Chapter 38

I think he should certainly train fighting as a secondary occupation - he can wear armour and metal weapons, after all, unlike most mages - but right now, he's too squishy. In the future, of course, he'll be able to enhance his strength by 300 or so for a few seconds and unleash a devastating strike. But that will work best if it's a surprise for the enemy that he can do this. I think it would be best for him to focus on parrying, dodging and blocking, and let his auras do the fighting for the most part. That'll reduce the risk of taking elemental damage he hasn't got a ward for.

Elaborate

I hope Rain becomes more of a physical fighter than purely magic.

There is a million applications to the Force ward *Fall damage? *Boss Fight (One strong enemy) *Enemies with strong defense compared to attack With all this, force ward is preferable to any other aura mc can deploy right now.

8Psycho

You can put them in your comments however you would like. :)

SenescentSoul

Yeah, from now on, if I don't capitalize a skill name, it counts as a typo. [Brackets] break up the flow of the text a bit too much for my taste. My brain reads them as a pause for whatever reason. I think I only used them in one place, namely kill dialogs.

SenescentSoul

I assumed Val meant that nine parts in ten of his current mana regen was because of the boost. Which did confuse me, too, because then it ought to be eight parts of nine.

Elaborate

Since Rain has decided to capitalize technique names, and presumably Skills, I assume that's now your preferred way for us to present them in our comments? What's your thought on bracketing them like: [Skill Name]?

Elaborate

Hm, would a [Force Ward] soak damage before or after it hits the armour?

Elaborate

Hm, I like the [Force Ward] skill, but... Until he has [Prismatic Intent], there are very few situations where Rain would use it. In a monster attack, he'd want to use [Refrigerate] or pulse [Velocity] to keep the monsters from attacking in the first place. Monster long-ranged attacks are likely to be elemental in nature, too, so... The situations where he'd want to use it, as far as I can figure, are: *When there's a risk of cave-in *Stand-off with human archers *Talking to a warrior who might suddenly attack. *As a standby spell when his mana is full, in case of sudden ambush, because it doesn't take any mana. It might still be worth it for that last one, though...

Elaborate

I'm loving everything so far, thanks for the chapters! Can't wait to see what happens next. I'll admit some of the math concepts go over my head but I love that the main character can do the math and shows an enthusiasm for it. It's great.

Yashakami

Loving the math, keep doing what you're doing senescent.

It’s all about balance... Which I think is handled quite well. Even the math heavy chapters have equal word count with character moments to break up the monotony. Personally my concerns are the number of blue screens per chapter, especially when someone is binge reading all existing chapters. I remember thinking that where was a lot of repetition in them. On the other hand, that repetition is great when it’s been a few days since last chapter.

Chymor

There are very few other stories that have such a focus on the MC trying to figure out the numbers behind the system, its what I love about this story and what keeps it unique.

I love the math

GrayReader

Ah, now I understand. I was still at nine parts of ten (which sounded more like a boost than a multiplier)

Oliverthms

It is a "boost" of 800%. So if your mana regen was 1, it becomes 9-> (1+1*8). Boost -> 8 | Multiplier -> 9

SenescentSoul

Why ist it nine anyway? Shouldn't it be more like Manitude eight or ist it the absence of zero that is schifting the numbers somehow?

Oliverthms

You are correct. Changed to "Magnitude nine". Thanks!

SenescentSoul

Hi, on your latest two chapters you say once that winter does a 813% boost to M.Regen (ch.37) and in the next its says an increase of nine parts in ten (~90%)(ch.38). I'm a bit confused... And thanks fo the chapter!

Oliverthms

Just a heads up for senescent that not everyone thinks this. Your focus on math is what makes this story distinct, there are enough stories that hand wave it or make the story and magic system fully submit to the rule of cool.

Mage is common, non-monolithic class. There is 100% exists rare mono-focus class. It is not certain that it will give 300% bonus, but there are no bad options... But let's consider Mage, measly common Class lvl 18: With even focus/clarity split it will put him at 10k mana 5.5k reg. Is it not good enough? It's 3-10 times less mp for training, 3-10(?) times more efficient damage output.

8Psycho

I don't think there's been any confirmation that there is a pure Focus class. My own impression was that the monolithic classes were only for the three regen stats: Recovery, Vigor, and Clarity. If you want to boost Focus, you have the 50% boost from the Mage class.

11037

Combat exp is important tho, as Rain demonstrated with kin. Anyone at level 18 can likely spare few thousand of mana/stamina per day for training. Example: If rain only took focus, he will still regenerate 9.3k mana per day(of 36k total, considering pure focus class gives 300% bonus). There is likely exist other methods of mana regeneration too. RanaSuilep You are correct, but I do not think the party has considered that. The number of skills is also not really a factor. There is only one skill per level after all.

8Psycho

Truck Driver... so I have lots of time to think on the road. First. Math is not entertaining. It's necessary perhaps...but not enjoyable. Second- Math enhances a story; but it should never 'make' the story. Seriously- when you brought up Zero... I thought the title should be changed too "My love of Math in Fantasy World ("and those who don't are stupid") 3. If you took out all math (and references); just simplified it without detail... do you still have 90% left? If the answer is no... too much math. 4. Same goes for time spent on math vs writing!! It wasn't your statistical analysis that convinced me you were worth $5/mo... but it will absolutely make me quit if you keep it up!~ see #1

Silver Beard

The exp gap to level cap is not that wide up to about this point. Once past level 20 the large number of skills and the exponential level curve will make maxing out harder. It isn’t like others can’t do it but the constant and large amount of exp that Rain can generate. This should be more appearent once he gets a new cap since for him experience is measured in hours and maybe days compared to other peoples weeks and months.

