LCD Mother of Learning

Discussion in 'Latest Chapter Discussion' started by jacobpaige, Apr 25, 2016.

  1. jacobpaige

    jacobpaige Well-Known Member

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    As I recall, the vampire was just the daughter of a noble, not the heir or anything. That aside, even if he's just a general, he's still a leader with tons of subordinates and plenty of access to military grade magical secrets, which is all that's necessary for this.
     
  2. mrttao

    mrttao Well-Known Member

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    No, that is a soul magic psychic power interaction. Not a pure soul magic spell. And there is no reason to assume that non psychic structured mind magic will interact the same way.
    The problem is that your solution are completely and utterly different. which goes against the whole "why isn't he doing exactly the same thing as the MC". because he is a different person with different innate abilities, different magical situation (lich), different research, time limitations, different access to knowledge, different interests, and different talents.

    Also, saying "he could do something completely different that achieves the same end goals" completely undermines the initial claim of "he could do the exact same thing as the MC". if it is a completely different thing (eg, craft an artificial animal soul to act as a communication device) then it is not the same thing as the MC.

    That said, it was indicated before that creating a soul is ridiculously difficult and considered the realm of the gods.
     
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  3. jacobpaige

    jacobpaige Well-Known Member

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    I don't recall it ever saying that the two magics were boosting each other. As far as I could tell, Zorian's mind magic was simply piggybacking on the soul connection that was already there. That being the case, other things could piggyback off of it. There's also no reason to believe that structured mind magic couldn't use the link as well, though even if it couldn't, there's also no reason to believe that mind magic is even required to use the connection for the minimal level of communication required for the task in question.

    I never said anything about crafting artificial souls. I have no idea where you got that from. The closest I came was suggesting that he split/copy (via an adapted simulacra spell) an existing animal soul.

    However, if you want to limit it strictly to, "Why isn't he doing the exact same thing as Zorian?" then, "Maybe lichs can't safely use the simulacra spell," is basically all that's required. As it is, the discussion moved on from that to, "Why is he creating gate artifacts instead of doing something like what Zorian does (i.e.: use a soul connection to coordinate the casting of the gate spell), in spite of it's many advantages and his expertise in soul magic?" which is quite far from "doing something completely different." That's like saying someone who wears brown pants is doing something completely different from someone wearing black pants when the person originally wore mini-skirts. The degree of difference simply isn't comparable.
     
  4. NZPIEFACE

    NZPIEFACE Leecher

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    >Why can't he get others to fo the simulacrs spell?
    Cause you know... its a fucking hard spell to learn. Geniuses aren't everywhere.

    Plus, the reason why he's using gatesis so he doesn't have to maintain it and keep it open while the invssion is going on. All he needs to do is defend it when needed.
     
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  5. mrttao

    mrttao Well-Known Member

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    Yes there is, we know for a fact that distances are extremely problematic for such a thing. if a standard telepathy structure spell worked MC would never have had this issue in the first place. Furthermore, MC mentioned how it is considered very difficult for 2 mages opening a gate to coordinate their casting. again, if this was an easy thing that your standard "low level" telepathy structured spell did then there wouldn't be such a problem.
    I am pretty sure the simulacrum spell doesn't actually create a full blown copy soul... but something else. And the copy is what I was referring to about creating a soul.
    Adapting the simulacrum spell to be cast on an animal instead of the caster might be possible. But that would be a completely different solution than what the MC did. And I wouldn't in any way call it easy... you can probably count on your hand the number of necromancers that could do such a thing.
    Yes, I suggested that possibility, I also suggested another possibility is that QI has a method of achieving similar end goals that are superior to the MC's.
    I thought this part was on "why doesn't he gate to that other continent".
    The artifact he created for the invasion actually makes a lot of sense even if he COULD do exactly what zorian does. An artifact doesn't tie him down, with the quantity of traffic and entire army takes it would be too much of his time, effort, and mana to manually act as the sole transporter for them.

    Much better for him to build a static structure that doesn't require his personal involvement to run, and then he can run around doing things. Like dealing with sudomir, or tracking down zorian and zack for a talk, or fighting on the front lines during the invasion itself.
    When I said "something completely different" I was not contrasting
    A. open a gate
    B.build a permanent gate

    I was referring to the difference between
    1. cast the simulcarum spell and then use telepathy via your soul to coordinate between your two bodies to open a gate
    2. split an animal soul to create an instant communication device to coordinate casting a gate between yourself and another mage.

