scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/4ji3zc.md

[RT] [HF] Mother of Learning Chapter 53: Phantoms

• Author: u/Green0Photon Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar*

• URL: https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/53/Mother-of-Learning

• Score: 124

• Created: 2016-05-15T21:35:56

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u/minopoked [+27] (29 minutes later)

Wow that last line is ominous. Why does the Ghost Serpent's story have anything to do with Red Robe's plan?

u/Cheese_Ninja [+26] (an hour later)

Someone started the Sovereign's Gate back up again, luckily in time for the Planar Alignment, the most likely candidate would be Daimen, "Indiana Jones"ish archaeologist that he is. RR has somehow been included in the time loop, but probably doesn't have the proper Brand. (The Brand is the "soul marker", which is essentially Zach's Noveda Bloodline ability, which Zorian gained a slightly flawed copy of from the Lich's Soul/Blood Magic, which should still be good enough, since it works well enough during the loop.)

So RR's soul marker can let him loop, but Zorian thinks it might not let him leave, in which case RR has to switch the loop over to recognizing him as the true inheritor of the Brand, in which case Zorian and Zach will, in a good case, return to reality as if nothing has happened, with no experiences from the loop, or in a bad case, the loop uses their marker in a backlash to mangle their souls. Even the good case would be horrible, since Red Robe has apparently deciding to contribute to Cyoria's destruction, and if a clueless Zach and Zorian were in there, they'd certainly die.

u/Frommerman [+14] (3 hours later)

What if we're getting it all wrong? What if RR is the original source, and his goal in starting up the Sovereign Gate was to become strong enough to guarantee that his attempt to release He Of The Flowing Flesh was successful?

I don't know why he wants to release a Primordial, but for the purposes of this argument I'm going to assume that he's just nuts. My evidence is as follows: 1) After the first attempt, the church and the government would lock the Hole down to prevent any further attempts. Making the first attempt work is a must. 2) Limited number of shifter kids. Sure, there's plenty in the world total, but very few who are close enough to Cyoria that news of their kidnapping wouldn't reach defenders of the Primordial prison before they could get there. Proximity is important. 3) Soul Killing is impossible, but someone claims to be able to do it. That either means that the claim "Soul Killing is impossible" or "RR can do it" is false. What if the Sovereign Gate gives its user the ability to kick out people not useful to their goals? It does seem tailor-made to be the best possible training device, and kicking overwhelmingly powerful enemies which could slow your training out of your simulated training ground seems like a useful feature. RR didn't use it on Zorian or Zach because the technique he uses to do it doesn't work on people with the soul brand to prevent magic - reflecting effects from kicking out the user of the Gate.

That all seems coherent to me.

u/None [+5] (9 hours later)

Interesting analysis of the soulkill technique... But it's worth remembering that Red Robe almost certainly does not have the soul marker. Remember that Zorian was never able to find him using the locator spell. He somehow found a different hack that lets him act like he's looping. It's also not clear if he started before or after Zach. I suspect that he started at the same time, so he could somehow project his soul into the "In-Between" before the simulation began.

It's strongly implied that soulkilling is derived from RR's necromancy + time loop knowledge. Batak mentioned that souls can be used to produce accurate simulations -- that's likely how the time loop works. RR probably knows enough about soul magic to prevent this from happening. It's curious that he hasn't used it against Zach or Zorian, though.

Of course, there's still a lot of missing information: What happened to Zach's memories? Why is RR doing this at all? Why does RR soulkill the aranea but not even try Zach or Zorian? What the hell is the time loop for? Stupid Ghost Serpent is not helpful.

Edit: We also know the that the time loop resets when Zach dies, which suggests that he's the primary source.

u/melmonella [+7] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (9 hours later)

But it's worth remembering that Red Robe almost certainly does not have the soul marker. Remember that Zorian was never able to find him using the locator spell.

Or he is using a custom-made nondetection spell that fixes that problem.

u/Xtraordinaire [+10] Team Glimglam (10 hours later)

Then how come Zorian is alive? If RR has the marker, and knows of the tracking ritual so he makes countermeasures, why doesn't he track Zorian instead?

Maybe he has a different marker that works fine, but is not identical and thus fails for the purpose of locator spell input.

u/melmonella [+3] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (11 hours later)

That's what I think pretty much. My point is that we don't have enough evidence against him having A marker yet to conclude he doesn't have any.

u/Ozimandius [+2] (16 hours later)

Well, we have strong evidence from this very chapter that he was trying to track down Zach and was unable, while Zorian is able to even despite Zach's precautions. He may have some sort of marker but it at least isn't a copy of the one Zach and Zorian have.

u/melmonella [+3] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (18 hours later)

...that was exactly what I said, yes.

u/Ozimandius [+2] (19 hours later)

My bad I was skipping back and forth and forgot what line of commenting I was in.

u/Frommerman [+5] (19 hours later)

Zorian's marker is a corrupted version of Zach's. He didn't get the whole thing, just enough to make it functional. This would make it difficult for RR to track Zorian's marker, as he doesn't know what it looks like.

On the other hand, Zorian's marker comes directly from Zach's. It makes sense that he is able to track the progenitor of his marker with a marker-tracking ritual. RR has a different marker that Zorian doesn't know the composition of, so he can't track it.

With this set up, both Zorian and RR are able to track Zach, but neither can track the other, which is exactly what we observe.

u/None [+7] (21 hours later)

Here's an interesting question:

If our Zorian is a bot, what happens to him when the loop ends? Will his soul merge with Original!Zorian's? Are they even separate entities?

u/Xtraordinaire [+2] Team Glimglam (23 hours later)

Boy, was I confused reading this comment without the parent one.

u/Frommerman [+1] (a day later)

So was I.

u/GeeJo [+3] Custom Flair (3 days later)

Remember that Zorian was never able to find him using the locator spell. He somehow found a different hack that lets him act like he's looping.

Unless...note that this chapter reveals that Zach has been heavily shielding himself ever since they last met. The locator spell was cast while this shielding was in place, and turned up two markers regardless. It was never directly confirmed that the second marker was Zach's.

u/TheAtomicOption [+1] (2 days later)

Is magic reflection a thing in this universe? I don't remember seeing it anywhere yet.

u/Frommerman [+1] (2 days later)

It's a common enough trope that designers of an Artefact-level training device who aren't crazy should have taken the possibility into account even if they didn't know of a way to do it.

u/None [+8] (50 minutes later)

Let's say you've invoked some strange dark ritual to give yourself a duplicate pocket universe to train yourself in. Maybe you get lonely or bored. Doesn't matter, because you're in the universe until the battery runs out. To train as hard as possible you need a powerful enemy. So you use your advanced knowledge of souls magic to mark another, so they will train along with you. But you wipe their memory of you, and set them on a path. In this case, make him play the hero and fight the invasion. That way, you can train against him by supporting the invasion.

