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Netherwitch - 49
🕑 Added 2025-08-02 16:00:08 +0000 UTC<< Chapter 48 | Table of Contents | Chapter 50 >>
Professor Abigail Wright. Optimally, her skin tone would be an 'olive', but the AI just ignored my corrections. Overall, pretty good though.
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Chapter 49
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“Oh dear, I fear these currents are quite strong.”
The gentle voice came from the world turtle, Lenape. Sylvia stood on his shell, gripping a rope harness even as she welded herself to the surface with her ki. At Sylvia’s right was Esmeralda, umbral eyes gazing out into the starry abyss. To her left was Professor Wright. The brown-haired witch wore a loose smile.
Behind were three women: Clair, Jennifer, and Annette. Graduates from the Starlight Nether Witch Academy who’d followed Lady Vallenfelt to the Cloud Island Wilderness.
The group was swimming through the starry void.
At the edge of the plane was an astral band two hundred kilometers thick, a flow of chaos spinning loosely in the direction of Pyrinas. Beyond was a storm. The Great Gyre. This barrier separated the demesne of Yaalon from true void. Running along that edge was their target, Nemesis.
The rogue island swept around the world in a broad, eccentric circuit. Rough rock plowed through the walls of the gyre, shedding torrents of ether. Space, void, and causality spilled over its surface. A twisted deluge of reality splintered into a roiling wake.
“It is rather fast,” Emmy agreed, observing the distant island.
“Frighteningly so,” Lenape said. The turtle’s fins beat, swinging them half a degree to the right. “I will have to lead it more, I suspect. This may prove dangerous. I do hope none of you ladies are injured on my account.”
“Don’t worry about us, Lenape,” Sylvia encouraged. “Everyone here can handle a few bumps.”
The damage hardly mattered. Even if half of their crew died, they’d resurrect.
Amused thoughts aside, Lenape was right. Nemesis was too fast. All of Pyrinas spun in a clockwise direction. The four poles turned with the main island, Starlight whipping through the skies at well over one hundred kilometers an hour. The only reason the Utrecht could catch up was because the starry void’s current was dragged in the direction of this turn. Near the inner band, the stars moved at three quarters of the land’s pace.
Nemesis didn’t provide this luxury.
The rogue island smashed along its course, the void all but still around it. Chaos shattered, forming a bow wave of twisted space. It was only through this distorted lens that they could glimpse the island. A thrashing curtain wrapped around the entire rock before breaking at the rear in a mighty wake.
To reach Nemesis, a ship would first have to pass through this horrifying flux. Then it would have to slow before smashing into the island itself. On this, Sylvia dared not risk the Utrecht.
“I do hope you are aware that this will be more than a mere bump,” Lenape said nervously.
“I’m sure it won’t be any worse than the time I tried to fly a broom through the forest,” Professor Wright soothed.
…
Didn’t Abigail end up impaling herself on a branch?
Whoomp.
Lenape bounced. Impelled by a ripple of reality, the turtle suddenly rose by a near meter before sinking the same. The shock of motion shot through Sylvia’s legs, nearly throwing her from her perch. One of the witches wasn’t so lucky. With a shriek, she was flung into the void, rope harness torn from her hands.
“■■!”
Esmeralda reacted before Sylvia could think. Runes were woven into wind. An arm of air reached out, wrapping around the witch’s ankle before pulling her back.
“Sylvia!” Emmy called, glancing back at the rattling crates.
“On it!” Sylvia answered. “■■, ■■, ■■, ■■, …”
With a rapid chant, the silver-haired witch unleashed multiple chains of runes. Each length tied around the other, fed by wind ether drawn from her palace. When her invisible rope was long enough, Sylvia slung it around Lenape’s shell. Grasped by her levitation spell, the rattling containers stilled, pressed tight against the world turtle.
A moment later, Esmeralda finished her own cord. With nimble thoughts, the string of air wrapped around Sylvia’s waist. The spell looped around the harness, securing the girls more firmly in place.
“Oh my me,” Lenape sounded with worry. “Miss Sylvia, I’m dreadfully sorry, but it appears we’ve miscalculated the hazard.”
Eyes of pastel pink turned forward.
Nemesis raced closer, a monstrous meteor rushing toward them. As a world turtle, Lenape could swim through the starry void as easily as his mortal kin slipped through water. The titan was faster than the Utrecht by half. Nemesis was faster than him.
So they had no choice but to intercept it from the side as Nemesis passed.
From a distance, the combined vectors appeared sluggish. Now that they drew close, Sylvia could see the land looming larger and larger at a terrifying pace.
The bow wave hit first.
They smashed into space like a diver hitting the ocean from the stratosphere. The first rush broke on a bubble cast by Lenape’s magic. Then reality surged through, a torrent of force so intense Sylvia was torn from Lenape’s shell. The physical ropes snapped. Harness half broken, four witches floated up, suspended in the air.
The world turtle shook. Lenape’s shell skidded between layers of chaos, wobbling between the waves. Descent became sudden ascent. The shift took a single instant. Before she could blink, hard plate crashed into Sylvia’s face. The witch bounced with the jolt, flying higher.
A wave of dirt rushed up on them like a giant’s fist.
Her eyes widened in fright.
Lenape sucked his head and limbs into his shell. Recognizing the looming impact, Sylvia hurriedly chanted. Her words went unheard under the world’s roar.
“■ ■!”
A pool of water swirled below her, a fragile construct of loose runes stolen from water shield’s sequence. Not enough. Sylvia drew more energy from her palace, directing the threads of ether. The pool expanded, growing wide enough to cushion the witches behind her.
“■ ■! ■ ■!”
Bang!
Her vision went white. The asteri smashed into Lenape’s shell, the cushion of water shattering beneath her weight. But it wasn’t over. The turtle didn’t halt. Instead, it skipped off Nemesis like a flat stone hitting the surface of a lake.
Bang. B-bang. Sshhoff.
Dizzily, they slid to a stop.
Pushing aside the pain, Sylvia picked herself up. She looked back, the world still swirling around her.
“Did we lose anyone?” She asked. She worriedly checked the cracked crates. “Or anything?”
Her words were swallowed by the howling sky. After the crash, Lenape had slid a good four to five kilometers inland. Despite that, the chaos splintering on the island’s shore was as loud as a waterfall. In her daze, Sylvia counted the passengers. Two, three, five….
Sponge cake.
Wait. Sylvia forgot to count herself.
As fey creatures, witches were tougher than they appeared. The worst of the impact had been softened by Sylvia’s magic. Still, the blow had left her rattled. The witch probed the damage. The System inside her whirled, feeding her data without using the interface. She’d lost forty-seven hitpoints. The weaker asteri might’ve taken twice that.
