The most basic things had to be put first, so John threw an Observe at the autumn elemental while they got up.

Nothing unusual going on there. Aside from her weight now being considerably lower, as John had already verified the regular way. The Tier 3 to Tier 4 transformation didn’t come with any increases to her Stats, so he wasn’t sure what he had expected. Always flattering to read about the emotions segment though.

“Alright, let’s cover the next bit,” John moved on. “Item form first, show me what you turn into.”

Gnome nodded and closed her eyes. “Please don’t be shoes, please don’t be shoes, please don’t be-“ The third repeat of the chant was interrupted by her body transforming into earthy brown energy and then reshaping into something entirely different. With an audible thud, the item hit the ground and stood upright.

A long, gnarly shaft presented itself to John. By the brown colour, it seemed to be wood, but the way it reflected the light made it seem more like stone. Touching it didn’t help much with the distinction. It had the smoothness of polished rock but the many furrows and gaps associated with cured wood. The way it heated up under his grasp didn’t feel like it resembled either.

At the end of the shaft, currently reaching high up into the air, several autumn leaves twisted together into a large thorn. The head of the weapon was a rectangular slab of grey stone. The rims were decorated with yet more leaves, whose unwavering forms appeared to be rather sharp. Getting hit by this would deal an unnecessary amount of cutting and blunt damage.

It was a warhammer, a two-handed one at that. John tried to lift it with a single hand, found himself unable to, and then tried again with both, which still served to be rather difficult. The Gnome hammer was heavy, Tiemarath levels of heavy.

“Hnnnnggghhh.” John pressed his teeth together and the air from his lungs in an effort to lift the damn thing over his head. Several seconds passed, but he succeeded and slammed it down on the ground in front of him. The earth for several metres in front of him turned into a wave of stone spikes ripping upwards. It resembled Gnome’s Tier 2 fighting style more than anything, but it was also what John had wanted to happen when swinging that thing.

Huffing and puffing a few times, not even trying for a second swing, he gave Gnome the mental signal to change back. A moment later, she stood in front of him. “Impressive, but sadly unusable,” he summarized his thoughts on the matter.

Aside from the obvious Strength limitation, something that he might be able to solve down the line as he did another round of balanced spending, there was the issue of two-handing the thing. With the ability of Purgatory to become one with either Undine or Salamander, the former being his usual equipment target, he had one Hand Equipment Slot free nowadays. As basic mathematics dictated, one was lesser than two. As cool as it was to split and reshape the earth through swings with a giant hammer, Purgatory was strictly better and more in line with his build.

Gnome seemed a little bit bothered by this announcement. “Sorry I’m not of use…” she mumbled and let out another, “Umu,” when he put a hand on her head and patted her in the usual fashion. Her hair was as soft as conditioned cotton.

“Don’t worry about it,” he assured her. “Sylph’s item form isn’t really good for my build either, Stirwin and Salamander are extremely niche, Siena…” He looked over to the moonshade elemental who hissed in return. The chants from moments ago must have soured her mood considerably. “…doesn’t have an item form.” He didn’t want to have an argument.

“Correctio-“

“Beatrice, I swear to my love for your very butt that I will tilt every single piece of furniture in the living room by five centimetres and forbid you to do anything about it if you comment on this,” John shut her down immediately.

“Correction rescinded.” Beatrice bowed down hastily, the closest thing to a panic that she could leisurely display.

“Anyway,” the Gamer continued, “the only item form that I can truly and consistently use at the moment is Undine’s. And that’s fine. I’m a summoner first and foremost, I supply power, tactics and supportive fire. I don’t need to use you all as part of my equipment. Spreading out my power is more my style anyway.”

That was met with universal nods. Partly because the opposite, the complete centralization of power, reminded them of Sigmund. Just because a hated foe used a certain fighting style didn’t make that fighting style wrong, but it still felt tainted to the lot of them.

“Last point on this checklist then,” John decided and stepped away from Gnome, instead pointing at the butterflies that flew around her. “Let’s see what those do.”

Although they were fewer in number than before, it was certain that they were once again tangled up with her Unleash in some fashion. Gnome nodded and the experiments started carefully. First thing she did was try and move them about with her mind. Since she had already experienced this prior, this was simply like switching from one bike to another. Perhaps a minorly taller one, since she did still have to get used to the new feeling a little bit.

Once that condition had been cleared, Gnome sprawled them out in the distance. Considering the earthen torrent that had come about last time they had found out what her Unleash was, everyone took an extra three steps back. More than double the distance, on average, than people had taken when she had evolved.

“H-here it goes!” she stumbled and raised one hand as if she was about to, very carefully, push a big red button.

