Decisions, decisions

My immediate impulse was to kill that idea. It just doesn't seem worth it to create a sex tape when our sex life is, in my opinion, already satisfying. That's why people make them isn't it? To spice things up in the bedroom? Well Sara and I don't need that. Furthermore, it's risky. I don't want something like that being leaked after I become a public figure. Except for celebrities who use that publicity to stay trending, leaks like that can really tarnish someone's reputation.

Even if I were to reach sex god levels and have females drooling over my performance, it would still be embarassing. Every time I see someone I would be wondering if they've seen my dick or not. Not having that.

Yet on the other hand, I don't want to ruthlessly reject her either. That would only make her hesitant with any other ideas she has in the future.

"What are you saying?" I ask her. She shrugs, hand still moving around on my chest.

"Make something like Superstar you know? Record us doing it and watch it later. I think it would be hot."

"Wait, you've seen that video?" My eyebrows shot up in pleasant surprise.

"Are you saying you haven't?" She shots back with a grin. "Cause I'm pretty sure everyone has by now."

"Hn." Guess that's another thing we can bond over. Watching porn – cause that was most definitely porn – with your girl isn't weird right? "So that's what you have in mind? Something like how Kim did it?"

"Nah." Sara scoffs, "It's super popular and all but Superstar is the worst example of a sex video. Like, it was over an hour long and only ten minutes of it was sex!"

"I skipped all that boring stuff," I admit with zero shame. "But I don't remember it being that long."

"You probably saw the short one. They went back and got more footage for a longer video."

"Oh?"

"More of the 'boring' stuff."

"Oh."

"Yeah." She smirks at my disappointment, "And honestly, I don't know what either of them are like in the sack but even the sex was not that great."

"Right?" It says something that even virgin-me was unimpressed by their performance. Either that or he'd watched too much unrealistic porn. Maybe both. "I'm not saying they shouldn't busted out the Kama Sutra or anything extreme but come on! You're recording it, might as well put on a show. She didn't even show her boobs!"

"Or her butt really. It was a bad angle."

"True, a perfectly centered shot of her butt would've made so many people happy." At least for me, "Being totally honest, they get a C at most. If they weren't celebrities I'd rate them an F"

"Heh, give them an F for the f they didn't give. You think she's like that in real life? In the bedroom?"

"I don't think so. Like, I think she acted that way because she planned on leaking the video and wasn't really comfortable with so many people seeing that wild side of her. So she showed some of the goods but not everything."

"That makes sense in a way. Freaky enough to leak it but not freaky enough to do it without embarrassment. Still think we can do better though. If you're okay with this?"

"Do you really want to do this? Like, have you been thinking about it before or is this just a random idea, spur of the moment, type of thing?" I'm stalling for time to think but I'm also kind of curious.

"I wouldn't say I haven't considered it before but only because you make me feel so good and I kinda want to see what it looks like from the outside." That last part is rushed like she's trying to defend herself. I nod in understanding. "Never actually planned on bringing it up though, kinda just happened now."

"So you would totally do it but aren't dead set on it if I said no?" She shrugs again leading me to sigh. "Okay. Thing is, I'd like to do it since you want to but I'm also worried about it getting out."

"Lots of people make videos though and they never get exposed." She points out.

"I know. Statistically, that's not likely to happen but…"

"What if we're super careful with it and only make one copy? I wouldn't mind letting you hold onto it either since it was my idea. Ooh, we could also just delete it after watching it once or something. Can't get leaked if it's gone right?"

"You would go through the trouble just to throw it away?" I ask in surprise. Thought these things were meant to last.

"If that's what will get you to agree then sure. I just want to see it. Watch all the action from a different angle."

Hn. She must really want this if she's willing to make these concessions. Leaving me with a sex tape of us when she knows we won't be together forever is a serious gesture. But she probably knows me enough by now to know I would never share something like that. Even if I wasn't at risk for exposure.

Speaking or risk, maybe it isn't as bad as I thought. I was against the idea from the very beginning but that is more my risk aversive personality rather than a decision made from analyzing all the details. Fact is, the biggest concern was someone hacking us and somehow finding and releasing our private video yet now that I'm actually considering this, there is a way to avoid that. Just have to keep the file away from the web and away from any hard drive. I can buy a completely new micro-SD card for my camera and record the video on that. When we want to view it we can simply pop it into a computer and then take it out afterwards. No putting it on some cloud system or leaving it to sit in the computer's files. That way the video can only be accessed by physically getting the memory card which we can keep somewhere safe. It's micro sized so it would be super easy to hide. Easy to lose too but let's not focus on that.

Am I really considering this?

One look at Sara's hopeful face and I have my answer.

"I won't say no just yet but this also isn't a yes. I'll think about it."

