[D'sP] Thicker Influence - Chapter 502 (Patreon)

Ally shrugs, ‘Dungeon monsters actually share the issue of lacking growth with the undead.’

Doyle tilts to the side, ‘Lacking growth? But they do grow. Plants can get bigger if I’m not locking them down for floor reasons and the myconids especially grow from sprouts into adults. Though all of the animals that I farm grow from baby to adult in the end. Well, as long as I’m not using their younger form.’

Ally, ‘I will admit, dungeon monsters are less restricted in some ways. However, the point still stands. Even if they can act and express their stats in different manners, the goats on your first floor are going to have just about the same stat line. They can’t level up or train those stats.

‘Unless you give them extra power in the form of more levels or move them to a deeper floor? They’re as stagnant as an undead goat would be. Maybe even more so, because if that undead goat manages to kill stuff, there is a small hope for growth. No matter how much more effort it requires and the chance of it not working.

‘Even those undead that manage to gain a soul of their own find it hard to grow. More commonly, what might seem to be growth is actually retraining at a loss. You raise a peasant farmer as a skeleton? It’ll have some skill levels in farming which can be lost in exchange for proficiency with a bow.

‘Though you should be familiar with this concept. While focused on how the stats expressed themselves, you basically did the same thing with your foxes when you trained them.’

Doyle, ‘Oh yeah, there was that, wasn’t there? Sigh, I should just focus on my current skills and let whatever develops, form naturally. I mean, I presume that as long as I let things continue and there is a skill for it, I’ll get it, eventually?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Maybe, maybe not. Remember, skills just happen to people, yet also, it isn’t like our skill slots fill up instantly. There are skills for walking, breathing, eating, and so on. Multiple!

‘The breathing one probably makes the most sense to you. After all, breathing techniques are a thing on your planet. But think about those guys who compete in eating competitions. They don’t just eat hot dogs a bite at a time. That’s too slow.’

Doyle nods his core, ‘Yeah, I can see that.’

Ally, ‘Well, even eating normally counts. Walking normally counts. I won’t say there is a skill for literally anything. But something as common as walking? That’s covered and yet very few people have the skill. Can you guess why?’

Doyle’s core darkens, ‘Hmm, my first guess would be that such a simple skill? Actually, understanding the concept of “walking” might be deceptively hard. Oh! That or the system simply makes it hard to gain so as you mentioned, our skill slots don’t instantly fill up.’

Ally smiles, ‘Those are good guesses. Though not quite right. The second guess is closer than the first, but it isn’t the systems doing. Remember, skills are build up on your soul core. All the system does is organize things for you. Well, and display what you have.’

Doyle tilts back, ‘It feels like we did this before? Or at least that we should have. Anyway, if “walking” becoming a skill is harder so that skill slots don’t fill up, is close? Well, hmm. Does it have to do with how inherent walking is to a creature?’

Ally nods, ‘Yes, but remember, your original dungeon skills are inherent to a dungeon core and yet they pop instantly.’

Doyle, ‘Oh, right, hmm. Well, creation takes a lot to level up and it isn’t like each little bit doesn’t count. If skill experience building up on a soul core is like sand, does the difference have to do with, well, particulate size? So, like, using creation sprinkles sand on the core, one grain at a time. While walking is sprinkling dust?’

Ally shakes her head, ‘While I’m sure some places teach it like that, it isn’t the truth of the matter. Though in a way, it is close.’

Doyle, ‘If some places teach it like that, then what I’m getting wrong must be the size comparison. Which I guess makes some sense. The soul core is outside of time, so what’s space? And status levels are about consolidating what’s there at the moment. Hmm. Is it what matters to the soul that determines things?

‘Wait, that doesn’t make sense. How can something matter to a soul core? They are what they are. What we are is everything built on top of it. An indestructible blank canvas, with the only carryover being from when the paint from the last painting isn’t fully scraped off.’

Ally, ‘Actually, that’s about as close as you’re going to get before becoming a True Immortal. Not sure of the how or why, but the best interpretations are that soul cores want to be, as you put it, a painting instead of a blank canvas. With things like walking being more of a white wash you apply to the base of the canvas for other things to be painted over top of.

‘So for a skill like walking to be recognized as more than just the backing of the painting, it needs to be more! You need to strive for it in a way you don’t other things. Which is why while you have creation as a skill, you don’t have a skill for processing cruft.’

Doyle, ‘This is reminding me of a story. I can’t remember where I heard it and it wasn’t from my area, anyway. But the basic gist of it is a young boy goes to school and is learning his numbers. So they teach him the number one and have him practice drawing the simple stroke, a single line.

