Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)

[Utterly Depraved]

The sparring match had been both a method of working through the frustration of that call and an opportunity to test out some of the assorted weapons and abilities that I'd been capable of, but never actually deployed. Projection magic had made the production of most types of weaponry trivial, but also meant I could try out experimental ideas without ending up drowning in prototypes and obsolete equipment.

It wasn't just the idea of producing less than my best work that got to me, though that was still an issue I was dealing with. No, the real issue I had with churning out excessive numbers of enchanted 'practice' weapons was the fact that there would be excessive numbers of enchanted weapons lying around.

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Eh. He has a enchantment fractionation device. He can recycle that sort of equipment easily enough.

"Oh, come on. It was great. Like a sports compilation mixed with a CMV." I glowered and Aisha suppressed a fit of giggles upon seeing my expression. "Okay, okay." She took a breath. "It was crazy stuff. I saw Survey's notes. That's a mad amount of abilities to be throwing around."

I shrugged. "I was only focusing on a few applications. The powers reinforce each other, so the end product can be the result of a half dozen major powers working together, and twice as many supporting abilities."

Aisha shook her head. "It's crazy. How many capes need to spend this much time working through new abilities?"

I grinned. "Well, Eidolon."

Aisha snorted. "Right. The only person who can empathize is the most powerful trump on the planet. Only he doesn't hold on to his powers like you, so…"

"Yeah, I know." I admitted. "Unique power problems, and I'm sure anyone else would be happy to have them."

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I believe that Dauntless would also have a understanding of it. As weak as they start and as compounded as they get he doesn't actually have control over their expression.

"Fine, not superpowers, just a chance to become a kung-fu science wizard, right?"

"No part of that description was accurate." I snarked, but in good humor.

"Fine, I graciously accept your offer to teach me super science, ninja magic, and how to control magic. For that even I should be able to put up with school outside of school."

I nodded. "We can do a trial run when you come over for movie night." I explained. "Actually, most of the principles could be covered in the virtual space, so we could work under acceleration to get you started."

Aisha was starting to look a bit out of her depth. "Right. Uh, how much faster are things inside the computer anyway?"

"The balance is stable at a hundred-fold increase. It might be able to be pushed further, but that's still in testing." I considered the abilities at my disposal. "Honestly, given a couple of hours real time I could probably cover the basics and get you started."

"Wait, so this is like, being able to do super alchemy later tonight, not as some kind of long-term project with months of training or whatever?" I gave her a questioning look and she sighed and dropped her head. "Jozeph, do you realize how easy it is to forget the crazy timescale you work on?"

I shrugged helplessly. "When you're in the thick of it trying to manage everything it's more about keeping your head above water than worrying about how it looks from the outside. We can scale back the training if it bothers you."

Aisha sharply shook her head. "Hell no. This may be nuts, but I'm not putting off magic mountain shaping powers any longer than I have to."

"Just a head's up, even with my help you'll probably be a long way from any kind of geological work. Entry level is basically sculpting without touching the material, and working up from there."

"Fine, magic sculpting power. The magic is the important part, EVEN if it doesn't technically count as magic." Aisha raised her voice for the later part of that statement and I registered the correction that Survey had helpfully sent to her display screen, triggering the response. "So, you set for the rest of the day."

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Not only would I like to remark upon the ability to matrix in skills but I would also like to point out that Joe could probably engineer some spiritual/spiritron computers that would be both higher performance and less separable then a watch and both make and install some Magic Circuits for actual magic use. Just sort of stuff it into a persons metaphysique alongside their soul.

"That works." Aisha said, confirming the schedule. "For the Undersiders, you doing full Chen level suits?"

"God no." I countered hard. "That's not the kind of thing you hand out casually. I get why my duplicate did it, but the suit Chen's using would be insane even without simulated life fibers or Heretical Adaptation, and that's not even counting his scarf. No, the Undersiders are getting standard stuff. Garment's working with hyper-fibers from the upgraded workshop, so they'll have a level of protection if their force fields get overwhelmed, but I'm not putting the entire team in power armor equivalents."

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Thinking about it should probably stick a Exsphere onto that suit, and possibly Tetra herself, for power regulation purposes. It should be possible to make one without making or unmaking a sophont being at this point. Might end up taking some of those spirits or a fork of one of the AIs with him if he can't just unaware soul stuff but they already exist so taking them with him shouldn't be terrible.

Thinking about it it would probably not be a terrible idea to have a few mostly empty ones hanging around as soul containment/embodiment fail-safes. Or possibly just move the soul to the Exspheres in the first place and keep some spiritron processor constructs in the body instead. Or have them able to move around at will. Lots of options really. Especially if Exspheres can have Magic Circuits.

A person with ninja training, enhanced physical abilities, and animated wire would have been a difficult enough opponent even if he hadn't decided to use the entire fight to make a point about the versatility of his chosen weapon. The wire's ability to shift directly under his control was hellish when combined with Aura reinforcement and super strength of the person wielding it, but he had also been able to emulate other constructs through manipulation of energy patterns. Trying to fight someone who could shift their weapon from snares to swords, polearms, or even emulated creatures with a thought had proven trying when I was using every fire ability at my disposal.

It didn't get truly unfair until he switched to archery. I'm sure it was a natural expression since he was the only one using a flexible weapon, but supersonic arrows were not easy to deal with. And that was when they were actually arrows, not compressed spindles of wire that unfolded into temporary magical constructs. Yes, shooting arrows that transform into dragons is awesome, but it becomes moderately less awesome when you're the one beating them back while also trying to hold off an assault by half a damn mountain side.

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I would like to point out that, since superconductors generate a magnetic field in response to layers of magnetic fields being pushed through them (which is the foundational principle behind magnetic levitation), it should totally be possible to make a tension-based coil-gun that would basically be a wireless bow. That would likely make it far easier to make a mechashift hammer/bow/spear-gun.

Looking back at the armor I reviewed the nature of the mystic code. A single plate would have been enough to reinforce Taylor's costume and provide defensive reinforcement to her body. The dozen that I had made to replace or add to her costume's armor provided redundancy and a distribution of load that would hold the effect in the face of anything but an absolute attack or complete form of power negation.

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I would like to point out both that Exspheres based Magic Circuits would probably have made that easier and that using Reinforcement based Transmutation magic would allow for emergency surgery and clothing modification/repair.

Thinking about it that'd probably be good for a mummy look. Make some silk, or leather or really any other material, straps/bandages and have the reinforcement adjust it on the fly. Possibly even weaponize it like Matryoshka or Snare-oh or Tuck.

An idea struck me and I felt the need to try it out. The image formed in my mind and with a strike I flooded mana through my magic circuits, drawing forth and forming the projection of the weapon I envisioned.

A ring fell into my hand. It's simple design and tasteful gemstone concealed the integrated las weaponry that made digital weapons so dangerous. I considered the mana cost of the projection. The ring was fully modeled, not a hollow copy. It was a necessity with the complexity of the circuitry involved. Despite that insane level of detail, the projection wasn't that draining, not with the benefit of my Thaumaturgical Focus and Unnatural Skill.

