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Chapter 1387 - Brilliant Deductions
🕑 Added 2024-06-12 03:11:25 +0000 UTC“Oh, I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all,” Brilliant muttered.
“What have you gotten us into this time?” Experimant groaned looking over her leader’s carapace.
“Th-th-that… looks nasty,” Assistant agreed.
Brilliant clacked her mandibles in irritation.
“I’m not investigating this because I want to,” she told them. “The Eldest asked me to work out what the Church of the Path were doing in their fancy, secret rituals, and that’s what I’m doing!”
“The Eldest did?” Experimant said. “Then why haven’t you finished yet?”
“Because it’s difficult. Do you think just anyone can put together the pieces of an extremely complex ritual with only a few faded scraps to work with?”
The little ant looked at her two trusted aides sideways.
“There’s only one type of ant who can….”
“Which type?” Assistant asked before Experimant could stop her.
“One that’s BRILLIANT!” the little annoyance cackled, throwing back her head and flailing her front legs around.
“O-Oh… I sh-should have known….”
“Yes,” Experimant growled, “you should have.”
She looked around the lab they were currently standing in. At the moment, it was filled with little else but Brilliant’s scratchings. Half-formed engravings, bits of slate with designs scrawled over them, several enchanting arrays, the purpose of which wasn’t at all clear.
“Is there a reason you’ve pulled us from the projects we’re managing?” Experimant finally sighed. “My team was on the verge of making a breakthrough.”
“Without me? I doubt it!” Brilliant cackled once more, causing Experimant to grind her mandibles. “I called you here because I need your help, and because I don’t want any other members of the team to work on this.”
She gestured to the enchanting array she was working on with one antennae.
“As you can see, this is ugly stuff, potentially dangerous. I don’t want any of our other work tainted by this… thing.”
It was a first for the two followers to ever see their leader encounter knowledge that she seemed to find distasteful. Their own burgeoning sense of unease grew stronger.
“Only the three of us are going to work on it,” she told them. “I want both of you here, full-time, to assist for the next week. Make sure your teams know what to do in your absence. Though they should barely notice.”
The two ignored the jibe as they continued to stare at the array. It was… uncomfortable to look at it, for reasons they couldn’t quite understand.
“What does this even do?” Experimant wondered.
“Oh, I can tell you that,” Brilliant said offhandedly.
“If you already know what it does, then what do you need us for?” Experimant demanded.
“Because I need to know how it works!” Brilliant snapped back, uncharacteristically harsh. “It isn’t enough to be able to say what it does, that doesn’t give us a full understanding. I have to know HOW! It tells us so much information that we can’t afford to leave on the ground and not pick up! This thing is the work of our enemies, would you have us ignorant of their methods?!”
“N-no. No, I wouldn’t,” Experiment stammered.
“W-w-what d-does it d-do?” Assistant asked hesitantly.
“It’s a monster distillery. Put a monster in one end, get distilled essence out the other.”
That didn’t make much sense to either of the other two ants. They glanced at each other to confirm their mutual confusion, then turned back to Brilliant.
“Can you… elaborate?” Experimant asked.
“If I must,” Brilliant sighed. “When a monster is killed, what happens?”
“They… die?”
“Obviously they die! But there’s more, isn’t there?”
“E-e-experience is granted to the person who l-l-landed the finishing b-b-blow.”
“Precisely!” Brilliant declared. “In other words, something is taken from the monster and given to the slayer. Correct?”
“Do we know that?” Experimant interjected. “Could the experience not come from the system itself? Is experience even a tangible thing and not just a number tracked by the system?”
“It’s both,” Brilliant declared impatiently. “It is a number tracked by the system, but every individual on this planet touched by the system contains all the XP they’ve gained in their life.”
She turned around and prodded both her team members in the head.
“The important point is this. When a monster dies, does its slayer gain all of its experience?”
That was a simple question.
“No.”
“So where does the rest go?”
The question hung in the air, but neither Experimant nor Assistant could really grip it properly.
“Before we can even attempt to answer that, we need a better understanding of what XP really is,” Experimant said, somewhat exasperated.
From being in charge of her own research team to working directly under Brilliant again. She went from teacher to student so quickly her antennae were spinning.
“Gah! Fine! Look, the system is not something that is only with us when we access it, right? It’s with us all the time, intertwined with us at a fundamental level.”
“D-d-d-do we actually kn-kn-know that?” Assistant wondered.
“Of course we know that. I proved it over… there somewhere,” Brilliant gestured vaguely toward a stack of materials, arrays, slates and paper.
“When?”
“Three days ago. Doesn’t matter. Focus. So experience, or XP is part of the system, and therefore bound up within us also. It’s like information written on a slate, and then the slate is weaved into our bodies, our minds and our souls and becomes part of us.”
“D-d-d-do we kn-kn-know that?!” Assistant gasped, a little wild-eyed.
“Yes,” Brilliant replied, fed up. “I proved it two days ago! Over there somewhere.”
Once again, she gestured to another, entirely separate pile of materials.
“Now, most of the XP we accumulate, which is threaded throughout our being, remember, goes back to the Dungeon when we die, in much the same way Biomass is absorbed if left alone. The process simply happens much quicker. Instantly, pretty much.”
“When did you prove that?” Experimant asked.
She wasn’t even surprised anymore, just tired.
“Yesterday!” Brilliant declared. “Finally, we come to the important bit. What this array seeks to do is extract all of that XP, or at least, a lot more of that XP, from a monster. By placing a monster within the matrix, they refine it, sift out those information slates, convert them to some other form, and then consume it.”
