193

Love this chapter! Got ourselves a teleporter to convert. Haha

Jan Alexander

Halgrave only glimpsed at the armor rain and Amelia received. He has no idea about the rings, various internal enchantments, or overall value that Tallheart brings to the table. This is partly due to his fleeting interaction, and partly due to his obvious prejudice toward both Rain and his overall close mindedness when it comes to anything outside the norm. As to whether or not ascension will attract attention… Their awakening most members and sharing class requirements alone will stir up trouble. Not to mention the impact electricity will have on the world at large. But I agree, I love the idea of Ascension delving as a whole. Exploring undiscovered zones and conquering new dungeons would be amazing. The only thing I’m more excited for is Rains eventual meeting with the watch and/or Valtreece. His eventual explanation as to whether or not he could reduce a populated city to a barren wasteland and the conversation that ensues

Cjack PVP

From one view point i want rain to reach gold already and get out of his soul stuff. On the other hand? When they get of this continent. I feel like it would be the golden age of "delve" of Ascension. While tallheart is impressive the news will not really travel far. Hellgrave wasn't impressed enough that he starts torturing people for info, rain is silver. He will draw attention with Ascension no doubt. But not too much. The company and him could roam the planes. Delve. Have time skips. Experiment. Grow. For a time while the empire is sated in war. No 'ulterior' motives from gods. Save the world and huge politics.before gold. Thats what i want to read really... Delving to different biomes. Different builds and Ascension leveling up finding lairs of levels 10-30 others getting to silver. Abilities. Tiers two and three of a lot of trees. That simple fantasy vibe. Returning from a long delve to a base of Ascension. They have a base with could bear. Maybe a musician with a class, bard style. Y'know

evyatar

Galvin said teleporting them into a wall would’ve been a risk with a direct teleportation from at worst Barstone (500ish kilometers) and at best Xiugaara (like 6k kilometers at least but given the questionable repute of the maps I’ll leave it at an extreme lowball) and given the wording it sounded as if he was confident in making the leap and landing within the confines of his target building which should be around a 10 meter radius of his target. All that said teleporting the the edge of the depths which is just a few kilometers down should be a walk in the park so long as there isn’t an issue with occlusion or other system fuckery. And given the accolade hunting with the empire… I agree, it would be more of a quantity vs quality type thing. But the heist brings up a solid point, we know detection didn’t work on accolades, but it 100% works on the vaults protecting the accolades. With the Empire busy invading the DKE Rain, Velika, and Val could jump to any well known imperial aristocrats estate and clean house without anyone finding out before it’s too late.

Cjack PVP

I'd settle for just that infinite respec accolade. That thing is prolly responsible for like...20%+ of the Empire's overall power. With (unauthorized) access to the Liminal Void, Rain could be a damn accolade Phantom Thief, taking advantage of everyone who uses the 'separated from their accolades' cheat.

Starless

Cjack PVP

Well, I didn't mean that focus classess have it easy, just easier than Rain. You seem to be working with two kinda far fetched assumptions there - first one is that the system is somehow adhering to the shitty picture of current Delve world, where almost no one picks crafter or support classess, no one practices soul stuff, every accolade is hoarded, sharing builds is rude and so on - well I doubt it, it may very well balanced for Magistraal era, where ppl likely had numerous ways for compensating their build imbalances and shared them. Second one is that its somehow desired by the system/its creators to give a low silver not too demanding way to create an anchor allowing him to go all out on others on a planetary range. As I said, even without T3 anchors the skill would be very useful, so no need to make them a low changing fruit, especially one very conveniently fitting Dynamo class. Thats why I am mentally prepared for the payment over time not working, tho hopefully I am wrong.

Veritas Dolor

Accolade hunting against the Empire is unlikely to be fruitful. We already know that nobles will frequently leave their accolades in a "vault" for safe keeping, as they stay attuned to matter the distance and it keeps them safe for others in case of the noble's death. In a society like the Empire, almost all accolades (with very rare exceptions) are all probably on loan directly from Fecht himself, and no one is allowed to risk losing them in battle. So killing Imperials will just remove the link to whatever accolades are stored away, not have them drop like candy. Plate hunting, unfortunately, is going to be most likely to work on standard adventurers and few other groups. Stealing accolades from other groups will typically require a "heist" scenario instead.

