[D'sP] Ace Decides Something - Chapter 325 (Patreon)

Paths aren’t meant to limit you. Any limits being placed on you through a path, is a limit you have already accepted, even if not consciously. We can see an example of this in Doyle’s goats. Through a path, he limited them to being beasts. Doyle would not have humanoid goats in his dungeon. Even if one stumbled in and died, such a creature is beyond him.

While it might seem that in the path giving the choice, he was being limited as there wasn’t a third option to not change anything. But no, he had already accepted that his goats would be one or the other. All the path did was decide which way things would go. In fact, some powerful beings would debate that despite there being a choice given, the decision was already made before it showed up.

Doyle had been handling things, but the goats? He had seen too much. The path putting a limit on them was a form of relief. And with already having kobolds at the time? Well, the chances he would choose for the goats to advance towards a humanoid form was almost non-existent.

Except, sometimes a path is forced on you. Whether it is because of an emergency or you’re in an army that stupidly does such things, is there a way back? Will Doyle always be shut off from satyrs and such?

Well, within the infinite space and possibilities that is the multiverse, nothing is impossible. Even souls can die, yet that doesn’t mean it will happen. Except at the same time, it will never be the same, especially with multiple True Immortals having visited this specific dimension. No time travel nonsense to mess with things.

Maybe someday Doyle will get a goat based humanoid of some sort. Except it won’t benefit from the goat bonuses and would draw on other sources. Plus, he would need some major change in mentality to accept such a thing. Not just on the surface, but entirely with his whole being.

And now, with no one else knowing, Ace had made a similar choice. See, Ace was many things. A powerful being, leader of a town, idol of many, and a bright light leading to the future for more. It can be hard, all that attention.

On a whim, Ace invested in a path. It gave him some nice bonuses. Improved thought speed and writing speed being some of the early ones. The writing speed was handy, but the thought speed? That improved everything! Whether it was combat or social, having just a moment more to think about the situation was amazing.

So when that path was completed, and there was a continuation available? Ace jumped at it. Except this time it stopped him and forced a choice upon him. Though unlike with Doyle, it gave him the third option as well, to back out and make no choice. Though anyone with half a brain will realize doing so is just another choice.

As for what Ace had to choose between? It wasn’t something as simple as whether he would focus on being a combatant or an administrator. No, in a way, some would even question him having the choice since it wasn’t all that personal. In fact, to some people in town the fact he even got the choice is a travesty.

See, it gave Ace a choice related to the town and how he would manage it. Whether he would rule or allow his power to be handed over to a council. Or as some would word it, the choice between being a power grubbing dictator or the enlightened leader of a democracy, after all, isn’t it “obvious” that such a council would be elected? Nevermind the fact that neither choice has anything to do with how the positions would be decided.

Though the choice would permanently affect how the town would be ruled, even if someone else eventually conquered the place. It represented a permanent change in how the town’s power would get spread out. Would everything flow from Ace, or would it be delegated out? Because as it was, Ace could only do things in halves.

A person put in charge of the town’s security right now has some powers, yet Ace has the other half and needs to confirm some things. Going the one way, all choices directly related to security would be fully within that person’s control. The other way? That person will be limited to what Ace decides. Not quite micromanaging, but Ace could if he wanted to.

Now, you might think this would be a straightforward choice. Who wants to micromanage a town like that? Well, okay, middle management the world over would sell their very soul for that much power. Ace wasn’t like that, though. Except it gave him the choice.

Why? Because Ace was also the kind of guy to take responsibility for his choices, one of which was to lead this town. While the control path might sound bad, Ace saw the other side of the coin for what it was, just as bad. Oh, sure, if you consider the chance of abuse, power centralized on one person means that whoever has it can do horrible things. Except spread out power increases the surface area that corruption can take hold.

If those in charge of security joined hands with criminals? Ace would be powerless. Yet at the same time, he had too much to do right now and he needed to grow stronger. That really was the central conflict, power. He just didn’t have enough of it.

With enough power, he could spread his senses out over the town and spot things going wrong in real time. With enough power, Ace could do all his paperwork in moments, using his magic to fill out everything at the same moment.  So despite being one of the strongest people on the planet, Ace was simply too weak.

