175

What does SIGINT mean in this context?

PrimalShadow

And here I was sure he'd unlock some surprise class for having all those skill trees unlocked.

Meerschaum

Wish I would have held off on reading Delve for another week or so. That said, I'm excited for the class reveal

Regi Nettey

I read it just now, so I am going to sleep knowing I will find out in the morning hehe

humaenist

Seeing this kinda makes me think Silver/Gold plates can actually do things like that. We know things like skills/crysts/accolades are all generated from the raw essence in dungeon cores right? What if a Silver/Gold plate saves up an equivalent amount and intentionally invokes an override targeting a junior Bronze plate asking the system for a skill reset? Or a level increase like you said? The old school Majistraal awakened would probably never do this since they all wanted to get to platinum as soon as possible, but our infinitely generous MC might be willing to donate some of his pure essence to other members of Ascension. It would also call into question what unique override codes a Custodian might have, seeing as they would have needed to keep the peace in platinum+ Avengers-level conflicts.

Starless

Damn, I'm glad I waited to read this but I should have waited another day or so... I'm curious if gold override changes his max level or if that's still from the highest blue he fought

RottenTangerine

If him creating essence is cultivating, then him surviving his class change is him beating a heavenly tribulation.

Harley Shockley

I wanted to wait to read this so I would not be stuck on the cliffhanger but I have no willpower. Great chapter but now I have to wait a little over 48 hours to read the next one so that I can get the details on the class and the state of his soul. I did the same thing with Dimension 20 The Seven. I wanted to wait and binge but I was there every week. TFTC and see you next time.

Michael Hughes

The whole core of the world system in the depths below theory makes me wonder if Shift changes on the surface might be caused by the world system expanding/re-establishing control there. Like the whole surface used to be much higher level in Rank but whatever wiped out the Majistraal also damaged the area enough to lower the zone Rank; sort of like how the Warden/Fecht can break reality. Also betting the Guild, Empire, Watch, and Bank all control at least one Majistraal base in the depths below.

Atlas Dwarf

Even stalin wouldn’t have dreamed such a landslide of an approval rating !

Thenais

Controversial opinion: I actually really like the soul stuff :)

John Cena

I'm kinda surprised at the name as well. Seems like the Majistraal were eavesdropping when Rain was goofing off in engineering. I wonder if it would be worth it if Rain took some time to sit down and intentionally teach the system advanced concepts related to math/science that have not been discovered yet.

Starless

Engine of Change class. Sounds like more than legendary. Haha

Jan Alexander

Heck yeah! Fantastic chapter! I *think* I know what the errors were from- it's his non-standard soul, and it's probably because he wasn't born on this world and had no guide. "Warning: Unexpected Structure" probably refers to his Bastion and all the work he did, and the system was unable to scan it because of his own hybrid interface (which prevented direct interface with the system). "Extrapolating parameters using Bronze modeling…" which it couldn't do, because his soul structures didn't match anything the system thought he could have. "Contacting guide… [Error: Not Found]" he had no guide, and the system couldn't recover a guide for him because he didn't have one. At the end, the system said, "Hybrid Interface Terminated." That could just mean that the Hybrid Interface just up and quit due to excessive damage. He'll probably have to repair it, along with some serious work on his Bastion. I thoroughly interested to see how it all turns out in a week ;-P

Randall Klatt

holy crap! so glad i didn't rush into reading this chapter, gives me a slightly shorter wait! i can't wait to know more!

stubs

The true method is probably to build on your core, not around it. Changes made to the core manifest in reality, so that's prolly how the OG awakened did things. There's no need for the system to super squeeze monster essence into the core if trainees are diligently expanding it naturally with their daily purified essence gains. S'prolly why the daily soul squeeze isn't strong enough to level people, it's only ment to apply, specifically, the pure essence applied to the core the previous day. Huh, I'm kinda shocked I didn't realize this sooner.

Starless

This is really cool, great payoff. Can't wait to read more next week.

