145

I'm nervous that we didn't confirm Rain's cap increased.

Sadly_streets_behind

Wah, I'm a baby who can't handle a slower pace! Ya'll sounding rather petulant.

RedFaux

liked just for "roy mustang"ing the deep cats

Eliot Blane

Agreed. But that's what we signed up for.

Erik

Agreed. I automatically give it a thumbs up before reading, and then if I don't like the chapter I switch it to thumbs down(think I've done that like twice). I'm not sure why someone who automatically assumes the chapter is unappealing would remain subbed at this point. Personally I think by now we've been shown that the story isn't gonna be a rocket to the top type story, so maybe people shouldn't keep complaining 'ThIs isn't tHe sToRy i sIgNeD uP fOr' in regards to plot progress. The story started up fast with the progression because that allowed him to actually start interacting with people quickly, and it gave Rain some options of skills to use, from a storytelling standpoint. From an in-story perspective, he was extremely lucky to get that blue and that -and the dynamo exp generation- are the only reasons he grew to high bronze so fast. Most characters are stuck in low bronze for YEARS and most adventurers in backwater places don't ever exceed that so he's actually still growing very fast for someone in this universe. If the story had continued at that pace of stat growth Rain would be as strong as Fecht by now and the story would have gotten stale super quick with SS having to invent new enemies that are stronger and stronger and retcon the upper limit of strength in this world. Personally I would like it if things progressed a littttttle faster but I think having the story progress the same per-chapter but having 2 chapters a week, though SS has his day job to attend to, so probably not happening. If the story is too slow for people maybe they should just come back to the story once every 6 months and binge it. I don't think the pacing is all that slow if you read it that way. (I have done one re-read and I thought re-reading the dome arc was gonna be torturously slow, but it wasn't the case)

Tim

This plot is moving way too slow lol

VALORANT

I'm not big brane enough to understand his sync exploit what's the go with that?

KingHonolulu

Possible solution to the oversoul problem; an interlocking geometric lattice of pressure-gated soul structures. Built in such a way that only the amount of soul necessary to sustain Rain's current stat/ability array is allowed to escape. All remaining soul will be stored and concentrated down to it's liquid form. Rain can then activate/deactivate/expand the Soul Reactor as necessary. Rain might even be uniquely suited to building such a device due to his experience in construction.

Starless

Feels like the story is progressing nicely! Thank you for the chap

Atli

The daily reset for the plants was a good clue for the hunger issue. The energy for skill/stats related space magic is generated in the core, and radiates out to the rest of the soul. With the bastion active around his core, Rain is blocking his soul food. It's also stopping whatever the soul takes in from the outside environment from reaching his core.

Starless

As slow and lore-heavy as it is, I enjoy the fact that Rain is boosted by tactics and min-maxing over time, not just by plot

Eric Hartz

I have a feeling that the source of Rain’s overwhelming hunger is some Dozer-related shenanigans.

Stylemys

I've been so nervous about it, but I feel like it's all coming together now.

Chloe Schwieger

I think that no matter what class she uses, she's going to come across as a shittier version of that class. I think that she's onto something here by being the most mobile fire mage ever, but it seems likely that she should be focusing on something else.

Hoactzin

If nothing happens when he gets every skill tree to tier 3, I will be incredibly disappointed.

Pyrefiend

Been enjoying the delve fun adventure 😄

Yeno Memevig

Thanks for the chapter. Finally some action and actual stakes rather than light-hearted slice-of-life. With that being said, seeing Ameliah struggling against level 19 elite mobs with her build is aggravating. Her class with it's lack of specializations simply doesn't make for a good ability-user. She can compensate somewhat with Triplicate Casting and her high mobility, but her skill ranks are basically bronze-tier. I still maintain she'd do far better as a self-enhancing passivist. Spread the multiplier skills out over all three ressource pools with blood magic, stamina enhancements, magical boosts and Mana Striking. Just going unarmed, there has to be a tree for Pugilism/Martial Arts. Take her decently high physical Strength and just stack multipliers. Use Alacrity, Flash Step and Airwalk to outmaneuver the apes. Then just beat them to death. She should be way stronger with such a build than she currently is as a discount fire mage. Such an awesome class. So much wasted potential.

Cirvante

Thanks for the chapter.

Joshua Little

I've been waiting for Rain to start effectively using Velocity to play "keep away" as a defensive tactic for a lllloooooonnnngggg time now too! And yeah its great he is finally take some steps in that direction. Too bad they're baby steps now in a dangerous dungeon. He should've been practicing using it more effectively while it was safer topside weeks ago at a minimum.

tibbish

I reread 144 specifically looking for typos and mistakes. Didn't find any. Nice :)

Mqrius

Really quite enjoyed this chapter. Lovely to see Rain gain newish capabilities with his magic, as well as some off-screen advancement in tactics. That's the sort of thing that *actually* happens when you use new capabilities and it's neat to read about. Now that he can actually use it, with some training Rain may gain excellent maneuverability using Velocity.

