207

Per above commenters, it is the Bank's equivalent rank for the Guild's Gold Plate rank.

Can someone remind me what a sapphire plate is?

David Bean

Yea you might be right. Ameliah using the motif of casting stones into a well to forget stuff, and her being trapped at the bottom of the well when she began her soul journey is probably just coincidence.

Starless

I think you are reading too much into coincidence and the paths life takes. Ameliah is a main character to be sure but she isn’t the “chosen one where each and every insignificant part of their life has been orchestrated by fate to have her rise to a higher calling.” Her awakening was luck and compatibility with the essence monster her dad and her ran into (could also be that the essence monster was already injured by another monster). Her “soul space dad” should be a system construct/guide to assist others in the process of doing soul stuff. It only knows what she knows and what info the system has imparted them with to achieve their goal of guide and assistant. But soul stuff is generally only looked into at gold (at least the soul space guide seems to be rather limited in their ability to help and impart knowledge without a gold plate host). I doubt Ameliah is repressed memories that are important to know. Soul space dad (Elric was his name?) was buggy due to Ameliah being silver instead of gold and thus couldn’t properly act as a guide and giving guide info was what he couldn’t impart. At least that is my understanding of events and I believe that there is a greater than 50% chance it is the case.

Conor McGroarty

She hasn't told us the full story just quite yet. The memory of her father mentioned there were other memories locked away because Ameliah wasn't ready to know about them yet. I also think she's a bit strange since her origin story has an inexplicable amount of dragons in it. From the memory of awakening while constantly surrounded by dragons, to the whole scales/claws/horns thing with Leirith, and then being raised to silver by a group known at 'The Heroes of Wix'.

Starless

From the current understanding of souls, your initial “setting” (when being an awakened and getting into soul instead of starting from unawakened as we don’t know whether they have to do everything manually) for your first entrance into your soul is a place you like/deeply connected to. Tallheart’s core is his forge and the immediate area around it is his uncle’s workshop (his uncle was a great unawakened blacksmith). Ameliah’s core is a “well of power” while the immediate area is a nice picturesque forest (she has traveled a lot so natural scenery is much more reasonable than the crappy Brightside where she hardly has anything positive about). Ameliah was too young to remember her mom and never knew her aunt so there should be little to no memories of her village before bandits killed them. Rain burst his soul so whatever may have showed up was washed away with raw, unprocessed essence and he has to make everything manually. The System gives that initial area as a starting point based on the user’s preferences and perception. Ameliah has more or less already told her whole story with being a wanderer and such. Liking a specific natural scenery is expected.

Conor McGroarty

It'll be nice getting some more of Ameliah's backstory. I've always though she was a bit strange with her soul being, of all things, a forest. Not the village where she lived with her mom/aunt, not the guild-houses she grew up in, and not Brightside Chasm where her old man died. A dang forest. I guess it could be that place where she first awakened(with all the dragons), but that seems like a bit of a stretch.

Starless

Yeah as long as he can get a filter it should not be that hard, without it though it would be pretty hard to do so.

Ole Halvorsen

What about she instead tell to Ameliah that what Lerith did to her in the past have left some leftover permanent hidden thing (she was thinking all what he did in the past have turned back) Like i dont know she cant have children anymore of something like that (a ailment who is hidden or repercussion/consequence in the future, or something needed to solve for later if she want to grow and not get tainted/mutated of have unknow repercussion appearing at some point) It work well too to do this, like the Warden get Lerith at some point and killed him or he still in prison in the Watch and they get the info/tech/knowledge of the shit he was doing (because if they dont get him its because he is protected by some kingdom or shit because i dont really see him get away and move around and doing his things like he want under the Watch, he is a priority target for their doctrine/ideal)

Zarik0

I'm so glad I didn't have to look for that. I had no idea where to start lol. Also that is some pleasing attention to detail that I can appreciate in a story.

Ziggy

She might want to keep an open connection to Rain in order to use his Legendary Dynamo soul time dilation. Last chapter vatreece remarked that the only reason she was able to interview so many people at once was because the mental thread leading to her custodian was granting her access to Rain's soul speed, in exchange for significantly drawing on her resources.

Starless

Huh, you're right. Good catch with Ch.109. I thought she only started it later.

Cirvante

The elbow thing seems to be pretty consistently used only for topics which remind Ameliah of Lerith. From a relatively quick search, Ameliah does this when she talks about not joining parties (ch 109; page search 'elbow') and about her not being a real healer (ch 146). As for what the Warden told Ameliah about Lerith, I'm guessing the Watch really did lose track of him somehow. So on one hand he isn't running around turning people into 'demons' but no one knows whether he is actually dead or not. He could be walking around with a whole other face/identity for all the Watch knows.

