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Chapter 143: Upgraded
🕑 Added 2023-05-19 12:01:00 +0000 UTCSo my main choice for Talent was between Cumulative Catastrophe and Future Sight. But I still had one more thing to look at before making my choices. Not wanting to wait any longer, I opened up the waiting Time Loop Upgrade.
Alright, definitely some less straightforward options than the ones I’d been shown for the first Upgrade. And they all seemed to follow this weird theme of being modified based on my current Time Loop Rank. But there was still some obvious power.
My eye was immediately drawn to the third option, Inclusive Loop. Being able to bring other people along with me when I used Time Loop had the most obvious benefits. Erani and Ainash, of course, would certainly benefit from me not having to catch them up every time I used it. And being able to slowly bring more and more people along with me could be interesting, too. As-is, I’d be able to use Time Loop on two people, plus myself. So pretty much just Erani and Ainash. Later on, though, I’d be able to bring more and more along with me. That could lead to some very interesting strategies, though it was a bit unfortunate they wouldn’t also be able to keep the XP they got.
The other two…Well, they were stranger in the ways I could use them. Persistent Loop seemed extremely situational. For me, as I was, I could effectively just keep stacks of Expedite across loops. Certainly a neat application—I could empty out my entire Mana pool on as many stacks as I could manage before going back, which would be a good boost for that moment I arrived in the new timeline—but not really worth a whole Upgrade.
But it seemed like the Upgrade wasn’t meant to be worth it now. It was meant to be built around. If, for example, I picked as many Spells as I could in the future that gave me temporary effects, then perhaps by the time I got to Level 30, I’d be able to come back after a loop with several beneficial effects and completely demolish a fight that I’d had a ton of trouble with before. After all, an entire Mana pool’s worth of effects, tailored to perfectly fit a fight I already knew about, and all with their lengths multiplied by five, or even more as I Leveled, would mean an absolutely massive power-up. If I was able to make that build work.
And then there was Recycled Loop. That was strange in that it effectively encouraged me to not use Time Loop. At the end of each day, if I hadn’t used up all of my Time Loop uses, I’d get random Stat increases equal to the number of leftover uses I had. So, if I took that, once today ended and Time Loop refreshed, I wouldn’t get any Stats, since I’d already used Time Loop the maximum number of times I could. But then, after today ended and a new day began, if I didn’t use Time Loop at all that day, I’d get two random Stat increases—or, three, since I just got another Time Loop Usage Increase. If I used Time Loop once but saved the other two uses, then I’d get two Stats, and so on.
Of course, this Upgrade also had another limiting factor. It could only give me ten stats per Level. Once I’d “recycled” ten uses of Time Loop, I’d have to get to Level 21 before I was able to recycle any more. So I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing for infinite growth. Though that limit also increased as I leveled. So I’d get my ten Stats at my current Level of 20, and then I’d move to 21, and once I got my ten random Stats for Level 21, at Level 22 I’d be able to get eleven random Stats before having to Level up again. And it’d continue to increase at every even Level—12 at 24, 13 at 26, and so on.
So, essentially, at its best, this Upgrade would be leagues better than the already-insane Talent Recursive Growth. Recursive Growth currently only gave me 6 Stats per Level, whereas this would give me 10. And on top of that, Recursive Growth would start giving me 2 more Stats, up to 8, once I reached Level 30. Recycled Loop? That would give me 2 more Stats per Level once I got to 24. By Level 30, it’d be giving me 15 Stats per Level. So not only did it start better than Recursive Growth, it would grow even faster, too.
However, that was only at the Upgrade’s best. At its worst…well, it would do nothing. If I was never able to spare a single usage of Time Loop in a day, then it wouldn’t give me a single Stat, ever. Well, I supposed that eventually I could use up all of those ‘recycling slots’ that I saved up. It’d just take forever.
“Actually, you can’t,” Index interrupted my thoughts.
Hm?
“Take another look at the exact wording. If you took it now, you could get up to ten Stats for Level 20. But if you move on without getting all ten, then once you’re at Level 21, you’ll still only have another ten Stats you can get. It's a use-it-or-lose-it scenario.”
Ooh. Well, that certainly changed things. So I’d probably have to take a slightly different approach to Leveling if I took this Upgrade. Instead of trying to get through my Levels as quickly as possible, I’d want to squeeze as much juice out of them as possible, waiting until I’d gotten all of my Recycled Stats before moving onto the next one. Slowing myself down certainly didn’t sound appealing, but I supposed that was the price one had to pay for something that was so much better than Recursive Growth.
Hey, Index, while I have you, what’s up with this weird “equal to your Time Loop Ranks divided by something” theme going on with the Upgrade Choice?
