From a raw time investment point of view, it turned out that a 16-hour Assault was more effective than smashing one’s head against a Raid Boss for a couple of days straight, even with the Catch-Up Buff.

John would have infinitely preferred fighting Lady Presta again over this absolute slog of massacring individually weak enemies. He felt like he had spent the entire day playing Minesweeper on a slowly accelerating treadmill, while getting electric shocks for every time he lost OR won OR stopped playing for more than 5 seconds.

The rewards, however, were so good that he had to keep this in mind for the next time he really needed to get a lot of levels fast. Although he still didn’t like the risk of these things. “Sleep,” he declared and got universal nods. Sylph had already passed out. Her high-power adrenaline made her crash instantly the moment the action was over. Currently, she was being carried by Salamander.

They made their way back to the house, where, to his surprise, he found Lydia waiting for him. Given that it had been sixteen hours, he had assumed she had gone to sleep already. Instead, she was hanging out on the couch, with a laptop in her lap.

Sometime while he was gone, she must have succumbed to the summer heat, only rising as the warmth inside the barrier continued to scale with the warmth outside the time dilation, as she was currently wearing black hotpants and a white, sleeveless top. They were very un-Lydia-like clothes, but they suited her. No, that was selling it short, the sexy girliness of those clothes contrasted her usual militaristic get-up to create an adorably casual look. Her hair was in the usual braid, so there was an element of normal inside this surprise.

She looked up from the screen, her mouth already open and brows furrowed. It was the standard berating expression, but she immediately softened up when she saw John. “You appear to have gone through purgatory,” she remarked in a soft tone, closing the laptop. “Where have you been? We were scheduled for fencing practice.”

“Got a Quest for doing a long Assault.”

“You’ve been fighting since this morning?”

“Yup,” John only answered as the energy sapped remains of his harem went about their preparations to lay down. In the elementals’ case, that meant placing Sylph on the couch and then all retreating to their sanctuary in their summoner’s soul. For the Artificial Spirits, they walked up the stairs and prepared to warm their master’s bed. Showers could be taken in the morning.

“I see, I had a hunch that something of this nature could have occurred.” Lydia put the laptop to the side and got up. “Was it worth it?”

“8 Levels, 2 Max Class Levels, definitely worth it,” John answered. Since he was level 230 now, that made for the second of those two.

“It must have been quite straining.” Lydia reached out to him and rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you need to eat? I cooked something. It may be subpar compared to Aclysia’s creations, and cold by now, but it may help you.”

John shook his head, almost too tired to answer. “No, no… I just need to sleep.” He blinked very slowly and only barely managed to open his eyes. He focused on the red of her lips, the rest of the world seemed washed out. He couldn’t open his eyes enough to see the upper half of her face.

“Was it worse than Warsaw?” Lydia asked.

“From a raw stress level? Yeah… Warsaw at least had some resemblance of waves,” he mumbled and yawned. “As much as I enjoy talking to you, I really…” He stopped when he noticed he was being guided up the stairs. “When did we…?”

Lydia softly pushed him along. “When you answered that you have no need for food,” she answered, sounding caring, motherly even, at the moment. “Walk, dearly beloved, you can rest soon.”

John didn’t quite remember arriving in the bed.

__________________________________________________________________________

When he woke up, he still felt exhausted.

That was a rare experience to have since he had gotten Gamer’s Body, but that was still the state he was in. “I don’t want to do that again for a while,” he grumbled to himself, too tired to think it.

“You may want to further define what ‘it’ is,” Lydia whispered into his ear. He turned his head to look at her. He hadn’t even removed the contacts for the night. With the dishevelled hair that usually came with sleeping, the queen was lying next to and partly on him. “I know one thing you will always want to do.” A moment after that was said, he felt her hand on his morning wood.

John couldn’t help but groan, he was always sensitive first thing in the morning. “I mean do an Instant Dungeon that long,” he elaborated and, as his reward, Lydia rolled on top of him and kissed his lips. The maids were no longer in the bed, while the elementals still slept. Different strokes for different species.

As her lips pulled him into the waking world, her pussy enveloped his cock. She must have had a dream of the particularly sexy variety, wet and ready as she was that morning. With a whimpering moan, she slid over his length. They were both feeling lazy, so early in the morning, so they only slightly moved their hips under the blanket. John was missing the visual somewhat, but having her lying on his chest was quite an acceptable substitute.

