Douglas Miller
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MiP B2 Chapter 12: Dungeon Thoughts
🕑 Added 2024-06-27 02:33:53 +0000 UTC<< First | < Previous | Next >
Purple floated in the quiet darkness of the city's top security vault, thinking. I agreed to brainstorm ideas for soul structures, but I really just don't understand how to do that. Carlos wants me to be creative? The most creative thing I've ever done was just doing something that was obvious the moment that enchanter guy said something about it! How am I supposed to think about creative ideas when I don't even know how to come up with them in the first place?
He aimlessly moved aether around while he stewed in his thoughts. After a long while, he realized he'd accidentally formed a vortex that might damage something. He carefully slowed the raging current gradually until it was back to a more normal speed. I'm getting agitated, and that may cause problems. When Carlos or Amber feel like this, they take a deep breath, but I don't breathe. There's a mental component that goes with the deep breath, though, isn't there? Hmm… Purple focused his attention on smoothing out and calming the flows of aether around him as much as possible, concentrating on only that for several seconds. That helped. With my agitation, at least.
Purple considered the now-placid aether that permeated the vault. Huh. That's new. I've never done that before, at least not for that purpose. How did I come up with that idea? He mentally retraced his thoughts. Ah, right, I was imitating something I observed from my friends. Observing Carlos and Amber as they brainstorm might help me learn how to imitate the process. He hesitated. Carlos specifically said we should brainstorm separately, though. I shouldn't just ignore that. Could I observe closely enough to learn, but distantly enough to not know the details of their ideas?
He cautiously turned his attention to Carlos, pulling back from any sensations of sight, sound, or articulated thoughts, limiting himself to vaguer impressions of Carlos's mental state. His first friend was excited about something and seemed to be pouring out a nigh-endless series of small details that were loosely connected by being grouped in a large bundle of a concept. Then Carlos's focus leaped to a distantly connected other large concept, and a few more besides, and he seemed to struggle with choosing which one to tackle first. Ultimately, he ended up jumping between them several times, sporadically revisiting earlier topics and occasionally adding a whole new bundle to the semi-random rotation. Carlos seems to just know things and spontaneously manifests ideas. He has a gigantic web of knowledge, any random thought can connect to something in it, and he follows connections in that web to find everything that seems relevant. I cannot usefully imitate that method without learning a similarly large web of knowledge first. Perhaps observing Amber might help more?
Purple kept his focus similarly distant as he switched to observing Amber. She was considering the precise details of solving a problem, but that problem itself was a solution to a larger and less detailed problem. In fact, there was a whole hierarchy of larger and larger problems above it, each with a set of branches extending from it into finer details. As he maintained his distant watch, she finished with one detail, went up to the next higher tier of problems, and took the next branch down to another set of details again.
Intrigued, Purple kept watching as Amber broke down problems into solutions whose lack of detail was a smaller problem. I might be able to use this method. But how does she come up with the right problem at the root of the tree? Another half-hour passed, and Amber completed an entire branch up to just below the root of the problem tree. There was still another branch left, which Amber would systematically analyze all the way down to the most detailed level, but Purple was willing to wait through that to see how she'd choose another root problem to break down. Then suddenly the whole tree dropped out of Amber's focus, and Purple's thoughts stuttered in confusion as he watched her attention refocus on… himself?
[Purple? Are you… watching me? Kind of?] Amber's mental voice carried a complex mix of feelings, but discomfort and anger were the most prominent.
Purple mentally recoiled, and he replied with sheepish embarrassment. [Um. Yes? I was trying to learn about how to brainstorm well by observing how you do it. Was that wrong?]
[That's… Okay, that's actually a good idea, but you should have asked for my permission first. You're my friend, and I trust you, but spying on someone in private is creepy, and spying on my thoughts feels just…] Amber shuddered. [Though…] She paused briefly, suddenly confused and uncertain. [We're already planning on having you literally be our home, and I just realized what that could mean for our privacy. Are you even able to not see everything in a room inside your dungeon?]
[I don't know. I suppose I could exclude a room from my domain outright. That would reduce my ability to protect that room, however. What exactly is the issue? I am not familiar with the concept of "creepy."]
Amber sighed. [Of course you aren't. You're a dungeon core; how would creepiness ever even be relevant to a normal dungeon core? Okay, um… I don't actually know how to explain the reasons for it in a way that you might understand. How about you just take it as an arbitrary rule to follow: Observing a person without their knowledge and consent, when they are not in a public area, is rude, creepy, and offensive. For anyone you're friendly with, you should ask them for permission first and abide by their answer.]
