C_Mantis
patreon
Chapter 393
🕑 Added 2025-01-24 19:59:00 +0000 UTCTier 1 paterons read this: I’ve been sick all week and so I’ll be taking monday off to catch up on all the writing I didn’t get done. Sorry about this but I didn’t want to just not put out a chapter with no warning so taking monday off and burning a backlog chapter for today. I’m starting to feel better so it should only be a single missed chapter but ultimately writing is a thinking man's game and I just can't think well enough to write a good chapter right now.
***
Chapter 393
Alice’s heart raced as she appeared in a medical room.
She had heard about them when others who had ‘died’ returned to the ruin after the month-long penalty wore off, so she expected the top of the line equipment and Tier 20 healers moving to start healing her. But she only had one question.
“How long?!?”
The AI virus had shut down her AI, meaning she and everyone else hadn’t been able to tell how long they had been holding on for.
They had just kept chanting the mantra of ‘one more minute’ and she felt she had lasted long enough, but also knew that it would have been close.
Victory or defeat had been inadvertently decided by how long she had lasted.
Or not necessarily defeat, as their side still had people inside the ruin who might be able to dislodge the Corporation mercenaries left in the boss room, given how few there had been at the end.
Still, it would be painful to know she had personally fumbled the ball right at the finish line.
The immediate lack of celebrations hit her like a lead weight in her stomach, but she tried not to let the feeling get to her.
Her Concept was exhausted and that left her feeling melancholy, which made pushing the negative thoughts away harder.
The five minutes it took to repair her body felt like a century, but at least the healers did something to reset her AI so it would work again. Once she restarted it, she could start checking in on the situation outside.
As she pulled herself up into a sitting position, she looked at the door and debated how long she could delay the healers so she could keep it closed, therefore cutting herself off from the rest of the planet.
As she was contemplating how to manage that, the door was kicked open and Ascender Wraith walked in shaking a bottle of champagne, causing bubbles instead of foam to fly everywhere. The healers started to glare, but those expressions froze when they noticed both who was making the mess and that there wasn’t a mess to be had, as the bubbles just turned into ice that vanished before it touched anything.
Alice’s heart started to hammer in her chest as she saw the smile Wraith shot at her.
“One minute and twelve seconds.”
Alice’s brain had just started to understand what was going on when she registered what Wraith said.
“Wait? If it was that far over, then why didn’t you guys pull me out then? I wa—”
Realizing who she was yelling at, Alice’s teeth clacked together.
Titan and Legion, who slipped in as Wraith moved forward, laughed at her remark. But Legion was the one to answer. “And deprive you of your chance to expand your Concept like that? No way. You believed that everything rested on your shoulders, and so pushed yourself beyond your limits. Once you recover, you will notice a sizable increase in your harmonization with your Concept. For that final minute and twelve seconds, you truly embodied your Domain.”
Titan laughed as he stuck a champagne glass under the bottle Wraith still held and presented it to her once it was half full.
“First drink to the lady of the hour.”
Alice felt herself flush, but with only a slight tremble she’d blame on her empty willpower when she retold the story.
“Thank you. I…” Alice had no idea what to say, but the Ascenders didn’t press and gave her a moment to collect herself. “Just thank you.”
Wanting to cover her awkwardness, Alice took a swig of the champagne, not sure what to expect with Wraith playing with illusions. Instead of anything unpleasant, she found it was a very tasty floral drink that was quite good.
Titan rubbed his hands together. “And now the fun part. Rewards. You and everyone else in the final room basically maxed out the rewards scale. Any idea of what Tier 20 skill you want, or would you rather have something else?”
Alice had thought about what she wanted a dozen times, as had everyone else. In any downtime where two or more people were together, the conversation inevitably went to what they wanted from the game. It was half hope and half distraction from being trapped in a cave like ruin for months on end.
It at least let her have an immediate answer.
“[Will of the Millennium Oak].” Realizing she had just asked for an incredibly rare skill, she immediately tried to back track. “I can um—”
Ascender Titan laughed and flipped over his hand, revealing a sparking skill shard. “No, that's a good choice for you. I’ve been collecting some for a future experiment so I have a few in my skill ring, so we don’t even need to send for your reward.
Alice almost wanted to complain about how Ascender Titan casually implied he had multiple copies of [Will of the Millennium Oak], let alone that he was seemingly planning to waste them on an experiment.
[Will of the Millennium Oak] wasn’t the rarest Tier 20 skill, but it was up there, being an incredibly valuable skill for both melee and ranged fighters thanks to it boosting one’s durability, regeneration, stamina and mana regeneration. Its powerful rooting effect greatly limited its usability in combat for most people, but for those like her who preferred to stand her ground it was a further bonus not a deterrent.