Ziggy

I find it unlikely that translocation will be very useful for underground travel. He made it pretty clear that teleporting into objects and surfaces is a very significant concern, so it's very hard to use safely without line of sight, or a clear destination; neither of which are easy to come by underground

Forrest Minter

My dream scenario if Gavin joins would be for the A-team + Velika to hit up that Silverplate dungeon Lily died in. Knowing Tallheart, he's gotta have thought up a million different ways they could have beat that dragon. They could even invite Hargrave if he's looking for a break from his boring desk job. Not only would Tallbro finally get some closure, but Ascension would get a bunch of dragon crafting materials, Lily's armor AND Deep Vengeance. Bonus points if they can subdue it with Fulmination and allow the shifters to bond with the dragon pattern.

Starless

I’m hopeful that the translocationist will be capable of freely traveling under ground. It’s doubtful with how we’ve been shown occlusion works, but even back tracking to the previously found entry way to the depths shouldn’t be a huge issue if he just took Rain. Worst case scenario the Empire found the entrance and they’re incapable of securing it themselves. Best case scenario Rain can piggy back the new cult member to a previously unexplored zone, put down an anchor, memorize the coordinates, or whatever witchy-woo voodoo bs translocationists are capable of before porting them back to three cliffs. What I really want is for Rain to abandon those pesky morales and go accolade farming against the Empire. Rain might not be capable of killing most silverplates in a one on one fight, but between him and the citizen chick they could clean out an entire army so long as Fecht isn’t there. Especially with the help of tall heart and the translocationist, they could decimate an entire continent without much risk to themselves, let alone an antagonistic FOB.

Cjack PVP

Thanks to Dynamo's effect on clarity effectiveness combined with the magical synergy skill, Rain gets a lot of bang out of every point of clarity for mana pool size. 2550 increased mana pool size for every 10 clarity. Whereas 10 put into focus gives him 800 instead. Now an Animus would definitely easily beat his mana pool size in comparison with the way the formula works with equal equipment, inherent problems with the class aside. But if a silverplate mage has something like a +200% boost to effectiveness of focus (while also specializing in magical utility tree), then 10 points in their focus will give them 2400 more to their mana pool size. Which is less than Rain gets from 10 to clarity (2550). A lot of the more rare classes like Mahria's and Val's focus on increasing skill levels on certain trees with stat effectiveness taking a backseat. Even if they upgrade those to legendary at silver, they'll get something like a +400% to effectiveness of focus or +300% to focus and +100% to clarity, or so on. So let's best case scenario for mana pool size. Let's take Val to level 30, a legendary class, and a +400% effectiveness to just Focus. Each 10 to focus gives 4800 to mana pool size. Val has gone full glass cannon and put every point from level ups into focus, so 320 focus. 32*4800 = 153600. So before stat equipment, he's not even close and won't be until goldplate, in spite of the bonus to focus' effectiveness and totally ignoring all other stats. Edit: Whoops, a +400% effectiveness to clarity gives 4000 mana pool per 10 focus, not 4800. So 32*4000 = 128000. If we ignore how rare and expensive stat equipment is and give him the full 3000 allotment for his level, this theoretical Val can dump another 2000 fully into focus and just manage to break 1.1 million mana pool size. It just takes a legendary class, max stat equipment, and heavily lopsided stats towards focus with the soulstrain and mental instability problems that come inherent. Most mages are not so completely lopsided into focus because of the massive migraines alone. Jamus' 4:1 ratio is considered high and unusual. So any silverplate mage without stat equipment is extremely unlikely to have a mana pool higher than 250k, even on the verge of goldplate. Only the silverplates that are super wealthy and have a ton of stat equipment, or those that have a bunch of accolades can hope to have a mana pool near or breaking a million. Even Rain, if he had 2500 added straight to only clarity via equipment, would only hit a 700k mana pool. Oh hey that's actually somewhat relevant for this translocationist and Rain helping fill his mana pool.