The whole summoning is a distraction. Hell, it's possible Red Robe invoked this terrible magic to help train to defend against the summoned Terror. That's what I would do.

Honestly Red Robe might be a good guy who was confused when someone started trying to kill him and then saw those spiders definitely lied about being marked. I'll have to go back to the chapter where we meet him. Could this all be a misunderstanding, hyper-brutalism because he was training and the target would be fine?

u/SpeculativeFiction [+13] (an hour later)

But Red Robe doesn't have the mark, as far as we know.

I think it's more likely he's been working to get a mark of his own, or otherwise figure out some way to be the guy who gets to leave the pocket universe.

u/Xtraordinaire [+7] Team Glimglam (2 hours later)

I think he doesn't have the same mark. Perhaps he was attacking Zach in hopes of incapacitating him and using his mark for the ritual. Otherwise I see no reason for him to kill Zach. If Zach dies, the loop resets, so what's the point? Luckily that plan to locate Zorian failed.

u/Xtraordinaire [+9] Team Glimglam (2 hours later)

This... doesn't make a lick of sense to me.

If RR looped Zach, he is interacting with him awfully rare. I don't think Zach's intended role was a practice dummy or a companion. Unless the loop has been active for 11 lifetimes, of which Zach remembers only ~20 last years due to some mind wipe. But then RR is hundreds years old, and is basically godlike and is toying with everyone.

Another thing to consider, is that if Serpent is right, the In-Between happens on the first day of the month (when everyone goes to school), so in the real world the primordial has not been summoned. Yet. When the loop ends the Branded One(s) will live this month one more time.

u/InsaneBranch [+3] (5 days later)

One can enter, one can leave. If all three, RR, Zach and Zorian are in the loop. What if they can't find RR, because he left? What if they're now trapped forever?

u/minopoked [+1] (a month later)

Nice prediction and accurate! Now it remains to be seen what Zach and Zorian will do once they get out.

u/GodKiller999 [+25] (38 minutes later)

Zac sure ended up being a lot more competent than most everyone originally thought.

u/Saffrin-chan [+21] (44 minutes later)

I guess that kind of makes sense. We only saw him from Zorian's perspective, when he was at least trying to somewhat look like a student. There's also been quite a passage of time since we last saw him, just think of how much Zorian improved in that time, and remember we had no idea what he'd been doing during all that time.

u/GodKiller999 [+24] (50 minutes later)

It was more about how Zac hadn't been taking defensive precautions previously and we thought it was because he was incompetent, but his argument made sense, he didn't think about the possibility of another time traveller so he never thought it was necessary.

u/Xtraordinaire [+19] Team Glimglam (45 minutes later)

Isn't heavy usage of 'mind blank' spell harmful for the mind of the user?

u/GodKiller999 [+33] (48 minutes later)

Well it's less harmful than being mind raped by an hyper competent mind mage.

u/JusticeBeak [+15] (4 hours later)

Come to think of it, Zach does have trouble with his memories...

u/-Fender- [+14] (59 minutes later)

Hopefully Zorian will mention that tidbit eventually. Or hopefully Zach is already perfectly aware of it, and took previously-unknown counter-measures against the damaging effect of the spell.

u/Frommerman [+2] (2 days later)

Long-term use, yes, but we don't actually know what qualifies as long-term. The only people who did that previously were old, paranoid mages, so perhaps the threshold is something like years rather than months.

u/jkwrites [+20] (6 minutes later)

I have created ebook versions of Mother of Learning:

PDF: https://gitlab.com/jkwrites/mol-ebook/raw/master/mol.pdf

EPUB: https://gitlab.com/jkwrites/mol-ebook/raw/master/mol.epub

MOBI: https://gitlab.com/jkwrites/mol-ebook/raw/master/mol.mobi

They should be up-to-date with chapter 53, and I intend to regenerate them every new chapter. Enjoy!

u/Green0Photon [+8] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (an hour later)

Not sure why you would need to do this, considering there is ficsave. IMHO, this is the best way to do it, and I do that every chapter.

u/jkwrites [+9] (2 hours later)

FicSave is okay, and I have used it before, too. The MOBI output has sub-par paragraph formatting, though (blank line instead of indent), and it makes reading dialogues annoying. Also, it can't produce PDFs.

u/Green0Photon [+9] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (2 hours later)

Yeah, I read on an Android, so I use epub. If I did have a Kindle, however, I'd end up converting it through Calibre. I don't know what Calibre's PDF export looks like.

Nice job anyway.

Now, if there were to be something for Unsong... :D

u/jkwrites [+1] (15 hours later)

I actually wanted to make Unsong ebook, however I'm not sure how, with all the Hebrew (especially numbered interludes). I'll probably try something this week, anyway.

u/Green0Photon [+2] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (16 hours later)

How exactly does it work, anyway?

I made a scraper for Worm, which could probably adapt very well to Unsong. Worm had a bunch of unicode 1/2 characters in the titles, and it worked (but my url downloader had some problems I manually had to work around). I used Calibre to manually make an ebook.

It should be fine. Everything is in Unicode nowadays. It would only be slightly harder, enumerating through next page links (table of contents might be a bit harder).

Would you mind letting me see the source code, or at least enumerating what you did? I promise to not make one (there is ficsave) or share your code if you want to keep it private. I'm curious how you made all three types of ebooks. Thanks.

u/jkwrites [+3] (17 hours later)

The way I do it is to wget whole pages from fictionpress, run them through tidy to generate valid XHTML, and then use xmllint --xpath to extract the contents. Then comes a couple dozen sed commands to change HTML tags to LaTeX code, and to make subtle style improvements - scene breaks as fleurons, smart quotes, hyphenation for MoL-specific names [s/Kirithishli/Kiri\\-thi\\-shli/g;]...

After that's done, we've got each chapter as a file in LaTeX format in a subridectory. Now I include all of them into main source file, which describes the title, author and attribution, as well as page size, fonts and so on. Then I generate final PDF using pdflatex.

After another round of sed which makes e-book specific changes, I convert back into HTML using latexml, and then into EPUB with Calibre's command-line ebook-convert, which then gets converted into MOBI using Amazon's official kindlegen.

I don't want to share the code publicly right now, because, as you can see, it's a complicated process, and the code is quite ugly.

u/None [+3] (a day later)

I made a scraper that adapted fine to Unsong. Here's the mobi.

