He approached the golem dude with both social and educational goals. Then as they were talking practicing combat was brought up by Estin. Since Zorian had been curious about his classmates' combat abilities, he went along with the group. I don't feel that it was out of character for him, but his lack of a productive goal contributed to the exposition about the group being a bit dull.

On second thought, I only liked the conversation with Estin, Naim, and the golem dude. The part of the story where he was describing what the group had done was boring to read.

 

I don't think it was entirely out of character. It's been stated a number of times that one of the main reasons he chose to return to Cyoria was to get to know his classmates.

It's been reflected in his character to an extent: he has been getting more social and would have got to know them a bit from his time as class rep. From a social perspective, the only reason not to approach them is because he's a stranger to them, and that was touched on.

 

I'm a little surprised that he decided to continue learning about Raynie, but then again I wasn't expecting him to finally focus on getting to know his other classmates. Up to this point he only thought about it. Does it fit his character? Maybe not earlier, but a continual change of his character is a big part of this story.

What I really liked in the chapter is a scene with Taiven. I agree that it added a depth to her character that was only hinted before and at the same time was a refreshing change of how everyone is reacting to Zorian's abilities. With most people being either amazed or jealous (or indifferent in one, special case), having someone to be seriously upset because of how badly they think they do compared to him is something new. The question is whether or not he will try to once again tell her about the loops.

 

It was a while back, but Zorian had planned to talk to Raynie before he ever met the cat shifters. Vani suggested that the wolf shifters might be able to help him with his soul magic problem, and suggested Raynie could be his starting place to get in contact with them.

Not sure if Zorian completely forgot about that or not.

 

Really liked the scene with Taiven this chapter.

Zorian's personality sees him distanced from most people, he doesn't have many people close to him and generally the only people he endeavors to create a stronger relationship with are usually older than him with a more business focus (his various mentors really and Kael). Even when he's learning about his classmates, he goes in with a very goal focused mindset and neither party really opens up to each other.

The result is that we haven't really seen any other characters other than Kirielle vulnerable, emotional or open. They interact with Zorian as they would a polite acquaintance, with the reader only exposed to the face they present the world. Add to that Zorian himself is pretty unemotional.

So yeah, really liked the scene with Taiven as it's a completely different sort of interaction for Zorian, one that is less businesslike to how he has been to everyone else. I really hope her role becomes bigger in this story.

 

It felt like a transition chapter to me. Too many things happened at the same time and they seemed to be mostly sketched out for future development. The Aranean colony was awesome and I can't wait to see it feature later, as was the war, but besides that not much has grabbed my attention.

The scene with Taiven was particularly weak. Taiven hasn't been involved in the story recently and while I remembered her but I had practically no emotional connection to what she was feeling. In addition, the entire thing was set up in something like an eight of a chapter so it had very little impact.

 

I like the shift from physical obstacles to interpersonal conflict since those need to be built up for future chapters. I'm wondering if the grand plan is to eventually learn his classmate's specialties and somehow train them through the timeloop, feeding their mastery of their skills back to them for some grand final conflict at the end? Otherwise a lot of this would be wasted - what's the point of learning so much about shifters and golems if it doesn't become a mechanic in which to use against the enemy or in the loop. I bet shifters do something to their soul, which Zorian could probably exploit to some effect. Will he use golems to hold souls, maybe? I wonder...

 

I imagine that is the case, simply because the author's plotted everything out so meticulously so far. It probably won't be anything as grand as that (WoG says that mind magic can't be used to transfer skills), but no doubt the information and skills he gains from them will come into play later on.

But I'm honestly happy just reading about Zorian doing his thing. I personally don't need a lot of conflict driving the plot to keep reading and Zorian and his classmates are both pretty likeable. I'm just keen to meet more of his class and get to see more of the world.

 

With shifters, he was advised by Vani that they might be able to help him with his soul magic troubles. Aside from that, if I found out my mysterious classmate was secretly a wolf shifter I'd be interested in finding out more too.

Golems, he just wants to learn. They're useful, and they fit well with his style. It doesn't have to be part of some grand plan to win the invasion or anything. He started studying them for a specific purpose (robbing that one mage in that one town that I don't want to bother spelling), but there's no reason for him to stop learning it.

