Jared flopped himself onto the couch as he waited for the loading screen. He’d just picked up the latest puzzle based JRPG and was eager to spend the weekend grinding. The start menu appeared, and he readied himself for a new game.

The tutorial was just as mind numbing as they all were. ‘Press X to jump’ and ‘Press forward to walk forward’ always made his eyes roll at just how standard the controls were. The puzzles were also cartoonishly easy, making him question if the future ones would be as challenging as he’d hoped.

Finally out of the tutorial, he discovered that the world wasn’t linear while also not being empty like so many American games had devolved into. Pulling up the map, he set his waypoint to the first puzzle in the magic tree and set off.

The first puzzle was just as challenging as he’d hoped, a mix of pattern recognition and timed movements to dodge oncoming obstacles. There were several points where he nearly failed, but he narrowly made it through. This game was looking up for Jared.

The second puzzle came immediately after, comprising all the elements of before but with multiple enemies casting arrows at him. Luckily for Jared, magic in this game was ranged and allowed him to take out 3 of the 4 with ease. The last one kept jumping behind cover right before his spell could hit.

“What are these, psychic fucking Russians?” he let out with annoyance on the 5^th miss. Finally he though he had the enemy cornered, when it cast an arrow that struck him right in the chest. As he read the death message, Jared felt his muscles pulse and his cock throb.

‘Odd’ he thought, before respawning and trying again. On his second attempt, he’d already memorized the layout and mechanics of the puzzle. Thus the enemies were the only challenge. Several times that psychic enemy nearly got him, but his reflexes had improved and he could easily dodge the arrows. Finally he hit the last enemy and he sighed in relief, and a blip of euphoria momentarily danced across his neurons.

Once again the next puzzle came just after, making Jared wonder if this wasn’t the pseudo open world game that the ad’s had promised. This third puzzle was just as the last but the puzzle itself was harder. He could dodge the enemy’s arrows with ease, including the psychic fucker’s, but he’d accidently stepped right into a trap.

As he read the death message, his muscles once again throbbed, and his cock jumped. Peculiarly, it felt almost like the corners of his mind had grown closer, leaving less room for thought. He cast this peculiarity off as a bit of rage getting to him and restarted.

It took 3 attempts to finally finish this puzzle. Each death message making his muscles thump, his cock jump, and the corners contract. But he had finished it.

The reward for completing the first set of puzzles felt off. The level up and skill point that he immediately sunk into his manna were expected, but he was given an item that felt very out of place. He was given a gun.

The item’s description read ‘Crafted in the deep forges of the Dwarves by an Elvish engineer, the EDR-11 take the wielder’s mana and refines it before casting the spell on the press of the action switch.’ Said action switch looked like a trigger complete with guard.

Jared was about to ignore it when he glanced over the stats. It used 1.5 times the mana per ‘spell’ but issued twice the damage. He rolled his eyes and equipped it, expecting the later enemies to be more challenging. The only upside was that it was still ranged, which was exactly how he wanted to play his first run of game.

After equipping the ‘magic refining mechanism’, or gun, the room started to feel uncomfortably hot. Rather than turn on the A/C, Jared pulled off his shirt. Always uncomfortable with his body, this was a rare move. Looking down, he saw his normal gut that hung over his pants, but it looked different. Smaller in a way. He quickly cast this off on having skipped breakfast making him look thinner and got back to the game.

He was released back into the world, but he wasn’t ready to explore just yet. Jared opened the map and set the waypoint to the next magic quest and set off.

Reading through the block of text to start the mission was boring, almost mind numbingly so. He glanced through it and saw that it was an escort mission. The graphic of getting a new item appeared and Jared opened his inventory. Confusion filled him when he saw the item.

It was a metal chest plate. Normally, armor of this type was forbidden to magic casters in JRPG’s as they eliminate the ability to use magic. Glancing over the stats, it provided no such debuff. Accepting that the extra armor would likely help him survive an extra hit, he equipped it.

Again, the room felt warm and again he moved to strip. His pants came off and he sat down in his boxers, annoyed at the little bulge.

Focus back on the game, he entered the next puzzle. The game’s viewpoint shifted, changing from a top down 3^rd person to a first person. With the gun, it felt like an FPS. Guessing that the rest of the game would feel like Portal, he went with it.

The fourth puzzle was just like the third. Enemies were easy, even though there was twice as many of them, but the puzzle itself was hard. Very hard. Death followed by death, Jared was struggling as he felt his muscles throb, cock engorge, window of thought shrank. Finally he passed it and put the controller down.

Resting his head in his hands, he looked down. What he saw shocked him, in a good way. His gut was almost gone, no longer hanging over his boxers. The bulge in his boxers was more defined, showing exactly where each ball and where his cock rested. His arms were thicker and more defined. He looked…good.

Feeling somehow refreshed, he returned to the game. A waypoint between puzzles was the next stage and he saw the graphic for a new item. Opening his inventory, Jared found a helmet was added. Without thinking, he equip it and felt the room get warm. Before starting the next level, he stood up and stripped off his boxers.

Sitting there naked, he entered the fifth puzzle. More enemies, more traps, more challenge and more death. Over and over he felt the same physical and mental changes that came with each death. After a dozen attempts, he finally succeeded and his cock was throbbing.

No time was wasted as he entered the next puzzle. Again, the challenge was increased. Again, the failures were climbing. Again, he felt the changes. After fifty failures, he cleared the last puzzle in the second stage.

Jared roared with excitement as his cock exploded from the success. Shot after shot, he felt the corners of his mind race towards the center. Breathing hard, he felt amazing. His body was bulging with muscle, cock thick and long, head light and only full of simple thoughts.

There was no returning to the map after the second stage, just a button to continue to the third stage. He pressed it and saw a prompt appear on the screen, asking him to pick a screen name.

Jared wracked his brain to come up with a good one, before it hit him like a brick. Carefully figuring out how the keyboard worked, he entered his new screen name. ‘Jarhead.’ He let out a low, dumb chuckle as he pressed enter and was thrown into the next stage.

The puzzles were gone, replaced by map full of enemies out to kill him. The only challenge left was how fast he could kill the enemies. After each successful kill, his pecs instinctually bounced as he roared in conquest. Nothing felt out of place as he sat there naked with his bulging muscles and hard cock playing a basic FPS like a mindless jarhead.