‘However, when everyone moved on, he continued to practice writing the number one. There was a bunch of stuff that happens and basically people are like, “what’s wrong with him?”, but then the ending of the story is him finding his teacher later and being like, “I’ve perfect writing the number one!”. And then he writes a one on a nearby wall, only for the wall to split. Kind of an interesting story.’

Ally nods, ‘I should see if I can find the source. Though that isn’t really possible. Or rather, you can split walls with a single stroke of a pen, but it won’t be from practicing a number. The intents are too different. But yeah, for a human to gain a skill for walking normally? It is going to take a similar amount of effort for most people.

‘Much easier to learn a specialized version of walking. One of which is actually quite popular among officials and servants. Being able to appear like you’re calmly walking down a hall while actually going at a decent clip is important when dealing with nobles and such.’

Doyle, ‘What about those “old master” stereotypes in stories that can make each step cover more distance than it should? Is that also walking?’

Ally shakes her head, ‘Nope, though some will try and convince you otherwise. They’re just using their raw power to muscle space out of the way. If they do have a skill for it, that skill be be something like Spatial Step or at least point towards folding space. The walking skill I mentioned allows them to maintain the gait and appearance of walking, while going fast. A sort of speed walking, but focused on decorum.’

Doyle, ‘Well, I guess I should just go back to my current skills because I don’t want to waste time on learning the equivalent of a walking skill right now. Maybe later?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Could be as simple as making sure that going forward? You put more thought into the farms you make. But yeah, if you want the path this year? Eight points will be much more easily acquired by kicking the tires of your other skills. Honestly? Maybe just poke the database skill some more, since that was what you’re aiming for in the first place.’

Doyle, ‘I got as far with the database as I can right now. Reducing it all to one list was as much as I can manage right now. Though I guess something similar to what I did with the myconids would help?’

He shakes his core, ‘No, I’m not going to bother with that. Let’s play with Territory Control. After all, we just expanded to a new place outside! Might as well see what we can do with it now that there isn’t anyone around to notice.’

Ally holds her chin and looks thoughtful. ‘Huh, I guess we really have had much of a chance to fool with that. Least not since you figured out how to limit your energy well.’

They both turned to the second entrance. So far, Doyle had only spread his influence and not the energy well. This wasn’t going to change as he didn’t need to help some monster or another power level their skills.

However, that didn’t mean there wasn’t stuff to do. His first entrance was found right away and so Doyle hadn’t really done anything with it. Well, besides allowing his territory to naturally expand.

But he had a skill specifically for controlling his territory! Which, given what he had just learned about skills, meant there was certainly a lot more to it than simply growing bigger.

Doyle looks around, ‘Huh, a bit bigger over here?’

Ally frowns at that and checks on the territory bubble around Wolf’s Rest. ‘It is. It shouldn’t be, but it is. I wonder why?’

Doyle pauses, ‘Wait, I remember! Didn’t I limit my territory over there?’

Ally, ‘I can’t remember? But that would do it.’

Doyle sighs, ‘Meh, even if I didn’t do it on purpose, I don’t mind it. Though the territory doesn’t seem denser either.’

Ally, ‘Well, try compressing a part of your influence at the second entrance.’

Doyle turns back over there and grabs an edge of his influence that is up in the air. With a tug, the area contracts. ‘Nope, it doesn’t get denser.’

Ally nods, ‘Then at least right now, your territory must be more of a binary thing.’

Doyle, ‘Now? I guess we would have some information on this sort of thing. I literally started my time as a dungeon by being turned into one by another.’

Ally, ‘Well, we certainly didn’t get this information from Flisle. They aren’t exactly the nicest of dungeons. If you couldn’t tell by the fact that they’re being punished.’

Doyle, ‘I’ll be honest? Not really. I don’t know who judged them. Though what do you know about influence?’

Ally, ‘Not much, though at some point it becomes more, well, real? Even then, you can’t control stuff outside of your dungeon, but supposedly there are uses for it.’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘No way to be sure that’s something that will happen or it is just what those dungeons chose. For now, I’ll play around with shaping my territory. Maybe try to create a spike outward to scout further away?’

Ally nods, ‘That could be useful to some extent. Though it isn’t like you have a photographic memory of what you see. Such a thing will likely be more useful if you know the direction something is coming from.’

Doyle, ‘Well, no use guessing until we find out if it is currently possible.’ And he takes the area already in his grasp and tries to push it outwards.

This seems to be working at first, but they soon realize it was just allowing him to return it to the original place. The question now? Is it a limit of size or volume?

So Doyle pulled in the second entrance’s portal a meter and then tried to extend a spike of influence. This technically worked. It went farther, but the efficiency was bad. For the amount of volume removed by pulling back, the distances this spike traveled was not even a hundredth, a thousandth!

Doyle, ‘Well, I can make one guess at what a thicker influence might do.’

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