Ziggy

I am also counting on it working that way, but the skill is hella strong and offer numerous applications even without such concessions + Rain's build isn't really mana pool focused, that would be focus builds territory. One of the more curious things now is skill progression - it can add to the base that gets exponentiated, which would be damn strong, or improve hardness/focus predictor, will also for sure increase the max amount used simultanously. If payment over time is true, then the best progression would be simply to increase the max time of anchor creation.

Veritas Dolor

It takes an hour to create an aura anchor. Assumedly, you can pay the mana cost out over the hour. Especially as even if Rain dumped an extra +3000 equipment stats into clarity; his mana pool still wouldn't hit a million. If Rain can't afford it even with max stat equipment, no one else could afford anything above second tier until they hit gold. So assuming it can be paid out over the hour, Rain could afford 1 million mana cost of 3rd tier and that should be his default minimum considering how weak tier 1 and 2 are. Tier 4 would then cost 100 million mana which would be attainable when Rain can safely manage 27.7k mana regen per second. Tier 5 would be out of range anytime soon with a 10 billion mana cost, or 2.77 million mana regen a second over an hour period.

Ziggy

Aura anchors are damaged by mana flux, so the very act of casting through them slowly breaks them, the stronger spell the faster. Sufficient hardness would take care of the issue, but current max for Rain would be 300, so kinda poor. Recent 10k low range Radiance, he used vs Sale used 600mp/second, so if its 1:1 conversion of mana used>mana flux dmg, 300 damage to an anchor a second. Thats enough to instantly destroy tier 1 anchor (200 durability), and in half a minute tier 2 anchor (10k durability). To create a sturdier one, tier 3 anchor (1 million durability) he most likely needs 1 million mana pool, which may be hard to achieve, as it should require both +3000 clarity from items and additional skillvls to magical synnergy/intrinsic clarity. Separately these aren't an issue for TH, but we don't know if he can pack them into a single item set.

Veritas Dolor

The soul remembers the level of synchronization. Buffing and debuffing his stats is not affected. Skills getting additional effects past Rank 10 is interesting though. As a goldplate, Westbridge might very well have had Magical Utility skills like Mana Sight at Rank 20. I imagine that the Elemental Refinement skill will be perfect for Rain and will likely unlock something good in the aura trees. The shaping katas could also help with Prismatic Intent. Unfortunately he has only four skill points left and I still consider Ethereal Aura a must for allowing him to progress past level 30 without being carried by Ameliah. I think it was also a prerequisite for Anchor Aura. That leaves two points. There might be some awesome skills in T4 Magical Utility and the three aura trees. Never enough skill points. While Mana Sight should be picked up eventually, I don't think he should take Ethereal Helmet. Far easier to have Ameliah unlock and level the skill, so Tallheart can figure out the intrinsic rune. Just add it as a standard helmet enchantment. Skill points are way to precious, especially if the gold upgrade allows for another five specs.

Cirvante

Hmmmm using both of those together might solve the problem. I originally thought lowering Clarity would not work due to the whole 'the soul remembers' thing, but specialized Mana Manipulation changes things. Westbridge's Mana Sight allowed him to see people's souls for some odd reason, so level 15 Mana Manipulation might allow Rain to change up his soul a bit to align with the reduced Clarity.

Starless

Rain found a workaround to that already. His rings now allow him to debuff his clarity, to where he can bring his clarity back down to far more reasonable levels. And he's going to test to see if leveling up his mana manipulation skill helped at all.

Ziggy

In fact, with Rain's crippling handicap of being a Dynamo making Prismatic Intent almost impossible, I'd wager 5 Tel that Tarny hits Silver and gets Aura Anchors before Rain does.

Starless

I… I’m so incredibly sad now 😣

Cjack PVP

Rain won't have Aura Anchor for probably another 100 chapters. It requires five levels of Prismatic Intent.

