That would be really helpful! The chapter titles only being numbers really makes it difficult to find anything.
I think they were right at the age of awakening (13-15 if the same as the Empire) when they first appeared in the story so they should be younger than Matt.It looks like the first life is the hardest to break out of, just in general.
...and now I find myself wondering - how old are the rune kids? How many years do they have under their belts?
I am surprised that reflected lives aren't being used and exploited. Unlike the crafting trial you seem to retain full memories of the experience, and after you regain your sense of self, you can assert control. You don't get skills from inside the reflected life, and likely AI knowledge is not retained too, but memories still seem fairly detailed. So, for example in Matt's guild life, he could spend a hundred years abusing his AI to create new rune designs. It's also surprising that there's not Imperial policy for "we are a MInkala's reflected life iteration, let's exploit this reality for the benefit of the prime one".
If he'd switched away from cooking to runes when he woke up wouldnt that have hurt his developing food concept.
For one thing, it would probably be difficult for Matt to prove and convince everybody that they and the world they live in are all fake.It's also surprising that there's not Imperial policy for "we are a MInkala's reflected life iteration, let's exploit this reality for the benefit of the prime one".
I mean the test is about experiencing different perspectives to create a new concept. It's a waking dream not dimensional travel. Is it worth diverting away from the path meant to create and empower your new concept to focus on runes when Liz mentioned she didn't know if her blood runes would work in real life.
the concept the life is meant to develop is based around the life the place creates. which means that being a leader and mage probably helped develop a concept that can share his cultivation.
I'm pretty sure you can only nudge things. A voice a the back of your mind that goes "Hey, make sure to write your parents". They can't take direct control like that, or you basically "succeed" and get kicked out of that life.I am surprised that reflected lives aren't being used and exploited. Unlike the crafting trial you seem to retain full memories of the experience, and after you regain your sense of self, you can assert control. You don't get skills from inside the reflected life, and likely AI knowledge is not retained too, but memories still seem fairly detailed. So, for example in Matt's guild life, he could spend a hundred years abusing his AI to create new rune designs. It's also surprising that there's not Imperial policy for "we are a MInkala's reflected life iteration, let's exploit this reality for the benefit of the prime one".
I'm pretty sure you can only nudge things. A voice a the back of your mind that goes "Hey, make sure to write your parents". They can't take direct control like that, or you basically "succeed" and get kicked out of that life.
This implies quite strongly that you can take control if you want to.Now that he was in control, he could delay the life a little by prolonging the time until he hit Tier 15, but Matt didn't choose to do so. Nor did he choose to rush to Tier 15 and end the life either.
Instead, he took a back seat during the remaining two hundred years while Chef Matt lived his life.
The only times he took over and interfered directly was when he talked to his parents.
Those moments were just too precious for him to pass up, and he ensured that Chef Matt met up with them at least once a year, just so he could bask in their presence just a moment longer.
Both those options could be done by subtle nudges.This implies quite strongly that you can take control if you want to.
Word of God on the Discord is you can't get Folded Realities in a Minkala run in a Folded Realities Life.The simplest explanation for the issue would be that reflected life realities don't have MInkala in them. It's a simple change, and it would prevent recursive Minkala exploit, as well as all others.
Liz has issues with herself. It seems pretty clear that, at core, she's not naturally a particularly good person, who's managed to stumble into a life where, following Matt's lead, she can basically be a "good person" anyway. She represses lots of herself, and has very particular ideas about who she is that aren't all that accurate, and that she carefully doesn't examine. Her entire self-image is very brittle, and as soon as she gets shifted out of the niche that she's carefully set up for herself, it gets badly disrupted.Whoever said that the alternate lives would hit Liz the hardest was absolutely correct. I wonder why she had so many difficult lives, compared to the others. Maybe Minkalla thought that she was avoiding her issues more than the others and decided to "forge" her by making her face them?