If used in conjunction with healing spells, its regeneration effect multiplied. When paired with the increased mana generation, one rarely needed to pay for healing, which would greatly reduce her costs going forward.
Skill in hand, she blinked at its shining facets before looking up and once more, thanking the Ascenders, who then went to mingle with the rest of those who had fought for the planet.
Alice found her bag sitting next to her bed and quickly leaned into it, digging through her accumulated junk to find a bracelet that would lock the skill to her skin and started absorbing it.
The moment she stepped out of the makeshift hospital, she was mobbed by people congratulating her, but that was nothing to the masses trying to get close to one of the three Ascenders who were moving through the crowd, trying to spread out.
Before she could do more than accept a few congratulations, the ground trembled slightly and a massive building started to appear as if it grew from nothing, but Alice could feel the stone deep in the ground moving and flowing like water until it reached the surface where it solidified.
Ascender Titan waved everyone inside, even as the building started to become more opulent with each wave of Ascender Wraith's hand or shake of her tail, until it looked like a ballroom out of a movie.
Then, if that wasn’t enough, food, delectable food that grabbed everyone's attention, started to appear on the tables that grew from the floor.
It was hands down the best food she had ever tasted, and that wasn’t even just because she had been mostly eating field rations or whatever one of her fellow Tier 15s had cooked, if she had eaten at all. It was really that good. Someone near her commented between mouthfuls that it had to be cooked by a Talented chef, which honestly made sense to Alice, as the food both tasted amazing and also had regenerative properties. Every bite seemed to make her willpower recover from the intense fight faster than it would have otherwise.
Once the first plate of food was devoured, she had to fend off people wanting to congratulate or otherwise schmoose with her. It was quite fun to see people who might have otherwise not given her, a solo delver with no renown, their full attention, now try to attract hers. She took even more pleasure when Olivia apologized for selling her rift slot out from under Alice, but the sting of that loss was long gone with her current rewards.
Most people tried and succeeded in talking with the Ascenders, which started all kinds of gossip, but what surprised everyone was just how personable they could be. It only led to everyone swapping stories about their encounters like badges of honor.
Not that anyone could beat her, with all three Ascenders personally congratulating her.
Alice was moving to snag another plate of the divine food when her AI notified her that she, along with everyone else who held the final room, were invited into a separate hall to receive their rewards. Seeing that last bit of information, she was going to ignore the message, having already gotten her reward. But when she continued to the plate, she found herself hit with a dusting of ice and found herself in a small but well lit room.
Legion smirked at her stumbling arrival. “Now that you are all here, we wanted to extend an offer to all of you directly involved with the final defence. All of you fought to the last, and we appreciate that. To that end, we are offering tax exempt delving slots on our ducal capitals when you are of the appropriate Tiers to delve them. That’s a straight shot from Tier 21 to Tier 30 if you play your cards right.”
The phoenix on her shoulder squawked lightly, and just like that, the Ascenders vanished.
***
Matt flopped into the comfortable couch with a groan that turned into a grunt as Aster dropped into his lap in human form, transforming just a second too late to make her form small and fluffy.
Phoenix Liz joined her on his lap, even as human Liz slipped in next to him with her own long exclamation.
“I don’t even necessarily hate mingling, but that was brutal.”
Aster yipped her agreement, not even bothering to say actual words.
Thankfully, the world had been secured and they were able to relax on their trip back to their ducal capitals. Sure, they would have to do some paperwork, but it wouldn’t be that bad.
Just a few minutes later, Matt felt the ship pull into chaotic space and he let out the last of his tension.
The three of them just decompressed for almost a full hour, but got to work formatting their reports for when they got back to Empire space.
Matt was hoping one of the royals would allocate the world to his duchy temporarily, as he was requesting for his guild to study the ruin, but he knew he wouldn’t be getting the world itself. That fact still seemed to be a sore point for Duke Plessi, who was undoubtedly sending his own entreaties to the Royals, pleading his case to keep the world.
Their ship entered real space on one of the border worlds just long enough to sync their messages when Matt got a message from someone he didn’t expect to hear from so soon.
Aunt Helen. ‘I hear the three of you are in this sector of the Empire. I’ll be on Raxuul for another year and a half or so. Come by and say hi if you have the time.’
Matt didn’t need to think twice and immediately contacted the others to find they were already in agreement, and they changed their course to visit the world in question.
It wasn’t even too far out of their way, adding only a month to their total travel time.
Raxuul was a normal enough world, ordinary for its Tier 5 cultivation and mortal industries, and a cursory scan didn’t reveal anything of note for why Aunt Helen would be visiting the world, but that wasn’t surprising.
