It's always fun trying to suss out all the (nonexistent) layers of meaning behind the titles. I don't think there are any specific references to popular media that are especially relevant here, so I'll just concentrate on the literal definition.
For one, it could refer to Hunger himself, as he is certainly a force of nature to some. I think we've already reached a city-busting scale? It wouldn't be difficult for Hunger to destroy a mundane modern human city at least, though a magical or sci-fi city would be a different beast. After all, power levels also depend on context, and what might be a world-destroying threat in one place could be just one more overambitious schmuck in another.
But even in this somewhat magical and advanced Colony Hunger stands out. Their very existence is being threatened by the Rotbeast, which had been a bit dangerous for us in the beginning, but likely wouldn't take much effort to deal with now, only time we don't have. If Hunger put his mind to it, he could destroy this place on our own, and there is little they could have done to stop it. Now it's quite unlikely to happen by this point, but it had been a real concern previously when we were unsure how the Tyrant's Doom would express itself and how likely it was for the Curse to be triggered.
Some would likely flee and begin spreading his terrifying legend... hmm. Is this one of the reasons why the Tyrant had been such a cruel ruler? Did he want to give his legend a specific tenor and flavor, or is it simply easier to reach high Ranks through 'evil' legends than it is through 'benevolent' ones? Probably depends on context. In a peaceful and prosperous kingdom, suppressing the populace would be easier and make greater waves than just continuing to make marginal improvements to their quality of life. Yet heroes shine only brighter in the midst of despair, so one could say he laid the seeds of his own ruin if that's the case.
Of course it's entirely possible he had other reasons, like for example if he hadn't been king from the very beginning and had had to win the throne back. We know the Forebear's line is long and powerful, but it's possible someone had usurped this kingdom previously and the Tyrant had to shape himself into a figure that could take that ruling power back. And while Rank doesn't mind-control its users so strictly like a Dao from EFB, there are still some influences as we've noticed with Hunger. One's legend is integral to a person and going against it could have dreadful consequences for one's Rank. If the Tyrant built up a legend as a terrifying figure of unquestionable authority, it might be that he
couldn't pivot onto something less 'evil' without weakening himself.
The 'force of nature' title could also mean the children themselves. They don't seem all that impressive compared to Hunger, but that's an unfair comparison if we're being honest. He's a Progresion-Type Cursebearer who had trained and adventured pretty recklessly, with lots of Arete being generously poured down the drain of his advancements. Maybe we haven't been
perfectly optimal, that's hard to judge except in hindsight, but we structured him into something that almost deserves Letrizia's moniker of Super Juggernaut Undead Chimera even without the corresponding EFB. In attacking potential at least he knows no equal, courtesy of Cut Through, and he's no slouch in the field of buffing and healing either.
But if one forgets about the bullshit that is Hunger for a moment, Surgecraft is quite impressive on its own, capable of mass destruction and purportedly letting a practitioner reach national, planetary or even interstellar scales 'relatively easily', whatever that means. Can we expect these children to enter the wider cosmic theatre of war after a few decades and start throwing down with the big leagues? Hard to believe it about some random place we've visited on our vacation, but the magic's potential speaks for itself. They would likely still be vulnerable to higher Ranked enemies, but as WMDs they would know no equals. Well, assuming the Rotbeast or other Voyaging Realm dangers don't just squash them.
Of course, the title could also be about Surgecraft itself. I'm sure I'm not the only one who wondered about its intricacies and mechanics, where exactly it draws its power from and why it's so reliable and strong, yet also so very individualistic. It doesn't look very 'natural' at first glance, its effects often downright esoteric and contrary to the normal world's logic - some like Exovolt are closer to the normal side of the mundane-conceptual scale, admittedly, and Sharpbright could also be seen as manipulating the natural world if one decides that the Astral Realm is part of normal physics, but what about Quickwater, which can be outright reality-distorting? Or Fullmight, which enhances one's every aspect, whether it's natural or not? Or InkSky, which produces the substance of one of our Artifacts? Or
Edeldross, which explicitly exists to elevate things above the mundane?
It's quite curious, the range of effects implying they are something stemming from the user's imagination, yet its power and reliability being something I would expect from magics reliant on the world's strength. Not like I know how things work in this reality, never mind the wider Rihakuverse. Yet there is one thing it does remind me of quite closely, namely the Reality Effects of Cultivators in EFB. Could it be the Surgecrafters also create their own personal realities that they subsequently draw power from? It's obviously not identical in function, but I'm sensing some similarities there. Though I would expect Hunger to realize something like that after becoming an Elementalist. Unless it's something too subtle to notice without appropriate senses?