Which was enough to injure, but not enough to kill. The graduates were bruised and shaken. Abigail was the worst off of the lot. The brown-haired professor had landed wrong, her left elbow bent back in the wrong direction.
The wobbly professor gripped the limb and pushed it back into place.
“I am dreadfully sorry,” Lenape apologized, his neck stretching from his shell so he could look back on his passengers. “The landing was not what I expected it to be.”
“We ended up on top,” Sylvia shouted loudly, voice raised over the din. “Which is better than could be expected.”
“Injuries to the crust heal quickly,” Emmy soothed. The emerald-haired witch stepped forward, walking on a cushion of flowers so she could pat the giant turtle gently on the head. “There, there. You did your part perfectly.”
Ignoring the exchange, Sylvia headed to the back to check on the crates. She grimaced. One of the boxes broke, leaving half the contents scattered. Fearfully, she checked the others. They were intact.
“I’m afraid all this adventure disagrees with me,” Lenape commented, easing under the tender care. “I’m accustom to the slow life.”
“If not for your help, we never would’ve made it to Nemesis in the first place,” Sylvia shouted.
Once the turtle was settled, Emmy crowded close to the silver-haired witch. Sylvia straightened, her pigtails whipping in front of her as though caught in hurricane. This wasn’t wind. It was space itself sliding over Nemesis.
“How much did we lose,” Esmeralda asked, expression serious.
“Half a box of space stone,” Sylvia answered. “Spares only. The enchanted blocks are all in place.”
The emerald-haired woman relaxed. “Then the mission is a success.”
“At the very least, we can build a gate,” Sylvia agreed. “The real question is, will we find what we’re looking for.”
Sylvia turned her gaze to Nemesis.
Barren land stretched as far as the eye could see. Compared to the other territories of the plane, the island was incredibly flat. A few rounded hills were all that broke a horizon of scintillating black. The ground was smoothed stone and cracked earth. Astral winds stirred this dust, raising tufts of brown that hung in the distance.
This was no small island either. By surface area, Nemesis was twice the size of Starlight.
“What do you think?” Sylvia said loudly.
She pushed some ki into her hair, taming the flapping tails so they weren’t cracking around her face.
A soft hand wrapped around her own.
“The ether density is thrice that of the void, so it’s even more promising than we suspected,” Emmy noted. “It’s interesting. Given the chaotic nature of the island, I would’ve expected Nemesis to show turbulence. It appears to be barren instead.”
Planes were defined as sovereign, wild, barren, or turbulent. A wild plane was one thick with life. Plants and phantasms would be in abundance. Barren worlds were dead, having few signs of life. Barren described Nemesis perfectly. There were no trees to be seen, not even a single blade of grass. Even the ethers of life were thin, no different in their density than those found in the starry void.
“Just because things are stable here doesn’t mean things won’t turn turbulent further inland,” Sylvia commented.
A turbulent plane, by contrast, was any which broke the conventions of logic. Most worlds echoed the material universe, their internal rules following the suggestions set by physics. Time. Gravity. Inertia. Rivers would flow down hill. Hot would melt into cold. Objects thrown would follow a parabolic arc. In short, the world would, by and large, behave as intuition would suggest.
But that wasn’t always the case.
On a turbulent world, the rules would fall into chaos. Gasses might act as solids while fire froze instead of heated. The land might shift between reality and illusion according to unknowable whimsy. In extreme cases, a turbulent world might see time flow in strange ways or the rules themselves be erratically rewritten.
“Certainly,” Emmy concurred.
The emeraldette’s hand loosed. Esmeralda stepped away, her umbral eyes sweeping over the witches. The graduates immediately stood at attention.
“Is everyone prepared for this venture?”
“Yes, Lady Vallenfelt,” Abigail accepted.
Emmy nodded. “Then I will be counting on the four of you to explore this area. I expect everyone to check in promptly on four hour intervals. Sylvia and I will be responsible for the gate.”
““Yes milady,”” four voices echoed.
While Sylvia watched, Professor Wright quickly organized the witches. All four of these women had been chosen because they had System features like Observe Terrain and Observe Resources. Annette even had the feature Prospect Resources, which was an upgraded version designed to penetrate through the earth.
When the time came, she’d be responsible for checking the most promising sites.
“Oh, is there a task for me to be doing during all of this?” the world turtle interrupted.
Emmy smiled.
“You can remain here, Lenape. If anyone runs into trouble, I hope you will go and help.”
“How lovely,” Lenape said. “I am fond of this arrangement. Recently, I purchased this thing called the System Library. It has such a delightful array of books. I have, therefore, set on myself a goal of reading every text recorded within.”
…
“You do realize that books are being added faster than you can read them?”
“What wonderful news!” Lenape said. His huge yellow eyes broadened in delight. “Then, like Sisyphus, I shall eagerly push this boulder up a hill.”
Sylvia was pretty sure Sisyphus’s labor was a punishment, not a reward.
“We should head out and check the lay of the land ourselves,” Sylvia commented.
The two of them descended from Lenape’s shell. Professor Wright and the others were already moving in the distance. The atmosphere of Nemesis was too thin for brooms, so the witches had no choice but to hoof it. Being in no hurry herself, Sylvia strolled forward aiming for a distant hill.
“If the flow is this strong inland, it’s going to be almost impossible to dock an astralship anywhere on the island,” Emmy commented.
Sylvia gazed up at the rippling sky. Darkness was split by a shimmering, colorful flux where the burbling chaos smoothed after being smashed by into a bow wave by Nemesis.
“No chance for a natural harbor, that’s for sure,” Sylvia concurred.
Nemesis turned as it completed its orbit, leaving every shore exposed to the void’s wrath. Or, more accurately, Nemesis didn’t turn at all. Which meant the chaos would break on the opposite side of the island when it was halfway along its path.
Sylvia supposed they could try and dig an artificial harbor, but it would be all but impossible to reach Nemesis with a conventional astralship.
“Mmm,” Emmy hummed. “The ether flows here are highly unstable. I think we should move further from the shore before building the gate.”
Sylvia nodded in agreement.
“Given how flat the territory is, we might have to dig down a few hundred meters to protect the frame from the flux.” The silver-haired witch paused. “I’m still worried we won’t be able to punch through the bow wave.”
With a thought, Sylvia projected her mapping function. She could feel the System turn in her head, calculating positions and orbits. Since obtaining digitized soul, she’d been subject to these strange, ephemeral feelings. Right now, they were vague and difficult to comprehend.
But as the months passed, they grew ever clearer.
And as they did, Sylvia had found it easier and easier to decipher the System’s function.
This map was a product of her learning. The illusion showed Nemesis tracing a path around the plane. Every island in the Cloud Island Wilderness had an orbit. Most followed the turn of Pyrinas, completing a cycle every 20 hours. Not a day. A cycle. Because the sun rose and set according to world logic, not according to the island’s facing.
