Chapter 9: Unlocking ‘BUFF’

A shout out to Kenjisato for his amazing editing skill and suggestions...

[Tags: Kissing, Dry humping, Breast-play]

Friday...

Experience is the greatest teacher a human being can have. From experience, a person can understand things that he should do or should not do. People learn from experiences, and this learning allows a person to make a better choice. But even if one gains the ability to make a choice, he still needs one thing to act upon those choices, something called courage. Courage is something a person may or may not gain, even though he has experienced multiple situations.

And this was what James realized when he was confronted by Henry. Even though, just a few hours back, he had decided to take every problem head on, when he was cornered by Henry, he could feel his throat drying up, palms of both his hands started to sweat, while his heart was beating hastily— a clear indication of lacking the courage to act upon his choice to confront his problems head on.

“Oh, hi Henry.”

James tried to sound casual, but still his voice became high pitched; he could clearly see how he was cornered by Henry and two of his lackeys. Of course, Jack wasn’t there, but Henry alone was enough to beat him— never mind having two or three of his lackeys there, too.

“Hi, my foot, asshole.”

With that, Henry cracked his knuckles, while at the same time, James’ stomach lurched. He tried to speak, to say something just to avoid the beat down, but no voice was coming out of his mouth, while at the same time, he felt his legs turning weak, his heart going crazy.

‘Fuck! At least say something, try to talk things out!’ Just hours ago, he had decided to tackle all troubles head on, yet when he saw the way Henry was about to beat the shit out of him, he knew he needed to use his words to somehow get out of this, but it was of no use since his vocals weren’t listening to him.

‘Shit, shit what should I do?’ He was scared, his heart was clouded with fear of the beating, and hence, affecting his body as well. He had almost given up, when he remembered something, ‘Activate Mr. Dom.’

He was well aware that ‘Mr. Dom’ was all about giving him a dominant personality in sexual situations, so for him it was a gamble, but in the past few days, he had thought a lot about if he could use the abilities that were given to him by the system to do things that were not sexual in nature.

Of course, he had yet to test it, but since he was in this dire situation, where he couldn’t even hold a proper conversation, he decided to give it a try. The least he would be able to do was say something to convince Henry to not beat up, or at least, not to do it harshly.

After confirmation, the same blue light flashed before him; at the same time, Henry threw a punch at his face which landed on his right cheek, forcing his head to turn left, but that was it.

Except for the sudden movement of his head and slight discomfort, there was nothing else! Of course, there was pain, but it was a lot weaker than he expected from that punch! No extreme pain, no bleeding, nothing; he didn’t even feel any crackle in his teeth after the powerful punch that was thrown at him! A punch that could have easily knocked out teeth of a healthy man, had barely left a humming sensation on his face.

‘What the hell is going on?! Could it be that ‘Mr. Dom’ also enhances me physically as well? But that doesn’t make sense since the system said it is supposed to give me a dominant personality only; I am damn sure that the punch should have, at least, knocked out my teeth; yet, all it did was to give me a bit of discomfort. I mean the HP bar hadn’t even appeared.’ James quickly summoned the stats screen and to his astonishment, he noticed the HP was still at 100. ‘Fuck, this doesn’t make sense, but damn it, I am not complaining!’

James was shocked by it and the slight discomfort that he had felt was also gone in a flash. His first thought was that Henry was messing with him by throwing such a light punch at him, but that belief was gone when he saw Henry, who was beyond shock, was holding his right hand with his left one, and appeared to be in pain.

Henry was beyond surprised, he was in a state of shock. The punch he had just thrown was packing all of his strength; yet, the idiot Jimmy was standing there like nothing had happened! He looked at Jimmy without blinking, waiting for him to fall down or at least show some reaction, but there was nothing— he was just standing there without any expression on his face. Even more troublesome was that his hand was hurting like hell, like he had just punched a brick wall!

Of course, this was too much for him and he started to have some self-doubts and if that wasn’t enough, what Jimmy then said, literally hit his self-esteem.

“Is that all you got?”