Alternatively, Elementalists could be sort of high priests to concepts. We've seen Conjoiner Spirits in Terrascape and heard that Justice, Truth, etc are things one can draw power from in past quest, so why not every other concept under the sun as well? The only problem would be reaching out to them and making a connection, but this magic might be using some trick that makes it easy or the Voyaging Realm could be the perfect place for establishing such a link. In that case our
Edeldross could be a connection to something too, though I'm not too worried given how benevolent an Element it is.
What, nobody else joined Gisena in cheering us on?! How unprofessional of our Sorceress, I expected her to recruit a specialized cheerleader squad for us. And I bet she didn't even change into a cheerleader uniform or learn the moves, so much for her vaunted genius.
I wonder how Letrizia became their 'classmate' in the first place. What, did she just walk into a classroom one day and announce that she's the new transfer? Did she go so far as to fake her admission documents to get the full 'spying' experience? Or did she decide that such things are beneath her dignity as a Duchess and simply pretend this is just an Imperial offshoot where her word is law?
Letrizia is a sweetie, but sometimes she gets carried away. Where could she have possibly learned that? Not our fault, that's for sure.
And I love how school activities were completely pushed aside and the teachers went ignored when we announced this little training tournament. Not that this place has any teachers that could instruct these children on the matter of Imaginary Elements, as they're the only ones who
have the magic and Surgecraft is too individualistic to try and systematize the knowledge except in very broad strokes.
What
do they learn in this High School aside from Element self-study and sparring? Social interaction and mundane knowledge are important for them to remain functional individuals rather than become walking bombs, but the Rotspawn onslaught demands great sacrifices if they want to preserve their community, so I could see them being under great pressure to focus exclusively on their combat capabilities. Survive first, worry about other concerns afterwards.
That might be one of the reasons why we're so popular among the schoolchildren. Not only are we making life safer for everyone, we're also easing the weight of this community's expectations they're suffering under. They're probably hoping we're going to resolve their problem once and for all. Too bad we're leaving soon, but them's the breaks.
She's even doing hair flips now! How quickly they grow up, it feels like it was yesterday when she was bragging about her skills and eagerly waiting for headpats, yet now she has already learned the fine arts of leading boys around by their nose and working the crowd. Has she already become the school queen bee when we weren't looking? Is she going to start avoiding our headpats next because 'she's an adult, stop it Hunger'?! This is all Gisena's fault, I just know it. Maybe we should have chosen Gondar and let him shoot her, that would teach her to corrupt our precious daughter.
What must the high schoolers be thinking though, seeing the tournament structured this way? To them it must look like charity, not only is he paying them a significant sum for participating and teaching him some tricks, - after all, how much can a man learn in a day anyway? - he's also created bets strongly weighed in their favor for the fights themselves. He got his Element just
yesterday whereas they'd been training theirs for months and years, how is this supposed to be remotely fair to him?
They have no idea what a Progression-type Cursebearer is like and what Arete can do if put on top of that, but this is likely going to reevaluate their definition of talent after seeing his advance through years of work in a day. I hope they don't get
too discouraged.
'Blue horse-gem'? Horse-dragon? Not an expert on japanese language or names, and the only other association I have is Subaru, so maybe his dad is an engine expert! Of course I have much stronger flashbacks to Renji, or maybe even Toji if we really stretch the Evangelion connection, though the only similarity is that they're both hotheads and jocks.
He's way nicer than either of them of course, though that might have something to do with our power. Being mean to the guy cleaning up the Rotspawn with the same amount of effort one would spare for cleaning their teeth doesn't sound conductive to a healthy lifestyle and would be right up there next to the 'Hunger' marker on the suicidal scale.
He has an interesting Element, perhaps not as complex as our Edeldross or Letrizia's Sharpbright, but possessing its own flair. Don't know if it's worth 2 Arete or not, but I would tip on 'yes', since it's quite broad in its application, allowing both buffing and sudden attacks. The iron control doesn't surprise me, as anything else would be a death sentence for him or his allies in case of a slip-up, and he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would accept that.
Is it perhaps similar to Reinforcement, filling up an object's weaknesses and destroying it if overdone? My intuition says no, the name and effects implying something more in the direction of filling things up with his energy, which turns explosive if the concentration exceeds his control. We would have to see if the strengthening depends on the target's own limits to be sure.
That 'seemingly' has interesting implications too. Maybe it's what it says on the tin, but other possibilities exist too. For one, he could be strengthening them too quickly for the effects of the buff to propagate, so the explosion would occur almost immediately and there would be no time for them to notice before they exploded in a shower of flame and gore. That would mean that some quicker enemies (like Hunger) could benefit from the empowerment before he could reach the necessary concentration and gank him, though I guess if they're that much faster this 'weakness' might not matter anyway. Another possibility is that he strengthens some aspect that has no direct impact on combat effectiveness or even some negative property like 'explosiveness'. That would depend on just how broad his Element's remit is when it comes to reinforcing traits of objects and people.
