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156 (Patreon)

Published:
2021-05-30 05:00:02
Imported:
2026-06
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Poll

156

  • 👍 326
  • 👎 40
  • 2021-05-29
  • 366 votes
{'title': '156', 'choices': [{'text': '👍', 'votes': 326}, {'text': '👎', 'votes': 40}], 'closes_at': None, 'created_at': datetime.datetime(2021, 5, 29, 19, 16, 44, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc), 'description': None, 'allow_multiple': False, 'total_votes': 366}

Content

🧲

Comments

Cody

😃

Robert

Interesting system details. Good chapter

Draugluir

We're getting so close to something I can taste it! Someone wake me in a year so I can binge the rest of this delve 😛

L Pedersen

Man it sure would save time if some lvl 30ish blue came looking for a rainsnack

Enkelados

Hmm for the first time I will give a thumbs down. While the system building is very interesting, the delivery isn't. The first half in rains soul feels very slow and not much happens. After rain wakes up there are just five pages of exchanges that lead to nothing. It's not interesting and doesn't give us any additional information. Of course some of it is necessary, bit it could have been boiled down a lot. Rains explanation of his soul stuff is the best part, but because of his unfocused rambling it is tiring to read. I know that's exhausted and overmanaed rain. Maybe it could be a consideration to ignore that to improve the pacing.

Yshua

The soul stuff is less appealing because will/intent-based systems with ill-defined constraints don’t make for engaging problems. Anything could happen and I wouldn’t be able to say whether it was within bounds.

Chymor
>>60853119

I found this to be one of the better soul exploration chapters. First a show part to show us the exploration, then a summary to keep up the speed. I liked that he learned a fair amount this time, compared to earlier, much slower soul sections. Then I personally don’t mind Rains rambling delivery, as I think it fits well with the character interaction. I don’t really get why you’re so dismissive of the content of Rains summary. That is actually where the bulk information is. And to me the delivery manages to avoid the info dump problem usually present when explaining things to readers.

Matt

What did we learn this chapter? His paling has a tear and it allows him access to the environment like a lair’s info. Didn’t really get the point of the pressure stuff. He’s letting off essence which is attracting monsters. Can he finally fix his soul?

Caestus

Probably been posted before by someone else: Lairs have a membrane that allows a fixed number of people in. They consist of areas that are influenced by the surrounding essence. The regions are bigger than they are without. The regions change and are fully in the control of a "core". When people enter they get linked by the party interface. Sounds like lairs are souls that somehow have a physical presence. The above ground lair they visited somehow had "memories" and of those that lived there. Could be all the unawakened's paling got ripped to shreds when the lair emerged and their souls got incorporated into its soul? Will Rain be able to: 1) Express his soul physically ? 2) Let people enter his soul? 3) Can he create an avatar that is a "blue"?

Ranzbart
>>60852891

Yeah, probably. If by saving time you mean skipping to the end of the story. A level 30 blue would annihilate their group.

Doodlyboy15
>>60854609

Seems like it's setting up that he needs to advance to a rank 24 zone so that the 'pressure' equaluzes and he can sew or mould his paling back together

PJ LeBlanc

*complimenting me isn't going to save you not 'complementing'

Conor McGroarty

Seems Rain has a lead on how to fix his soul most efficiently. Having the Bastion acquire more essence will allow him more materials to play with and improve what he can do in the bounds of Bastion. But ultimately it will take too long (time measured in decades and centuries long) to purify the soul chaos into soul essence under his control without a more efficient way of doing so. Unless he figures out how to automate the process (something that likely can only happen when the essence Bastion has collected reaches a certain point and much practice) the best way would be to start working on fixing his paling. Sealing the tear should make the chaos current near non-existent (only slow and steady, normal paling stuff) and make it easier to purify without all the gushing chaos. MC will need to figure out how exactly he will transform essence into repairing the paling (it is essence but different) but after that it is just a matter of time that will keep getting quicker with practice and lessening of chaos currents from smaller tear. Shouldn’t take too long considering that he is on a time limit and it will likely be too risky to go to the next biome (an arcane one) with his leaking essence acting like an “eat me” sign; while convenient as a lure the inability to turn it off in such a dangerous area without enough people for a change of shift and rest is too risky even for their standards (unless they barely enter the area so they can retreat and even then...). At the very least, he has to make enough progress on the tear, that he isn’t monster-nip, to continue even if he doesn’t have enough time to fix it all. It also seems that the essence (heat with some chem) smells bad so probably like hot farts or rotten eggs? Like sulphur? MC can get rid of nose if need be but shouldn’t be too bad. Paling seems to be too useful to try and tear everything down to zero (my own personal musings of if there is a greater benefit to just break it all the way). It’s like an indispensable but resilient organ as it can still function while damaged and can heal even if not automatically but you’re dead without it. To be fine without it would be entering a new territory where it is no longer needed, the theoretical territory of level 100 and realm of divine beings (perhaps a requirement is crushing your paling and being able to be fine with just your internal essence managing itself; possible benefit to doing so is possibly unrestricting access to external essence and what you can do greatly increases). But that is a long way away and a paling seems to be a requirement for it as it automatically takes care of the essence and level up process. So until that point where you reach a level where your essence is your paling, so to speak, it is a necessity to keep it.

