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I needed to do a lot of background work on my scripts to support this one and the ones to follow. Despite that, I somehow managed to claw back about 1,000 words of backlog. I guess I'm as excited for this part as you are. Don't celebrate too much, though. Those are unedited words, and I've got a family thing coming up mid-next month that I might need to take a week off for regardless. For now, though, we're good!

Why are you still reading this note? Chapter is here! Enjoy!

Comments

Conor McGroarty

Take a break if needed (though it will be missed) and thanks for chapter

Cal Yager

If you need a break, take a break. We'll all freak out without our weekly dose of Delve, but your life is more important.

jdouglas

aaaaaaaaaand back to the snake :/

Jachin Nelson

Thank you for the chapter

Anonymous

Huh, I was expecting a class description or something, but looking back dynamo didn't get one either. Allowing Winter to level higher and increasing the clarity bonus from 200% to 1600% is ridiculous though and means that soul damage is really the only thing keeping Rain from refilling his mana pool every minute. I'm sure someone else will do/has already done the math for his maximum regen, but even his "moderate" regeneration of 50mana/s refills his pool in about 11 minutes.

Doodlyboy15

Good stuff, thanks again. Take your time.

Jeppe Fiig

Ah seeing all the old skills getting XP, but you are also a cruel tease, been hoping to hear what his class personalization is all week.

Michael Hughes

You're killing me Rain. I wanted character growth not Character Growth. I wanted to see new skills and to see if some skills only show up at Silver Rank. Now it is just more soul stuff and having to throttle back on growth until everything is fixed. Ranking up was supposed to fix this not make it worse. This is still a great chapter but it is frustrating to be waiting for this for over a year and still not have all of the answers even when we are so close. See you next week. Goodnight everyone.

Anonymous

I squeeled like a little girl from excitement and I have no shame in that

Conor McGroarty

Well if Rain is going to wait, might as well wait until he caps his level so he he can be selective with his skill points and use that experience to open up the tier fours in his 5 major trees and then the rest. Informed choice is best. Although I think mana sight is a strong contender due to it being able to be used with detection and that will make any surprises (like trackers and hunters knives) that much harder to come along. Not to mention that a good portion of his strength is his perspective and unique way of looking at things compared to world natives so adding a new sense (mana sight) that can gather more information and knowledge is one of the best choices for a skill point.

Gnossos

This chapter feels disappointing. We wanted a look at his class sheet to see what personalization meant for his class. The thing we have been waiting for happened and there has been no pay off. Rain spent time assessing damage and dozer popped in and out of his soul. Just feels like a tease. Another week and then maybe we can see what t4 skills look like, what certain skills look like above level 10, or if Rain unlocks anything with his current skills once they level above 10. Maybe this chapter would be appropriate if I was reading a completed book, but this is challenging/frustrating to read drop by drop. Why is Rain not excited to share the uniqueness of his class once he sees what it is? This makes no sense.

Loipers

My worst fears have been alleviated, but my curiosity has only grown. For once I hoped for an infodump. Guess I have to have patience. ;)

Draugluir

I agree. Does he still have to only put stats in manaregen, like legendary dynamo? We got a teaser that it multiplies clarity by 17? Need moar!

LEMON

Rain really needs a final fix for his paling. These half fixes are getting boring.

Anonymous

Nice chapter but I hope to see his class personalization next week. It's too much of a tease to hold that back after so much waiting.

Deinos

That was weird. Last week it seemed (according to the status announcements) like almost certain he might die because of the upgrade and now all we know is that "somehow" he wasn't Erased or what his new class actually Does, or why he Wasn't erased when the system seemed so certain about it.

LongtailedOne

With the new update to the post... Does that mean Engine of Change is Legendary Dynamo but the name is just different? If so Who or What picked the name?

Timothy Alexander

I thought this chapter was great - everyone moaning needs to think about whether they'd prefer one big reveal then a hundred chapters of nothing, or a steady release of new class, skill, soul info etc.

Anonymous

It cant be only name though? I'm like 90% certain personalization was talked about as some huge benefit to legendary classes and it not just being some cosmetic thing

Kain

The system was certain of paling failure and core damage and was right about at least 1 of those things. Rain isn’t exactly an expert on cores and could have missed damage or the fact that the system couldn’t make heads or tails of his base might have prevented it from accurately assessing the danger the core was in. Either way while the system freaked out it didn’t really indicate immanent death

Styx

Thanks for the update Sene. It was good to clarify. I agree with you, the legendary dynamo class is plenty powerful enough without anything extra. +1700% clarity was way crazier than any of us thought.

