Mother of Learning [Web Novel]

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by bludvein

In those resets didn't he board the train as usual rather than simply disappearing? By the time his parents could possibly find out Zorian never went all the way to school they'd be gone.

If there was a loop that would set alarm bells ringing it would be in the beginning with Zorian possibly being in a coma for several loops after the lich mauled him and Zach.

there were the newspaper which list Zorian as among students whose decided that Cyoria was too dangerous and had them pull out. Whether Zorian disappear immediately on waking or after he got on the train. His parent's still had plenty of time to find out.

edit: c35, Zorian mention there were a couple of times he left the house very early. early enough to worry his mother.

[bludvein]

Originally Posted by Wurstorff

Do you have a basis for this or does this just come from "it's a magic world"? We've seen them use magic rather ingeniously to do the same we do with our technology. Take chemistry, knowledge about the atomar/molecular structure of things is pretty spread there. Plus, the tendency of Ikosian magic to assimilate every useful tradition possible. Communication is useful, and their magic is so developed they hardly ever find anything new to absorb. Having long range communication via magic fundamentally unviable sounds arbitrarily biased and dumb. Based on that alone, I'd guess they should have some means of long range communications that is easily within the means of a successful merchant family.

There's the fact that most aranea didn't have means of long range communication without the telepathic discs Zorian made, and they are connected enough to buy those things if they were available. Plus when Zorian had to find a way to notify the landlady of when he'd be having lessons his solution was an animated paper airplane with a message on it rather than anything mechanical.

As far as distance goes, I'm basing that on the supposedly incredibly efficient ritual divination technique Zorian used to sweep for markers. That was good for only country wide, and if you had to add functions to filter out between hundreds of thousands of possibly recipients as well as deliver and receive information the range would only get shorter. I can only imagine a continent-spanning communication would be a beast of a spell and take ridiculous mana reserves or a team of mages to pull off. Definitely not something readily available.

[Darius Drake]

Originally Posted by dniv

Well, when I was suggesting Damien as Red Robe, I was assuming that while he found some relic on his recent archaeological trip, that it possibly possessed him or corrupted him with power. There of course could also just be the possibility that he isn't a very nice person but is just charismatic to others.

My original theory was that given that Zorian hates Damien so much, there's probably a good reason for it. Moreover, every time Damian is brought up, Zorian doesn't want to hear about it, so it would be easy for Zorian not to find out anything about him because he's basically the one thing that no matter how much time passes, Zorian will not try to explore.

...

Either way, that's a fairer pitch of my previous theory that I didn't go into detail explaining last time because I was too busy.

Originally Posted by Namorax

Well, aren't his parents going to visit him? There is always a chance that they might mention that Kiri isn't with them, since it stands to reason that the parents expect their "favorite son" to help them find accommodations for their visit. Also, it appears that their parents always had the intention to take Kiri with them, the only reason Kiri can actually go with Zorian is because their mother would've never expected him to actually say yes (and she even put Zorian in a bad mood just to ensure he wouldn't say yes to Kiri's request). It stands to reason that the parents would call Damien to notify him of the changed circumstances.
IIRC, Zorian has the choice to go with his parents instead of going back to the academy, even if hell is more likely to freeze over... but it is still a choice he can make.

Besides, I had the impression that Zorian doesn't dislike Damien because Damien is Damien... it's more likely that he had to spend all his live listening to how his parents idolise Damien.
Damien is charismatic, intelligent, influental to a certain degree and famous (remember how much Zorian hates it when people ask him if he is related to that Damien?).
Zorian is pretty much... nothing like that. No matter what he does, he will always be compared to his brothers, (probably) fall short and even if he somehow manages to meet the expectaions of his parents... he won't get any praise or recognition because it was "expected" from him. Add the problems caused by his budding empathy and you can somehow understand why Zorian developed an intense dislike of his family.

The lasting impression I have of the parents is that of an ambitious merchant family who are more concerned about their social standing than anything else. They expect Zorian to become another Dorian and be anything except himself. If they really cared for Zorian, they would've tried to compromise somewhere along the lines, but apparently Zorian either had to submit to their demands or escape to the academy.

Considering that Damian is pretty much the "golden boy" of the story, I see no reason for him to dislike his family or have a false front towards everyone else. Of course, untill we actually meet him, we have no idea what he is like. Our only source of information is what is known to the public, and the comments made by family members... both of which aren't the most reliable sources if you want to create an objective picture of someone.

Zorian has numerous problems with Damien, some of which have been pointed out in the story. Basically, Zorian's problems with his brother, from my memory, in descending order of my view of their importance:

.1. Damien's "Privilege". Damien is a "privileged child", who is (mysteriously to Zorian) charming enough to persuade pretty much anyone to give him what he wants. Yes, Zorian is jealous of this fact. His reasoning is the same as a child at Halloween getting an apple or a single piece of lollies while their siblings who went to the same house at the same time get a whole scoop of lollies.

.2. Older Brother Bullying. Damien, like many elder brothers in our world enjoys bullying his younger siblings. Zorian was his main target because, being the black sheep, Damien would get into far less trouble and could get away with far more against Zorian than against Fortov. This has also resulted in Zorian being traumatised by Damien (the dancing spell).