Conor McGroarty

Was kind of expecting rain to have been out for at least a day but I guess the automatic training thing would have informed him so 10 hours (more or less) is fair. Reasonable reactions from Tallheart and Ameliah for MC to be out for that long considering the unknown (to them and him) area he is venturing into and potential consequences. Plus it was kind of an emergency so who knows what could happen?

Ole Halvorsen

Rain could probably make his own depth gouge if he create a hole in his soul block it up and find a way to monitor the pressure difference from his soul to ambient mana. He could also probably find out what type of essence is floating around. That and leaving a part of it open to be able to get link sight and other effects like he does now being able to access party information for example. Having an option to release experience to create pressure could also be effective to make people more likely to see up to him. I also think it is more and more likely that Rains class bonus will somehow be effected by his unlocking with skills and his soul manipulation.

D

Guess he'll have to expand his bastion. Conquering territory sounds like the key to close in on the cut in his paling and put a pressure valve on it. x)

Pyrefiend

If the monsters are attracted to Rain's leaking essence, they must think they will get something of value from it. It could just be food, but they would just eat each other if they only wanted essence or meat. Maybe Rain is their equivalent of a blue, and would level up a monster that kills him.

ZCochraine!%
>>60855055

On three, I would think a limit to that is just his own level. But that would be op to get other members of ascension up and awaked. It might also be mor efficient to take low level monsters and dump enough essence in to make them a blue as well as try to level them up. Or maybe in those experiments he will find what trigger is needed to monsters to level up and if they have a level cap themselves, and Rain will need to figure out how to make them go higher. Maybe make them swipe or kill some essence construct or count as having killed it.

Monadologist

Don't worry. He only has to keep going deeper and deeper to keep the pressure balanced while dealing with the fact that his soul is spewing energy that draws more and more creatures to attack him. I'm guessing he'll have to get to where the pressure gauge reads ~24 to eventually have a chance to try to seal the leak without inflow our outflow? Do monsters grow from having something similar to his torn paling and being below a given depth so the pressure fills them rather than empties them?

Garrett

I wonder if the answer to Rain's soul problem lay in the Monster Tamer skills. Tamers can obviously bring high level monsters into low ranked zones without them constantly decaying, so if the reason for the decay is a flawed paling than tamer skills must include a way to patch up/reinforce a target's paling.

kyle

Wait if they go past the wall let's say to lvl to a depth of 25 will he automatically lvl after his "pressure" equalizes with the environment? Hmm is that why all monsters are coming to him? If they lvl and unlvl based on ambient essence then could they lvl up just from being close to him? Maybe they don't want to kill him just be close to him.... He could be a monster god.

kyle
>>60856548

Reasonable yes but we didn't need 5 or 6 pages wasted on it.

kyle

I will say I was expecting a power up out of the whole broken soul thing and was disappointed after having to read about it for months and getting nothing for it. That being said I was glad the problem was over and I wouldn't have to read about anymore.....I guess tho lots of ppl were complaining about missing the soul stuff, so the author had to bring it back? Anyway, looks like we might actually get some sort of power up so it COULD all be worth it.

Stormlock
>>60873037

Anything over 24 would be fine actually, since if the outside pressure is flowing in, it should increase the internal pressure until it matches outside more or less. Actually, it's kind of weird that chaos is feeding in through the untorn paling as well, if there's less pressure outside than inside. I suppose it's like a one way barrier so some stuff gets through regardless. The pressure thing would imply some other problems as well- if he starts to repair the tear it'll be smaller and therefore have a stronger pull as it needs more speed to maintain the same flow rate to equalize things. And then depending on the strength of the patch, he might tear it open again when they ascend back to a level 0 zone.

Erik

I am SOOO happy we werent stuck in the shadowrealm of the paling for the whole chapter. I hate those sections. Dialogue is much preferred. Nice chapter.

Cirvante

Interesting new information about soul stuff. If the paling normally keeps pressure in, then 'oversoul' would be a high goldplate or platinum deactivating a part of their paling to release pressure. This would make lower-leveled awakened and unawakened feel like standing in a high-ranked zone, i.e. like that unawakened merchant in Brightside who felt like he was being crushed. Rain's torn paling made unawakened feel the pressure of a lvl 18 soul which is close to Brightside's rank 20. Bronzeplates weren't affected, because that rank doesn't bother them. But the one time Vatreece came to Fel Sadanis, she let the watch keepers feel her soul pressure and even an officer was too terrified to even attempt reading her. Rain also said that when leveling, the soul expands, the paling becomes impermeable and then it contracts to increase pressure and push the core to a higher level. Perhaps once you manage to purify all your essence, gain control over your paling and simulate this process you can raise your own level cap. Like Rain said, it's all layers with essence being the foundation and experience as some sort of currency. Absorbing the essence of a higher-level blue is normally required to increase your core strength potential. Perhaps it extends your paling, allowing it to push your core to a higher level? We know that the essence released by lair cores can also awaken people, but can it raise your level cap? Samson or Vanna should have cracked the Essed core to test this. Also, Val's class required the full essence of a blue to be absorbed by him. It feels more and more like the whole system is based on essence theft and cultivation. Perhaps that is how Vatreece, Fecht, Kev and Burrik are raising their cap without a team.

