“S-so, I should tell him to…?” Gnome asked.

“To leave, yes,” Stirwin responded, his claws tapping on the edge of the Light Essence pool in quick succession. “I appreciate that you are slow to banish people from your realm, but sometimes a series of small incidents are more detrimental to a community than a large one. If said individual refuses to change, despite the warnings, then you must act.”

“Yeah… but I don’t like it…”

“Good,” the Celestial Devourer hummed and stretched. His scales bristled with energy. At Stage 3, the infinity elemental was more akin to a glorious water drake than a mundane reptile. The shape of the head, body and tail still resembled a crocodile, but the long limbs, almost human-like hands and thinner build all gave him a more draconic vibe. The ever-present light exuding from his scales didn’t hurt. Where the scales were gold, the light was gold; where the scales were silver (primarily his belly), the light was silver, and the bronze spots all over followed the same rule. Even the copper flesh inside Stirwin’s maw seemed to glow. Whether it was the copper itself or the energy deep within him that illuminated his white teeth and protruding scales, acting as an outer layer of teeth, hardly mattered. Fact of the matter was that Stirwin was an impressive sight.

“Good?” Gnome asked.

“You are the one of us that is to embody patience,” Stirwin told her. “The primary attribute of the elemental earth is to endure that which must be endured. If you were keen on taking action, then you would suffer in your role. It would disrupt our balance as those who watch John. Speaking of which,” Stirwin looked over to his summoner, “a splendid evening, John.”

“To you too, Chompy,” the Gamer responded in a friendly fashion. “Good work, Ubun, Korus.” He also nodded towards the two high level elementals guarding the pond. They had similarities to how ancient Egyptian gods were often portrayed, humanoids with animal heads (an eagle and a scorpion in this case), but they were also infused with the glow that accompanied all light elementals. “And you come right here.”

John and Gnome were quickly in an embrace and a shy kiss. Shy entirely from her side, obviously. The Gamer grabbed her butt while they greeted each other the loving way and kept one hand there even after their lips parted again. “Evening, my love,” the autumn elemental said, smiled, and turned beet red. “S-s-sorry, just felt like the right thing to say.”

“Definitely was,” John hummed and looked up to Stirwin. “So, if she’s my patience, what does that make you?”

“Your virtue patrol,” Stirwin joked. “Or your control. Your order. Your regulated pride. Call it as you wish.”

“I asked Stirwin for advice about a summoner that keeps bothering the earth elementals,” Gnome explained the situation to him. “Don’t worry, I got that under… under control, yeah!” She pumped one fist, as if to reassure herself.

“You do, yeah.” John believed her and placed another kiss on her cheek.

“Uwuwu…” a tiny embarrassed sound echoed from her pretty mouth.

“Why did you come here in person to ask about that though?” John asked.

“It’s just nicer to talk in person… and it’s pretty here, especially at night.”

John could hardly disagree with that. The Light Shrine was set a good ten metre deep into the earth. It was a rectangular court with walls fashioned from silver and gold stones, arranged in a distantly roman-greek style, and a shallow pool at the centre of it. Soft light radiated from everything around them, yet the sky above was filled with undiluted stars. Stars of varying sizes and colours, in formations that wouldn’t be found in earth’s view of the Milky Way. They moved about, sapient dots of light that shone onto the Guild Hall from another world.

‘There’s like four skies above the Guild Hall, depending on where you are,’ the amusing realization dawned on John. ‘There’s the regular earth sky, the Midnight Forest, the Light Island and the Shadow Island. I wonder if the other elemental islands will follow suit on the final upgrade.’ “Anyway, I’m here to check on Jane. I assume she’s in the labyrinth?”

“Indeed,” Stirwin said and gestured at one of the many doors that led into the inside of the Light Shrine. “I’ve kept visitors out for the day to give her the space to meditate.”

“I heard about that,” John hummed. He had used the hours between the end of the session he had with Eliza and now to get some more Class Challenges done in advance. During that time, he also had to deal with the occasional phone call by a person of import and, once, with a complaint by someone who wanted to commune with light spirits. John just told them that Stirwin was in charge there and that he trusted his elemental’s reasons. “Very angry person, that one.”

“I should have pointed them at the Fire Island,” Stirwin grumbled and blew glowing mists out of his nostrils. “Anyway, you will find Jane whatever path you follow.” The infinity elemental moved his head to the side and John followed his gaze. Behind the Gamer, the row of advice-seekers was growing. Whenever Stirwin rested in the Light Shrine, people were drawn to this location. At first, only light elementals had wanted advice. However, as more people frequented the Light Island and spoke to him out of curiosity, soon all kinds of inhabitants of the Hudson Barrier were drawn to the wise crocodile. He was becoming somewhat of a tourist attraction. “If you wouldn’t mind, I have people to help.”

