Doyle sighs, ‘Maybe I don’t spend my time optimizing the skills of my monsters?’
Ally laughs, ‘Fair enough! Now, what’s your plan?’
Doyle, ‘I am going to mess with my Paths.’
Ally, ‘Yeah, this probably opened up another option or two.’
Doyle shakes his core, ‘No. Or well, yes, but that's not the point. Check my path page.’
{
Points: 46
Class: Dungeon Core III 100/100, Awakened Dungeon Core II 10/10
Location [1/2 I, 1/1 II]: Heritage Kobold Community I 15/15, Communities of Myriad Heritages II 30/30
Completed: Goat Supremacy 20/20, Energy Well I 3/3 II 6/6 III 18/18, Commanding Subordinates 12/12, Ageless Queens 15/15, Earth’s First Home of the Limit Breakers I 1/1, Biomes Aplenty 5/5, Potion Dispensary 10/10, Elemental Animals 5/5, Cows for Milk 12/12, Vegetation Variety 20/20, Divine Border 1/1, Know Your Enemies 10/10, Pathfinder, [UNIQUE] 1/1, Community Driven 10/10, Monster Rancher I 50/50 II 100/100, Community Builder 30/30, Extra Accommodations 75/75, Kobold Community II 30/30, Engraver 5/5, Boss Builder 50/50, Fluid Instancing 100/100, Actualized Status Reorganization 120/120
Started [1/3]: [TRINITY] 110/900
Available Classes: Awakened Dungeon Core III 10/100, Awakened Spatial Dungeon core I 0/1, Dungeon Core of Awakened Intent I 0/1
Available: Five Cornered Square Initiate 0/100, Raising The Floor 0/100, Into The Infinite 0/60, Floors Within Floors 0/10, PsiBoon I 0/200, Deep Rules 0/500, Time Will Wait 0/500, Voidborn Expansionist 0/330, Mural Mayhem 0/20, Swarm Tactics 0/10, Golem Crafter 0/60, Expedition Patron 0/25, Kobold Salvaging 0/40, Quests At A Distance 0/50, Scrapyard 0/50, Quest Taker 0/50, Proto-Array Maker 0/10, Proto-Formation Maker 0/10, Rune Maker 0/50, Magitech Artificer 0/30, Magitech Designer 0/50, Rune Progenitor 0/100, Earth Rune Maker 0/10, Non-lethal Trapper 0/15, Twisted Mercy 0/100, Opposed Elemental Animals 0/20
Archived: Axe Sharpener 0/5, Fire’s Flying 0/7, All the Potions 0/60, Clan Head 0/25, Phrenic Friend 0/120, PsiBane I 0/200, KinBane 0/120, Godly Diplomat 0/600, Heavenly Gatekeeper 0/1005, Elemental Animals (Aquatic) 0/5
}
‘Even with the archive option, there are too many paths. And now they’re starting to cost a lot. I need it to be better organized. I want to cut down on the number of loose paths that show up just because of some random action I took once. Oh, and I need more skills to afford some of these! I can have 17 of which I only have 10. Almost half my skill slots are empty.’
Ally shrugs, ‘Just archive them more aggressively? Oh, and skills should be easy enough to fill up with a little thought. You simply need to work on it more instead of doing the same thing all the time.’
Doyle, ‘Well, there’s this saying about how when you have a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail? Or something close to it. I think I got the words a little lopsided, but the intent is there.’
Ally, ‘That isn’t a rare saying to have. Though with magic, it tends to instead mention whatever basic spell is most popular. So often it’ll be, “When you first learn fireball, everything starts to look flammable”.’
Doyle laughs, ‘That’s a good one! Anyway, I now have the ability to mess with my status, from a Path, and so plan to use it.’
Ally frowns, ‘But what’s the point? Removing options shouldn’t matter? I know you’ve been avoiding the screen because of all the options, but that doesn’t mean ditching them.’
Doyle, ‘I never said anything about avoiding the screen. I just don’t have many points right now. It is kind of unfair. Delvers are always leveling up their skills and being able to open new Paths.’
Ally shakes her head, ‘They’re different. The skills they’re leveling in your dungeon are the kinds with an easy early game. An active that increases how hard you hit with Qi? Early on the levels will come fast and steady because you have a lot to learn on the most basic level.
‘How best to balance your body in just about every position, including while falling down or being thrown into the air. What muscles to focus on and when to activate them so the blow hits right. And of course, the best time and speed to input Qi.
‘All of that and more will earn you levels in the skill. Whether that is from actually learning those things or the skill downloading the knowledge into your brain and body? Doesn’t matter. The knowledge is all so simple that either is easy.’
Doyle, ‘I thought even later on, level was just as easy?’
Ally nods, ‘That is a true enough of a statement. Though for you the statement holds more truth than for them. At least right now. Remember, this is all new for them and they have the bonus from being newly integrated.’
Doyle, ‘I am too?’
Ally shakes her head, ‘Yes, but you don’t have much to fall back on. The buff is based on lived experience from before magic was around. Nothing is free. Sure, flossing your teeth isn’t exactly the equivalent of using a wood axe to cut down a tree, but it is there.