While that punch didn’t hurt him much, that didn’t mean James wanted to egg Henry into beating him more; he wanted to deactivate ‘Mr. Dom’, but before he could do so, he had already noticed another punch, an even more powerful one, being thrown at him.

It was aimed toward his abdomen, but he could see it and he wanted to protect himself by using his hand; still, there was also the issue of ‘Mr. Dom’ when in use, it prevented him from taking any physical action. However, this time, instead of stopping him ... the punch landed on his palm.

James was happy; in the past, he had only used ‘Mr. Dom’ once and had never been able to make it do things as he wanted; instead, ‘Mr. Dom’ would always do its own thing. This was the first time ‘Mr. Dom’ did things as per his wish.

But again, his happiness for the hope of cracking ‘Mr. Dom’ was short lived, as his movement didn’t stop there; his hand took hold of Henry’s fist and twisted Henry’s hand, forcing him to turn around to face his two lackeys, twisting his hand behind his back.

James was beyond shocked since the strength that he was displaying here was something he never knew he had!

He was in disbelief, so much so that he was having trouble believing whether it was reality, or whether he was still hiding in library’s washroom while imagining this whole thing! For his entire lifetime, he had imagined this kind of scenario many times! So, this could be a fantasy, and to be honest, for him, it would make a lot of sense and would be a lot easier to accept that this was a fantasy rather than the reality at this moment!

“What the hell are you staring at? Come on, beat this asshole.”

After a bit of struggle, once Henry was sure that he couldn’t free himself from James’ grip, he shouted at his lackeys to come to help him. Both lackeys rushed at James, throwing a punch and a kick.

James could see these attacks coming at him. ‘What should I do? Either I have to dodge it or maybe use Henry as a shield!’

Again, ‘Mr. Dom’ made the choice for him.

To everyone’s astonishment, Henry was lifted off the ground, and turned vertically, resulting in the kick landing on his legs, while the punch hit his face.

Of course, both of his lackeys were shocked when they realized how they both had beaten Henry, instead of James.

“Aaaahhhh!” Henry screamed his heart out, which made his lackeys back off.

“Let go off me, you fucker, you are so fucked, you son of a bitch!” Henry started to curse James.

It also broke James out of his stupor; he also wanted to let Henry go and somehow escape from here, but his body wasn’t obeying him since ‘Mr. Dom’ was active.

‘Deactivate Mr. Dom.’

’[Are you sure you want to Deactivate Mr. Dom?]’

James was about to confirm, but at the same time, he also realized how he had literally collapsed when he deactivated ‘Mr. Dom’ after spanking Debby due to the emotional backlash. If such a thing were to happen here right then, there would be a greater chance of Henry taking advantage of it, and beating him black and blue.

Before he could decide his course of action, what happened next surprised him even more.

“If you want me to let you go, then ask nicely!”

“Please, Jimmy, let me go.”

To everyone’s astonishment, Henry meekly requested James to let him go.

“It’s not Jimmy.”

“Aah ... My mistake, it’s James, James bro, please let me go!”

“You are wrong again! Call me Daddy, and then beg me to release you.”

‘What the hell is that? Why would ‘Mr. Dom’ want others to call me Daddy? I mean it doesn’t even make sense, right? Is it something connected with Mr. Dom’s function, or what?’

“Okay ... Jimmy, James, I mean. Daddy, please let me go!”

James was beyond shocked; the guy who was the biggest bully in the high school, the guy who had been terrorizing him for the past two days was, literally, begging to him to let him go. Not only that, he was calling him Daddy!

His hands let go of Henry and with a loud thud, Henry fell to the parking lot floor.

“What are you staring at? Help me, you idiots!”

Without wasting any time, Henry’s lackeys picked him up, put him in his car, and drove out of the parking lot.

Since his eyes were following the car, he noticed a figure standing at the parking lot entrance.

‘Hailey Summer! What the hell is she doing here? What should I do? Should I talk to her, or just walk away?’

Even before he could complete his thought, he had already walked past Hailey, even without casting a gaze at her; he just walked past her like she never existed!

‘What the...?’

This was really a strange occurrence for him— first, a punch from Henry didn’t do much to him; then, he manhandled Henry, humiliated him; then, he walked past Hailey without looking at her!