It's just done with a ruby script using Nokogiri. I'll put the code on github at some point, but I want to clean it up first because right now it's a disgusting hackjob that I did in an afternoon. I think I originally made it for Worm actually, and I mostly use it for FFN these days.

u/Green0Photon [+1] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (a day later)

Heh, I should modify my Worm scraper. I feel like that's what everyone starts out with.

u/elevul [+2] Cyoria Observer (22 minutes later)

You do it yourself, or you're using ficsave?

u/jkwrites [+9] (52 minutes later)

I have written a script that downloads HTML pages from fictionpress, cleans the code up and converts to LaTeX, then generates the PDF and ebook formats from there.

u/elevul [+2] Cyoria Observer (57 minutes later)

Nice!

u/whywhisperwhy [+1] (2 hours later)

What language are you using, out of curiosity?

u/jkwrites [+1] (10 hours later)

It's a bash script mostly consisting of sed -e 's/a/b/g'...

u/-Fender- [+1] (an hour later)

This is fantastic. I would have loved to have this two months ago.

Keep it up!

u/vallar57 [+3] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (an hour later)

There is a free software called "FanFictionDownloader". It works on both fictionpress and fanfiction and a bunch of other sites, and can download from them and convert downloaded files to most of the formats.

u/whywhisperwhy [+2] (2 hours later)

Pretty much everything except Wordpress, unfortunately.

u/vallar57 [+2] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (3 hours later)

Yeah, no Worm ePubs(

u/Green0Photon [+3] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (3 hours later)

I made a scraper that turns it into html files. I won't give you the epub, but you can use Calibre to create an epub of those files.

u/None [+1] (5 hours later)

That's... really no better than just giving them the epub...

u/Green0Photon [+3] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (5 hours later)

OK... I mean it sucks to put it into Calibre, and I don't have to worry about violating copyright, or how Wildbow didn't want epubs of it floating around...

:/

u/None [+2] (6 hours later)

Yeah... I can understand and even respect why he made that decision, but I can't say I endorse it. As a content creator, he's been very smart in walking the line between community involvement and being cautious about things. I respect that. He's not big enough to be magnanimous, and the impression I get is that his personal ethos can be boiled down to "Austere". But still.

u/Green0Photon [+1] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (6 hours later)

I remember reading that he didn't want people to do it because then someone could come along, copy it, change names, and sell it (not on Amazon though). I'm not sure that's a thing that would happen, considering there's some great CC books out there, but I'll follow his choice anyway.

u/None [+1] (6 hours later)

If he can get it published and pushed into the mainstream, then that worry should go away. Anyway, this is off-topic.

u/melmonella [+1] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (19 hours later)

It's less about someone stealing his work and more about publishers being iffy about publishing a book that is easilly spread online.

u/Green0Photon [+1] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (19 hours later)

I suppose that's true too.

u/parenthesis_bot [+2] (3 hours later)

)

u/vallar57 [+14] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (2 hours later)

Since many people are writing about it, I decided to answer in the first level.

I don't think there is an actual problem with having two Branded Ones. Nothing we know about the time loop suggests that having multiple time travellers is different from having only one. Perhaps having only one in all previous occurences is a matter only of:

• Convenience. If there is only one Branded One, everything he learns stays true, while if there is more than one it may not be that due to other ones influence.

• Tradition. If the loop creator's intent was to teach/enhance one person per cycle, there is little reason for that to change.

• Mechanics. If the initiation mechanism (Gate + Key) works only on one person, and sharing the Brand requires a correctly botched specific soul magic spell, it's no wonder that there always was only one time traveller despite the potential to loop more than one person.

• Any combination of those and anything I missed)

u/kaukamieli [+2] (a day later)

Yes. Science goes forward and we can do things we couldn't before.

u/MultipartiteMind [+14] (55 minutes later)

Interesting.

Good news: If everything's a copy, then the normal flow of time won't be influenced even by seeming-permadeath.

Bad news: Can someone leave who hasn't entered? Do the memories and soul abilities get passed to the outside the same way they're passed to the beginning, or are Zorian and Zach going to have to mindwipe and smuggle copies of themselves into the true Branded One's mind in order to get out of there? (And there's the underlying question of what happened to Zach in the first place--a deliberate attempt to set him up as a worthy rival, a foil for testing which could never return to the normal timeline on its own?)

...unless two different groups tried to control who entered before the whole thing started, then if only one enters multiplicity after that has to be pretty much deliberate--though there's Zorian's case too, so incompetency can't be completely ruled out.

u/isidinn [+9] (2 hours later)

I like your assumption that Zach isn't in fact the original Branded One, because it would answer the question as to why the loop is showing signs of collapse after Zach has been in for only a few decades when the Ikosian Emperor spent 11 lifetimes (if a mage's lifetime is around 80 years, 11 lifetimes would be 880 years).

u/None [+2] (8 hours later)

[deleted]

u/peepeeparty9 [+2] (10 hours later)

It's not fact just legend. I don't recall where in the story but I think when Zorian went to that noble Kael recommended after all the other people on the list were dead but before the priest. Anyway I think it was him that told him about the gate the Ikosian Emperor used.

u/Noumero [+1] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (13 hours later)

Chapter 33.

u/FudgeOff [+25] (an hour later)

I believe that the gate the Ghost Serpent mentions is the Sovereign Gate. And this gate sounds suspiciously like it might be the source of the timeloop, one only active every 400 years.

From chapter 33: "The Sovereign Gate is an artifact supposedly dating back from his time," Alanic said. "Like many great rulers, Shutur-Tarana has a great many fanciful stories and grandiose claims associated with him, and this particular one claims he either made or found a doorway into another world. Having found he did not age at all while on the other side, he spent '11 lifetimes' there, learning their secrets and honing his skills. Eventually, he grew homesick and decided to go back home. Once he was back in his own world, however, he found the doors forever barred to him. He stored the Sovereign Gate in his royal vault, there to wait for a worthy successor who would repeat his feat and usher the empire in a new age with the wisdom gained from the other side. Or, well, resurrect it… since it is thoroughly dead at this point."

u/spanj [+3] (an hour later)

Is there any information on when the Ikosian Empire was formed? Or when it fell and how long it had been in existence... If it is a multiple of 400 then it would give more credence to the theory that the Gate is the Sovereign Gate.

The Key, however, is still a complete mystery.

u/Xtraordinaire [+3] Team Glimglam (an hour later)

Wait... Ikos, that's another continent (this one is Altazia), right?

Damien is the red robe then, I guess?

u/nobody103 [+5] (15 hours later)

Ikosian Empire existed on Miasina, the continent south of Altazia.

u/JusticeBeak [+2] (4 hours later)

No, that's the country Zorian is in.

u/Tur4 [+12] (48 minutes later)

So:

1. Zach went through the gate and this imaginary copy universe happened?

2. So Zorian isn't the real Zorian but a copy of the real one. So while he got the brand on him he isn't really Zorian. So when this ends this Zorian will end.

I think the Spiders figured that out and they didn't want to tell him that because he wouldn't have as much incentive to keep doing stuff. I think the memory packet will reveal that info.

