Chapter 145.2: Calculation
So, I thought to Index, in that, uh, purely hypothetical scenario, Inclusive Bond would be completely redundant. Um, hypothetically, how long would it take for us to get to that point? Would it require a specific Tribute to be given so she evolves again? Or would it need to be a certain Bond Rank? Or does she just need to reach a specific Level, or something?
“Mmmm,” Index sighed. “I don’t think I can tell you that…huh. Okay, so you won’t need to do anything obscure. It won’t be some extremely rare Tribute, or anything like that. You just…agh. You won’t regret it. Obviously there would be some specific differences in utility between the Inclusive and the, uh, other thing. But I do think you’d consider the basic overlap to be large enough for it to effectively be a waste of an Upgrade here. You can imagine it as sort of…sharing a pool of memories. They transmit theirs to you before Time Loop, then after, you transmit their own memories back to them, and it’s like nothing happened.”
I nodded, trying to go over this new piece of information. If I could get the same major effects of Inclusive Loop without needing to use an Upgrade on it, that would be huge. And, technically, it wouldn’t even necessarily need to just be between me, Ainash, and Erani. Presumably, anyone who got added to the Bond would be able to share memories, too.
The more I considered it, the more I leaned in favor of the Bond method. It would take a bit of extra work to get going, but it would effectively give me that entire Time Loop Upgrade for free. How could I pass that up?
So, Recycled Loop was the choice there. Next, Talents. Cumulative Catastrophe or Future Sight was the main choice I needed to make here—Index recommended the third option, Spatial Flux, but I didn’t think it was really correct in that instance, unlike its actually helpful advice with my Upgrade.
“Rude,” Index said.
After having some time to mull it over, I found myself leaning toward Cumulative Catastrophe over Future Sight. Future sight was cool, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt like that single second didn’t matter as much as I felt like it did. It was just so restrictive, whereas Cumulative Catastrophe would be absolutely phenomenal in fights against powerful opponents. I’d constantly found myself matched up with monsters, Demons, people that were way stronger than I was. And in those circumstances, having this Talent to slowly ramp up my own power to match theirs would be completely backbreaking for them.
When I thought about having something like Future Sight in a fight against, say, someone on the Level of Xhag’duul, it would effectively do nothing. What good was knowing I’d get punched a second in advance when they were fast enough to hit me regardless of me dodging or not? What good was it knowing I’d be ambushed a second in advance when, either way, I’d be taking enough damage to cap out from Dark Plate? It simply wouldn’t matter in that sort of fight. Whereas Cumulative Catastrophe could eventually build up my damage, Stamina, and Stat drains to put me in a winning scenario. Even if it was unlikely, giving me some sort of a chance against those enemies was much better than giving me none at all.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I could make slight changes in my fighting style to make it even better. Sure, things like Crippling Chill could make it so that the damage boost effectively never wore off, and it would eventually bring a fight into my own favor if given a couple minutes to spin its wheels, but there was another synergy I hadn’t really considered before: Noxious Grasp and Expedite.
With Noxious Grasp, if I touched my opponent and then instantly moved away, even if we were only in contact for a fraction of a second, it would deal some damage to them and activate the fester. That was great; in a close-ranged fight, I could punish my opponent for any contact they made with me. However, if I boosted my Dexterity with Expedite, suddenly I was able to move much more quickly. And suddenly, if I touched my opponent, let go, touched them again, let go, over and over again in quick succession, I could get several stacks on Cumulative Catastrophe in a single second.
With that strategy used alongside everything else, especially against an unsuspecting opponent, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was able to take down someone with way more raw power than me, just by dragging the fight out and eventually growing completely unbeatable. If a fight lasted a single minute…I mulled over all the math in my head. That was 60 seconds of Crippling Chill—60 triggers there—plus 60 more from Sanguine Bond, if I could keep it going, plus, say, 30 triggers from Noxious Grasp.
“Plus,” Index chimed in, “in total, over the course of a one minute fight, assuming you come in with full Mana, accounting for your Mana/Minute, assuming you assign your Stat Points to Conjuration like you normally do, you’ll have a total of 1397 Mana at your expense. Assuming you have Light Plate equipped, the Spells you just mentioned using would leave you with 581 Mana remaining. If you were to spend that on Rays of Frost, you’d get another 21 hits with that.”
Right. So that was, in total…a 2.71 multiplier on all of my effects? In a single minute’s worth of combat? And that was assuming I spent all my Mana on Ray of Frost. If I saved it and continued fighting for even longer, I could use it in a much more efficient manner with Crippling Chill and Sanguine Bond, drain their Dexterity and Stamina even more, which would in turn allow me to drag out combat even further. Effectively, this cemented the idea that, if an opponent couldn’t kill me by a certain point, they would just automatically lose. Eventually, the Dexterity drain from Crippling Chill alone would be able to paralyze them. Not to mention the combined Stamina drain from all of my Spells combined.
In the future, I could definitely see myself wanting to take some more utility-based Spells and Talents. Things like Future Sight could be used outside of combat, after all, and that was certainly helpful. But right now, I was still looking at the looming threat of the Demons waiting for me to just barely slip up. The moment they got to me, I’d have to fight off the full brunt of their forces once again.
That Xhag’duul Demon had said a lot to me before he died. Most of it was bullshit, but one statement had gotten my attention. After this, it wouldn’t be about Temporus anymore. It’d be about revenge. Now, I had no idea if he’d been telling the truth with that. Maybe the Demons cared a lot that I killed him, maybe they didn’t give a rat’s ass. But whether or not he’d been attempting to deceive me with that, he was telling the truth. He just didn’t know it.
Because this wasn’t about Temporus anymore. It wasn’t about Minute Mage, or reclaiming lost resources, or me staying safe. This was about revenge. It was about me getting revenge on these gods-damned monsters, invading my home, killing my people, taking over my home country. They’d done too much—hurt too many people—for me to just ride this out. It was really, truly about revenge now. And if my life ended before I was able to kill every single Demon left in all the planes of existence, that revenge would have failed. I had to be strong enough to kill them all.
And so I needed to gather that power with every day of my life. Like I’d said before, I was moving from defense to offense here. I had to make myself able to fight back and tear through the pits of the hells, starting now.
You have obtained the Talent Cumulative Catastrophe.
Time Loop has gained the Upgrade Recycled Loop.
You have used 6 Stat Points to increase Conjuration.
Your Conjuration value is now 118.
With my new powers assigned, I opened my eyes. Next up was this interrogation that the guards wanted to do with me, and I’d want to be in peak condition if anything went wrong with that. We had a plan, sure, but it wasn’t exactly perfect. And if these guys were high-enough Level to guard such a dangerous canyon, I knew I didn’t want to get mixed up with them.
Bon looked over at me. “You ready to answer some questions?”
“Yep,” I nodded. “I’m ready.”
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