Nemesis, was eccentric. The island’s path was tilted fifty degrees off center with an orbit of 23 hours. This meant that its position in the sky lagged the four poles, slowly shifting backward.
“According to our calculations, the double strength frame can create a tunnel powerful enough to cut across the astral gap,” Esmeralda rejected.
“But only when Nemesis is in the same quartet as Starlight,” Sylvia added.
The witch added a line to her projection, connecting Nemesis’s gate to the frame at Sylvia’s Landing. The thread turned green during the viable periods and red during the others.
“However, I’m worried about the strength of the bow wave,” Sylvia continued. “We already know the gate cannot work while facing the gyre. This is because the chaos is too thick. What I’m afraid of is that we underestimated the outer shroud, even in the optimal position.”
“Math does not lie, Sylvia,” Emmy refuted. “Even if we made a mistake in our calculation, it will only narrow the number of traversable days from a third to a fifth.”
Nemesis was a treasure trove of chaos materials. The rocky dirt on which they walked was littered with sparkling specks. Glimmer. A material that could be refined into space steel then soul-space silver. This wasn’t the ore of primary interest. There were already broad reserves of glimmer on Starlight.
What they wanted were the materials used in gate construction.
Space stone and void rock occurred naturally. Chaos would impregnate stone transforming the essence. Of course, it’d have to be refined before use, but this wasn’t an onerous task. A substitute for realm brick, however, was something they wished for but couldn’t be sure existed.
And if it didn’t, their only choice would be to find a substance suitable for transmutation.
“Rather than fret, think of the adventure,” Emmy encouraged with a smile. The witch skipped forward, looking back at her. “If we’re lucky, we might even find a cauldron of chaos like the one in Vallen.”
“I suppose there might be useful materials oriented toward law,” Sylvia considered.
“Causality and fate are closer to my interest,” the emeraldette said.
Sylvia raised a brow.
“We already have astral channels running along a quarter of Starlight’s starside coast,” Esmeralda explained. “When the gate network comes into operation, the elements space, void, and realm will see the heaviest use. As a result, the local density of causality will increase, crowding out new ethers. Rather than dispose of this as waste, I intend to make use of these purified leftovers.”
“Wait, are you planning to raise a divination tower?” Sylvia questioned.
“Not in specific,” Esmeralda continued. “If possible, I intend to borrow from the System. With that much causality ether, it should be possible to run simulations on a System Node for teaching and research purposes.”
Huh? Sylvia supposed that might work. It so, it’d be a valuable tool. Lucifer would probably let it slide too, so long as it wasn’t eating into Earthside computational resources.
“If that pans out, the Moonlight Academy will become much more attractive,” Sylvia mused.
“And it will accelerate our own studies into various subjects,” Esmeralda confirmed. “Beyond this, I wish to create an astral farm, as seen in my former Academy. I do not wish my girls to lag behind other gamers. Thus, we need a resource to replace astral dew.”
They’d need a different plant too. Vallen’s caves were thick in astral ether. The reserves under Starport would naturally lean toward causality, due to the consumption of the gate network. A plant suitable for that atmosphere would be preferred.
“If you get the farm up and running, you can mark me down for a million experience points a year.”
Sylvia was growing exhausted of her weekly grind. Hunting monsters was peasant work. An entitled rich lady like her should buy her levels.
“You’ll have to wait, I’m afraid,” Emmy replied. “It’ll be years before we can harvest in abundance. Until then, witches of greater need come first.”
Sylvia sighed. She reached out her hand, her soft fingers wrapping around those of the emeraldette. A warm feeling bubbled in her heart.
“Then I’ll just have to hunt monsters with you.”
With that said, the silver-haired witch leaned in for a kiss.
-oOo-
Sylvia stretched.
Brilliant sunlight fell on her face, the muggy warmth of Starlight clinging to her body. Dark clouds hung over a distant mountain. Sylvia could see the streaks of rain falling upon the slopes, a shroud of darkness covering the pure blue expanse.
“Maybe we’ll get a little rain later,” the witch mused.
A thunderstorm would be a nice change of pace.
It was the second week of Men-Lignum. It’d been four years and six months since Sylvia was born into the netherworld. The witch moseyed down a lonely path, enjoying a stroll through the woods. Jungle lingered at the edge of the road to her left, giant ferns extending leaves over the thin street. To the right were rocks, crags, and then the starry void.
Here, on the starside of Starlight, the heavens were split between blue and black. It was as though the world had been cut in two by a giant knife.
It was a strange sort of beauty, but today Sylvia paid it little mind. Instead, she indulged in the lazy pace, enjoying the reward of her third class advancement.
In fact…
Sylvia flipped open a window, reading the gorgeous lines a second time.
Class Advancement Complete!
Class: ♥Magical Girl Sylvia♥
* +200 Hp/Mp
* +16 all Physical Attributes
* +32 all Magical AttributesYour Tier has advanced, increasing your influence on the world:
* +20% all fundamental attributesDue to the evolution of your code, the following traits have emerged:
Trait: Ether Affinity II (replaces: Ether Affinity I)
* +70% ether gathering rate
* A large reduction to the difficulty of filtering ether
* A large reduction to the difficulty of holding etherYour soul is attuned to the natural world. Ether bows to your whim. Whether gathering, filtering, or holding ether, you will find the task significantly easier. This is true whether the ether is being gathered for direct use by your elemental palace, or in cooperation with a magical tool.
Ether gathering rate is affected by traits, arts, equipment, and Mysticism.
Trait: Ether Resonance
* +1.0 ether ratio for most spells
* +1.5 ether ratio for moderate ether spells
* +2.0 ether ratio for high ether spellsYour soul and mana resonant with ether, allowing you to blend a greater ratio with your mana when casting spells. This affects all elements. Simple magics that cannot muster much ether will allow a one fold greater proportion, changing the required mix of mana from 33% to 25%. Fire magics and similar spells which allow large ratios of ether will instead muster a twofold increase in their proportion, changing the required mix from 12.5% to 10%.
Yes, those were hearts framing her name. Ignore them. That was irrelevant flavor text. The important part was her gains.
Compared to Awakening, the traits brought by a class advancement were smaller. First, her ether affinity had upgraded. Sylvia was happy to see this. Her ether gathering rate was rather slow compared to the size of her pool. With this, she could passively fill an elemental palace in twenty seconds. If she used the ether breath technique, Sylvia could chop that number to twelve.
Not terrible but not great either. Sylvia’s speed was roughly thrice that of a mortal. So twenty seconds for her was equivalent to a minute for an ordinary person. Battles could run a lot longer than that. Or they could finish in a dozen seconds.
This rate of recovery was merely acceptable.
Her Ghost Lightning Staff gathered ether far faster.
