Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

book 3 climax Brainstorming (spoilers?) (Patreon)

Published:
2023-09-12 18:16:09
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Okay, so the dragon and Perry are pooling their knowledge and resources to create some mind-bendingly powerful magitech, then they're gonna kill each other over who gets to keep it.That's the plan, But i don't have much mind-bendingly powerful magitech solidly in mind that could be the end-game for them.so my question(s) is(are) this(these):1: What kind of improvements to Perry's spell-storage could be made? What kind of spells could be invented? How would his Table of Essences work?2: How does the secret book pilfered from his dragon mother's den, that general Abrams knows about (but but tyrannus doesn't) be used against the dragon in the finale? (chekov's gun)3: How much time do you think should pass working together before they try to kill each other? What's the turning point? My first thought was when Perry gains a level and suddenly becomes significantly more powerful between one day and the next, and Tyrannus realizes he's on a shorter timer than he thought. my first thought was maybe six months to a couple years? Too much time skip? do we prefer none? Would you prefer to be present for baby time?4: Did I forget any hanging plot threads that could be revisited at the climax of the story?5: any other questions/ideas?I'm trying my damnedest to write a smart villain, so I'm straining my brain, and need outside input to come up with more/smarter things than my limited, feeble monobrain can do.

Comments

Enzo Elacqua

I’d say it should be Perry who breaks the agreement, and more specifically his grandmother who pushes him to do so. It makes sense for the Dragon to want to hoard Perry for as long as possible, but granny already knows Paradox is going exponential so the only reason to continue is to take a short cut.

Macronomicon

...Perry can't break it. it doesn't enforce HIS behavior.

Enzo Elacqua

my bad I meant break the truce/start trying to kill tyrannus

Seadrake

I'm thinking they are about to murder each other then some idiot discovers how to duplicate essences by accident. So Tyranus would get a copy of the mimic and Perry would get a copy of dragon. Ridiculously expensive for essence of that calibur though for balance. That would remove allot of their motivations. It would be anti-climatic, but also it would piss off Grandma.

Oth

1. a 3 dimensional model makes use of something similar to a periodic table of elements by atomic radius 2. Its a list of dragon sites or Manita specific information. Something that gives a reason to head on over to Manita and get that beach head set up from the quest forever ago. 3. I think a short time skip is fine but I think it makes sense for them to be allies front stage for a while and almost make you think they won't inevitably kill each other before they kill each other. If its dragons over in manita they can spend most of a book as allies and then when it gets to what to do with them it can be worth it to betray each other as numerous other dragons shifts the scales. 4. The mysterious man that gave Perry's nemesis some magic manita powers and who is at least foreshadowing wise likely a member of Perry's family a grandfather or something. With the Unicorn marking out a name of Perry's relatives right around then.

Tommy Littlefield

I’d say for sure time skip a bit the baby can’t really do much until it can be old enough to talk and do thing a like a toddler until then it is just a piece of the scenery that a foolish villain takes a crack at every now and then and pisses Perry off I feel like Perry could level up once and the dragon will be fine I think twice will make him start doing the math and by the third level up (if it lasts that long) it would confirm 100% to the dragon that Perry is getting stronger exponentially and that it is a problem for their future fight

vetro 26

Now, what if the final battle is actually against another foe? And that forces the dragon and Perry to work together. I only suggest this because Tyranus is such an enjoyable character and Perry works well with him.

Tommy Littlefield

Because with no knowledge of Perry before now he could assume on the first level up that Perry just gets a small boost to power every now and then over time and that’s it’s nothing to worry about

RainbowCatTopHat

Could Perry maybe avoid being detected when gaining a level if he just chose not to spend his attribute points right away? I can't remember if he gains any points automatically or if he can hang onto all of them. My idea being that if he can avoid spending the points he can get quite close to a second level before spending his points. In terms of time spent working together I say make it sort of long? like a month or so? Plenty of time for both of them to come up with like dozens of contingences and weapons to use in the eventual fight. Bonus points if the gadget they pull out to help them in the fight was one based on their combined research.

Bob

Clone based Reresection, designed by dragons, for dragons. His species is functionally extinct, and I can't see a better motivator. This could be bad if there are a lot of dragon parts floating around in armor, clothing, artifacts, etc. Cloning would be necessary as Perry's people are soul eaters.