Anonymous

That huge benefit you're talking about is probably the +skill caps to specialised trees no? Which isn't *specific* to legendary, but legendary gives the better increase.

Call0013

makes Personalization trash, what ever happened to specializations effecting the class.

Weeb Dealer

Thanks for the edit! I also had the same confusion, so clarifying definitely helps.

Hampus Steinvall

Argh, this is too good for just one chapter a week. I would literally drop everyone I support on patreon and pay it all to you instead if it meant just one more chapter per week.

Ziggy

Plus this is before leveling a single relevant skill. Winter itself is going to get a huge boost from getting another 5 levels, plus other auras + aura synergy, channel mastery, and so on. But bonus, the intrinsic skills affect mana and mana regen directly and they can now gain another 5 levels as well. After all is said and done? Rain should be able to safely regen 200+ mana a second even if he keeps winter at a lower level, and he should have a base mana pool of over 60k. When Rain can add even more clarity via ring, the numbers get pretty nuts depending on how high of a stat imbalance he can handle. Thousands of mana regenerated per second, and a top end of a 600k+ sized mana pool. Even if he can only handle half that much clarity without losing his mind, he still has mana for days and plenty of power.

Jon

I'm just going to start skipping over all of the soul/paling stuff from now on. I love Delve, it's really great overall, but the ongoing soul/paling issues have become detrimental to the story and are taking up space that could better be used elsewhere.

Cirvante

Typo: My macro is telling me that Winter is giving a muti—” <-- Should be 'multi—' for multiplier.

tibbish

Problem is though with his Paling problems he is effectively nerfed. Its kinda irritating because he has been kept weak for sooooooo long now and once he finally gets Silver, and decently strong, and it doesn't matter much because of never ending Paling/Soul issues. Powerwise the way his scaling works is he won't be truly "OP" until he gets to Gold....but everyone at gold is "OP" anyways. Realistically he'll always be vulnerable to sneaky assassins or poison and sneak attacks that he can't see coming. As is he is supposed to be a strong for his level Silver but still very much a glass cannon with relatively short run times due to the mana consumption of his auras when they're run at or near max with all the boosts. Multi offensive auras could probably drain him in less than a minute still even with Winter running simultaneously (I'm actually not sure if he can do that, so far I think we only know that he'll be able to run 2 auras at once).

Cirvante

I'm okay with personalization not giving a class bonus. +1600% clarity is plenty powerful and Dynamo only gave clarity as well. The monoliths are kinda discount legendaries fully focused on stats I guess. What bothers me is that during his class change Rain went from 10 : 810 focus to clarity ratio to a 10 : 4,590 ratio. And he didn't go completely loopy from that. What is protecting him here? His class? Magical Synergy? Could you perhaps clarify that in future chapters? It feels like Rain has had it way too easy compared to other monoliths in regards to detrimental effects from stat imbalance. And with Ascension getting a Tortugo now, could you finally give us the numbers for the primary monoliths? You've implied in the past that they don't get +200% at bronze, to make up for the primary stats being more powerful, but you never gave us a number. +100% just seems too weak compared to secondary monoliths and regular uncommon classes who get around +50%. Also could you eventually clarify how the physical stats interact? Endurance seems to mitigate the fragility of high strength, and the two are linked through Physical Synergy, but his 85 endurance only gives him 8.5 force resistance. That doesn't seem like much of a buffer. Is it a passive effect from endurance itself? And shouldn't vigor be linked to the nervous system and control coordination? I got that impression from Rain's speculation during his first attempts at physical exercise. So where does the coordination come from that allows Fortificos not to become flailing spastics? Is there a Regeneration Synergy linking recovery to vigor? Otherwise Vivificants and Dustrios would have massive issues. So many questions ...

afgasd adgasd

woo, rain advanced finally! . . . not 'delving' into prismatic intent though because hes.. even more broken? i love the world and characters youve made here and the majority of everything else youve put in but im so over the paling issue

Jeppe Fiig

To be fair him not immediately taking prismatic intent is more likely related to him unlocking TIER FOUR skills in 5 trees in just 3 lvls, and he knows he will be starved for skill points, not to mention there is still a few hidden skills he has speculated is there.

Stormlock

I don't mind the soul stuff as long as it's new and not rehashing the same thing all over again. I don't need details about Rain building things he's already built before, but if he learns how to properly repair his paling or build some giant soul cannon or something that could be interesting. I am dying to know about prismatic intent and whatever new skills he's unlocked though.