Hailey Summer, whom he would ogle, at anytime, anyplace was ignored by him because of ‘Mr. Dom’.

‘Mr. Dom’, a skill which should just give him a domineering personality, also made choices for him.

‘But, now that I think about it, it all makes sense; the first time I used ‘Mr. Dom’, Debby just marched into my room, and started to curse and humiliate me with nasty words. I became frustrated, but then, when she tried to slap me, it felt like something broke into me. At that time, I had two thoughts— one to just let her go, and the other was to slap her back. ‘Mr. Dom’ made the choice for me, and chose the second option. Of course, instead of just slapping her, I ended up spanking her.

‘Then against Henry, when Henry threw that second punch, aiming at my stomach, the first thought was to just escape from here, and the second thought was to give him some; again, ‘Mr. Dom’ made the choice for me and I ended up retaliating.

‘Then, when I saw Hailey, the first choice was to talk with her to try to explain myself, while the other was to just ignore her, the same way she did me in the past. I found myself walking past Hailey without even giving her a second look; again, a choice made by ‘Mr. Dom’.

‘It’s like when I am stuck between two things, ‘Mr. Dom’ makes the choice for me.’

It sounded weird, but should he be honest, the choice may have sounded absurd or over the top, but deep down, that was what he wanted.

First, he really wanted to teach Debby a lesson, which he did; then, he really wanted to fight back against Henry, and again, that was what he did. Well, while ignoring Hailey was more of a moment of weakness on his part, it was something which had been borne from three years of constant ignoring from her side.

Of course, she wasn’t at fault since being the hottest girl in the entire high school, it was normal for her to ignore someone like him, but somehow, it resulted in him having a subconscious thought of ignoring her, and that’s what ‘Mr. Dom’ did.

There was also one more thing that he might be ignoring, the ‘Call me Daddy’.

Saying that he was unaware of BDSM as a genre before signing in Aphrodite would be far from the truth, but once he matched up with Sub_Katt and started to go deeper into the subject of BDSM, one thing that attracted him the most was the prospect of a woman submitting to a man, calling him Master. But in this vast genre of Domination and Submission, the thing that attracted him the most was the scenario where a woman calls the man ‘Daddy’.

Of course, at that time, he never thought much about it, but when he gave deeper thought to his behavior with Debby, this came to his attention; then the way he asked Henry to address him as Daddy, it was clear as day, that this was his subconscious will, which was picked up by ‘Mr. Dom’.

Which again confirmed his belief that ‘Mr. Dom’ was unpredictable, or maybe, he was just over analyzing everything?

‘But now that I think about it, even though my abilities are related to sex, it’s obvious now that this can be used outside of that particular subject. But then, it feels like everything is coming to a full circle. I was practically abused by Emilia and made a decision to face all the troubles head on, and then I was confronted by Henry, I was scared and there was no way out, but somehow, the system was able to rescue me.

‘While beating Henry wasn’t my aim, now that I have done it, it feels great! It felt like I was carrying a lot of weight on my chest and now it’s gone; it’s like I have broken some kind of shackles that were holding me back.

‘But the question is, what happens when Henry comes back with more people, then what?’

‘Fuck it! I am going to use ‘Mr. Dom’ again and beat the shit out of him and his lackeys. Talking about beating, how did I do it? Could it be that ‘Mr. Dom’ also gives me some kind of physical enhancement, as well?’

Of course, there was nothing that could answer his question, or explain his situation. After reaching his home, the first thing he did was to try to lift the sofa to check whether the strength was momentary, or if he was still strong.

To his astonishment, he was able to pick up the sofa without any trouble.

‘Fuck, this is insane! The sofa must weigh hundreds of pounds, and I can just lift it off the floor without any trouble! So, there is some kind of physical enhancement. But the question is, is it related to ‘Mr. Dom’? Deactivate Mr. Dom.’

After confirmation, he saw the same flash of blue light and he noticed a slight change in his posture. The change in his body language was minute, but it didn’t go unnoticed to him; the first thing he noticed was his chest. When ‘Mr. Dom’ was in effect, there was a certain aggressiveness in his posture; along with his shoulders that were squared off, his chest was pushed out, but when he deactivated Mr. Dom, all these things were gone.

