Lumped together it was a pretty dense mass of text question marks and numbers
Friend to Humanity 0/100 Mantle of the Patron 0/500 Aether Convergence II the Bell of Doom Tolls 0/600 The Ashes of Ulaat Patron of Ash 0/1000 Order Ducis Font of Guidance HumanityÆs Torch 0/500 Bearing of a Teacher Puppet Master 0/100 Pain Immunity I 0/250 Cleaver of the World Tree Weakness of the World Tree 0/500 Guilty Conscience I 0/100 Peerage of the Baleful Court I 0/600 Hands of the Artisan 0/ Ashes of Illym the Above Average Child 0/5000 The Flame that Burns Memories 0/ Exodus the Terror 0/1000 Genesis the Considered 0/1000 Image Cooperation I 0/100 Body Refinement I 0/ ChimeraÆs Struggle II 0/ Spear Mastery III 0/200 Mysteries of the Fiery Emerald Waltz 0/ Violent Heat I 0/ Sovereign of Violence I 0/1000 Body Beyond the System 0/ Deathwish III 0/3 The Pursuit of Alchemy 0/750 MonstrosityÆs Growth 0/1000 Weakness of the Grim Chimera 0/500 Weakness of the Stillborn Phoenix 0/500 Greater Visualization 0/ The Shadow Beyond the Threshold 0/
The first and most obvious thing that Randidly noticed was the change in Deathwish it had become Deathwish III Chuckling darkly he set that Path to the side just one more question he would save for when he headed into the Nexus
The list was pretty impressive but Randidly quickly began to remove a dozen Paths from contention as soon as he laid eyes on their familiar names Although he thought finishing everything would be the most satisfying life wasnÆt designed for that sort of method There were a lot of attractive options but if Randidly didnÆt focus even he wouldnÆt be able to accomplish his main goals
The much abridged list ended up being a combination of tempting previous options and some new arrivals that grabbed RandidlyÆs attention
Aether Convergence II the Bell of Doom Tolls 0/600 The Ashes of Ulaat Patron of Ash 0/1000 Cleaver of the World Tree Weakness of the World Tree 0/500 Ashes of Illym the Above Average Child 0/5000 The Flame that Burns Memories 0/ Exodus the Terror 0/1000 Genesis the Considered 0/1000 Image Cooperation I 0/100 Body Refinement I 0/ ChimeraÆs Struggle II 0/ Spear Mastery III 0/200 Sovereign of Violence I 0/1000 Body Beyond the System 0/ The MonstrosityÆs Growth 0/1000 Weakness of the Grim Chimera 0/500 Weakness of the Stillborn Phoenix 0/500 Greater Visualization 0/ The Shadow Beyond the Threshold 0/
The problem was how many of the Paths appealed to Randidly In the end he had only cut the list of Paths down by half Perhaps it was a sort of curiosity that kept them in the contention through the first round of cuts but he still had too many options to consider any of them seriously So he began to rule out other Paths
The easiest to remove were the Paths relating to a specific image and the two Ashes Paths Or at least Randidly initially wanted to sheer down the options like this And Randidly was only too happy to set aside the Weakness Paths for the moment including the two newly appeared ones for the Grim Chimera and the Stillborn Phoenix
But what was somewhat frustrating were the Paths that seemed related to one image but only generally Both MonstrosityÆs Growth and The Shadow Beyond the Threshold seemed powerful but possessed clear links to specific images Perhaps because of the recency of their arrival Randidly assumed that they were relatively more powerful than his more long held Paths Although he didn’t want to imbalance his triple image further the power they hinted at was tempting
For now Randidly left them as options And he cut the Paths he could choose down to a more reasonable number
Image Cooperation I 0/100 Body Refinement I 0/ Spear Mastery III 0/200 Sovereign of Violence I 0/1000 Body Beyond the System 0/ The MonstrosityÆs Growth 0/1000 Greater Visualization 0/ The Shadow Beyond the Threshold 0/
If Randidly wanted to actually try and complete multiple Paths the obvious choice would be for one of those Paths to be Spear Mastery III At 200 PP it was easily within his ability to immediately complete And afterward he would have more than enough to push most of the way through the higher cost Paths His remnant 900 PP would have a lot of purchasing power
Yet that road didnÆt much appeal to Randidly Mostly because his current spear style was a bit rough To put it very directly he couldnÆt even manage to demonstrate all the training he had done with a spear with his new powerful body As he was barely able to manage manifesting his three images at once he hadnÆt gotten much time to grow used to fighting with his new form Even just walking around while all three images merged physically was a struggle Until he could manage himself and felt more confident in his fighting Randidly didnÆt want to take the next Spear Mastery Path
For a similar reason Randidly was deeply conflicted about the Image Cooperation Path Although it seemed useful he ultimately decided to put it on hold First because he wanted to take an extended crack at the issue of utilizing the images together by himself And also because he didnÆt believe that the SystemÆs Path was designed to help him utilize images in this manner anyway Better to spend his PP elsewhere
Of course as soon as Randidly thought that the System wouldnÆt help him he had a Path called Body Beyond the System He was aware that Paths would allow the user to deviate from System guidelines but in RandidlyÆs experience those deviations came with costs So even though that Path interested him greatly he wouldnÆt casually complete it
Which finally left Randidly with five choices
Body Refinement I 0/ Sovereign of Violence I 0/1000 The MonstrosityÆs Growth 0/1000 Greater Visualization 0/ The Shadow Beyond the Threshold 0/
Body Refinement would likely increase his physical abilities even further Sovereign of Violence implied it would give him more fighting tools MonstrosityÆs Growth drew RandidlyÆs eyes because of the term Monstrosity likely it was a Path specifically to draw out the potential of Skill MonstrosityÆs Appalling Physicality As the Skill currently sat at an Ancient Rarity there was plenty of room for growth
Visualization was one of RandidlyÆs core Skills allowing him to utilize images more efficiently So taking that Path to increase his imageÆs power further was very appealing The Shadow Beyond the Threshold seemed related to Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold which was a Skill that Randidly was continually surprised by Empowering it was sure to result in Randidly receiving a large benefit
And in fact as Randidly considered his five options he activated Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold The purple black energy filled with twinkling orange and emerald stars covered his body He gazed deeply at his options for a long time peering into casualty to see if he could intuit the results of taking each Path
Of course all his information was speculative So very quickly the future broadened into meaningless ambiguities So just as quickly as he summoned the energy he dismissed it with a small smile on his face The revelation was only a tool Instead Randidly pressed his eyes closed All this is fine but what do I want
In the center of his being three images spun slowly Growth survival obsession Each began to resonate slightly as RandidlyÆs mind followed his desires
What will bring me closer to what I want
Just as Randidly was about to choose a Path a message came from Octavius He asked RandidlyÆs forgiveness for the delay on his reply but explained that he and Vualla were still dealing with some small issues that had cropped up since her return Apparently her citizenship status was somewhat sensitive But to answer RandidlyÆs immediate question Octavius gave him a mostly positive answer Dungeons probably were likely harmless
Be careful with your Nether while you are within the Dungeon it might affect the surrounding space in special ways But there are no secret tests or tribulations from spending too much time in the Dungeon Just Aether Sickness Octavius wrote Your situation is pretty unique Most people in the Nexus have more time than they know what to do with They donÆt need to stretch their time out even further in order to increase their power