Ziggy

There was one offhand comment by Rain wayyyy back when about intrinsic strength (or similarly named skill) being linked between strength and endurance instead of strength and recovery. He thought it was odd at the time. But it could make sense because of necessity, especially if there's a similar skill for linking recovery and vigor to avoid other inherent issues.

Anonymous

Lol the empty mystery box again. I'm actually starting to enjoy these just because of the reactions they bring.

Yshua

First: Yes please take a break. Rest and recharge is essential, I don't want to see another author burnout or start second-guessing themselves. Delve is one of my favorite things. Second: Yes I'm really over the paling as well. The pacing feels so off on this one because it's like... if your main character has a friend that they haven't seen in a long, long time and you have them waiting at the airport, then next scene they're back at their apartment doing dishes and cleaning a litter box, thinking "wow it sure was fun to hang out with my friend I'll have to do that again some time." I see this clarification about personalization just being a custom name, and sorry but this doesn't make sense to me and breaks my suspension of disbelief. What kind of System hands out custom names like "Runic Powersmith," "Uncertain Savior," and "Engine of Change"? It doesn't make sense to me given where Tallheart, Ameliah, and Rain sit on the power scale of the Majistraal, or even the world in general. So class personalizations are bespoke Achievements/Titles? I just can't square the circle of the punning/insight/uniqueness of the class names compared to the straightforwardness of the System, unless it's a subconsciously-influenced interface thing like the System interface or (I presume) the guides. In which case why is personalization a System-recognized reward for rarer classes? Is this something like "everyone wears the school uniform, except the student council"? The name personalization thing just really doesn't fit for me.

Anonymous

Or, and hear me out here, the author can be interesting without keeping the pace of a crippled snail.

Yshua

> I’ve gone back to chapters 175 and 164 to be more explicit. Where? On RoyalRoad? The Patreon posts?

Thenais

Good move, we need more explicit chapters 😘

Osamaru Ta

Wait, did I miss something? We never actually got to see WHAT [Engine of Change] DOES.

Garrett

My understanding is that specializations still provide a bonus to the applied skill tree beyond the skill level cap increase, but personalization apparently is purely aesthetic

Osamaru Ta

I guess that makes sense. Not everyone's Legendary build is going to be the same (I.E not ever Legendary Dynamo is gonna be an Aura user)

Anonymous

Val would be the perfect test subject for seeing if Rain can actually use a silver override on someone to upgrade certain parts of their Bronze model. Seems like it would be too dangerous to test this on other Ascention Bronze plates, but Val is unique in that his soul could handle the Silver equipment model upgrade pressure eazy-peazy after growing so accustomed to wearing his old man's dueling jacket. Seems like these are the types of exceptionally temerious aspirants the override system was created for, and not so that lazy trainees can skip soul day. Who knows, It might help him not feel like he's getting squeezed to death for the few minutes it takes him to rush over to Tallheart and trade in all his credits for new equipment.

Anonymous

Also on a slightly related note, I just realized that all those instances in the past of "pushing past a wall" to change aspects of the Bronze model were 'access denied, significant resistance detected, Bronze override' moments. Kinda cool that this has been a thing from the very beginning.

Conor McGroarty

I reread some things and there was a section describing the various types of souls: humans/cervidians, animals and monsters. Animals can’t awaken (to people’s knowledge) which means someone tried it at some point. So they call those souls “half souls” but what if it isn’t that there is an issue with their souls but their intelligence must reach a certain threshold. I’m still going with the theory that cervidians aren’t a naturally occurring race and the system evolved actual deer. Of course those deer would probably have to have been exposed to winter, essence well and things of that nature that would increase formation of intelligence. This would be much later on (when having a lair to farm and refill with elemental refinement or whatever) when they have a surplus of essence monsters and not enough members of ascension. I imagine Rain would want to test the supposed limits of awakening by trying it on animal members and dozer (assuming dozer isn’t already awakened and just needs time to level up).

Anonymous

Oh damn, that's one thing we forgot about; samples of the local wildlife from the Ashen Jungle and Sparkscale Deep in case any of the Ascension members wanted to be Tamers/Shifters. Those Hababas would be been perfect since they can do everything humans can. Regarding your theory, catching a hababa and exposing it to concentrated Winter would have been an AMAZING experiment.

Ask-if-I-like-lemons

Quite disappointing. What's the point of all that special system thingies if there's nothing different about his personalized class name? Just turn it back to Legendary Dynamo if that's the case.

Anonymous

The majority of the dialogue in this chapter is incredibly off. Especially from tallheart, he's being conversationally glib and speaking far more than necessary for his established personality / character.