Or maybe it's the simplest case and he has learned to narrow his Element down to focus his Element on its 'Flame' aspect instead of 'Vigor'. Really, Surgecraft can be quite complex despite its superficial straightforwardness. It's not just about the big booms.
Hunger: I only bump fists with true competitors.
Hunger: Come back when you learn the subtle arts of fishing, then we'll talk.
We're fighting without the Forebear's Blade? That... well, it's one way to hold back. Our strengthening doesn't disappear if we're separated from our sword, but even if we forget to turn down our stats, at least there's no chance of hitting him with our Ultimate (because our every slash is an Ultimate) or even Cutting Through him. That would have been awkward to explain and would have soured Letrizia's last day with her classmates.
Hmm, there are enough similarities for us to learn quite a bit. Curious that his Element buffs indiscriminately as well, but perhaps it's in fire's nature to burn all it touches. That might be another possible mechanic for his Element, burning the potential energy of those it touches to improve their strength, though it probably also supplies fuel in that case. And if the temperature climbs too high...
There are also differences with his buffing, naturally. His Element is dangerous if he overdoes it, ours entirely harmless no matter how much we pump out. We can't even hurt someone through secondary effects if I remember the descriptions correctly. We could slam people around with all we've got, and at most we could scratch off some paint from the walls. It's very convenient if we want to avoid lethal measures (for which our sword is quite enough, thank you very much), but I can't help but feel that an Element like Aobaru's wound be much easier to train for Hunger, even if exploding himself during practice would only be funny the first few times. It would still give diminishing returns after a while when he irons out his control some, but the initial phase would be accelerated significantly.
No wonder Quickwater was supposed to represent Hunger's practicality! This is the guy that thinks he isn't training hard enough if he isn't literally killing himself.
Not only would telling be boring, it would also be pretty pointless. We structured the whole thing like a tournament with (somewhat) high stakes for a reason. We can't really learn anything through ordinary training. Or maybe 'can't' isn't the right word, it would just take so much time that Apocrypha would get bored to tears and start 'helping Hunger be more efficient'. I don't think that's ever going to change, even if we manage to somehow improve our Progression enough for the normal training to move faster than at a snail's pace again. Conflict would also produce XP commensurately faster, so we're better off trying to look for ways to make systematic training dangerous. It's what Hunger prefers anyway!
I do have to admit that the idea of vertical emissions is clever. If you have trouble limiting the output, just direct the output downwards and let it reflect. Or try to do it from the other direction and hit yourself from below?
Unless they're flying enemies, then all bets are off. And why did his Element bounce off instead of strengthening or burning the ground anyway? Doesn't the landscape deserve some loving too? The description clearly said people
and objects, so it's not some inherent limitation. Is he subconsciously preventing it from being infused with his Element because it 'isn't supposed to'? If so, it might be possible to take control of that mechanism and include 'enemies' in the same category at will at some future point. Might be too complex or conflict with the explosive part of his Elements though, so I don't know how likely that is.
Maybe I'm off my mark there and he's using the ground as a demarcation line to make manipulating the Element easier. So he's using something like 'once it it hits the ground, it's going to bounce back' as a mental reflex in lieu of having to control it throughout the entire journey. Perhaps he could do the same manually, but combat requires faster reactions and he has engraved spells on his reflexes like we did with Elementalism in Terrascape, despite the magic being hypothetically freeform. Could we benefit from something like that too? Not sure, since time spent doing that might be better spent researching Graces.
We can fly, you can fly, we can fly~
We have to make up for the dearth of happy thoughts with an overabundance of fairy dust, I suspect. There had been precious little to be happy about in Hunger's life, though things have been improving lately. Sometimes I imagine we produce
Edeldross by remotely tearing off fairy wings in some alternate dimension, because that's just how Hunger rolls. The only question is where they get so many fairies from, but maybe they grow their wings back?
Hmm, Hunger mentioned Aobaru is surprisingly capable, so I'm left to wonder just how often the school arranges 'exciting' school trips to the contested border with the Rotspawn and lets the special students conduct live exercises. They've said so much about their pursuit of liberty being the reason why they've separated from the Empire though, so I suspect they coach it in niceties and make it 'voluntary' by relying on propaganda to encourage students.
Is that why Roilweft is such a nervous wreck? He might either be too afraid to fight the Rotspawn (unlikely if taking him with us was supposed to be so easy) or everyone knows about his incredible power and potential and either buries him under the weight of their expectations or is angry because he isn't doing enough. Either possibility would lead to an easy defection, though I may be overthinking things and he's simply a social wreck by nature. Not everyone has some kind of tragic backstory!
And just as expected, training without any stakes did very little. It gave Hunger a chance to see what he should work on, so it wasn't
completely useless, but the Ring demands substantial exertion to produce XP, not playing around like this. Hmm, maybe we could learn how to curse ourselves with weakness to enhance training in the future? Curses of the kind that would be difficult to relieve in the middle of combat, so we could improve XP generation by introducing a level of danger, just like we could do by buffing our enemies indiscriminately.
