How to get this quest
You can find this quest in Nephlune's guild after completing Nephlune's Duelists.
Teaching skills to John
The first step of the quest is to teach three skills to John. You can teach either martials or spells. Teaching a skill ends the day and John gets said skill at rank I.
- If you know a martial at rank II or more, you can teach it to John.
- If you know a spell at rank II or more, you can teach it to John only if his max MP stat is at least 10.
- You can raise John's max MP as long as this stat is lower than 10. For this, you can give him mana stones or give him a lesson in mana control. Such a lesson ends the day and requires you already took said lesson in a spellshop.
Getting incense
The next step is to get an incense lure. You have two options for this:
- Just give a Sweet Memories, a Bloodshot Eyes and a blue sugar to John. The enhanced version of those drug is also valid. Note that blue sugar is found as a loot far later than the other two needed drugs. The quickest way to find blue sugar is by buying it from the shady thug in Trademond or the drug dealer in the underground city. Those sources can become unavailable if you beat them as enemies.
- At 40 Trust, you can talk to Anna in the underground tavern and go to a celebration. The incense is in a spot close to John. If your willpower reaches 0 before you find the incense, John finds it instead and you get a pink lewd event. The day ends when either you or John finds the incense.
Fightning the garuda
The garuda can be lured on the hilltop in the northern forest of Runes. To you access the hilltop through a cave. Once you arrive at your destination, you can talk to John and lure the garuda. The foe is immobile so you can trivially get a preemptive strike.
The garuda is weak to fire, uses lightning attacks, takes flight at the first opportunity. Beating the garuda without removing Aura's collar can be done in multiple ways.
- Having good enough offense is to win quickly is a way to tackle the fight. John can use Pierce with tactical advantage from Fire/Light to help.
- Relying on web bombs will circumvent the flight problem.
- Good enough resilience and Pacify can allow you to survive until the garuda uses Lunge and gets vulnerable.
Once the boss is beaten, go to Nephlune's guild and report to complete the quest.