Except that there wasn’t anything else, there wasn’t the emotional baggage that he had felt when he had first used ‘Mr. Dom’. After spanking Debby, when he deactivated ‘Mr. Dom’ he fell to the floor like a sack of potatoes and had cried to his heart’s content, but right then, except the minute change in his body language and the way he was standing, there wasn’t any other difference.

Of course, this didn’t go unnoticed by him, and he quickly started to think about both these scenarios to understand why he had reacted differently after deactivating ‘Mr. Dom’.

The only conclusion he could derive was his mental state. After spanking Debby, his mind was in a constant state of denial and while his heart was filled with an emotional whirlwind, but after he had gone against Henry, his mind wasn’t in a state of rejection of the reality, and his heart was also accepting the change happily; except for this, he couldn’t think of any other way that could help him understand the situation.

But that was not the topic of the moment; the thing he needed to find was whether he had this physical enhancement without ‘Mr. Dom’, or not.

He, again, placed his hands beneath the sofa and tried to lift it, and to his astonishment, he was able to lift the sofa.

‘Oh my God, this is insane! This is insane!’ For the next few moments, he kept chanting those lines like a mantra. It was clear his strength had been enhanced, but the question was— how?

Well, the only obvious answer was that the system, or whatever this gamer-like ability was called, but it still didn’t make any sense to him how it could enhance his strength, because all it had done, was give him sex-based mission rewards. Then, what was the connection with strength?

Of course, to see whether he was missing something or not, he called the stats screen and started to go over every detail. One line caught his eye— ‘Body Refinement Realm (0/9)’.

‘Could it be possible that this ‘Body Refinement Realm’ has something to do with me having this enhanced strength? Well, except that everything is as it was before the system update; well, except this ‘Real- Life Human Body’ which, again, I don’t know what it is. But an even more important question is— how strong am I? I mean, I was able to lift the sofa without any trouble; that means I can lift even heavier things!’

Without wasting any time, he rushed to his parents’ room, and walked toward the king-size bed and lifted it up. This time he was able to lift the bed, though he had felt a slight discomfort while doing so.

‘This means my super strength is not that super, but still, if I try hard, I could definitely lift bigger things, but now the question is what could be even heavier than this king-size bed?’

Of course, the answer wasn’t far and he rushed toward the garage door. Since Debby was gone, his car was there. Without wasting any time, he ran to the back of the car, and after taking a deep breath, he placed both his hands beneath the car bonnet and with a deep inhale, tried to lift it.

Of course, he could feel it; the weight of the car wasn’t something that could be compared against a sofa or a bed— it was a lot heavier; yet, he could feel the back tires leaving the ground, and to his astonishment, he was able to lift his car at least two to three inches off the ground for a short time. In a few seconds, he could feel the force of gravity dominating, so he placed the backside of the car back on the ground.

‘Fuck! This is insane! I mean I wasn’t able to lift the entire car, but I was able to lift the back end at least a few inches; that counts for something, right?

‘But then, this also proves that this super strength is more like a peak human strength and nothing exceptional, but that isn’t the case— I couldn’t even lift the desktop table that is in my room properly— now, somehow, I am able to lift the car!

‘While I don’t have super strength, still my strength is greatly enhanced compared to what I used to have; yet, I didn’t harm or hurt anybody. I mean, I bumped into Mrs. Asin, but she was fine, I didn’t injure her. So even though I have enhanced strength, which I can use without using any system function, could it be possible that the system is somehow monitoring, or passively controlling, my body so that I don’t hurt or harm or destroy things accidentally?

‘I mean there wasn’t any kind of incident where I punched a hole through a wall, or broke the door knob, or kicked a dent in a pole— nothing; even though I had this enhanced strength for god knows how long, I still didn’t face any kind of those accidents. Of course, somehow the system is monitoring my strength— how else am I able to not harm or damage anything accidentally?’

For the next half an hour, he kept thinking about different theories to understand how he might have gotten stronger and, more importantly, how this system was functioning and what triggered the system update.