Edeldross isn't very well-suited for curses - it's probably antithetical to the very concept - but the Praxis excels at both preventing and
inflicting harm, so we could invent a literally self-defeating sword technique that we would activate by stabbing ourselves in our heart? Taking the concept of 'suicidal training' to the next level, so to speak. It would fit Hunger like a glove and make for some
weird legends if others witness his training.
These sorts of experiments are kind of dangerous with Apocrypha around, but until we get the Pillars of Creation, we'll have to learn how to squeeze every single bit from our enemies. You aren't trying till you're a ghost!
How fast are we by this point?I think the last time it was something like the speed of two hundred men, but that was ages ago, right after Vanreir's fight, when we had something like ten +s less. If I use the same formula as before, we've got something like the speed etc of 800-1000 men? If his Vigorflame can enhance by a factor of about ten, then reducing our speed by a factor of hundred sounds about right. How had this boy been reacting to
anything Hunger did before? Did it look like he was randomly flailing around? No wonder the Ring was so contemptuous and didn't count it as a conflict with real stakes.
Kind of expected Hunger to lose at least the first bout, as he has almost no experience with his Imaginary Element and isn't prideful enough to win on other merits if he doesn't gain anything out of it. I'm sure it would smart a bit to lose anyway, but it was overshadowed by the ridiculous title. It's up there with 'Wasteland Reaper' and 'Negasonic
Teenage Old Man Warhead' on the chuuni scale, though perhaps we should be grateful we weren't saddled with something like 'Body-Losing Ghost' or 'Blood-Spewing Abomination'. Ahh, why can't these people choose wholesome and virtuous titles like Super Juggernaut Undead Chimera?
Wait. This was Letrizia's idea, wasn't it? This totally sounds like something she would come up with and spread. And Gisena would only be too glad to help. Alas, betrayed by our own companions! No matter, they won't be spared a... Reckoning.
Man, you kill some monsters and suddenly you've got a ridiculous superhero title. What's so bad about 'Lord Hunger'? They don't seriously believe it's our real name, do they? Or do they reckon it's too dark and he needs another title that would emphasize his accomplishments in this place? We need to retcon this before it starts to spread and people all over the Voyaging Realm and beyond begin addressing us as the Reckoner, making awful puns all the while and forcing us to put them out of their misery. Can the Sword Praxis slice precisely enough to delete memories en masse? I would say that counts as harm, so probably yes, the only question is how many attempts we'll have to make before we manage to cut
only the memories. But you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, or something like that.
That's right, the best use of superspeed, never letting anyone see you get embarrassed again. Kind of neat how several of in-thread questions got answered in this chapter. It looks like Hunger can freely control how his stat bonuses affect him, speaking normally to people who are immeasurably slower than him one moment and placing the world on pause to conceal his reactions the next. I would call bullshit, but that's just how Accretion rolls, throwing away logic and kicking reason to the curb for the sake of power and convenience.
It's a shame we don't have more time to take advantage of our reputation here, or we could earn some comparatively easy Rank by defeating the Rotbeast. I don't know how much fame improves Rank generation, but the Hero had managed to reach Rank 7-8 in around a decade by becoming the focus of everyone's hope of defeating the Tyrant in the previous world, so we're surely going to see opportunities to grow our Rank in less suicidal ways as soon as we start interacting with the populace at large. My god, coming to the Temple had truly been an unwise decision, though I can't bring myself to regret going on a quest to save a Ring and meeting all the interesting people inside.
Avecarn might be just the guy to change my mind, of course.
It's not a cheerleader uniform, but you get points for trying, girls.
They're really having fun with this, aren't they? It's times like these that I notice how much their personalities contrast with Hunger. While he can be humorous and has relaxing hobbies, being deadly serious is his default state, whereas they're pretty cheerful people most of the time. Is this a case of opposites attracting? Gisena had been friends with Jeanne, who one could probably find in the dictionary under the definition of 'training maniac', and Letrizia had probably been one herself if her story is anything to go by, she had just focused on her piloting.
A rare typo appears! fielding
them -> fielding
their. Honestly, I almost never see a typo in Rihaku's posts, so I had to make sure I wasn't dreaming it up.
Anyway, gust for that Aobaru is getting
wrecked. Not for any personal reasons, he just sounds so very punchable right now. We need to take him down a peg or two, for his own good of course. What if he decides that he's the hot shit next and tries to take on more Rotspawn than we can handle? Then we'd be at fault for making him overconfident by throwing the match! So you see, we'll make him eat dust entirely out of altruism and selfless intentions.