Atlas Dwarf

I think it really starts during the trip into the depths in Vestvall. Before that, SS hadn't yet fully fleshed out her origin story, as evidenced by him going back and changing some things like the stolen accolade and the Brightside teleportation platform. The elbow rubbing first appeared when they started talking about healing. Back then I theorized that she had lost a limb at some point and had it restored. Then she did it again while talking about high-level healers making permanent changes. There was a lot of speculation on what changes were made and we assumed that whatever had been done to her was permanent. It became more and more obvious that it had to do with her friend Lerith who stole her accolade. Then we got the whole story, which explained exactly why she was rubbing her elbows. At this point it's basically her tell for Lerith and her time in Brightside and when it shows up it is most likely intentional.

Cirvante

Okay now I'm curious. Does she really only do it in reference to Lerith thus far in story? If so, how deliberate was that connection? Is it supposed to be more of an anxious thing that has happened to only come up with him, or was it supposed to specifically relate to Lerith?

Ziggy

Yes, her rubbing her elbows is her tell for anything involving Lerith. I just can't picture the Warden sitting on the information without going after him. He'd have to be somewhere she can't get to, like with Fecht or Kev.

Cirvante

@Ole The problem is that titanium, while incredibly common, is mostly found in the form of titanium oxide, with some rare exceptions. Purifying it is a pretty complex process. From Wikipedia: "Because it cannot be readily produced by reduction of titanium dioxide, titanium metal is obtained by reduction of TiCl4 with magnesium metal in the Kroll process. To produce the TiCl4 required by the Kroll process, the dioxide is subjected to carbothermic reduction in the presence of chlorine. In this process, the chlorine gas is passed over a red-hot mixture of rutile or ilmenite in the presence of carbon. After extensive purification by fractional distillation, the TiCl4 is reduced with 800 °C (1,470 °F) molten magnesium in an argon atmosphere." So basically something a Chemistry-Metalworker in the Empire could have figured out. But hey, maybe the intrinsic rune is enough to create a filter that can turn titanium dioxide into pure titanium.

Cirvante

Yeah, duo-ing their way to silver with Lily doing all the damage and Tallheart making all the equipment isn't so easily replicated. Rain mentioned that Tallheart revealed the requirements for Runic Powersmith and they were insane.

Cirvante

Possible. And it would be more satisfying from a storytelling perspective. But I just can't picture the Warden knowing about Lerith setting up shop somewhere and not showing up to say hello. He's one of the worst kind of criminals in the eyes of the watch keepers and his ability to manipulate other people's souls is too dangerous to be left unchecked. And he could have an army of monster girls, it would do fuck-all against a platinum. The only reason I could think of that the Warden couldn't touch him is if either Fecht or Kev have him.

Cirvante

Well Rain and his Dynamo self are the best bet for unlocking skill trees when you consider his exp income when he lets himself go. All three of them are capped and as such there is no need reason not to unlock skill trees when exp hits counterstop due to the benefits (vague but massive potential) gained to your soul growth (though that also means the area they need to completely purify essence will be longer and we don’t know what benefits could be gained from doing that but the next step would be making another paling barrier manually to have more space to process essence and climb one level at a time; this means Rain’s time ratio is a massive boon for soul stuff). Tallheart would have the hardest time getting exp unless he is readily equipped with plentiful resources and equipment (he is doing some blacksmith miracles by keeping the ship together but the conditions are not ideal in terms of resources, equipment and time to settle down to study new knowledge). Ameliah as a true jack (uncertain savior/legendary jack) actually has a use for unlocking all possible skill trees (potentially get any skill not locked behind a class) and can even find out hidden skills (not based off classes like Cold Mage) given enough time and training so she isn’t good to unlock things she is unlikely to use (she has a priority list of cost effective things she needs to train first). As for Rain, he has no qualms about unlocking skill trees for the information they hold but his issue is a matter of keeping his soul stable (plentiful exp income and no reason to stop it but paling is temperamental after soul popping Incarn and the other stuff). So when he feels it is safe enough, he can unlock things like tier 4 psionics at his leisure (having the information in hindsight isn’t as useful as before meeting Vatreece and thus it can wait a few days or more while he actually gets some sleep and repairs stuff in there).

