November 3, 2022
Day 14
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While Rahul wondered whether he could trust Martin, the steward recovered and started making his case.
"That's where the hidden condition and the bonus reward come in. Unknown to the Order, this purchase does have a very useful short-term benefit for you. The bonus gives you a certain amount of progress right out of the box. To be more precise, among the various conditions for completing this quest, there is one section with a list of buildings that need to be present in the settlement. The bonus lets you choose five of those buildings and the system will construct them for you while terraforming the island."
Daniel scoffed.
"Five buildings is far from enough to balance that ludicrous price tag. The castle and the dock put together had cost us 20,000SPs, and if I remember correctly, we can purchase all remaining buildings for less than a million SPs."
Martin nodded.
"You are correct, you would easily be able to purchase all the buildings available in the settlement interface for a fraction of that amount. But those aren't really independent buildings, but rather upgrades and additions to the castle. The castle, the dock, and their upgrades and ancillary buildings are the only structures that the system creates for you out of thin air, and only on newly integrated planets. The buildings required to complete the quest will not be that easy to acquire and will need to be built by specialized workers, requiring appropriate blueprints and using specific resources. Not only do you get five free buildings, but you also get them with a perfect construction score. And trust me, you want that."
Construction score?
Rahul pondered as Martin went on explaining.
"All buildings have a construction score parameter, and that parameter controls their effects. Your castle, for example, can gradually repair damages and restock weapons, armor, and food. All buildings have a fixed set of such bonuses, and for the system-constructed buildings, all the bonuses are enabled and 100% effective. In contrast, a building you construct yourself will only have the complete set of bonuses if your builders and crafters manage to get a perfect construction score. Otherwise, you will only get a small subset, if that, and even those few bonuses would be flaky."
Martin clarified.
"Take for example an arena. That building has a rather unique bonus, one that makes all sanctioned combat within its boundary non-lethal. Even after the most bloody of fights, both parties get teleported out of the arena in their original condition, their health, stamina, and mana all intact. Unfortunately, this building can't be purchased and needs to be constructed, and you only get that unique bonus if the construction score is above 90%. Even then, the further from 100% your score, the less reliable the bonus. An arena that has exactly 90% score has a 10% chance of failure."
Daniel interrupted.
"So, such an arena constructed would end up saving the fighters from lethal blows and restore them to their previous condition, but only 9 out of 10 times?"
Martin nodded.
"If all fights were to the death, then 1 in 10 participants would end up dying. Even highly skilled builders are hard-pressed to manage a construction score of 99.99%, meaning a 0.01% failure chance. That's one in ten thousand, making the arena as good as perfect. As I'm sure all of you can see, as good as perfect is not perfect, and a system-created arena means a world of difference. That's also the reason I used the arena as an example, it should definitely be one of your five selections."
Rahul found himself nodding in agreement.
Getting something 100% right is almost impossible. We too designed our websites and services to have high availability but can never quite promise 100% uptime. Instead, we measure it using metrics like five nines or six nines. The latter, 99.9999% service uptime, is an incredibly hard goal to achieve, but even a service that achieves that goal will suffer 31.56 seconds of downtime every year. That downtime is well within our user's tolerance, but when the stakes involve someone's life, there's suddenly a world of difference between 99.9999% and 100%.
I'd definitely be a lot less anxious training in a truly failproof arena, as opposed to an almost failproof one.
Rahul finished his thought, and Martin too was concluding his point now.
"I think this is an excellent opportunity that has dropped on our lap. We are effectively getting the quest with bonuses and at a massive discount if you consider that 90% of the money you are spending is not yours. I suggest going ahead with the ten million purchase immediately and choosing a mix of defensive buildings that will prove useful in the fight, and utility buildings that are hard to construct and can give you a long-term edge."
Rahul objected.
"That's all well and good, and I can see the immense value in getting those five perfect buildings. But your whole argument ignores the fact that we won't even be having this conversation if not for the 9 million SP gift and the not-so-subtle nudge that came with it. I don't believe we should act until we know what their goal is. At best, they are aware of the five buildings and are genuinely interested in being our allies. A competent mysterious ally would be great, but even if Martin is right, an incompetent enemy isn't that bad either."
"The real problem arises if their goal is to take us down, and the bonus buildings are somehow part of that plan. That would be the worst outcome since we have no idea what they stand to gain by deliberately making us stronger. If their actual goal is to take this island from us, aren't they digging their own graves by helping us? Unless..."
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Rahul trailed off, a realization dawning on him.
That scroll... Is it possible that the intel it contained was not originally meant for us, but was information that one of the factions attacking tomorrow had gathered on its competition? Maybe they found the combined strength of the attackers and the defenders to be a bit too much and planned something to make sure that everyone would kill each other off, letting them take on the few weakened survivors.
To that end, wouldn't their best option be to back the side they thought was weaker, and make the battle more even?
The more Rahul thought about it, the more sense it made.
The scroll had listed seventeen notable factions for tomorrow's attack. Our secret adversary wouldn't have included itself in the list, so that makes for eighteen total attackers and one defender. In an unorganized chaotic battle, there would be a strong element of chance, and even the strongest attacker couldn't be sure of success.
Not unless they believe they alone could defeat everyone else put together. And if they aren't confident in their ability to do that? This is definitely something such a side could do.