Not that her old, trashy weapon saw a lot of use these days. Sylvia was desperately in need of a full equipment overhaul.
Ether resonance was an interesting trait. In real terms, it was a mana multiplier. Previously, when Sylvia cast a maxed out wind scythe, she would put in 100 mana and 200 ether. Now, the cost would be 75 mana and 225 ether. Thus, when it came to slow and steady casting, Sylvia could do a lot more work for the same mana cost.
But when ether was short, as it often was when working with the chaos or life domain elements, she’d receive no benefits. This would make spells of that nature all the more painful by comparison.
“At least I can save mana when using the waygate,” Sylvia joked.
The witch flicked open another window, continuing her stroll.
Class Advancement: ♥Magical Girl ♥ Galactic Sylvia♥
[x] Level: 600 / 1,000
[x] Experience: 145 / 200,000Please advance your level to the required point before attempting class advancement from ‘♥Magical Girl Sylvia♥’ to ‘♥Magical Girl ♥ Galactic Sylvia♥’.
“Shouldn’t those be stars instead of hearts?” Sylvia lamented.
Seriously. She was an asteri. The System had even named her next class ‘Galactic Sylvia’. So where were the stars? The Devil had no taste. If Lucifer was going to insist she was a magical girl, he should go whole hog and create a theme for it.
“When I Transcend, my new class names better be less cutesy.”
For now, these shameful titles were only known to Emmy and herself. The emeraldette was going to tease her about it for the rest of her life, Sylvia just knew it.
The road Sylvia traveled was known as Crescent Street. This path traced the outer edge of Cape Moonlight. If one followed the road far enough south and there would be a jut to the east. From there, it was a straight shot to Sylvia’s Landing.
These days, phantasms offered little threat to travelers. During the last two years witches had sunk pylons along the roadside, wards to keep the beasts at bay.
“Three million and change before I hit level one thousand,” Sylvia murmured. The witch hummed lightly as she walked. Numbers whirled in her digitized soul. “That means, it’ll be three years before I advance. Six if I’m lazy.”
Who was she kidding? Sylvia would definitely be lazy.
Even veteran gamers would grow weary of a long grind and right now her motivation was weak. Sylvia was the strongest gamer on the plane. It’d be years before anyone had hope of catching up. Even if Sylvia was slow, she could maintain her lead for decades.
This was because her talent was perfect.
After merging her souls, eating an Apple of Idunn, and integrating the System, Emmy’s talent rating had touched 92.6%. Using a bit of math, Sylvia knew her partner required twice as much experience to reach the fourth consolidation as Sylvia did.
And this rating was considered excellent even by gamers.
Sometime in the last three months, someone had thrown a chart onto the System forums. This post provided a loose grade of a player’s talent. According to the arbitrary lore, S-grade gamers had a rating above 95% while A-grade talents ran from 90% to 95%.
A litany of gamers had all but confirmed these numbers. Most players had C-grade or B-grade talents. Henry Taylor for instance, had a rating of 88.5%. Though it was hardly fair to compare Henry to Esmeralda. Emmy drew benefits from multiple mutations and consolidations. When Henry was forced to transmigrate, his talent would far surpass hers.
As for poor Riley? According to the forums she was F-grade trash.
All six hundred and sixty-six planes wept. Riley was talented by conventional measure. When the blonde witch had integrated her System, that talent had risen to the level of a super genius. If properly nurtured, Riley had a real shot of reaching Apotheosis.
In the Ancient Era, that would’ve made her a god.
Sylvia flipped open another window.
Name: Sylvia Swallows Class: ♥Magical Girl Sylvia♥
Lv: 600+144 Exp: 145 / 6010
Hp: 1324 / 1324 Mp: 3489 / 3489
Str: 40 Mag: 178
Vit: 40 Spr: 203
Agl: 90 Wit: 193
“I’ll clean up my magical stats first. Then, I’ll need to plan out my next phase of growth,” she murmured excitedly.
This time, Sylvia had preset some of her attributes so they’d be nice and round at the start. The witch could only applaud her genius.
After so many years, Sylvia had stopped using Vitality as a dump stat. There were many reasons driving her decision. First, attributes had linear growth. Therefore, the relative benefit of raising a lower attribute slowly became larger than raising the high ones, even if their effect was peripheral.
But mostly, she’d pumped Vitality out of pure practicality. Vitality influenced the toughness of Sylvia’s body as well as her ki. The latter was especially important. Fey protected their equipment by cycling ki through it. As Sylvia’s level rose, she’d reached the point where her ki had become so fragile compared to powers she was throwing around that a single meteor blast could strip her naked.
Which would be extremely embarrassing.
“Wha~haaa!”
A witch flashed overhead, releasing an excited shriek. Sylvia caught Belkis slewing through the air on a broom. The dark-skinned prisma zoomed around, completing a wide circle before skidding to a stop in front of Sylvia. Belkis was still young and tiny, though a year of maturity had lifted the witch into her teens.
“Little sis,” Sylvia deadpanned.
“Who’s your little sister?” Belkis growled grouchily. Her anger, though, didn’t last long. A bright smile spread on her face. “Congratulations on consolidation, little sis!”
“Yes. And thanks to that, I’m even more definitely the big sister,” Sylvia commented blandly. Pastel pink eyes shifted to the broom. “Is that the first production release?”
Belkis hopped off to land on the ground. She waggled the broom in front of the asteri’s face.
“No, this is a prototype variant, Lunam Fuga,” Belkis explained. “Kristina had the idea of doubling everything to improve the performance. I volunteered to give it a test flight.”
“I’m surprised it can fly,” Sylvia scoffed.
Kristina was too reckless. A new broom demanded a new enchantment code. Sylvia would have a word with that woman later. Designs were to be approved by Sylvia. If Kristina wanted to show her creativity, she should invest in a few skill books first.
The witch was wasting Sylvia’s money.
“It outperforms the Stella by a quarter on speed and a tenth for acceleration,” Belkis appraised excitedly. “But the drain is atrocious. And it’s sluggish on turns when its velocity nears the peak.”
Better than she would’ve thought. Without a word, the silver-haired witch plucked the broom from Belkis’s hand. Observe Item. Magic ran through the structure as Sylvia turned it in hand. The data filtered through her System, combining with the information garnered with her eyes.
“The maneuvering enchantments were optimized for the original,” Sylvia commented, handing the tool back. “It has promise, but the code has to be adjusted. There are too many redundancies both in the enchantments and in forged concepts. The biggest problem is mana efficiency. As it is right now, this broom is worthless.”
“I know,” Belkis said. “I was going to tell her as much. But we do need a higher end broom for the market. The Sky Scouts are desperate for one.”