Starless

I genuinely see no reason for Rain not to be gold plate by the time they finish crossing the ocean. I get it if they don’t (I’ll be pissed cuz I’m looking forward to the badass sea voyage) now that the teleportation mage is joining ascension. Which, I might add, is all but guaranteed. Mages are essentially drug addicts when it comes to mana(aside from dynamos of course) and Rain is undoubtedly a god sent dealer. The translocationists addition to Ascension makes crossing the ocean via ship pointless. The loss of the forge wagon and generators small given the risk of immediate death via leviathan and with rain he’d likely be able to make a few trips a day before facing serious consequences. That being said with the Anchors rain could basically go fishing for blue’s, lairs, treasure and anything else with no risk to himself. With ethereal aura I doubt his own offensive skills will damage the anchors, and even with blues being in higher ranked zones he’d kill it way before it could destroy the anchor. all it’d take some bait for a blue to eat and rain getting a safe distance away before melting their insides. That’s IF the translocationist doesn’t cut out the middle man and can teleport an anchor a few miles down for Rain to blast a detection or radiance.

Cjack PVP

Or have the tamer find some way to attach the anchor to the whale/Leviathan. Knowing it's exact location would allow Gavin to teleport Velika in for a quick, targeted absolute-kill strike.

Starless

The problem is that while you could sink two anchors to the depths where Leviathans live naturally, Rain's offensive auras will do very little against gold monsters, other than piss them off maybe. Also, the ocean is big and mostly empty of monsters. By that I mean, if you sink an anchor straight down, the chances of finding a monster before you hit rank 40 isn't actually that high. Now, if you had a tamer specializing in water monsters and have him send one out with three anchors strapped to it (Detection, inverse Detection and an O. Aura), then you might be able to hunt blue Whales with that setup. Really depends on how far a Tamer can send out his pets and whether he can communicate with them through something like the King-Link. It might be necessary to blast the pet with max Winter for a few months to give it sapience. But with Revive Tamed Monster, the Tamer could use it like a suicide bomber.

Cirvante

With Aura Anchor Detection/depth charges, Ascension could legitimately go leviathan hunting, something that has probably never been done in the history of Delveland. Would be amazing to see what kind of alchemy/crafting supplies they would drop. Also would be interesting to study them from a purely academic point of view. Learning the mechanism by which they raise an area's rank might help when it's time to start fighting Gold/Platinum plates.

Starless

Sure, if he ever wants to start a cleaning business. A great use would be to bury a Detection anchor in every city he comes across as well as key chokepoints. Automate them through macros to scan for stuff. I mean, the Anchors don't seem to have a time limit, he can just leave them anywhere. If only he was able to make 'adamant soldiers' a viable target for IFF. He really needs to get the skill asap, so he can test the range and whether it works through lair barriers. The latter would be broken as hell.

Cirvante

There are a lot of cool use cases. But the skill card says "Aura anchors are attuned to a single aura at the time of creation." So to use something like Detection and then Radiance, you'd need two separate anchors. And then the attack aura probably damages the other anchor further, on top of the anchor being damaged through each use. Bumping up his focus at the time of creation to increase hardness might help mitigate the damage. But since hardness is focus/10, the most he could do is like 300 hardness, even with full stat equipment allotment for his level put into focus. Meaning any other anchor in range of an attack aura doing 9.9k or more dps will be taking huge hits to its durability. X has to be at least 3 to not be destroyed in just one second in that scenario, which would give a million durability if I'm reading the formula correctly. Using an arrow to deliver an anchor attuned to an attack aura with over a million durability right to an army's doorstep is definitely a great move in an unranked area. The arrow would do 9.9k damage at most to the anchor in the delivery no matter how fast it's going, then it takes another 99 seconds at minimum for the army to destroy the anchor at 9.9k dps. And all it costs is an hour of time, a conjured arrow, and mana from someone that has nigh endless mana. Honestly, though? The first use case that came to mind was having anchors for Purify for cities lol.

Ziggy

You can say that again!

evyatar

Imagine how many hidden lairs exist under the water? They could be suspended in then middle of the ocean, not even touching the floor. Spawning mobs . They should have a rope that drags behind the ship with a small anchor. Not heavy enough to sink. Just heavy enough to not float. Than they drag it behind the ship. Pinging detection and finding lairs

evyatar

Jamus and Gavin should definitely do a quick experiment to see if channeling levitate lowers the mana cost of teleporting.

Starless

I'm looking forward to seeing what the other T4 skills are.

Pyrefiend

All fixed, thanks!

SenescentSoul

Fixed, thanks!

SenescentSoul

Fixed, thanks!

SenescentSoul

Fixed, thanks!

SenescentSoul

Fixed, thanks!