Leaving their ships in deep space where they wouldn’t be noticed by the mortals, Matt, Liz, and Aster [Portal]ed just a mile above Aunt Helen's restaurant, where they found her in the back already cooking.
Except, she was cooking for the restaurant with the other chefs who scurried to not get in her way.
Looking up, she smiled and waved, inviting them in.
As they floated down, Matt looked off to the side where he found one of Aunt Helen's identical bodyguards, who dropped their invisibility just long enough to acknowledge him before vanishing once more.
Matt took a few moments as he entered the restaurant to ponder who was acting as one of Aunt Helen's uniform guards, despite the futility of the action.
As a young Tier 4, he hadn’t known what the identical bodyguards signified, but now he had a much better understanding.
Aunt Helen was old. Really old in fact. Because of her shattered Concept, she was stuck at the peak of Tier 24 and unable to advance. But that didn’t mean she didn’t live a normal life, which meant also accumulating wealth.
With her motherly nature, she had attracted her fair share of people with bad intentions who would take what she had, rather than work for their own resources. People she had helped when they were young, similar to how she helped Matt with his mana concentration problem, had rightly taken offence.
Killing people, especially people who were ballsy enough to steal from Aunt Helen, came with blowback, as they usually had their own backing. And so eventually, the people she helped started acting as Aunt Helen's bodyguards as they reached Tier 45. To circumvent anything following them and to free themselves from hesitating, they had started body morphing into identical people, which meant the next time someone offended Aunt Helen, the person in question died. And if their family or friends wanted revenge, they would need to go after Aunt Helen directly. A foolish proposition, given the level of protectors she had with her at all times.
It was a move Matt wholeheartedly approved of, given her Tier and level of connections. Though he was glad that was mostly a thing of the past, as the new dynasty had put a stop to attacking down Tiers like that.
The Red Feather Inn was similar to all of the others he had visited, and they were easily able to make their way to the private kitchen set up in the back, which was always reserved for Aunt Helen's personal use should she come to town.
As they entered, she used her spiritual perception to say, “I'll be back in twenty minutes or so, once the rush ends, and cook you three up something special. Just hang out until then, ok?”
Instead of listening, Matt went behind the counter and started rifling through the drawers, pulling out ingredients and starting a soup he had been wanting to cook since he thought about it during their delve.
He was just getting the stock to simmer when Aunt Helen entered the room and tsked at him. “Naughty naughty, Matthew. I know I said I would be doing the cooking. I haven’t been able to cook for you three since the war ended.”
After she hugged both Aster and Liz, she rounded the breakfast bar into the kitchen proper and swatted him with a towel.
Matt winced, not because he was playing it up, but because her form had been impeccable and she had hit him right on the back of the hand on the thin bones.
“Hey, that's going to smart!” He complained even as he was pulled into a hug by the oldest phoenix.
“Then maybe you’ll learn to listen. And besides, I know how strong you are. If you wanted to, I’m sure you could have dodged.”
“Ah, but then I wouldn’t be able to complain, now would I?”
Aunt Helen hip bumped him out of the way even as she chuckled. “I won’t dignify that with a response. Instead, let's check what you were cooking. Avgolemono chicken soup with rice? It's a good first dish. You’re lucky, mister. Now start chopping onions and mince some garlic.”
As he got to work, Aster asked, “So what brings you out to this region of the Empire?”
Aunt Helen’s knife didn’t slow as she responded, “I’m not quite sure yet, but I’m sure it will appear in the next few months, or it might have just been a false alarm.”
Liz pressed a hand to her chest. “Are you saying you didn’t come all the way out here to see us?”
Aunt Helen snorted. “If I wanted to see you three, I would just tell you to come visit. That said, why have none of you come to visit since the war ended? I’ve been sitting at home worrying myself sick.”
“I’m not sure I buy that.” Matt said around a bit of onion he was tasting. Too sweet, and so he got a different variety out of storage.
Aunt Helen cocked her head at him. “Are you saying you wouldn’t have come if I requested? How painful it is to learn where one stands in others' hearts.”
Aster put her hands up. “That's not what Matt means, and if it was, we’ll throw him out and get a new Matt.”
That earned her a laugh from the older phoenix. “Hah! That said, I genuinely don’t know why I’m out here. I only have a feeling that I should be on this world for a little more than a year and a half. My Concept is still broken and its feedback is fuzzy at best.”
Liz leaned forward to ask a question, and her phoenix took the opportunity to hop off her shoulder and attempt to scamper onto Aunt Helen's shoulder. Only to immediately get plunked in front of the sink, where she was expected to wash her claws and beak before she was allowed into the kitchen proper. “How is your Concept restoration coming along? Last time we asked you just said soon, but there have been a few ascensions since then. You have to be close, right?”