“Are you awake now, John?” Lydia asked, as they enjoyed this leisurely lovemaking.

“Mostly.” His cheeky answer was all the queen needed to confirm things for herself.

“Then confirm that I have heard your tired mumblings correctly, eight levels and 2 Max Class Levels, is this correct?”

“Yup.”

“You realize that I must ask why you haven’t chased such outstanding results before?”

“Because it’s pure hell?” John asked.

“As I see it, none of you have died. I believe you that this isn’t an experience you’re keen on repeating but… mhm…” Lydia had to stop for a second to let out a lustful sigh. “…Aahh… your cock’s size stretching me out like this is a distraction of the highest magnitude…”

“Am I making the anal queen a size queen as well?” John couldn’t help but gloat about that. Somewhat rightfully, he earned himself a disapproving glare.

“Risking that your ego inflates, I am certain that you would know how to use your size properly, whatever it might be.” Her stern tone suffered somewhat from the throaty moan that followed directly after that statement. “I indulge in what you offer, beloved, but it is not your size that truly makes me want to ride you first thing after I wake.” Rising off him, she revealed her breasts, small ones on the border to average, and drummed on his collarbone with her index finger. “Now, stop distracting me, I need to berate you.”

“I can give you a number of other reasons why I didn’t do it a lot in the past,” John said and reached out to those breasts, rolling her perky nipples between his fingers. Out of respect or lust, she let him continue. “Starting with the worst, sixteen hours without sex just isn’t my style. Then there is the fact that taking this amount of time out of any day is a struggle in and of itself, I am a busy man. I’m also not particularly fond of risky outcomes and I have to HAMMER,” he grabbed Lydia by the hips and thrust into her hard a single time, making her auburn hair bounce, “home that I won’t get any experience if I fail sometime through. Every single one of our teleport cooldowns was blown in that Assault. Next time around, some people are going to die at some point. Not quite sure if we can deal with that, since the difficulty stays the same. Honestly, this Assault was also pretty easy. Two out of three mobs had exploitable behaviour and the boss was hard only because it was random.” Lydia fell on his chest again, her pussy gripping his cock with orgasmic spasms. The little shifts of her hips were enough to send him close to the edge. “I much prefer the guaranteed, smaller reward over the potential high-reward gamble. I’ll look into going to five or six hours in the future though.”

Having dumped all of that information on her, he embraced her tightly and came deep inside her while smelling the citrus in her hair. This closeness under the warm blanket definitely rivalled seeing her writhe on top of him.

It was a pretty gentle orgasm for the morning, on both of their parts. “I will accept your reasoning,” Lydia whispered into his ear, as they calmed. “When you have reasons of this length, my nagging proves of no further use to either of us.”

“It’s for a thing that’s a lot more fun, then,” John said and opened his menus. “I only have one level up ready for Lover Boy. After that, we’ll have to spend some time clearing the Challenges.” He grinned. “I’ll likely want your assistance in that.”

“My hero,” Lydia’s dry tone already made him chuckle, “he presents me with a way to have copious amounts of intercourse AND have it be useful.”

“That’s me.” John grinned and earned himself a kiss. His cock was still inside her and hard. The twitching of her folds around him was easy to feel. Despite her tone, Lydia was clearly looking forward to a few hours of attention from her lover. “Anyway, let’s see what we have here…”

Well, that was an easy choice. Arouse struck him as utterly unnecessary at his level of sexual godhood. That aside, it was a bit pushy, to put it politely. He liked his sexual Skills either to increase his performance or require consent.

As fun as fucking lots of different women was, it was very much an exception to John’s daily life. He had his core harem and he was more than happy with the spread of girls he had in it. Getting rewarded with experience points for being promiscuous sounded just wrong.

Experience of Love, however, just meant that the time he spent fucking was actually useful beyond the pleasure. That had always been enough to motivate John, but if he could get it, why not take an ability that let him fuck his way towards more levels? Now it would take 500 minutes (or 8 hours and 20 minutes) to get to that daily cap. Even the Gamer didn’t fuck THAT much on normal days.

Lydia must have finished reading the screen as well. At least her comment made it pretty clear that she did, “You are determining whether you can conceivably use this to its maximum effect, are you not?”

