‘Man, I could be a level higher…’ John thought, lamenting that even Experience of Love was affected by the ongoing patch. ‘Which should be done any second now, really,’ he complained mentally. Gaia did not react to that in any fashion, so he sighed. It was past midnight, the patch was overdue, and John didn’t want to waste his time going into whatever he would do during this grinding session before the patch was done. ‘This is really poorly optimized. The things I do for new love.’

Rather than keep lamenting to himself, John opened several menus. He had barely started looking at them when Salamander moved next to him. Her movements were accompanied by splashing and the water around John turning noticeably hotter.

Due to the continued difficulty that came with funnelling over a dozen freshly fucked and sweaty women and one sweaty and kiss-covered man through one shower, the harem had decided to create themselves an outdoor facility. It was hidden from the Magus family through tall, stone walls, and took the form of a simple, shoulder-deep pond that had a bench submerged along the wall. Fresh water was provided by Undine and heat by Salamander. It wasn’t the most effective construction, but it worked well enough.

“What are you checking out, stud?” the apocalypse elemental asked. The redhead wore her hair long today, showing the black strands that extended from the jagged lines that covered much of her body. Before John could answer, she leaned against his arm to look at the windows. He was distracted by the phenomenal view and feeling that was his arm disappearing between her bountiful boobs. She read the windows. “Thinking about Classes?”

“Pretty much,” the Gamer confirmed, causing the rest of the harem to flock to his position. Them weighing in on his choices was tradition, after all. Since they were all there now, he explained further. “I’m considering whether I want to spend the Class Level now or keep it for later.”

“What would be the reason to delay it, Master?” Aclysia wondered.

“Well, either I spend it now on Harem Gamer or later on Unfound,” the Gamer explained. He had cleared the Challenges for Harem Gamer by sheer accident on the side, while pushing Unfound off during his vacation. “I think I’ll get Harem Gamer.”

“Wouldn’t the next level of Unfound be level 6?” Scarlett asked. “You should prioritize that.”

“Sure, but it’s probably going to be something about perception,” John told her, “so that won’t be important for what we do during the grinding session and I fully expect to get at least another five levels, so it doesn’t exactly matter.”

Everyone considered that point. Most of the harem was happy with him picking Harem Gamer anyway, but the more practically minded liked there to be actual reasons for him to go into these vanity Classes. “Alright then.” Scarlett made a gracious gesture, as if she was allowing him to invest.

“…Alright, I am regretting that decision,” John sighed, as he looked over the choices. They were, all three, useless and boring. Having formidable furniture would be nice, but it didn’t measure up to what John demanded of his Perks. “It is what it is,” he mumbled. “I think the choice is pretty obvious, yeah?”

“Cuddlethrone!” Sylph shouted.

“Casting Room,” Aclysia disagreed vehemently.

“…No, it’s the Harem Couch,” John said and explained his reasoning to those women around that thought otherwise. “The Cuddlethrone sounds nice and all, but I don’t think some additional fatigue relief is reason enough to get it. The Casting Room is for someone who wants more additional partners. I prefer expanding the harem only when I meet a particularly outstanding woman. It’s large enough as is.”

“So, what’cha saying is that ya think ya have enough bottom-heavy women already?” his girlfriend asked. Her question was accompanied by her stepping through his windows and then, axiomatically, turning around and planting her attractive rear end on his cock. John groaned, mildly surprised by the suddenness with which he found himself inside her and further pleased by the immediate service she gave him by gyrating on his cock.

“Shouldn’t you be a bit more afraid of competition?” John wondered.

Rave blew air out of her nose, obviously finding the mere insinuation ridiculous. “Ya can’t quit me, I’m cute.” Smiling over her shoulder, her hair sticking out in its usually wild fashion despite its wet status, she started to bounce in his lap. “Also, I’m working really hard to earn my place here, ya perv.”

“You’re right on both accounts,” John sighed and leaned back. Even the muscles of her smooth back turned him on, somehow. He raised a hand above the surface of the water and snapped his fingers. “Rave, do you want to speed things up?”

“If ya want me to,” Rave purred. From riding him at a moderate pace, she accelerated until she sent steady waves through the water with her intense movements.

‘I’ll never get tired of these,’ John thought. Influencing the girls’ behaviour through these hypnotic suggestions was a special type of domination that went beyond physical bondage. It also went nicely along with physical bondage, it had to be said. “Anyway, the Harem Couch also has the advantage of being customizable and I’m just going to assume that’s going to make it very accommodating of ropes.”

With no further objections raised, John picked that Perk and then enjoyed the service he was getting. Rave continued to one-up herself in terms of speed. The hypnotic suggestion rewarded, for the most part, based on one’s own subconscious. The only exception to this were the release commands, which also came along with automatic pleasure amplification through Lover’s Will. For the regular ones, the more the person thought they were in accordance with a suggestion they willingly followed, the more they would find their experience elevated.

This culminated in Rave using her superhuman speed to bounce on his cock. She screamed from the repeated orgasms, induced by the large cock repeatedly penetrating her tight quim and her hand fervently rubbing her clit. John closed his eyes and held on as long as he could while he listened to her cries. When he finally did cum inside her, her orgasm rang in his ears in the most pleasurable way imaginable. It was underlined by the moans of the rest of the harem, engaged with each other, spurred on by their sight.