Aunt Helen shrugged as if she was unbothered, but her knife slightly sped up its chopping even if her cuts were still perfect, giving away her nerves. “It is what it is, but I will admit to being a little bit in a hurry. I’m close. Two, maybe three ascensions and I’ll have pieced my Concept back together.”
Matt stopped his own chopping and, in his most sincere voice, said, “That's amazing. I’m super happy for you.”
Aunt Helen gave him the sweetest smile as she said, “Thank you, Matt. I’m excited, myself.”
She also slipped phoenix Liz a piece of the ham she had been slicing, to the bird’s happy bounces.
Aster bounced in her seat like phoenix Liz. “Hey, we will be close in Tier then, so we can take you delving. That could be fun. I bet with your age and lack of things to do, you are a secret Ascender level fighter, aren’t you Aunt Helen?”
Aunt Helen paused her preparation to stare at Aster for a long moment before she burst out laughing.
“Oh, that's funny! Aster, I can assure you nothing is further from the truth. At best I’ve kept myself from backsliding with the help of some delves to liven things up, but I’ve delved over my Tier a handful of times in my life. Being able to safely advance is more than enough for me.”
Matt pursed his lips. “I’ve got to admit, I’m not sure I believe you.”
Aunt Helen huffed and turned up her nose, an act which phoenix Liz copied and got a mushroom for.
“I have no reason to lie. That said, I appreciate the offer to delve with you, but will have to decline. After my time of being stuck at Tier 24, even moderate advancement will be a good change of pace. One Tier every few thousand years at most. I feel no need to rush.”
Liz slapped the table. “Ah ha! I got it. You secretly have a dozen inspirations ready to go the moment you fix your Concept and will rocket up to Tier 45 in a matter of minutes.”
Aster disagreed. “No, I think she secretly has a full set of essence stones already lined up so she never needs to set foot in a rift to advance all the way up to Tier 45.”
Matt was thinking of his own ridiculous answer when Aunt Helen interjected. “I think you three are forgetting that I can’t even hit Tier 25 until I both fix my Concept and create my Intent.”
Matt shook his head. “Nooo way. Are you saying that you don’t have your Intent already figured out? I don’t believe that for a moment.”
When everyone stared at her, even phoenix Liz from just inches away, Aunt Helen finally caved. “Ok, fine. I have a pretty good idea of what my Intent is, but it might not be correct. I can’t really resonate with it without a Concept. That said, my advanced age, yes thank you for reminding me of that you three, has given me some advantages. And I’m pretty sure I know what it is.”
That made sense to Matt, and the three of them silently agreed to stop pestering her about her advancement. Instead, they let the conversation turn to them and what they had been up to since the end of the war.
Aunt Helen was a great listener and listened to all three of them ramble about their passion projects.
“You know the aura has been making quite the impact, Matthew. I’ve seen quite a few people who were, how to put it nicely? Very stuck, finally advance.”
Matt sighed at the reminder. “I just wish we could figure out reliable ways to make higher Tier aura rifts. It's so hit or miss that we only have a few of the rifts producing aura, and it's so dilute thanks to how many monsters there are. It's a lot slower and way more expensive to collect per mana spent on feeding the rift, and we still haven’t gotten one even close to Tier 14.”
Aunt Helen grabbed his arm and stopped him from stirring until he looked down into her eyes. “Don’t let perfect get in the way of good enough. Those higher Tiers who would otherwise be dead from old age won’t care what will cost them because it's opening up immortality for them. They will just be glad they didn’t have to enter Minkalla as a last resort. Take the victory for what it is. And besides, the new generations simply won’t need them. So while not perfect, it's good enough.”
Matt wanted to object, but pheonix Liz squawked at him and human Liz piled on. “Good luck, Aunt Helen. His skull is too thick to get through, as I've said the same thing more than once, but he still feels bad.”
Aster, at least, was going to defend him if the feeling through their bond was any indication. “Yeah, Matt is dumb.”
Or not.
Glaring at his bond, he only got a cute pose for his trouble.
Sighing, he patted Aunt Helen’s hand. “I know that logically, but that doesn't stop me from feeling like I could be helping more people.”
Not letting go, Aunt Helen asked with a sharpness to her tone that he wasn’t used to, “How?”
“I—”
“How would you have done more, Matthew?”
“I don’t know but —”
“Don’t give me that Matthew. No, you are implying that hiding your Talent is what is stopping the production of stable higher Tier aura rifts. You can’t set yourself on fire to make other people warm. That's a phoenix’s job.”
Her attempt at levity didn’t quite land, but Matt appreciated the attempt.
Still, she was wrong in her assumption.