The design might not have been costly, but the power source was another matter. Even with Workaholic increasing the size of the end result I still needed to supply all the energy that the tiny power cell contained. The deceptively powerful weapon actually contained a substantial amount of energy in its reserves, making the tiny ring a more costly projection than some of the larger melee weapons I could create.

I held the ring and considered my next step. I doubt this would be possible with a conventional projection, but I had been working to a higher level of quality and detail from the start. My projections weren't created with an approximation of what the materials were like, they were drawn from a deep and comprehensive understanding of every principle of their structure and composition. They included details down to crystal alignments within the structure of the metals. For that purpose, until the point where they faded, they were as real as anything else on the planet.

And that meant I could work with them.

Drawing on the borderline impossible skills of Bandit Gunsmith the digital weapon was rendered down and rebuilt. What would have been a long, complicated process was blazed through with the benefit of acceleration powers that reduces the entire construction process to a flash. It was over before it seemed to have started.

On its own Bandit Gunsmith might have been able to take fifteen digital weapons and cobble them together into a hellpistol that could melt through power armor. With my resource powers I only needed one. With Workaholic the end result was three times the size, taking it from a sidearm to a frighteningly powerful laser rifle.

I looked down at the meticulously crafted weapon. The crafting of Bandit Gunsmith was a sloppy art that produced items that were visually one level above junk, but my aesthetic powers had trumped that feature to the usual degree, giving me a weapon that was as beautiful as it was deadly. And it was plenty deadly, essentially being a man portable antiarmor weapon. But it wasn't the damage output that impressed me. It was the power reserves.

The rebuilt power supply contained nearly a thousand times the energy that the digital weapon had held. Just like that, one of the major limitations of projection, the inability to produce energy weapons, was completely negated.

But the power could be taken further.

I considered the rifle for a moment, then applied the same principles. What Bandit Gunsmith could have created through the combination of fifteen of these would be nothing short of a siege weapon. What I could manage with my additional powers and a single rifle was much more than that.

Once again the weapon flew apart in my hands and reassembled into its new form, one at the very limit of what had been included in my Weaponsmith mental database. It thudded into place just as my duplicates made their way into my corner of the workshop.

The first let out a long whistle as he looked over the emplacement. "Quad-barrel Icarus-pattern Lascannon. Very nice."

"Power core is nicer." The second commented, looking over the weapon. "I don't even want to imagine what it would take to project a reactor like that directly. Not without both a striker and familiar support."

"That is a LOT of mana." The first exclaimed. "Like, serious concentration of magic. I don't think we've ever projected something with this kind of energy density."

"Well, it's a reactor that could run the weapon through an extended siege." I explained. "By today's standards that's what? Decent sized city for several years?"

"Sounds about right, provided we're talking Brockton rather than New York." The second replied. "I mean this is crazy. We're basically manufacturing mana."

"We were doing that before. Amplification effect on every projection. We were getting a hundred times what we put in. Two hundred if Waste Not applied." I said.

"Twice that now. But that was still tied to internal reserves. It was capped. This can expand infinitely." The duplicate paused. "Actually, we probably could have done this earlier. Multiplied any mana-based material."

"Earlier there was no point." The first duplicate said. "Ambient mana is a bitch to work with. Without Thaumaturgical Focus Alchemy we couldn't have done anything useful with it. Now this, this is a resource we can work with."

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Might have been more efficient to use a bomb as a energy generator. Possibly one that makes a energy degenerate time-stop/time-slow field. Either that or a magitech one that would feed off of the Projection degeneration effect. Something that would use up the whole projection instead of just the battery.

I nodded. "I'm not going to be pushing for anything else from the Undersiders, and definitely not at the summit. I appreciate the warning, but I kind of figured something like this was in the works." Alec looked relieved, but even without the Dragon's Pulse I could tell that wasn't all of it. I took a guess and pushed forward. "You said all the Undersiders have been struggling since last Saturday. How have you been holding up?"

"What, since my private barbeque?" He quipped. When he saw my face his expression turned grim. "Fuck. Okay, that healing? Or overhealing or whatever? Does it have any side effects, like long term stuff?"

"No." I said flatly. "Not that kind of healing, not for those kinds of injuries. Anything that's different, it's because something was broken in the first place."

"Broken." He let out a dry laugh. "Yeah, that's about right."

"Alec, what's going on?" I asked seriously. Despite my passenger's affection for Alec and the rest of the Undersiders I didn't have much of a connection with them. The obligations I'd inherited had overshadowed any camaraderie I might have had with them in the early days. Even so, they weren't bad people, particularly by the standards of villains. I didn't want anything bad to happen to them, as difficult a prospect as that seemed at times.

Alec let out a long breath before turning to me. "Okay, that super thinker thing you do? The one that freaked Lisa out on the first night and has whatever focus on Taylor. You get anything from it about me?"

The question sounded less of a concern and more like a desire not to have to explain things himself. I nodded slowly before speaking.

"I don't have much, and it's not that accurate, generally speaking. I know you were in a bad place and are trying to get out of it. I know there's bad stuff in your past and you're worried about it, but that's about it. Like I said, no details."

He sagged slightly before replying. "Yeah. 'Bad stuff' is right on the money." He shook his head before continuing. "There was a lot of bad. It didn't used to bother me. I mean, it did, but I could handle it. I had ways of dealing with it." He looked up with more emotion in his eyes than I had ever seen before. "That's not working anymore. Not for the current stuff and not with the old stuff."

"Have you talked with anyone about this?" I asked, somewhat lamely.

"Lisa knows. She would have known even if I didn't tell her. I told her I can hold it together, and I probably can. At least as well as the rest of them." He looked at me with what seemed to be a mixture of anger and fear. "Seriously, what the fuck did that do to me?"

I sighed. "Best guess?"

He snorted. "Sure, just what you want to hear from your doctor. But yeah, best guess."

"The healing was comprehensive. It covers everything. Chemical, physical, or neurological. You have any kind of dysfunction there, even something that was helping you cope, it's going to fix it."

"So that's it? Taking me to normal? That's what this is?"

"I don't know." I admitted. "Brains are complicated. I don't have a scan of yours and I don't have anything to compare it to. But if something changed it's because the healing was trying to put it right."

"Put right, huh?" He looked down at his hand contemplatively. "I guess that's the price for a new arm and skin grafts. Oh, and a lifetime of indentured servitude." He gave me a wry grin. "Still, probably a good deal, all things considered."

I let out a breath as the Time constellation passed by. "Look, are you going to be alright?"

"No idea." He answered honestly. "Probably? Maybe?" He shook his head. "Honestly, I kind of figured it was something like this. It's just, if you were going to flick a switch like that I wish you picked a better time than the improvised teppanyaki aftermath." He forced a grin and picked up the case. "I should get these back to the hideout. Lisa's probably going to spend half the night picking over hers. Blind, unknown costume delivery with no input from the thinker. It's like you were trying to drive her insane."

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Yeah suddenly having nerves is probably a pain. At least he's bothered by all of the right things though.

Fuck. I wonder how Cherish would react to Regents feelings of regret validating her own feelings of betrayal/abandonment.

"I told you it would be fine. He didn't notice anything." I said, pulling out onto the street.

"Because there's nothing to notice. You said you were bringing armor." There was the sound of fabric rustling. "Not clothes."