Eliot Blane

Okay, so let's go through some of the interesting parts of that message. Global System Link gives a yellow protocol warning. This could be saying his hybrid interface is talking to the global system, but its protocol is non-standard. The alert for Precocious Core Formation is Green, so it sounds like his early core is treated as a pleasant surprise. Soul Fragmentation gives a Scan Error. Below, we see it detects an unidentified structure but fails to scan it, which is the most interesting error to me. Because it modeled Rain as a standard Bronze, it detected the integrity problems and determined the upgrade would likely crush his core. The Scan Failure means it failed to realize the unidentified structure provided unmodeled reinforcement, though, so that makes sense. Rain's engineering efforts paid off and saved his life, prompting an analysis by the System, which also failed. There is no Guide, and no Administrator, but those seem like questions that can't be answered now. So, my big question is: Why did the scan fail on a precocious Bronze when it was probably built to handle Platinums, and was the modeling failure solely explained by it failing to scan his internal structural reinforcement, or is there something else (beyond Dozer) ?

Alec

I do love system soul shenanigans.

SunderGoldmane

Huh. I can totally see that now that I read this. Looks like ascensions gonna get some more awakened ^^

SightandSound

Thanks for the chapter. Hope the new class is extra broken.

Joshua Little

Hopefully Rain told his company of heroes to prepare for all-out-war, cuz that essence blowout is going to attract monsters and essence monsters the likes of which the world has never seen.

Starless

I think a lot of your theories aren't really supported by the pace Senescent writes at. We only see incremental increases, even when everything has been broken. The way I read that evolution was that the system noticed his paying was broken and stated the chance of evolution success without breakage was high, then it proceeded anyway. It didn't see the bastion, or didn't have the code to assess the bastion, so it just went on and did the evolution with a gold override. The gold override is only to get past the resistance it was feeling, but the system wasn't trying to fix his paling so it will remain broken. We heard a bunch of stuff break and then the evolution worked, making me think the evolution crushed his bastion and he now has to go in and repair it.

Sean

I was kind of hoping he'd unlock some sort of legendary or hidden aura class too. I think the closest he got was remedial aura meta mage? Given how strict the requirements are for legendary classes though, he'd have probably needed to have literally nothing but aura skills to unlock that, and he's got some generic meta magic passives too.

Stormlock

To be honest I'm a little bit disappointed that there was no other interesting class choices, like legendary aura user. SIGINT is also not describing the emergency of the situation, why not sigterm or sigkill (system tried a sigkill on him though) 😂 Nice chapter, hopefully he can learn more about the soul formations from his companions. Thanks for the chapter

Umut Numanoglu

Maybe the next time someone does a class change, Rain can pay particularly close attention to when the global link forms, and what direction it goes. He mentioned in the past that it's difficult to see the links unless you're specifically looking for them, so knowing a link engages at the moment of class advancement could be the key to finding the Depths Beyond.

Starless

Fixed, thanks!

SenescentSoul

Small typo: (...) thinking the knifes were trying to infiltrate the camp of something (...) Should be 'or something'.

Cirvante

For thy temerity, may the Straal honor thee in the Depths Beyond Whole chapter was awesome, but this line in particular was just above and beyond.

SquidTheJim

Excellent chapter. Loved the build up and the cliff was well done. If you do a POV switch next chapter without giving us some payoff I will be beyond annoyed.

william wallace

311 - 0 . I think this chapter might be popular.

Stormlock

Seeing as platinum is where oversoul generally starts, thinking of them as problems rather than a head start is probably the wrong way to think of it. Yes it happens to cause at backs, but if he's doing shit that plats normally TRY to do, then it's probably worth it

ZaA

It’s happening! Extremely well executed. I always love the system command line printouts. Especially the Error: Bone. You love to see that one as a user. Good luck on the next one, we’re all looking forward to it! I know you probably won’t, especially given the timing, but you can take a week off to replentish backlog if you need to. Consistency is important, but life stuff and mental state are too. Love ya, keep it up!