“It's not actually that. Believe it or not, I don’t want to make my Talent public, even if I knew I’d be safe and there were no repercussions. Well, maybe I would so I didn’t have to bother laundering the money, but that's not why I feel bad. It's got more to do with my time, or rather lack thereof, to do things like work on higher Tier aura rifts. That and deal with the assholes trying to disrupt the guild’s efforts.”
Aunt Helen let him go with a soft repentant smile. “Well, look at that. Even at my age I got egg on my face. That's what I get for making assumptions. That said, I heard about the little kerfuffle with the guild and the patent. Sorry that is happening, honey. I hope it's resolved in your favor sooner than later. As for the time thing, yeah that's always a problem, sorry to break it to you. Even with endless life, there seems to always be something that needs to get done before the things we want to do.”
“Thanks, Aunt Helen. I know you just have my best interests in mind, so I do appreciate it. I just… ugh, I don't know. I’m no expert in aperology, I know that. The researchers at Titan’s Torch are a dozen times better than me, but I like to consider myself a pretty damn good artist in the field. Maybe if I had more time to dedicate to aperology, we might have come up with a way to better stabilize the rifts as they advance in Tier, instead of just relying on brute forcing the odds to Tier them up and wasting a ton of resources to manage it. I just need time to be able to dedicate myself to the effort, and maybe I could have figured something out.”
Aunt Helen snorted. “Sorry, it's just funny. I remember a man who was always saying that same phrase ‘dedicate myself to the effort’. Victor Bab’s was his name. He spent nearly a thousand years slamming his head against a problem.” Aunt Helen pursed her lips as she thought before she shrugged as she went back to stirring. “Frankly I don’t even remember what the problem was, exactly. It's been so long. This was shortly after the shattering and before the reconstruction and reunification wars happened. Ah that’s it, I remember now. He was working on something with bacteria and spent so much time trying to figure it out that he eventually forgot to work on his Concept, and then didn’t have enough time to figure it out. Near the end, he endlessly complained about not having enough time. Poor man.”
Aster flicked her ears in confusion when Aunt Helen just stopped speaking, and started humming along with her cooking. “Wait, is that all? I assumed that was a parable or some kind of lesson to teach Matt the importance of cooking for his family, instead of doing silly aperology work. I could really use a hand in the ice cream factory, and that would have been the perfect segue into that.”
Aunt Helen shot her a side eye. “Not everything has to be a lesson, dear. I just wanted to share a memory I had that was similar. Is that so wrong?”
Aster wilted, putting on her best puppy eyes. “No.”
Aunt Helen nodded and stuck a piece of lamb that was still sizzling onto a fork and shoved it into Aster's direction.
“Tell me if this needs more seasoning.”
Aster happily devoured the treat, just to proclaim it awful and that she needed another taste to see if it was good enough to serve to the rest of them.
That got phoenix Liz to start lightly flapping her wings, trying to get her own taste, but Aunt Helen seemed immune to the feathers impacting her own, and Aster’s weedling.
“Speaking of your ice cream, Aster, I really liked the summer in winter blend you did. Those were some inspired choices to pair together.”
Aster beamed at the complement. “Thank you. We worked hard on getting that one right. The Day at the Beach was my personal favorite, and I've been thinking about how I want to bring that one back in a few years.”
“Oh no, I would wait at least a decade before bringing that one back. It was too unique and interesting to bring back immediately. It's the same thing I do with signature dishes. Once a decade is about perfect. Enough that even immortals feel the wait, but not so long that mortals can only try it once. It also means it can make for a good gift if needed.”
Liz mock gasped. “Aunt Helen, are you implying that you deliberately make false scarcity in your meals so you can then give them out as gifts.”
Instead of being embarrassed, Aunt Helen nodded firmly. “Damn right!”
That earned a round of jeers, but Aunt Helen was unapologetic in her stance, which was a fun new angle they had never seen from her before. The conversation turned jovial after that, and just before the food was served, the conversation turned to Liz’s bloodline research facility and the work they were doing. Aunt Helen even teased about how she knew of people who had done one of the many things Liz’s people were trying to create, but how they had never shared the method, making Liz positively heartbroken.
The food was as always divine, just like everything Aunt Helen made. They started with Matt’s avgolemono chicken soup with rice and paired it with stuffed grape leaves. Their main course was braised lamb over orzo, finished with a very light and flakey fish steak. Their dessert was a simple but delicious apple pie, paired with some ice cream stolen from Aster's personal stash. The Day at the Beach, at Aunt Helen's request.
By the time they were finished, Matt contemplated if he could do the dinner justice if he made it all himself.
Aunt Helen just had the invisible it factor that made all of her food taste better than if anyone else, even Talented cooks, made it.
It felt a little corny to admit, but she made the food with love, and that was impossible to match with magic.