Johnathan Gaetz

Hopefully it occurs to Rain that he can increase his own level using the Bastion to compress essence into his core. He can already compress it down to liquid and solid, he just needs to compress it into his core and grind levels out. (Maybe it doesn't actually work that way but it sure seems like this is building up to Rain breaking the leveling system.)

Johnathan Gaetz
>>60856462

I think the chaos is actually mana and the mist/fog stuff is essence .. at least they seem to be two different things.

ZCochraine!%

Just a thought, Rain could try to make a fan/scoop things that collects the ambient and unrefined essence via spinning (using a gearbox with some insane ratio to maximise speed), then have it be compressed as it has flowed down to liquid or close to liquid state, then using the same gearbox power a compressor like an air compressor to push it further (or fully make it a liquid) and put it under pressure until is solid essence. Then us it to make more collectors and expand his bastion continuously. That way he could automate collecting the essence inside his Paling, and if he make his bastion or some outpost at he hole he could actively be making way more essence for construction. Or he could out two of theses collectors together and send them orbiting within his could to clean up his soul even more. Also, Rain hasn’t tried negative numbers in his soul yet has he. Or other kinds of numbers. Also also, he hasn’t tried killing a monster by overloading it with Winder and Essence Well has he, like all the way back when he was told he could make someone’s head explode that way.

ZeroSkillz

Rain will have to build a pipeline between his paling so he can keep linksight, or a tether system that links one of his constructs to his core. Or better yet, just build a space station into the nether: Delve; Deep Space 9!

Pocket Rikimaru Thanatos

so freaking good! I bet you he's gonna make a porthole/door for his Paling so that he can do link sight and stuff, also the whole Magnet effect is extremely good for farming mobs with higher level cahracters like Tallheart and Ameliah. This is so good

Cirvante
>>60896390

Pretty sure he exploded a crystal slime with essence well when he got buried after the ambush on Velikah. And Jamus told him that he'd make someone's head explode by giving them 1k focus with empire of mind.

Cirvante
>>60901330

I wouldn't call this good exactly. The night has just began and I doubt any of them are getting any sleep until morning.

Ziggy
>>60890385

They didn't test it from Rain's POV, but we were told point blank by other characters (Ameliah I believe) that breaking a core will not raise an awakened's level cap. It only awakens dulls. An awakened gets the accolade, a dull gets an awakening. Or both, if the "full" 8 slots in the party aren't taken up and they get more than one reward ala Stint's core awakening. One of the reasons why I'm still pretty curious if the level of the core determines the dull's cap. If it's just like standard level 5 no matter what, not very exploitable. If the level of the core or thereabouts becomes the cap of the dull, hugely exploitable.

Starless

Look up 'Marshmallows getting their soul sucked out' on YouTube to get a good visual representation of what Rain is doing his level best to explain.

Ole Halvorsen
>>60891237

it's to easy a system to increase lvl cap, if this was the case the world would have a lot more people wondering around being gold and plat etc. Although I would say that soul manipulation I believe is one of the keys to actually increasing cap, but I would be disappointed if he can start to abuse this now. Hope it's more of a gold thing

Geraden

So this sets us up for eventually leveling past the cap. If he can learn to control the "opacity" of his paling and make it block essence, and compress just like the leveling process, he can level even when the system won't let him because he's at his cap. As long as he has enough essence/experience inside to compress he would then gain a level. No?

Stormlock
>>60974652

I'd think that either levelling up or raising your cap would involve improving the paling itself somehow. Unless the core can do that by itself I think it'd be more complex than just forcing the essence to stay inside. It does make me wonder whether the paling strength is based on your level or your cap though.

Starless

I still think a major issue is that soulspace is apparently 5D, and the human brain isn't programmed to think in 5D. Just like with the Obelisk, the translation gap between mind and soul could possibly be solved by making another hybrid control interface.

Ziggy

#bug_report. Real small one. You have, "I have this sort-of…sense...of where all my avatars are." at one point. Several paragraphs later there's, "I have this…awareness...of my avatars, even when I’m not puppeting them." It comes off as almost identical, redundant, and like the first mention never happened. I'm assuming it's just a slight mistake that didn't get caught in editing. Either way, highly recommend you alter the second mention for more natural flow and less redundancy.

SenescentSoul
>>63976516

fixed, thanks. The second mention now reads: Like I said, I’m vaguely aware of where my avatars are, even when I’m not puppeting them, so I felt Stumps-2 get shot off the wall at speed.