[Okay. I can do that. May I watch you brainstorming some more?]
[Instead of that, let's just talk about it. You've been watching for a while already, right? Is there any specific part you need to know more about?]
[Yes. How do you choose the root concept to break down and analyze?]
Amber paused to consider the question. [You've already watched me breaking something down. Do you understand that part?]
[Well enough to at least begin attempting it, yes.]
Amber nodded. [It's kind of like that, just starting from a few basic concepts that are always the same. Let's see, there's what problems you have and how to solve them, for one. What goals you want and how to achieve them is another. And then, sometimes, the starting point is something you have, whether a resource, a tool, an idea, or whatever else, and the issue is what you can use it for.]
[I see.] Purple mulled this information over for several seconds. [And for each of those, break the issue into smaller and smaller parts until the pieces are small enough to solve. But what if I do not know what smaller parts to break it into? I want to brainstorm ideas for soul structures, but…] He sent an impression of helpless confusion.
Amber laughed. [You seem to have gotten started on that fairly well already. You identified a problem - your lack of knowledge about how to brainstorm - and found a partial solution in watching me do it.]
[I… did? But I started with a goal, not a problem!] Purple paused. [Oh. Those three base concepts are almost the same, and can be mixed.]
[Yes. And sometimes mixing different issues together can help, and sometimes you have to improve your understanding to figure out what components even exist to break something down into.] Amber yawned. [Is that enough to get you started? I'm really tired, and the only reason I'm still awake is that I couldn't stop thinking about something.]
[I think so. Thank you.]
[Then goodnight.] Amber rolled over and firmly pushed Purple's mental voice away.
Purple pulled back, his awareness focusing just on the vault around him again, and considered the advice Amber had just given him. Problems to solve, goals to achieve, things I can use… He noticed he'd idly started stirring up the aether around him again and forced himself to stop. I suppose that's another problem to solve. It just feels wrong to not be doing anything. Well, I am doing something, just not with my mana. Anyway, ideas for soul structures, hmm… Which approach is best suited for this? Soul structures are not problems. They're not goals, either. They are tools. Tools that improve or expand your capabilities to solve problems or achieve goals. So, I think the real question is what problems or goals we should use them for.
Alright, then the way to break things down for the next layer is to list out our problems and goals. I was just thinking about a problem a moment ago, might as well put that in the list. Is idleness feeling wrong really a problem to solve, though? He paused to consider, then mentally shrugged and added it anyway. I can analyze whether it's important when I get to that point. What else? Defenses to protect me and my friends, of course. Um. Hmm… What exactly did Carlos say about why I should do this, again? I think he emphasized focusing on ways I'm different from them, but I don't remember the precise details. Wait, not remembering clearly is another problem. That might become a problem for my brainstorming too, having to remember the whole problem tree and my conclusions.
Purple focused on that thought as a realization struck him. A problem that affects my brainstorming is a problem that I need to solve immediately, before continuing. I could make some paper and take notes on it like Amber does, but I can't move a pencil like she does. I'd have to create the graphite on the paper arranged in the form of writing. Moving it and even reading it would be awkward, too. Seeing materials is not my primary sense, unlike for humans. Writing with mana would be either unstable or wasteful. Using mana in a soul structure to solve it would work, but I haven't merged the ones I already have yet, so I don't have anywhere to put it. He paused, then did the purely mental equivalent of a facepalm. One of the structures I already have can handle it, duh! The knowledge repository. I just need to tweak it a little so that I can put knowledge into it too, not just the people I have bonds with. Okay, done and the list is in there.
Moving on, let's see, ways that my nature, capabilities, experiences, and knowledge differ from Carlos and Amber, and problems, goals, and useful things that those differences are relevant to. Store that as the heading of a list, and…
Purple continued brainstorming through the rest of the night and the following morning.
___
The discussion of ideas the next afternoon was fascinating. Purple's friends had not only gone about their brainstorming in completely different ways, but had produced drastically different results as well. Amber identified problems and solved them, and identified important strengths and ways to improve them. Carlos solved one problem, but then unveiled a grand vision of how to organize it all, and followed up with a strange concept that I still don't really comprehend, but that he's certain will be extremely useful. Even Amber still feels uncertain about some of the details of that.
