> Now, the big meaty chunk, just like this chunk of [Epic] avatar flesh in my mouth right now, I'm not even exactly sure why that weakling even got in the way. To be totally honest, total cannon fodder, should've stayed home and made someone actually worth the effort; like a [Legendary] zenith.
>
> But yea, so.
>
> It takes 12 [Common] zeniths to make an [Uncommon] zenith, which gives 14 [Common] zeniths worth of exp.
>
> *On average.
>
> Now, now, important: 700-ish [Epic] zeniths to make a [Legendary] zenith worth something like 1200 [Epic] zeniths.
>
> Now, yes, it does seem near impossible to bring about a [Legendary] zenith due to the extremely large amount of exp needed, yes. I understand, that's why there were like 4 of them in my 300 years of life.
>
> And I only killed two of 'em, and the only reason I didn't jump up all the way to the zenith was because the 1 level / kill limit got in the way.
>
> I do want to note most of the exp needed is on the latter end of the levels from 90-100.
>
> ...
>
> Here's a whole spread sheet of investment and profit on zeniths on average.
-Excerpt from 'Zenith economy' by 'Lucaric Ba'alhos'.
----------------------------------------
Falc ignored the screens that revealed themselves beyond the one reporting him as a 'Juvenile', focused only on what had changed about himself.
Extending his grasp outwards, everything felt a bit easier as multiple times the 'Him' of before took control of some of his mana and created a regular slime with ease.
It seemed that there was more of himself, strange, he couldn't feel the difference without extending some outwards. But how much of himself was there now then?
Allowing every single little bit of himself pour out onto the mana flowing into him, finding it to be a bit larger than before, guiding outwards into the slime plains. Allowing 8.733 times his old 'Self' get to work, creating a D-11 string with a fair amount of ease. Though, he couldn't be sure why the time required was less than 1/8.733 times the original, whether or not the increase of ease was non-linear or the strength of himself had increased along with the amount.
So, to make sure, he got only one infant him's worth of him and set it to work. 2.32 times as strong, it seemed he was 20.261 times as... Powerful? As before.
With another check to be sure, it seemed to stay consistent. Good, so was the extra strand of D-12 string. Not much in comparison to the one made in his youth, but still something in case of emergencies.
Maybe there was a skill in the shop that could increase the amount or quality even more, though going through that giant list that had probably extended itself even further was a task for when he had automated production properly.
And on the topic of production, it seemed that while the tunnels were not yet conquered the sentients had made their way beyond the kill room. Falc couldn't be sure of it's effectiveness even if he hoped one or two were killed from it, but seeing from the rope that was leading down from one of the off-shoots without a handy collapse trap at the end along with the septuple of sentients which were for some reason standing in a circular pattern.
Strange.
Anyways, the slime plains' slime per square meter index was lacking, now that was something easily fixed on his part. Just setting up the previous production line was enough, but that wasn't sufficient for all the mp that would wasted that way and there was still a lot of himself left... Saving up for a rainy day was a mature and reasonable thing to do.
But still, he had 17 previous selves of power left over with nothing to do. So, he left them with the savings section for storing or compression or whatever the little unit of 0.5 previous self chose was the best use of said mental power at that particular moment.
With everything set back up, Falc's figurative eyes drifted back to the screens, deciding to look at the biggest one first.
Juvenile core, you have grown, take this new focus! Elemental
Cowed by struggle, the four elements will follow you.
-Increase base elemental aspect affinity by 123%
-Increase base elemental aspect control by 83%
*Lock all non-base elemental aspects.
Arcane
Bound by limitations, your eyes gaze towards the arcane.
-Increase mana regeneration by 300%
-Increase maximum mana by 300%
-Increase mana control by 100%
-Set all aspect control and affinity to 10% if above 10%
*Grant access to core skill:
*Revoke ability to obtain new foci.
Slime
If life gives you slimes, make do.
-Increase speed of slime creation by 75%
-Increase speed of slime leveling by 10%
-Increase control and affinity of [Slime] aspect by 10%
Slime R&D
If life gives you slimes, make better slimes to throw in life's eyes out of spite.
-Increase speed of slime creation by 100%
-Increase speed of slime research by 50%
Steam
Window to a world of madness, whether good or bad, that's for you to find out.
-Increase control of [Steam] aspect by 30%
-Increase affinity of [Steam] aspect by 50%
-Increase control and affinity of [Water] and [Fire] aspects by 25%
Focusless
Despite the difficulties, stay the course and struggle for an even greater tomorrow.
-Increase all aspect affinity by 5%
-Increase all aspect control by 5%
*Backing down is for cowards.