Oh no, our daughter had been introduced to the dark arts of gambling, what are we going to do? Next she'll bet increasingly ridiculous amounts of money, valuables, territory, and in the end even Verschlengorge and her friends in a bid to stave off her rising debt! It's like Nameless, only worse because her wasting the money doesn't lead to acquiring necromancy powers! Wait, does that mean we're Yong Liefang? That can't be, we didn't take nearly enough mental contamination for that, nor did we gift her any spirit cocaine. Phew, I was worried there for a moment.
Also, betting on us winning against schoolchildren? Just how unsporting can one get, Letrizia?
And now we're indulging her bad habits! All for the sake of a measly title?! Lord Reckoning isn't really that bad anyway, it fits our vengeance themes quite well, even if the reasons for getting the title were somewhat nonsensical. Could we get themed powers out of it? We'll be an Avenger in truth, and not of the nice variety! Though hopefully also not of the 'All the World's Evils' kind. We might have darkly themed powers, but that's no reason to destroy the world! We still have to
optimize conquer it if we want to survive, so world destruction would get in the way of that.
Did Hunger actually break a sweat or is he just drinking the water out of courtesy?
And Letrizia's unleashed tsundere powers never cease to blow me away with their moe. By this point I'm beginning to suspect she's doing it intentionally, playing up the archetype for Hunger's sake. Did Gisena teach her that or did she learn on her own? I don't think I'll ever stop suspecting the walking memetic hazard of being a secret behind-the-scenes manipulator who is arranging our social life with the end goal of relaxing Hunger and making him put out at least. Don't think I don't know what that leg massage scene had been about! She's even looking beyond the Fourth Wall and trying to exploit the questers' fetishes, what else is she capable of in-universe?!
She's absolutely wrong, by the way, we don't have a foot fetish.
(Ignore Terrascape quest, Imperia never happened.)
Losing the last fight after reducing his speed by a factor of hundred didn't give him any XP, so I take it to mean he has to do so consistently during the challenge. Frankly, this is a lot better than anything I had expected after learning about the Hunger Ring's effects. In effect, it lets us 'cheat' a bit and train without major risk, even if it won't work for long and the results are limited. One-fiftieth power puts us at about twice our strength and speed from when we entered this world, which kind of puts things in perspective.
It hadn't been more than a month (it gets harder to tell the time with all the action) and already we're so far removed from the human limits it hardly deserves a comparison, and that's while having to deal with effectively five Curses. Seram's speed of Progression really can't compare, we've long exceeded him by this point. Though I guess Curses aren't solely a negative, they sometimes pressure us and demand additional effort to survive, so as long as we manage that, it isn't necessarily surprising if we advance more quickly than a Cursebearer with less Curses, not to mention vastly lesser Willpower.
Hmm, stakes like money, favor and pride (inasmuch Hunger has one) had already been suggested previously to improve training results, but could we use
positive reinforcement as well? For example, only decide to allow ourselves fishing if we complete this or that challenge, reward ourselves with tasty food instead of bland rations if we exceed our previous limits, just something to make him seriously avoid about failure that isn't a looming threat of Apocrypha or his far-off Vengeance. People deal far better with concrete goals and rewards than with abstract notions.
Haha, is he for real? If I had any doubts about Hunger wiping the floor with him, this clinched it. I would have had my doubts about it prior to Edeldross Adept, but we even
invested Arete into improving our proficiency with Surgecraft, winning this little tournament should be a done deal.
Well, if my assumptions about what exactly his part-time job is are correct - what a nice way to say 'murdering the shit out of Rotspawn' - then I'm glad they're paid for it at least. Though maybe I was being too pessimistic? It's entirely possible they don't let children out to fight the enemy willy-nilly and Aobaru's combat experience stems mainly from planned training sessions. While letting Letrizia's classmates fight now would undoubtedly alleviate the situation, any of them dying risks losing out on future powerhouses. We didn't see any Surgecrafters out there when we hunted, so this theory might have more weight behind it.
Wow, that's smart. Exploiting the absolute advantage in stats so that buffing us both only makes things worse for Aobaru. After all, Edeldross works on the basis of what is already there, and the stronger one is, the better the effect. I wonder how risky doing the same with Avecarn would be? On the one hand we have better stats than him, so the same logic as in this fight also applies to him. On the other hand, giving someone with a Soul Evocation like 'The Administrator' a holistic improvement to both mind and body kind of gives me the shivers.
Grappling isn't a bad idea either. Avecarn sounds like a cerebral kind of fighter, much like the Magus we had defeated in the Ritual Grounds, so getting up close and personal should be disadvantageous to him. Not that I expect an experienced fighter like him to have such an obvious weakness without knowing of ways to deal with it, but unless he can go all Ishida on Hunger and tie our hero up with spiritual strings once they grapple, it should still count for something.
...Maybe we should throw our Mantle at him first as a distraction? Kind of running out of ideas here.
What other tactics could we employ with Edeldross, I wonder?