Justin

As far as table of essences depends exactly how you are approaching it. Using your 3d model as a jumping off point. And assuming essence has a wavelength. Each essence will be a variation of amplitude in vertical horizontal with overlap between multiple streams being the essence point. So higher degrees of essence multiple waves interacting to produce said essence(and be harder to work with). It would account for less "magical" things having a simpler essence. If you really want to tie it in universe hold that mantian magic gets essence from parts of beasties cause the essence is tied to soul and bits cling to the physical body. Kinda like a reverse phantom limb from a amputee.

Daemion

Wasn't that man an agent of Marigold? To force Perry into conflict and "awaken" him?

Justin

Do clones have souls or more importantly essence. Secondary do earth creatures have essence now with tide. Since soul sight spell seems kinda rare maybe not alot of testing done

Alphanos

Tyrannus should plan to attack Perry immediately upon Perry learning that the labour/birth of the baby has started. Possibly with some additional element of danger that Nat/Heather are fending off while Perry is trying to deal with Tyrannus? Raises the stakes narratively. Tyrannus can plan on the distraction impeding Perry's ability to focus on the fight.

WickedlyDesigned

I'd say spend a year or so on base research. Not the fancy stuff, but the true theory work, something that they can base their magical understanding on. Then start going off the deep end: artificially created essences. Something farmable, something industrial. Something that probably needs Perry's spendthrift perk. As for the breaking point, next level is somewhat too early, the one after that is too late. No, I'd set it at something more research centered: managing to create something rare/high class, and then each trying for something troublesome. Say, dragon and Abun'zaul, as someone else proposed previously. Or maybe even when our dear emperor realises that Perry can - and maybe already did - use the failed/contaminated/diluted dragon essence they managed to make last week.

Glegori

Perhaps this mixed with the level idea where Perry is already really close to a level because of magical research and then a hidden quest of birthing an heir to a no longer existing dynasty pushes him over the edge and the dragon realizes there is no other time but now to keep Perry from too much power

JAMAJ

Well definitely after Perry gains a level. Tyrannus would see a significant increase in Perrys power. Maybe 2 levels? His power armor and his soldiers should be sufficiently well equipped by that point to be an incredible threat to most things. Power creep is going to be a big deal though. At that point nothing that we've seen so far except Solaris and Interdimensional beings would really be a threat to him.

Daemion

If there's a timeskip, then it should be at least a few more years. Long enough for the kid to grow up a little, for their relationship to settle (and for Perry and Heather to admit that they love each other) and for Perry to level once or twice even without having to fight much. This would also give the empire time to stretch across North America and perhaps for the isolated cities to join up. Possible internal triggers for conflict: Dragon grows concerned with Perry's exponential growth, Perry grows concerned with the cruel and tyrannical ways the empire is ruled, Perry's promise to retake the old world runs afoul of the dragon's agenda Possible external triggers: Perry's grandmother opposing the dragon and dragging the family into the conflict, the High Tide wrecking their plans, the notes from the dragon's nest (Perry merely knowing about a weakness would probably prompt the dragon to attack)... and what was that thing that killed the dragon in the first place? I think it might not be a bad idea to look at the consequences. If Perry kills the dragon, does he inherit the empire? You keep what you kill? Because I don't see him wanting to be an emperor. He doesn't even want to be a prince. Maybe the best way to resolve things would be if Perry won but left the dragon alive, as a subordinate who's handling the daily affairs of the empire? Because let's be honest... Perry is going to win eventually. If he lost he'd either be dead or reduced to a tortured research subject and this isn't the kind of story that does that.

Xultanis

To be honest, I'm kinda having the same thought. Add in Perry's plans to retake Manita, and Billy has less reason to engage in early hostility. Especially if Perry doesn't want to live on Manita full time, he has a diplomatic out by giving Big T Regency of Manita, although that might not fly with Funkytown.

Oth

That might be and I just forgot or didnt notice.

Echohunter

Why does part of me want the dragon to win in an unconventional sense. One question I have is if T-Drag can trigger, since he was "born" on Earth. We've established prawn, androids, and replicators can't trigger, but I don't remember the rules. Him going crazy because of the tide is certainly a worst case scenario, but I wonder if it could go the other direction as well, and his power actually ends up making him good.

Tommy Littlefield

He gains stats automatically I believe and then also gets the distributable stats. I could be wrong but the main issue if I’m right is that atunment goes up automatically which makes all his tinker perks more effective which inherently makes everything more effective which is noticeable especially in a very controlled lab setting

Joe ?

