I doubt Zorian will "turn evil" or whatever. Never in the series does mind magic indicate it has any corrupting effect. Heck, not even straight up necromancy or blood magic have that effect.

But what we do know is what he can do by end of series.

https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?p=910381#post910381

And this explains how he gets to that point in only four years.

 

Spoiler

I hope that Xvim's notebook has some dirt on Silverlake! She's been out of the story for too long and it's time to bring her in from the cold

 

Nice chapter, I enjoyed it. I feel like there was a lot of showing and less telling/listing of things that happened in this chapter compared to standard fare. Also an increase in scene setting (i.e. playing cards) that while not pertinent to the plot, helped the story.

I strongly believe that we'll be seeing Silverlake again promptly. We were pretty much told explicitly this chapter that Zorian will be capturing a Grey Hunter to transform into to 'improve his magic sensing' or whatever. It makes a lot of sense that they would roll around and deal with Silverlake at the same time.

Two birds and all that.

 

I like your theory about the Grey Hunter, wouldn't have thought of it. I actually thought more of psychic magical creatures, but the Grey Hunter makes more sense in hindsight.

In other news, I doubt Zorian will really turn evil, since he's supposed to grow into a better person by the end of the time loop (like in "Groundhog Day", which I think the author once mentioned). However, I do feel that they might break a couple more more laws while still in the time-loop, due to time constraints and the life and death implications of not being able to stop the invasion otherwise.

What I thought of the Chapter:

Honestly, it didn't change a whole lot for Zorian and Zach at the moment (but could prove to be very monumental in the remaining restarts), and didn't really reveal anything new. However, it was essentially a game changer for Xvim and Alanic (haha, Zorian finally made Xvim drop his expressionless act), so it was kind of nice that we focused on them, since so far, we've basically only seen the reactions of teenagers, for the most part, and haven't really seen the reactions of any adults (that have experienced a lot more, and are more knowledgeable about the implications this has on the world) to the reveal of the time loop and the invasion. Even when Xvim was brought in before, he wasn't totally convinced and didn't take it too seriously.

 

...Or he does none of that is reminded randomly of SilverLake decides that Zach and him can take down a Grey Hunter together and learns that SilverLake is HIS GRANDMOTHER, I call it!
Onto less crazy topics, I kind of thought this chapter was pretty filler just building up suspense for the next and giving us hints of whats to come. One thing that majorly popped out to me was

First of all, imagining (How I imagine)a gruff priestly guy with a beard who nonchalantly murders slightly indiscriminately acting like Molly Weasley, heh.

Secondly, in the Dragon he used Zorian to interrogate a prisoner though admittedly he was surprised how good he was, maybe he's ethically against using it on regular citizens?
Which brings me to my final point, Alanic is a priest, he has morals admittedly he's super shady so suposing he's against what Xvim is proposing Zorian should do? Interesting if Zorian's caught between two mentors!

Lukas the guy whose ripping him off = Dragons, Ironbeaks, Grey Hunters also throw in a lizardman and the mind bugs the author wrote a wordbuilding post on. I'm rooting for Ironbeaks or those mind bugs Iforgotthenametoo probably 'cause I like the legion/hive mind types and the effects they could have on Zorian...Aranean Leader!Zorian everybody ? or Half-Spider!Witch!Zach's One True Soulmate!Zorian
That's pretty much everything that interested me as I said this seems like hinting filler, obviously looking forward to the next and hoping he picks Alanic, Klael and Silverlake the Secret Witch Granny as the people he keeps a long in his time loop companion loops

 

Does anyone else think that this shady "Mesalian Order" is somehow connected to the time loop? The Guardian did mention that whatever deity is responsible for the time loop has (or at least had) apostles.

Could the Mesalian Order be these foreshadowed apostles?

One thing is noticed is how the author loves to foreshadow things through brief mentions that, at the time, seem inconsequential. I think that this order could be important later in this arc.

Of course, I could be completely wrong, and the Mesalian Order could have no further role in the story. Yet, I just have this strange feeling that it will be important.

