I don't think their reunion is going to happen any time soon, seems like this current story arc is unlikely to involve zach. After the shifter stuff hopefully we will find out more about zach.

 

Well, to be fair only thing that he can give right now in return is making sure that they all survive the final loop.

It would be, but Zorian for most part is aware that it could happen which is a reason why he doesn't go really crazy in any of his loops. He doesn't want to get used to lack of consequences. I won't be surprised if Zach will have this problem though. A side story, after the rest is done, about it and his general thoughts about the loop situation, would be nice.

 

Dunno if I'd call zorian selfish, but I think it's likely that a future plot point could be about how this groundhog day scenario is messing with his head and how he acts. Could be very interesting actually.

 

One of the best stories i have ever read. In regards to personality, i find hilarious that Zorian's family consider him a feminine man when he has killed people in some of the restarts.

 

The ability and willingness to kill is not really a particularly masculine trait, despite appearances.

 

Updated!

I'm not sure if it's just the update rate of the author, but the pacing of Zorian's development is done quite well. I think it's also really clever to have others begin to notice his abilities as a whole. For the most part, his strengths have also been placed in contrast to his weaknesses (like the hand-to-hand fighting portion of this chapter) or are overshadowed by someone considerably more talented than he is (the training sessions with Xvim). Taiven's exasperation accurately places Zorian's abilities with respect to his peers and is a welcome change from the constant grind that we as readers see Zorian go through.

 

Secret, extremely well defended time magic research facility hidden deep in the dungeons of Cyoria?

Anyone remember the Bakora gate so deep in the Dungeon of Cyoria that it would be really dangerous to study?

 

And next time he will make use of the aranea treasure...

Waiting for what may be in there makes me feel like in the earlier ages of the potter fandon, and the now infamous diagon alley shopping spree

 

Given the extent of the Aranean colony, and how inaccessible to humans parts of it are, I'm surprised Zorian hasn't run into any stragglers.

I've had this idea in my head that Novelty probably wasn't around when Red Robes exterminated the colony. She had been hanging around with the Aope family towards the end of that loop.

Of course, RR could have soulkilled her at the start of the next loop. But there's got to be SOME araneans that were absent at that battle at the end of that particular loop, and also absent from the same areas of the colony at the start of the loops.

 

Well, I am hoping new people will be brought into the loop, literally and figuratively speaking.

As to the arcana's, think rather than have that guy find and kill every single one, it's more like a bloodline killing spell. Would explain how it killed everyone in the web and how no one could run away, and why they are all dead.

 

Nah, it showed him hunting them down one by one.
Also, some of the aranean males survived- all ones that he had missed in his first slaughter.

 

This.

Really liked the reminder that while he still has ways to go, he has definitely been making a lot of progress.

 

Man this was an excellent chapter. Iron beaks, government time facilities, red robe (and Zach), Raynie, golems, combat tutoring, aranea, Taiven. Very satisfying.

I particularly enjoy his interactions with his classmates. They're all really likeable and provide a baseline to compare to Zorian's advancement. I think we might see a bit more of Naim in particular: we haven't seen Nirthak (the non-magical combat instructor, who blacklisted Zorian for reasons unknown) who was mentioned in the original timeline. Maybe Naim or Taiven will get Zorian to join them in that class?

Really excited to see Zach's coming back. It's great watching Zorian and Zach interact and talk about time travel.

 

This is kinda why I was down on this chapter, there was way too much going on for it to be good. 18 different things happening here and most of the chapter was exposition. The two things I liked were the new combat group and Taiven's scene at the end. But even they felt rushed to me.

 

Well technically, that's not necessarily true:

Estin: knows a lot about Golems from his family and is willing to help Zorian with his Golem-building plans (which will probably become very useful later on, since Golems make excellent meat shields and can be used to see if there are traps ahead; also, combat practice for when he doesn't want to stick out)

Naim: Zorian seriously needs to learn non-magical combat (it threw red-robe off once, and if you run out of mana, it's something to fall back on)

Raynie: help from her family with the invasion, maybe.

Briam: what would happen if Zorian soul-bonded himself a familiar, would it go back in time with him, build the bond through the loups and become a major asset? Then again, tricky, since it might affect the soul marker

Kopriva: Could help Zorian with his new fighting style using alchemical reagents.

P.S.: Seriously, when are we going to meet the soul-bonded twins already? They've been mentioned several times throughout the story, yet we've never met them. I feel like they are also going to be of help to Zorian in some way.

Also, I'm starting to like Taiven more after this outburst. She feels like she has more depth to her now.

 

I think him approaching his classmates purely socially is fine, because he's purposefully trying to change that aspect of himself.