RanaSuilep

There's also the point that this is all non-combat experience, which means he doesn't have to risk his life for it. Even if you could level at the same pace by facing hordes of monsters everyday, getting levels for "free" like this would certainly be preferable.

11037

I'm simply pointing out that it's certainly plausible that his leveling speed is very high compared to normal, which is all that really matters. As for benefits, he's not just raising levels, he's also raising skills much faster because they level based on use, and you can use them more with more mana. He's reached his level cap in weeks instead of years.

11037

My main point tho, what good is leveling speed anyway??

8Psycho

Wow. For someone who never saw a glimpse of mage or fighter build, you sure do seem confident. Where does mage use his skill points, please tell me.

8Psycho

No he really is leveling insanely fast compared to them. Let's compare Rain to a standard Mage class. Rain's class multiplies mana regen by 3. His base clarity is likely at least 3 times higher than a sane mage's. Winter aura now boosts his mana regen 9 times higher. So even if a standard mage had Intrinsic Clarity and Magical Synergy, Rain is STILL regenerating more than 50 times the mana they are. You mention stamina for warriors, but in this system stamina also has a super slow default regen, so the same issues apply.

11037

You underestimate standard level up speed, normal adventurers live by the sword, use their sytamina living active lifestyle, killing monsters. While they do not rise 3 levels per day, if they put their mind to it levels are not hard to come by.

8Psycho

Fixed, thanks.

SenescentSoul

to sooth -> soothe

Elaborate

it is not about the level cap, it is about them taking years to level themselves then also same years leveling their skills , while his rare monolith rare class he is leveling in days because of crazy mp regain and use

I think party should not really be that surprised or envious about MC's progress. A bit of overreaction. He was just lucky with the essence beast. It is note like mc brokee any kind of common sense or cheated or even especially strong for his level... His build seems to be of a kind that blooms slowly.

8Psycho

me four, that is odd

Thaabit Rivertree

This is the third time he's started to ask about parties and either switched subjects or been cut off. It seems the universe just doesn't want him to know. Maybe there's some amazing secret in that bit of knowledge. Like if you had to be "invited" to a party, that would have interesting implications for Rain since he never was. Or maybe he'll find out too late he was kicked from the party for being a show off. :P

11037

Same Lol

DominusIgnis

me three, still holding out hope for a azarinth chapter today

L Pedersen

Me too, odd.

DominusIgnis

Yay! I look forward to Delve and Azarinth Healer the most these days. Keep up the good work!

Yshua

This one too, thanks

SenescentSoul

Got it, thanks

SenescentSoul

Thanks for the chapter cant wait for the next.

Zed

Hm, it might be reasonable to take a trip to the Democratic Kingdoms later. It's in Rain's interest that the Empire loses the war, and with his Winter Aura, he can help without going into combat personally, just working as a mana battery in a city to let mages train their skills faster. Probably better to get to level 25 first, so he can defend himself a bit better.

Elaborate

intensity in size -> and

Elaborate

watching the purifying wave strip grime from the streets and the buildings would be extremely satiating -> satisfying

Elaborate

Good world building/pacing chapter. At least you are setting up this Stavvo as a 2-5 chapter arc about the setting. Please don’t do that off screen. The build up to answers would make the non action arc worth it and set the foundation for things to come. Rain needs to pulse his other auras to level them and IFF as well as to check for environmental blowback. Since he is interested in the city/watch he can have a nice adult moment by apologizing to the guild leader for causing problems. Also he thought on it earlier but knowing how dangerous extra ring/item health is important. There has to be a reason not everyone is wearing some bling bling. Keep up the pace, we believe in you!!!!

RanaSuilep

I will probably change it to that, once I slay the HTML dragon. The light blue was just a random pick of a color wheel, and it has lingered deep in the formatting for ages now. It survived the switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice, and now Scrivener. There are issues with how things show up in RoyalRoad when I change how it is formatted, so I have been avoiding touching it.

SenescentSoul

If you are already planning on fighting the table format, I'll just put in that I prefer the color scheme as it appears on RR.

Pyrefiend

I am cool with this chapter. Some good world building. Interesting to see who the Democratic Kingdom is

Chris Bridgeman

If you're going to use scrivener I would love it if you could upload all your chapters in kindle format (.mobi) because I prefer to read on my phone

Yup, I hear you. This is character stuff and world-building. Next time on Delve: plot.

SenescentSoul

I'm not sure about this chapter. I hate to be negative because I really love this story but couldn't this entire chapter be summerized to "they walked down the road, minor info dump"? I like the different POV but it feels like nothing really happened in the chapter. Remeber though, you're the author, it's your story, you have the right to ignore the fuck out of some random guy on the internet, I love you, please don't let me influence you against your will.

L Pedersen

Your welcome. Also I am loving the mono stat build. If it is planned I wonder about that health regen guy. They mentioned before.

Roderick McKinney

Thanks!

SenescentSoul

Hello. Noticed 2 typos Cutting Val "off" mid-sentence. it's "a good" thing carten remembered to bring it. Thank you for the chapter.

Roderick McKinney