Perry learns how to make abun zaul feed him a steady supply of of dragon essence, allowing him to have continued growth over time the same as T, which makes him too much of a threat to T because that was his big assurance that he could beat Perry on a large enough time scale. Perry knows this, so he only does it when he thinks the clock is ticking on its own. I think a three dimensional table of essence could also be sorted by rarity. Like maybe all essence is fueled by what potential is lost in other universes, like Perry's system. So dragon blood is powerful because dragons are very rare across all alternate timelines. Humans have essence but it's insanely diluted because we're extremely common across all timelines. It could even be an explanation for what high tide is. The gravitational void that drives people nuts is just a giant eye, observing all of earth's realities, causing a massive version of the observer effect where the timelines are collapsing in on themselves, condensing the potential to fewer realities.

Callum Melly

I think if you are going the level route I would have it be the second level Tyrannus witnesses as he thinks the first one is a major power up but not too worrying, but the second shows Perry can do it consistently. Thanks for the story!

Jeff Casey

@Justin There might be interesting grounds for explaining why manitian humans DONT have essence on their own; maybe they simply have so many essence wavelengths from their complex souls (presumably intelligent beings have more complex souls) that they destructively interfere into nothing, and when you add in the essence from an implanted beastie they can become a spellcaster of a particular affinity This would then lead into a quantitative improvement to the spell storage in Perry’s soul: He could design a machine that tunes in or out specific essence wavelengths in his soul to create those essences on demand, increasing versatility and availability of those essences for whichever spells he desires. Perhaps a limitation is that certain “super essences” like the dragon essence or others simply can’t be created by a baseline manitian human soul or that “wobbling” his essence wavelengths too much will provide vulnerabilities for abun’zaul to grow. As for cool spells, I would peruse the spell list in the players handbook for DnD. You can do some really crazy, broken things with the high level magic in dungeons and dragons.

Daedalus

Hmm, would essences even *be* the fundamental unit of magic? It seems to me almost like they'd be more akin to the molecules of magic, meaning that they'd need to first find the elementary particle of magic (which could still have multiple axis of categorization, and only then could work on base magic. Perhaps each essence is made of multiple bonded 'Concepts' in potentially quite elaborate configurations. Even putting that aside, the periodic table wasn't developed by looking for patterns and organizing them accordingly, it was done by ordering the elements in ascending atomic mass and noting that there were a few characteristics that showed up periodically. Even with that, because it's not atomic mass which corresponds to elemental number, there were a few places where it didn't line up (thanks to the most common isotope being higher/lower than you'd expect), and of course many holes. So Perry would need to find every possible characteristic which essences all share (akin to mass for matter) and organize them according to each of those, then try and find out which of those correspond to seemingly-unrelated behaviors, like how atomic number corresponds to reactivity. Oh, and don't forget how the periodicity might change over time....

Ryan Naquin

Level 14 tyrannus doesnt have enough data to draw a conclusion. Level 15 perry gets abilities instead of raw power. Level 16 is where the pattern starts to emerge. Thats about the same timeframe where perry goes nuclear i dont know the exact level itll happen. Id think a time skip to level 15 could be good and perry could expand his build while really confusing tyrannus's predictions.

paradigmblue

Tyrannus is smart enough to realize that the only winning move is not to play.

Leeland

For number 2, i would like if the book stated the reason dragons "normally" don't work with demons. Maybe there is some kind of karmic debt that builds up? Maybe there is something specific to dragons that makes working with demons ill advised (because it only matters long term and dragons life long enough that it comes into play?). There are many tales about dragons and their magical prowess, but i have never heard of an draconic warlock before.

Leeland

For number 1, i think what would be most fun would be a flexible aproach. Maybe instead of some fixed essences, after he got his "periodic table" finished Perry manages to create slots in his soul (about 3-11). So he can dynamically slot elements in there, depending on what spells he wants to cast (that day, that week, ...). Some cooldown should aply.