It was only when his phone started to buzz that he came out of his musing.

“Oh, hey Nancy!”

“So, where should we go, James?”

“About that, hey Nancy, since no one is at home, how about I make a coffee for us? I mean, we can drink here and have some chit-chat?”

There was a deep exhale, followed by a long silence; he wasn’t sure what she would say. What if she said no? But then, he had already been aware that Debby and Cindy had plotted something; all he had to do was to make sure that he did not go to this party.

“Okay.”

“What?”

“I mean, okay, I am ... I am on my way.” Again, she spoke with heavy breathing.

He wasn’t sure why she was hyperventilating, but before he could say or ask anything, the line went dead. ‘Well, I better hurry up and freshen up.’

After experimenting with his strength, while he hadn’t sweated much, he could still feel Emilia’s scent over him and decided to take a shower.

Of course, he had planned to take a quick shower, and even if he was angry about it, the incident with Emilia had left him extremely horny. While he hadn’t planned it, he decided to rub one out. His hand quickly moved to his semi-hard dick, and since he wasn’t using ‘Re-Sizer’, it wasn’t hard for him to masturbate while using only one hand. At the same time, his mouth opened in a silent moan, while he closed his eyes, imagining it was Hailey’s hand instead of his.

First, he had gotten to touch Mrs. Asin, and then the incident with Emilia; due to these incidents, he had been very horny throughout the day, and hence, it wasn’t long before he painted the bathroom walls with his jism.

Even though he knew the notification wouldn’t appear, deep down, he had hoped for the mission success window to pop up and reward him.

‘Wait a minute, talking about reward, Activate ‘Revival’.

[Are you sure you want to activate Revival?]

[! Alert: Use of ‘Revival’ will cost you 1 XP per use]

‘Yes.’

The same blue light flashed before him and the first thing he felt was the same heaviness within his balls, and he felt the same hardness that he had before shooting his load.

“FUCK! THIS IS AWESOME!” He couldn’t control himself, and shouted to his heart’s content, because he could get as hard as he was before orgasming.

‘But the question is, how many times? What about a cool-down period, or something like that?’ This was the question that had been bothering him since he came to find out about the cool-down period of Super Skill.

Since Super Skill had a cool-down period, could it be that powers also have a cool-down period? But then again, there was no such thing as a cool-down period when he uses the Skill.

‘But what about powers? Does it have any cool-down period? I mean let’s just say I use ‘Revival’ and get my cock hard, then what? I mean after I orgasm, would I be able to use ‘Revival’ again? Well, there is only one way to find out the answer.’

With that thought in his mind, he started to jerk off again. This time, it took him longer, but eventually, the thought of both Mrs. Asin and Hailey kneeling before him and asking for his cum was enough to trigger his orgasm.

Once the orgasm was over and the euphoria had died down, he sent one command.

‘Activate ‘Revival’.’

’[Are you sure you want to use ‘Revival’?]’

‘Hell, yeah.’

The same bright, blue light flashed before him and he could feel the same weight between his legs.

“FUCK ME!” He couldn’t believe it, his dick was rock hard again and ready to go.

‘So, I can just get it up as much as I want; that means only Super Skill needs to use this cool-down period after being used; Skills and Powers don’t need to be in cool-down periods.

‘While I don’t like the limited use I have of ‘Super Skill’, at the same time, it’s great that there is no limitation with the Skill and Power; well, of course, it will consume XP each time I use ‘Power’, while at the same time, if XP goes below ten, Skill wouldn’t work either.

‘And since I just used two XPs, now I only have thirty XPs left, that means I could either use ‘Re-Sizer’ or ‘Revival’ only thirty times; after that, I wouldn’t be able to use any powers or skills.

‘Well, then all I should do is focus on earning more XPs. Well it’s easy to think, but really hard to do in real life, I mean all these XPs I have gotten, most of them I have earned accidentally.’

Even though physically he was ready to go for round three, mentally he was satisfied, so instead of jerking off again, he started to think more about the day and especially his enhanced strength.