The Sky Scouts was the name Piper had given to her crew. Ever since Henry formed the Viridian Blades, guilds had been popping up left and right. Most of them had died as fast as they were born, but with a steady stream of noobs dreaming of adventure, there were always players itching for another try.
Sylvia hadn’t been paying too much attention lately. After Emmy returned, Sylvia had delegated much of her authority to Esmeralda’s network. These older, more experience hands had put Axis on the right route. More importantly, they’d freed a big block of Sylvia’s time.
Alas, there had been a series of tasks ready to swallow it.
With the main quests Gateway Express, Ten Thousand Dungeon Domain, and A Perfect Core on hold, Sylvia had turned her interests to the plane’s technological foundation. Emmy was tackling the alchemical side of things. Thanks to that, soul-space silver was finally in full production. Better yet, they had a candidate to replace realm brick.
Rather than double up on alchemy, Sylvia had dedicated herself to a different problem. Equipment. The Cloud Island Wilderness was desperate for better tools. To help spur innovation, she’d taken it upon herself to build a broom factory.
Her success here owed thanks to Runeworks Studio 3.0.
With Griffmiss’s latest release came a host of powerful features. Rune reduction. Automated arithmancy calculations. Sequence substitutions. Software in hand, the efficiency of Sylvia’s labor had been enhanced ten times over. Her accomplishments only became greater after buying the skill books: Foundations of Enchantment, The Enchanter’s Bible, and Rune Logic I & II.
Between Runeworks Studio, Sylvia’s personal skill, and digitized soul some people were under the impression she could do rune reductions in her head. Sylvia hadn’t dissuaded them of this notion.
“How’s the production release?” Sylvia asked. “Are they still trying to resolve problems?”
“No. We had it all figured out a week ago,” Belkis answered gleefully. “We were saving the news until after your consolidation. Surprise!”
Sylvia smiled. Her day just got better. The witch drew a broom from her soul. Mounting it, she floated up, eagerness filling her heart.
“Come on, I want to take a look.”
“Race you!” Belkis shouted, shooting off.
Shaking her head, Sylvia followed.
Cape Moonlight was a starside peninsula, the tip curving to the west. Sylvia traced the outer band, following Crescent Street northwest. It didn’t take long for Starport to come into view.
By size, Starport wasn’t much bigger than the Beginner’s Village. The population remained stuck near five hundred. They had a long term plan to solve this obstacle, but it required building a planar gate both here and in Viridian City. When the two cities were connected, people and trade would flow freely, slowly filling the harbor.
One day, Starport would become a metropolis.
But for now, new players were a trickle. Most of those immigrating to the city had been recruited by the Moonlight Academy.
Starport had a second attraction, it was home to the plane’s greatest craftsmen. With Lady Vallenfelt restricting the export of soul-space silver, this was likely to hold true for many years to come. This was one of Emmy’s evil, capitalist schemes to grow her city and her interests.
Sylvia had made quite a few coins in the last six months transporting space bags.
As the witches approached, the Moonlight Academy came into view. The building sat on a hill along the inner curve of Cape Moonlight, entrance facing the harbor. The underlying structure was stone, sheets of pale blue wood placed over the surface. Half a kilometer away was the heart of the city, a gothic building of gray brick. This was the resurrection pool, the core infrastructure scaled for a population of ten thousand.
Though the waters born from this pool were only enough to serve three hundred.
Wind whistling, Sylvia spiraled down to land beside her factory.
This was a broad, single storied building built near the root of Cape Moonlight. It was well south of town, just barely within the scope of the wards. If not for that, Sylvia would’ve built deeper into the jungle. While her factory was out of the way now, in a decade or two it’d be devoured by the grand city.
Fortunately, land was cheap. Which meant Sylvia didn’t need to butt heads when she laid down an ether circle to fuel her forge.
The silver-haired witch opened the door. Above the front desk was as sign reading: Swift Brooms.
There was nobody there to greet her.
Swift Brooms had five employees. Tsubame, a three-horned oni, worked as their smith. Robert, a black-haired warrior, had come to Starport to learn how to craft. Kristina, a starlight witch, was the company’s official enchanter. Kristina had owned the staff shop back in Vallen. Next, there was the doll-like witch, Josephine from the Sunday Course. Josephine was in charge of material collection.
Finally, there was Sylvia herself.
The silver-haired witch was the CEO of Swift Brooms and its primary investor. Beyond her duties as the company director, Sylvia headed Research and Development.
And where did Belkis fit in all this? She was a leech. A rambunctious kid sister sponging off all the responsible parties.
Multiple faces looked up toward her as Sylvia stepped into the main room.
“I heard the first production model are out,” Sylvia said loudly. “Let me take a look.”
“Yes! Right away, ma’am,” Kristina said, a mix of nervousness and cheer.
Kristina had blonde hair streaked with orange bleeding into crimson. At the tip of each strand was a blaze of fire that hung around her shoulders. With three brooms cradled in her arms, Kristina quickly hurried back before setting them on the table.
Sylvia picked one up, fingers running across the sleek, lacquered haft.
“There’s still some variation in quality,” Kristina said nervously. “I was thinking we should charge less for the worst of the lot. A budget edition.”
The handle of the Stella Iecit was a dark, stormy gray etched with complex silver sigils. Around the middle was a simple seat, a panel of wood shaped to cup the rider’s rear. The design somewhat resembled the seat of a bicycle but without the padding. A mortal would no doubt chafe if riding the broom for hours.
Gamers were made of tougher stuff.
At the broom’s rear was the box. Here the rod connected to a puff of feathers using a spiraling cage. The fiery feathers were white in the center, the material gathered from cloud island eagles then attached to the enchanted object.
“The design is within tolerance,” Sylvia said.
She ignored Kristina’s comments for now. Instead, Sylvia released a pulse of magic. Observe Item. She wanted to see if the production models matched the prototype.
Ding!
Equipment: Stella Iecit
Weight: 16.7 droms
Type: Tool/Magical
Value: 63,000 soliCharacteristics:
Top Speed: 192 km/h
Acceleration: 2.6 seconds (0-100)
Mp Drain: 200 to 460/hourAn ultra light broom that steals much of its enchantment code from the broom, Raven Wing. This is the first product of Swift Brooms and can be considered a transformative invention. The smooth and elegant rune sequence not only allows for high performance at shockingly low spiritual mass, but it also means that this broom could be built using a lower quality base.
If released into the netherworld, this broom could sweep all competitors setting a new standard by which all designs must abide. The suggested retail price for the Cloud Island Wilderness is 10 gold (25,000 soli).
Players are invited to use the Stella Iecit’s enchantment code for their own broom designs, but they must pay a fee of 30 silvers for each instance.
Data filtered through her soul, revealing flows, grains and concepts that the System hid behind its blue screen.
Sylvia grinned.
Observe Item, ding! Observe Item, ding!