"The armor is under the clothes." I explained, continuing down the street.

"There's nothing under the clothes. It's a full bag, and it doesn't weigh…" She trailed off and I heard a mutter "What the hell."

"There you go." I said with a smile on my face.

"How deep is this bag?" There was the sound of metal clinking against metal and I heard a gasp. "Woah."

"Deep enough to hold the full set of your new armor plates." I explained. "What do you think?"

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HA! Yeah getting something over on someone and impressing them at the same time's got to be vindicating in general and especially for Joe.

"Right. Oh, Joe? This bag? Was it like a one-time thing or is it stable? Like can I reuse it?"

"It's stable." I explained. "There's expanded space inside, and it conceals any weight that's not in the upper portion." The item had been trivially easy to make, barely needing more than my demigod skill. "You can use it, just try not to draw attention to it."

"Thanks Joe. I'll be careful." She answered in an enthusiastic voice before ending the call. She actually sounded more excited about the bad than she did about the armor, but why would she…

Of course. She was going to fill the damn thing with four cubic meters of spiders. Setting aside that happy image I just hoped she didn't try to make it part of her cape gear. The image of Taylor in immaculately forged golden armor perfectly aligned to the theme of her cape identity with a canvas tote bag over her shoulder like a Sunday Market shopper was the kind of thing that would drive Garment to hysterics.

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The extra spider-space would probably be nice, especially if she could weave silk in it as she does, but also being able to fold up the upper portion and stuff it into her pocket would probably also have a lot of utility to her. Carrying around loot and resources. Potentially a whole other person.

silly Joe, Taylor's not going to fill the four cubic meters with spiders.
she's going to fill it with bees.

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They are generally better about maximizing space use.

And you know that Taylor wouldn't be carting it around as Khepri. Not because she cares about aesthetics, no. But because she can do way more damage having ants and spiders work to move it around by itself through the sewers so she has easy access to mass amounts of insects anywhere in the city that has a manhole in a 2 block wide area.

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...Oh fuck. She basically became as mobile as her Swarm with this Bag Of Holding. That's going to be hilarious.

Poor, poor Accord! I don't think his heart will be able to take this...

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There's practically no way that he's not going to be asking for some cosmetic surgery services at some point.

...

You know, I wonder if Joe could send a duplicate to handle the family dinner, or if the dupe would rebel against his master

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As much as it seems otherwise they kind of are Joe which would make that rather difficult.

*looks at the story thus far*
I'm surprised this is news to you, honestly, as the tale has always been a slow-burn on time passing in-story vs wordcount. I personally don't mind, but this sort of thing isn't for everyone. The author has also stated he prefers the current setup, so... I'd say the best route is to just step away from the tale, if it isn't holding your interest anymore.

...I wonder if Taylor Varga also has the occasional user complaining about wordcount vs in-story time passing levied towards it?

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Someone should run the numbers for how much time each chapter maps to. Possibly also for how many words per second each character talks and/or thinks at for chapters to be that long while IC time progresses that slowly.

There hasn't been ever since he got Workaholic, no. At his current construction pace, 24 hours of constant work is worth about a millenia and two centuries of supernaturally perfect work. Not counting his copies or automation. There isn't a problem on the planet he couldn't solve within about a week at this point, especially since I believe at least one of his techbases has time dilation. Any problems he hasn't solved by now is entirely just him not bothering.

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I believe that the exact calculations give him about a nano-second, or possibly a micro-second, per second of work done on a project.

After seeing the "rebuild a gun into a better, 3X-Bigger, gun" thing, I decided to calculate how far he could take it.

A quickly-googled estimate of the mass of the Death Star is 2.5E17 Kg. If he started with 555 grams, it would only take 37 rebuilds to reach Death Star size. (Assuming that Workaholic triples the mass each time).

This also ignores the "more advanced than before" part of the rebuilding, so the performance of the resulting Death Star-sized gun might be stronger than just a planet buster.

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A Halo Array, or possibly the machine that pumped them out, might be better since he can only make something out of something similar to what he started with and started with a ring.

That being said though it might only work on equipment, as per the Perk wording, so maybe not. Depending on whether it worked on Shards though, being equipped to Hosts, he might be able to make a few Shards of his own. Especially if he keeps making better exotic particle/exotic excitation/exotic geometry computers. Even more so if Lathe metal can survive the space between dimensions.

That being said though he'd probably be better served by making weapon modules and then making a whole bunch of them combine rather then continuously using the expansion function of Waste Not.

That being said though you know what'd be interesting to use it on? The Kinsect. That should have some interesting results.

I hope he makes a protective watch for his therapist. People who know and accept his identity aren't common enough to be left vulnerable.

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Considering how everyone else reacts to his ridiculousness, his therapist might end up needing a therapist from that.

"He gave me a watch and apparently it is strong enough to give me a Thinker/Striker/Brute/Trump rating. And then he said he'll give me a better one on our next session."

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He probably wouldn't, he's pretty clearly restraining the vast majority of his ability when it comes to handing out his tech. Him making a better watch would involve at least a chapter or two of questioning if it's the right choice.

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Probably a good idea to put some protection on the only person working for him that'll work on what he won't. Like what's he going to do if that man dies? Have agency of his own?

You know if you are looking for other Unnatural Skills you could use, you could use the supernatural levels of Masonry or Woodworking that creatures like dwarves and elves are noted to possess.

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I'm pretty sure that the Unnatural Skill that elves have is topiary but I'm also pretty sure that at that level of skill the difference is cosmetic.

I actually have no clue what's supposed to limit Joe at this point..... just at all. With the word count we are up to and the portion of the Forge he now has access to I am actually not clear if even Scion actually poses a real threat considering he isn't paying attention like at all to whats going on. He can, while in the world, spontaneously project whatever base item he needs due to his complete understanding of.... well.... every material, technology, and resource ever - then he can rebuild it under time dilation and with speed enhancing perks almost instantly into an output that is 3x the size and better and repeat that infinitely. The man could literally walk up to Armsmaster naked and in the span of about 2 seconds construct a laser cannon which could kill him and everything behind him for hundreds of miles with no prep time. We have technically been at this level for a while now but as the action is just now starting to ramp up again (hopefully) its become even more pressing and noticeable. Truly I think every chapter from this point on will just be Joe trying to step as lightly as possible in case he accidentally ends all of humanity by exploiting the Forge any further.... all while his being careful grants him more powers making the situation worse.

At this point I definitely feel like the sense of scale has gone completely insane with the powers. It's one of those things that we all know can happen with this kind of setup but most authors end up either abandoning ship long before it hits this point or resolve everything and move on. I like the quality of the writing and the characters so much I almost wish a less impressive array of abilities had been available from the start - maybe limited much more harshly and based around some sort of hidden achievement system you decided on beforehand as opposed to word count.

Regardless thanks for the chapter! I think I have finally settled down and managed to actually enjoy the pacing that this goes at even if it means I'm not expecting the Leviathan encounter (assuming that its still on the table, and since Noelle hasn't been touched yet I assume so) until sometime in late 2022.

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His limit is that he catastrophizes everything. Both every action and outcome. It's a miracle that he can do anything at all.