“Oh, well basically it’s just going off of your previous Upgrade. Out of the three options last time, Extended Loop’s effect of increasing your Time Loop length by 30 minutes every time it Ranked up was the only one that cared about Time Loop’s Rank. So the System effectively set this up as a way of continuing that ‘gets better as Time Loop Ranks up’ theme.”
Huh, interesting. I’ve heard of it doing things like shaping your choices around different ‘builds’ based on your previous choices, but still, this seems a lot more obvious. Never really thought of the System as having any real conscious design behind it. More as just something… kind of random.
“Pretty much every Choice you get, whether it’s Spell, Talent, or Upgrade, follows that basic idea. It’s just that this one was pretty explicit, and didn’t have any exceptions.”
Good to know. Moving onto actually picking one of these Upgrades to take, what do you think of Persistent Loop? It obviously needs me to build around it to make it good, but do I even have any options in my future that’ll work with it?”
“For Spells? Hm…let me see…You went Noxious into Crippling into Ray into Well into Armor into Expedite into Bond…so from there you’ll get…and that’ll branch into…and from there…Hm. So, thing is, not really. Talents don’t look too favorable, either. I mean, you’ll get some beneficial Status Effects, but they won’t be anything that breaks this Upgrade wide open, or anything. Right now, you’ve just got Expedite and Regenerate, which definitely aren’t worth nothing with quintupled lengths—especially Regenerate—but they’re both still not really worth enough that they beat out your other options. With Expedite, especially, you’d effectively have to go back to directly before the fight began in order to get any use out of it, even with a length multiplied by five. What you want is something that lasts hours, that way the multiplier really starts to mean something.”
And I get nothing like that?
“Like I said, not nothing, but it isn’t anything super great.”
So the Upgrade is just worthless then?
“Well, not worthless. You may not get anything in your Class’s future that works well with the Upgrade, but you can still use Enchanted stuff.”
Oh, shit, right, I’d completely forgotten about Enchantments! While most of the time, Enchanters made smaller, simpler things like Spell Crystals, basic weight decreasing Enchantments, or Magic-Usable Enchanted weapons, there were still more complex Enchantments that could be placed on items. Things like Ripley’s axe that she’d used against me, or large logic systems to make things happen automatically. And within that realm of complex Enchantments were items that could temporarily apply beneficial effects to the user. Typically with a limitation of how often you could use them, and a limited length of the effect. But those would work perfectly with Persistent Loop!
Of course, those more complex Enchantments would also require much higher-Leveled Enchanters, much more Mana, and much rarer materials. So, in short, they’d cost a fuck-ton of money. But if I could get them, they’d work with Persistent Loop perfectly. The only issue was the money, and the availability. Not just any shop in any town would hold such expensive Enchanted goods, so we’d have to find them, and then of course we’d have to raise the money to buy them, too. As mid-Level Classers, we’d certainly be able to make a lot more money than before, but it still wouldn’t be easy.
Index, can you tell me anything about the availability of Enchanted goods in this country? And maybe which ones I could find in—
“Dude,” Index interrupted, “I don’t know everything. I can tell you about the System, but I know just as much as you do about this Barinruth Empire place.”
Oh. Right. I’d gotten a bit carried away in my excitement. It seemed like I’d be making this decision blind as to whether or not it would work.
Oh, wait, no I wasn’t! I was sitting in a room with citizens of the empire! They’d totally know about this. The realization also made me feel a bit uneasy—I’d been sitting in a room with my eyes closed, surrounded by a bunch of unknowns. What if they were about to kill me? What if they knew who I was, and right now they were plotting to betray me and turn me in to the Demons?
I hurriedly opened my eyes. Oh, good. Jannin was still sitting next to me, picking at his fingernails with the tip of a knife, and Bon was sitting in the kitchen area eating a snack. The third was presumably in the bathroom, considering that door was closed.
Okay, it was time to see what these guys know. If I got a good answer, I might’ve be able to make quite the insane build. And maybe I could learn something from them that could help me get a mental measure on the power of these other two choices. And also the three Talent options. Plus, I also needed to ask about Spell Crystals. Gods, I had a lot to consider here. But if I played my cards right, I could very well be moving into a whole new realm of power.
Comments
Jeanean
Personally I think, "Persistent loop" carries the most potential, but is also the most unreliable. The advantage is that he can get powerful effects from single use items at extended durations without actually using the item up. The problem is, as he gets stronger, he will need more powerful enchanted effects if he wants to have the same relative effect from the Talent. "Recycled Loop" would be my choice. Its has the most reliability, especially now that they are in relative safety and can afford to take breaks. Doubly so with Exp requirements shooting up, meaning it takes longer and longer to level up either way. The extra Stats would turn him into even more of a monster then he alredy is. But what Arlan should take is "Inclusive Loop" for one simple reason: His Mental health! At some point, half or more of his life will happen within loops if he takes full advantage of them, and with no one to accompany hime, he WILL get lonely and depressed. It would also reduce the stress and pressure caused by him having to make judgement calls entirely on his own because he is the only one with all the information.