With all three windows arrayed. Sylvia checked the variance. Weight ranged up or down by 0.2 drom, while top speed varied from best to worst by 3km/h. Given every broom was handcrafted, this was probably the best she was going to get.
“We’ll sell them all for the same price,” Sylvia decided, addressing the earlier suggestion. The witch wore an evil smirk. “Wrap them up so the players can’t tell the difference. It’ll be like a buying a mini-loot box. Some gamers will get the common white quality broom. Others will get a gold level epic. It’ll be more fun that way.”
In the background, the warrior, Robert, gave her an ugly look. Tch. Scowl all you like. The man knew in his heart that Sylvia was right.
Dismissing all the windows, Sylvia glanced around the room.
“Any last issues, or are we ready to go into full production?”
“The process is pretty well tested now,” Tsubame said. The oni’s deep voice had a pleasant tenor. “I don’t see anywhere we could make major improvements, not unless we want to go back to the drawing board and change out the base. The only recommendation I have left is splicing.”
A Stella Iecit started its life as a block of wood. The optimal trees were found on the east side of Starlight where the blue skies of the plane smashed into the island, creating perpetual, gale force winds. One thousand droms of lumber would be loaded into a giant furnace then smelted with ethers of wood and wind.
After reduction, a block of sixty to seventy droms would be left behind. Each block would be cut into thirds. These were ‘blanks’. The blanks would be individually forged with essence drawn from the clouds above Starlight then with the carapace from a steel needled wasp. This would add to the wood a concept of loftiness and toughness, improving both durability and function.
The forged blank would then be placed in a special chamber to be aged for a week. The laws there helped stabilize the transformation, reducing the risk of reversion.
Next, each blank would be sent to a master enchanter. The main sequence of the Stella Iecit was nearly five thousand runes long. This chain would be meticulously engraved using a rune stylus and a magiscope. If the enchanter made a mistake, the damaged chain would be scrapped off and the mage would try again. There was enough material to support several errors, though it was better if there were none.
Once the main sequence was imprinted, the block would be cut reducing the size to eight droms. Scraps of wood amounting to four droms or more would be set aside for enchanting the box. The rest would be sent to the furnace or discarded as spoils.
The box was the next piece to be enchanted. This sequence ran for only eight hundred runes, making it simple enough to be handled by a junior enchanter like Josephine. Both rod and box would then be aged for another week before being sent to the smiths.
After an initial testing for quality control, the parts would be shaped and folded. The large block would become the rod, the enchantment code twisted and buried during the process. This, plus a small bit of code to scramble causality, would make the work almost impossible to reverse engineer.
Though, not by the System.
The smaller block demanded a more delicate touch. The frame would be folded then stretched into a cage. Then the eagle feathers would be attached by a skilled smith. This added to the broom the eagle’s concept of flight and fiery propulsion.
Once done, both parts would be aged for another cycle then assembled into a single staff.
But there was one final touch to make the broom complete. A ribbon of soul-space silver, already enchanted, would be stretched into a thread then wound around the handle. Once smelted into the whole, the broom would become soul bound equipment.
“We aren’t going to splice. The broom is too thin,” Sylvia rejected. “But while the technique isn’t suitable for the Stella Iecit, I’m willing to give it a try for a heavier broom like the Lunam Fuga.”
Splicing was a technique that kept separate the forging and enchantment steps so they occurred on independent blanks. The advantage was that failures in one module wouldn’t affect the other. This would reduce losses during production. The big problem with splicing was when the pieces were merged. This was a new risk which demanded a skilled smith.
Starport was dreadfully short of skilled smiths.
“How was the Lunam Fuga? Did it work as expected?” Kristina asked excitedly, spurred by the mention of her prototype.
“Yes. Let’s talk about that,” Sylvia said with the bland tone of a manager asking for TPS reports. “We can start by having you explain why you decided to use my materials to design a new broom without my authorization.”
Kristina cringed.
Before her graduation, Kristina Evans had been a member of the Academy’s Artisan’s Club. The same club that made Sylvia’s old academy junker. The ‘Firebolt Mk 7’ was an impressive creation for a student. This enthusiasm, plus Kristina’s experience building staves, was one reason Sylvia had hired the woman.
But Swift Brooms was Sylvia’s company, not Kristina’s and Sylvia didn’t want her money being wasted on ill-advised, cobbled together projects. She was already 250 gold into the red as it was.
“In the future, run your ideas through me first,” Sylvia said, tone short. “A high performance broom is a good idea, but the enchantment code should’ve gone through an adjustment first.”
“Yes, Miss Swallows,” Kristina said, chided.
“I’ll look over the design later,” Sylvia stated. Her pastel pink eyes were like cold jewels. “But we’re focusing on the Stella first.” The silver-haired witch turned to the rest. “How many can we make?”
Tsubame considered for a moment. “The most I can handle is three per a week.”
“At the current rate we’re harvesting wood, we can only make one,” Josephine’s soft voice refuted. “But we have enough lumber stored in the warehouse for twenty.”
Sylvia nodded. The other ingredients weren’t a concern. Carapaces, cloud essence, and eagle feathers could be collected quickly and in bulk. So long as Sylvia fronted the money, contractors would happily bring supplies for a hundred brooms in less than a month.
Harvesting lumber, however, demanded constant labor. Worse, the base camp was forty kilometers to the east. If Swift Brooms was to be truly successful in the long run, they’d have to take charge of this industry themselves.
A pity they had no airships. An airship would make everything easier. For now, the best Sylvia could do was sail the Utrecht up the coast every couple months and port the beams using levitation.
“I’ll put aside funds for expansion. I just hope we can find the labor for it,” Sylvia said. Wood might be their most serious bottleneck. “Putting aside materials, what’s the limit we can expand to before adding a second factory?”
“With just the one furnace, our limit is five,” Tsubame stated.
Robert looked a little unhappy.
“I built the channels big enough for a second furnace,” Sylvia said. She gave the black-haired warrior a glance. “But I’m guessing we’ll need a few more players to work them. Along with more smiths.”
“With three enchanters and four smiths, I think we could hit ten per a week,” Kristina said, after working through some numbers. “Any more than that, and we’ll be tight on space.”
“Then we’re good for now,” Sylvia concluded.
Finding a second smith would be hard. Finding four, in the current environment, was impossible. Starport already had enough demand and the players would need a few more years before they were competitive. Sylvia had paid a pretty penny for Tsubame’s work.
“So, 150 brooms a year currently and 500 in the future,” Belkis interjected.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to sell that many,” Kristina added.
The flat faced Josephine nodded, along with several others. Sylvia agreed. The wealthiest audience were the witches who could absorb a good hundred. But even they would be tough pressed to find 10 gold all at once. As for the gamers? The warriors weren’t suited for brooms due to their smaller mana pools. Hunters were even worse off, thanks to their living mana. The plane had a lot of mages, but they were so poor they made the witches look rich.