"Really? Take all the time you want." She wraps me up in a tight hug. "I have so many ideas for positions and all that."

I laugh softly before raining on her parade, "There are other things we'd have to figure out before we even got to the fun part."

"I know. Just super excited at the thought of shooting a porno!" She replies before cringing, "Does that sound as bad as I think it did?"

"Kinda. And it's just a sex tape. Pretty sure porn is made with the explicit intention of sharing it with other people and we wouldn't be doing that."

"Whatever. And besides," She gives me that look I'm starting to love on her, the hot one that makes me hard just from seeing it, "I'm pretty sure you'd make me scream like a pornstar anyways."

"…" I don't have a response for that.

…

It's that time again.

Level Up!

+3 SP

The moment in which I stress over how to allocate my stat points. Despite having went through this song and dance multiple times in the past, the situation is a bit different now.

Way back when – time honestly flew by for me – my options had been severely limited and dictated by my goals. Raising my stats naturally took time and leveling up to receive free SP took even longer. And when I did level up, my best option was to spend those points. I basically had to. I had expectations to overcome and deadlines to meet so leaving those points to sit in my SP count would've done me no good. As it was, that three point boost to INT before the school year started was a lifesaver. I doubt I could have managed school and extracurriculars as easily as I did without it. Probably wouldn't have aced the college entrance exam either.

It also helped that each point I spent had benefits beyond the obvious.

Took a while to confirm it but my MP could be calculated as the sum of all my stats multiplied by two. Means that for every point I dropped into intelligence or wisdom or those points I gained naturally, my MP total went up by two increments. This was almost meaningless before I actually got a skill to make use of my MP but afterwards it means that making myself wiser for example wasn't the only advantage to raising that specific stat.

I suppose since I'm on this topic and my END did go up recently I should explain what I've discovered about my HP. It's not as basic as END times 'x' where 'x' is some random number. From keeping an eye on the HP bar and doing the math whenever it changes, I'm pretty sure it can be derived from a formula such as HP = (x*10) + (x*x). That's why my HP jumped from ninety-six to one-nineteen after my endurance stat went up to seven. I was already under the assumption that my stat progress was not linear and now I know it works the same way for my HP.

With a single point in END my HP would have been eleven. With ten points it'll be two hundred. With fifteen it'll be three-seventy-five. At twenty? Six hundred HP.

Seeing as how that bar represents my life, I very much appreciate how quickly those numbers escalate.

I admit I'm also curious as to what having a high END stat would be like. I know I'd have a stronger lifeforce but could it come with enhanced regeneration for example? Reaching double digits in INT gave me an improved memory so I assume reaching a certain milestone in END would give an appropriate perk. I guess I'll find out whenever I get there.

And I'll also find out if an extremely high INT stat means anything. I wouldn't say no to some Esper abilities…

Back on topic. I just received three free SP and seeing as how I have a multitude of sub-optimal ways to use them, the goal here is to work out the best option.

Unlike in the past, I don't have any immediate hurdles that I need to jump over. My grades are top-notch and my graduation from high school is pretty much guranteed academic-wise. The basketball team is currently having a record season and we're predicted to do well, perhaps even win it all, in the state championships coming up in a week and some days. I'm in good health, enjoying life, and looking forward to what else is in store. Long story short, I'm done playing catchup and don't need to manually increase my physical or mental stats right now. This means after I put a point into LUK as I'd promised I would every level up, I can afford to save the other two. They can stay in reserve until a time comes when I need them.

What are the pros and cons for this decision?

Positives: should a situation come up, I'd have those points that I can distribute however I want. Those points would also be worth more in the future since my stats get harder to raise with training as they progress.

Downsides: leaving those points in the SP count means giving up on four units to my MP. By not having those points distributed, I open myself up to situations where I could come up short.

That first con is easy to mitigate; simply be more efficient with my MP and grind my skills to where I don't need to amp them with Clutch. Since the active skill is the only use of my MP so far, lowering the need to use it means I don't have to worry about it's cost.

The second one comes down to a judgement call. The argument is that I might find myself in a detrimental situation which I might have been able to avoid if I'd had those points actively working for me. In that scenario I might have to use some of my banked SP making the whole decision to save them in the first place null. So better I simply allocate these points and avoid the potential issue. Of course that doesn't mean some other problem can't pop up in the hypothetical scenario where I didn't save those points. I'd have no lifeline in that case.

See what I mean? There's no one, logical answer to this.

Putting some thought into this, I'm leaning towards saving those points. While it's true that doing so could lead to some issues, life is unpredictable. Regardless of what I decide, factors out of my control can easily throw things askew. So I'm choosing the option that comes with the most benefits.

I take one point and drop it into LUK.

I've hit a bit of an impasse after this chapter so expect some extended wait time for the next one.