Conor McGroarty

I would imagine that Warden/Granny Vatreece told Ameliah something about Lerith Singer/The Flesh Singer, her shitty ex boyfriend. Considering that Warden Vatreece runs one of the three Multi-continental powers (The Vigilant Order of Watch Keepers, the Bank and the Adventurers Guild), she has access to an immense amount of information, especially about someone as disturbing and rampant as Lerith who twists the souls and bodies of others (totally on Watch radar for his misuse of power and quality of the harm he can do to others). The other great powers are the respective countries on each continent but their immediate reach generally won’t extend beyond their borders, continent and trade routes to other continents while the three organizations are mostly anywhere civilization is (excluding insular places like the Empire of Adamant).

Conor McGroarty

But you get minimally 1 to see if you unlock it, its better than nothing

Zarik0

We have no idea. Apparently she left a construct in his mind. I'm hoping it's a version of her that explains why the hell she bothered to do so.

Ziggy

I think that is unlikely, I think they got legendary classes because they pushed themselves to the extreme meaning they would likely get a one legendary unlock. For all we know getting a legendary silver class might be a lot lot easier than getting a rare bronze class. If Tallheart had a hoard of information we would have gotten to know about it by now.

Ole Halvorsen

@Benjamin why would she do that, it was an invitation not a demand. I've a hard time seeing the Adventure guild accepting lose branch leaders acting and misusing there position. One thing is if he accepted the dual and did not show.

Ole Halvorsen

There may be hidden psionic skills they can't simply unlock.

Aezy Ken

Yea I guess it would have been something rather obvious to overlook. Kinda like practicing mana manipulation while encased in a metal suit.

Starless

Actually, now that I think about it, Tallheart and Lily both having legendary classes kinda gets me thinking the Cervideans know more about this than the no-doubt heavily curated info the guild might deign to share. Keeping the huddled masses weak and knowledge-starved has been the default thus far, and I highly doubt that will change specifically for Rain. So yea, fuck guildscore.

Starless

@starless if it was that simple he would have done so before.

Ole Halvorsen

he also need pure titanium to make a filter. but they might be able to sacrifice parts of the ship to get enough for him to make a filter. If he is able to make a filter it would be easy to get more titanium, all you need is a lot of rocks/dirt

Ole Halvorsen

yeah I think it's unlikely that she would even consider doing it. To put into Halgrave something to compel him to give Rain guild score seems so out character. She certainly not going to do anything to anyone for such a trivial thing as a guild score. not when it's so easy for her to do it in other ways. like issue a guild request when he comes to the next city giving a bunch of guild score. And that is if, if she even would care about it at all.

Ole Halvorsen

I think it's unlikely that he is dead. I think it's more likely that she got information of where he is, and what he is doing. to Not think of Lerith as a fighter I feel gives the wrong wibes, sure he himself might not be much, but that the point he is not just himself. Who knows how many "monster" girls he has now. If you fight Lerith you likely has to fight his entourage as well. And the Warden telling her about him might make sense as well in that she knows that she will do something about it. It might even be information about what he has done, making her resolve to hunt him greater.

Ole Halvorsen

All of this is assuming Rain can't just Purify the multitude of ores that contain titanium in order to remove all the impurities at once.

Starless

What I don't understand is why everyone was wondering about T4 of Psionics, with Ameliah even looking for it in the guild archives. Like she, Rain or Tallheart can't just throw 100k experience at the tree to find out. With her current stats she should be able to unlock a new tree every day.

Cirvante

I'm pretty sure that in order to come up with titanium you'd normally need Chemistry, Metalworking and Runes. Crafting trees, according to Tallheart, have a lot of hidden skills between them. Chemistry and Metalworking would likely have some hidden skills for metals and figuring out new alloys aside from the Intuition skills. Tallheart's build is Metalworking, Alchemy, Runes, Weapon-crafting and Armor-crafting. He doesn't have Chemical Intuition. That's why he needed Reason to make pure aluminium. Now, in this case he doesn't need Chemistry, only time. He needs to use his Runic Intuition to figure out the intrinsic rune for titanium. Once he has that, he can fix the enchantments and possibly even create a filter. Although this is made harder by the ship being built from an alloy that isn't pure titanium. Ameliah's class could technically help, but leveling crafting skills takes a lot of time and effort and she never bothered.

Cirvante

More likely Vatreece doesn't give a shit about Rain's guildscore. When he handed over the barrier, all he got for his trouble was a shitty Custodian plate. She's got bigger fish to fry than pull strings for Ascension. Rain's only chance of fixing his Guildscore is dueling Everiss.