The difference being that unlike doing that, the continuous cycle of improvement would address Joe's complaint about projects being over before he even gets a chance to sink his teeth into them.

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As much as a recycling power would help with rebuild time he'd probably be better served by a mega-project if he wanted to sink his teeth into some work. Maybe off-world or something so as to avoid interfering with any local politics or culture or whatnot.

Lets NOT accidentally the 10^80 universes that comprise Worm, thank you very much. At least not until Joe figures out how to travel to other fictional universes and leaves with all his friends.

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Have Joe use his crafting Perks on the dimensions themselves. As in all of them at once. Straight up make a matrix of shards of what was once the multiverse into just a very extradimensional multiverse.

Joe might actually start hitting some exponential limits on building speed at that scale.

36 hours in a second sounds a lot until you check how long it takes to build really big things. I found an article that estimates the time to build a US destroyer at 4 million person hours. Other perks come into play and Joe's going to be doing everything better than anyone else, so call it...12 hours build time for Joe.

Purely from mass comparisions the Death Star is 25 billion times bigger than a Arleigh Burke class destroyer. So I dunno, a few thousand centuries for Joe to build it himself this way?
I'm probably off by several orders of magnitude but at that scale it doesn't matter too much.

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Exactly. A perfect project for Joe to really sink his teeth into.

Four million build hours with modern technology and logistical constraints. When you take out transport, welding, most manufacturing, planning, etc, it basically assembles itself. Like, with none of the assembly accelerating perks, Joe could make a destroyer in maybe a couple of hours. Nanomachines, Projection, magical transmutation, and more make it a snap. A death star's even easier, since at that point you can just use economies of scale to make use of automated drones and AI assistance. Hell, he could do it himself with a big enough alchemy circle and a source of energy to make the trade equivalent.

Edit: Honestly, considering it further, I doubt it'd even take half an hour if he had the tools ready. Mass nanomachine assembly to get the parts and form the transmutation circles, the ability to perform all construction perfectly with zero lost effort... it'd be beyond effortless. Oh, right, and perfect modularity of parts means he doesn't need to worry about scale problems whatsoever. He can make the parts in as small pieces as he wants and assemble them later, so he could assemble the ship piecemeal with none of the demands of properly forging one.

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Nah man fuck tools. Do it from the other side of the state by levitating the parts. Get that hand-craft Perk working. Hell craft it on the moon. Make it big enough that Mannequin starts getting pissed off.

I liked how we didn't see Joe's elemental kung fu showdown. That we don't need to know every inch of Joe's life. It makes sense to limit it so we can plow forward. We only needed to know the aftermath which Aisha took up with Joe.

I'm glad that Joe explained so to speak his current thoughts on equipment, liability, and only imaginative liability. It cleared things up why Joe is still how he is.

Taylor having a panic attack was so good. I'm pretty burned by Warlord Skitter so it was sooo good to read about a panicked teenager acting her age about clothing choices from Danny's view.

I admit this is one of the demigod powers I've been waiting for. I'm looking forward to create something that will utilise the full might of Apeiron. I'll even say it'll be godly.

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Probably a good idea to help her figure out a way to inform her dad that she's got powers while retaining both her agency and his, for a lack of a better word, companionship.

I can't wait to see Joe finally address all of the people freaking out online about the dangers of him discovering how to mass-produce his tech, and him just going :

"Oh yeah, I cracked that like two days after I triggered. I just prefer a more bespoke experience for people using my tech so never really saw any point in mass-producing it."

The fallout would be glorious to see even if only on an omake.

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Nah he already tried to exchange some mass-producible tech with Dragon...Thinking about it I wonder how Dragon would respond to the Neathbow.

Yeah, there's no way that Zeus sees the shrines Joe is building for all the other Gods granting him their blessings and doesn't try to get in on that. Probably with the caveat of "I want the best one"

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> Joe just spraypaints "Zeus Was Here" onto a whorehouse.

Not his own therapist. A therapist need to build up trust and Alec can't really explain 'yes you see, I was chemically altered to normal. Yes, I'm not sure what normal is anyway. Where this happend? Ah, yes I robbed a bank and then while I was on my way to our payment grab I was grabbed. Can you help me?'
I'm sure that will go swimmingly. /s
I'm sure Campbell appreciates that Joe will not send more parahumans his way. It seems like dangerous thing to do.

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He could probably figure out a way to vet for bad therapists and/or bad therapy and help with transportation.

For that matter it would probably not be a bad idea to figure out some sort of time dilation effect for his therapist to free up time for him. It'd be more work but it'd also be more down-time.

For that matter he might want to make some artisanal dreams or something. Hand made to be more relaxing then the usual kind. There's doubtlessly a lot of high-stress jobs being done, things like being a doctor and whatnot, that it'd be good to ease the stress of. It'd probably also be one of the few things that Joe could actually do without knock-on effects.

In fact I'd say that a whole bunch of behavior altering effect originating from a precognitive blind-spot would have a lot of knock-on effect that would exclusively interrupt the sort of people you don't want being uninterrupted.

Oh man, wait till Garment gets a load of Joe's new looks. Clothing to accent pretty can be surprisingly different to clothing that merely highlights your better features.

Oh gods. Imagine what happens when Aisha sees him in full pretty boy mode.

Actually, even worse... imagine if one of his family members sees him now. Looking healthier, happier, more confident in posture, and just generally so much better then they've ever seen him in their lives... while he's in the middle of a war torn crisis zone, fresh out of cutting them out of his life.

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They'd be pissed off by him being in any way healthy even without being outside their influence or under a different negative one. In a abusers eyes a persons success is a failure on their part.

Huh. So Alec's brain damage has been fixed and he is no longer a physical trauma-induced sociopath.

Changing his behavioral patterns will be difficult... but Alec is going to have to deal with EMOTIONS again... and I just remember how traumatic that was for him during Warcrafter. Poor guy is probably hiding his suffering right now... he has his Shard to mitigate some things... but not much.

I don't think Alec is going to be as an asshole as he was...

...also, Rachel becoming obsessed with the internet and actually getting her watch to read to her and get her the information she needs. That is AWESOME and also worrying. Heh. Bitch's twitter must be amusing. Full of Doges. So many Doges.

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I wonder if he'll end up having a Second Trigger from it.

Joe: "So, I may have accidentally cured a sociopath?"
Dr Campbell: "And now you're worried about what they will do in society, and whether the damage will be your fault?"
Joe: "No, I mean I may have accidentally cured a sociopath."
Dr Campbell: "Sociopathy is a complex neurological condition. It cannot be cured, merely treated or managed. Anything more would require making radical changes to the human brain."
Both: "…"
Dr Campbell: "So! You may have accidentally cured a sociopath?"

Click to shrink...

Explaining that they were a artificial sociopath would probably help there.

I don't know how to feel about the fanwanking of Alchemy this chapter. Like, everyone in the FMA world can learn to perform transmutation but it is heavily implied that everyone in the FMA world has their own Gate, required to perform Alchemy.