Opening his eyes again, John was greeted by a new window.

“Great, fantastic timing,” he grumbled, having looked forward to a continuation of the morning orgy in the pool. “Alright, patch is done,” he said out loud to inform everyone. They echoed his dissatisfaction. Some simply didn’t stop, not interested enough to stop so close to orgasm. ‘I could delay it,’ he considered. The Gamer won out over the pervert, though. He had taken enough time off.

John pressed the button and looked at the notes presenting themselves to him.

“…That’s quite the list,” John hummed, excited for and dreading the changes. “Let’s see what you got then, Gaia.”

“Ooofff,” John gasped, physically feeling the math hit him in the stomach.

“What’s so bad?” Rave wanted to know, unwilling to stop fucking him for long enough to comprehend what was written. Just because he was not having an orgy didn’t mean he had to stop having sex.

“Let’s just say that my Sustained Costs just hiked up a lot,” John told her. “I’ll spare you the numbers… let’s just say that I’m losing mana at the moment.”

“You what now?” Rave wanted to know.

“About 1 MP per second,” he told her.

While Gaia’s math was accurate and the cost between his five corporeal elementals came out to 77,92 MP per second, there were further costs to be considered. Even incorporeal, Stirwin cost him an additional 7,79 MP, the two Artificial Spirits still claimed 10% of his mana regeneration and the Extension took up another 10%. This came out for a flat cost of 85,71 and a percentual cost of 20% (or 21,01 after being applied to his mana regeneration of 105,07). In total, he was paying 106,72 mana each second, while regenerating 1,65 less than that.

If Stirwin had also been corporeal, this situation would have looked even worse.

“That’s bullshit!” Rave complained on his behalf. “No, wait, it’s blocking your BS, so it’s anti-BS, really.”

“I would call it a comeuppance,” Lydia commented. “His ability to keep six elementals summoned at negligible costs has always put him above combatants equal to his level.”

“Yeah, Lydia is right,” John supported the queen. “As unhappy as I am about being nerfed, realistically it is pretty absurd that I could add eight additional bodies to the battlefield, nine if you count Metra, and still cast powerful spells myself. Not to mention my defensive capabilities.” He groped Rave’s firm butt, which let him come to terms with the situation quite a bit easier. “The only one who was similarly ridiculous, having five elementals and a Metracana himself, was Sigmund. He barely cast any spells though and he used most of his elementals in item form.”

“Mhurrrmmm,” Rave made a displeased sound. “Tiger is supposed to be the strongest!”

“I still am strong, I just need to consider my options more carefully,” John told her. “Juggle which of the elementals are corporeal, balance my need for mana regeneration with the need of having more bodies on the field, deciding what item form could be useful, such things. Just need to use my brain a bit more.”

“Then Rave smash,” his girlfriend declared and resumed riding him.

“Your vocabulary is degenerated enough without you mimicking the Hulk,” John teased her.

“Watch yourself, brainiac, or I will make ya forget how to speak,” she warned him with a wink over her shoulder.

“Sorry ladies,” John said, before opening the new menu. As the system announced, there was a slider for each of them, but also one that set the rate for everyone. He dragged that one down to 90%, lowering his total expenditure to 98 mana per second, but also reducing every elemental girl’s All Stats by 5%.

“Boooo! Boooo, I say!” Sylph complained. “I am slightly less horny and noticeably less fast! Boooo! BOOOOOOOO! GAIA! BOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

“At least for the Main Stats, the drawback is offset by the Elemental Unity passive and the Elementalist Class bonuses,” John tried to calm her.

“I am, and curse me for agreeing with the airhead, not fucking amused,” Salamander grumbled.

“Who is ever happy about nerfs?” John asked.

“You’re calm about them,” Gnome pointed out, herself less irked and more resigned. Which was exactly how John was feeling.

“I saw it coming a mile away. Really, the thing to be thankful for here is that I decided to increase Wisdom to 1000. If I had gone with Intellect instead, prompting this patch that way, I would have to reduce the slider even more.” He paused for a moment. “Although it could be that Gaia is secretly a nice girl and only gives me the patches as I can handle them at the time.”

“Ridiculous,” Eliza spat out. “Tiny little fuck with her weed-green hair is too stoned off her flat tits to make any nice decisions.”

There was nothing too unexpected here. The blast of light sounded like an upgrade from what he previously got, which was a rather weak, short-ranged blinding flash with pushback capabilities, scaling with the power of the spell last cast. For the unequipped segment, John couldn’t see it being useful anytime soon. He would need to increase his mana regeneration tenfold. If he did manage to do that, however, he could achieve better results with Stirwin more regularly. That at least gave him something to work towards.

That was pretty boring and John doubted he would ever use much of it.

John found the excuses pretty flimsy for a deity that oversaw Gaia-knew how many planes of existence, but it was what it was.

There was some useful stuff there, at least. How little the Gaia Dependency Factor went down surprised John, but he had no idea just how much Gaia was doing on the backend of his ‘software’. As for the comment about Artificial Spirits, he wasn’t surprised.