SenescentSoul

Fixed, thanks!

SenescentSoul

The Aura Anchors have some serious potential. For example they could be used as deep sea probes. Ping Detection through them with max range looking for monsters, then blast Radiance or Shroud to kill them. Maybe even automate the whole process. With his Detection macro running through 50 pings per second he would basically be a deep sea diviner. Or could you imagine an imperial legion marching on Ascension only for some small device to come flying into their formation. Huh, it's probably nothing ... then everyone dies. He could even hide the anchor through inverse Detection. Shit, a T4 aura mage doesn't even have to be in a city to wipe it out. Just 'accidentally' leave an anchor behind. Scary shit.

Cirvante

Oh man, I totally forgot about Lavarro being a puppet! That explains the supply line attacks, it allows the Warden to attack the Imperials without implicating the Watch. And since the report described her as a gold-ranked Force Mage, I wonder if the Warden raised Lavarro's cap. It might just be a false report though considering just how strong Lavarro is, she did kill Westbridge after all.

Oatmeal

Typo: Rain and Ameliah had turned Mahria’s voice <- Should be something like 'turned at hearing Mahria's voice'. // And another one: He hadn’t known they’d spoken since the indecent. <- Should be 'incident'. // And another one: Glavin looked up his inspection of the rings. <- 'from his inspection'.

Cirvante

impereal control -> imperial control

Starless

Typo: and they’d need to tell me to when to use <- drop the 'to' after 'tell me'.

Cirvante

Typo: and Shinevale remain under impereal control. <- Should be 'imperial'.

Cirvante

"Fel Sadanis, Southguard, Warmak, Rumdell, and Shinevale remain under impereal control." impereal -> imperial

Loipers

If Rain manages to convince Glavin to join, with Glavin's range + Rain's mana regen, Ascension would have a way to resupply no matter where they are. There would of course be a limit to how much they could bring on each trip (and we don't know how long this trip over such large distance took Glavin though probably a couple of days at most), but at the very least they would have access to Cryst markets around the world. Though they probably wouldn't be able to do so while traveling by ship, unless they figure out some sort of beacon Glavin would be able to target. If Glavin joins, Rain could go with him this time when he takes Halgrave back, then do some shopping before heading back. Without Halgrave', they could probably bring a couple of backpacks of stuff. Maybe get Tallheart to make some simple items to sell. Stuff that wouldn't stand out. On the other hand, sending Mlem (did I remember his name right) with Glavin might be a better idea, even if they would take longer to get back.

Pebble

At this point the empire is just farming accolades from Citizens. All the cities and silvers and golds they killed... Fell Sedanis(i spelled that incorrectly right?) had The Watch and bunk. All of the accolades stayed when it was flattened. And the fight for the city where Lightbreaker killed a few. now we see that more cities and citizens die...

evyatar

really cool chapter, oh i hope so dearly we get to see more of the talk between the translocationist and Rain

Aaron

I'm not sure if Rain will completely win him over. But being a mana font willing to give mana so freely would frequently make Rain someone almost any mage would want to befriend.

Ziggy

but we only get to see one T4 skill? well, it makes sense that there will be less per tier but :(

Aaron

Teleportation mage who feels undervalued because no one understands how hard is job is meets local cult leader who is way too curious about how everyone's class works. If he does sign up, then I think he will begin to miss the days when nobody cared.

Thransk

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Gyoshi _

"indecent" - incident* ... arrows n anchors sounds like a potential nuke-option in the making.

stubs

pretty nice to get overall info on the war. citizens seems to be losing, despite the watch taking covert action :p

Thenais

damage limit is how much damage a person or object can take, amount of attackers doesn't matter, look chap 106 "The system imposed a limitation on the amount of damage that a single object or entity could sustain."

Veritas Dolor

Eh, that's base range, without it the other range increases become significantly less powerful.

Michael

I forgot how much of a garbage skill [Extend Aura] is at this point. 400% increase to mana cost for an extra 15 meters of range? It’s barely more useful than [Intrinsic Focus]. If Rain ever gets to use a Respec accolade those two need to be the first to go.