We don't know how you get a Gate granted, but presumably your with it rather than the Gate forming as you learn more about Alchemy Theory. And even if it does form based on Knowledge, Amestrian Alchemy would still be impossible because that drew upon Father's massive underground philosopher stone. Alkahestry wouldn't care about that limitation though, so assuming Gate's aren't a requirement, or hey are a requirement but form from study rather than being an inborn thing, and assuming Truth isn't necessary to perform Alchemy; Joe would "only" be capable of teaching Aisha Alkahestry.

So still a pretty good deal overall. There's a lot of If's there though.

Click to shrink...

Yeah but there's also a lot of magic in the Nasuverse that's location-based as well so there's probably some other effect at work there. Divine Constructs are only acknowledged as such by The World after all.

Despite how powerful Apeiron is at the moment I still don't think he can kill Scion yet, not without getting annihilated himself.

As far as I'm aware the only way into the space of his body is the portal that is his avatar and I don't think Apeiron has any tech that can get past whatever the Entities set up to isolate the universes they were working and living in.

Unless he can make some sort of high conceptual killing weapon with his Elven and fairy crafting and stab the avatar.

But I'm fairly sure that sort of thing would pretty much break Apeiron to make at the moment.

Click to shrink...

Well there's always the option of setting off the omnidimensional explosion early before he's prepared for it. It's not as though Joe couldn't make a few space habitats or something for everyone once he was done.

You forgot the other AI Matrix; an interesting form of gestalt intelligence made out of trillions or maybe a Googleplex of nanobots.

On other topics how do people think of him I know that Apeiron, The Enigmatic Artificer was labelled a villain by the prt but what does the Norman man think of him do they thing of him as an anti-villain, villain, anti-hero or hero.

Click to shrink...

I believe that nanomachines are best measured in moles.

 

[readerdreamer]

Oh gods. Imagine what happens when Aisha sees him in full pretty boy mode.

Click to shrink...

Omake: Pretty Boy

"Aisha, I really don't think that this is a good idea."

Joe really wondered how Aisha managed to get him here in the first place. Joe was busy enough that even his duplicates were starting to devise their own ways to make duplicates. Wasting a single night to socialize in a shady bar was bad enough without having most of his anti-beauty enchantments and items removed for the entire trip.

"Joe, Jozef, my man, you need to spend time outdoors more. Show off. Strut your stuff. Don't you want to be more self-confident? Then show it!" Aisha had a massive grin on her face, and to Joe's detriment, behind her Garment gestured that not only did she agree with Aisha, it was also a crime to keep her favorite model away from the public eye for so long. "You even made that ring you based off of my power, right? I'm sure you'd be fine once you leave and everyone forgets that you were even there in the first place."

Joe sighed, his posing and appearance powers making the action look straight out of a teenage magazine as he did so. "Isn't it enough to be spending time with you guys?"

Garment's gestures, her gloves on her figurative waist, very pointedly said that, no, that wasn't enough. Joe, it's good and all to have a circle of friends, but when only one out of six friends weren't made or summoned by your superpowers, that's a sign that you need to make more friends than just Aisha. And no, the Undersiders don't count.

Aisha noticed their byplay. "Alright, fashion conversations I don't get aside, Jozef - go already. Unless you want me to accompany you to the club, I mean I wouldn't mind-"

"Alright, I'm going." Joe said hurriedly before Aisha decided to go herself. He did not need Mr. Laborn talking to him if it ever got out that Aisha went into a nightclub because of him, even if Aisha could just as easily make people forget that she even went in the first place. "As for all of the things in the workshop-"

"Don't worry, we got that handled." One of his clones waved him off with a smile. "Have a fun night out there!"

Joe inwardly cursed himself for being such a traitor. Now he had no excuses to put this off.

And so, thirty minutes later, Joe was in a nightclub. The Palanquin was a famous establishment among Joe's classmates for being a very classy club despite being located in Brockton Bay. True, there were rumors that Faultline's Crew frequently visited the club, but Joe felt that there wasn't a risk in him stumbling into them given that several members of the Crew were recently sighted near Toronto for what was probably mercenary work.

Joe could almost wish that they were there though. Potentially hazardous capes were something that he could deal with, but the number of times he had been hit on in the past ten minutes was just unbelievable. The women alone were stressful enough, there were also several men who tried to pick him up, and though it was slightly flattering, he was already starting to run out of excuses to be left alone.

"Darling, aren't you a skittish one? I wonder why you're even here if you were just planning to turn down anyone who looks at you."

Joe twitched as he heard the bartender comment on his social failures. Still, the bartender didn't seem to be staring him up and down like he was a piece of meat, so Joe let himself relax for a bit. "I'm- I'm not here of my own will, not really. My friends felt like I wasn't socializing enough, so I'm here. I'm still not sure how they convinced me, honestly."

The bartender chuckled, sliding him a small shotglass. Joe took a moment to analyze what he was handed - nothing dangerous, just a mix of orange juice and vodka.

"A Screwdriver, to help you relax a bit." She explained with a smile on her face. "Really, a pretty boy like you shouldn't be wasting around like a wallflower. Socialize. Dance. Talk to people."

Factually, Joe knew that this little alcohol wouldn't really affect him, considering his literal divine constitution. But taking the gesture for the help that it was, he drank it down, and perhaps it was the placebo effect of the action itself at work because Joe found his shoulders sagging just the slightest bit the moment he put the shotglass back down.

"Thank you." He said politely to the bartender, who took back the glass. "How much do I owe you...?"

"It's on the house."

Joe shook his head. "But wouldn't that get you in trouble?"

"I own this establishment - nobody will be telling me off for doing what I want with the drinks." Joe's powers let him decide whether or not to let himself stiffen at those words, however in the spirit of honesty he allowed the instinctive reaction of apparently interacting with the owner of the Palangquin show. "Now, come on, I just had you relaxing for a bit. It's fine, just treat me like any other woman in this place."

Joe couldn't help but chuckle at that. "That's the thing. Women - I don't know how to interact with them."

Then the words caught up to him and Joe immediately wanted to punch the himself of five seconds ago in the face. Wasn't that too rude-

"Well, you're certainly interacting with one right now, aren't you?" The woman winked, before extending her hand. Joe relaxed again, the social faux pas apparently forgiven. "Name's Melanie, what's your name, pretty boy?"

Joe hesitated, before shrugging it off and taking her hand. "My name's Joe. It's nice to meet you, Melanie."

"Well, aren't you a polite one. Certainly a far cry from my usual people here. Still, isn't Joe too common of a name for someone as good looking as you?" Melanie joked as she took her hand back to wipe some glasses with a handcloth. "I was expecting something more along the lines of Alejandro."

"It's a nickname, but it's a name I call my own." Joe confirmed. Suddenly feeling a little guilty for taking so much of her time not ordering anything, he then asked, "Ah, so about the menu, any suggestions...?"

And so, just like that their conversation continued. Melanie would pick up the conversation whenever it threatened to die, while Joe gladly received her help while buying a few more drinks in exchange the longer their talks took. Their talk wasn't even that special either - it was just small talk, inconsequential things that nobody would bother remembering. On the rare moment where either of them seemed to infringe on a touchy subject - like family was for Joe - they had no issue moving on to lighter, more entertaining things.