Several metres away, one of the butterflies flared up with intense light. The insect of little wood and dried leaves transformed into a thin stone rod of a greyish-brown that then penetrated the floor. After only one second, it had extended to its maximum length, being about five metres tall. A few seconds passed with nothing happening. Then, the ground around suddenly broke open, something large burrowing under the surface and into all directions. Another few seconds thereafter the rod expanded several times in girth, branches of stone expanded around and sprouted yellow, gold and red-brown leaves. They began to tumble to the floor immediately.

Intrigued, both John and Lydia walked towards the tree, Gnome following cautiously despite this being her power. Once they arrived on the fluffed-up ground, Lydia kicked a chunk of the loose dirt aside to reveal a root of brownish grey stone underneath. That answered the question of what had made its way under the surface.

“Is there purpose in this beyond its spawning?” Lydia asked, turning to Gnome. “Is it in your ability to manipulate this tree?”

“Uh, kind of?” Gnome answered, without even doing anything. “It’s made of stone, so I can use it in the usual ways…”

“That’s semi useful.” John scratched his chin. Her Unleash provided the same resource with which she fought and built a minor obstacle. Given that it could be used at least five times in quick succession, this would provide a good amount of controllable material in the rare case that they were in an environment where there was none otherwise. “What about the leaves?”

“L-let me try!” Gnome once more pointed a hand at her target. While it might help her concentrate and guide her power, such a gesture wasn’t strictly necessary. The leaves of the tree fell off all at once and transformed into fine dirt, which Gnome then settled on the floor. “Also usable in the usual ways,” she reported, then mumbled, “…no need to say that, Gnome, they have eyes…”

“You’re thinking out loud again, boss,” Salamander remarked from the background.

“…If you don’t have anything to add, then you should jus- Wha?” she only realized what Salamander had said after a little bit. Whirling her head around and looking at her surroundings. Once she noticed that people were giving her bemused glances, her gaze wandered to her feet. “Uwu…uwuwuwu…” the usual noise escaped her.

John gave her some more headpats to console her, while he looked at the tree shrinking visibly, as new leaves sprouted. “So, the tree converts its solid stone into dirt through those leaves,” he analysed and followed as several of the leaves slowly, naturally tumbled to the floor. “Given enough time they will also degrade into a pile of dirt… There will still be more dirt than before, though.” He tapped his chin.

“The exact conditions of creation could benefit more varied testing,” Lydia shared her thoughts on the matter.

Nodding, he had just come to the same conclusion, John looked over to Salamander. “Could you ask Magoi to come over here for a second? I need him to create a number of floors of varying materials and thickness.”

“Hey, hey, why not send me?” Sylph asked and zapped in front of John’s nose. Given that she was barely bigger than his hand at the moment, he almost went cross-eye reflexively. “I am the quickest and the talkiest of your elementals, I can do the ziplining over and the talking and stuff.”

“You’re not that great at being concise,” John told her honestly and booped her on her very tiny forehead. He didn’t need to say much more since Salamander was already on her way. “If you’re bored, you can land in my hand and I’ll tickle you a little bit.” He offered his palm.

“Tickles are tickly and laughy and fun!” Sylph exclaimed, took the offer, and was then assaulted by John’s thumb, rubbing her tiny stomach. Like a playful kitten, she hugged and bit it while he was doing so.

In an effort to pass the time, he decided to double-check recent changes he had made to his arsenal. Most notably, what Attributes the Artificial Spirits had been bestowed with since he had acquired Metracana Master.

The ascension to Legendary rarity had screwed with a bunch of the nicely allocated Stats he had for her. He would have to fix that in the future. Over the past few levels, John had taken a short detour from raising her Strength exclusively to getting her Charisma to 50. Since she was doing more official work now, her being a better negotiator seemed rather important.

Aclysia had agreed and partly urged John to make this call. Having beauty, diligence, power and a silver tongue, she now was a priceless asset in his bedroom, household, battlefield and political chambers. Being involved and downright necessary in every part of her Master’s life was the deepest wish of the maid, so this development pleased her immensely.

As for the three new Attributes that were available now, Acid Resistance 5 was a standard for things that John put on himself and his Artificial Spirits. Single Step and Mental Backlash, however, were completely new things.

A very weak Attribute, given its constraint, but the best in the immediate utility department the catalogue that John had to offer. He hoped to replace it sometime soon with something more useful.

This, as niche as it was, John loved to have. With the extreme rise in Mental Stats he had invested into, this was bound to pay dividends in certain situations. A lot of people would try to exploit the usual weakness of Artificial Spirits, only to hurt and expose themselves. Well, that was John’s hope on the matter. He didn’t actually know how many people using Possession or similar spells were out there.

