Not much later, John stood in the typical darkness that preceded an actual dungeon run. Humming to himself, he moved his head from side to side, thinking at a rapid pace.

“What’s the fucking hold-up?!” Salamander finally burst out when this continued for over a minute. “I want to BURN something, John! BURN! Why are we standing here like salt pillars?!”

“I’m considering how to best do this,” John answered, still thinking. That he hadn’t gotten a plan after a whole minute wasn’t due to some temporary lapse in his intellect. It was just a bad case of indecisiveness. “The problem is,” he laid out verbally, “that I want to make CONSIDERABLE progress in the next 10 days. Purely mathematically speaking, I should get something between 10 and 15 levels, if I grind away every day for ten dedicated hours.”

Undine flowed over and pressed her cool, liquid body against his side, his shoulder becoming enveloped by her immense breasts. “And what would the desired amount be, Master?” she asked. So obviously begging for his attention, John couldn’t help but kiss her before he gave the answer. Her blue lips tasted salty.

“58,” he gave his answer afterwards. “That’s the number of levels I would need to max out the Lover Boy Class.” This was a completely ludicrous idea, the Gamer already knew that. Making as much as a quarter of the levels he had achieved over a year in ten days would be completely absurd. It would be more, even, than he had achieved with the Catch-Up Buff.

That was the goal though and, in all essence, there was more than one road to success. It wasn’t that he actually wanted 58 levels, although he would most certainly take them, but 6 Max Class Levels. If he could get them any other way, that would reduce his goal by 10 regular levels each time.

Lover Boy had, historically, been the only Class for which he got specific Max Class Levels. The hope was there that this would be true in the near future as well. How to force the issue, however, he didn’t know and was what he was currently struggling with. Were there any specific Instant Dungeons that he could use to spur Gaia into giving him Achievements for exactly what he wanted?

Well, sometimes the supreme deity just played along. Reading through the Quest, John could only think, ‘She really won’t make it easy, huh?’ while accepting it.

Long Assaults were hell. The reason why John stuck to his 4-hour sessions was because he got exhausted. Not exactly physically, Gamer’s Body made that a short-term issue at worst, but primarily mentally. Being under constant threat by endlessly spawning waves of enemies was a lot of fun initially, but after several hours the spikes of adrenaline from bad situations and bosses just wore down the psyche. Four hours had been the time John had grown comfortable with as being repeatable with only a minimal break. Which was why he still went with it, despite the experience multiplier growing with a prolonged stay. That ALL experience of an Assault would be lost if he failed at whatever moment during it only added to his caution to not overdo it.

Also, on normal days, he couldn’t free more time than that, but that was neither here nor there.

If he pushed himself and was clever about it, it should very much be possible. It would net him a giant sum of experience and he would get through with the Quest. In all due likelihood, it would be a total hell-walk. The randomness didn’t help either, it was against John’s nature as a schemer to do anything blindly. If there was any time to try something like this, though, it was while Fateweaving guaranteed their survival.

Since this was the only road that made his ridiculous goal somewhat feasible, he had to take it.

John checked his inventory to see if he had everything he would need for a prolonged stay. Food and water, first and foremost. If he wanted to perform at his best continuously, at least one break to get some calories and protein into his system was advised. He would also have to take a bathroom break at one point or another, which could present itself as difficult.

“Since we don’t know what kind of environment we’ll end up in, please be ready to Combine,” John reminded his elementals. Depending on the primary materials available around them, using certain Combinations, like Smlere with her lava, Nadine with advanced plant control, Somi for sand, or Sinflut for extreme water, would be mana efficient. It wouldn’t be necessary, the same effects could generally be achieved by the normal elementals putting their powers together in a more traditional way, but if they wanted to use their resources optimally, Combinations were the way to go.

He got nods all around and then decided to open the Instant Dungeon. A simple window asking him to pick at random opened, and he accepted. The darkness around them was replaced, the doorway of light behind John vanished, and the grinding began with the building of their arena.

An empty city rose, building for building, around them. Three to five story buildings rose from the floor. Square things with flat or only slightly tilted roofs that would have housed inner city apartments, restaurants, bars and bureau complexes equally in real life. They lacked the individuality of the usual inner-city house, though, being all designed with a building block mentality and given the same greyish-white paint job. Only streets of a darker grey and purely white lamp posts added any other shades into the environment. It didn’t help much.

‘At least the sky is blue,’ John thought and looked up into the barely clouded sky. The Mandala Sphere, Sylph and Salamander were all rising towards it, everyone on the lookout for enemies. ‘Gnome, how thick is the pavement?’ he asked, considering she should use her Unleash to get the necessary materials to erect their fortress tower. Each butterfly was on an individual, thirty-minute cooldown. Since the 16-hour stay was already confirmed as per menu decisions, they had no reason to use that ability sparingly.