It honestly felt... nice. Relaxing. Sure, they were in the middle of a nightclub, but again - as far as nightclubs went, Palanquin was one of the classier locations in Brockton Bay. It certainly wouldn't have been as easy for Joe to just talk to Melanie had the Palanquin been one of the noisier or crowded clubs, not that Joe missed how Melanie would occasionally glare away anyone else who tried to butt in.

Joe didn't mind. Melanie was genuinely a breath of fresh air and really, he didn't have it in him to interact with another stranger tonight.

It was to his surprise then when Melanie finally looked at the clock and said, "Alright, that should be it for me. I'm sorry, but I can't stay any longer, Joe."

Joe blinked as he checked his implant's internal clock and realized the time. "Wait, is it already midnight? I didn't notice."

"Don't worry, I didn't either, pretty boy." Melanie laughed, wiping away a tear. "Honestly, I didn't think that we would take this long either. I was just supposed to substitute for a bit while my usual bartender was gone, but then I found you looking so sorry that I couldn't help but rescue you from all of your admirers. You seemed to be unused to attention, and you reminded me of my crew."

That explained how proficient she seemed to be with Joe's awkwardness. "So, you're experienced with the socially awkward then?"

"You could say that." Melanie winked. "Anyways, it was nice to also relax on my end as well outside of my usual work so it was no loss to me either. Hey, take this."

Joe blinked as she slid a business card over to his direction. It read, Melanie Fitts, Palanquin followed by an email and a cellphone number.

"Call me sometime, pretty boy."

And that was how Joe got himself someone's number on his first night out, and once he got home Aisha had such a smug smile on her face that Joe almost didn't want to call Melanie the following night just to spite her. In the end, he did however, as Melanie was just that good of a talker, and really was it really that bad to make friends with someone who seemed to be just as interested in befriending him?

(It was only later that he realized that the woman he was talking to was actually Faultline. It took even longer for Joe to realize how long they were dating.)

 

[Vodkasheep]

Omake: Pretty Boy

"Aisha, I really don't think that this is a good idea."

Joe really wondered how Aisha managed to get him here in the first place. Joe was busy enough that even his duplicates were starting to devise their own ways to make duplicates. Wasting a single night to socialize in a shady bar was bad enough without having most of his anti-beauty enchantments and items removed for the entire trip.

"Joe, Jozef, my man, you need to spend time outdoors more. Show off. Strut your stuff. Don't you want to be more self-confident? Then show it!" Aisha had a massive grin on her face, and to Joe's detriment, behind her Garment gestured that not only did she agree with Aisha, it was also a crime to keep her favorite model away from the public eye for so long. "You even made that ring you based off of my power, right? I'm sure you'd be fine once you leave and everyone forgets that you were even there in the first place."

Joe sighed, his posing and appearance powers making the action look straight out of a teenage magazine as he did so. "Isn't it enough to be spending time with you guys?"

Garment's gestures, her gloves on her figurative waist, very pointedly said that, no, that wasn't enough. Joe, it's good and all to have a circle of friends, but when only one out of six friends weren't made or summoned by your superpowers, that's a sign that you need to make more friends than just Aisha. And no, the Undersiders don't count.

Aisha noticed their byplay. "Alright, fashion conversations I don't get aside, Jozef - go already. Unless you want me to accompany you to the club, I mean I wouldn't mind-"

"Alright, I'm going." Joe said hurriedly before Aisha decided to go herself. He did not need Mr. Laborn talking to him if it ever got out that Aisha went into a nightclub because of him, even if Aisha could just as easily make people forget that she even went in the first place. "As for all of the things in the workshop-"

"Don't worry, we got that handled." One of his clones waved him off with a smile. "Have a fun night out there!"

Joe inwardly cursed himself for being such a traitor. Now he had no excuses to put this off.

And so, thirty minutes later, Joe was in a nightclub. The Palanquin was a famous establishment among Joe's classmates for being a very classy club despite being located in Brockton Bay. True, there were rumors that Faultline's Crew frequently visited the club, but Joe felt that there wasn't a risk in him stumbling into them given that several members of the Crew were recently sighted near Toronto for what was probably mercenary work.

Joe could almost wish that they were there though. Potentially hazardous capes were something that he could deal with, but the number of times he had been hit on in the past ten minutes was just unbelievable. The women alone were stressful enough, there were also several men who tried to pick him up, and though it was slightly flattering, he was already starting to run out of excuses to be left alone.

"Darling, aren't you a skittish one? I wonder why you're even here if you were just planning to turn down anyone who looks at you."

Joe twitched as he heard the bartender comment on his social failures. Still, the bartender didn't seem to be staring him up and down like he was a piece of meat, so Joe let himself relax for a bit. "I'm- I'm not here of my own will, not really. My friends felt like I wasn't socializing enough, so I'm here. I'm still not sure how they convinced me, honestly."

The bartender chuckled, sliding him a small shotglass. Joe took a moment to analyze what he was handed - nothing dangerous, just a mix of orange juice and vodka.

"A Screwdriver, to help you relax a bit." She explained with a smile on her face. "Really, a pretty boy like you shouldn't be wasting around like a wallflower. Socialize. Dance. Talk to people."

Factually, Joe knew that this little alcohol wouldn't really affect him, considering his literal divine constitution. But taking the gesture for the help that it was, he drank it down, and perhaps it was the placebo effect of the action itself at work because Joe found his shoulders sagging just the slightest bit the moment he put the shotglass back down.

"Thank you." He said politely to the bartender, who took back the glass. "How much do I owe you...?"

"It's on the house."

Joe shook his head. "But wouldn't that get you in trouble?"

"I own this establishment - nobody will be telling me off for doing what I want with the drinks." Joe's powers let him decide whether or not to let himself stiffen at those words, however in the spirit of honesty he allowed the instinctive reaction of apparently interacting with the owner of the Palangquin show. "Now, come on, I just had you relaxing for a bit. It's fine, just treat me like any other woman in this place."

Joe couldn't help but chuckle at that. "That's the thing. Women - I don't know how to interact with them."

Then the words caught up to him and Joe immediately wanted to punch the himself of five seconds ago in the face. Wasn't that too rude-

"Well, you're certainly interacting with one right now, aren't you?" The woman winked, before extending her hand. Joe relaxed again, the social faux pas apparently forgiven. "Name's Melanie, what's your name, pretty boy?"

Joe hesitated, before shrugging it off and taking her hand. "My name's Joe. It's nice to meet you, Melanie."

"Well, aren't you a polite one. Certainly a far cry from my usual people here. Still, isn't Joe too common of a name for someone as good looking as you?" Melanie joked as she took her hand back to wipe some glasses with a handcloth. "I was expecting something more along the lines of Alejandro."

"It's a nickname, but it's a name I call my own." Joe confirmed. Suddenly feeling a little guilty for taking so much of her time not ordering anything, he then asked, "Ah, so about the menu, any suggestions...?"

And so, just like that their conversation continued. Melanie would pick up the conversation whenever it threatened to die, while Joe gladly received her help while buying a few more drinks in exchange the longer their talks took. Their talk wasn't even that special either - it was just small talk, inconsequential things that nobody would bother remembering. On the rare moment where either of them seemed to infringe on a touchy subject - like family was for Joe - they had no issue moving on to lighter, more entertaining things.