As for what Red Robe has been up to? That part has me stumped unless he is simply trying to delay Zach figuring things out until the time runs out on the time loop.

u/vallar57 [+14] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (an hour later)

No, Zorian is most likely real. The Serpent couldn't tell the difference between two boys. And, after all, it's a matter of what transfers from In-Between to the End, from reproductions to the real ones, and that's clearly one of the purposes of the Brand, and Zorian does have one.

u/Igigigif [+9] IT Foxgirl (an hour later)

Still, we don't know what'll happen to Zorian's mind-state when the loop ends. Seeing as how the simulation is described as something you 'enter', Zach probably has a body on the other end, while the same can't be said for Zorian.

u/vallar57 [+9] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (an hour later)

Everyone has a body on the on the end: their real ones (it's not like they didn't exist before the time loop and wouldn't exist after it). Marker is just there to show who is allowed to keep their memories and development of their souls. At least that's what I got from the explanation)

u/elevul [+3] Cyoria Observer (11 hours later)

What he means is that if Zach entered the portal then his body is within the mechanism of the time loop generator, so at the end of the time loop his memories can be dumped into his real body and he be freed.

But Zorian's body is not, his body is somewhere in the real world while the Time Loop generator works, so the generator might or might not be able (or programmed to) dump his memories of the simulation into his real body and real soul.

u/vallar57 [+6] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (12 hours later)

That's with the assumption that Zach should have physically entered some kind of mechanism, not simply being magically keyed in when the loop started. We'll have to wait until it's revealed.

u/ggrey7 [+5] (22 hours later)

Like the serpent said, anyone in the time loop is as real as an identical copy can be. However, this can be really complicated when we take into account that only "one" branded one can leave the loop.

We assume that Zach was the original beneficiary of the Gate/Key. This might mean his original walked through the gate or whatever, while Zorian has a double of himself in the "real" world.

I mean ultimately this doesn't affect the immediate plot, only what shenanigans might occur if only one person can actually leave the loop with memories intact.

u/ggrey7 [+3] (22 hours later)

I like your theory that the spiders didn't want to tell Zorian that only one market can leave the loop (probably Zach) because Zorian might lose motivation to improve and uncover the secrets.

However this also feels like a major perma-death flag for Zach.

RR is most likely figuring out how to supplant Zach as the main Branded One, so he can be the only one to reap he benefits of the loop.

u/FiveColorGoodStuff [+8] mana construct (59 minutes later)

It's really interesting to me how Zorian and Zach differ skill-wise. It's obvious that Zach is at least as skilled at Zorian in any given subject, but I think that Zorian is improving more quickly. Considering Zach has been inside the loop for twenty years or so (IIRC), the fact that Zorian can match him on so many levels is testament to Zorian's growth rate.

u/isidinn [+21] (2 hours later)

Or it could be a testament to Zach's excellence outside of his chosen fields of specialization. If you remember, he's a battlemage, so what he cares about mostly is combat spells. Zorian cannot come close to matching him in combat, but Zach is almost as good in things that Zorian specializes in. Zorian isn't growing faster, he's just focusing on things that Zach doesn't care about.

u/FiveColorGoodStuff [+3] mana construct (2 hours later)

I see your point. It's difficult to judge what normal power growth is for a young mage, so it could be that Zorian isn't growing exceptionally fast (at least compared to Zach). The only real way to tell would be to objectively know if Zorian is more or less that one-fourth as powerful as Zach, considering that Zach has had four times the training time. What's more, we still don't know how Zach is with mana-sensing skills; for all the reasons that Zorian didn't encounter them until a teacher knew about the loops, Zach might be underdeveloped in that area.

u/None [+3] (5 hours later)

Also, it's pretty probable that power and training time don't have a linear relationship - I imagine that most things have a plateau around "highly competent", and a few have world-shattering potential for a master.

u/gbear605 [+4] history’s greatest story (an hour later)

Zorian is far ahead with the majority of mind magic. Zorian has a better defense though.

u/FiveColorGoodStuff [+6] mana construct (an hour later)

I assume you meant so say that Zach has the better defense in the Mind Blank spell. I think you'd be right there; even if Zach can used conventional structured spells as mind magic attacks more effectively right now, Zorian has that bloodline natural mind mage power that is pretty much strictly better than normal mind magic.

u/melmonella [+2] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (19 hours later)

Zack has a better defense though.

I am not so sure to be honest. It's a spell, so it can be dispelled, and then Zack is pretty much fucked mind magic-wise. Zorian has a sturdier defence the way I see it.

u/Xtraordinaire [+19] Team Glimglam (58 minutes later)

So, the takeaway is that time loop is connected to planetary alignment.

Funny, that.

According to Ikosians, the world was originally a swirling, shapeless chaos, inhabited only by the 7 primordial dragons. One day, the gods descended from the higher planes of existence and killed all of them save one. This last one they refashioned into the material world that humans now inhabit, turning her body into dirt and stone, her blood into water, her breath into air and her fire into magic. The vast networks of tunnels stretching beneath the surface of the world are dragon veins, now empty of blood that had been turned into the seas but still flooded with magic emanating from the Heart of the World – the fiery, still-beating heart of the primordial dragon that rests somewhere deep underground.

I've thought for some time that Ikosian mythology doesn't quite account for other planets. Maybe those are the other 6 dragons.

u/Saffrin-chan [+9] (an hour later)

Hm. Has the story mentioned anywhere how many planets are involved in this 'planetary' alignment? If it's 6, then we might have something here...

u/isidinn [+4] (an hour later)

It's planar alignment, not planetary alignment. Planar like spirit planes

u/Zephyr1011 [+26] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (2 hours later)

This year’s planar alignment, signied by several planets aligning with their own, an event that took place once every 400 years or so

From Chapter 22

u/isidinn [+12] (3 hours later)

I stand corrected.

u/ggrey7 [+1] (22 hours later)

The 6 are dead, no?

u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+9] fear of last pages (an hour later)

The Ghost Serpent's story had given Zorian a horrible suspicion about what Red Robe had been doing all this time…

Cue Highlander OST.

I assume since the soul-mark of the Branded getting copied onto multiple simulated souls is abnormal, all of the current time-traveleres except one will have to cease existing by the time this loop runs out of juice. So RR could be spending their time on researching how to come out as the surviving simulation — and doesn’t waste time attacking them for the same reason: it’s near pointless in comparison to just hijacknig the only ticket out and letting them “die away” on their own.

edit: Here’s a relevant quote from Ch. 38 discussion:

... [Missing] …can only ever be one winner in this game. I am truly… [Missing] …

[..] It’s also possible that even if Zach was given the better odds by the virtue of being the last member of a dying — and powerful — house, his victorious emergence from the time loop is still not guaranteed, and others can take the crown from him while the loop is still unbroken.