I would take it with a large grain of salt. It's not so much that she's by nature a bad person, it's that she's worried about being a bad person, because blood mages are either healers or huge monsters, and she finds neither of those actions attractive. So Minkalla showed her as a proper Blood Mage monster, various versions of blood mages that aren't (even if they're not nice), and as the fire mage she could've been if not for her talent.Liz has issues with herself. It seems pretty clear that, at core, she's not naturally a particularly good person, who's managed to stumble into a life where, following Matt's lead, she can basically be a "good person" anyway. She represses lots of herself, and has very particular ideas about who she is that aren't all that accurate, and that she carefully doesn't examine. Her entire self-image is very brittle, and as soon as she gets shifted out of the niche that she's carefully set up for herself, it gets badly disrupted.
Like, they're not even terrible people or anything. The Blood Contract lady wasn't mistreating her employees - that would be stupid. I'm quite certain that she was aware of the value of loyalty and how to go about ensuring that she received it. It just wasn't at all the Liz that Liz has convinced herself that she is. The Blood Queen was similar.
That whole "live your fantasy life" test was a pretty obvious sign here, after all. When freed of the constraints that she desperately wants to be freed of, Liz just isn't particularly nice.
I don't really see Liz as being a worse person than Matt or Queen. Matt likes helping people in the abstract and when he feels sympathetic to their situation, but he's not particularly empathetic to the people he's dealing with directly (a lot like me so I'm not blaming him for it). He's also the one who beat up someone for information they didn't have back during the disappearances investigation. During the challenge room, his ideal life had him above everyone else with no one allowed to go against him. I'm glad that we got a scene of how much he cares for Liz in the latest update because it felt wrong that she was missing from his ideal life.Liz has issues with herself. It seems pretty clear that, at core, she's not naturally a particularly good person, who's managed to stumble into a life where, following Matt's lead, she can basically be a "good person" anyway. She represses lots of herself, and has very particular ideas about who she is that aren't all that accurate, and that she carefully doesn't examine. Her entire self-image is very brittle, and as soon as she gets shifted out of the niche that she's carefully set up for herself, it gets badly disrupted.
Like, they're not even terrible people or anything. The Blood Contract lady wasn't mistreating her employees - that would be stupid. I'm quite certain that she was aware of the value of loyalty and how to go about ensuring that she received it. It just wasn't at all the Liz that Liz has convinced herself that she is. The Blood Queen was similar.
That whole "live your fantasy life" test was a pretty obvious sign here, after all. When freed of the constraints that she desperately wants to be freed of, Liz just isn't particularly nice.
I don't really see Liz as being a worse person than Matt or Queen.
Paladin is bound to have an Armour concept. Which has been buffed multiple times. Plus she's happy because her Armour bonded and she got extra powers for it, more is extra cake but every floor reward is good.
It was more that the floor itself is going to be a serious hassle for her to deal with, given that it turns off her entire schtick. Admittedly, it's true that there are enough floors like that they'll have some sort of responses on hand.Paladin is bound to have an Armour concept. Which has been buffed multiple times. Plus she's happy because her Armour bonded and she got extra powers for it, more is extra cake but every floor reward is good.
The author said in the comments that whether additional Concept abilities get the discount depends on how closely they're related to the person's core Concept. However, the vast majority of the additional abilities are connected so I'm expecting most of them to be boosted to various extents.- Matt's repulsion power is going to get terrifying. Just in general, though level 7 Mind over Matter after a level 6 Folded Reflections is very strong, especially since the willpower discount strongly applies to any additional concept abilities gained in Minkalla.
Okay, so the quote on the matter from the text of the fic itself: "If that weren't enough, according to some of Carol's further explanations about the floor, it also strongly applied to any additional abilities which Minkalla granted to their Concepts, provided they were close enough to some of the original abilities."The author said in the comments that whether additional Concept abilities get the discount depends on how closely they're related to the person's core Concept. However, the vast majority of the additional abilities are connected so I'm expecting most of them to be boosted to various extents.
I'm really surprised. I thought that the last floor would be Blood is Thicker for sure, in part because that would boost Matt's group over many other groups on the floor, which would help justify them staying at Tier 11. However, someone pointed out in the comments that they might not have healing cooldowns any more so I'm now wondering how dealing damage and healing works with the "spiritual" versions of people. Is it all just clashing Concepts?