It honestly felt... nice. Relaxing. Sure, they were in the middle of a nightclub, but again - as far as nightclubs went, Palanquin was one of the classier locations in Brockton Bay. It certainly wouldn't have been as easy for Joe to just talk to Melanie had the Palanquin been one of the noisier or crowded clubs, not that Joe missed how Melanie would occasionally glare away anyone else who tried to butt in.

Joe didn't mind. Melanie was genuinely a breath of fresh air and really, he didn't have it in him to interact with another stranger tonight.

It was to his surprise then when Melanie finally looked at the clock and said, "Alright, that should be it for me. I'm sorry, but I can't stay any longer, Joe."

Joe blinked as he checked his implant's internal clock and realized the time. "Wait, is it already midnight? I didn't notice."

"Don't worry, I didn't either, pretty boy." Melanie laughed, wiping away a tear. "Honestly, I didn't think that we would take this long either. I was just supposed to substitute for a bit while my usual bartender was gone, but then I found you looking so sorry that I couldn't help but rescue you from all of your admirers. You seemed to be unused to attention, and you reminded me of my crew."

That explained how proficient she seemed to be with Joe's awkwardness. "So, you're experienced with the socially awkward then?"

"You could say that." Melanie winked. "Anyways, it was nice to also relax on my end as well outside of my usual work so it was no loss to me either. Hey, take this."

Joe blinked as she slid a business card over to his direction. It read, Melanie Fitts, Palanquin followed by an email and a cellphone number.

"Call me sometime, pretty boy."

And that was how Joe got himself someone's number on his first night out, and once he got home Aisha had such a smug smile on her face that Joe almost didn't want to call Melanie the following night just to spite her. In the end, he did however, as Melanie was just that good of a talker, and really was it really that bad to make friends with someone who seemed to be just as interested in befriending him?

(It was only later that he realized that the woman he was talking to was actually Faultline. It took even longer for Joe to realize how long they were dating.)

Click to shrink...

... On one hand I think I would like some romance in the story. On the other hand I think shoving that between the 20000 word chapters actually might make people cry, and that's hilarious. I hope it happens.

 

[Hydraphur Trader]

Omake: Pretty Boy

Click to shrink...

It's written so well and organically that I want to do it in the main plot.

 

[Jordisk]

A Halo Array, or possibly the machine that pumped them out, might be better since he can only make something out of something similar to what he started with and started with a ring.

Click to shrink...

Actually, based on what he got out of that testing, his power defined it as starting with a LASER. It was a Digital Las-Gun, which got upgraded through various las-guns he got from that same perk. Further interations would go past that point, into things that were not included in the perk and may not have ever been developed by 40k Humanity. Not that we would ever know, given the whole Age of Strife thing.

 

[Aurora Raven]

Are there going to be any more preambles, addendums, or interludes?

 

[FourmyleOfCeres]

Are there going to be any more preambles, addendums, or interludes?

Click to shrink...

Lord has said there are at least two interludes planned.

Edit: I have typoed Lord three different ways trying to post this. Accursed storm.

 

[TheGolden]

So if I get it right, Taylor is pretty much invulnerable right now right? Only things like Siberian, Scrub or Sting can hurt her in her costume, right?
Also, I wonder if she can take one of the armored plates and wear it in her civilian clothes like an shinguard or belt buckle. Will it protect her or what? I'm so confused

 

[Execute/Dumbo]

Probably a good idea to put some protection on the only person working for him that'll work on what he won't. Like what's he going to do if that man dies? Have agency of his own?

Click to shrink...

Impossible, Joe couldn't respond proactively to an issue if it killed him, which it very nearly did. The guy mulls like he's trying to produce industrial quantities of spiced beer.

So if I get it right, Taylor is pretty much invulnerable right now right? Only things like Siberian, Scrub or Sting can hurt her in her costume, right?
Also, I wonder if she can take one of the armored plates and wear it in her civilian clothes like an shinguard or belt buckle. Will it protect her or what? I'm so confused

Click to shrink...

Rule of thumb: Anything Joe makes by now that isn't hilariously underdesigned is practically invulnurable now, yes. Iirc Joe having multiple plates was literally just backups in case several of the nigh-indestructible self-fixing plates were ever destroyed, and for symmetry's sake.

 

[Blaflaix]

I'm not putting off magic mountain shaping powers any longer than I have to."

Click to shrink...

"Bio-transmutation is a lot more advanced."

"Wha- not those kinds of magic mountains!"

I had managed to moderate her more excessive ideas for the Undersiders costumes, but I had no doubt she'd be happy to make suggestions for expansion of the Barbarian Chic line if given the opportunity.

Click to shrink...

That's one way to control demand.

"Can you give me armor that can save my life?"

"Sure. Here."

"Can you give me armor that saves my dignity?"

"No."

"…"

"I mean, your life is more important than your dignity, right?"

"I'm thinking."

and the blessing granted supermodel level looks, possibly for no other reason than the goddess of beauty tolerating nothing less.

Click to shrink...

"And I'll give you supermodel looks too!"

"Umm, that's alright. You don't have to do that for me."

"It's not for you. I'm going to have to look at you to bless you, and I'm not going to suffer more than I have to."

 

[Mordimera]

"Finishing up the new armor for Khepri. Garment and Khepri are working on the rest of the Undersiders' costumes. I'll be dropping them off tonight before I run an errand. We can have movie night when I get back."

Click to shrink...

Uh, what? Should this be Garment and Survey or something?

 

[Image]

The fact that there is an underlying thing that Joe's life is a soap opera for his new family is hilarious. I wonder what would happen if Joe used his key at the top of Mount Olympus?

Got to visit family after all. Are there any more Goddesses left to Bless Joe? I think only Athena is left of the main crew. Also Aphrodite going 'no son of mine will look unglamorous' is low-key hilarious. I think she and Garment would get along famously or at each others throats.

 

[Cerridwen]

On the one hand, my disappointment that Aphrodite did not give Joe a beard is vast, nigh immeasurable. No self-respecting Greek goddess could call her step-son a man if he lacks a beard! Unless she super-charged its growth and he wakes up tomorrow with a beard... there's still a chance to fix this grave mistake, Lord Roust!

On the other hand, BCF make dopamine production centers go brrrr

 

[TheGolden]

On the one hand, my disappointment that Aphrodite did not give Joe a beard is vast, nigh immeasurable. No self-respecting Greek goddess could call her step-son a man if he lacks a beard! Unless she super-charged its growth and he wakes up tomorrow with a beard... there's still a chance to fix this grave mistake, Lord Roust!

On the other hand, BCF make dopamine production centers go brrrr

Click to shrink...

Not sure about that. Beards can give you viril, powerfull look but beautiful? Nah. Especially if it's Greek culture. Check, statues on men that were considered summon of beauty. Like Apollo, Paris or maybe Orpheus. No beards

 

[Koraan]

You forgot the other AI Matrix;

Click to shrink...

No, he didn't - "Golden Goo" part.

 

[AntaeusTheGiant]

I think only Athena is left of the main crew.

Click to shrink...

She was literally the first one, way back when so that we've mostly forgotten. That being said, there's still Demeter, which LordR hasn't exactly decided the blessing for yet...