And then they asked about my ideas. Purple couldn't decide whether he should feel embarrassed, confused, or proud about what had followed after that question. Most of his ideas were only good for his own use, aimed at the unique problems and advantages of a stationary being who controlled a large area, but one idea had surprised both of them and immediately struck them as extremely important. I had no idea that my dislike of idleness with my mana would lead to such a big deal, but Carlos instantly jumped on it and said, "Idle mana is wasted potential for advancement." Amber was confused at first, but then realized something and commented, "For after we advance past the wellspring's peak." I'll have to get used to the idea of planning that far ahead.
Purple had transcribed the whole conversation into his knowledge repository, so he could review every last bit of it in complete detail as much as he wanted to. He spent hours just going over Carlos's explanation of an "integrated development environment" over and over again, trying to understand why Carlos was so extremely excited about it. Eventually, he decided that he'd just have to wait to observe it in action, and turned his thoughts to what he was excited about.
We're going into the Wilds tomorrow to absorb aether and develop our souls. We're all going into the Wilds. Including me! And we're not coming back until we've taken this area's mana wellspring, where I will make my permanent home. Purple tried to imagine it, but he just blanked on the whole idea. He had no idea what kind of structure he should be imagining or what he would ultimately be capable of with that much power. However it turns out, I'm looking forward to it.
There's just one thing I'm confused about. Who is Kindar, and why might whether he accompanies us depend on me?
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Comments
John Vistica
Now if people with links can 'upload' books that they are reading and happen to go visit the University's library, that would be a great start to their plans for their own academy's library. Purple could become the greatest source of knowledge outside of the Crown. People would need an alternate means of accessing the books other than linking through Purple. The ultimate 'cloud' repository able to expand as needed.
Dan Chadwick
Here's a link to a presentation for what I believe to be a precursor to a Dungeon core: https://youtu.be/IurALhiB6Ko?si=GYZt_bgGKDBxo63s
Dan Chadwick
And taking him only to the first compression may not be so bad...
Connor Mcharg
At this point, not doing that would be a stupid idea - it would take them 3-4 times as long to complete the leveling, and they can just get Purple to do the mana calming if they want to keep their ability a secret, but given that they superleveled during their abduction, people would probably connect some dots.
viperfan7
Purple is the internet
viperfan7
Let me guess, they're going to use that trick they learned in the box to passively absorb mana at ridiculous efficiency by mimicking what a core does. Or even get purple to help them out with it
viperfan7
Oh I hope purple comes to this conclusion himself, that he can be a repository for immense knowledge, for not just himself, but his friends, and can make his friends knowledge available to each other. Oh gawd, he's the internet, currently he's just a hub, but eventually, he'll become a switch, then router. Then border gateway to other, similarly sentient dungeon cores.
daavko
Oh no, Purple will become *gasp* The Cloud!
Test Patron Plz Ignore
Raising his son to nobility is well in excess of repayment for the original favor and Darmelkon is a fantastically wealthy person. Amber and Carlos discussed some possible numbers for additional compensation. While they do have magic powers, they still need to buy things and hire people, so having a tremendous amount of money show up early in their lordship will be very helpful. Edit: Not directly mentioned, but we can assume that this would create a positive relationship between House Carlos and Darmelkon. This could be very helpful as they tame the wilds and people start moving into the region to exploit/process/transport/sell resources.
BarGamer
PHP: Purple Home Page, or Hypertext Prepurpleator? And why isn't the acronym HPP??
Dan Chadwick
And she does have a back story for her perspective...
Dan Chadwick
And with Amber's discovery of skimming a bit of high density mana, and Carlos' soul structure formatting, they should be able to rapidly compress the new structures!
Ben Bass
TYFTC! I really like Purples view point and how they are growing and maturing!
Pride mystic artificer
They where, however if im not mistaken (i could be it has been 1 and two full weeks since i read those chapters after all) but Carlos wanted to somehow build a number of different soul structures to mimic a computer and to fix the syntax within his soul both, and amber was testing a number of things to expand her soul but both of those ended with a moment where they start testing things or think through what might work and even in this purple centric chapter we have no idea what purple actualy comes up with for his soul structures other than that he alredy had one of the soulutions to his problems
Cᐰptain ᐰwsome #119864 snapd
Pretty sure their plans were from the last chapters
Jambles
Integrated purple environment. Purple development kit.
Douglas Miller
Going directly to the wellspring in a single non-stop full-speed trip would obviously be suicide, but that's not what the chapter says they're doing. It just says that they won't be coming back to Dramos until it's done. They've gone into the Wilds a few time before to level up, and each time they came back to Dramos to sleep in the comfort of a luxurious room in the city before going back out again. That meant they couldn't keep absorbing aether overnight, nor during the travel time of the round trip. This time, they'll avoid that wasted time by camping out in the Wilds instead.
