Chapter 70: Carried Away

1. Yes, he can just send it deep into the dungeon. No consequences, other than losing access to his mana (since it's likely that the simulacrum is going to be using it heavily). 2. Using simulacrums for training is possible. Note that having simulacrums around ties up mana regeneration and thus makes the caster less able to spend their mana freely. Thus, if the main limitation of training is mana rather than time (as often happens), simulacrums actually make training less effective. 3. It's a conjuration+animation spell. No simulacrum knowledge necessary. Just lots of mana. 4. Making a spell that grants you a whole new sense you never had before is no possible, unless that spell is a transformation spell.

Domagoj Kurmaic

I have a few questions about the potential use of simularcrums: 1. Can Zorian just send simulacrums deep into dungeon depths w/o consequence? Is the connection to his soul a shortfall/liability of the spell? Or is the risk just negligible considering his soul defense? Is there anything stopping him from this deep-dungeon exploration? I imagine there's a lot to gain/learn from going deeper than most mages could ever hope to manage. 2. Would the memory packet method allow him tho have simulacrums learn/practice shaping exercises and submit them to himself. Like another cheat to shorten his learning time for more demanding practices. 3. Is Daimen's giant ectoplasm construct spell closely tied to the simulacrum spell? (Like how Daimen knew Gate shaping exercises but not the actual Gate spell). Could Zorian use the same spell? 4. Unrelated to simulacrums, in a conversation with Novelty, Zorian mentions how Mind Blank was devised from the 'going dark' psychic ability; and how mages like to create spells based on special abilities of magical creatures. Would Zorian be capable of doing this with the grey hunter's tremor sense?

Prince Hakeem

No, he can't. Puppeteering people simply hijacks their body for the caster's purposes. It's possible, but the effectiveness of domination depends heavily on the sort of person you're targeting, the circumstances they're currently in and what you're dominating them into doing. Time limits are the most serious issue aside from this - without constant reinforcement, the target will shrug it off quite quickly. Purely in terms of telepathic combat, Zorian is indeed capable of tangling with aranean matriarchs. However, he lacks proficiency in the more esoteric areas of mind magic and thus isn't entirely equal to them in general.

Domagoj Kurmaic

When Zorian puppeteers/dominates a human, can he use them to cast spells he knows? (Something like a big mana drain he learns from Zach, and couldn't afford to cast himself). Is it possible for Zorian to capture CoD/Ibasan mages and keep them dominated? Range or time limits? Lastly, is Zorian comparable to an aranean elder/matriarch in mind magic proficiency?

Prince Hakeem

Martial arts ability is very hard to encapsulate in a simple animation spell. Zorian could at most find someone that would help him master specific moves with this method, but that wasn’t what Zorian had issue with so he didn’t bother. It’s possible for people to collaborate on imprinting skills to a golem, but doing this will bring an additional headache to the table – animation spells of different people will not naturally mesh together like those of the same person would, so the golem crafter would have to devise an additional interface layer to splice them together. Because this is a huge headache, mixing animation spells from multiple people is rarely done.

Domagoj Kurmaic

Random question but I was rereading the story and got to the part where they used animation spells to teach the students to dance. Zorian later tries to learn some basic martial arts from Taiven in order to make his golems able to fight better. Couldn't he have Taiven or another teacher use animation spells on him to make him learn super quickly? Alternatively, could he build most of the golem and then have Taiven or someone who can fight cast the parts that copy fighting ability, or does do all of the animation spells for the golem need to be done by the same person?

J H

I want to finish the story before I try publishing it. I heard it's a rather long and involved process, especially for stories like mine that are published for free on the internet.

Domagoj Kurmaic

I'm curious, why haven't you put this up for sale as ebooks on Amazon? I've downloaded the ebooks of the first two installments, because I prefer to read on my Kindle rather than from the web on my tablet.

I'm worried their efficiency at dismantling the ibasan invasion might lead to quatl ichl to suspect the existence of the time loop.

Satya Prateek

Interesting chapter. Poor Taiven. Hopefully they learn something from the gate, cause otherwise I think its probably time to do some more direct investigation for another key, or contact silverlake for dimension stuff

Daniel I Beer