth body upwards in a mighty uppercut. Even if the Possession was slow, the pure momentum behind that much earth was enough to turn the face of the monster into an explosion of black chunks and pebbles. By the time they rained back down, they were turning into dust.

‘Wonder how long that will be viable for,’ John thought and looked at his earth body. It took an immense amount of mana to create and was slow and deceptively easy to destroy. Unless he found a way to make a more dedicated body that scaled with his Attributes, this was a niche strategy at best. Worked for this specific encounter though.

“Did it drop anything of interest?” Rave approached, brushing off her clothes as she walked.

John went over the pile of items on the floor. “Well, we got a hundred thousand bucks,” he informed her, before putting the stack of cash away.

“I said interesting, Johnny!”

“You rarely get to call me that these days,” John laughed while he went over the rest of the stuff. Mana Mixed Tar and Polutium Bar were somewhat interesting crafting materials. He would keep them for the moment. Aside from that, there was really nothing interesting, not even in the rare drops. ‘Well, maybe there’s one thing.'

He read the description to Rave.

“…Think it’s enough to just put it on the floor in the bedroom?” Rave was intrigued and asked.

 “Possibly? Want to find out?” John already knew the answer but he shot her a glance anyway.

“Who do you think is your girlfriend, tiger?”