    The end result of 1 and 2 is both "a gate was formed". but the method is completely different.
     
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  6. jacobpaige

    jacobpaige Well-Known Member

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    I'm beginning to think that you're intentionally misunderstanding me. That quote was referring to using an existing soul magic connection as a method or carrier for communication, not to using mind magic to communicate across continents without soul magic.

    Possibly, but QI would definitely still be on that list, and regardless, that was only one solution of many that I mentioned. Others included using necromancers that already knew the spell (there are definitely some under his command given his country's long standing stance on necromancy) and teaching the spell to the aranea and using them. Though honestly, QI has already proven that he's quite good at screwing with other people's souls, so I doubt it would really be necessary to involve anyone else.

    Again, there's no real need for him to be the one that casts the gate spell. So long as there is a soul connection available to coordinate the at each end, anyone that knows the gate spell can form the gate. And I wouldn't call that completely different from what Zorian is doing. That's like saying that because you made a sandwich by yourself, and the two people next to you made one together, you did completely different things. The key elements are 1) coordination via a soul link and 2) the gate spell. And given the much higher degree of versatility and security that this method provides, I find it hard to consider the static gate artifacts to be superior. For civilian use sure, but for military use, especially for a surprise attack, Zorian's method is simply superior. It's more flexible, faster, cheaper, more mobile, and much more secure. I'm sure there are situations in which the artifact would be better, but this isn't really one of them.
     
  7. Arcturus

    Arcturus Cat, Hidden Sith Lord

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    Let's consider this tactically/strategically:

    So how did they attack the city and maximize damage? By setting up a base in the lower regions of the dungeon, controlling the monsters in the upper region, then using that to simultaneously launch attacks throughout the city from the dungeon while entirely catching the city unaware.

    Now let's consider if they use Zorian's gate. If they launch the attack immediately after coming through, in does remove some logistics. However, the damage that they are able to do is still limited, since there is no longer the simultaneous attack throughout the city to take out key strategic points (and when they fail to do so, as seen in Zorian's tests of such, the attacks do much, much worse). So this option doesn't make much strategic sense. However, let's say they teleport directly into the dungeons. This would allow for the simultaneous attack. This idea, however, fails to take into account the monsters there that would cause havoc, cause forces to be lost, and weaken the invasion. It can be seen that it isn't all that strategically smart.

    Let's consider the case where they don't attack immediately. Then, they need bases to send the troops and supplies through (some of which are monsters remember). This means they can't stay in the city proper. So, they establish a base in the Dungeons again. Now it is easy to impose some control on the monsters there. But to avoid revealing themselves, the only real way to supply the invasion is to have a regular supply chain that doesn't go near/through the city. That means by gate. At this point, the lich is wasting a lot of time on moving things logistically, which simply sounds like a pain in the ass. And based off of QI's personality, he would not be down for that.

    Thus, a permanent gate to a base in the lower regions of the dungeons can be seen to be the intelligent and realistic strategic option for a surprise invasion of this manner.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2018
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  8. mrttao

    mrttao Well-Known Member

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    Again, I said so myself. I am only disputing the "why doesn't he do/can't he do exactly the same thing as the MC". That he has other means to achieve his end goals is obvious.

    That said... your idea of outsourcing gate casting to some minion is not very feasible. since gate is a very advanced spell that only few people in the world are capable of casting.

    We are also seemingly talking about several different things here.
     
  9. NZPIEFACE

    NZPIEFACE Leecher

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    Knew I could count on Arcturus to be smarter than us all.
     
  10. jacobpaige

    jacobpaige Well-Known Member

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    The validity of those arguments would really just depend on 1) how long they waited to attack and 2) how many people were casting the gate spell.

    So long as they don't wait more than a day or two to attack, they could carry all of their supplies in with them without difficulty. After that, it really just depends on whether they care about their army anymore. If they do, then the artifact gates are likely better since they'll make retreating easier. If not (which seems to be the case for the vast majority of the troops), then the gate spells are just as good, and may not even be necessary since the important people should all be capable of getting away from the city on their own. Of course, that's just for the Ibasans. The cultists are likely stupid enough to think that the primordial will protect them. I honestly don't remember the ratio of the two groups, but assuming QI is smart, there's probably a lot more cultists and other cannon fodder than Ibasans of any real value to him.

