Specifically here from chapter 8:

 

As far as I understand, Magnitude refers to a person's natural mana reserves before any heavy training. In other words, while a mage's mana pool can grow, their Magnitude remains the same.

Zorian thinks he's Manitude 8, but I kinda doubt that. I once asked Nobody102 about the subject:

In last chapter we learn that:

I think Zorian is actually Magnitude 10-12 and just has some of his magic permanently tied to his Empathy. This would mean that his maximum reserves are actually noticeable higher than he thinks.

 

New world building post.

 

The next chapter is out.

 

Edit: Read the new chapter, nevermind.

 

IIRC the first ship with hull made of iron instead of wood took fourteen days to cross the Atlantic and that was then considered a pretty good time.

So beyond not being travelling to a single city and staying there* I think a greater distance, like say instead of Britain-USA you go with China-USA which is almost the double of the former, can pretty reasonably put the time at that. There might also be issues that don't exist in our world with all the creatures that likely inhabit the seas and such.

*And this paragraph makes me think they will be going around.

 

Chances are that ship would be stopping at various ports along the way, not making the full journey in a single go. Even nowadays it's very rare for a passenger ship to go from A-B without stopping at other places along the way.

 

This chapter's focus was on my favourite thing in MoL, a slow progress of Zorian's skill. He's probably already way above majority of even talented mages, but doesn't stop.

At the same time, not everything is easy even with the help of the loops. Being better than average is impressive, but he and Zach need to be better than the best if they want to succeed.

A small speculation since he was mentioned in this chapter. It's probably because of Zorian's perspective, but I sort of expected Daimen to be more like his youngest brother, distant and aloof. Wouldn't it be funny if he's more like Zach instead? Very friendly and his lack of interactions with Kiri, who if I'm not wrong doesn't have any close relationship with him, is because of their age difference and the fact he probably left the house to go on his adventures when she was very young.

It may be a just a short and simply humours scene, but I'm already trying to figure out what may be Neolu's role in the future chapters.

 

They don't seem to have steamboats yet(based on the pirates), so crossing the ocean is no easy feat. We don't know the distances in this setting, but crossing the Atlantic in the real world by sailing was a huge affair in history. Anywhere from 6-12 weeks depending on the wind. So a month is completely plausible for civilian transportation.

There are options other than the gates, like turning into a bird and flying or resting in the ocean between teleports, but those would still probably take a couple days.

 

A big issue would also be ambient mana. As in is there any in the ocean? Or is it essentially a massive dead zone?

 

Why don't they just used divination magic to look around all those places and then just teleport where they want to go? Or if they don't feel confident at intercontinental teleporting, they can simply use the gate spell to avoid all danger of fucking up the teleportation.

 

As usually after a new chapter, I was rereading some of my favourite parts like Zorian's first "win" over Ichl. It would be nice to have them both have more interactions other than just fighting.

Additionally, I'm kind of surprised that the vampire heir is yet to have some role. I was expecting for her to appear when she still could be an actual challenge for Zorian.

A question I recently had is whether the author intends to reveal the biggest mysteries of his world?

Like the nature of the Dungeon. At first I was considering it to be just a part of worldbuilding that won't be explored, but with everything else that is happening, it may actually be a part of an answer to the mechanics of the loops.

 

Updated. https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/64/Mother-of-Learning

Spoiler

Mostly filler episode here, trying to figure out how to travel to another continent in the 1 month time period. It feels like it would have made more sense in arc 1 than the final arc, honestly.

The antics of the self-aware shadow clones continue to be entertaining!

 

Hopefully his simulacrums don't end up going crazy in the end and turning on him. I don't think Zorian is the most well adjusted person to begin with, adding clones into the mix might make things even more chaotic.

 

Story updated. Plenty of new shit happening this chapter.

 

I'm glad that we will finally be meeting Daimen soon. People always talking about him but us never meeting him or seeing him interact with the main cast was a little grating.

 

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure Zorian has multiple simulcrums about, at least one in Cyoria pretending to be him. Any of them could've opened the gate. Alternatively it didn't sound like they stayed for very long and after a brief glance decided to prepare more for a real trip. The gate could've been kept open for a short while if they stayed near it presumably.