worldly bee

I'm personally for the longer timeline -- and I do want to see the baby stuff! Although tbh toddlers are more interesting from a writing perspective. Maybe you could do some research on real-life scientific collaborations/rivalries for inspiration? Like Watson and Crick, newton and leibniz, or Einstein and Grossman. Einstein and Grossman is interesting bc one of them was the 'ideas' guy and Grossman was the 'pure math' guy, so together they were able to accomplish more. In terms of what they discover -- maybe you can take inspiration from Quantum physics? Just some ideas to look at: -supersymmetry breaking -a literal God particles. As in, they're able to measure the wave-particle duality that is faith and which empowers gods. Once they do, the dragon realizes that he can harvest the faith from his empire to become divine. This forces Perry's hand as he now has to stop him. -a magical higgs boson and the higgs field or' I'm an amateur, but what I understood is that particles don't have mass on their own, they gain it through acting on the higgs field. The higgs field is like the Force -- it's everywhere. But different particles interact with it differently. Some particles move through it like it's water, while others move through it like it's wet cement. How they interact w the field is what determines their mass. Maybe there's an 'aether field' and the character of the essence is determined by how it moves through that field. By manipulating the field, rather than the essence, you can turn one essence into another or make them act in new ways. Or maybe even stop magic altogether by making the field too 'thick'.

Josh Cothran

When Perry levels up he doesn’t broadcast it though. How would T know he got much more powerful? I say a 6 month time skip, huge exp gains from the magic research, hell he probably should have gained a level or 2 from this contract tbh. Then at some point he and T are attacked by something(s) moderately more powerful than most of T’s minion and Perry backhands the shit out of it or something, to save some random or to prevent an experiment from being ruined, THEN T realizes how quickly Perry is growing in power and begins to enact operation murderdox

Daedalus

Androids can't trigger because they were specifically designed to not, replicators can't trigger for similar reason and they aren't alive anyway, and prawns have _already_ triggered, so they can't re-trigger. By contrast, we know that dragons explicitly can trigger, because superpowered magical fauna are why Manitia needed to be abandoned in the first place.

Leeland

3 and 4 - I would smash those points together. I think a good boiling point for the conflict could be when the new elemental table lets Perry figure something out about the Tide. Maybe because a "missing" element can stop or empower the tide? And whoever first finds/creates that element would become almost unstoppable. So both off em try to prevent the other from doing so. This also adds another layer to the game because you can also play with if both want to do the same with the new element (stop the tide) or they are in agreement to create it only to then come to heads on what to do with it afterwards. One wants to stop the tide, the other wants to change the tide to empower certain people (humans or dragons). Maybe the trolls also get wind of this and try to steal it for themself at the last minute and ruin both their plans? Some kind of McGuffan is always useful...

A

Table of Essences & Spell Storage Improvements: 1. Essence Substitution - If essences operate like chemical elements, then Perry could swap out one essence for another essence / combination of essences with similar properties, though with costs in efficiency. That'll increase his breadth of functional essences, without making him too OP. 2. Algorithmic Spell Design - Once essences are organized into a Table of Essences, Perry and Tyrannus could come up with mathematical algorithms for producing spells to cut out most of the guess-work still involved as well as increase spell efficiency by using the precisely right essence for a given effect. 3. Synthetic Essences - Just like in the periodic table, there should be synthetic Essences that their periodic table suggests the existence of, but which are not found in nature (or at least not found to date). Creating and utilizing these essences could result in whole new lines of spells and effects (preferably with strange and bizarre properties). 4. Sub-essence particles - Are there constituent parts of essence similar to how subatomic particles make up atoms? Can Perry and Tyrannus observe and interact with these particles? Relatedly, what happens if you split essence like splitting an atom (i.e. magical nukes!)?

Gerald Monroe

I don't know what tech but I note that killing each other is so inefficient. Paradox could "die" by the definition of "die" in the magical contract for a nice cake and eat it.

Althion

I definitely think I'd prefer it if Tyrannus and Perry actually found common ground and didn't end up killing each other.

Hayden Leech

Cool crazy powerful magi-tech/spells… Machines that manipulate time? Perry playing around with what are effectively speedster powers could be really funny. Or even just use magitech to revolutionize Divination magic. A system that automatically predicts the immediate future and can react to it on its own must have all sorts of applications. Imagine Perry fighting like a peerless master because his suits auto-pilot can see the future and has already planned out the entire fight. Or picture the brutal efficiency of a weapons system that is already aware of how you will react to any situation and is just following a script for the most efficient way to destroy you with minimum effort. Or space? Better more efficient portals could be fun. Portal jammers, missiles that shatter the local space? Invisible meat grinder. Explosives that teleport themselves to the target with great precision. Infinite energy machine? Revolutionize medicine? Self replicating weapons? True resurrection? “Mind bendingly powerful” eh? A really big prize would be some revolutionary method of summoning and binding that reality warping god that showed up and turned the world into a game show a while ago. Take the bound god then build a machine around it to harness and direct its reality warping powers. Almost an omnipotence machine.