    As for the number of castors, it wouldn't really require that many. One or two pairs would likely be enough. Less if they could create simulacra. More if they wanted to increase the number of attack sites, but I still wouldn't regard it as much of a challenge for a nation's army or a cult of super rich mages, much less both together.

    It's not that only a few people have the talent for it, it's that only a few people have access to the spell, and that it's of limited value due to the difficulty of coordination. Yes, it's an advanced piece of magic, but given how quickly Zorian and his brother learned it, it's difficult to think of it as a true challenge for the kinds of mages that QI would associate himself with.
     
  11. mrttao

    mrttao Well-Known Member

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    we know they have been spending months at the very least doing prepwork
    its both, actually. while QI can address the access part, he cannot magically snap his fingers to create underlings who are archmage tier
    Zorian and his brother are geniuses, with natural talent for mana control, and have spent a long time training.
    If QI's nation had a bunch of peers to QI, then why is QI the only non mook mage from the invaders? Also, you just upgraded them from underlings to peers. And if they are peers, can he trust them to play such a critical role in his plans? and can he afford what such titans would want as pay?

    We have seen that aside from QI himself, none of the invader mages comes even close to the knees of the faculty in cyora. part of it is expendability too. Sudomir for example is on the level, but he is not being "spent" in the cyora attack because he has political value elsewhere. And I would eat my hat if there are no competing factions in the undead nation
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2018
  12. jacobpaige

    jacobpaige Well-Known Member

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    They spent quite a bit of time, but very little of that had to do with the actual army. The army only really came in at the end. There was a smallish advance team, but that was about it. Even if it were larger, there really wouldn't be anything stopping them from bringing in supplies with them when they came to setup camp, nor any particular reason why they couldn't resupply every few weeks. The point is simply that it's not the constant annoyance of having to connect multiple times a day that was being mentioned.

    It doesn't take archmages to cast the gate spell, just people with a moderate level of talent and a good bit of training. Zorian isn't a genius. He's above average for sure, but in the overall scheme of things, his talent is nothing special. It's one of the sources of his angst in the early chapters if you'll recall. His greatest advantage is simply the amount of time and resources he's been able to dump into training, and any noble or sufficiently rich mage family could have provided the same. Sure, they'd likely be older than him due to having to actually work for a living, but given the apparent life spans of mages, that's not really an issue.

    I said mages that he'd associate with, not peers. This includes apprentices, underlings, and the promising offspring of prominent mage families just to name a few non-peers off the top of my head. Please stop putting words into my mouth and then getting angry about them.

    Also, non-expendables could be used for the gates without issue. In some ways it would be better since it would allow them to simply launch the attack from Ibasa without bothering with setting up everything in Cyoria first. After all, if they're not going to participate in the fight, then there's no real need for them to conserve or restore their mana. And no, I do not mean that they should skip all preparation.
     
  13. mrttao

    mrttao Well-Known Member

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    Yes it does
    that is a load of steaming bull
    Yes he is. In 4 different definitions of the word.
    1. He is exceptionally intelligent for the setting (think IQ). Most people are incapable of the type of advanced research he has been doing (especially in the fields of wards and golems)
    2. He is a "genius of hard work" as typically found in so many stories where he can just do the most boring training nonstop.
    3. he is also naturally gifted at shaping mana which is a bit of a tradeoff... giving him lower stamina and thus lower suitability as a one man army, but in exchange he is much much better at mastering advanced shaping and mastering more advanced spells quicker as well as mastering spells others never could.
    4. he was born with inborn talent in certain fields. In particular, he is psychic. Aside from the boosts to mind magic learning speed and casting, it also gifts him with superhuman data processing abilities. Which are particularly useful for divinations as they require obscene amounts of "calculations" so to speak.

    He is somewhat socially handicapped... but that is going away thanks to both experience and cheating by being psychic
    No, his angst is that he is being overshadowed by his older brother's achievement... without regards to the fact that his brother is older than him.
    This is complete and utter nonsense. In addition to the 4 points labeled 1-4 above about how MC is a "genius" which will not apply to your "any noble". Nobles, no matter how rich, are not going to be able to replicate the benefits of the time loop:
    A. Sufficiently rich my arse, MC is spending obscene amounts of money that will bankrupt even rich nobles. since timeloop makes it reset
    B. MC has been taking serious risks and died many times because of it.
    C. MC has access to knowledge others couldn't.
    D. MC is a lot older than you might think. The loop has been going on for a while. And MC has spent it all power leveling.
    The implication was peers, especially since you were explicitly refuting my claim that he can't just shit out apprentices that can cast gate by saying "nuh uh, mages he would associate with could"... so contextually it seemed like you were talking about peers.
    You have this ridiculously skewed view on how easy magic is. It has been repeatedly stated that most mages simply don't have the talent to cast high level spells, period.
     