Thankfully, there was an easy solution to this problem.
“We’ll finance the sales like a car company,” she said. “The System has pretty robust rules when it comes to debt. What’s more, with skill books and levels, our consumers are almost guaranteed to have a better income in the next few years than they do now.
“But we don’t have to worry about that in the short run, because I already have a contract for two hundred.” Sylvia smirked. “The government is investing in our plant with the goal of selling brooms in Tartarus.”
What’s that? Corruption you say. Pfft. Next time, don’t make an evil witch your governor!
Also, Sylvia was legit acting on the Cloud Island Wilderness’s behalf here. Her plan was to raise soli in Tartarus then buy a boatload of books to fill the plane’s tech tree. Books she’d donate to the Moonlight Academy, yes, but that too was a public service.
See. Nothing but above the board government stuff.
Not that Sylvia was going to miss her slice of the pie. The witch desperately needed a new staff and an up-to-date realm ring array. Sparkling Starpack was one consolidation from giving up the ghost and Sylvia feared she’d break her Ghost Lightning Staff if she used it at full strength.
And what better place to buy equipment than Tartarus? She’d use her own money, of course. Sylvia wasn’t a thief. Money she’d earn by selling a second set of brooms. Brooms she’d buy with… err… the profits earned by selling brooms to the government.
Heh.
And the System had the gall to claim she was some sort of silly, softhearted magical girl.
“Tartarus, huh?” Belkis mused. “Little sis, when are you planning to head out?”
“When I have enough brooms,” Sylvia answered. “So one year, maybe two. I don’t want to sweep the whole lot either. So every fourth broom goes to market here in the Cloud Island Wilderness. That’ll be enough to keep us in the black even if we have to finance every sale for the first two years.”
Despite the impressions of others, Sylvia wasn’t made of money. Yet. She wasn’t made of money, yet.
But she was working on it!
“There are a few things I want to do in Tartarus, so I’ll come with,” Belkis said.
Sylvia gave the prisma a suspicious look. “We’re not heading there for revenge. In fact, I plan to avoid Iacchus altogether.”
Best not to tempt Malik. There would be plenty of time to string the bastard up when she reached Apotheosis.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Belkis said.
Uh huh.
“I spent half a century in Pyrkagiás with our… teacher.” Belkis said, managing to catch the habitual title at the last moment. “I still have a few connections there. That’ll make things smoother. Plus, with me there, it’ll be easier to access whatever money is left in Esmeralda’s accounts.”
The little witch grimaced at the thought of looting her master’s finances.
“Pyrkagiás,” Sylvia mused. “That’s on the fourth layer. The capital of Asmodeus’s domain, right?”
“Yeah. We’ll want to avoid Countess Chanlina, but Esmeralda’s old coven might be able to help. At the very least, they’ll be trustworthy.”
Sylvia’s expression turned sour. Countess Chanlina had been Esmeralda’s sponsor in her first life. She was also the same woman who’d ‘introduced’ Emmy to Asmodeus. After that, Lady Vallenfelt had picked up roots and settled in the Timeless Beryl Wilderness. Belkis, on the other hand, had chosen to remain behind.
A decision the prisma came to regret.
“What’s wrong with Chanlina?”
“Nothing,” Belkis said. “She’s nice. But if she finds out about your relationship with Lady Vallenfelt, things are going to get awkward.”
Awkward huh. Well, Chanlina wasn’t the only thing that would be awkward. Though Belkis was trying not to say it, it was clear she found Emmy and Sylvia’s relationship awkward too.
Hmm…. The two of them should plan another date.
-oOo-
♦ Boards >> Guides >> Classes
Topic: The (Un)official Hunter’s Field Guide!
BlueRangerSPD (Original Poster)
Posted: 4 months ago
Welcome to the officially, unofficial Hunter’s Field Guide. This is your one-stop shop for everything you ever wanted to know about Hunters and the Hunter class. Of the three major classes, Hunters have the greatest variance. They are also the class that’s easiest to screw up, so you’ll want to start here.
Class Links:
* Ranger – Farstrider, Druid, and Beast Tamer
* Shadow Hunter – Shadow Assassin, Shadow Stalker, and Shadow Mage
* <Element> Soldier – Knight, Incarnation, and Conjurer
A list of common traits can be found here.
Frequently Asked Question
Q: What’s the benefit of being a hunter?
A: I’m glad you asked. Hunters have living mana, which combines ki and mana into a single energy. This means we can use arts with a magical character more easily and more naturally. It also means we don’t have a mana pool like usual. This makes the hunter class path unique.
Q: I heard Hunters are the weakest class?
A: Hunters suffer from being the easiest class to start with but the hardest class to make good use of. But hunters can be extremely strong. Our unique mana means we can easily do things mages or warriors would find impossibly difficult. The class branches also have the greatest uniqueness and flavor.
Q: Are Hunters a jack of all trades and a master of none?
A: Hunters can make use of every attribute, but don’t let that fool you, every class path becomes a specialist. In fact, compared to warriors and mages, we tend to be more specialized, not less. Farstrider being something of an exception.
Q: Can Hunters use traditional magecraft?
A: Yes, but our mana combines with our ki which makes ordinary spells challenging and expensive. Still, if you’re willing to put in the time and the effort you can learn. As with warriors, it’s recommended that everyone dabbles in magic.
Q: Should I become a Hunter?
A: The hunter class isn’t for everyone. That’s why I made this guide. Take a look at the classes and see if they ring true for you. Just remember, this isn’t a video game. This is life. You aren’t playing a class, you’re living one.
(Showing page 113 of 113)
► DesperateBowman [Posted: 2 days ago]
Okay, I’m confused. I’m planning on advancing into the Ranger class then Farstrider, with Beast Tamer as an alternative if I change my mind. The guide recommends I set my attributes as such:
- Strength: High
- Vitality: Medium
- Agility: High
What the hell does this mean?
► Npc72 [Posted: 1 days ago]
It’s a recommendation based off a percentage of your overall level. Basically:
- V.High: Attribute should be 30% to 40% of your level
- High: Attribute should be 20% to 30% of your level
- Medium: Attribute should be 10% to 20% of your level.
- Low: Attribute should be 5% to 10% of your level.
e.g: A typical warrior build is ‘high’ for all physical stats and ‘low’ for all magical attributes.
Good rule of thumb, don’t put anything below 5% unless you know what you’re doing. Plenty of people dumped a stat and ended up regretting it.
► DrSodium [Posted: 23 hours ago]
Why the hell would you pick Farstrider? Are you stupid? Farstrider is the suckiest class. If you’re going to go for that, you shouldn’t have chosen Hunter in the first place.