No other new Attributes here. Same ‘problem’ with the Stats though. Aclysia and Beatrice’s profile were looking rather samey these days. Given that they fulfilled different categories of the melee fighter role, that was of little surprise. There was no need to fix what wasn’t broken.

There was a thing that Aclysia had but Beatrice didn’t, however, that the Gamer desperately wanted the passive maid to have. Namely, the ability to convert things inside her into Baelementium. As it was, Beatrice only had Refined Body, which purified materials inside her. It didn’t create better ones and it sure didn’t create Baelementium or anything above that. It wasn’t a pressing issue, having her feed off Aclysia worked, but the metadermis, Aclysia’s impossible ‘I can’t believe it’s not skin’ metal exterior, was a nice improvement from Beatrice’s silicone. Not necessary, the silicone was almost exactly like flesh, but it would be nice regardless.

“Hello, John, aka my employer, aka the guy who just had his red-skinned elemental interrupt sexy times with my wife.” Magoi arrived on the scene in a semi-pissed mood. That was to say, he was clearly annoyed, but didn’t let that influence his behaviour too much. “Next time, I prefer a text message.”

“You have a tendency to not answer them immediately,” John retorted. “But I am sorry about that. I know the feeling.”

“I know you do.” The sigh that followed sounded comically distorted, thanks to the metal echo his raptor mask added to everything. “Alright then, youngster, what do you need today?”

“I’d like three square pads of concrete of increasing thickness, please,” he said, as if ordering pizza on the phone. “And three identical ones of some metal, let’s say steel. Of the same thickness levels.”

“Coming right up,” Magoi said and relaxed his hands with impressive gestures. Like a stage magician, he whirled around his cane, struck a pose and then snapped. Suddenly, one square appeared. Repeating the process five more times, each time trying to make some impressive or menacing pose and snapping his fingers, he created all the requested areas. “That would be all?”

“That would be all,” John confirmed. “You may now go back to shagging your wife,” he added with a smirk

“Yeah, okay, thanks, boss,” Magoi responded and tipped his top hat in a sarcastically respectful fashion.

John waved after him and then instructed Gnome, “Do use your Unleash on the centre of each of these.” She had five butterflies at that moment, so they would have to take time for the respawn question as well, while they were at it. Even with one data point missing, the remaining five would give some insight.

While Gnome went about doing that, John checked on the other two pieces of his equipment that needed some final inspection before he went big-boy grinding.

Not that there was much to inspect. He had just used the Modify Attribute on the Chosen items to slap on some generalist bonuses. He would have loved to put something really exciting on there, but he simply hadn’t invested enough into Create to have access to any really interesting enchantments. The one thing on there that was worth mentioning, Afterimage, he had gotten done by a third party.

It wasn’t even that great either, a minor, daily cooldown that helped him out in a pinch. Better to have than not, anyway, and thanks to Modify, he could remove it and the other enchantments whenever he felt like it.

He dismissed all of the windows and looked up, just in time to hear a series of cracks and metallic splintering, as stone aggressively and quickly burrowed through the materials in the ground. Impressed, John whistled and walked forwards to check things out in more detail.

There were two most notable things about these extra experiments: the extension of the roots and the shape of the resulting trees. For all of them, the trunk was about five metres high. Considerable differences lay, however, with the girth of the trunks and the number and size of the branches. The thicker the obstacle underneath was, the less mass the resulting tree had. The more dirt surrounded the roots in their entirety, the bigger the tree.

As for the roots, it appeared they always expanded with the same amount of energy. This was rather easily visible in the concrete. Although the trees were smaller with each instance, the destruction of the floor was roughly equivalent. Basic concrete had little to offer against magically reinforced stone. Solid steel was a bit more in the ways of resistance, but had also caved considerably.

The interesting bit was that the destruction radius for the steel was a fair chunk smaller, confirming the idea that the energy used was equivalent. The roots had a limited amount of it, so if the material they had to burrow through was harder/less craggy, they wouldn’t get as far.

“This is a pretty heavy anti-armour ability,” John deduced by the end of all inspections.

“That is an understatement.” Lydia crossed her arms. “This is an utter death sentence for anything slow and reliant on plating, inorganic or not. Even if the material is extremely hard, blowing a fist sized hole into it with this would be enough to create a tremendous advantage. Targeting weak points at the joints will lead to strategically devastating results.”

John imagined one of the Grey Golems of the Communists and one of these trees destroying every last bit of structural integrity a leg might have by having the roots bust open the knee. “I can see that,” he agreed and turned to Gnome. “Congratulations, you are now the anti-armour specialist of the group.”