‘Just the usual, there is a lot of dirt underneath. I have everything I need,’ the autumn elemental responded, and started gathering the necessary power to create the outpost of the usual design. It was still a tower at heart. Unless the dungeon had specific challenges they knew about in advance, that was the most reliable basic design.

“Hey, hey, hey!” an oddly static and extremely chirpy, male voice echoed out through the city. “Now, this, ladies and gentlemen, is entertainment!”

‘I remember that voice…’ John thought and soon spied a hovering ball of energy above the city, through the Mandala Sphere. Yellow and light blue electrical arcs bounced around a centre that seemed to always point at the onlooker, no matter the perspective (as he verified through Salamander and Sylph’s eyes). That centre changed, bouncing up and down in bars and erratic waves, while the sphere exuded yet more words.

“Hello, it's me - I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet?” the sphere cited that one song by Adele down to the music in the background, and was suddenly teleported directly in front of John. “Although it’s been only about a year, good chum, hasn’t it?” it added in that radio announcer voice.

‘I knew it…’ John thought and immediately tried to punch the damn thing. Best to decrease the levels of that final boss as quickly as possible.

As quick as lightning, the Radiohead Relay jumped upwards. “Oh no, no, my dear listener, I’m going to provide great entertainment today and I wouldn’t want to be interrupted!” The squirmy, stretched sounds of switching from one channel to another was the announcement of a new song. “Ladies and gentlemen – this is Mambo No. 5!” The jazz started up and all around the city, enemies spawned, a few of them so close that they started charging at their location immediately.

There were three variants of enemies, as John quickly verified with a number of Observes.

‘Note to self,’ John thought, ‘if either the Elementium or Mithril Pebble drops, immediately enshrine in the Loot Focus.’ If he put something into the Loot Focus, unlocked by the Fateweaver Level 3 Perk, it could drop from every enemy he fought. He had last tried to make proper use of that mechanic with the Mithril Ore that had dropped from the Raid Boss – to no avail. Since he wanted to use that same ore to get his maids new weapons, it had been eventually taken out. Sometimes opportunities had to be sacrificed for short term gain.

Even if the odds were 0,001% per enemy, having the steady chance to gain a minimal amount of these ultra-rare metals every time he grinded was a tremendous boon.

All of that aside, John had to make a battle plan to deal with the situation at hand. They came towards their position and the Gamer gave the mental signal to his earth spirit. Pavement cracked and splintered as six stone walls grew from the floor and formed a tower. Inside the empty courtyard that formed, a thick pillar rose upwards like a screw, an image conjured thanks to the spiral staircase along the side.

John used that as his ride upwards and stepped off when he was about ten metres off the ground, leisurely walking onto the walkway connected to the walls. Thanks to the stone, he was protected to the height of his navel.

‘Should I add a roof or a door or something?’ Gnome asked. The six walls plus central pillar was the base form of the tower. The purpose of the wall was obvious, protecting their position from being easily swarmed. The central pillar was a relatively recent addition. Its main purpose, conversely, wasn’t actually to be able to get up or down. Primarily it served to limit the movement of large enemies that broke through the walls.

Everything beyond that was going to be adjusted as the situation called for it. John quickly went through the little things he knew about his enemies. ‘The Redestruction Workers seem to be the primary threat since they can both dig and have explosives that presumably work against the walls of this tower. I want you to reinforce the base, add a ring of pure stone around it, three metres tall, so they can’t climb it easily. Extend it underground whenever you have mana. I don’t want them to come out from below us.’ He looked up to the Smog Noodles; Salamander and Sylph were already flying out to meet them in combat. ‘Make a roof with small holes through which smog can escape, should one of them somehow make it in here regardless.’ The third major enemy group were the Road Sharks, for which John quickly formulated a strategy as well. Currently, they were located in the middle of the street, so these city fish could swarm all around them. They couldn’t pass under the walls, so they were only swimming in circles and sometimes spewing shrapnel at the walls.

The metal load bounced off with sparks and screeching. No considerable damage was dealt, only a few scratches in the stone, but there were also just three of those sharks at the moment. Should they continue to ignore them and let more spawn, the constant fire would eventually wear down the walls.

The moment Gnome finished the door, all three of the sharks dove under the asphalt and rapidly moved towards the opening. Instead of the tower in general, they shot their shrapnel at the one elemental and two maids still on the lower floor. Once Aclysia and Beatrice stepped out of the tower, and off its stone floor, the sharks immediately switched to melee attacks, as the Observe info had indicated.

‘Interesting… Gnome, can you break open the road around us in a swirly pattern?’ he asked and sent a mental image along with it that expressed a bit clearer what he meant.

If they were only able to swim through asphalt and always prioritized melee attacks, John would use that simple programming to funnel them through a path of his design. Enemies with such simple attack programs could easily have their pathing exploited. It wasn’t quite a tower defence game, sadly, but it was a start.