Convinced that he was on the right track, Rahul started to voice his thought, but his sister beat him to it.
"I don't see any way to guess their motivations, but I do agree with what you said about the best and the worst case. I'd say we hope for the best and prepare for the worst. In the meantime, we have only five minutes left, so let Martin go over your specializations. They are much more important. And that's coming from someone who has been sacrificing XP and levels for days just to meet the conditions for a higher-tiered specialization."
Martin raised his hands impatiently.
"Finally, someone with an iota of brain cells here."
Rahul was about to object, but a sharp look from Neha stopped him dead in his tracks.
She's using 'the look' instead of saying anything. I guess there's more going on here than I can see. I don't trust Martin, but I do trust my sister.
Following his sister's example, Rahul slowly blinked to convey his understanding.
The two subtle gestures that passed between the two siblings could not be noticed by anyone else. This was the result of an entire childhood worth of silent communication between the pair under the watchful eyes of strict parents. Even their mom and dad could never catch a whiff of the warnings that Neha silently passed on to Rahul whenever he was in trouble, so the strangers assembled here had no chance.
Seeing Rahul give up, the rest of the team too followed suit.
Maybe they too sense something is up. Or maybe it's just my imagination.
Rahul thought, just as Martin spoke.
"Alright, glad we are all finally on the same page. The three ranged fighters are in good hands with the Sniper Sergeant, so I'll focus on the five of you. Nearly a minute per person feels just like old times."
Then Marin looked at Matt and started.
"In your world's RPG games, teams usually have a combination of a tank, a melee damage dealer, a magic caster, a ranged archer, and a healer. If you were not intent touched, such a combination would have been suitable for your group too, at least in the F-grade. Unfortunately, or rather, fortunately, you all are touched by pure intent. That brings a lot of advantages and some disadvantages. The albatrosses already taught you that, and it is something we must address with an emotional intent specialist."
After a pause, he continued.
"You and Daniel are the only ones here with an emotion-intent-based presence, though I predict Maya will get one too. Those two have a journey that does not align with emotional intent expertise, but you on the other hand have fortuitously started walking the path of an intent defense specialist. I won't tell any of you what specialization to pick, that is ultimately up to you. What I give you is direction, and for you in particular, I have altered the dungeon to recreate the challenge your group faced against the albatrosses, turning it into a dungeon tailor-made for you. Learn how to resist their emotional attacks, then learn how to protect your friends from those attacks, and when you reach level 25, you will earn a specialization that will acknowledge those abilities."
Rahul saw Matt nod solemnly.
Defending against those intent attacks? Not a responsibility I would want on my shoulders. Not again.
Rahul shuddered as he recalled how he had decided to save his close colleagues while letting everyone else fall to their deaths right in front of his eyes.
Martin now walked to Daniel. With less than four minutes remaining, the steward did not waste any time beating around the bush.
"You might not know this, but a typical human can effectively control only a dozen or so sentinels at a time. In the fight earlier, you had taken command of hundreds. This is a combination of your innate ability, as well as your Pure Intent Formations title. Keep advancing on that path, controlling more and more sentinels, and going further with manipulating fireballs with your intent. Manipulating your own spells should not be the peak of your abilities though. You have many non-mages in your team who can cast fireballs. Think of a way to put that to use, and you would earn yourself quite an enviable specialization."
Daniel nodded, while Rahul considered Martin's suggestion.
Making Daniel use our fireballs...
That could be helpful. I haven't been using my mana pool at all in the last few fights. If Daniel could somehow control my fireballs.
Rahul smiled as he pictured himself, Ivan, and Matt all feeding fireballs to Daniel who took hold of them, and Neha who shrunk them before hurling them at the enemies.
Like a machine gun. That would be epic, though I'm not sure Maya can alter our fireballs after we create them.
As if on cue, Martin started speaking with Maya.
"Your fireballs are already advanced enough to earn you the Pyromancer specialization, and I believe you can get the broader Elemental mage specialization too. But a mage with such prodigious control over mana can do much better than this. Your fire mana bullets are impressively fast, but at higher levels, your enemies would be even faster. Shahid can already dodge them if he wishes to, and so can Rahul, Matt, and Ivan in their intent-empowered states. I don't mean to be dismissive, supersonic speed fire bullets are amazing, but they will eventually hit a plateau."
With a wink, Martin added.
"The same cannot be said about spells that travel at the speed of light."
Then he started walking towards Ivan, leaving behind a very excited Maya.
That is insanely ambitious, but that glint in Maya's eyes tells me she just might be able to do it.
Rahul thought, grudgingly acknowledging that Martin's advice so far had been rather insightful.
Martin spoke to Ivan.
"Immutability is a strong presence that can make you very very powerful, but it's also a challenging one due to the lack of common ground between the two principal concepts that make it up. For the near future, I'd advise you to put effort into developing two chains of skills, one focused on the time aspect of Immutability, and the second focused on the unchangeability aspect. You have already seen the benefits of both, with the time aspect making you faster while the unchangeability aspect reinforcing you."
"Only once you are proficient in both the concepts should you attempt to gain skills that utilize the higher level concept of Immutability. That's where the best applications of your presence lie, like freezing your friends and enemies in time and making them invulnerable for a duration, but barring another eureka moment like the one you had in the dungeon, learning such complex skills is out of your reach."
With just a little over a minute remaining, Martin finally turned to Rahul.