PlasmaticPi

Honestly I don't think Perry himself and Tyrannus should face off anytime soon with that contract now in play, if ever before the end of the series. However I could definitely see them not taking something with the sources of Perry's powers into account during some more soul surgery with whatever they are working on, and it leading to Tyrannus having to help Perry recontain Abanzul and the grey goo inside Perry. Like maybe overlooking the fact he doesn't get any of his powers from whatever is behind The Tide.

A

For how much time should pass working together before they try to kill each other, I feel like it should be a while. Both Perry and Tyrannus seem like they'd get swept up in finally having an intellectual peer in the field of magical research and magi-tech (though Perry already has Nat at least). I feel like Perry would be smart enough to hide his next level up from Tyrannus so that he's giving himself an edge, just like Tyrannus would be smart enough to hide some edge that he's developing for himself. I also like the idea of Nat being overlooked as a magi-tech researcher and soul smith and taking and building on both Perry and Tyrannus' research in secret to create something to save Perry from the dragon when needed (maybe using her soul smith abilities to steal some of Tyrannus' dragon essence abilities and create something epic with that). I'm a fan of doing a longer time-skip, but would prefer to be present for baby time and some other key points in that intervening time (preferably with a longer chapter with a handful of important scenes from the time we're skipping). Heather's birth and the baby have to end up being unusual and hilarious in some way between Perry's mimic/system's influence, the amount of exposure to magic the child has had, and Perry's Grandma being a benevolent but evil fairy godmother type character to her only great-grandchild (maybe giving the baby enchanted nappies that can protect them from a full-on nuclear warhead, or having some of her shadow-guards serve as guards / nannies to the infant).

A

I also like the idea of both Perry and Tyrannus making half-hearted attempts to mind control or murder each other over the years. Partially to keep each other on their toes but mostly since they'll both brush off any minor attempts aside and keeping working together so it's a win-win scenario for the attempted murderer.

SunderGoldmane

Tbh I want this battle to be the thing that’s always on in the background while Perry starts doing more things. He still needs to report all this to Solaris as the rep for Chicago. Engineer some uses of his new knowledge of periodic essence table. I think the dragon can start getting serious after he levels up twice.

Hayden Leech

^ This guys got it figured out

Cyrus McEnnis

Ok. So in terms of motivations - Dr Willy is an uber scientist. More than that, he's an institutional scientist. That means he's going to want recognition, he's going to want to publish "his" research, and that his number one weakness is going to be funding. Sure, sure, he's a big fuck off flame exhaling lizard, but those are a few levers that might be fun for Perry to pull on. In terms of magitech end-game: a unified theory that links attunement with the fundamental forces of the universe might lead interesting places. Manipulation of gravity fields being the obvious one. A scientific research expedition to Mantia might be a less high-brow way of throwing some tension between them. Of course the single biggest problem that would be fun for them to solve? Moving Mantian magic onto the metric system >.>

Justin

Given that mantins have been on earth till now have not triggered to our knowledge. Except perry who is half. Can we assume someone with inherent essence cannot trigger unless their essence(hippy bullshit) is suppressed(system). I mean meat eaters were hunting in funky town during a tide. So the risk of a Tigger cannot be that high

Justin

But prawns can evolve. Also multiple triggers a thing Al la great lake fish with hyper digestion and gigantism

Hayden Leech

Honestly just quantify the magic. How much magic does it take to achieve the smallest possible effect. That’s now one unit. A Thaum from thaumaturgy or a Theo from Theology or something. Being able to apply mathematics to magic sounds incredibly important when trying to extrapolate the physics behind magic.

Enkelados

1. maybe how to convert one essence to another, industrial essence farming, second order essence (like two essence combine into a third new one), alternative ways to make humans magic, a unified mana theory that lets one cast any spell, stitching souls to his soul to increase capacity, artificial soul enlargement pills. 2. Most obvious way would be a book with a dragon slaying spell, maybe a book about dragon anatomy or dragon specific magic. 3 I would wait a few years for perry junior to gain a tiny bit of agency and not being only a set piece. Maybe he is in some way special and needs a powerful spirit infusion (eg a dragon soul) so his inherent potential doesn't kill him. Or he is abul Zaun Junior and attacks the dragon in greed, what makes him vulnerable again. Maybe the robot tinker could engineer some conflict between them? Or Solaris becomes scared? Much more interesting would be when the conflict isn't about earth but land in reclaimed manitia? Make the next book about the magic reconquista but keep the conflict between the two in the background. Or paradox doesn't actually kill the dragon but those manitians that hate paradox, because they think they are allies.