---

Also, spellchecking & nitpicking:

• wondering why the boy tracked him down now of all time, → wondering why the boy tracked him down now**,** of all time
• He messed with my mind and was probably monitoring me somehow**-" → He messed with my mind and was probably monitoring me somehow—**"
• but I was curious and-" → but I was curious and—"
• Almost without thinking, he tried to focus his empathy on to boy to get a better feel for his emotions → Almost without thinking, he tried to focus his empathy on the boy to get a better feel for his emotions
• In the meantime he went back → In the meantime**,** he went back
• Deciding where next to attack was actually quite a dilemma at this point. → Deciding where next to attack was actually quite a problem at this point.
• it's voice soft and melodious → its voice soft and melodious

u/kaukamieli [+1] (a day later)

It's not very relevant quote anymore when something impossible happened, like multiple people getting branded. The matriarch didn't have full information.

u/Igigigif [+6] IT Foxgirl (2 hours later)

Based on what's been said, it seems like whatever initiates the loop is some sort of artifact or ritual that needs to be interacted with physically. Zach seems to be the only person on the 'real' end of it. Unless you're suggesting that once out of the simulation Zorian's soul will just appear in his 'real' body (which may or may not already contain a soul depending on the exact mechanics of the loop), there will probably be some issue with the gate outputting two souls in a setup configured for one.

u/thegiantpossum [+6] (5 hours later)

So it is revealed in this chapter that the item driving the loop is called the Sovereign Gate, which hasn't been used in centuries. Coincidentally, the invasion force is using teleporting gates that haven't worked in centuries to transport their forces.

Once again, I will point out that someone has a lot of knowledge that should have been forgotten. Based on the preparations for the invasion and the fact that the loop started in the first place, this has happened before the time loop and thus rules out the possibility that RR found the information while inside the time loop. The three possibilities are Zach (who is lying or had his mind wiped, possibily geass), RR who may well be the original branded one, and finally a third party that is backing one of the other candidates.

Zach is missing incredibly important information, or is choosing to not tell Zorian. Until Zorian manages to get in Zach's head we have no way of knowing.

u/kaukamieli [+1] (a day later)

someone has a lot of knowledge that should have been forgotten

Someone (the lich) is also pretty damn old.

u/thegiantpossum [+1] (a day later)

I won't dismiss this theory, but at the end of the first arc the lich's attitude towards RR showed that he had no knowledge of the time loop. In addition, he's chosen to only act now after the centuries he's been imprisoned.

u/kaukamieli [+2] (a day later)

He might not have done anything with the gate, could be that RR just succesfully fished some information from him or his library or something. Just saying that the lich totally has lots of information that should have been forgotten, like the teleport gate thingies.

Maybe they even work the same way? Lich told RR how the gates work and RR happened to know where the sovereign gate is...

Or maybe RR wiped the memory of the Lich just like with Zach? :D Or maybe lich just can't use the time loop thing because he is undead?

u/jkwrites [+8] (16 hours later)

In other news, we finally know what this logo means.

u/melmonella [+4] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (19 hours later)

Have we seen it before somewhere?

u/jkwrites [+3] (22 hours later)

On the author's patreon page, in the header: https://www.patreon.com/nobody103

u/melmonella [+3] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (22 hours later)

I guess foreshadowing has no limits with this guy. Any ideas on what "nobody103" might refer to? 103 restarts until the end of the book?

u/jkwrites [+9] (23 hours later)

I don't think so, we're already over 90 restarts in, and still one arc to go. But consider this: 1+0+3 = 4; In chapter 34 Zorian got killed by an Eyebeast, which is described in "Compendium of Dungeon Denizens, volume four". If we convert letters to numbers we get 14+15+2+15+4+25=75; There are seven Aranean webs near Cyoria, and the primordial summoning requires five shifter children. That can't be a coincidence! Both Aranea and Eyebeasts live BELOW the ground. The nearby Aranean webs are obviously in league with Eyebeasts and the Cult of the dragon BELOW!

u/melmonella [+4] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (23 hours later)

Math checks out.

u/Xtraordinaire [+3] Team Glimglam (a day later)

You can't beat (5 + 1)*2 = 10! Hue hue hue.

u/ggrey7 [+4] (22 hours later)

His previous account was named nobody102 on ffnet. 103 ushered in the new era of MoL greatness.

u/Xtraordinaire [+1] Team Glimglam (a day later)

So... Illuminati?

u/vallar57 [+7] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (an hour later)

Wow, what a bomb. Out of the window go most of my theories about the time loop. And about Red Robe, for that matter.

And what a cliffhanger. Again. Another three weeks of excruciating hype XD

The first half of the chapter was very cute though)

u/Cheese_Ninja [+7] (an hour later)

Hey, I got it almost perfectly: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4d88fl/rt_hf_mother_of_learning_chapter_51_out_of_control/d1oo3v3

I added to it in 52, since I think connecting the Primordial's prison pocket dimension to theirs can destabilize the loop as well, causing another restart. In fact, a successful Primordial Summoning probably causes a massive drain on the loop's maintaining energy. They should probably try to stop that from happening anymore, unless they really want to end the loop early, which might screw over Red Robe's plans, but would also screw over Zorian, and possibly even Zach, depending on the progression of RR's plans.

u/Xtraordinaire [+3] Team Glimglam (19 hours later)

How do you think souls fit into this?

I mean, obviously, everything in the simulation has souls as usual: soul spells work. But then it was said recently that souls act as an otherwordly information storage, and also can not be destroyed.

So how does everyone who is not a looper get their soul reverted to the beginning-of-the-month state? Does the simulation just create extra bunch of souls just like it creates a whole new physical dimension? Most importantly, if yes to the previous question, then what happens to those new souls when the loop is reset and the dimension is collapsed? Do they go into the afterlife? Are they destroyed? (so it would be possible to kill a soul after all?)

Can it be that the spirit is simply wrong or lying about this one?

u/Cheese_Ninja [+2] (21 hours later)

I think that's why the spirit is so pissed off. They're created copies of the souls of real people, doomed to never exist outside of it. "Fade away into the void" is the way the spirit phrased it, so it's not exactly the same soul destruction that's said to be impossible. This alternate dimension could also be considered to be outside the purview of the gods. I imagine that RR's attacks deleted the master copy of the souls that were used to create the aranea and mercenaries anew in each restart.

u/Xtraordinaire [+2] Team Glimglam (21 hours later)

The spirit implied that he was beaten by the Branded in the past, causing it to fall. Also, egg-smashing was involved. I guess that's one possible reason to be pissed off. On the other hand he seemed rather calm at the prospect of dying in a month.

