Chapter 1078 – Final Grind of the Year 8 – Math and Mechanics
John pulled out of Sylph after a particularly well-timed orgasm and fell down between her and Salamander in the grass. Things had gone on for a while and he had no reason to feel bad about that. He was now at level 384, which left him one level short of unlocking a new Max Class Level. As long as the Intermediary Barriers remained inaccessible, fucking was literally the only productive thing he could do.
‘Woe is me,’ John ridiculed himself, as he pulled the two panting elementals closer to himself. ‘A breeze would improve the situation... but I guess I should just take a shower... First things first, though, Stat Points.’ He willed the window to open and pondered on his options.
Recent changes forced John to reconsider where his points went. To be more precise, he had to adjust his previous strategy. In order to cope with the scaling costs of his elementals, he had to invest four of his eight points every level. That was a hefty ask, but the return was the ability to keep all of his familiars running at full power all the time. Considering their power, it was more than reasonable to demand that John dedicated resources continuously to keep them around.
Problem was that, with Momo entering the picture, the cost of Artificial Spirit had increased dramatically. The base cost was 5% of his mana regeneration and that doubled with every active Artificial Spirit. In other words, the cost for all 3 was now 20% of his mana regeneration. Gaia had already warned him that the formula would eventually turn more elaborate and he fully expected that ‘elaborate’ also meant ‘higher’. Also to be considered were the 10% of MP regeneration he paid when the Ambassador Double was active.
All around, he currently paid 96,8 mana for his elementals, 31,6 for the Artificial Spirits and 15,8 for Jack. In total he paid 144,21 MP per second and regenerated 158,04. The difference was still about 14, which was alright but meant he could rarely ever cast freely. If he had wanted that, he would have needed to go down a caster route.
The most important thing to note was that the addition of Momo meant that he now needed 5 points of Wisdom per level to stay ahead of things. Before he had needed about 3,7 points per level, now he needed 4,25. There were no partial Stat Points, of course, so he always had to round up. It was annoying that he had one less point to freely allocate, but at least the margin between what he needed and what he did was also wider. A total of 0,75 Wisdom worth of MP regeneration would be free after each level, so he would gradually get ahead.
‘Until the Artificial Spirit Patch ruins things for me,’ John thought and sighed. ‘I either need to lower the mana usage of everyone, nerfing them so I can do things, or I need to accept that I can only do as much as my saved up mana allows. Also, I should look for some further upgrades on efficiency. I still have two Equipment Slots to fill. There could also be some cost reductions in the Metracana Master Class? Maybe I should prioritize that one after all...’ John considered it briefly, then softly shook his head to himself. ‘From what I have seen of Enki’s Stars and spells, they’re too potent to pass up on. If anything can accelerate Fusion’s growth even further, it’s a unique and highly efficient way to transport mana.’
Although mana batteries worked quite well, they were also famously large and difficult to produce, once they reached the capacity necessary for industrial processes. In that, they weren’t that different from regular batteries. The kind that powered a phone was good enough (even if a lot of people even complained about those), cars started to be more of a problem, and when it came to actually powering any form of facility, people skipped on energy saving and went straight to power generators.
The Abyss wasn’t that different, although ‘power generators’ equalled ‘slave labour and/or indentured mana factory servitude’ wherever people could get away with it. Luckily, that practice was swiftly getting stomped out.
‘Alright, so 5 in Wisdom, 3 in Intellect.’ John pressed the buttons and looked at his window.
‘I am getting pretty close to 750 Intellect. That should help me a bit,’ John pondered. ‘Although I don’t think Gaia will buff my mana gain much further. Right now, I gain about a tenth as much mana regeneration from each point of Intellect as I would from each point of Wisdom, thanks to the 3% of my Max Mana I regenerate per minute. If I was a game designer, I wouldn’t let the Stat that increases the mana pool also become an acceptable alternative for the primary resource regeneration.’
The swinging hips of an approaching woman pulled John out of his thoughts. It was rare enough to see Scarlett wearing something outside the binary of nothing or a full suit. After yesterday’s workout outfit, John was treated to the androgynous beauty in a tank top and the brown, baggy, pocket-covered pants so often seen on mechanics. Oil spots covering her clothes, hands and face.
“Are you seriously hard right now?” Scarlett asked, stopping in front of him.
“Have you looked at yourself?” the Gamer asked.
“No, but I know that I’m fucking sweaty and covered in machine oil,” the technomancer told him and gestured at herself, as if he hadn’t already noticed that. “While your dick is drenched in elemental sex fluids.”
“I do sometimes wonder if that will eventually seep into me and give my dick elemental properties,” he joked.