Red Viking

1. Perry could make some mixing pools in his soul where he can pour in essences he has filters for so that he can manufacture spells. Not as fast as his slots, but it's more versatile and might get faster with practice. Would work well with a way for him to ingest and store essences, without soul surgery for each one, and put them in a database of sorts and link that to some special filters that can extrude any of them but it takes time for them to switch between essences. Less soul damage is good. The table might look a bit like a massive multi elemental nebula, where the simplest, coneptually, essences are the biggest spots of concentration, and as they get diluted and mixed they turn into other types of essences. However, as everything magical is influenced by and in turn influences the "cloud" then certain essences might not become real until a certain point in time is reached. 2. The book is detailed dragon lore and was meant for William to teach him about himself and how he could shore up any weaknesses. Maybe something related to draconic obsessions and how taking away something he's fixated on, and has claimed, will cause him a soul wound and render him weak to an attack? Might relate to how the general ended up killing William's mom in an attempt to slay him. Or it could be just mega spells, including dragon slaying ones. Because, assuming dragons are immortal or near immortal, then other dragons, or something of similar or greater power level, is the major contributer of mortality amongst dragons, otherwise the world would be nothing but dragons. This, assumedly, leads to the development of draconic magic meant to defend against, and attack against, pears, near pears, and superior enemies. 3. Baby time is a must, and the first time they meet in person after a level up would be a cool way for shit to hit the fan all of a sudden. Time wise; whatever you feel is appropriate. 4. Not to my knowledge. 5. Stacy figures out that there's an android she doesn't hold sway over in Perry's dad. (Assuming that he is immune, if not then plot hole/opportunity?)

Hollowlce

I think by in large Perry's spell-storage could be recoded to individually store essences by which he would have access to any spell from the combined essences. Which would massively expand his repertoire. He would also have mapped out pretty much all of the essences but only he would be able to take advantage of the more volatile combinations due to the mimics innate compatibility. I think where it could really become a problem for big T is Perry having a breakthrough in his dimensional tinker class which allows him to use stored spells or essences from his other dimensional variants spell slots with his dad's nanobot Magnus opus bridging the difference. Effectively curing his spellslot problem altogether via a work around. Which would be a nice tie in to his system cutting off other people's potential and increasing his own.

Senti

I think a good magitech endgame for them would be a storage that makes use of Perry's extradimesional system he got from his father, in that it pulls items from alternate realities for him, based on some cost or something

Jeanean

Here are my thoughts: 1. The ultimate form of Perry's spell storage seems pretty obvious to me. A System that combines easily expandable storage so he can add any new essences he finds, or increase the capacity if he realizes that he uses one more than others. Combine that with a system that lets him freely mix and match essences, and he can cast any spell as long as he has the essences for it. 3. One one hand, it would be nice to see them as new parents with just a baby, and see them go through all the problems that comes with. However, I think it would be better if the timeskip were a little longer, at least until the child can speak so it becomes an actual character, and not just a stor prop. Also, that way Heather could be back in the action more. As for the magitech, honestly I think something like an essence generator would be ideal. Maybe it could generate any kind of essence by condensing trace amounts from the surroundings. Another option would be the creation of artifical spirits. Basically, whoever has the formular has the ability to freely create new mages with access to whatever essences they want. Another idea might be some kind of extremely strengthened form of Gretchens Idyllic manifestation, maybe even capable of creating new essences. It might not be the mostpowerful as a weapon, but it would give the user the absolute logistical advantage. If you can infinitely create any and all resources you want, you pretty much win the war.

Kurt A

I thought that dude was literally his grandmother in disguise

Kurt A

I think for Perry the penultimate Magitech would be a method to generate new spells from the essences he has stored, so he doesn’t have to keep doing soul surgery. The actual Ultimate ability would be to generate any essence, even one he doesn’t already have some of, if he can specify it’s properties enough. So if he made a proper periodic table of essences he could generate the missing essences via Zaul since Zaul can make anything. Then he could use those essences to make new spells on the fly.