The gods' inaction is what really bothers me here. From a perspective of any good or neutral aligned deity this repeated simulation would be considered the worst atrocity possible. It's s spiritual genocide (so, worse than physical one) that is repeated over and over and over. I can't imagine all gods turning a blind eye to it unanimously. And the gods should've been active during the 1st time loops.

As for RR his attacks don't need to affect anything in the real world. It could be just a way to add instructions to the constructor "do not replicate this and this". Simple and efficient. The only problem here is that it implies RR as the loop operator. So what purpose does Zach have in that case?

u/Cheese_Ninja [+2] (a day later)

I don't think RR's attacks affect the real world, just this false world. When I mentioned "deleting from the master copy", I meant the original snapshot of the world that is used to create the loop each time. Incidentally, this gives RR a way into the loop without any sort of soul marker, if he just modifies/updates the state of his soul in the master copy each time. It also means that mind/soul magic wouldn't have any effect on him that would persist through the loops, Zach and Zorian would have to figure out to modify the Master Copy themselves in order to stop RR inside the loop.

And RR can have abilities/knowledge about the loop beyond Zach without being the inheritor of the Brand that Zach is. The main downside to that is that the more knowledge RR has about the Sovereign's Gate, the less options we have besides Daimen for RR.

An heretofore unknown character gaining knowledge from Zach while inside of the loop, and cementing a position for themselves in the loop and then messing with Zach's memories to erase themselves from Zach's mind is still a possibility, but it has become increasingly difficult for someone like Veyers Boranova to be RR.

I get the impression that gods in this series are pretty hands-off, and it's possible that they decided to overlook/ignore the once every 400 years event because they found the results interesting. After all, it means that every 400 years you'd get to see some sort of super archmage arise. It's not called the Sovereign's Gate for nothing, those mages probably became kings and emperors most of the time.

I think the Ghost Serpent seemed every bit as annoyed being a false transient entity in the time loop as it did about being brought down by a Branded One in the past.

u/chaosmosis [+1] and with strange aeons, even death may die (4 days later)

I took the egg smashing remarks to mean he was aware of what Red Robe did to Zorian's arthopodic friends, although he was likely confusing Red Rob's actions for their own. If your interpretation is the correct one, though, it's interesting that area would have been targeted in two independent time loops. You would think that as this is the first time multiple Branded have coocccured, in past reset periods there would have been much less demand for the skills and knowledge that aranea can provide.

u/chaosmosis [+1] and with strange aeons, even death may die (4 days later)

A discrepancy that's been bothering me, perhaps related to this, is that the stars are apparently continuing to move, inconsistent with the rest of the simulation resetting. It would be easy to just set the values for star movement back to the same place each time.

My current theory is that a "perfect" reset is neither possible nor desirable. In order for information to leave the simulation during the final month, it needs to be stored somewhere in the interim. Stars and souls are the two best candidates we have for that right now.

Someone mentioned above that planar and planetary are treated as synonymous in this story, so perhaps it is both. I'm trying to use physics concepts as springboards for understanding the possible connections between these two things--light has no mass, like souls, light travels at the speed limit c, which seems relevant to the "time" part of the phrase "time loop"--but no great insights have appeared here so far.

Does anyone remember anything else in the book so far that suggests a possible connection between stars and souls?

u/Cheese_Ninja [+3] (5 days later)

Look at Xvim's comment again, the stars are fine, there's nothing odd about them, it's just an area that he thought might be irregular.

"I have talked to some astronomers since we last met," Xvim began, unlocking the door of the training ground and shooing him inside. "I have nothing conclusive yet, but the results thus far are not encouraging. There have been no significant deviations among the celestial bodies. Additionally, the planets in particular are being closely watched because of the upcoming planetary alignment. It is unlikely they are illusionary – the affected area likely includes the entire solar system."

u/chaosmosis [+1] and with strange aeons, even death may die (5 days later)

Oh, thanks.

u/vallar57 [+2] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (an hour later)

But if this all really is a simulation, how does Primoridal summoning cost any more of loop-maintaining energy than anything else? Aside from overheating the methaphorical video card with special effects)

u/Cheese_Ninja [+15] (2 hours later)

Because the Primoridal wasn't part of this "simulated world", the summoning really did punch a hole between this false world and the Primordial's actual pocket dimension prison. It only lasted for a few seconds. This false world isn't an illusion, if that's what you're thinking, it's an instant from the original world made real, and given a month's worth of time to play out. It's more of a splinter/alternate dimension. It's not the Primordial itself, it's the linking of these dimensions, there's a cost to repair time loop dimension, as well as an energy that drained out from that hole while it was open.

I imagine that the Primordial summoning is usually sabotaged by RR to prevent it from succeeding, but the last loop's time table was too far advanced.

u/Brokndremes [+2] (2 days later)

If the primordial being summoned is the actual primordial, what happens to the primordial if it's successfully summoned and the loop ends?

u/Cheese_Ninja [+2] (2 days later)

It (He of the Flowing Flesh) goes back to its weird pocket prison dimension thing almost immediately? It never fully entered the time loop dimension. It would be amusing if it lost its arm-like appendage due to the events in 52, but I doubt it. I'm imagining that its dimension is not linked to the normal flow of time either. If it is, I'm probably wrong about that being the actual Primordial.

u/Izeinwinter [+2] (2 days later)

It vanishes into nothingness.

Wait.

That's the entire plot. That's why everything is happening. The darn lich is trying to kill off the primordial permanently. And it will cost it and it's nation about nothing. Plan invasion, with a contingency step of checking if the primordial still exists. Fire timeloop. If the summoning ever succeeds inside the loop the primordial ceases to exist. In any remaining loops - and in the base time line, the initial divination now tests negative, and you go home. Victorious without ever fighting.

u/vallar57 [+2] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (2 hours later)

I mean, why do you think that the Primoridal is real and not also a simulation?

u/Cheese_Ninja [+10] (2 hours later)

Ah, that's because it made the loop end. If it was just a simulation, why wouldn't the loop carry on with it? And obviously not everything is/can be simulated, because there's no summoned demons and the church can't contact their gods/angels.

So I think the Primordial summoning ritual was too effective, and that it really did punch a hole into its pocket dimension.

u/vallar57 [+6] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (2 hours later)

There is a big difference between angels/demons and the Primoridal though: the former are not beings of this world, while the latter is, pocket dimension or not. It makes sence that the former wouldn't be simulated, while the latter would.

The loop end bugs me too, but I'm inclined to give the Brand credit for that. Perhaps a mere presence of Pimoridal is bad for souls/minds of everyone present or something like that, and thus it's summoning is one of pre-programmed conditions to end the loop early. Like how the very first loop ended with lich Soul Melding Zach and Zorian (I think this is Zorian working hypothesis now).

u/Cheese_Ninja [+4] (2 hours later)

Another great preprogrammed reason to end the loop would be if anything is causing damage to the pocket dimension itself.