There are a lot of interesting tidbits in here! 1) Rain is still connected to his hybrid interface he made while working with the Majistraal barrier stone. They also mention that it is part of a global system link. 2) The guide seems to be a system function to help you learn about your soul and help you when you do something wrong. It should be someone who knows you intimately and they must be from this world. (and likely dead) It looks like having no guide is an unforeseen system error. 3) There is no current system administrator 4) "For thy temerity, may the Straal honor thee in the Depths Beyond" I suspect that the system itself was created by the Majistraal to help their trainees. This would explain the reference to "natural skills" and skill templates. That all the powers could be learned outside the system. It would just be far more difficult. So the system is there like training wheels for everyone who starts down that path. Which is why the earliest skills do things like give you knowledge directly and abilities that need to be trained over time. While the further you progress through the ranks you get more flexibility in how you use the skills, but you also need deeper knowledge and skill to use them properly. That over time the training wheels come off and you can use your system interface and skills in your own unique way. Also I have been wondering what is up with there being a teleport pad in Brightside? The Majistraal had some kind of base there for some reason? This, plus not being a true member until you're platinum, leads me to suspect that there are important Majistraal strongholds in the deepest depths. And if you get to the lowest one, that might be where the core of the world wide system is held. The creation or control of that system could be what lead to the civil war and destruction of that super advanced and powerful society.

Justin

It specifically said, “may the Straal honor thee in the Depths Beyond.” I’m gonna guess this means the Straal system is based out of the center of the depths. Maybe Rain has to reach the core at the center of the Depths to get administer access??

Noah

I haven't seen anyone mention this yet, but Depths Beyond was capitalized in that message from the Straal. Might be a legit clue in finding out what happened to them.

Starless

"Backlog status: Still 0!" look on the bright side, 0! = 1

Ikawaii

Great chapter! A time skip plus real, solid progress is awesome. That said, for the love of all that's holy, please let this be the end of Rain's trouble with his soul. Please?

Jon

If this is the kind of chapter we get when there is no chapter stockpile, I don't want the stockpile to come back.

theblackhawk22

The steam engine is older than the internal combustion engine.

Jeremiah

Mmmm yes give me the log in meatspace

Alexander Dupree

The divergence is in the predictive model the system had for what was going to happen. Namely, it can be summed up as, "oh you gonna die." That didn't happen, so the system was trying to figure out what caused the divergence from prediction and reality.

Ziggy

They got cryst coupons

Doodlyboy15

Loving this. Nice pick on the title of the new class name--Engine of Change is very fitting and will likely seem like a strange title to people in the new reality Rain lives in. :D

Dee

Is there a way to get batches of the pdfs? I want to do a re read soon

Andrew Goudie

"Awake, and Getting. Shit. Done" ;P It was feeling a little strange reading when he talk about MONTHS/WEEKS here and here in the times skips like its forever when it is just 600km they have to go (they not here after 80 days?), i think its better use more exact number here (number on the weeks and months because its what 78 days? in total instead of being vague about it like its MONTHS passed Its a little detail but it bothered me a little in reading this part Also not a peep about the second group who awakened? and what accolade they get when they fucked the lair? a line or two added about it will be great i think The rest is AWESOME ;) So the system identifie and scanned his construct and system he use and tryed to incorpore it/connect, like i said at the previous chapter, its maybe time he try to really connect with his system or wathever he have into the Original/True system and all this seem to be in the wall in the palling, we only see him talking about checking fast what material it is not him trying to connect and scan in deep and searching the auto-mechanisme who are sure to be in for get acces and maybe hack and get infos or gain control about the surely auto-repair and etc in He really need to dig in this, and now he get another reminder about it here, its a system, he just need to get acces to it and work on it after, (get infos and maybe hack and get acces) and in his soul the only thing where the mechanisme/automatisme/system is in the palling/wall, its in, it has to be, the wall have automatisme so mechanisme are in, so its time to really study it and try to connect into it in the "physical" way on his soul

Zarik0

Hmm did he ever consider that his auras might light up the whole place and everyone in it because of complications?

Deinos

If Tier 4 Utility Auras includes a Clarity boosting aura, he should put points into that and Empire of Will. Based on what we've been told about stat boost tolerances at Silver, he should be able to manage 3000 points in both Focus and Clarity, which with his other skills would massively increase his damage, staying power, and recovery rate.

