On a night in Glamorgan, Dorothy sat in an armchair in her hotel room, rocking back and forth while sorting through the new abilities she had gained after her advancement, especially the new abilities from the Path of Bewilderment.
The Chalk Tier of the Path of Bewilderment is called the Dream Wanderer. After an Extraordinary on the Path of Bewilderment advances to this tier, not only are the original abilities of a Dream Interpreter strengthened, but they also gain some abilities related to the Dream World.
The first ability is that mental damage can be transferred into a dream, where the simulacrum of oneself in the dream bears this portion of the damage. The stronger the simulacrum in the Dream World, the more damage it can bear. Dorothy had previously relied on this ability and the Moon Crown Shard to withstand Gothsmore's two instances of Pain Transmission. Without this ability, given the intensity of Gothsmore's divine enchantment, she would have lost consciousness from the pain instantly.
Another ability is Dream World Travel. A Dream Wanderer can perform a small Soul Pact ritual with an ally target who is fully willing. After the ritual, the ally target will be marked by the Dream Wanderer, and the Dream Wanderer's simulacrum will be able to open a Dream World teleportation gate in the Dream World leading to the coordinates of any ally target's dream cocoon, teleporting their simulacrum there.
In addition, a Dream Wanderer can create dream body duplicates. They can materialize their dream body duplicates at the coordinates of the real world where they or any ally unit are located.
Dream body duplicates do not have a physical form, similar to a Ghost they can pass through matter, and they do not have the ability to possess, but they can cause mental damage by touching targets. At the Dream Wanderer stage, the duplicates only retain the ability to hypnotize, used for reconnaissance and auxiliary combat. When Spirituality is abundant, a Dream Wanderer can create multiple dream body duplicates, but the strength of the duplicates increases or decreases correspondingly based on the number; the more there are, the lower the strength of a single duplicate, with the highest strength when there is only one.
After the Crimson Tier, the Dream Wanderer's dream body duplicates begin to possess some other abilities. For Dorothy, the duplicates can also release some abilities from other sub-paths. Furthermore, these dream body duplicates can freely change their appearance, and although they are not invisible to ordinary people, they can easily hide in darkness and shadows.
Additionally, the Dream Wanderer enhances the extraordinary affinity of a Dream Interpreter. When a Dream Wanderer speaks in public, the affinity and persuasiveness of their words will cover a range of area, making it easy for most people to believe their words during a speech, especially the stories they tell.
After becoming a Bizarre Writer, an Extraordinary on the Path of Bewilderment can materialize legends and anecdotes circulating in society and make them serve them. The strength of the anecdote body is influenced by three factors: the breadth of the rumor, the conditions on site, and the Spirituality paid. The materialized anecdote body will possess different abilities based on the content of the anecdote.
It is also worth noting that the Spirituality consumption for materializing anecdotes is not just """enlightenment""" and """Shadow""", but consumes Spirituality based on the characteristics and abilities of the materialized anecdote body. """enlightenment""" and """Shadow""" are just the basic consumption.
For example, when Dorothy materialized the Full Moon Water Demon before, the types of Spirituality used were """enlightenment""", """Shadow""", and """Cup""". Among these, """enlightenment""" and """Shadow""" were the basic Spirituality consumption, while the role of """Cup""" was to shape a physical body for the Full Moon Water Demon that could be used for action.
However, because the Full Moon Water Demon in the rumors did not possess any powerful strength or body, the consumed """Cup""" was not much, only about one or two points. The ability of the Full Moon Water Demon is to create illusions, and the Spirituality mainly consumed for this ability is still """enlightenment""" and """Shadow"".
And if Dorothy were to create an anecdote body with immense strength, then more """Cup""" would be consumed. If this anecdote body were a Ghost and possessed some abilities only Ghosts have, then some extra """Silent""" Spirituality would be consumed. In short, if the anecdote body created by a Bizarre Writer possesses and releases abilities outside the scope of """enlightenment""" and """Shadow""", it also needs to pay the corresponding Spirituality for those abilities, and cannot use """enlightenment""" and """Shadow""" interchangeably for all abilities.
The Spirituality consumption for creating anecdote bodies is high and the consumption range is wide, but fortunately, anecdote summoning is not just about ability; it can be ritualized, just like the Spirit Summoning ritual of """Silent""" Extraordinary. If an extraordinary ability can be ritualized, it means that stored items can be used to pay Spirituality, not only reducing the burden of Spirituality but also allowing for various methods to strengthen the ritual, such as using higher-level ritual grounds and powerful ritual artifacts.
In four different levels of ritual grounds, performing ritualizable abilities using different levels of artifacts can reduce the Spirituality consumption of the ability while enhancing the intensity and range of the ability to varying degrees. However, the arrangement of rituals requires a lot of preliminary work, and during the process of performing the ritual, the ability user generally cannot move or even use other abilities.
