His parents aren't the best parents, but he's not going to erase them from reality and replace them with fakes who are proud of him, that would be immoral and also totally missing the point of wanting your parents to be proud of you.

More Competitive Than You is another gateway to fabulous knowledge and skills, except it requires someone to either fall for him or be legitimately romantically jealous of him, so that's not really exploitable the way those others were. Similarly, Perfect Sadist is only any use if someone wants him to hurt them, so forget that.

Perfect Subbing is just straightforwardly cool. Pretty Smart is also cool, but has weird social implications and might turn out to be more trouble than it's worth. Even if he himself is exempt, does he really want to know that much about everyone he passes on the street?

Real Scientist: Your unusual experiences have given you insight into open questions in human sexuality, leading you to form new testable hypotheses. You instinctively understand experimental methodology and statistics. So long as you report your outcomes honestly, other scientists will discuss your results seriously; and overlook your lack of credentials along with any questions about the morality or possibility of your experiments. You can write proficiently in LaTeX if you are wearing latex. If you simultaneously hold the perks Mad Inventor, Mad Scientist, and Real Scientist, you become able to develop reproducible technology, including the experimental apparatus required for others to further investigate and extend your discoveries. An actual PhD in a scientific field, acquired the hard way, can substitute for the Real Scientist perk in this trinity. 1 point, available at 30 ERO.

Seduce Contain Protect: You are a magnet for any person or sapient entity with a significant chance of producing global catastrophe. They will inevitably cross paths with you and find you highly attractive. 1 point.

Sin Of: You may take this perk only once. Choose:
- Envy: Take over another person's life. Everyone in the world now believes unshakably that you are they. The displaced person no longer exists.
- Gluttony: You never get tired, bored, or over-satiated during any pleasurable act, no matter how long it continues. You may accumulate unlimited DOM and SUB from such acts.
- Greed: You find a winning lottery ticket with the lump-sum cash payout option selected. After all taxes are paid, your after-tax winnings are a bit over $100,000,000.
- Lust: At will, you may temporarily increase your LST and/or PRV to any higher level you wish, for as long as you wish, up to a maximum of 100.
- Pride: All stats and skills increase faster.
- Sloth: Removes all time limits for acceptance or completion of quests. Negates or softens all other visible deadlines for accomplishing anything within the Erogame or your life.
- Wrath: Instantly kill anyone you choose. Bypassing quest challenges in this way will reduce their rewards. You may invoke this perk an unlimited number of times.

1 point.

The Eye of Yandere: If you are romantically attracted to someone, you are always alerted when they are romantically or sexually attracted to someone else or when someone else is romantically or sexually attracted to them. You do not know the strength of this attraction, just that it exists. 1 point.

To Boldly Come Where No One Has Come Before: You somehow get your hands on a starship, enabling you to visit nearby star systems and meet the many interesting and nubile life forms to be found there. 1 point + 1 fragment. Available at ERO 55, refundable at ERO 80.

He's going to get perk synergy from finishing his degree, that is so great. He might also take the perk at some point after that, for the other nifty benefits.

Seduce Contain Protect is either the dumbest idea ever, or absolutely necessary to minimize the odds of global catastrophe. Probably that first one.

Pride is a diamond in a dunghill; he might want that one first after the marshmallow one. Eye of Yandere is just stupid. And immoral. And stupid.

To Boldly Come is a Star Trek reference, which is weirdly comforting. It may also be the simulation-runners wanting to fuck him in addition to fucking with him. Either way, he really really wants to meet aliens, especially if they have interestingly different minds and aren't just green-skinned humans. Fucking them . . . he'll cross that bridge when he comes to it. Oops, that's what she said. 

True Love Conquers All: If you love someone enough, nothing can ever permanently separate them from you. The only exception is their wishing to leave you---deliberately, voluntarily, and based on correct information. This applies to any type of love, not just romantic love. If you would undergo hardship and sacrifice to protect someone, if losing them would leave a scar on your heart that never fully heals, then in time you will always be reunited. This perk retroactively includes everyone you have previously lost, but still love. If somebody you love is already dead (e.g. a beloved parent or grandparent), taking this perk automatically begins the Heaven's Feel quest to revive them after your ERO reaches 50. 1 point + 2 fragments.

Trust: Whenever somebody honestly tells you that they love you, or like you, or admire something about you, or shows trust in you by confessing a truth to you that they would not tell others, you know that they mean it. Taking this perk renders you ineligible for a significant number of Erogame quests and reduces the rewards of many others, but it's here if you need it. 1 point.

Truth: Regardless of any other Erogame perks taken and any other powers affecting you, you regain your memories of who you really are, what really happened, and what reality was like before. No further such effects can deceive you. Think hard before taking this perk. 1 point.

Utility Monster: Your experiences are a trillion times more important than the experiences of those around you. 1 point.

You Fools Can't Stop Me: Your schemes can only be thwarted by those near or above your own intelligence level, and only by their having been cleverer than you. 1 point.