I'm not sure we have sufficient control for it, but we could try reenacting Saber's Mana Burst with
Edeldross. It's 'transference without harm', right? So maybe it wouldn't be the best attacking technique, as our sword might fail to do damage after we rocket ourselves into an enemy, but as a movement technique that assists our own stat-boosted speed it should work wonderfully, letting us accelerate without worrying about speed limits and damage to our body. But as I said, it's a question of control and timing, which is hopefully up to the challenge after explicitly choosing the
Control advancement option and picking
Edeldross Adept.
I don't think we're good enough to focus our buffs yet, so enhancing a single thing like speed or willpower at the expense of other buffs might be beyond us if it's at all possible. I'm hoping one day we'll be able to at least boost our Defensive Rank with
Edeldross if not Rank as a whole, but I don't think that day has come yet.
We have learned to make basic shapes with Edeldross thanks to Adept, so could we make nets? That could prove useful if we want to pin him or any summoned entities down.
At least he recognizes reality when it stares him in the face! I don't have anything against giving the guy a bonus, of course, but it's good he has lost that attitude.
Nice that he had discovered our problem so quickly, the lessons are already paying off. Using the force-transferring version of Edeldross to catch the buffing type and bounce it back is a neat idea, though it probably also demands good control and the ability to balance the two types well without letting them mix.
Interesting that there are such... not rules, but commonalities among the Elements. I guess they hadn't been spending years on learning all these tricks of Surgecraft for nothing. How would other Elements be classified if ours is a force-type? Sharpbright seems like one too, if a very special force-type. Quickwater and Vigorflame can likely be classified as element-type (or material-type if they dislike puns). InkSky... probably can't be classified easily, as I can't imagine many people have Artifact-Elements. Exovolt might be a separate energy-type if it doesn't fall under the same umbrella as Quickwater and Vigorflame? Fullmight, Shadowcord and Roilweft are too weird to be sure, though Shadowcord might be a mental-type or something.
Trying to find anything but the broadest common attributes is probably an exercise in futility though, the Elements are too individualistic to pin down so easily.
Hey! Our pure daughter is watching, young man! Honestly, what are they teaching kids these days.
Besides, no need to worry, we've got
years of tutelage to make up for and more money than we know what to do with (except waste it on hot spring resorts), so everyone will get their share of asskicking courtesy of Hunger.
Yes, it must sound weird from the outside point of view. 'Try to kick my teeth in while I'm performing these highly complex magical manipulations, it makes me work faster'. I won't even try to guess what they're thinking, as the results may range from 'masochist' to 'lazy ass' to 'show-off'. Coming to the conclusion that we
literally benefit from increased XP gain while being challenged is a bit of a tall order. Unless there is someone among them with an Element that gives them a watered-down version of conflict-based Progression? Sounds a bit contrived, but the Imaginary Elements are so varied and powerful that I wouldn't be surprised by such an occurrence. It would likely also have a strange name only very tangentially connected to its function, as most abstract and powerful Elements seem to have.
Aobaru doesn't hold back at all, does he? He sure wants that money, judging by how he's suddenly started using his Flame so much better. Hmm, can he boost his own Flames, giving them Vigor, so to speak? It's not recursive augmentation, but the fire could still count as an object he can enhance. Not sure we can apply it to our Edeldross, as its pure version seems too focused on enhancing people rather than objects or forces, but we could try to experiment and see if we can buff our sword to swing faster or something. Preferably without making it the equivalent of a toy sword as solidified Edeldross would do.
And success! On his third or fourth try too? I think this is around the time when the power envy should start creeping into the students.
Age
and Treachery, boy, the second doesn't really work as well without the experience brought by the first. Which doesn't really speak well of our chances against old man Avecarn, but perhaps peaceful life had blunted his edge? One can only hope.
That note about boosted effects wherever we concentrate the orb is interesting. Could we have surrounded our liver with a shell of Edeldross and alleviated our weakness to poison during our fight with Gondar somewhat, maybe also using solidified edeldross to protect it against attacks? Our Element is uniquely suited to containing it within our body, as it will never harm us, the only question is whether we have sufficient control to maintain the technique.
What other places of concentration would be especially effective? Heart and brain come to mind, as the first might interact in useful ways with our blood magic and improve our blood flow in general, and the second might focus on mental improvements, which are always nice. Other internal organs like lungs and specific limbs are options too, though I don't think placing the Edeldross orb in our stomach will be too useful in combat unless in very specific circumstances. Not sure how helpful concentrating on bones is either, though the spine could have interesting applications.
Anyway, if the Edeldross can be solidified into a substance that is mostly force, only retaining the non-harming properties of the original Element, is it possible to go in the other direction and reify the pure Edeldross somehow? Elevate it further? That could be another way to increase its magnitude alongside making it more concentrated. Really though, we're talking about Imaginary Elements, so who knows what it's possible to accomplish with this magical glitter.