Since it was a low-mana effort, breaking regular asphalt was child’s play. At least when compared to all the magically reinforced stone Gnome had to move or create out of the dirt. Therefore, she broke up the road first. John watched a single, newly spawned Road Shark that swam towards the tower and followed the single available path immediately. That part of the strategy was working.

There was, however, an unexpected reaction from another kind of enemy. The two Redestruction Workers that had moved to attack the tower stopped in their tracks and turned towards the giant holes in the road. Kneeling down, they made overacted hammering motions with their bare hands, like builders in an RTS game, and the damage in the asphalt closed at a rapid pace.

While this messed with his funnelling plan, John did take note of this other behaviour of his enemies. If Redestruction Workers prioritized keeping the city in a pristine state, then that, too, could be used for crowd control. Experimenting further, John raised his hand. The requested roof was barely in its starting stages, so he had a clear shot.

The Arc Lance charged for three seconds, then ripped out of the energy ball in his palm that signified its gathering stage. Arcane energy, partially crystallized, tore through the air and the head of one of the Redestruction Workers. Its yellow helmet flew through the air and disappeared, as the rest of the body crumpled to dust and ash, like Instant Dungeon enemies usually did.

The other humanoid monster jumped to his feet and forewent the repairing efforts in order to attack John. ‘Once they feel threatened, they will immediately focus on me as their target, good to know,’ the Gamer made a mental note.

“Oh, what a splendid headshot by the Gamer!” the Radiohead Relay shouted out, having steadily commented all of this, as if it were a football game. “It seems like our home team really needs to step it up a notch. How about we give them a little boost with this famous little video game jingle?” The tuning sound once more preceded a song bit being played. “GOTTA GO FAST!” the Sonic theme song echoed out. “GOTTA GO FAST! GOTTA GO FASTER – FASTER – FASTER – FASTER!”

With each recounting of that word, that Redestruction Worker accelerated, until it simply stormed by Aclysia, preoccupied with those Road Sharks, and entered the tower. The weaponized maid had been unable to react in time, but her passive, younger sister delivered on that front. With a quick forward thrust of her spear, she penetrated the monster’s shoulder.

Although Perfect cut the limb straight off, the Redestruction Worker wasn’t defeated. Still moving at an absurd speed, he pulled a dynamite rod out of his overall and threw it. An attack fuelled by Unsteady Limbs finished what Beatrice had started. The enemy fell and dissolved, but the explosive was already tumbling through the air.

John felt the shockwave under his feet as the supernatural dynamite burst into a wave of heat and kinetic force. The good news was that the tower was sturdy and the explosion did very little to change that. The bad news was that the force of the explosion was instead confined to an unyielding space with only two available paths for the energy to escape to the outside - one of which was right next to the Gamer. John tumbled and caught himself on the wall. On ground level, Aclysia, Beatrice and Gnome were all damaged and blown off their feet.

“Oooooh, that looked like it hurt!” the Radiohead Relay announced. “But also like it didn’t hurt that much! Despite being currently munched on by Road Sharks, the long-haired maid is getting back to her feet and her twin is hurrying on the scene to help! Only the leaf-dressed girl is staying inside the tower – for what purpose? Only the Gamer would know!”

‘We definitely need to get rid of that,’ John thought and looked up to the Radiohead Relay. It didn’t seem like it had any intention of engaging in combat, but its song-based interruptions were too much of a wildcard to leave around. Killing it would give them a thirty-minute breather from that at least. That aside, reducing the level of the actual Radiohead spawn could only work out well for them.

The basic form of their base made John quickly decide the combat roles of his familiars. ‘Sylph, Salamander, always focus on the Radiohead Relay when it’s alive. I’ll use the Mandala Sphere to concentrate on the Smog Noodles.’ He felt ridiculous saying that name in a serious manner. ‘Undine, help the rest on the lower level.’ The ocean elemental flowed off his arm and immediately was on her way. ‘Gnome, you focus on maintaining the tower and scanning for enemy positions. If you engage in combat, only use mana offensively when absolutely necessary.’

‘R-roger!’ she responded with only a slight stammer.

‘Aclysia, guard the opening. Beatrice, support Aclysia by fighting around the entrance and making sure no Redestruction Workers repair the asphalt. Use your mobility to focus on quick strikes and stack up what of Perfect’s Attributes you can. Return to the inside of the tower whenever your health drops below 50% to regenerate. Siena, you support her in that, use your invisibility to take out any solo targets you can get the drop on. Don’t risk getting caught, you don’t have the health regeneration for it.’

‘Sounds dangerous – I’ll oblige,’ Siena moaned into his thoughts.

‘As you wish, so it shall happen, Master.’

‘Orders acknowledged, Master,’ the maids’ answers followed in quick succession.