Above the Hole, and presumably on the inside of it, space shuddered and writhed, distorting everything like hot summer air. Slowly, jagged black threads started rising into the air from the depths, zig-zagging through the air and occasionally forking offshoots.

They were cracks, Zorian realized. Reality was breaking.

Suddenly, a huge volume of space in the center of the cracks simply… caved in, creating a pitch black hole that hung in the air. Something huge and dark brown, like a hand studded with mouths and eyes, shot out of the rip in space, but Zorian didn't have time to study it much. Without any prompting from him, the marker on his soul suddenly activated and everything went black.

Point in your favor: The marker on his soul is the thing that activates after he sees the Primordial's hand.

Points in my favor: Reality was breaking apart, and reality reset when a giant hand punched a hole in the sky. Also, it's "primordial", not "primoridal", hence my victory (in spelling).

But in any case, I think we've argued this to the ending point and will be agreeing to disagree.

u/vallar57 [+6] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (2 hours later)

Yup, we probably need more info revealed.

And lol my mistake)

u/None [+1] (6 hours later)

It might be a being of Zorian's world... but it's also an incredibly powerful immortal being with enough metaphysical omph that entire races can run shapeshifting abilities off a little bit of its essence. There's something special about it. Perhaps that the pocket dimension it's in isn't connected to time and space like the demons and gods, and so when the world is simulated, it isn't ripped away - but it still exists outside the paper reality of the loops, so tugging on it with a ritual within the loops is like trying to stop a cruise ship from drifting with an anchor made of papier mache.

u/melmonella [+1] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (2 hours later)

Aside from overheating the methaphorical video card with special effects)

Exactly like that, by being a total bitch to simulate as far as processing power is concerned.

u/None [+3] (5 hours later)

EDIT:Update to theory in comment below, explains the invasion, why he doesn't control Zach.

What time did the mercenary company drop dead? The loop could have been going on for hours by the time Zach and Zorian wake up, so it's a little suspicious RR attacked Zach right after he woke up. I'd expect him to be awake earlier, so have hours to fuck with Zachs unprotected mind, or later so Zach would be dressed by then.

I think he is using the mem packet method in Zach, because besides his Necromancy he seems like a mediocre mage. He didn't help the lich take down Zach, he needs a spell rod to cast magic missile, and was pretty pathetic at chasing down Zorian. Doesn't seem like someone who has been improving their shaping for the 200+ resets he has been aiding the invasion. He could have been someone Zach blabbed to in an early loop, and dominated him into delivering his memories each reset. Zorian wasn't present for the invasion while Zach was in a coma, so there is no knowing if RR was active.

The huge flaw in this theory is if he controls the only other time traveller, why bother setting Zach to fight the invasion? I still think his soul/shaping isn't improving with the loops.

u/None [+7] (12 hours later)

RR is Zach's guardian. While pillaging House Noveda he learned how to trigger the Sovereign Bloodline. He activated the loop, then immediately takes the memory packet from Zach while he is asleep. Having the instruction manual lets him kick people out.

The purpose of the invasion is both to divert Zach and regularly coax him to a known location where he can enlist Quatach-Ichl to subdue him and update the packet. In resets Zach doesn't fight the invasion RR remembers nothing. Even if Zach bugs out for years though he maintains the memory packet at the start so he doesn't need to worry about the packet decaying.

So he only has access to his own/Zach's memories and a slight ability to plant compulsions, explaining why he hasn't been seen much now Zach is avoiding Cyoria. He only remembers the planning he does while Zach is asleep, so needs to be super cautious. In the next loops however he will have access to whatever Zorian tells him about the markers, so will be making a play to steal Zorians/Zachs.

u/melmonella [+3] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (19 hours later)

If that were the case, he would have already known about Zorian since Zack knew about Zorian.

u/None [+1] (21 hours later)

I didn't mean to imply he can take all Zachs knowledge in every loop, just focused reads for specific information like we saw in Soulkill. Memory reading with structured magic is hard, and RR had no reason to suspect Zach had learned more in the few hours since he last trawled his memories, so it makes sense he didn't know the very next loop.

I think he has known since then, but sees no reason to confront Zorian and risk damaging his marker when he can simply wait for Zach to make contact.

u/tbroch [+2] (a day later)

Every chapter people come up with crazy new theories about red robe and this seems to need to be mentioned again: we already know who red robe is! He's Zorian's ex-classmate Veyers Boranova.

u/MaxMahem [+1] (10 hours later)

He could have been someone Zach blabbed to in an early loop, and dominated him into delivering his memories each reset. Zorian

Wow, this is the best theory I've heard so far. Relatively simple and a good fit for the available evidence.

u/DerSaidin [+3] (a day later)

• Could the weeping have been a sacrifice to power the gate (in addition to - or amplified by - the planar alignment)?

• We know primordials are a potent ingredient (i.e. in the shifter ritual). Maybe RR entered the loop with the plan to free the primordial, use it in some blood magic to give his own soul some neat upgrades - without the mass destruction of a primordial rampage in the real reality. He would have needed to have primed the invasion well before the start of the month.

u/Cheese_Ninja [+1] (2 days later)

I was wondering the same thing about the Weeping, I'm not sure exactly how long ago it started (Zach was still "a small child" after the rest of the Novedas died), but the tail end of it was only a few years before the start of the story after all (Kana is only 3 or 4).

I'm still not sure about what RR actually cares about. Outside of him wanting to keep Zorian and Zach in check, his motivations and goals are open questions.

u/MaddoScientisto [+5] (13 hours later)

WAIT WAIT WAIT

Zorian has glasses?

How could I miss that until now?

u/None [+3] (23 hours later)

You actually didn't notice he had glasses until this chapter? That's pretty impressive, dude.

u/MaddoScientisto [+3] (a day later)

well, it's not a graphic novel and they weren't mentioned at all, maybe once in the first chapter but I would have noticed if they were mentioned more than once

u/None [+3] (a day later)

No, he talks about them all the time - he mentions that his father was disappointed in his lack of eyesight a few chapters before, he talks about his eyesight when he was an eagle. It's nothing big or obvious like "He put his glasses on his nightstand" or something, but it is at least mentioned. Did you think all of the fanart giving Zorian glasses was a coincidence?

u/MaddoScientisto [+2] (a day later)

I haven't seen any fanart... where do I find it?

u/nobody103 [+6] (a day later)

You can find all the fanart I received here.

u/Cheese_Ninja [+1] (3 days later)

Thanks for the great story. It's become a once every three weeks highlight of my weekend.

I've got a couple minor mana questions:

1. Does Zach's "232 magic missiles" comment include the efficiency gains, like Zorian's current 35, or is it as Zorian assumes, and 232 is his magnitude of magic reserves.