Even though he wanted to take a quick shower, he only walked out of the bathroom when all the hot water was used, which meant he had spent more than half an hour under the shower, thinking about his gamer-like ability, its origin and most importantly, how it could enhance his strength, even though all of its features were based on sex.

Of course, there wasn’t anything that could explain this connection, so after brainstorming this for a few minutes, he decided to focus on other things— like how ‘Mr. Dom’ worked.

After the incident with Debby, James understood one thing— ‘Mr. Dom’ was unpredictable, or maybe it was predictable, but the actions he would perform under the influence of ‘Mr. Dom’ were strange, just to put it simply.

It was like he would become a changed person, never in his life had he opposed or pushed anyone, but when he was using ‘Mr. Dom’, he was able to push Debby and spank her. Again, when he was using ‘Mr. Dom’, he was able to oppose Henry and beat him; not only that, he also humiliated him.

Even more surprising was him ignoring her— Hailey Summer. There wasn’t a single day where he wouldn’t be staring at her, especially her bountiful curves— and not only him, almost everyone in the high school would be staring at her almost all the time. But here, he just walked past her without giving her a second glance. Of course, he wanted to talk to her, to explain to her how everything she saw was just a misunderstanding, and he wasn’t an aggressive kind of guy. But damn, he had already walked past her; he was tempted to turn ‘Mr. Dom’ off, but he was scared of the backlash.

The way he had just dominated Henry and his lackeys, even though he wasn’t showing it outwardly, within himself he was scared shitless. Which was why he didn’t deactivate ‘Mr. Dom’, and even though the entire situation of him going against Henry and literally humiliating him was far from normal, it just seemed to create a theory of how ‘Mr. Dom’ worked.

Of course, there wasn’t a written rule, but from these two incidents, he could confirm that ‘Mr. Dom’ seemed to always choose the option that would put him in a domineering position. Or choose the act that would place him as the dominant one in a given situation which was just a theory.

While he feared the consequences, he would be lying if he said he didn’t like what had just happened. The way he just manhandled Henry! It felt like a dream come true, he had gone against the biggest asshole in the entire high school and had come out victorious. Of course, no one was there to witness the scene; well, except for Hailey.

‘Fuck! I don’t know what she might be thinking about me? I mean she would also think I am just an asshole like Henry, right? Or may be thinking about what an asshole I am; first, I kissed Henry’s girl and then also beat him.

‘Fuck! This is so fucked! I mean there isn’t any way to know what she might be thinking about me ... Wait, I do have a way to know what she thinks about me, right? I mean I could use ‘Observe’ which could show me her opinion toward me along with what triggers her. That’s not a bad idea, actually.’

A perverted smile appeared on his face, and since he was staring at himself in the mirror, this made him question his sanity. Here, he had ability and he was literally abusing it.

‘But then my ability is related to sex; what the hell am I supposed to do? And nothing wrong with using ‘Observe’ once, right? I mean it’s not like I would be telling anyone about her secrets or anything, and this is for research purposes only.

‘Fuck! I am such an asshole ... But again there is a problem with this “Observe”. While it’s awesome to have such an OP ability on my hand, it would be really troublesome if I have to, let’s say, wait for months to reuse this ability.’

At this time, the only thing he could do was to hope that the cool-down period would be over this Monday.

‘But now that I think about it, when I receive two mission complete notifications I receive a bonus mission, and upon completion of the bonus mission, I get a ‘Skill’. If I complete three missions, I get ‘Power’; when I bumped into Mrs. Asin, I received four mission complete notifications, and instead of giving me a power randomly, the system gave me four options to choose one; with the session with Emilia at school, that got me six mission complete notifications and I got a ‘Super Skill’ which, to be honest, was an insane ability.

So, the more missions I completed, the better rewards I got. So what would happen if say I completed ten or twelve missions in one go? What would be the reward then?!

While it was tempting for him to do this, there were two problems— one, he lacked sexual experience, and two, the system wasn’t considering the same act as a mission. For example, when he masturbated, it was counted as a mission by the system, but when he did it again, the system didn’t count it.

The same thing happened when he had spied on Ms. Palmer and masturbated again. Only when he did it the first time, did the mission complete notification appear, and it didn’t appear when he did it the second time.