Zombie Sexpocalypse: An extremely contagious virus turns 99.99% of the human population into sex-maddened creatures bent on fucking anything within reach. You, and everyone you personally like, are among those naturally immune to the disease. While most of the infected die quickly, some retain sufficient intelligence to become hominid animals living off the wilds or on food stores. Defending against their rapes and thefts is an ongoing problem requiring the survivors to band together. Some partially-immune survivors have greatly increased LST and PRV. Use this perk if you're tired of living in a complicated technological civilization. Think carefully before taking this perk. 1 point. Available at 30 ERO, refundable at 80 ERO.

True Love Conquers All sounds great. Jennifer would be safe. He could raise the dead, if he manages to fall in love with them. Kind of an obvious implication of the world being a simulation in hindsight, but still, wow.

Trust is . . . weird. Also possibly kind of mind-reading. He can't see what the problem is with Truth and the fact that the game doesn't want him to take it kind of makes him want to take it.

Utility Monster sounds like it's threatening to make everyone else chatbots. How about NOPE. Zombie Sexpocalypse is even more NOPE, what in the star-spangled void. 

You Fools Can't Stop Me would either make all his endeavors succeed or fill his environment with smart people, so that's nice.

The Erogame patiently waits for input. 

(Possibly he wants to assign his stat points.)

Right, yes, stat points. Clearly he needs to put them in SED and FUK. 

Hmm, does FUK apply to masturbating? He moves to his bed, starts jerking off, and puts a point in FUK when he's halfway through.

He has noticeably but not substantially better instincts for how best to touch himself.

He just got aliens to modify his brain to make him better at fapping. What is his life.

. . . Weirdly nice, is what his life is. Or at least his orgasm.

Quest available: Rules of the Erogame

Increase FUK, SED, LST, PRV, BOD, and ERO by 1 each without using stat points; learn your first skill; level up. (You do not have to do this in the same action. Using your stat points now will not cause you to fail your quest.)

Success: +1000 xp
Failure: The Erogame will handhold you through more of your adventures. Maybe you'll stumble across a rulebook.

Apparently he's being encouraged to experiment, which is a good sign. He cleans himself up, accepts the quest by poking the little "yes" button, then puts three points in SED and the last one in FUK again. Now, how to raise those stats in other ways? Might as well start at the top; BOD runs on exhibitionism. He tries heading out into the dorm's common area, wearing just his shorts and a blush of oh geez people are going to judge me for being shirtless while ugly. Being told by a text prompt that he is "nerdy-cute" is not really as concrete as the obvious-to-him fact that he's pale as a sheet and mostly composed of gangling elbows.

There are a handful of people in the dorm common area. One of them is very conspicuously staring at her laptop.

+1 BOD for walking outside shirtless and running into someone who thinks you're cute.

This is fine, this is fine, he's been shirtless at the beach ever and nothing bad happened except sunburn. 

Someone in this room thinks he's cute. Or the game is lying to mess with him, that's always an option.

He looks at the girl with the laptop. Is she looking away because she doesn't want to look at him?  Or because she does want to look at him? The first seems more plausible but the second is pretty relateable. Maybe if he talks to her he can find out and also get SED? He should do that. He will do that.

After he ducks back into his room and grabs his shirt.

Okay, now he'll talk to her. Or at least he'll sit at the same table and blush some more, that's sort of like talking, right?

The Erogame does not appear to think that sitting at the same table and blushing some more counts as talking. 

The girl bites her lip and stares very very intently at her laptop. 

No, it really isn't, is it.

Social rejection can't actually be scarier than learning that the universe is some incomprehensible entity's sex experiment, but it is anyway. He screws up his courage and says, "Hello," at a higher pitch than he had intended.

"Hello!" the girl says. "Uh. Hi. I'm Sarah."

"I'm Bruce. Uh, what're you reading?" Stop staring at the table and look at her, Bruce, come on. At least long enough to notice what color her hair and eyes are and what she's wearing, even if actual eye contact isn't happening yet.

Her hair and eyes are both brown, and she has a shirt that says SCIENCE: IT WORKS BITCHES.

"Uh. I'm reading the Warrior's Apprentice?"

What a great shirt. (Bruce's shirt says "A day without fusion is like a day without sunshine.")

"Neat. Sounds like a fantasy book?"

"No! It's science fiction. It's by Lois McMaster Bujold." And she gives a quick plot summary.

"Cool, I love science fiction. Especially with really clever protagonists. I should read the Vorkosigan series sometime."

"Awesome! You should tell me what you think sometime."

Managing to have any sort of conversation with a person you know thinks you're cute has raised SED by 1!

The textbox throws him off a bit (and he doesn't know she thinks he's cute, just that the game is asserting it), but he manages to say, "I-I will, yeah." And now he has an excuse to talk to her again, as soon as he's read the book. Which makes him realize he's actually enjoying this conversation. So of course he has no idea where to take it next. "So, what are you studying? I mean, what's your subject?" Ugh, real smooth there dude.

"Climatology, actually. I want to study global warming."

"That's very practical. I'm studying the biochemistry of aging. Trying to make lab mice live forever, sort of thing."