“The question is if blowjobs count,” John hummed. “If I mark Eliza, I could conceivably get her to suck me off for the entire work day. Hell, if I get enough marks, I can just put shifts out there. If they don’t, I’ll have to arrange it so Jack does the work while I fuck around…” He grinned. “This combines my two favourite things, planning and having sex.”

“You are an absolute oddity.” Lydia couldn’t help but laugh. “In this case to your favour. Now take it, make this a thing worth both of our whiles.” She was, of course, right. The Perk specified that they both received experience. While John’s levelling mechanics for group members had a steeply rising requirement past their natural potential, it was still possible. As little as the progress would be, Lydia would receive some benefit from this.

That aside, it wasn’t like he wanted the other two choices. She was right, he clicked it, and then wildly made out with her. Only a little prelude to the coming hours. They fucked in the bed, they fucked in the shower, he got a double blowjob by the maids during breakfast (which was Lydia’s cooking from yesterday – delicious, despite her claims to the contrary), and then the entire present harem engaged in debauchery.

Purely to fulfil the Lover Boy Class Challenges, of course.

John took a few minutes among the orgy to properly test what counted as sex for the purpose of Experience of Love. The answer was: basically anything that involved their primary sexual organs. As much as fingering Lydia’s pussy or receiving a handjob was enough. Notably, fondling her breasts or making out wasn’t. Not on their own, anyway. There had to be some stimulation of dick or vagina.

Eventually, they had the Challenges done. John got to picking the next Perk immediately. Lydia wouldn’t have let him hear the end of it if he added another hour to the orgy only to be indulgent. The orgy was ended with one more orgasm. After some more cuddles and a recuperation period, things got into motion again. Aclysia moved into the kitchen to get lunch ready and Beatrice cleaned up the living room. It desperately needed it.

“And there it is,” a naked John exclaimed, walking over to Lydia who was lying on the couch. Apparently she had problems feeling her legs. “See?”

Raising her head and torso with some effort, Lydia brushed back some of her cum-soaked hair to read the window. “This is utter cow dung,” she simply declared.

“Cow dung in your favour,” he added.

“It will more than double my potential, as per your system’s boundaries and declarations.”

“That’s what it says.” He happily nodded.

They were talking about Shared Steps. Sexual Submission was another choice that John didn’t really like, although it at least required consent to be reaffirmed. Regardless, not what he wanted. Lover’s Bond was more interesting and, if the competition was anything else, he would have taken it.

However, Shared Steps was just too good. At the moment, only Lydia and Scarlett would benefit a whole lot from it, but that was bound to change as John levelled up. That aside, the fact that Lydia alone would raise her potential level from 90 to 190 was worth taking the Perk. It applying to everyone who had a Lover’s Will mark and giving another one of those marks was immensely powerful.

Level 6 and upwards really was the place where Perks ramped up.

The choice was made and John withdrew an item from his inventory that hadn’t seen a lot of usage in quite a while. It was a flask with a long neck and a round body, the bottom flattened to allow it to stand. It came with a leather holster that allowed it to be attached tightly to a belt. At the moment, the translucent thing was filled to the brim with a golden liquid.

“I offer you this tribute, my Queen,” he said and handed her Helbrecht’s Soulpotion. It was a present he had received from her during the tournament. Back then, it had been vital in allowing the rest of their group to catch up to the enemy team and their much higher levels. Its usefulness diminished quite strongly in the upper one-hundred range.

The last time it had really seen use was when John had used it to get Magnus to the peak of his potential. Since then, it had mostly spent its time sitting in the Gamer’s inventory. Now that Lydia had bigger shoes to grow into, giving her this only made sense.

“This invokes a certain sense of nostalgia,” the auburn-haired metal mage said and took it from him. The glass lid was quickly pulled off and the contents of the flask guzzled down into her stomach. Directly thereafter, John got the ability to level her up with his powers. A simple click and she was level 91.

“So, how does it feel to break through the ceiling?” the Gamer asked.

“Anticlimactic,” Lydia responded, as she gave back the Soulpotion. “It appears I have better things to do now than simulate the effects of changing taxes on my economy.” She looked at her hands, then made a fist and smiled. “I had already accepted that I had peaked, having a new horizon to march towards, it fills me with determination.”

John couldn’t help but snicker.

“What was so entertaining about that?” Lydia needed to know.

“Undertale reference, don’t think you played it.”

“Is that the game with Sans?”

“How do you…”

“My exposure to memes through you and Rave has given me knowledge of the most useless variety.”