2. What's Zorian's current rate of mana regeneration like? I know it varies based on location (mana well existence and rank), does the rate of assimilating ambient mana also vary on based current/maximum reserves he has? For example if he's completely expended his mana and is at 0/20 or has only used a portion and is at 15/20.

u/nobody103 [+2] (3 days later)

1. It includes the efficiency gains. There is no way to disentangle them from everything else when measuring things.
2. It takes anywhere between 30 minutes and 3 hours for a mage to regenerate their mana reserves from total zero to full if ambient mana levels are sufficiently plentiful, depending on their personal skill and willingness to risk mana poisoning. This is unaffected by the size of one's mana reserves - those will higher reserves will simply regenerate more mana per minute.

u/thrawnca [+1] Carbon-based biped (a month later)

So...lifetime growth is expected to be about quadruple the starting reserves. That would give Zorian a lifetime peak of 32. After about 4 years or so, he could cast 35 magic missiles. Let's say he's reached 20, plus efficiency gains. So that means efficiency gives him close to double. Which suggests that Zach has reached somewhere around 150ish, plus efficiency. Putting his natural reserves a little under 40. Give or take. Somewhat less than the 60 that Zorian assumed. Still abnormally high.

Of course, the 20 figure is a guess. If we assumed that Zorian's reserves were actually, say, 16, then Zach's might be around 100, suggesting natural reserves of 25. Much closer to normal human range.

u/None [+1] (2 days later)

On his profile, there's a Google link that you can clean up to get a fanart page.

u/RMcD94 [+2] (19 hours later)

So if it's a simulation there's no need to worry about permanent soul damage since it would be a shitty training device if you could get rekt by necromancers

u/Areign [+1] (an hour later)

Completely irrelevant question thats been bothering me:

When did Zorian learn the invisibility spell. I've been trying to remember the arcs where he learned most of his stuff and this one is escaping me.

u/jkwrites [+16] (an hour later)

Chapter 26 - Soulkill, from Tinami:

But that didn’t mean he didn’t take advantage of it to gain something from little miss ‘forbidden magics’ Aope. Like, say, getting her to teach him the invisibility spell. He knew, just knew that Tinami had been taught how to cast that spell, restricted magic or not, and he was totally right! So now he had finally completed his ‘list of spells every proper mage should be able to cast’, and all it took was promising to do something he had intended to do for free, anyway.

u/Areign [+3] (10 hours later)

ahh, there it is, thank you, i've read 53 chapters in 2 days and it all started to jumble together.

u/ggrey7 [+2] (22 hours later)

Read it again more slowly and enjoy all the little plot teasers and the huge Chekhov's armory!

u/ajuc [+1] (48 minutes later)

So, Zach met Red Robe twice - once he won against him and once he lost, while wearing different clothes.

Red Robe = Zach from future restart?

u/thrawnca [+1] Carbon-based biped (3 days later)

Er...no? Once the restart ends, everything except the Branded One(s) ceases to exist and is created anew. Jumping back to earlier restarts would be all kinds of inconsistent with the nature of the time loop.

u/InsaneBranch [+1] (17 hours later)

So let me get this straight. The gate is not malfunctioning in one way (3 travelers instead of 1) but actually in two ways? Considering that other guy spent 11 lifetimes in there. Lifetimes. Not month times. And he wasn't ageing while in there. I mean a month is a bit low on data to really check on the whole aging thing, but oh well, I guess we'd have learned it were it true anyways.

u/RMcD94 [+1] (19 hours later)

Could be 11 lifetimes in month sections right?

After enough time the world changes significantly enough that knowledge transfer isn't as helpful, though for ruling an empire living forever seems to be more helpful

u/kaukamieli [+1] (a day later)

Lifetime can just mean like 12x70 months or something. It's just a simple way of saying 11 times the time you might live. That 11 is probably also bullshit and could be anything. Legends are not about being specific.

u/thrawnca [+1] Carbon-based biped (3 days later)

So, now that Zach is in the picture, can we follow up on Chekov's Gun-Totin' Grandma and go bag that grey hunter?

u/gbear605 [+0] history’s greatest story (a minute later)

Beat me by a minute! Was this a bot?

In my defense, I was working on homework when it came in.

u/Green0Photon [+2] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (3 minutes later)

Yup! I got it working again :D

Gonna have to beat 10 seconds if you want it.

I'm so excited to read this. I'll need to read the previous chapter first though. :/

u/literal-hitler [+2] (2 hours later)

I assume you have something to bypass the CAPTCHA?

u/Green0Photon [+2] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (3 hours later)

No? I just refresh the next page over and over. If it doesn't exist, refresh. If it does, grab the title and submit.

Sometimes simplest is best.

u/superk2001 [-1] (3 minutes later)

Yes, I believe at least two people set up bots.

u/Green0Photon [+3] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (an hour later)

I doubt it. AFAIK, no one has. People have said they would, but I don't think they did. My bot was set up on a 10 second loop, so others' bots would likely beat mine.

u/superk2001 [+3] (7 hours later)

Found it: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/43lf8f/rt_hf_mother_of_learning_chapter_48_well_of_souls/czj1qi2

doug89 said they set up a bot.

u/Green0Photon [+3] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (7 hours later)

Paging /u/doug89. What happened to your MoL bot? Also, doug, make sure you don't run it; I want that sweet sweet karma. :P

u/doug89 [+2] (12 hours later)

I wrote it but never bothered to get it working properly or finish it. It was a pain to test because it could only be triggered once every three weeks. I only tested it once and someone managed to submit before me. It could have been for a few reasons, I suspect it was either:

1. The script was caching some data so it was slow to post.
2. Fanfiction.net doesn't update the header I was searching for immediately.
3. Someone posted a discussion within 6 seconds of it being released.

It was just something messed with as a hobby so I didn't have much motivation to finish it.

u/Green0Photon [+2] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (13 hours later)

I actually made one a couple months ago. Look through the old posts and you can see me talking about it.

:D

u/doug89 [+3] (14 hours later)

Yeah no problem. If it's not too much trouble, could I have a look at your code? Completely out of curiosity, you have my word that I'll never create a post with it. It's interesting to see how different people approach the same problem. At one stage I was going to create a Reddit bot study group which once a week gave a problem or desired bot, and everyone shared how they would write it and gave feedback. Nothing ever came of the idea though.

If you're okay with it, please send me a PM.

Oh and thanks for reminding me there was a new MoL chapter. I didn't realise until I got your page.

u/Green0Photon [+5] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (14 hours later)

Alright, PMing in a bit.

u/superk2001 [+1] (a minute later)

I was waiting for this for some time.

u/elevul [+1] Cyoria Observer (20 minutes later)

Omygod, omygod, omygod it's out!

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