It was the family touch, even if it was found family.
But that was what made it special.
Comments
KnightRider007
The issue is the inconsistency in capitalisation. “Day on the Beach” had title caps, so “Summer in Winter” should as well.
Chris Porada
Iced tea? Sun shower, summer breeze?
Chris Porada
Ironically we just had the bug here too, synced in tier release with you in January. No stress mate, love your work 🤙
Ellariayn
So sorry you’ve been sick!!! Hope you feel better soon and please take care of yourself. We can wait!
KnightRider007
“Victor Bab’s was his name.“ => entirely plausible in a sci-fi name, but is the apostrophe supposed to be there? “and Aster’s weedling” => ‘wheedling’ “I really liked the summer in winter blend you did” => ‘Summer in Winter”, to make it consistent with “‘Day on the Beach’ in the next paragraph.
Julie Smith
Some trivia for you Mantis: quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion--after that I start guessing up to virgintillion. I used to know the names up to duodecillion, but I'm not sure. I learned them 50 years ago in my teens.
Julie Smith
That makes it like stone soup!
Julie Smith
There are a lot of good lines in this 'slice of life' chapter: "Even with endless life, there seems to always be something that needs to get done before the things we want to do.” - Aunt Helen Aster wilted, putting on her best puppy eyes. “No.” It felt a little corny to admit, but she made the food with love, and that was impossible to match with magic. - Matt's thought I want to see more of Alice with her enhancements delving.
Presten
Auntie Helen is the genuine artical to the fedrat leader's pale imitation.
Charles handgis
Would have been cool if Matt invited Alice to his guild or something. Maybe she will get a shot if she makes it to their ducal planet.
Amithyst Stonewall
Phenomenal chapter. I really like Alice. And I agree with the above comment, we need a Aunt Helen fixing her concept chapter! <3
Trevor Mergen
Thanks!
Tom
She'll have inspirations straight to T50, instantly gain her intent, aspect, and authority, and take all the great powers as vassal states
MinE
I wonder if it is uncomfortable. If she literally can't tier up due to not having an intent, she shouldn't need to consciously suppress them but basically having the Realm telling you to hurry up constantly for a million+ years must be unpleasant.
fruit dragon
Well he does kind of have a domain for it from minkala
Ray S.
Yeah. It seems like it starts out as pause them becomes rewind in chapter 28. Actually after doing word search, there is one time the name "Pause" is used after chapter 28 in chapter 30.
Alex
There are a few times where it swaps back and forth between the two - or at least there were the last time I read the version that was up on amazon.
C_Mantis
Did some slip through to amazon? If yes I need to let the publisher know because whoops. Also yes they are the same person
James Skinner
Still smaller than Graham's Number which is so bafflingly large I can't even explain how it's baffling lol.
Spencer Needler
I stg if you don’t write a POV chapter for Aunt Helen when she finally fixes her concept imma be upset
Sean C Jackson
As Hastor demonstrated it is possible to understand an inspiration without it triggering an advancement, tho I'm not sure how he did it.
Sean C Jackson
Like damn he is almost as good as Helen, and certainly at least as good as Talented chefs which is kinda cool.
Ray S.
I figure this has been asked before but not sure where i'd find the answer. In the tier 10 pather tourney book, are pause and rewind the same person? If so, was a reason ever given for name change?
Orims
Who wants to bet that our auntie had enough inspirations to advance all the way to at least tier 45 if not further? She is considered to be the best chef in the Realm and was doing it for literal millions of years. We will see the rise of kitchen Hastor and the universe will shake!
lockx
Depends on British English or American English. Defence is accurate
David Bean
Yay! Always nice to see aunt Helen. I too am pretty curious why she is there. I think it would be funny if Alice ends up being the one to show up.
David Bean
Lol, definitely not kidding. After that apparently comes Septillion, then Octillion, Nonillion, Decillion, Undecillion, and so on. They have actual names all the way to Googol, and even way past that all the way to Googolplex. My favorite is Quinquagintacentillion, or 10^453.
Alex
Aunt Helen's ability to sense where she needs to be is obviously limited, or she would have been on Lilly to prevent the Rift breaks. I think her ability to sense where she needs to be only works with information that already exists - i.e, it isn't a form of prescience which would tell her to go somewhere because of something that hasn't happened yet. If this is the case then the person(s) who've drawn her attention to Raxuul already exist. The fact she isn't compelled to meet them right now suggests they probably aren't in some desperate situation either. Given Raxuul is a Tier 5 world my guess is: there's a cultivator who's heading towards Tier 5 where they'll have to make a choice to stay on Raxuul and stop advancing, or move onto another world to keep following their path. They've been bitten by the cultivation bug, so they want to follow their path as far as it will go, but they've got family and friends who've completely resigned themselves to mortality; if they keep following their path they'll be leaving everyone they know and love behind, but if they don't keep going they'll be giving up on their dreams. Without help the person becomes trapped by indecision - by the time they choose to keep cultivating they'd be too old, so they make the choice to remain mortal by default because they couldn't make up their mind when they were younger. Aunt Helen will probably step in and tell them that if they advance fast enough they'll be able to carry their family to immortality, which will give them the push they need to stay the course and keep following their path. TBH that scenario is probably why Aunt Helen meets with people 90% of the time, so I'm playing the numbers here.