The larger the scale of the ritual, the longer the preparation time, and the higher the requirements for the ritual grounds and ritual artifacts, while the stronger the enhancement effect on the ability. However, the larger the scale of the ritual, the more difficult it is to conceal, and it is easy to be detected by various other extraordinary means to find the center of the ritual.
'The abilities of the Path of Bewilderment... it's another characteristic that emphasizes planning and strategy. This ability of the Dream Interpreter, as long as enough information can be collected in the early stage, layout and planning are done well, and personality profiling is safely completed, then powerful suppression against the predetermined target can be obtained. Whether it's for usual Induction or head-on combat, it will have a great advantage, and it is difficult for Extraordinary of other sub-paths at the same tier and below to defend.
'But the shortcomings are also obvious, it's too tedious. To achieve the best effect requires a long time of preparation. Profiling Extraordinary of the same tier takes a long time, and profiling those of higher tiers takes an unacceptably long time. In the face of sudden situations... especially encounters, it may be difficult to cope. With planning, it will be very strong, without it, it will be very ordinary, lacking flexibility...'
'As for the Dream Wanderer... not only does it strengthen the original abilities of the Dream Interpreter, but with the dream body duplicates, it compensates to a certain extent for the weakness of the Dream Interpreter in direct confrontation. At the same time, Extraordinary of the Path of Bewilderment at this stage also possess the ability for ultra-long-distance planning through the Dream World. After reaching the Crimson Tier, these dream body duplicates have similarities to the Blood Corrosion duplicates of Bo Ade and the Bone duplicates of Deer Skull that I have seen before, both possessing the ability to expand their influence to distant places by utilizing allies.
'As for the abilities of the Bizarre Writer... if used properly, the influence that can be created is quite high. The potential for skill development can be said to be the highest among the Crimson Tier abilities of the 'Qi' path... no, among all the extraordinary paths I have seen so far, possessing quite high creativity and possibility.
'However, the shortcomings are the same as the Dream Interpreter, which is that it is extremely dependent on early stage planning and information collection. In addition, Spirituality consumption is also a defect that cannot be ignored, consuming Spirituality across all fields depending on the different anecdotes materialized, which is very different from other abilities that only consume the Spirituality of their own sub-path. Fortunately, this ability can be used ritualistically. After ritualization, stored items and divine artifacts can be used to reduce consumption and enhance power. The divine artifacts I have accumulated will not be useless all at once...'
Lying in the armchair, Dorothy thought as she rocked, and then she shifted her attention to the final Path of Roaring.
After Dorothy gained the ability of the Heaven's Word Emissary, her original ability to control thunder was greatly enhanced. However, due to the simple and crude nature of the Elementalist itself, these enhancements were directly reflected in the output, without much unnecessary complexity.
The increase in output was directly reflected in strengthened output and expanded skill range. The current Dorothy can emit more powerful electric arc strikes from herself, and the electric arcs can continuously jump between multiple close targets, forming lightning chains to create group damage. Besides electric arcs, there are some new variations. The radius of controllable lightning strikes has increased from the original seven kilometers to a radius of twenty kilometers. Within this twenty-kilometer range, Dorothy can perform precise lightning strikes on successfully targeted enemies at any location.
And the greatly enhanced version of the lightning strike, Heavenly Punishment Judgment Lightning, possesses the ability to unleash destructive lightning after a long charge, possessing lethality no less than the Skyfire Meteor of the Skyfire Apostle. However, the shortcomings of the lightning strike are the same as before, requiring high demands on the weather. However, the Heaven's Word Emissary now possesses the ability to change the weather.
Weather Ritual, this is a type of ritual that comes with the advancement information of the Heaven's Word Emissary. This is not an ability of the Heaven's Word Emissary, but a kind of knowledge that Extraordinary automatically acquire with their advancement. Every Extraordinary, after successful advancement, can immediately know the general information of the new abilities they have acquired through the ritual itself. This is why Extraordinary can roughly know the specific usage of their new abilities without experimenting after successful advancement. And in the advancement information of the Heaven's Word Emissary, there is a complete ritual directly included.
The function of the Weather Ritual is very simple, which is to change the weather in an area, such as sunny days being """Lamp""", rainy days being """Cup""", windy days being """Shadow""", etc. Since it is a ritual, stored items can also be used, and it also requires ritual grounds and artifacts. The better the effect of both, the better the effect of the ritual, the higher the cost-effectiveness of Spirituality consumption, and the greater the effect produced by one point of Spirituality. Because lightning strikes require thick clouds and wind and rain, Dorothy needs to consume """Cup""" and """Shadow""" Spirituality to create wind and rain.
