God, do I love Xvim. Right from his opening line.

His line about Cranium Rats is also very interesting, especially because it is the first time, I think, that we've had a member of "the establishment" commenting on them. If Xvim knows, than it seems unlikely the Academy/Government is unaware, meaning that the simplistic argument that they're (one of the primary reasons) why Cyoria is taken down so easily is harder to accept.

Good chapter, but nothing special.

 

Zorian didn't invite her though. She's the one who turned what should've been a short chat into a "not a date" lunch at a restaurant of her choosing and then ordered something expensive. Wondering whether she expects him to pay for her would be natural. That was honestly a bit rude even though it could be seen as payment for a favor.

 

Their lunch was full of little things that He missed, be because he doesn't do people very well, be because woman are strange ;-).

The way she acted when she got there, her reaction to him getting spooked by the fish, how she eated her food and found annoying to have to wait for him to eat his fill.

The same on the other girl... and why she told everyone about him.

 

Poor Zorian. Infinite time loop and he's still hopeless with girls.

 

I... missed it too. Care to explain?

Also, never read much in Zorian's complains, he just like to bitch about things he thinks are stupid or unecessary, like most us. It is funny and a nice insight on his psyche, nothing much.

Interesting chapter, but nothin especial. Interisting comment on Benisek though, wonder if there is something deeper on that.

I'm extremely amused by how Zorian refuses to be Genre Savvy about Xvim due to his utter distate of the man.

 

Same, and this.


I also wish that the narration would stop drawing emphasis to the fact that he's using empathy/mindreading to pick things up. He's had it for ages now, so I think it should be one of those things that disappears into the background - in the same way his unusual perception originally did.

 

That's Zorian's fault for being a social moron. He's expecting to receive a whole lot of information for free from Raynie. Raynie is clearly discomfited in the second-to-last chapter, but willing to accommodate. Her terms: lunch at a friend's restaurant and a pleasant social engagement without any headaches. A great deal, really. Zorian didn't pick up on that despite it being pretty much spelled out to him. He looks at the terms as hoops that he has to jump through, rather than as part of a social transaction.

Other factors: I get the idea that Raynie wouldn't mind a genuine friendship with a boy without having to fend off unwanted advances.

There's this whole other undercurrent where Raynie was put in a difficult place by Zorian. If she's rude or simply refuses to help Zorian, then he can make life difficult for Raynie and blackmail or blab about her shifter status. She has to entertain Zorian's request, whether she wants to or not. Raynie makes the best of it that she can with her terms. Having Zorian pay for the meal also helps to re-establish who has the superior position here. When Zorian makes Raynie wait on him to finish eating he's subconsciously playing into this game of one-upmanship.

And, perhaps Raynie doesn't mind "trying out" Zorian in a strictly "not a date" to see if he isn't worth more than she'd thought.

And whoever's fault it was, the "without any headaches" part of the terms was failed when the date was blabbed by Tinami, which sadly adds a sour note to the experience for Raynie.

 

My Thoughts/Predictions

Okay guys, this is my first post in a forum, so forgive me if I make mistakes or ramble on too much (P.S.: I am not the author of one-punch man):

Damien: I have to theories on Damien, neither of which involve him being in league with the invaders. I feel like that's too easy. So here they are:

1) Damien is actually a really perfect , good guy, and Zorian just has an inferiority complex, which makes him see Damien in a bad light. Damien's automaton spell was just to help Zorian learn how to dance so that their parent's would bother Zorian less. I feel that that's too much goodwill on Damien's part though, so this is one I believe in less out of the two.
2) Damien is like he is because of his parent's pressure for him to always be perfect, as the first son. This led him to trying so hard to meet those demands and excel at everything he can to become the 'perfect son'. The stress from this subsequently led to him venting some of the anger he held onto his brothers, who had it easier than him, and especially Zorian, who outright did what he couldn't: say NO to his parents.

Also, on a related note, Fortov adjusted by being really lazy and incompetent, so that his parents wouldn't push so many troublesome things on him.

As to why their parents are like they are, I have no idea for the father, but some for the mother. SHE IS THE DAUGHTER OF A WITCH! We already heard from Silverlake, that being a witch makes it really hard to get married due to bad rumours, and that this also applies to the daughters of witches. Zorian's mother probably grew up having a hard time due to social prejudices, and is therefore that much more conscious of how the public views her and her family, which led to her trying to make them 'prefect children' so that they wouldn't have to go through being talked bad about.

Xvim: I am pretty sure he is an unstructured magic magician. He takes shaping exercises way too seriously, and the academy makes too many allowances for him even though he never mentors anyone (since they run away from him).

Red Robe: I think it's Veyers Boranova. This guy's name was randomly dropped in like the second chapter by Benisek as one of the students that wouldn't be joining them that year. The reason? He lost his temper at his disciplinary hearing and got himself expelled. Zorian (the empath) himself called him a menace. The author has already shown us that several unassuming details are actually hints and important later on. It would explain why Zorian hasn't mey him. Just my thoughts, I could be wrong.

Random predictions:

-Zorian and Akoja have been set to be married by their parents. We already know that Zorian's parents are capable of this, and I feel that while Kiri's arranged marriage gave her character depth, it was also to set up for this. Also, Akjo likes Zorian, which I don't get since Zorian tries his best (pre-time loop) to be antisocial and known for not being that interested in romance.

-Fortov pushes Ibery into the purple creeper bushes to avoid having to reject Ibery's invitation to the dance and look like the bad guy/ruin their relationship. I think it was mentioned that they were in a fairly isolated location for wilderness training; Ibery could have been summoning up her courage to ask him then, and Fortov noticed.