I dunno if you remember, but he spent a lot of effort learning spell formulas- not because of the invasion, but because that's what his chosen career path was, and the time loop makes it convenient for him to study it. Same thing with golems, alchemy, mind magic, and other stuff. The loop lets him spend his money and time practicing in ways that wouldn't be feasible outside of the loop.

It fits with Zorian's character to be studying these sorts of things, even if there were no invasion/Red Robes to worry about.

 

That might be possible once Zorian figures out memory packets.

 

God, I fucking hope not.

 

I quite liked the image of his sister and the cat shifter exposing his secrets because they wanted to play princesses. He lets off screen characters impact the plot nicely.

 

I expect using memory packets to bring other people into the loop would require that the recipient is versed in them.

So, maybe he could bring Mind like Fire into the loop, but not any random human. And, of course, figure out what exactly is in the Matriarch's packet.

 

As soon as Zorian can bring people into the loop, the story better end in 10 the chapters following it or it better backfire so hard he never tries it again. Having read my fair share of shit, I can say assuredly that allowing Zorian to bring others directly into the loop will kill all interesting conflict in the story and turn it into shit.

What makes time travel interesting is when there's a very small subset of people who can do it (people start to roll their eyes when another terminator jumps through a portal). If everyone can fucking timetravel not only does consequence become lost (who cares of X dies, we can just give them their memory back next reset) but Zorian's no longer alone - what makes some of the social conflict interesting is Zorian becomes one-way intimate with the people he interacts with; but that intimacy cannot be easily reciprocated, because hey, they forget everything after a reset.

What he did with the spider colony was well executed for what it was - but it only worked as well as it did because they were fucking scary psychic spiders. He couldn't trust them with everything nor could he even really understand their behavior, so that preserved conflict and made their collaboration tense. Collaboration between Zorian and his teachers or fellow classmates would go swimmingly and make the story rather dull.

If Zorian is going to use memory packets again, it honestly has to be with an adversary - someone he can't fully trust, but needs their help. That's the only way it could work out.

 

Bringing in other people with memory packets really wouldn't be all that helpful. The main advantage of being in the timeloop is that it advances Zorian's magical abilities. Anyone brought in by packets wouldn't get that. For them to be useful they would already need to have advanced skills. At that point Zorian may as well just convince them to help him conventionally. It would probably be far easier than convincing them to let him shove a collection of memories into their heads. And if it is easy to convince them to let Zorian monkey around in their minds, the question "why doesn't Zorian shove the entire plot onto someone else who is far more qualified to deal with the situation" will be raised.

So bringing in Taiven wouldn't be worth the effort, and bringing in Zosk would sideline Zorian.

 

He's already brought Kael into the loop. Kind of.

 

Nothing too momentous in the most recent chapter. It looks like Taiven's going to be brought into the loop in some fashion. I like the character development for her and the few plot threads that are introduced. The meeting between Zach and Zorian is bound to be amusing, if only because he's insanely strong.

It's unfortunate that accessing the decaying memory packet is going to be further pushed back, but I suppose it makes sense given the scale of the story. The loops aren't reset by chapter, but they seem to be around an average of 4 chapters each, which means that at least 8 chapters would have passed by before getting at whatever was in the packet.

Now it's been pushed back even further, which is a bit disappointing.

 

And the Zach meeting is probably pushed back to after he's done with the memory packet.

 

This is a really disappointing chapter. The story in general has too many plot points, ancillary characters, powers, etc. Right now it's sitting at 320K words and very little has been resolved. It's as if JKR was still talking about Quirrell and the Philosopher's Stone in GOF, while introducing the basilisk and Sirius Black at the same time.

We've focused on the cat shifter family, the priest, the priests friend who was a hunter I think, that witch friend of Kael's that sent Zorian on dangerous quests, Red Robe, wolf shifters, etc.

And to date Zorian's powers are: mind magic, alchemical bombs, mana missiles, shields, now golems.

All this, to what end? The author could've focused on a fourth of these ideas and written a really compelling and focused story, but instead we get this meandering bloated corpse.

/rant

 

No... it probably will blow out at the same time.

This was just preparation for when Zack he gets back and
Doesn't accept no for an answer.

His friends are only preparing him for that meeting.