“Knock yourself out,” John said and bowed his head in goodbye. While they walked away, Gnome hesitatingly disconnected from him. “You have to go?”

“Yeah… responsibilities…”

John clicked his tongue. “Wouldn’t have given you any, had I known that would mean I couldn’t cuddle you all the time,” he said, only to laugh. “I’m joking, Gnome. We’ll see each other at dinner.”

“Yeah.” Gnome smiled her innocent smile and wrapped her arms around him for a quick, squeezing cuddle. “Later.”

John remained where he stood to look at her ass while she looked away. Her short skirt waved from side to side. The motion escalated as the swing of her hip became more intense. Gnome tried her best to put on a show, but she lacked that natural daringness to do so seamlessly. The swing was awkward, too wide, and ultimately, she stumbled. She caught herself and looked back at John with an embarrassed frown. The Gamer sent her mental head-pats, then she walked away, normally, into the crowd.

‘As if she needs to pose to emphasize her hips,’ John thought. Sure, Gnome didn’t have the most impressive figure in his harem, as a matter of fact she had the most balanced one all around, but she still had a fantastic set of hips to her frame. Any way she moved would have been sexy to some degree. ‘And now to look at my favourite ass,’ John thought.

Through one of the many entrances, he stepped into the labyrinth that extended outwards from the Light Shrine. It was a structure made entirely from gleaming mirrors. John turned one corner, and he was surrounded by infinite reflections of himself. Walls, roof and floor, all were made from silver and gold mirrors. At least that difference of colour gave him something to orient himself.

From previous ventures into the labyrinth, John already knew that its size didn’t make any sense. At times, one arrived at another exit after just two corners. On other occasions, he had walked more than one kilometre in one direction. By proper logic, that would have meant he had to be inside the water. Instead, he had walked back twenty steps at one point and arrived back at the entrance.

As the ruler of the space, John had no worry that the labyrinth would send him into an eternal circle. He may not completely understand what was going on, but the Gamer knew that the Guild Hall would not harm him. Not unless he built something that exchanged limbs for experience points. Not that he had even unlocked such a Building.

Carefree, he walked in a random direction and just kept on walking. His surroundings barely changed and he didn’t pay attention to most of it. By courtesy of the Mandala Sphere, he saw himself from multiple angles most days. He knew he was a muscular man of slim build and handsome features. A bit on the plain side when one looked closely at him, but only in the sense that he had a face that looked like it belonged on the front of a Playgirl magazine. It was a bit too perfect, almost as if it was an aggregate of handsome people or had been carefully adjusted for maximum effect. Given the nature of John’s powers, the latter wasn’t even that unlikely.

Whatever it was, John had seen it before and he wasn’t the kind of egomaniac to care about his looks. His beauty only mattered because it pleased his beauties. The only thing about his reflections John cared about was if the one in front of him was getting closer. Running into a mirror would have been embarrassing even if no one was around to witness it.

The Gamer walked and walked, humming to himself. His mind shifted over to Jack for a moment, who had taken a pause from the paperwork to appreciate the work of his secretary. Luckily, Beatrice’s table was very sturdy. John indulged in the shared pleasure for a little bit, then turned another corner.

And stopped.

He stood in front of a cave entrance. Aside from it attaching so oddly to the mirror labyrinth, the tunnel was also notable for the way it wound into the distance. Twisting endlessly, with crystalline pillars connecting opposing sides that were oddly smooth in the otherwise craggy tunnel, it felt like John was looking down the double helix of a DNA strand.

Following his intuition, John jumped down into the cave. It was three times as wide as the corridor he came from and three times as deep as well. The little fall failed to threaten his superhuman physique and he landed in front of one of the crystal pillars. Silver and gold, they continued before him. Their overlap blocked his view into the far distance.

‘Seems like the Elemental Depths connected to the labyrinth today,’ John guessed and started walking on the smooth area, surrounding the bases of the early pillars. The Elemental Depths were an ever-shifting Building whose primary entrance was on the Earth Island. It was for pilgrimages and general trials for elementalists and shamans. For people that wanted to try their hand at the craft, it was the best place to go. Likewise, for people that wanted to evolve their elementals, it may give trials helping to fortify the bonds.

Rave had gone into it with Copernicus before – to little effect. Because of that, they had decided to pursue regular methods first. Despite that knowledge, John had a feeling he was heading into the right direction.

