Perhaps both are possible, an Enchanted Collar of Evolution (effects random?) to be worn by Pets, and an Ring of Evolved Summons that can be worn by Summoners. Also maybe it could be incorporated into an Enchanted Summoning Circle?
I can see the blood stone having some knowledge, and even being quite knowledgeable about the workings of blood magic, and any particular campaign it was involved in, I doubt it is considered a large repository of knowledge in the Land, let alone the largest. I don't even think Futen qualifies for that. Futen might count as sizeable, but he's still recovering so we'll have to see. Old? Absolutely. Old in terms of the Land? Nope. Futen's from the last age, not the last cataclysm, and there are 7 of those that have rocked the Land, that we have been made aware of. He's also been stuck in the back end of nowhere, tied to the Mist PoP
Definitely entering his third age at the least. Though i am thinking not much more than that, due to Hysakos description of the lands history. the main thing i am hoping for from book 9 is an item that is similarly versatile to the magic core. With very different purpose. I took a long time before the core building possibilities discussion died down. one of the things that got me hooked on this series was the way it fired up the imagination in the earlier books. This something book 8 utterly failed to do. Not really a surprise, had to happen at some point and will again. With luck it won’t be often.
Futen and the bloodstone would certainly have some gaps in knowledge of specific times I am sure. As Futen probably isn’t active unless the Mist Village has a ruler. It would be similar for the bloodstone. The bloodstone would not likely be aware of things unless it was being used. Then it would only know what it has absorbed from those bloodmages. My reference was to the amount of accrued knowledge the bloodstone would have absorbed from the blood mages it consumed. I personally believe the bloodstone has learned all of the Magic’s that it’s users had.
Like he's dependent on grease and fire? Like he's dependent on brain drain? You use the best tools you have or you die. And now Akton is a different version with more evolutions possible so not entirely boring.
Its akin to being "dependant" on your car to get to work in my opinion. Your car is an asset you have acquired, so obviously you are gonna use it all the time to get around. Nothing wrong with it, and sure you could still walk to work but if gotta car why?
Well yes and no. His evolved creatures might be more powerful in some cases, (ok every case in the saproling's case) but if he always defaults to using akaton he might overlook a time where the Chokespore arachnid might be the better use case. In the past this was fine since once he got the chaos spell he almost exclusively was fighting undead, but even with the tuskers in the dungeon the choke spore could have cut out the vast majority of the tuskers and made it a wipe with some 409, his use of akaton limited the spider from being AOE death machine, to a deadly 1v3ish summon.
I agree in that situation, but I also think that at that time he still didn't know all of the evolutions so he was rollin the dice for something epic. After book 8 he now knows most of them and if the original is a better suit for the situation I think he would stick with it.
Yes you do use the best tools you have. However you also never stop looking for better tools, or more appropriate tools. I don’t care if it is boring or not, i just feel like aleron has got stuck on the evolution spell and might be a bit overly impressed with the idea. Causing him to not want to move past it. Brain drain is a massively op ability so his dependency on it isn’t due to a lack of creativity on richters part. However brain drain has also in someways fucked richter over. Without it he would have leveled slower, and not drastically out paced his skill progression. Without it he might have gained a combat profession while leveling was still a reasonable Expectation. grease and fire are not anywhere near as effective a tool as it use to be as well.
Till he does Learn another Chaos Spell he can't really move past Akaton Evolution if he still wants to Level Chaos Magic, besides which with most of his present Summons using Akaton on them would usually make them much more effective.
I agree with you that it is his only go to chaos spell. On top of that it has always been the game savior. I would like to see Akaton to play out differently on occasions. Being a chaos spell of evolution it sure has played out too well for him in my opinion. I would appreciate some short comings in his chaos magic. At times things seem more Celestial then Chaotic for me. An evolution that backfires placing Ricther at jeopardy would be great. Leaving him to out whit his adversaries or reason through his situations would be intriguing.
True, at the time, he had no idea what it could do. But I don't think he's summoned it since then and not evolved it. While that's not a bad thing in the cases he's been in, it does set a bit of habit, and Richter is definitely a creature of habits.
Now these are points I'm down with. I agree that brain drain has made his levels outpace his skills and 2nd prof should be reasonable at his level. With that said he would not be tier 2 right now otherwise and it could be easily argued that he would likely die where he is without those abilities. I think grease and fire are still effective...obviously when you go up against tougher foes with higher resistances this happens. Matter of fact this reinforces your point of the brain drain issue. His magic skill levels are behind his level as well. His fire spells are either weak or minor. They should be the level above minor. To Andrews point and it fits with this it is his ONLY chaos spell and no other way to level his chaos magic. Btw am I the only one astounded he does not have another chaos spell yet. Heck he was always a chaos seed and now a chaos lord. Pretty surprising the sea of chaos has not offered at least one other spell. Maybe he just needs to look at the lower levels as the high levels are now offering epic items. Even if a spell was there his chaos magic is probably not high enough to cast it.
Goes both ways there. He wouldn't be where he is either. Without the brain drain memory he wouldn't have alerted the Litch to his presence and likely would not have come across this whole quest line until much later. At which point the Litch may have blown through much of the power from the exile on his own making the assault deadly but still approachable given the extra growth that may have been possible
So on another note, the new core will give richter another skill boost. So should he use it for enchanting again? (Going to be small) or perhaps use it on crafting?(might hit journeyman and get a second profession.)
Good question, all things being equal, and using rough estimates since we don't know how skill experience works exactly: First core gave 29 Second gave 17 He's likely only to gain 7-9ish levels in Enchanting (putting him at ~58-60). Crafting could net him ~18-20 which might push him to journeyman rank since it's at 25. It should also level unconventional materials a little due to the drastic change in the over skill. Kind of a toss up really. His progression in enchanting is really slow now, so the extra 8 or so levels might be a big draw for him regardless of what he should do
I am thinking he would go for crafting do to the difficulty he is having with his current situation. However the situation may change Before he gets back to the village.