Person
Eh.. the frothing NEED for MOAR WERDS!!! is about the sincerest compliment a reader can give an author. MOAR WERDS! NEED! It isn't terribly sophisticated, or in some cases desired, but boy is it sincere. It's a lot like a hard on that way.
Irakli Jishkariani
Favor is involved but it isn't necessary to be repaid this way. Whole chapter was about it and their main reason was emotional closure for amber. I just said it more shortly and rudely 😀😀. But it's close thing. Any other reason isn't clear to me. Did I forget something?
DuskDeadman
I don't think they are taking him for Amber to gloat. Pretty sure they addressed that in a previous chapter
harkange 585
She's still a teenage girl, while yes we see it from purple's pov that's more emotionless and deffinitly not ill intended, amber just felt someone was focusing on her mental processes without warning.
Irakli Jishkariani
Now I'm annoyed about this kindar. They don't like him, he isn't reliable or trustworthy, nor do we know about his competence, but they still are going to take him as their underling just for Amber to gloat about it. Really annoying 😡
Connor Mcharg
They didn’t say how long they’re going to take doing it, they need the security of being a high enough level that they can’t get assassinated by the next attempt, and it’s going to take longer and longer to get out there - their last deliberate trip out took at least an entire day to walk back from. Plus, they can technically wish for better gear as they go, but they’ll probably have to wait a bit for Purple to accumulate the mana for that.
Miroslav
Purple database system Pdbms 😁
Dwarf_King
Is it just me, or is going to the wellspring a little ambitious? Their mana Absorption is at 1% at the moment and lorvan once said, that even his soul couldn't stand the level at a wellspring, and he is level 50 or above. So if they don't have a lot of new ideas that we don't know about yet. (A full 100 Soul structure soul plan) Or something similar. Than this Tripp is going to take a while. But I am here regardless. Always a good day, when we get a new chapter
Leonard Marchant
Amber seemed to overreact a little to purple observing her? Idk it just had this kind of cold and inconsiderate vibe to it. I guess she was tired. Anyway, hyped for next chapter, so much build-up
Maurice Brown
PFS!
Pride mystic artificer
Ok, i got to say i love this chapter but i couldent help but notice that the entire chapter was… details light, what was Carlos plan, what did and didnt amber explain, what where the results of purples thinking through the brainstorming. I would love to and recomend revisiting this chapter from one of the humans persepectives hear what each of them have to say rather than just hear about what they have to say ya know.
Pride mystic artificer
So, the im pretty sure it dosent need to be enclosed at all, the thing needed for a dungeon to claim area is for them to claim the mana. Like they simply need to reach out and grab the mana, they can also order the mana bring it into themselves and in doing so gain a extreamly small amount of it for perminit use. Most dungeons dont do this as its inefficient when they could gain the entirety of the mana near perenetly if they stay in the area which 99.9999% of dungeons do anyways
Dan Chadwick
Purple file system...
BigBro Bluesman
Genuinely no I was way to excited to read it like honesty my bad
Connor Mcharg
It’s finally happening! The grand trip to the Mana Wellspring! …either that, or they’re leaving Purple in the wilds every so often while they return to Dramos, but that sounds unlikely. Also, I do wonder what the requirements are for Purple to claim an area as his dungeon - he claimed a tent while they were fleeing Darmelkon’s pursuit, so solidity of an enclosure probably doesn’t matter, but how enclosed does it need to be, and can he expand beyond the enclosed area? Would he be able to claim a bowl? Does he have to be stationary compared to the world, or can it just be compared to his enclosure? And if he can move with his enclosure, could they do this trip with a palanquin or sedan chair, so he can level as they go? And most importantly, could he adapt that palanquin into a full-on Howl’s Moving Castle situation? …Now I really want to see Lorvan and Ordens trying to come to terms with the fact that High House Carlos’s actual house beat the wellspring guardian by sitting on it, but I’m 999‰ sure I’m going to have to turn to fanfics for that.
pfreya
Sorry it was a tough week, hope things ease up for you soon
BigBro Bluesman
Chop chop WE NEED MORE!
Ashley Wallis
Love these chapters.
Ashley Wallis
Please do it more often if it works! 👍😎
harkange 585
Love how i check patreon, close it and bam! chapter release