Ben Tew

To me the most likely scenario is grandma decides she has to have the appendix juice of the last dragon and starts scheming. Maybe she lies to Perry's parents and they attack Tyranus's lands. To me the crazy switch is to have Tyranus trying to hide Perry from his parents and their attacks from Perry. Then in some weird coincedence Tyranus seems to save Perry's life while sacrificing himself, but it was really Tyranus trying to manipulate Perry. To me the fundamentals of magic are pretty dry. I like the personities, scheming, and zany storylines.

Kurt A

Aldo I think that the dragon definitely knows about how Perry grows in strength so level 14 won’t spook him enough. The level 15 boost might though, especially if Perry gains the ability to design and produce essence creatures, potentially including dragon like creatures to try and artificially make dragon essence

Derek Engols

So, I could imagine that completing this table and with some study, maybe there's some hint at the tide, or something more insidious with how more advanced essences work? Like some theoretical time essence that needs some ridiculous and unrealistic stuff to even synthesize, but now the knowledge of it has put a timer on whoever gets it first will easily be able to win over the other, because if you could time travel first, the first thing you do is go back and hide that it's a possibility from your opponent. BUT this leads up to a lot of paradoxical issues with "if one of them won, where's the smoking gun? How did they stop the other from stopping them? And I think some answer to that is the paradox had to eat the dragon at some crucial point which then leads into some weird issues with the contract and his ability to interact with family or something? Which doesn't really fit.

ranoche

First and foremost perry should look into any spells that are completely useless to the average mage as it requires a rare or hard to find essence. Magic is almost a complete issue of skill over resource

Scotten

Maybe Perry gains a level, but at that point the dragon has gained so much from their shared ventures he still thinks himself safe not fully aware of the exponential power gains perry gets, and when perry enevitably gains another level (maybe from huge xp gains from quests, perhaps related to their research?) he finally understands just how dangerous Perry really is.

Ryan Naquin

Could make a passive scrying spell that spans the country using the perception and intention of anyone with an implant to identify threats and either contain or eradicate as soon as they are identified. The machine could cast spells using the person as a focus. Room for masive potential to protect or oppress people. Think killing an invasive species as soon as any citizen becomes aware of it, maybe even subconsciously aware, or a trigger rampage is immediately teleported to a holding cell for supers. Might be enough to retake manita if the spells cast by the machine are stong enough.

Findell

I Am kinda of suprise grandma didnt show up during the contract negiciations to change some verbage or atleast her auto texting system should have alerted him to atleast 1 loop hole. That technology demon needs to head over to washington to give them something to fight professor repblica for power.

Kurt A

Don’t forget about the Solaris Blood plotline. What if a mind controlled Solaris is sent to kill Perry in the middle of the climactic battle and his first attack his both of them and the dragon decides to fight him?

Michael Presley

You could have Perry come up with an essence Turing machine that can make new spells he can insert into his soul that only works because of the system hook up, I.e. the dragon can’t use it. When the dragon realizes the potential and fails to recreate it kicks off the end game. You could build in limits by having the capability of the Turing spell creator locked into his system stats/level or have then programming be fiendishly hard/dependent on the N^Essences level interactions

Cyrus McEnnis

Also - you could quite easily pivot around to using one of the other myriad Chekhov's threats you've left lying around to have Willy & Perry working together for the common good. Do you want magic using super ants? Because that's how you get magic using super ants.

M.J. Markgraf

Could make a magical modeler that goes through millions of combinations of magical ingredients to create new and unheard-of spells. Kind of like how they use AI to model complex forms like proteins and whatnot.

SunderGoldmane

I want to see the tech demon plot line developed more too.

Chad Burnett

I'd honestly prefer paradox and the dragon become friends since both could technically live forever at this point

SunderGoldmane

Maybe you could make the quests for Perry’s level ups be related to contributing to the dragons research. So Perry keeps growing in power but the value he brings to the research is literally worth whole levels of experience. This would make the dragon be willing to let his level ups play out for 2-3 levels and by that point it would be either full crisis or full cooperation.

SunderGoldmane

I don’t think abunzaul can “make” anything. I think he can “mimic” anything. Which would require an actual thing to mimic. He’s a photo copier not an artist.

Jackson Andrews

Oooohhhh! tyrannus should scheme, while working with perry to steal a tiny bit of album-zauls essence and he uses dragon blood and probably some stolen soul power from nat to try to create a new baby super mimic to take away perries biggest advantage. the obviously goes horribly wrong and we could see abun-zual true power and maybe have it kill and eat a few heavy hitters to make way for new characters and events, either tyrannus, gramma, or solaris come to mind. I think chemistro should be brought back to take over tyrannus position in government at the end of this storyline, as a way to set him up for future growth ans conflict. IDK if tyrannus should die, i think it’s far more interesting to have more powerful foils to perry rather than less. perhaps the solution involves a portal to manatia and a few characters go there to start setting up shop, while we finish the story on earth.