Blowing air out of her nose, Scarlett remarked, “Either it would have already happened or it can’t happen because you get sucked clean afterwards every time.”
“Not every time... unless you’re offering?” John winked at his redheaded haremette.
“You’ve gotten enough spontaneous sex the past three days.”
“We both know there is never enough spontaneous sex.”
“Hmm... fair point,” Scarlett rolled her head and continued, “still no, I’m doing actual work right now and I need you to look at something.”
“Smooth?” Scarlett looked at him with some disdain and ran a finger down the side of the stack. “I can feel all of these bumps. This,” she brushed over her own arm, “is smooth. That,” she pointed back at the metal plates, “is a prime reason why I usually mentally direct precision tools like water cutters.”
“I suppose the human hand can only get so steady,” John said and looked over the rest of the workbench. “So, is that over there the concept for the mark 4?”
“Yessssss,” Scarlett gave an enthused, hissing answer and grabbed what looked like a metal ball linked to a stack of three L-shaped plates via a wire that was secured to the inside of a thorn, whose base was too broad to be pulled back out through the hole the wire came through. The showcase had less layers than the genuine Mandala Sphere, likely to show off that wire. Scarlett tapped on it a couple of times. “This is the prime improvement we need to look at.”
“Well, explain to me how that would work,” John said, his scepticism fighting, and ultimately losing, against his faith in Scarlett’s engineering prowess. “We spend a lot of time trying to get around the Possession limitation that it must be one connected object. The Immaterial Connection Attribute was how we got around that previously.”
“Which has the drawback that the Mandala Sphere has a maximum extension radius and all plates must move in accordance with each other,” Scarlett responded and waved off. “Kind of worked out for us, since you wanted something that could spin rapidly to abuse Mana Blade.”
“It would still be useful for Arcana Ray,” John reported.
“That’s honestly not my primary concern, Arcana Ray is best as Burst Ray or, if you channel it, as Melded Rays anyway,” Scarlett waved off. She wasn’t wrong about that. Unstable Arcana had also replaced any such spinning tricks as his best area damage tool. “What I have to achieve with my design is to make it a viable or better alternative to Ambassador Double.”
John just nodded. If she succeeded in that, it would certainly ease his mind a little bit. That was 10% of his mana regeneration he did not have to spend on creating his double during fights. He could still do it, but if the Mandala Sphere was baseline more versatile than Jack, that would be nice. Beating a pair of human hands was difficult, however.
“Let’s start from there,” Scarlett went to explain her showpiece, grabbing the outermost plate and lifting it up. Only now did John realize that there were windings on the other two, preventing them from sliding down. “Having each plate on a flexible wire means you can use each segment of the layers like an independent arm.”
“Provided the entire thing is connected,” John brought it back to the original point of contention. “For which the entire thing would have to be welded together, which the wire did not find aggregable last time we tried this.”
“Correct, but this time we have metals available that form strings on their own,” Scarlett responded, and it clicked with John.
“Right, both Schattengarn and Fusionals-“
“Not a good name.”
“Shut it.”
“If you change the fucking name, I might.”
Sighing, John continued, “Schattengarn and its alloys naturally take the form of string, in the right conditions. The alloy with Poseidury behaves like the liquid shadow Undine can conjur.”
“Very stable and sharp strings, essentially near indestructible rubber,” Scarlett nodded along, “and, as Strimata proved, strings that will grow back together, making repairs a lot easier. If each plate of a segment is connected via a rod of Schattengarn alloy, it should be possible to create a singular connected unit of plates and wires, eligible for Possession. Immaterial Connection would be unnecessary and so each bit could be moved independently.”
John scratched his chin and considered the practical applications of this. He could shift his field of view to every single one of those arms – or perhaps tendrils were more accurate. With the way Possession worked, he couldn’t see with all of them, but the potential was good enough. “Would it still be able to spin though?”
“Only as a whole unit, so that’s not all that different than before,” Scarlett said and tapped on the core. “We would have to reinforce the centre because it would be revealed more often.”
“Is there something you could do so the plates can shoot out at high speed?” the Gamer asked. “The thorns might be useful as a physical offensive option.”
“...The thorn is honestly just a design compromise to the regular wire,” Scarlett told him, then pondered over the question. “But it could be kept in one shape or another... I’ll have to see what the enchantment experts say. That’s something I can’t solve with physical engineering alone.”
“It would be annoying in daily life if I had to watch out for the thorns,” the Gamer agreed. “The base idea is good regardless. As long as the Mandala Sphere remains a mobile spell platform, I have everything I need.”
“Like I would sacrifice core functionality in an upgrade,” Scarlett scoffed.