CottonMod
It could be Alice going through the planet on her way to ML's duchy. The location makes sense, timing makes sense, and Alice's recent advancement in her concept also fits really well with what Aunt Helen is about.
Tijay Arnie
So is Matt just too close to the sauce, so to speak, to not notice how his food affects folks?
Alex
Sextillion. That's what comes next. No I'm not kidding.
Tai Allen
They worked on it together! She came in and took over and had him soux
C_Mantis
Yeah this realm is quintillion + years old at a minimum. Id say longer but I dont feel like googling what comes after quintillion. Essence ensured that time dosent degrade things and stars dont burn out so there isnt a hard cap to the age of the realm like IRL.
Tai Allen
Depends on the dialect
Jason Hatter
I mean, it's a workable business model
Alex
Are you suggesting that Aster make the icecream version of a McRib.
Alex
Yeah, but he didn't figure the whole thing out in one go; from chapter 333 “How long have you been hiding the fact that you had an Authority, Aiden?” Emmanuel was sure the man had to be playing with him, but Aiden genuinely looked confused. “Oh, uhhhh… Since my last Tier up? I already had all the parts besides the last one during our last war. I finalized it at Tier 30, which was how I had my inspiration to reach Tier 31.” Aiden had an inspiration from figuring out his Place, which finalized his Authority. If that act was worth an inspiration then it stands to reason that figuring out all five pieces (Phrase, Image, Anchor, Truth, and Place) simultaneously would be worth more than that. We know that people have advanced multiple Tiers in one go with inspirations (like Amelia Galley), but that's been framed as having consecutive inspirations rather than them having a multi-Tier inspiration. It just seems wrong to me that a person couldn't have a multi-Tier inspiration if they had some world-shattering epiphany.
MikeL
Duke Waters only got 1 tier from his Inspiration for getting his Authority. Can’t get better than that!
Sriad
Trillions of years is probably even a low-ball, given what Matt was thinking about how sad it was to find tiered up systems in universes that were entirely dead except for them. (and from was Ra was told there are FRAGMENTS of records that go back billions.)
C_Mantis
thats a fun idea actually
Mick Gormley
Any good ideas for Aunt Helen visiting some low tier world? A future powerhouse appearing would be the most likely but definitely not the only reason.
Alex
I feel that people forget the fact that the Realm is old as fuck. Like, Trillions of years old, at LEAST. Recorded history only goes back 800 million years or so - and the records are probably pretty bad for a lot of that time; as a result, massive chunks of the Realm's past have been lost completely. Entire civilizations have risen and fallen, with nobody in the current time knowing anything about them - it's kind of sad and wonderful at the same time. It's impossible to call any cultivator the greatest of all time, because so much of the Realm's history has been lost. Duke Waters is an insane prodigy at Domain stuff, but the likelihood is that somebody from the distant past was as good, or better purely from the fact that so many cultivators have lived before the current time. By pure rule of VERY LARGE numbers there's got to have been SOMEBODY who figured out their Intent before their Concept. That isn't even as crazy as it sounds since the Intent has an Anchor whereas the Concept doesn't - there's probably somebody who figured out their Intent first because their Anchor was blindingly obvious to them, like a Swordsman resonating with their Sword, or something along those lines.
Jason Hatter
Aster should do flavor waves. Start at her Capital, and it radiates out in rings, each year a different flavor profile, that moves to the next, then the next, etc. Builds anticipation for the new area, maybe gets some flavor chasers following it...