Finally, the new ability possessed by the Heaven's Word Emissary is, of course, the elementalization that all Scarlet Elementalist possess. Due to the shortage of Spirituality, Dorothy has not yet tried her Thunder elementalization. However, from the advancement information, this is an ability that transforms Dorothy herself into a conscious plasma body. What exactly is it like? What are the characteristic differences between it and the elementalization of other Elementalist? All are unclear and require Dorothy to slowly develop it herself in the future.
'As expected, the abilities of the Elementalist are simple and direct, with no complex components. Just do it and it's done. This characteristic of the Elementalist sub-path hasn't changed even within the most behind-the-scenes 'Qi' family. Rather, it feels like the Thunder Technique User is the most dynamic among all Elementalist, completely out of step with the overall rhythm of 'Qi'. Both Spirit Thread and Bewilderment play dirty tricks, and the remaining Prescience is probably a similar style. Only Roaring is different. Is it true that the characteristic is already written on the sub-path name?
'What's more interesting is this Weather Ritual. This is the first time I've seen a general ritual directly included in the advancement information. With this ritual, I can actively change the weather to create conditions for lightning strikes, which is indeed more flexible than the lightning strikes in the Chalk stage. Also, since this is a general ritual, it is very likely that all Elementalist will learn about this ritual when they advance to Scarlet. However, other Elementalist are not as dependent on the weather as Thunder Technique User, so it may not be very useful for them. But if I use this ritual, other Extraordinary might easily detect what it is, so I need to use it cautiously.'
'Also, the information about the Heaven's Word Emissary ability that I obtained was automatically acquired after successful advancement. This does not include the new influence of Mikoto Misaka's superpower mathematical model on the Heaven's Word Emissary ability. This part of the new influence and the application of the so-called elemental body require me to spend time experimenting with them myself later.'
Dorothy thought this in her mind, and then she slowly stopped rocking the armchair and began to contemplate the final part of the abilities she had gained.
This time advancing to Scarlet, Dorothy not only gained new abilities from the Path of Bewilderment, but she unexpectedly found that the pure 'Qi' path itself, the True Mentor class itself, also brought a small ability. The name of this ability is Spirituality Mastery.
A True Mentor has a new understanding of the essence of Spirituality and a deeper understanding of the nature of secrets and Spirituality than other Extraordinary of the same tier. Therefore, they can optimize the structure of the extraordinary abilities they master, improve cost-effectiveness, and reduce systematic waste of Spirituality during the release process, thereby driving greater extraordinary effects with less Spirituality.
In short, when Dorothy uses all extraordinary abilities now, the consumed Spirituality will decrease significantly, and the lower the tier of the extraordinary ability, the more the Spirituality consumption decreases.
The extent of this consumption reduction is quite considerable. Although the Spirituality consumption of Dorothy's Crimson Tier abilities decreases only slightly, it becomes considerable at the Chalk Tier. The Spirituality consumption of all of Dorothy's Chalk abilities is reduced by almost half, and below Chalk, it decreases even more, from two-thirds to almost negligible.
In addition, this decrease in Spirituality consumption is also calculated based on the output. Only when the output is limited within the corresponding tier can this consumption reduction be enjoyed. If a low-tier ability is forcibly infused with Spirituality by Dorothy to raise it above the upper limit of its original tier, the consumption will also increase sharply.
For example, when Dorothy uses the Chalk Tier electric arc ability, Dorothy can strengthen the power of the electric arc by infusing more Spirituality. However, once this power limit exceeds the limit of the Chalk Tier and breaks through a certain threshold, the amount of Spirituality consumed will skyrocket, because the output of this move has reached the scope of the Crimson Tier, becoming a Crimson Tier move.
'Spirituality Mastery... I didn't expect that pure color sub-paths could also have their own abilities... This ability is good, it reduces the mana cost of all skills, and the smaller the skill, the more it reduces. Although it doesn't have much impact on the big skills that truly consume a lot of mana, it can make some of my miscellaneous small skills consume very little mana. Although these skills are small, I use them frequently, and for pure color professions without auxiliary Spirituality, other Spirituality besides the main Spirituality is used one point less. Using those small skills too much consumes a lot of Spirituality.'
Looking at the first self-owned skill belonging to pure 'Qi' Spirituality, Dorothy couldn't help but feel a little happy for a moment. Now she frequently uses small skills such as Living Puppet control and Electrification, and the accumulated Spirituality consumption from beginning to end is considerable, which puts considerable pressure on her Spirituality accumulation for advancement. These Black Earth level small abilities can have their Spirituality consumption reduced to almost negligible levels under the effect of Spirituality Mastery, and the original Chalk abilities can also be greatly reduced, which will greatly reduce the pressure on Dorothy to accumulate Spirituality for advancement to Golden in the future, and she will be able to cope with battles more calmly.
At the same time, the ability of Spirituality Mastery also made Dorothy look forward to whether the pure logic path could have other stronger self-abilities after she reached Golden.