Jackson Andrews

as for magi-tech i want to see them start using earth things as sources of essence. prawns, storied buildings and monuments, bones of ancient rulers, etc. lennins body as being host to communism essence perhaps? not sure if that fits how magic supposedly works though.

Novel_Rabbit

For magic-tech you can get freaky stuff with recurvise dimensional storage, capture and utilization of magical waste energy, true living spells that don’t require regents like the soul of the greatest mimic to ever exist, and perhaps the arbitrary assignment of the metaphysical weight used in sympathetic magic (sure i could get saint giata’s tooth as a spell regent, or instead I could craft the metaphysical weight of that object from its parts, slap it on a regular tooth, and save a trip trying to find one of 32 lost legendary regents)

Apotheosis

Honestly I'd like them to stay pals given just how cool William is, you wrote him too well! lol As for magic stuff something about making super powers into essences or vice versa would be pretty cool. More industrial demon binding like the road would be very cool, how much infrastructure can be automated like that? Besides that space travel/exploration would be cool, who knows whats living up there, maybe the tide made asteroids sentient.

Looshioe

Would love to be present for baby time, you’ve written very sweet characters

Phsteven

I think that William should be a long term overarching villain. I think that they should work together for a week out of every month for the next few years (they both have places to manage) until they hit a wall and need to go to to Manita for some macguffin or other. That will kick off the whole retaking the homeland arc. While this is happening, I think that tech demon needs to find Washington and Franklin cities. Grandma doesn’t use or care about technology, so she decides that now is a pretty good time to coup, and makes a deal with him. (Something along the lines of: you can eat the modern technology if you follow my orders or whatever) Perry comes back to Earth with his macguffin looking at a civil war because the androids got possessed and grandma is trying to use them (with the help of the demon) to take over. Kid is born and is fine, maybe shows some signs of being a soul smith and rather magically inclined but nothing much past that until he/she is older. Maybe add a scene like in “The Incredibles” with JackJack. Perhaps has features from both Heather and Nat? Idk how magically transferring a baby from one womb to another affects genetics…

Alex Lindsay

I think they develop the Chaos Theory of magic. This allows them to calculate/predict magic effects and spells that can twist magic around. All the weird and wonderful things Chaos Theory can help with in real life becomes possible for them and triggers an insane battle with bizarre side affects. I also want them to not truly kill each other but to realize they would regret not having the other around.

Mikkel Poulsen

With regards to the table of essences, it could be based on concepts that are distilled into reality, when sufficient time or concentrations occurs in a three dimensional space that overlaps with ours. You could have any essence imaginable because they are created by sapient imagination. How they interrelate would be perceptionbased. You would have the concept of strenght wich could overlap with the concept of stone to grant an essence of earthelemental and so on. It gives you some creative writing flexibility. As for new spells... Well there is the rest of the world to consider as well as space. A simple teleport spell and som idylic casting and you have a moonbase or a vulcano island. To follow up on that, the dragon and our protagonist are basically on one continent. What has the rest of the world been up to? Are there other empires out there? I figure a least a year of coorporation interspaced with other stuff since they both have empires/towns to rule. What is up with Brandon? The stange floating multidimentional eggs?

Macronomicon

I like the idea of the 3-d model of magic producing a shape. a 'galaxy' shape resonates with me.

Red Viking

Having it move and adding in the fourth dimension via time might make sense if essences like "Hair of st. Amelia" are their own thing. Essences like that wouldn't exist before they do.

Sdff

I'm very confused by what Perry is. And think that Tyranus should just get "accidentally" stuck in between The Eldritch Mimic(AbuZual,) The Grey Goo(Dad's Tinker Soul,) The Young Mimic/Tinker(Perry's Soul.) getting stuck in an eternal fight for control of a shapeshifter/power mimic's soul is some fun X-Men's Legion shit, and could be fun Krtptonite for interesting horrozontal powerscaling to prevent things from getting Number Go Up📈🆙⬆️👆⤴️☝️tedious. Also fake stock/science advice from a dragon would be funny, and seeing a 4 way brawl of souls for every level up could be fun.