Tohron

Ah, you're so mean, I love it; Can't wait for next week, and the class crunch. That being said, if you need to take a week or so off to rest, and recuperate your backlog, please don't hesitate to do so; Better a delay in chapters, than risking you burn out.

Mr Mouse

lol

Tomer Yud

Yeah that's what I'm worried about as well. It's important for a good story that characters have setbacks to temper them. But too many setbacks and failures and not enough successes and you just get a dead character. Staying alive despite failing at every turn is as unrealistic as not having any failures at all. For a while it seemed like one of Rain's unique quirks would be his ability to macro and run abilities while asleep but it seems like that might be gone now. I really hope not but we'll see.

L Pedersen

Its a good chapter but I really hope it doesn't result in another one of those "2 steps back for every 1 forward" type deals...

tibbish

Rain is definitely using two skill points on prismatic intent and ethereal aura but what else? I wonder if Rain will be able to double (or even more) cast the same aura with prismatic intent? Being able to do that will bring his mana generation even higher with even more winter. Then he can be a truly unstoppable engine of change that grinds all who challenge him to dust by outlasting them. Ethereal aura (if I remember the skill description correctly) doesn’t just make it so that he (and anyone he doesn’t want fried with IFF) doesn’t fry himself but also makes the aura travel more quickly through the environment and obstacles (thus essentially, theoretically, bypassing any protection the enemies metal armor may give them). Auras are already very good at bypassing metal armor so ethereal aura should be even better. What is great about those specializations is that he can now train all of his maxed skills again since they have a new cap (was it a new cap of plus 5, thus 15?). Elemental kata is a strong contender for a choice due to being able to quickly recharge lairs (maybe even improving elemental auras somehow) and thus making essence monster spawning and farming much easier (they can even try seeing what happens when dust, cloud, nibs and maybe dozer kill an essence monster as they would have copious blues from engine of change Captain Rain pumping them out). Manasight would be nice too (can be used with detection so there is that). But ultimately the choices will have to wait until he unlocks the tier 4 skills of his 5 main trees (excluding prismatic and ethereal)

Conor McGroarty

That. Was. AWESOME I wonder, it says "Divergence : extreme" for his evolution, is his class even more unique than it should have been ?

CentaureHeart

i personally feel like the only reason he survived at all was because of the work he put into the bastion, in retrospect that is damn impressive

Boohya

Well I'm a bit torn. On the one hand I'm thrilled that he's finally past the wall. On the other, it seems like a LOT of his recent improvement with his soul and his scripts and what not just went down the drain. We had so many chapters about him working on Bastion and now it's "Scrunched like a ball of tinfoil". I guess we'll see in the next chapter but right now I feel pretty conflicted. I was never a big fan of the soul stuff, it felt like it belonged to a different genre but that doesn't mean I want to see Rain's progress wiped away because of plot.

L Pedersen

Oh boy, I wonder how many people will join Patreon on RR when this chapter finally drops.

SecretsOfTheVoid

I Don't think Rain revived Dozer. I think he spawned naturally as an essence slime due to the vast amount of concentrated essence in Rain's soul. Similar to how chemical slimes spawn in areas of heavy chemical mana concentrations.

Starless

Wonder why revive bound monster wasn't listed among corrupted natural skills, after all Rain sucessfully revived Dozer. Maybe it's only natural, but not corrupted?

Veritas Dolor

Also "Engine of Change" is interesting in it's anachronism. The idea of an "engine" as a motivating force spun out of the internal combustion engine. Before that the word referred to siege weapons. So the system might be pulling these terms out of his head, or the Straal had much more conventional tech then we've seen so far.

John Pratt

Hmm, with that gold rank override I kind of think the whole bastion was crunched down into making a big old core. So he might have a gold rank core with a level 30 Paling. Either his Paling issue is perfectly solved or is unsolvable, I'm leaning towards the former. I'd guess that at gold rank it becomes possible to replace the Paling with soul formations, but Rain has been doing that already. Maybe the system tried to preserve Rains soul by crushing his Paling right down to his core and integrating the two, something that can happen at gold, but has to happen at platinum. Does Rain still have a level cap? Maybe he can do the work of expanding his cap on his own now, maybe he can figure out how to expand the cap of other people. That would be an empire forming OP ability.