► BlueRangerSPD [Posted: 16 hours ago]
DesperateBowmen, don’t let others dissuade you. Farstrider is a fine class. Stick to your heart.
On the topic of attributes, Npc72 has it right.
Generally, I tell people to hold to the guide through level 200. A lot of hunters screwed themselves early by trying to min-max and had to spend months to pull themselves out of the pit. This is not a game. I don’t know many times I have to remind people of that. Attributes impact your daily life. The numbers I’ve given are intended to provide a comfortable balance. But when you’re higher level, feel free to break it. You know you the best.
Common Traits
Heart of Harmony
* 110% Hp
* 200% Energy (special)
* Harmonic Breath (10% energy)
Nether cores support the stability and function of the phantasmal body. Every core represents a vital organ the loss of which may result in death. Compared to the common core, the heart of harmony is an extreme deviance. This blends ki and mana into a single unit. For this reason, energy supply will grow with both Spirit and Vitality, with recovery rate being influenced by both.
Further, Harmonic Breath allows a hunter to synchronize themselves with the flow of the world. This decreases the impact their presence has on the local ether. It also allows them to collect and borrow a certain amount of ether, offsetting the first portion of any energy expenditure by half.
Before being used again, this ether must be recovered. The recovery period is half an hour.
Living Mana
Your mana and ki are merged into a single unit. When using ki arts, you’ll find them significantly easier to learn and control. You’ll be able to use arts and buffs on yourself and your body much more easily, allowing complex transformation. Further, the effectiveness of your arts will be partially boosted by magical attributes while your magic will be partially boosted by physical attributes.
However, this comes at a cost. Using this energy will also incur physical exhaustion. Recovery time for your energy pool is 36 hours instead of the common 8 hours, though this can be somewhat augmented by raising vitality and spirit. Finally, as with ki, your maximum energy output will fall rapidly when your pool is below one third.
Keen Senses
* +15% sensory awareness
All of your senses are boosted by 15%. This doesn’t just include the sharpness of your nose, hearing, or sight. It also includes an augmented ability to process this flow of information. Keen senses even effects unusual senses, such as the awareness of your limb’s positions, the feeling of balance in the ear, and the ability to sense fluctuations in ether as granted by Magic: Mysticism.
Finally, those with keen senses will have a slightly better chance of spotting hidden things.
Comments
Steve Barbour
Next arc takes place away from the Cloud Island Wilderness, though I make use of the forums to convey some of what is happening there. The arc 7 is once again dedicated entirely to the CIW.
Nsixtyfour
I was expecting a little about what all the other witches and professors thought about the whole cloud island, system stuff and Sylvia being in charge. Do you plan to give a little glimpse of their thoughts next arc?
farichada
I am looking forward to the trade arc. We have had multiple battle arcs, magic arcs, war arcs, and a bit of trading/buying/haggling, but nothing likely close to what we will see in a trade arc. As one my favorite novel series are Spice and Wolf and Ascendance of a Bookworm, I have high hopes. Sylvia seems like the type the strategically and pragmatically haggle, but they also seem inexperienced in hell culture and other subtleties. I predict there will be a civic development focus. I do hope we get a small teaser, and eventually learn even more about the hell economy beyond what we already know. Technology plays a lesser role, which is a bit surprising given there are people who have lived for multiple lifetimes, and people who have knowledge of modern technology from their past lives. As you mentioned before, slavery is a big demotivator, but I would expect an industrial revolution eventually, especially since greed and capitalism seems alive and well. Lucifer's system may be doing this indirectly, since the system is essentially a technology.
Momongama
I mean, it would be a full on dystopia and enter in direct conflict with Lucifer's kind of utopia. So hopefully that won't happen
Mintcakes
Considering the number of people who can potentially achieve apotheosis now, I think there's also the chance someone can reach eight consolidation and the seemingly unattainable fifth grand mutation despite being originally human. If that's at all possible for Sylvia, what would she reject from the world? Perhaps she's so traumatized from the future events caused by the war against Heaven that she'd restrict conflict altogether, like the Heavenly Will does to transgressions on the soul.
Steve Barbour
Thanks for the corrections! "I do find Sylvia's waning drive and ambition a bit concerning. I know she is still busy running things and with Emma, but it is not a promising trend with the lurking threats." It'd definitely be wiser to push on full speed, but Sylvia's soul remains human in the end. Its hard to resist the urge sit on one's laurels. Particularly when Sylvia is handling multiple demanding jobs. Indeed, I'd say without the mental buff from Spirit: Resolve, she'd probably be doing a lot less right now.
Steve Barbour
Yes, that's already happened. In fact, the problem was by and large solved by introducing the System as the System can patch in nether code updates during consolidations. Esmerlada's use of the apple which fed in data on bloodline mutations solved the remaining issues completely. I've always wanted to write scenes that discussed this more directly, but I've never found an appropriate time. One of the frustrations of writing a giant story with so many moving parts.
farichada
Nice chapter. There was foreshadowing for the next arc, but other than the class upgrade nothing too major and not any major conflicts. There was the turtle, some development progress and issues, but nothing at least on the surface that looks big stakes. I did enjoy the Lenape development and the forum posts. I do find Sylvia's waning drive and ambition a bit concerning. I know she is still busy running things and with Emma, but it is not a promising trend with the lurking threats. Minor corrections Likely wrong word - unless you meant the color for the blush rouge - > rogue the turtle sudden rose - > the turtle suddenly rose Missing word - needs article since noun is non proper to build broom factory-> to build a broom factory Awkward wording, but up to you since I think it is likely technically okay set on myself a goal -> set myself a goal was in finally full production-> was finally in full production Consider different word or the more common spelling slueing -> slewing since slue is a less common spelling of slew or consider a more common word like turning, swerving, veering, pivoting, etc
MadGod
You've mentioned how Esmeralda eating the apple will fix problems for all existing Asteris regarding potential. Has that happened already?
Katherine
Yay! Empress Sylvia becomes an evil capitalist! :D
Mr NerfGun
Being lazy is not a good idea when she knows war against the Netherworld (at least Heaven) will be inevitable.
MadGod
Certainly! She'll be the ArchCutie!
AchroniaXenia
Will Sylvia even end up with Arch in her Species/Class at her Apotheosis at this rate?
Kurosov
Lenape is such a sweet turtle living the best life. Lazing about in a pond under the shade of a tree as eons pass by now being able to fill the time by reading books without having to go anywhere and occasionally chatting with cute witches. Guessing the future return of Sylvester Swift will be a cover identity selling these brooms in the Netherworld to fund importing items they can't source locally.
Steve Barbour
It is. The chapter 50 starts the Trade Arc.
Brantal
Already chapter 49? ... that's the end of the arc, isn't it?