Sean
Still not fun how much of a psychopath the mc is but at this point idk why I should expect anything better from him. He's mentioned multiple times how lonely he feels that only he goes back and he gets a solution and just goes "I wonder how many enchanted items I'd have to get to make this other talent viable.
Marwolaeth
Exactly! It's the only one that makes sense for him to choose given how MANY times he has agonized over "killing" Erani
ultimate power or friendship. i think we all know which is better
TortCourt
Didn't he spend at least one entire chapter agonizing over the idea that using time loop was like killing Erani? I can't imagine he takes any option other than that one. Recycled Loop has the highest ceiling for him individually and would be a spectacular long-term option, but compared to "not killing your friends 3 times a day," it's nothing. I feel like Index should remind him of that since they just discussed the value of his friends' lives in the last chapter.
Frardowin
As he is right now, he is always going to be hunted by demons. Period. Recycled loop is the only way he can get strong enough to make the demons back down and leave him alone
Frardowin
That doesn't make loop better than him having around 7x the stats of others his level at around level 60.
Frardowin
They don't keep status only knowledge, the talent is limited by others power, so he would need to rely on others to get the most from it. I thing recycled is best bet. It grows his own power by an insane degree. As in by level 60 he would be around 7x as powerful as other level 60s and if he gets even 15% of the stats into clarity he would have a disgusting mana regen rate.
NaPewnoKtoś
Loop only gives draconiad memories if he ranks it up during the time turned back.
David Burchfield
Plus as we have seen with the. keeping their memories they can pick up on things or options he might miss or not even consider. And ya recycled does look tempting AF. Another big consideration is rather he wants his power to expand around exponential growth (recycled loop), or potentially further expanding what/who he can cause to loop back with him and to what degree.
Jed
Ooh, I hadn’t thought about that aspect of it. Recycled loop would dramatically increase his personal power, but he still needs to think about his mental health
Solopath
Recycle definitely gives him the most numeric power, especially with Index confirming that he won't get OP enhancements to take back in time, but I don't think more attributes are what he needs. Pretty consistently this story has shown that information, teamwork, and a good plan go further than just having bigger numbers. Being able to keep his allies completely informed of the time loops is invaluable, and while he might be able to bring Ainash back once or twice by levelling his bond with her, I feel that trying to intentionally level the bond for ulterior motives will prevent him from improving an organic relationship. More than that, having other people in the loop will ground him. Right now Arden has 18 hours of real time every day, and almost that much looped time, and that ratio is only going to get worse. How long will his relationships last when their only interaction with him is him telling them the optimal way to do everything? Where half of the jokes only he gets? Where any new ideas they have, any concern the want to talk about has already been heard and dismissed?
Anonymonous
Persistent loop is too situational. Inclusive loop is redundant with his current companions because the bond already gives the dryad memories and might upgrade enough to include his girlfriend too, not mentioning the fact that he might not always have companions around. Recycled loop gives stat points, which is a permanent upgrade. He's already got great stats and enough power in the short term. Doubling down on stats to get truly strong in the mid to long term to face the stronger demons that will come by seems to make obvious sense. Really hope he won't become an idiot MC and pick something suboptimal
NaPewnoKtoś
Inclusive loop for sure, he can essentially pick allays that will share the core ability of his legendary class and it scales?! Broken.
Frardowin
He is an idiot if he doesn't go with recycle. Straight up he would be able to crush demons if they give him enough time. Enchantments can be taken away, friends could end up being not around when he uses time loop. Recycled stats are always his.
1536539
Thank you for the chapter The first option is too situational and not worth it in my opinion. Interesting choices, recycled loop offers a very big boon at the cost of time, it is in my opinion the best choice given the information at hand. Inclusive loop is very useful for him especially because he has a bond (possibly a soul bond?) with 2 individuals, minimizing the risk of them betraying him and exploiting his talent against him, it offers a great tactical advantage. The reason I don’t think he should choose it 2 fold 1- it seems like the bond they have with Anash will give the same benefit with a little more growth, it already allows Anash to retain her memory, it won’t be a stretch to assume it will allow his girlfriend to retain her memory as well down the line even if it was through ainash, and luckily he doesn’t have to assume, just ask index the right question. 2- it seems to be the best option to direct the system to offer stronger upgrades the next time he has to choose.