Good thing we'd focused on our Control then?
I think more material Elements would have greater trouble being concentrated in one place due to simple physics affecting them more, though I don't actually know how much those apply to Imaginary Elements. Maybe they
can concentrate increasing amounts of EarthBuff in a small space without problems, who knows? Thankfully we don't have to worry about that in any case, Edeldross is made of pure bullshit that can be stretched and compressed as we like.
Wait, now that I think about his explanation of how one can put an orb of concentrated Element inside one's body, does that mean he's got a literal fire for a heart?.. Sorry, not sorry.
But yeah, what an Element, I'd be almost jealous if Edeldross didn't have the potential for countless magical powers. If I understand things correctly, that wasn't a fire attack in the normal sense, he simply sent a concentrated orb of 'buffing' at Hunger and just a graze was enough to reinforce the side with explosive consequences. So even barely touching his attacks is super dangerous, and fire/damage resistance might not help all that much, because it isn't an attack in a true sense, more like a poison hiding under the guise of a helpful medicine. Not sure what that says about the guy that he has such an Element, if anything.
It always excites me to see Hunger grasp new capabilities. Now we don't have to worry about unintentionally buffing enemies as much. Intentionally, like we did in our second bout, probably won't be as useful either? Unless we don't have the required concentration or time to do it properly and need a quick buff.
Huh, he'd been holding back still? Of course he was, his Element is Vigorflame, so unless we see 'all the fire' as a tactic, it means he isn't giving his all.
It's a very beautiful image though, reminds me of our attempt to make the first Seram into the Phoenix King. Ah, those were the times, desperately trying to save ourselves from the hole we dug by challenging Romus... huh. Well, that doesn't sound familiar at all. What do they say? History might not repeat itself, but it rhymes? Houston, I think we might have a problem, and I'm not sure how we're supposed to solve it. At least this time we didn't challenge Avecarn out of pride, but because he seemed to be the least dangerous option for our companions? And because we thought he was the most amenable to talking, but it seems like that ship has sailed.
We could learn a few things from Aobaru here though. Not the 'all the fire' part, that's what we have our Blade for, but creating multiple orbs once we can't concentrate Edeldross further into a single orb. Will probably
also require Control to multitask effectively, but maybe a different sort of Control? We'll have to see.
'Pain is weakness leaving the body'
Hunger regularly tears his body apart to increase his chances of victory and carries numerous cursed wounds, his pain tolerance is probably through the roof. And the other part about injuries that scares people, the thought of being permanently crippled, just isn't a concern for him thanks to his magics, so he can afford to fight far more recklessly than most. Sometimes he fights like he's immortal though, and we sadly aren't there yet...
...We're not older than thirty! That's the springtime of youth! What's with this 'old guy' stuff, just because Hunger has gray hair and is scarred all over, and like to Age and Treachery our enemies suddenly means we aren't young anymore?! Our heart is young, and that's all that matters! Tell them, Gisena, it's not like you'd be interested in old guys, right?
I think Hunger is regretting not hitting Aobaru harder previously.
That's another interesting trick, though I'm as mystified about the reasons why it works as Hunger is. Two possibilities come to mind - one that Hunger already mentioned, that it's the act of concentrating further on the shape improving the effects, in which case it doesn't need to be a human form and one could choose increasingly complex shapes to improve mental concentration.
The other possibility is that the more a person identifies with their Imaginary Element (or the other way around?), the better they get at handling it. So giving it a human form would form a closer connection? In which case we might advance further by giving that Edeldross shape more details for its body or even trying to give it a human-like mind? Either would be an interesting experiment, though once again time burns and we have little of it left as is.
Oh no! How can it be! Next thing you know she'll acquire a taste for alcohol and get a really rude nickname among the populace that no father ever wants to hear about his daughter. Quick, we must prevent this somehow! Let's teach her competitive fishing and suicidal training, those are much better and wholesome hobbies to indulge in.
So Aobaru was the best student? That's sad, I had been hoping for a few more to squeeze for interesting tips on powers, though I guess not everyone can be exceptional and there's a limit to the chapter's word count. Oh well, we'll have to be content with what we've got, learning stuff about our Element and decisively trouncing every high schooler. Not sure we can brag about the latter without looking like even more of a douchebag, but a win is a win! At least we paid them for the indignity?
First read it as violet rings around her eyes, then did a double-take and realized she wasn't a NEET despite all the signs to the contrary, just very committed to being a ninja. And well-trained, seems like! All good signs in a prospective hire. If only we weren't in such dire need of Arete and the option for leaving her behind didn't give a significant jump...
It seems like they're really friendly, I wonder if they just hit off really well or if Letrizia is starved for social interaction with her peers. It's too early to judge, but the girl doesn't seem bad, maybe a bit nervous, but that's to be expected when trying to get employed by a legendary figure like Hunger.