Yet, he believed that could change, so in the end the choice came down to one thing for Ace. Did he believe he would survive? Was he going to live? The choice to spread out power was just another method to secure the town against his death.

If Ace died, someone else would take over. If Ace died, that meant anyone who followed him could die as well. So better he spread the power out. That way, no one person could ruin what he had built. But if he lived? Well, as long as he maintained his power, then the town would end up how he wanted.

Ace never even considered taking the middle path. It was always going to be personal control or spread out power. His current control of the town was simply too halfway on everything. And so Ace took even more responsibility onto his shoulders.

Become powerful enough to survive till the end. Ace needed to not only believe he could do this, he needed to accept it on a deeper level than anything else. Maybe he would never quite reach that level of belief, but he had to bet on it. Pre-system, too much was messed up from the words and values of the past being twisted or worse, unchanged.

Wolf’s Rest could survive without him. It might even thrive! However, it wouldn’t be his then. Maybe at some point in the future he would allow someone else to manage the town, but even then, it would be him with the final say. Satisfied with his decision, Ace chose to hold all the power. To be selfish.

And the town changed.

Not that Ace had time to pay attention to it. For the first three days after his choice, the guy had to hole up in his office and go through an unholy number of system prompts, asking for his decision. At least the system kept everything else running as it was until he got around to handling it.

Still, as those days passed, people certainly noticed the difference. First was those in charge of security. Before, they needed someone else to confirm certain things. Now, either it was allowed or it wasn’t. More than that, whether something would be allowed or not seemed almost random. Of course, in reality, it was Ace, stuck in his office, making decisions on what they would and would not be allowed to do. On top of that, the capstone ability of that path ended up allowing him to let the system make some decisions based on what he would do.

Not all decisions, but enough of the important ones to relieve the pressure on Ace. Back to those in charge of security, this capstone was particularly useful as it let decisions to be made as things were happening. No chance for memories to warp the event, the system just took the known facts and applied how Ace would decide to it.

Of course, that one detail, that it used “known facts”, meant it wasn’t quite as powerful as it might be. The system wouldn’t even take into account when someone told an obvious lie if there wasn’t proof otherwise or someone pointed it out. Though overall, Ace applied this method of decision making to too many of the options.

It felt like cheating to him, but that is just because he lacks perspective. At a certain point, a town leader could do this much and more all by themselves. All it requires is multiple thought streams and some form of scrying or territory sense to copy it. At the moment, Doyle could likely mimic this already since he can see anywhere in his territory and not too much happened at any one time.

Not that this path capstone was going to stop being useful in the future. For one, while most of the time, not much happens and so a leader can manage things, that isn’t always the case. Sometimes it just seems that everything goes wrong at the same time and at that point, this effect will be quite useful.

Not just that, but it will allow Ace to continue to delve the dungeon. After all, once you enter a dungeon, you get cut off from the outside barring a few exceptions. Many leaders find themselves lagging behind the power curve if they aren’t full in on social and management skills. Now Ace won’t have to worry about that, even once he grows to the point that he can run the town by himself.

And he would eventually be able to run the town all on his own. Maybe if he had wanted to build an empire, it would force Ace to rely on others. Since that isn’t the plan, he would be able to get there. One small town? Even if it grew to be a Farley large city, it wouldn’t matter in the end.

After all, there are some beings who control entire star systems like they were playing some sort of 4X game and have all the time in the world. Hell, just look at an awakened dungeon! Some of them control areas bigger than most minds can comprehend.

For now, though, most people on the planet are still being limited by their human perspective. This isn’t a bad thing in most cases, but for any world to thrive, you’re going to need people who can go beyond such limitations. After all, at a certain point, a being’s personal power will exceed what a human can comprehend.

You’re just asking for a disaster if a man strong enough to crush coal into diamonds doesn’t realize how much they’re unconsciously controlling their strength every time they open a door. Or worse, when they shake a person’s hand or hug someone. After a certain point, mundane materials all end up feeling the same and only within high energy areas do they get to relax. Without being reinforced by massive amounts of power, a steel plate might as well be tissue paper and snapping their fingers would cause a sonic boom.

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