‘What the system brings to the party is keeping the miscellaneous experience up in the air. Years of experience living your life and the system is basically fusing small bits of it onto the experience you are gaining now. Except the bonus is based around fusing things that have some connection.
‘Flossing your teeth? Well, not really swinging an axe, but there’s a seed the system uses to connect it. The act of using your body. And then it dilutes the rest of it with the rest of the experience you’re getting by cutting down a tree. Now, think of all the physical activities and consider the fact that you’re almost entirely disconnected from that.
‘Oh, and you have the whole “biological immortality” thing going on. The longer your lifespan, the slower you gain skill levels, offset by life stage. You know, so kids still learn super fast. Though that might not be a magic thing, but rather pure brain plasticity.’
Doyle, ‘And an infinite lifespan means slow going.’
Ally, ‘Well, the lifespan of the universe you’re in also has a little to do with it. More of a bell curve for that, focused on the early part. Though that is because part of growing your soul shell involves taking in power from the universe.
‘So early on, the universe has its power focused on growing and expanding. After that, the middle is when the most power ends up free for people to use. Then, finally, as the universe slowly slides into death, there is simply less power and so people become less and less able to grow.
‘As a side note, that is why no matter what they do, most civilizations at the end of them don’t manage to figure out some way to escape. Maybe not survive the void, but at least leave the universe and hope someone is there to save them. They simply wait too long and the skill needed to create something to mass evacuate people is too high and specialized.’
Doyle, ‘Well, I’m still going to mess with my Paths.’
Ally shrugs, ‘Fair enough. It shouldn’t be able to cause actual problems. Maybe you can even figure out some fun things to do with it? After all, where a path begins and ends is sometimes not as strict as maps might make it appear.’
Doyle, ‘And the status is a pretty static map for stuff like this.’
And with that, Doyle begins to pull apart his paths. Not literally, at least not yet. Rather, he reorders the unacquired paths as those with points in were unmoving.
The reordering wasn’t anything complicated. Doyle simply wanted to put Paths with similar themes together. For instance, he pulled together all of the Paths that directly mention monsters.
{
Golem Crafter 0/60, Kobold Salvaging 0/40, Opposed Elemental Animals 0/20, Elemental Animals (Aquatic) 0/5
}
And the paths dealing with Psionics.
{
PsiBoon I 0/200, Phrenic Friend 0/120, PsiBane I 0/200
}
Though honestly, he had to go pretty broad to gather some of the paths. I mean, really, what do you pair Mural Mayhem with?
Whatever. With the Paths now gathered into groups, Doyle felt he had a better chance of parsing things. Figuring out the details as they relate to himself. Though whatever he finds would likely be more general than not. Souls are about the most and least unique things. Each indelibly individual and yet incredibly interchangeable. Though admittedly, interchanging them would completely change the being.
Anyway, Doyle begins to push and pull at the Paths, especially the ones that cost a lot. In fact, he tried to poke at Heavenly Gatekeeper first, what with it costing 1,005 Path points. That Path proved to be very singular and monolithic. So not getting much, he moves on to Deep Rules at 500.
And it feels different. Though at the same time? Equally indivisible. Except if Doyle had to put a word to it? The Path felt calcified and as if whatever Doyle did with it? Well, it would be all or nothing.
With the word “calcified” in mind, Doyle turns towards his newest Path, Opposed Elemental Animals. Sure, it only cost 20 points, but at the same time? The previous related Path and its ignored variant both cost 5.
So Doyle pokes and pulls at the Path. It already talked about two elements, if adroitly. The Path clearly being related to the fact that his first and second evolved elemental animals were Air and Earth. Classically opposed elements.
Well, to be fair, there were the aquatic assassin vines. Except those weren’t Water so much as altered to live in water.
Snap
Doyle pauses. That wasn’t a physical snap. There was no noise, no reaction in the air at all. Doyle doubted the snap would have even registered in the world energy of the core room.
{
Elemental Animals (Air) 0/5, Elemental Animals (Earth) 0/5
}
Doyle wanted to frown. It worked, but in a diminished capacity and the original Path was now gone. From costing 20, the two separate paths now cost 10 together.
The obvious reason was right there. Elemental Animals? 5. Aquatic Animals? 5. Air? 5. Earth? 5. So that means Water and Fire should both cost 5 as well, and the original combination included those.
Doyle pauses. That felt logical. It also felt Wrong.
Oh, sure, he was certain that the other elemental animal variants would cost five. That just seemed to be the cost of those paths. However, the “Opposed” Path? That cost 20 not because it was four elements in one, even if it formed from two elements being pushed together.
The Path’s might have all been “elemental”, but as with the “aquatic” variant, that didn’t mean the Path itself had to be based on an element. It simply meant they worked with elemental animals.
Doyle nudged the two new Paths into each other, but there was resistance. The effort was much greater than it took to snap apart the original. Still, Doyle could feel a connection lingered between the two and so after he ends up putting in a magnitude more effort, they combine back into Opposed Elemental Animals.
And while Doyle wasn’t going to claim this gave him some special insight into the Path? He did have a sense of things because of how things worked out. Opposed Elemental Animals was about making elemental animals of opposed elements work together in the same room. Well, maybe with a hint of making an animal with opposed elements, but that wasn’t the focus.
Whatever the case, with what Doyle has figured out, he turns back to the earlier paths.