Oh man, I would feel pretty bad about choosing to abandon her here after reading this. Still not bad enough to forgo an EFB, but crushing that hope mercilessly wouldn't feel good. Maybe it'll be good for her not to follow us around as Apocrypha-bait? The excuse sounds weak even to my ears, but sometimes needs must.
By hitting their weak points, right? Her description didn't say anything about physical enhancements, though our blood magic and Edeldross might be a good solution for that in case it doesn't detract from her stealth capabilities. Those are pretty amazing and I wouldn't want to diminish those. Working even against automated systems... it's pretty clear they work on a conceptual level if they can affect the 'attention' of a camera or a computer. Do they work on observers through the devices? That would be pretty trivial to circumvent by watching saved data unless it's some kind of memetic effect that functions even through a recording. It's pretty incredible no matter how that works, no wonder Gisena is so enthused about Aeira's magic!
Please stop hitting all my guilt buttons, Letrizia, don't you want your dad to bling up his Ring? We would be missing out on seriously neat stuff if we don't take this chance! We could Heal Versch! Don't you like your robot friend more than you do this weird girl?
Ahh, the things we do for love (of shinies).
Didn't think about it working on Astral Beasts, perhaps because they had become such a fixture in our life. What would we even do without our regular source of entertainment? The mention of guarding Letrizia is on point though, we'll be pretty busy with the Temple and can't take Zea with us, so Letrizia needs all the support she can get. But the Arete...
And the +1 pick that I had ignored on first read-through after realizing just how fucked we are. Avecarn seems like a 4- or even 5-pick kind of guy, whether we achieve a social victory or defeat him directly, so adding another pick to that is bound to give us something utterly amazing. Hey, reading his description again, are we going to get Stranglethorn from him? He's a gardener and an old, treacherous guy, how much more obvious can it get?
For now
[X] Fine
But I'll switch to Unacceptable (likely by giving my vote to someone since I too need sleep) if we can't get enough Arete for an EFB in time.
Ah, 'pick your poison' votes, how I've missed thee! Well, I'm exaggerating quite a bit here, the Stances are awesome even on their own, never mind the pure power EFB they could open that we so desperately need so early in our career as a Progression-type Cursebearer. But I'd wanted the Trinity long before I even knew there was a Special Advancement for grabbing an EFB for each Artifact, just because of thematic preferences. After I learned there would be a practical benefit to it? I became only more certain, even if I'd been hoping for a more potential-oriented set of Artifacts, a naive hope in retrospect. Not enough to kill Hunger over it, and I'm sure the Blade-set could produce an interesting Advancement too given all the hype, but as long as it remains a possibility, I'll try to push for Trinity.
Hedging bets here, but I really don't want the Hero-Defeating Stance after seeing the King That Stands Alone and knowing about the compound EFB. Hubris is a coward's word anyway, am I right?
[X] Somewhat Safe
[X] Maximal Greed
I think these two Stances combined give ++s to every non-physical stat? Except Man, that doesn't get a direct ++, but becomes insanely better thanks to Forebear swag and judicious application of Ruin to people's plans. Is there anything the Forebear
couldn't apply his Ruin to? Heh, maybe that's what All-Defeating Stance does, broaden the spectrum of ruin enough that it can be used on pretty much anything we bother to aim it at. Perhaps even physical/magical laws, our opponents' legitimacy, or even more abstract stuff? Ruin even if it can't be ruined.
Conversely, the Foe-Defeating Stance might lead to narrowing down the effects of our Ruin, temporarily or permanently. So it would be especially effective against our enemies due to a type advantage or something like that. Can't think of concrete details without seeing the other Stances of that series first.
As for the World-Defeating Stance, it's a bit unclear to me whether only the Protection granted by this Stance applies against environmental harms or if it changes all of our Protection to provide us with such a defense. I would like it to be the latter, but I suspect it's the former. Maybe one doesn't need all that much Protection against hostile environment for it to be useful? That we don't lose our magics even in a world with incompatible physical and/or magical laws makes the Stance worth buying at some point almost on its own, as expected of something created by the conqueror of billions of worlds. One of the major draws of the Praxis was its omni-reliability, and while I don't expect this Stance to make our magics as reliable, it's a major improvement nonetheless.
Also curious is the mention of 'non-supernatural foes and phenomena beyond an human's ability to defeat'. The first is understandable if we find ourselves in a non-magical universe where physical might reigns supreme, but how are we supposed to interpret the latter? Theoretically nothing is beyond a human's ability to defeat... unless doing so requires becoming inhuman, perhaps? Maybe it applies to abstract concepts like time or physical laws, or maybe foes that operate on a different conceptual tier? We'll see when we get to it, and I'm pretty sure we'll grab this Stance sooner or later.
Eagerly awaiting even more blurbs that will blow us away and completely change our priorities.