A new focus.
...
Falc decided to mess with this last, even he read through all of them before looking elsewhere. It was best to make sure that he wasn't going to mess up again, by looking at everything available.
Falc, Schematic technician, Navator MP; 31.824/32.558 Essence; 68.931 Schematics Quests Skills Uncommon Aspects
It did feel pretty good to have the grey 'Common' turn to a green 'Uncommon', Falc had to admit. Even the amount of essence he had was pretty good, though he didn't really feel like getting scammed again anytime soon. His mp pool seemed to have doubled as well, not something to complain about.
He quickly opened up all the sub-screens to check for anything of note.
Aspects Common -Earth (Affinity; 10%, Control; 50%)
-Wind (Affinity; 10%, Control; 50%)
-Water (Affinity; 10%, Control; 50%)
-Fire (Affinity; 10%, Control; 50%)
Nothing, next skills. First up, core skills.
Common
...
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Uncommon
Finding that your adventurers are getting to complacent with the same old monsters? Now you can make even more superior monsters! Punish those lazy leaks for not getting stronger!
52 essence.
----------------------------------------
With the amount of mana flowing from the world into your core, many sentients will find it more and more troublesome to come into the lower recesses, now here's a handy and cheap fix: Making the mana flow more in line with natural ambient mana patterns.
17 essence.
----------------------------------------
Many weaker sentients will find themselves troubled by the mana flow, but those not of the lower rungs of their society will pass through without issue. Now we don't want that, do we? Now introducing the premier method of increasing the inconvenience experienced by disrupting and decreasing the ethereality of your mana flow. It even comes with a bonus to your monster's mana regeneration!
1288 essence.
----------------------------------------
...
Rare LOCKED
As expected, there were a lot of new skills available. And, wow, amazing thing, a good few didn't seem like absolute trash.
No wonder it was so expensive. Compared to Falc's measly 68.931 essence, the nearly 1300 essence seemed like a wall far too time-consuming to climb.
Of course, there were weird ones like
Now just to look at the monster skills.
Common
...
Uncommon
Allows for the chosen monster to use their mana to manifest the arcane according to their whims.
*Requires the chosen monster to have a soul.
231 essence.
----------------------------------------
Allows for the chosen monster to split into two, the off-spring created shall have a moderate chance at moderate and small mutations and a low chance at significant variation.
*Can only be used by single-celled or liquid-based monsters.
438 essence.
----------------------------------------
Allows for the chosen monster to use their own mana to designate an area and create a storm of dust in that area.
*Requires the chosen monster to have a dust-affinity.
866 essence.
----------------------------------------
...
Rare LOCKED
It seemed that there weren't going to be any cheap options here, well, a skill that actively crippled the monster that used it probably wasn't going to be that good.
Oh wait, I made one of those.
The skills seemed interesting at least, even if they were all certainly in some way a scam. He could already see it now, with
Then, uhhh, 'Quests'. Falc had never actually looked at this part, he actually didn't look at his status that often overall in fact.
Quests LOCKED
Huh, so that was why he never felt the need to look at it. There was never a need to... 'Ugh, what a waste of time.' He couldn't help but think as he looked at the requirements to get the better title.
The first was 'Gain a [Rare] schematic', basically the same as last time. Though it'd probably be even more of a pain to get the next one, Falc already knew of a possible method. He could get an slime to level up a bunch, then somehow turn it [Rare] and then copy the slime into a schematic, even if that'd probably be a little hard due to the lack of sentients and how easily they stopped entering him, not that it was a bad thing.
Still, Falc needed to think a bit more about how to build up a slime apostle 2, how many weaves, the size, the... Amount of skills included, and how large and compressed the threads used for them were going to be also.
The second; 'Gain access to a [Rare] aspect'
'Huh, I guess aspects have rarities,' Falc thought 'It's not too surprising, actually, didn't the aspect screen say that the 'Four elements' were in the common category?'
After a quick check, Falc found that it did. Though, then the question came, how did he 'Gain access to an aspect'? Fire, water, wind and earth had all always been with him. But, when in doubt, ask instincts.
> Combine or ignore.
An answer was an answer, and based on previous experience, Falc's instincts could be said to have earned at least a paltry level of trust 'Actually, do you have anything of note to say?'
> DOWN!!! DOWN!!! DOWN!!!
Oh yeah, its still whining about that. Anything new to mention?
> Imbue stone.
'Okay?' Falc thought to himself 'Is that all?'
...