Discordian23
Wow im pretty good at estimating flavors mentally and nothing about that sounds like it has any right to be together.
yannick schwende
As for why young me thought that to be a good idea? My young self thought the food wood be sweeter (and therefore better) if I switched salt and sugar. It didn't work out 😅
Alex
How does saving up an inspiration work for a person who's stuck at a bottleneck? We've seen in the past with Erwin that it's possible to push off an inspiration, but he held his inspiration off because he wanted to game the system and effectively get two Tiers with one inspiration. What if you're in a position where you literally can't move forward like Aunt Helen? There's no way Aunt Helen hasn't met the requirements for an inspiration or twenty in the past 12 million years. Maybe they didn't work because she needs to form a Concept AND an Intent to advance to the next Tier. Maybe she pushed them off because an Inspiration would have forced her to form a new Concept, and she's hell-bent on restoring her old one. Maybe they've been held in reserve and she'll have however many inspirations at once when she breaks through her bottleneck. Maybe it's literally impossible to have an inspiration when you're at a bottleneck unless the inspiration is about breaking through the bottleneck. To me, this all suggests that there's different grades of inspiration. There's many different ideas that could cause someone to have an inspiration, and some of them are necessarily going to be more profound than others. I believe that the requirement to have an inspiration must shift depending on the situation a person is in: if a person is at the peak of a Tier where they could just crunch their core to advance, it's probably much easier to have an inspiration than if they were completely stuck at a bottleneck. It makes me wonder if a person could have a 'super inspiration' (trademark pending); if we follow the idea that some inspirations are more profound than others to its logical conclusion, we can speculate that there might be some inspirations that are so profound they'd push a person through more than one Tier in one go. Imagine if Matt figured out his entire Aspect in one go - surely that's more than one Tier's worth of enlightenment.
C_Mantis
I once insisted that I wanted apple sauce and sweet gherkins (a type of pickle) on pizza at my Grandmothers one time. Actually I insisted everyone should try it. I instead had to 'make sure it was good' for everyone else. I did not insist anyone else had to try after the first bite lmao.
yannick schwende
I wholeheartedly agree with Matt. Mom's and Grandma's food is usually the best. Why usually you ask? Accident's happen. Such as some stupid child changing salt and sugar and then having to eat the shitty pudding... Never doing that again. Don't mess with Mom's kitchen, it's you who's going to suffer 💀😅
Havokk
“Now that you are all here, we wanted to extend an offer to all of you directly involved with the final defence" should be defense
Derze
Hey… complain enough times about not having enough time and I’m sure Matt will eventually warp stuff around him and make more time for himself. He has had two touches with an inspiration. Could happen. (Small time dilation effect)
Havokk
Victory, Celebration party and best of all Aunt Helen...... Damn its a good Friday seriously loved this chapter
John Smith
Ok, I don’t remember how much we know about the details of Aunt Helen’s concept, but I am betting her intent is about being a family home’s hearth. It’s fire, cooking, family, and draws people in.
Matt
This was lovely. Did Aunt Helen's presence make Matt's soup better? Or did she fix it? Or was it just Matt's?
Sage Hallward
Thank you for the chapter!
PikaAndrew
Tftc
Kasamuri
Thanks for the chapter
nolan saylor
Thanks Mantis! Thanks Dae! I'd forgotten about the AI virus. That makes the experience more painful to do. I would figure the talk about what they hope to get out of this would also be a bit of motivation. I like the reasoning for Helen's guards. A bit more sense than some hydra or person with loads of clones. People taking on the role much as Madam Terror or any of those running the Path. Matt is actually allowed to cook with Helen. He must be pleased. -But Aster was the one who got the compliment on her creation. Matt's soup was deemed acceptable as a first course, Aster's ice cream was worth Aunt Helen enjoying. -I wonder how many different foods/ restaurants Helen tries a year. Or is it more she occasionally follows her nose. Maybe ensuring to try some stuff if she likes the person. Wow, Helen is insanely close. I thought she was close as she has been close since before Manny was born. -I wonder how her advancement will affect others. JR will probably send a gift. Toby as well. It's an interesting thing for Helen to maybe have an Intent before she fully has her Concept. -I know DW is a freak, but someone else could've gotten lucky. I still want some weirdo to have gotten it at a lower tier than DW. Not a strong person just lucky or in tune with their Domain. -With this bit though is it at all possible, mostly theoretically, for someone to get a Domain stage before having a previous stage. Or maybe to combine the stages of advancement; having your anchor and becoming T5 with an intent and concept at once. (More likely with Aspect and Intent but I don't recall what extra thing you need for Aspect.) I wonder if a healthier and happier Empire makes it easier for Helen to heal her family concept. As in, might Matt be helping her by helping mortals and aura potions? Minkala might see a drop in entrants from the Aura potions, which makes it a bit safer as fewer people will be taking all the Genesis energy and so people will be less motivated to kill each other. -Though maybe it just means fewer Empire people and so an imbalance with the numbers of the others. This was nice. A bit of an echo of the Chapters where Matt looked into his own past; hugging Mara & Leon while looking at his Parent's files, proposing to Liz, and the Ascender ceremony. I wonder if we'll get a peek at who Aunt Helen is waiting for. Maybe not now but a letter later or the Royals talking about a possible Ascender. Maybe the person isn't a fighter though. Have a great weekend!