-The pigeons Zorian has been practicing on were pigeon shifters. lols

-Damien is studying exactly what Zorian needs to unravel the whole time loop and invasion business, up in Koth.

 

What is the evidence for this? We basically have evidence against it, via Akoja liking Zorian (so there's another reason to see them together romantically not related to yours), and I don't understand how this one can come about.

 

Since we seem to like talking about Daimen on this thread, Xvim mentioned that he (reluctantly) tutors some 'talented' first and second years. What are the odds that he had the pleasure of tutoring Daimen?

 

Xvim as always was a blast to read. Now that he partially revealed his expertise with an unstructured magic, I expect it to be a part of Zorian's road to being an very powerful mage in his own, less obvious to others (no countless fireballs), way.

Now I'm waiting to discover what Silverlake has to offer to him.

Raynie was fine, but I'm guessing she wasn't entirely sure whether it's not a date or it's a date. She probably wants to go on dates with someone decent enough and Zorian, as he is now, is definitely quite decent choice. What I'm curious about is if we will learn more about her personal past. With foreshadowing from this chapter it's possible, but after their talk Zorian doesn't really have any need to talk to her in future loops.

Only three more weeks until the next chapter.

 

Evidence

I have no evidence, just a thought. Thought maybe Akoja liked Zorian because she knows that they are engaged even though Zorian doesn't. She knew that he was her marriage candidate, so she paid more attention to him and was a lot more strict on her standards for him than for anyone else. She also, since she was paying so much attention to him, noticed more of Zorian's good sides others dismissed due to his antisocial behavior, and developed a crush. Then again, I am kind of biased, since I kind of want to see Zorian blow up at someone (his mother) once. Finding out about something like this would probably make him lose his usual rationality and composure (I mean seriously, he's only 15- not counting time loop).

Also, unrelated. I wonder if this kind of thing gets banned/deleted, but I haven't seen anyone ship any characters. If it is, then no one will see this, but oh well.

I ship:

Xvim x Imaya

 

But that's the point, isn't it? He's not only 15. Not anymore. And though it would be hard to tell from Zach's behavior, he's almost 40 by now. While it's not something obvious to them because they're stuck in bodies of teenagers, it's a realization I'm waiting for Zorian to finally have.

 

Well, it kinda depends on whether the only barrier to adulthood is experience. Zorian is stuck in his teenage body, which biologically resets every month, so he's working with teenage brain chemistry the entire time. So while he is probably nearing his parents' age in experience, he still probably thinks like a teenager.

 

OTOH, I wholly expect to see Zorian do his level best to avoid getting tutoring out of Xvim entirely. It'll likely be many cycles before we see him again.

 

Personally, after watching many adults fail reaching maturity and some teenagers or even children constantly act way beyond what's expected of their age, I consider a temporal biological setup as a rather small factor in what make people who they are at the moment. It's there, but at least in Zorian's case, I would say that his extreme experiences in life and sort of death situations, make him think more responsibly than most adults ever will.

That said, his brain being frozen biologically may be what keeps him, and Zach, feel young, even if they were to be hundred years old.

 

I'm going to guess pretty good. I'm not sure Xvim would have been Daimen's official "mentor" like he is with Zorian, but I could definitely see Daimen taking some extra lessons from him.

Hmm, what if Ilsa's "accidental" tardiness that leads to Xvim being his only choice for mentor wasn't accidental at all? Maybe Xvim asked Ilsa to arrange it so that Zorian would be his student? To see if he lives up to Daimen.

 

Another weird conspiracy thought-
What if the reason Red Robes stopped helping the invasion is because he figured out his little brother Zorian is also looping?

 

So, I just finished reading this. I loved it, every detail is planned out and it shows. I don't know why this story doesn't have its own website like Worm did, but it should.

The first few chapters were rough because of the fancy dialogue tags everywhere but they disappeared pretty quick. Other than that I'm having trouble thinking of other flaws. I wish I knew more about what Zorian looks like since it's limited to: age fifteen, male, glasses. And even then the glasses might as well not be there.

There's three parts to the story and we're halfway through part two, so I'm fine with Zorian's brothers not being focused on yet.

Red Robes's secret identity has been mentioned over and over again, but I don't have any guesses on who he is. He can't be in Zorian's class since Zorian checked, so that leaves upper/lower classmates, the professors, and people outside the Academy. He can't be any of the professors unless he spends every single loop at the academy since his disappearance would be noticeable (and Red Robes wouldn't have a problem noticing Zorian's sudden skills). It's been stated multiple times that after the spiders were killed, students were being pulled from the academy due to the danger. Zorian was mistakenly thought to be among those students, so it's not a big leap to assume Red Robes could have done the same thing. Someone mentioned earlier in the thread that one student had been kicked out for violence before the year started, so those are the types of students who could be Red Robes.

I'm not even going to wonder about the people outside of the academy, since there are way too many people to look at. What I am curious about is how the original timeline went. Was Red Robes helping the invasion in the original timeline or did he hop aboard for some reason once the loops started?

Then there's that whole problem of Red Robes perma-killing the spiders but leaving Zack alone. I'm thinking that maybe the soul destruction only seemed like that because Red Robes kicked the spiders's souls out of the time loop and now they're cut off from the world like the angels and demons are. Zack is spared because Red Robes needs the time loops to keep going for some reason, and while he can handle Zack, other time travelers are wildcards. Maybe he intends to sacrifice Zack at the end of the festival.

I didn't mean to write this much, but yeah, great story.

5/5.

 

If Red Robe was Damien he clearly didn't care all the times the invasion killed Zorian(and maybe Fortov) before, so why would the plan change just because the time looper was Zorian?