‘Perhaps I should go in there with Gnome sometime?’ he asked himself, while navigating the pillars. The shape of the room had made John hope for a moment that he was dealing with some reality bending fun. When a room like this appeared in video games, it was almost standard that walking straight forward also let one follow the spiralling motion, somehow. Instead, he had to climb through the many obstacles.

Gradually, it changed from him weaving through the pillars to using them as steps on a ladder. The tunnel became steeper, until it practically went vertical. John hadn’t been keeping exact track, but he was fairly certain that he should have been somewhere above the earth a while ago.

He emerged from a hole in the ground and entered some kind of cave forest. While that was an interesting environment, John mostly noticed the burn and claw marks around. ‘Rave and Copernicus fought here,’ the Gamer analysed. ‘Copernicus was in tiger form… did they fight each other or did the Elemental Depths throw something at them? The Building on its own shouldn’t have the power to create such entities. Then again, the Building also doesn’t cost enough upkeep to allow dimensional meddling to this degree. Probably something regarding the islands' connection to their respective realms?’

He continued through another tunnel at the side of the room. Again he had to weave through a helix and again he emerged in a chamber. That one was filled with water and moss. The enmity he instinctively felt inside that room practically confirmed his thoughts. “I can feel you,” he growled at the water. The pond reflected his visage and the crystal that illuminated the cave. The hostility ebbed away and was replaced by a feeling of forgiveness. That annoyed John in a whole different fashion and he was fast to continue on.

The structure continued on. Corridors that wound through impossible distances and rooms that bore the marks of combat or other trials. Earth, water, then fire, wind, and finally shadow, each of those five elements had a chamber dedicated to it. It appeared that the other elements had taken at least a moderate interest in the Gamer’s girlfriend.

Ultimately, he emerged in the most impossible place of all. Dropping out of the corridor, the final stretch had been a descent for a change, he landed on a platform. It was shaped from translucent, glowing crystal, shaped from a mosaic of silver and gold. It was about five metres across and hovered in an endless, light blue skyscape. The hole of the corridor was an impossible cut, more of a portal than a tunnel.

In the centre of the platform was an elevated area. There sat John’s girlfriend. She was in her bodysuit, but that piece of equipment had been so thoroughly ravaged that, after over a year of use, it had finally given in. Whether it was out of energy or material to use its self-repair function, it showed in its gaps a bruised and bloodied body. Her knuckles were bare, painfully so; not just the suit but the skin as well had worn down and revealed white bone. Her face, despite being cut on one check and covered in blue spots and dirt, was calm and beautiful. Rave had assumed a standard meditating pose, her legs crossed and her hands folded in her lap.

Copernicus was wrapped around her. At least John assumed that the distantly feline shape around her was Copernicus. Gold, silver, copper and bronze, the spectrum of the usual light elemental, swerved over fur that moved as if it was underwater and was too long to belong to either his regular or his tiger form. It was difficult to make out his exact shape in any way. He seemed to have blended together into a semi-metallic mass of light magic.

‘Is this how ascension normally goes?’ John wondered. Skill Evolution Points acted as the catalyst in his case, so there was a likely chance that Rave’s meditation provided the power to achieve the same here. Whether or not that was true, John thought it unwise to make any sound. Instead, he just sat down, informed Undine that he would need her to take care of Rave when they were done here, and waited.

Figments of energy appeared in the surrounding air and drifted into Copernicus’ fur. Each time this happened, the hairs grew a tiny bit longer and the spectrum of colours slowed down a little bit. Slowly, steadily, patches of black sneaked into the mix. The mass of hair grew until John could only see Rave’s face in the middle of it. Then the long, waving strands drifted away, like a shedding winter coat claimed by the winds. They broke apart as they sailed, vanishing into nothingness.

The glow of Copernicus’ fur diminished steadily as it shortened to the sensible short coat one was used to of cats. Dark spots covered his new, groomed coat, giving Copernicus the appearance of a jaguar. His size, by the end of it all, fit the same. No longer could he wrap completely around Rave, forming more of a half-moon around her.

Where a jaguar’s spots would have been white, his where silver, where they would have been brown, his were bronze, where they would have been orange, his were gold. His ears didn’t quite fit the appearance, being pointier and larger, more like an upscaled housecat than the rounded ears of a jaguar.

Silver whiskers trembled, cheeks pulled back and Copernicus yawned with the carefreeness of the typical cat. His teeth were gold, an unusual but not unpleasant colour in the copper flesh surrounding it. There were more of them than a regular cat would have had and they seemed more fitted for an omnivorous lifestyle.

John expected Copernicus to open his eyes at that point. Instead, once he was done yawning, the light jaguar placed his head on his paws and continued snoozing.