She stated it all so matter of factly, yet the sheer… horrific nature of what was described did not pass by either of her two followers.
“So you’re saying they… melt down a monster and extract XP from it?” It was so comically evil, Experimant almost didn’t want to believe it. “How would that even work?”
“Slowly,” Brilliant said, suddenly looking, of all things, sad. She looked at her two closest followers, all her usual enthusiasm burned away. “Slowly… and painfully.”
Comments
Andrick
This chapter really made me feel something. Very well written
Simone
I wonder if Solant will be willing to put this new XP extraction array to use against the enemies of the Colony, lol. Something tells me these new Champions might stir up some fun trouble in the future!
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter!
Hayden Leech
It occurs to me that the krath must have some method to keep non fifth stratum creatures alive in their stratum. To torture them… but if the ants could get a hold of the method they use they could use it themselves to inoculate the Colony. Or at least let them freely travel.
Rahsheem Reid
Yeah we gotta get them up out of here. This feels racist. The church of the path is some nasty work.
jean
requirement for the ritual is you being alive and slowly distilled into a drink when you die as a monster in the dungeon it is quick and some experience is granted here they milk everything that makes you what you are in a extremely painful process so they can get a little more exp and work less to get stronger and im just thinking that they are weaker skill wise since the ones using such method isn't forged through battle but are just using this method to level up and not getting more skilled aka it is like in a xanxia novel where you rely on your high cultivation to overpower weaker cultivators but not keeping your martial art or other skills up to that level aka you become extremely weak with other close or on your level making you a paper tiger relying on raw stats and nothing else is a recipe for staying weak or getting killed by weaker people with skills up to par :P
Desmond Cheong
When monster die, exp is granted. Does the remaining exp come from monster cores and monster parts and biomass then?( Since the core contain energy) If that theory works then monster parts and cores should work with the ritual as well. The colony would obtain a way to convert unneeded resources into exp
jean
or you know purify with the wuffers :P they need the snacks since they are good happy boys and girls :D
Vibious
Thanks for the chapter!
jean
not the city the church they forced the child emperor to defend reason why he was so pissed at them and i wouldn't be surprised of the church gets shoved right in front of their enemy and out the city i mean what they do to mindless monsters extreme but can be tolerable even if still horrific and then think of all the sentient they have used this on well if the colony clean the 5 how many wanna stand in the way when they come for the church remember they can't use all their resources to defend against the colony with all the other empires watching and ready to pounce for a piece of the pie easier to just sacrifice the church i say :P and as stated the horror that is ant monster getting into gear is a snowball effect the longer they are around and active the more they make and the multiply fast and now throw in that they are just as smart as your own people and still have all the ant horror benefits they can continue to throw number en masse at their enemies and keep it rolling like a constant stream the humans and other races can't keep up and the only thing the colony kinda lacked before was high level fighters but they have vibrant and anthony and his 3 companions at tier 7 how many when they are done with the 5 or in say a couple of months so while the colony may lack high tier fighters before and making up with a high quantity of 4 and 5 tier soldiers now they have a lot of tier 5 and 6 soldiers and slowly the are also funneling resources into making the counsel and the queen tier 7 as soon as possible aka they bhave many high tier fighter and are getting more soon i mean the silver city has 1 tier 8 rammon or he was tier 9 but he was weakened so strength around tier 8 how many strong humans and such races have as many tier 4-5-6 as the colony has and soon have more tier 7 then the rest of the sentient races the moment anthony hits tier 8 well the colony will be a very scary thing to piss of more than now and when they only had anthony at tier 7 they were already scary how many will they have in 6 months remember all tier 7 ants have always fully upgraded from the lowest to the highest strength to get more out of each evolution and all the ant's that reach that tier will always be mythic scary right when the colony might have around lets say 20+ tier 7 mythic monsters and 1 anthony at tier 8 with either a mythic core or higher ohh sweet mama queen that is scary XD
jean
she knows the lost ant's fate now and if this is shared with the colony and the world ohh anthony of gearing of for his own crusade the moments he hits tier 8 and enough ants hit tier 7 and then the war begin against the church ohh the holy crusade of the colony that is intended and not an accident by the followers will be epic no legen say it with me now dary XD
Pacnether
How to deal with disgusting, hard-to-kill slugs that want nothing other than to consume ants and convert them into part of the filth army? Distill them
Wolve
As he should. Such inhumane beings need to be destroyed.
Wolve
TFTC
Yanni
That would be seen as wasting resources by the colony.
DrDankness
How much yall wanna bet that Anthony is about to go apocalyptic once he finds out what happened to that one ant?
C Gillan
Brilliant should test if it works on humans usong one of the path high priests. With the Dark one's permission of course. For science and not at all for other reasons.
Bethany Bluebird
God Brilliant just casually unraveling the secrets of the universe to her chums will never get old... I cannot wait to watch that city burn.
Spirit Stones
The sacking of the silver city can’t come soon enough
ZaneofBane
So.. hypothetically... If the priests of the path were distilled and then their essence was... I don't know... Dumped into a sewer... How much of an insult would that be seen as?
Koala Man
The more the ants become aware of what their sibling went through the more they are going to make it so it never happens again .
saltyApple
i love Brilliant chapters. theyre brilliant.
Yanni
If ‘the path’ was screwed before, now they are royally fucked.
Codered999
She's likely thinking about her poor sibling this ritual was used on at the end of the chapter.
fair3238
I just love Brilliant! TFTC
taukid
Man, Newton had nothing on Brilliant.