Falc thought for a few moments for anything else, he couldn't really ponder about what 'Transcenders' or what a 'Double transcender' were due to total lack of information except maybe partake in a bit of conjecture. But conjecture wasn't really trustworthy, since it was totally possible that the 'Transcender' mentioned could be that weird water getting built up into the spiritual plane.
It probably wasn't, but it was possible.
Then that meant it was actually time to consider what his next focus was going to be.
There were six: 'Elemental', 'Arcane', 'Slime', 'Slime R&D', 'Steam' and 'Focusless'.
To be totally honest on his part, Falc really wanted to go with either Elemental or Arcane. Both would make his life so much easier, with Elemental he could finally start working with his aspects normally and with Arcane controlling mana would be far, far, far easier.
Even if he didn't like the description of Elemental saying that he was 'Cowed by struggle', it was pretty accurate, his life would've been overall far easier if he had just gone with anything else than Focusless.
But luckily he stopped himself and began to calculate. Originally with 'Elemental' his affinity and control would've been increased by 11%, and after a quick question to his instincts it seemed like his base affinity and control were 100% for the four elements. That'd mean that he would've ended up with 111% control and affinity, but if he added the bonuses given to the current him he would get 133% for the two aspects in both.
From what he could see, it was the only way to get an aspect up to 100%. But just one line, 'Locks all non-base elemental aspects'. The 'Base elemental aspects' could possibly be the four [Common] aspects he knew, and he needed to get a [Rare] aspect to upgrade the title again.
It was completely possible that Elemental was a dead-end with no hope for the better version of 'Juvenile dungeon core'.
And then came Arcane, it promised a lot also, like a lot a lot. A quadrupling of his max mp and mp regeneration, a doubling of his ability to control mana and a skill of unknown rarity-
And while he wasn't exactly sure how important control and affinity were when gaining access to a new aspect, it didn't seem as if it would help. It'd probably be stuck like that for a long time too, and it wasn't as if he weren't interested in aspects. His lack of ability to use them was one of the reasons he regretted choosing Focusless out of all his options.
Then came the duo of 'Slime' and 'Slime R&D', he wasn't exactly interested slimes or anything despite what gave him his choice of foci might have been led to believe. The increase of slime production speed wasn't exactly needed, everything was going well and the amount of slimes he made could be scaled up even more if he really wanted to. A 50% boost to slime research speed would be pretty good, still, if he could he would instantly jump ships to other monsters.
The most interesting part was actually that 'Slime' was an aspect, Falc couldn't help but wonder what would happen if he made a slime's weave out of 'Slime mana'. Maybe he could call it a 'Slime slime', it was ingenious!
Yet, that was not good enough of a reason to pick either of them, like ever.
Then the second last, 'Steam', heheh... Yea, no. A 'Window to a world of madness' was not really going to mesh well with what he wanted to do, even then the bonuses offered were subpar at best. 50% control and 30% affinity to the steam aspect wasn't going to fly when it was almost certainly deeply intertwined with the elemental aspects, which weren't exactly good friends with him.
At least he got knowledge of a new aspect, even if he was very much confused why the aspect had even been offered. He had only really used the fire aspect once in his youth, not exactly equal to his slime research or magical interests.
Then the last one, Focusless, and old frenemy. Nothing big, just a 5% increase in control and affinity to all aspects, every single one, no matter what.
It wasn't actually that bad, it wasn't a probable dead-end like Elemental, didn't stop future foci choices like Arcane, wasn't basically useless to him like Slime and Slime R&D nor was it like Steam that was heavily related to the elemental aspects which he had little to no real chance of using properly.
There weren't really any actual downsides to picking Focusless nor did it just meekly fix the elemental aspect problem, and if [Rare] aspects weren't one of the elemental aspects, wouldn't that mean he had a minimum 65% affinity to any one of them? He couldn't be sure about what the base control was for them, but affinity would have to be at least not garbage.
But, taking a step back, him choosing Focusless previously was the largest mistake he had ever made. But then again, it did basically seem like the best option since he really wanted to continue growing. But Arcane was also really, really, really good as long as Falc accepted that he would probably never use aspects properly ever...
'Wait a second, if both a control and affinity were brought down to 10%... How difficult would it be to make slime water?' With this question asked, it lay there unnervingly without answer.
Even he could not answer it no matter he tried.
This, this was why he wanted to think it through. So he didn't get screwed again, he could've been completely trampled because he couldn't properly create or destroy rock while also not able to create slimes in anything even resembling a reasonable time-frame.
After another while of hard pondering on what he would pick, he finally chose 'Focusless'.
His path was set in stone from the start if he ever wanted to get anywhere.
With a mental sigh, he exasperatedly stated to himself 'For a better tomorrow, I guess.'