Cirvante

Doubt it, Lerith isn't really a fighter. I'm guessing that he's heavily invested in Restoration, Evocation Metamagic and Magical Utility, with maybe a little bit of offensive magic. As a Biomancer he's amazing, but certainly no Lavarro. A level 31 isn't going to make a dent in a platinum war. Vatreece is looking for goldplates, with Lavarro being a pseudo-goldplate. And finally, if she was using him, she certainly wouldn't have told Ameliah about it.

Cirvante

Definitely interested in seeing how they solve the Titanium problem. The easiest way would obviously be for Amelia to fly around using Attract on the different minerals and ores that get processed into Titanium. Though the chemical/metal intuition required to process rutile into titanium might still be missing. Fetch's dudes figured it out though, so it might be another instance where system skills info cards don't show the full picture unless the awakened already has a good understanding of the mechanics involved.

Starless

Dunno if anyone has said this, what if the warden put the mind shield on rain, not for Rain's knowledge from earth, but his soul speculations? His outside perspective giving him insights while still missing pieces. holes gold plates would know letting them hit platinum

seth dauer

Pull some strings to get MetalDad or Burrick the Lavalad to do it. Either way Rain probably doesn't have enough time to do a bunch of 'collect 10 rat pelts' quests now that Vatreece just activated the nuclear option.

Starless

What if the warden took over his mind? Another tool in her puppet belt.

Justin

Vatreece isn't part of the guild and can neither retroactively issue quests, nor affect Rain's Guildscore.

Cirvante

Here's the passage: || She crossed her arms, rubbing her elbows. “She wanted to know about Ascension and why I joined. After that, she told me something...something I’m not sure I wanted to know.” || Rubbing her elbows is her tell for anything involving Lerith, because of her transformation in Brightside. I doubt she'd be happy after hearing of Lerith's execution. She'd be way more conflicted about it and that's exactly the impression I'm getting from her. Lerith was her friend and lover during one of the darkest periods in her life. He helped her survive in Brightside and get to silver. And even though she later realized his true nature, she doesn't seem to have fully worked through all her feelings in regards to him. Her reaction to the shapeshifter noble in Vestvall was pure panic. Even though she has hunted Lerith in the past, I doubt she was truly ready to face him. Might still not be, even after sharing her past with Rain and Tallheart. Now if she suddenly heard from the Warden "Oh, by the way, we caught your friend, I read his mind to confirm his crimes and then killed him", she might not know how to process that. I might be wrong about this, but her saying that she's not sure she wanted to know about it makes me think I'm on the right track.

Cirvante

Kinda funny that everyone saw the moment Vatreece learned about the internet. Hopefully she did Rain a solid and added a couple gold rank quest completions to his guildcard. Hargrave did say anything dealing with the empire was a minimum of gold rank, and Ascension has encountered/beat the Empire a couple times. Maybe even toss him a platinum rank quest completion since Disabling the Majistral's barrier and saving Fel Sadanis would have either required Vatreece's direct interference, or a coordinated team of goldplates.

Starless

It almost certainly isn’t news Lerith died. Ameliah wouldn’t be upset by it if Lerith had died. She would have been relieved or happy.

HornsOfTheseus

well she where informed about the warden so... depending on what news she gets later...

Håvard

I wonder what Vatreece told Ameliah that upset her so much. It has to be about Lerith, nothing else would get that reaction out of her. With someone nicknamed 'Fleshsinger' running around mutating the souls and bodies of unawakened, and a Chosen of El hunting him, it's almost guaranteed that the watch keepers would hear about him. Ameliah said that the trail eventually went cold and suspected that either the Chosen had killed him, or an unscrupulous Citizen had recruited him. How about the possibility that the Warden hunted him down, mindraped and then executed him? Someone that dangerous could definitely warrant a personal visit from Vatreece. It's either that or she found out that Fecht got his hands on him. From a storytelling perspective it would be a bit lame if Ameliah couldn't deal with him herself and instead just gets confirmation of his death. Or maybe it doesn't fit into where SS wants the story to go and Lerith's capture and execution by the Warden would certainly be a logical conclusion. I still want her to eventually ask Rain to come to Brightside with her, so they can free the people trapped down there and she can work through her guilt and childhood trauma.

Cirvante

They are gonna be, understandably, skittish as hell. Do they even know Tallheart is alive? I think he said he never went back after Lily died.

Ziggy

It's true, but still an inconvenience. I hope she doesn't dock him -1000 points for not showing.

Benjamin Lewis

Waiting a day would be a bad plan. The gain of 1000 free guild points doesn’t remotely offset the risk of being there for yet another Adamant attack.