 

Well, the Mesalian Order if connected can't exactly contact the 'deity' (spirit and was it angel seems more likely?) and in fact Alanic did startle when Zorian mentioned their not connected to the other plane. They do seem shady but I think they're connected in other ways say holding a key to the gate to get them out or having contacts that can help them later either way when Zorian tries to forge a letter and disguise himself as a junior member he'll find out more later. The foreshadowing thing is like the authors connecting a giant web and even the little things build up to uncovering something (His little sister can draw really well? She's secretly a witch in disguise!) shown by the whole classmate in chapter 2 shows back up in 52 it's pretty impressive that he planned it all out. Also why even the obvious filler chapters break out in importance later.
If he ever writes this as a book I guess he'll make it more concise. Wondering if that priestess is a part of that order and if Alanic is actually in touch with a spirit and that's why he's wondering why they think none of them are here like say a spirit copy that Zorian and Zach talked too

 

The end of the chapter got dark pretty quickly. Should be interesting to see where that goes.

 

So many things to do and so little time for Zorian. Still, with all the information he gets and help from Zach, he can probably get as good as the author said he can be.

All this suggest that their search for a way to leave the loop is probably not going to take as much of the third act as I expected. I wouldn't want the author to focus completely on adventures to find necessary artefacts, having Zorian's grown as a mage to happen mainly in the background.

Will he become more ruthless? Yes. If he could forcefully read mind of the spiders, who he considers to be normal persons, not some kind of monsters, when it was necessary, he's perfectly capable of doing it to humans. But as with them it will reinforce his aversion to this kind of behaviour when there is no need for it. Of course, his morals will be tested greatly, but his grown as a person is one of the main points of this story.

I'm curious how good Zorian can get with a hand to hand combat. While he can't get stronger or faster, if he gets experience and perfect necessary techniques, he probably can get rather decent with it.

 

Has it bothered anyone that the priests weren't freaking out about being cut off from their gods? With this chapter we see Alaric react to Zorian's explanation of the cutoff so we can assume that some portion of the church is aware of this, rather than just the priestess we met previously.

Is it safe to say that all priests know this information and not a single one of them mentioned this to the public? Perhaps I'm just confused but if you've had a solid communication line to your god and it's suddenly cut off, wouldn't there be mass panic?

Either way, absolutely love this story. Hope to see Zorian's brother live up to expectations after he has been built up for so long and the setup was so direct.

 

Well the connection to the angels etc have only been cut off for what like two weeks?

The gods themselves have been silent for awhile but their creations like angels remained available. Pretty sure that communications between the angels were mainly done internally so the general public wouldn't be affected. Alaric and the priestess seem to be a bit higher on the totem pole so probably only the higherups are aware that something fishy is happening.

 

I think there's something going on with the mechanism used to transfer Zach and Zorian's souls that makes them able to gain mana capacity in a way that others cannot in the real world. Zorian noted that he doesn't seem to have leveled off in growth of capacity as he expected.

 

Or that's a consequence of Zorian's and Zach's souls merging.

 

I believe Zorian stated that magic capacity is considered by mage knowledge to be primarily a family thing (could be wrong). Of course common knowledge has been wrong several times in this story.

I don't see why soul merging couldn't have unintended effects.

I'm slightly disappointed that since he figured out the marker business it feels like he is in less danger. Obviously the revelations recently have Zorian super stressed but I haven't genuinely felt any worry for his safety since the Red Robe disappeared (after offing the aranea).

Maybe if there had been some negative consequences for just about anything he has done in the last 20 chapters.

 

Out of curiosity, do you remember where/when that was stated?

 

nope, sorry. In the last 10 chapters or so, I think.

 

I'm getting the feeling the lack of danger is diminished intentionally, for two reasons.

One, because the end of the time loop is approaching and that replaces immediate spikes of danger with a constant pressure to find an answer.

Secondly, Zorian's getting lured into a false sense of security, then, bam! Lich!

 

IIRC, there was one other example before Zach came back-- while Zorian was practicing solo it was mentioned that he could only bring himself to do it on the violent ones -- some of the Aranea would plead and beg, and for those Zorian would just slink off and leave them alone. But yeah, it should have definitely been mentioned/focused on more. Nightmares would have been a great touch.