John Pratt

So much this!

Timothy Alexander

I've noticed for a while now the system always responds to actions/queries with meaningful success/error/warning messages. It's just that most of the time the host has no way of seeing them. Maybe the next soul window Rain should get is an error log he can see in meatspace.

Starless

so, did he kill the baby with his soul outburst ?

Thenais

The quote has the phrase "may the Straal", which could easily have been misinterpreted as Majistraal if someone heard it and didn't know the language. So, is that coincidence, or did someone hear this before and use it to name a civilization? And in that case, does that mean that whoever created the system was an English speaker?

Ross

I am rock hard

Gabe

Because I messed up! Fixed now, thanks! xD

SenescentSoul

Now that Rain knows there's a vacancy, perhaps he can apply!

JC

Good stuff!

Blind

Goddamnit Tallheart :D

SightandSound

Why his Core Rank was 24 and not 25? He had Core Rank 18 during Obelisk Incident, and it was equal to his level.

Михаил Никитин

He just needs to find it and become root like the other one, right?

Matt Venzke

Awesome, riveting And So Many details to unpack 🤩

Jeppe Fiig

This is a good one. Been a long time coming.

Dylan K

Engine of Change?? This is gonna be good

Bloodorange17

Worth the wait! Good Chapter!

Dan Weiss

A global computer with access to everyone's soul has no administrator. A nightmare scenario

Joe ?

Have we heard of the Straal before? I imagine it’s connected to the Majistraal

Matt

Make that 79.

ZCochraine!%

100% thumbs up at 69 voters is quite the nice accomplishment

Ranzbart

The sys admins seem to be the majiestral (or however you spell them)

Monus

Many thanks. This was quite enjoyable

Dragonkinn

If you need to take a week off then take a week off, please let us know ahead of timed if that is happening. :) Edit: Now that I have actually read the chapter. Holy Shit that evolution was epic, um maybe take the week after next off :P

mallix

Was waiting for this chapter for ages. I love it

LEMON

Aren't all the slime essence slimes?

Alexander Dupree

Ho Lee shit. This is awesome

Alexander Dupree

goddammit this is too good. waiting for next sunday is going to be torture.

Ranzbart

Ok I'm hyped to see what the next chapter covers. Good luck SenescentSoul lol.

Robert

Even halfway through I could feel it. This chapter beats the last 10 combined. The pacing is uncharacteristically fast in a good way, skipping what should be skipped, commenting on what should be commented on, and going into detail on what needs focus. That said, I now dread the next ten chapters will be futile soul stuff. Great work SS!

Loipers

The "no more chair plz" got me. Time skip definitely made sense. Also egads. He prepared for months and still almost got annihilated just from ranking up. He has to kill another essence monster just to patch his paling, then find a way to actually fix the damage. Engine of Change! Woo class name! And.. cut off the personalized details for next time. It flows properly. But also fuuuuck. And Dozer = essence slime? The heck is that going to lead into?

Ziggy

Thank you for the chapter

Jachin Nelson

Hmmm clearly the system sees his soul construction ("precocious formation") and dozer, but still could not account for or model or. Is there anything else that's weird going on here? Seems like a corner case. Probably the guide in question is the spirit guide, who is absent. Why did all of this cause paling ruptures? He didn't have excess essence concentration! I was expecting him to not have an issue there. Something clearly killed the sysadmins. Why are none there..? The terms bronze, silver and gold are baked right into this framework. Someone has seen something like what rain saw here, for those terms to be common knowledge. At least this means that he will have a massive acceleration coefficient, assuming his soul isn't irreparably broken now Gold tier upgrade is going to be rough

Ryan

Holy shit.

Fabhar

Why must you torture us so with such an exquisite cliffhanger! Thank you heaps!

Connor Alexander

Now that was fascinating...

Timothy Alexander

c'est la vie, pas le paradis :) "Errors Encountered during Class Evolution" haha, i was so sure he would get a glitched class !

Thenais

Use the power of sauna and pizza to stimulate the brain. Or jacuzzi and pina colada

Michael

Thanks for the chapter sorry about your backlog state

Monus