Konrad

they'll aim to use the same tactic as snowlilly and tallheart, scout first, respec/specialise equipment, then battle. but yaa, looks like it'll be kind of insane...

MatrixM

Bad Rain, you're supposed to eat out your girlfriend (if she asks nicely), not eat her lunch!

Jack Trowell

Rain eatin' for 2

Valinora

Ameliah is having some trouble with elite level 19s, so it's gonna be a while

Pocket Rikimaru Thanatos

That’s cool man, but sadly for you the story went somewhere else. See you if you come back again!

Connor Alexander

This is probably going to come across as overdramatic, but after all this time I feel it needs to be said. I've been pledged for Delve for 20 months now, and it was actually the first story/author I supported this way. I haven't always kept up with it, because the serial format really doesn't do the pacing any favors and so I sometimes go months without reading it, but I've always kept pledging to help support the author. I’ve been waiting for the story to get back to what drew me to it in the first place, but while it superficially resembles it, the story really doesn’t feel like it. It’s not just that it’s been over 100 chapters since someone actually leveled up, or that the story has gotten mired in increasingly irrelevant min-maxing and lore-building during that time; sometimes it’s actually interesting, and the author has shown they can do some fun stuff with it at times. And it’s not just the release schedule either; even if it wasn’t released weekly, 100 chapters is more than two-thirds of the story at this point. The problem is that the story is investing increasing amounts of time and text focusing on characters and plot-threads that, quite frankly, don’t matter. Kettel, Brovose, most of the largely-forgettable members of Ascension, even Dozer; all of them provide far less value to the story in flavor or lore than the space they take up in text. And while I’m happy that the relationship with Amelia went somewhere, it’s yet another plot-thread vying for attention amongst all the others. I thought things would improve once the story left Fel Sedanis behind, but outside of a few bright spots it’s only gotten worse. And now we’re in the titular Delve, where it feels like a level-up could be right around the corner for the first time in over 2000 pages...and the story is still hoisting flags and raising questions and being mysterious about Dozer and Rain’s never-sufficiently-damned soul yet again. This story is tagged as action/adventure/drama, but even the highest-level monster fight thus far is overshadowed by insufferable mystery-baiting. It’s sucking the fun out of the story for me. So, yeah, I’m dropping my pledge. I’ll check back in like 3 months to see if I can enjoy the story again, but right now it’s best I step back.

Empty Shelf

Thank you!

Andrew

Om nom nom nom

Maybe he needs to eat enough to give birth to a corporeal form for dozer now that his soul is coalescing

Tim

Rain is eating for 2 🤰

Tim

Non-typo comment: Great chapter, thanks for writing.

Charles Frayne

So, blues tend to be reaper class, right? So compare Hababa to the Razorspine Dissolver and extrapolate a minimum of 6 additional levels. It’s getting really scary. Well, at least I’ll get my wish of seeing Tallheart really fight.

Chymor

Typo comment: "Making it would be his first project of the day, as well as a few other things he said they would need" Making it isn't also a few other things he said they would need. "Making it, as well as a few other things ..." maybe? "The Bastion had either been strong enough to survive it, or it wasn’t nearly as traumatic as he thought" -> "Either the bastion had been strong enough... or it wasn't..." (as is it sounds like it's saying the bastion wasn't traumatic) "Still with the spell active, Rain controlled his motions" not wrong I don't think, but awkward "half-way" no hyphen "steppingstone" two words, or a hyphen (ngram does find some cases where it's one word, but rarely compared to the others) "A pull-up was no trouble with his current status" stats. (Not sure if you're aware it's a thing, but a strong guy might do a "muscle-up")

Charles Frayne

How much longer until we get an epic blue fight?

Grim Time

She's right though, she really can pick them. Picked herself a main character and everything.

Sean

Well. The foreshadowing for him being ridiculously hungry was not just imbalanced stats or other normal stuff, afterall. Looks like Dozer's intrusion is causing more shenanigans.

Ziggy

The mystery abounds

Alexander Dupree

I was just gonna comment the same thing you beat me lol

Ben Dover

Good stuff! If it makes you feel better, I found a possible typo in this chapter: "call out sick losing his job" -> without losing

Mike G.

Could Rain's need for food, specifically meat, come from Dozer, the bastion, or his higher sync?

Thransk

Lol someone downvoted this post within a minute and likely without reading a word

Tim

Yeah I usually tell you all the typos I find on discord and I think last week was good on that front. Also, yay!!! Chapter day!

Tim

Thanks as always!

Dragonkinn