  14. jacobpaige

    jacobpaige Well-Known Member

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    Perhaps you should re-read the earlier chapters. He's good, but he's not a super genius. A fact that he himself is well aware of.
    1) There are other people in his class that, at the start of the restart, are better than him at golems. I honestly don't remember any mention of anyone learning wards among his peers, but regardless, neither field is really relevant to gates or the spell to cast them.

    2) This is an uncommon trait, but hardly rare. Basically anyone that succeeds will have it to some extent.

    3) As I recall, this was stated to be a natural consequence of his small mana pool. That is, talent in shaping is inversely proportional to mana pool size and therefore, his talent is nothing special.

    4) I don't think I've ever denied that he's naturally gifted at mind magic. I've only said that being exceptional in this field is not necessary for the task at hand. Whether or not the associated intuitive understanding of large streams of data is related has never been stated one way or the other, but so far, it's not been stated to help with any field other than divination.
    A) Zorian's interests and needs are extremely diverse, his time extremely limited and his funds are nearly infinite. The amounts of money he spends reflect these truths. Normal people (i.e.: those not in a time loop) would not have these problems, and nobles have enough connections to mitigate them even if they were in the same situation, as Zach has shown.

    B) This isn't due to anything related to the gate spell that I can recall. Most of that has to do with combat, espionage and possibly teleporting? Honestly, I can't remember every single one of his deaths, but I also don't recall a significant number of them coming from magical experiments. I do however recall that much of his trouble came from not being able to find good teachers, a problem that nobles (particularly rich ones) and rich (and thus, generally well connected) mages tend not to have.

    C) Only one part of that knowledge is relevant, and it would be provided by QI, assuming that they couldn't acquire it on their own.

    D) Which is why I said that they might be older than he technically is.
    You said minion, not apprentice. The lowliest, least talented private in an army is the minion of the top ranking general, that doesn’t mean that the general associates with said soldier, or regards the soldier as an apprentice, or possibly even as a person, especially if that general is QI.

    And most people don’t have what it takes to be Navy Seals, but there’s still almost three thousand of them, plus a whole bunch more people that could be Navy Seals if they weren't Green Berets or some other elite military force or professional athletes or stock brokers or whatever. Even if you want to compare him to a rocket scientist, there'd still be hundreds of millions of people with the necessary levels of talent, only lacking money, opportunity and the desire to become a rocket scientist. Individuals talented enough to do well in highly skilled professions are not as rare or exceptional as you seem to think. Either that, or you're thinking of him as Einstein or Turing or some other revolutionary figure, which he is definitely not. His brother might be, but it's well established that he's not as talented as his brother when comparing them at the same age, not at their current ages as you've mistakenly stated.

    I think you'll also find that if you reread the relevant chapters, the strongest noble families also have a habit of turning out the strongest mages. Thus, my statement about nobles and rich mage families is quite reasonable. Such families have the genetics, wealth, knowledge, connections and other resources to turn moderately talented individuals into high quality mages. As Zorian himself has said, the biggest factor in how quickly a skill's mastery increases is the amount of time and resources put in, and both groups simply have more of both.
     
  15. Arcturus

    Arcturus Cat, Hidden Sith Lord

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    You seem to be fixated on this one minor detail that frankly seems at best a plot hole. It's really not that big of a deal in the story.
     
  16. jacobpaige

    jacobpaige Well-Known Member

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    Not really. I'm perfectly willing to drop it. Honestly, I never expected it to blow up to this extent.
     
  17. Bright_Lucky_Star

    Bright_Lucky_Star [Previously Known as OrdinaryUser] The Blessed One

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    :blobpeek: I like those theories, maybe some of it chance to be actual, in next chapters of course :blobparty:
     
  18. hanglekuk

    hanglekuk Well-Known Member

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    only couple days to wait :)
     
  19. NZPIEFACE

    NZPIEFACE Leecher

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    I have no idea what the author's schedule is.
     
  20. hanglekuk

    hanglekuk Well-Known Member

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    click in nobody103 in the novel page, you'll get more information. and planned next update (it was apr 1 last time I've checked).
    It is a great date - will see is author is troll enough to put up troll chapter :) Not likely though.