Garrett

🤡 🤡 "I coulden't possibly ask you to fill my entire pool. It is deep, as such things go."🤡 🤡

Starless

This chapter was hilarious, synchronized we're not a cult, Rain poaching Hargraves ride immediately after he leaves, what fun.

abowden

Rain and Ameliah had turned Mahria’s voice -> Rain and Ameliah had turned to Mahria’s voice It's just like Rain to poach someone's ride home. The boy has grown.

RedPine

'And then I joined a cult'

Doodlyboy15

Indeed, that line got me too :D

Jeppe Fiig

Would anchor aura allow one to work around the damage cap? After all, they are coming from multiple points so would that work (pretty sure damage is calculated per entity, otherwise a person can only take 9,999 damage in low rank zone even when attacked by a group whose attack all reach damage limit unless limit broken)? Speaking of prismatic intent, would using that work around damage cap (example: Rain uses prismatic intent for shroud and refrigerate, would the damages be calculated separately and thus work around the damage cap?)? Anyway, mana cost for Anchor aura is pretty insane, though I guess it’s acceptable since it take an hour to use it so it’s a preparation skill (knowing an army is coming, and the anchor point is hopefully non detectable or otherwise shielded from mindful knowledge, create a killing field of auras when they walk over them). Does he have to have all 1,000,000 mana (if using a tier 3 aura, it would be 100 cubed so that should be 1,000,000) in his pool at once (doable with rings tuned to focus and it even helps anchor hardness but it’s something that needs testing) or can be charged it gradually?

Conor McGroarty

Absorption only seems to matter a lot when you approach metal to half a meter or so. The environmental effects seem to not be inhibited by metal as much. So they most likely cooles the water with refrigerate.

Monus

He peaked beneath the table -> peeked Fantastic line at the end there.

Ryan

Teleporter with infinite mana? Yes please.

Eric Hartz

Wonder if they will be able to get any info about gold plates and such (souls?) from Halgrave?

Conor McGroarty

Cool that they raised the ship (at least half, though probably both even if they are detached). See that Rain is opening skill trees again. Seems Warden is using her puppet well and likely hasn’t made a direct move yet (Warden making a move would likely be on the list even if it’s recent events) in retaliation for Fecht flattening Sadanis (even though it was a direct attack on the Watch and a gold plate too). I wonder if Warden Vatreece will decide to ease up on which Watch members get what classes (Watch has an impressive catalogue of classes, skills and requirements and may even retain info from Majistraal era) to prepare for Adamant? Halgrave shows fatherly awkwardness (if it can be called that) and hardass nature. It least it seems he isn’t going to just straight up carry Mahria’s butt away with no rebuttal. Though him mentioning goldship makes me wonder if that could motivate the Bank to action (Adamant is already bad for business and leaking of technology too? Even if it is convergent design they still wouldn’t like it, but would it be enough to have them take an active role?)? Let’s hope the Bank doesn’t think of appropriating the fist of progress (likely to be renamed), though that would be a future worry after reaching another continent. Didn’t expect the cult comment but Ascension likely doesn’t qualify in the negative aspects (keeping members away from outsiders, brainwashing, encouraging donating worldly possessions and money with no return, etc) though they do have a shared identity working towards a common goal and such. Rain could qualify as charismatic in his own way though Adamant is way more of a cult in all the ways (government sanctioned too since it is the government). They also have radios now even if they have to do Morse code for now. Lots of info. Also, is Mahria gay (or bisexual) or just friends holding hands? The staff defender Draves still have that fabulous fire eater hat (cat snake!)?

Conor McGroarty

Ok, the ship is floating, I wonder how they dealt with the mana absorption and saturation of the ship. It should have been extreme. Did they just cool normal water? Or did they fully saturate it so they could control magic around it? Or is it nullified somehow? It wasn’t mentioned when Rain used purify to clean the water.

Chymor

Rain worship 😂

Dee

Halgraves is a jerk but I guess we knew that I just forgot since I read those scenes so long ago.

Alexander Dupree

I'd like to join a cult

Alexander Dupree

Thanks for the chapter! Hargraves had better be told about the ship. And that T4 is good.

ZCochraine!%

LOL at the last line :) Thanks for the chapter, and the salvage technique is quite clever!

Mike G.

Thanks

Monus

Thanks for the chapter 🥳

Cjack PVP