Continued brainstorming SPOILERS (Patreon)

I went through and read all the comments and will pluck out a few I resonated with and weigh them and ask questions of you.


1: One of the most common threads of thought was that once he makes a table of essences, he should be able to mix-match them at will, using Abun'zaul's ultimate flexibility to produce exactly what he needs to cast anything. combine this with an AI that can predict the effects, and he can make any spell effect on demand. This IS perry's ultimate goal, and something he's working towards, but it's kind of a capstone event that prevents Perry from ever having to come up with his trademark clever workarounds ever again. In short, achieving it will most likely be the end of the crafting aspect of the story, and maybe the beginning of the end of the series as a whole.

is there a believable way to limit it/should we limit it? If we don't is there a way to shift the focus of the story in such a way that it is still entertaining? Can we shift to handwavy  spell-effects while still being entertaining? As in there's no defined number of times he can cast things, just magic that happens, and he's a certain amount of tuckered out after each cast? I know stories can work like that, but they require a lighter hand than I've had thus far. It would be a bit of a shift and tough for me to acclimatize to, but it might have to happen.

2: What do you want the 3-D shape of the Essence map to look like? @Red Viking mentioned it looking like a nebula, and i took it one step further. My first thought was it looked like a galaxy, with distinct arms leading toward a central point, you could apply different kinds of magic to all the arms, as they lead towards a central point.

Or maybe have it look like Yggdrasil? similar thing with branches and roots going up/down to define different kinds of magic. Might even look like The Tide, who knows?


3: (SPOILERS, SERIOUSLY) As for chekov's guns, we've got Solaris, who's been (or will be) infected with an aggressive form of dementia by a bio-type tinker. The virus itself can/has been cleared up by turning into light, but the effects themselves tipped a domino that will will slowly compound and lead him to becoming an obstacle Perry will have to surmount.

Another chekov's gun I just recently thought of is the dream-visiting spell that Perry got in...was it book 2? it was never used, and seems like it might come in clutch Vs. either Tyrannus or Solaris...I mean, assuming Solaris still sleeps.

4: the soul-surgery equipment seems like it'll be instrumental in measuring essence wavelengths to find their common patterns and organize them. It'll just be refined and recalibrated to watch a few spells happen in realtime.
Furthermore, the soul-surgery equipment seems like it would offer Tyrannus the opportunity to do what Perry refused to do, and custom-design his own powerful demonic servants by butchering their souls into twisted devotion.

5: I'm getting a general consensus that we'd like to be present for baby time, then maybe fast forward a couple years until the little one is able to shriek words and be actual character?

6: Any thoughts on new perks for level 15? We might be getting there sooner rather than later.