 

[Transreal Cloud]

This was a fun chapter. I always like conversations with Aisha. I am a bit worried by Taylor having a bag of holding though.

Rolls Analysis:
Start 200 CP
Roll 1, 300CP Magic: missed a 20% chance of Synchronicity Event. This would have boosted all Psychic powers.
Roll 2, 400CP Vehicles: missed a 20% chance for Titan Engineering
Roll 3, 500CP Resources: Manufacturing Line (-400CP) This is a simple boost. The other options were Armsthrift, Scavenger and a 40% chance of missing.
Roll 4, 200CP Resources: Guaranteed Miss
Roll 5, 300CP Time: Guaranteed Miss
Roll 6, 400CP Quality: Minor Blessing: Aphrodite and Unnatural Skill: Runes (-300cp) 1/7 chance. We also had a 1/7 chance of Synchronicity Event as above or Mechanical Master which grants the ability to make legendary quality weapons from Borderlands. 4/7 chance to miss.

Reference doc update:
I automated the status column in unabridged list and tweaked some perk names to work with the automation.
I also discovered that Shipping the Product hadn't had the text copied in and fixed that.
I'm kinda running out of ideas for improving the reference so if anyone has requests please let me know and I'll give them serious consideration.

@Whamodyne Are you planning to update your timeline going forward?

We don't know how you get a Gate granted, but presumably your with it rather than the Gate forming as you learn more about Alchemy Theory. And even if it does form based on Knowledge, Amestrian Alchemy would still be impossible because that drew upon Father's massive underground philosopher stone. Alkahestry wouldn't care about that limitation though, so assuming Gate's aren't a requirement, or hey are a requirement but form from study rather than being an inborn thing, and assuming Truth isn't necessary to perform Alchemy; Joe would "only" be capable of teaching Aisha Alkahestry.

Click to shrink...

Actually the relevant bit is from the Jumpdoc in the endnotes
"Alchemy can be taught, but your students will lack a lot of the fundamentals you take for granted. It is a science after all, and science is only useful if you know what it does."

 

[Mesaphrom]

*Joe gets a Blessing again* You know, it really says something about Joe's love life that he gets this blessings. Then again, that's kind of a thing with all Greek gods....

It really says something about Joe and Aisha's relationship that she can joke about the Khepeiron stuff to his face and get away with it with Joe only scowling at her though, because I can see Joe getting genuinely furious if it was someone who isn't part of the workshop. Also, by the time Aisha makes her official debut as Lethe, the cape that no one remembers, Glenn will demand Costa-Brown to bring in Apeiron into PRT custody...... as a choreography instructor, because Aisha will definitely ask to teach her how to jojo pose/do a transformation sequence and make it look cool

And with Rachel having an internet presence now, I can see the day when Joe as Apeiron leave a like of her twits and videos, and everyone knowing is the real deal.

EDIT: You know, at some point I wanted there to be tech from stuff like God Eater and Arknights, then I remembered that those world's tech are a biological gray goo scenario asking to happen with the Oracle Cells for the former, and a tratable but uncurable highly contagious disease with Oripathy due to Originium reliant tech with the later. Though I would say magic casting GUNS are worth slowly becoming stone with the later.

 

[Image]

I wonder if Garment will team up with Rachel to make doggy fashion? Seems like something she would. Willing models are willing models. Not like she hasn't dealt with models of different species.

 

[Chronocidal]

On the one hand, my disappointment that Aphrodite did not give Joe a beard is vast, nigh immeasurable. No self-respecting Greek goddess could call her step-son a man if he lacks a beard! Unless she super-charged its growth and he wakes up tomorrow with a beard... there's still a chance to fix this grave mistake, Lord Roust!

Click to shrink...

Joe awoke, running his hand over his face as he sat up in bed.

Something felt… different. He stood, stretched, and strolled over to the mirror. Then he stared at himself for several seconds, in shock.

"I have a beard now. I am a tinker, with escalating technology and a magic spear, with a beard. All the Armsmaster fans are going to have a field day with this"

As he contemplated this, the Forge made another connection. Normally, the tiny mote that came with it would have been jumped on as the massive game-changer, a solution to so many problems (and raising so many new questions), but at this very moment it was the larger mote that occupied his attention: "Miniaturisation/Efficiency"

"Okay. That happened. That. Really. Just. Happened."

Armsmaster's powers. He literally had a copy of Armsmaster's exact powers. Including a sudden insight into some of the incomplete tech that the man was working on that had been partly built into his halberd at their last encounter.

"So… How would the PRT react to me dropping off a near-perfect copy of his suit and halberd, with these, erm, 'nanothorns' completed, but master-crafted as far as I can take it without adding anything he can't theoretically reproduce?"

Grinning, Joe downed a duplication potion, then him, himself, and he all got to work…

 

[Koraan]

I gave him a flat and he let out a breath.

Click to shrink...

...
Not like Apeiron, the Enigmatic Artificer, can't give someone a flat on a whim. Heck, he can build a mansion in less than a second. But I still suspect you meant "flat look".
...

Click to shrink...

I think it's because it's a flat boost, not a identical description if that makes sense?

Click to shrink...

For some time I tried to puzzle what did you mean here... And only now I got that you talked about Manufacturing Line, not a "flat look" part.

You may consider quoting only relevant parts of the post.

 

[The Shallow]

Joe would "only" be capable of teaching Aisha Alkahestry.

So still a pretty good deal overall. There's a lot of If's there though.

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This has already been covered, but I wanted to say that Alkahestry and Alchemy are INSANELY similar, being two specializations/mutatutions of the same core art of Xerxesian Alchemy. The big difference seems to be what energy they draw from, but Ki/Chi/The Dragon's Pulse is a lot better than Geological Activity anyways, so meh personally. Also, Scar's brother managed to seamlessly combine them, so I think Joe would be fine, especially with Unnatural Skill: Alchemy.

 

[NotInventedHere]

I don't think I'm missing any major story points in not understanding this; but what's a CMV?

The first page of Google results are about the Cytomegalovirus, and acronym finder doesn't have anything else that makes more sense in context.

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I think that it's the Wormverse equivalent of an AMV (anime music video) as something like 'cartoon music video', presumably because the destruction of most of Japan in the Wormverse has destroyed the anime industry.

 

[MangoFlan]

She was literally the first one, way back when so that we've mostly forgotten. That being said, there's still Demeter, which LordR hasn't exactly decided the blessing for yet...

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Considering that from what I know, Demeter is an agricultural goddess, it would be safe to bet on some sort of aptitude for cultivating plants.

I think the next on the divine chopping block is: Hermes, Apollo, Dionysus, Hades, Persephone, Poseidon, Pan; before we have to resort to more niche gods like Asclepius, Kratos, and Tyche. I don't think the muses would count as gods.

Hermes would probably give some sort of better speaking ability rather than running ability. Apollo could grant better music ability or maybe precognition. Dionysus, faster fermentation maybe. Hades would probably give earth sense or something. Persephone, I don't know. Poseidon either water bending or horseback riding.

 

[JoshuaSweetvale]

"I can rub my hands together and R&D happens."
9 1/2 words that will make Armsmaster lunge across the table to strangle you.

As crafting synergies stack they approach omnipotence asymptotically.