HornsOfTheseus

Rain's going to forget to fight the guild leader isn't he? Or, since he doesn't forget anything, I guess he's going to be focused in other things b gs and miss out on the chance fir easy points that he needs. Thiugh waiting for a day does run the risk of them having to engage the Adamants.

Benjamin Lewis

Grannybrain was great

Pyrefiend

Thank you

IV08004

Now I might be wrong but it's a goldship and iirc the bank doesn't use bronze/silver/gold etc but uses gemstones to classify the level range of their members

David

"Unless there’s a sapphireplate" ha, there is a tier between silver and gold ?

Thenais

Yelfenn is past northeastern city of eastspar and in the middle of the northern coast as was mentioned (pretty much as far north of the Empire you can get without leaving the continent). Though wasn’t there a note in Halgrave’s reports about Lightbreaker being in Northharbor? Another chapter to glance back at as I can’t remember if the city fell or if he was repelled for now. Will Ascension end up heading to Bellost by way of Rellagia? Would still have to pass the island of Splendor but perhaps the southern part of Splendor is more developed (thus a higher Bank presence) than the northern part due to Rellagia’s more insular culture (not as much as the Empire xenophobia but still pretty distrustful of awakened and outsiders).

Conor McGroarty

I do wonder what it looks like to Sana when she sees Rain and Ameliah’s souls close (overlapping domains). Whatever it is, it is enough for her to blush so would it be soul equivalent of passionately making out in public? Was Vatreece’s line of Rain being “three fries short of a Happy Meal” mean Rain is crazy with a screw loose? Or he is a fool? Regardless she impressed upon Ameliah that Rain is a keeper indeed. I do wonder about how Staavo’s conversation with Vatreece went as he is a crotchety old man suddenly thrust into the position of “young man” by Granny Vatreece who is much older than Staavo. Regardless, it seems like Vatreece hasn’t made any overt memory wipes to Ascension it seems (though her making those specifically manipulated memories uniform enough to not notice wouldn’t be impossible though would probably be annoying enough not to bother if she doesn’t need too). She also scared the hell out of Halgrave, the senior directly humbling the younger generation several times over. Thrast is obviously full of BS saying it would take more than one command for Warden to shut him up (though I was momentarily thinking his BS inflated ego and loud mouthed intention would require more than one).

Conor McGroarty

lmao this is Thrast we're talking about. I bet the Warden just gave up and altered his memories to made him think she got him to finally shut up

Kahandran

He has been able to buy tier 4s (the trees) since high 20s or low 30s (was his cap 30?). As for getting actual skills, they need many requirements he hasn’t fulfilled yet except for anchor aura which he already has.

Conor McGroarty

Yelfenn is the most northeast city of DKE? I will need to go back to the chapter with the maps (or check the wiki). Wonder if that is the location (close by) of the cervidian village Tallheart and Snowlily made? Or is it close to a delve underground? Perhaps both as the depths are a good place for a hidden village. Seems Rain won’t get to have that spar with Everiss to increase Guild score and getting archive access. Vatreece said there were no good people but she said that before reading Rain’s mind so perhaps she has concluded that Rain is as good of a person one can be to warrant being called one. Vatreece also gave Ameliah love advice (while being envious herself) to “lock Rain’s ass down as he is a keeper” full stop. Bet Val is going to feel conflicted from Fecht being marked for death by Vatreece while not being able to do the job himself (plus what this means for Lightbreaker and the Empire). Also wouldn’t be surprised if Vatreece has made Velika unable to use any of her skills or physical abilities (she “forgot” how) except being a sturdy meat shield with unawakened human strength and speed. Get humbled Velika while also not giving Ascension a bus to ride to increase caps if she somehow ended up feeling like it (which was unlikely but not 0 so author has cut off the quickest way). Everything said, not the worst way things could have ended. Hilarious that Dozer’s nickname for Vatreece is Grannybrain. Granny Vatreece was called a Granny by a slime. Just another surprise Vatreece has had today. Wonder if Dozer has his own soul space while being connected to Rain’s? Then maybe Dozer can increase his cap the old fashioned way if killing an essence monster doesn’t work.

Conor McGroarty

does rain have the xp expenditure to buy tier 4 skills yet. cus i feel like we havent really heard of any?

ricky jackson

Tallheart finally moving to pick up his fellow Cervidians from that secret base, damn great news.

Veritas Dolor

Lol that was great. Love the guy lying about her being able to get him to stop talking.

Alexander Dupree

Everything went better than expected. Can Ascension finally get some "smooth sailing"?

Loipers

touch grass :P

Scott B Fenton

yay thx

ricky jackson

Thanks for the chapter! 🥳

Cjack PVP