.3. "Following in the Footsteps", aka, Damien's Fame. Damien's famous. This is fine, and we all understand this. However, what we don't always understand is that this causes people to treat those who come after him differently. In Zorian's case, this means that they basically are more dismissive of Zorian's own skills, probably assuming that he got some training by his elder, famous, brother. Zorian's taken advantage of this in the timeloop to get people to dismiss him knowing things that he shouldn't know, but has been stated that he has been knocked back from requests before the timeloop due to "overconfidence kills" when he tried to show off or impress them in hopes of learning more stuff. The reason this is at number 3, however, is because Zorian probably doesn't know/hasn't realised how much of an effect this has, and is mostly annoyed by the people who fanboy/girl over his brother, and try to befriend Zorian in the hopes of meeting their "hero", Damien.

[Odriew]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

there were the reset immediately after the Red Robe annihilate the spiders and Zorian would disappear immediately. I am pretty sure the parent sent a letter at least saying they can't visit him because Zorian disappear.

What makes you think a letter would reach Zorian's brother any quicker then the parents themselves would? Letters are only as quick as their method of transportation. If they are transported by train and/or boat they might be pretty slow.

Here is an article where someone describes crossing the pacific ocean in 26 days.
http://www.travelwithachallenge.com/...er-Travel.html

I'm not sure how big the oceans or how fast the ships are in mother of learning so who knows how long it would take.

[Dart-Sama]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

there were the newspaper which list Zorian as among students whose decided that Cyoria was too dangerous and had them pull out. Whether Zorian disappear immediately on waking or after he got on the train. His parent's still had plenty of time to find out.

edit: c35, Zorian mention there were a couple of times he left the house very early. early enough to worry his mother.

those newspapers where based on info obtained in the academy, they couldnt posibly visit every students family =S

[Namorax]

They have a civilization that more or less covers the entire world. And they have mgaic... so obviously they need a way to get messages from one end of the world to the next.

One cannot expect those messages to be instanteous like ours nowadays... but I assume that getting a letter to Damien in two weeks or something should be possible.

[Blankdom]

Originally Posted by bludvein

The human animation thing alone goes way past what could be called good taste for a prank and sounds like he was just treating his toddler brother as a mannequin to experiment on.

I disagree with this, as it could be viewed as him honing their resistance towards said spell. -- It was stated in one of the chapters, that the more a spell is used on you, the higher your resistance to it becomes.

Originally Posted by Wurstorff

Do you have a basis for this or does this just come from "it's a magic world"? We've seen them use magic rather ingeniously to do the same we do with our technology. Take chemistry, knowledge about the atomar/molecular structure of things is pretty spread there. Plus, the tendency of Ikosian magic to assimilate every useful tradition possible. Communication is useful, and their magic is so developed they hardly ever find anything new to absorb. Having long range communication via magic fundamentally unviable sounds arbitrarily biased and dumb. Based on that alone, I'd guess they should have some means of long range communications that is easily within the means of a successful merchant family.

I'm pretty sure they do. The teleporting beacon is a good guess, just send the message address to a location + someone, and pay a fee, and they'll send it. -- It'll be pretty similar to how our mailing works.

[cabman11]

Just came back after a long time but did the spiders come back to life yet?

[Darius Drake]

Nope. They're still dead. They'll be dead for a while longer. We're in the middle of Part 2, and if they come back, I doubt it'll be before Part 3. And will probably be near the end of Part 3, at that.

[Blankdom]

Originally Posted by cabman11

Just came back after a long time but did the spiders come back to life yet?

Cyorian spider are gone (dead is dead, afterall), but new ones were introduced. Also, it's hypothesized that they aren't killed, just ejected, so they can't 'come back to life'.

[dniv]

One of the things that bothers me is how Xvim fits into things. Why is he so goddamn strange as a teacher? Is he just some really arrogant asshole that has mind-magic powers? Lol, that can't be all. That would just be so troll.

Given his notoriety though I feel like he couldn't be a plot element overlooked by the antagonists though so I would find it strange for him to be completely unrelated to things.

Lol, its funny how just a few mysteries all at once can suddenly become quite troublesome and throw you for a lot of loops.

[deathbringer]

The one small pet theory I have is that the Xvim appointment for Zorian's mentor was not coincidental. In a resent chapter, it said Xvim taught talented first and second years as well as 4th year classes. This probably means that he taught Damien as well. Ilsa probably saw that Zorian's grades weren't too bad and being Damien's brother deliberately put Xvim as Zoran's mentor. This shows that the teachers probably hold Xvim's abilities in high regard. Ilsa even told Xvim to not to be such a hard ass on Zorian.

[Darius Drake]

Personally, I think that Xvim's an Archmage. Probably the only one working at the school, and one of the better connected teachers. However, due to his ...individual... teaching style, he doesn't connect many of his students to his contacts, nor does he have very many students that go to all his "one-on-one" teaching sessions for the entire school year (or two).

[bludvein]

Originally Posted by deathbringer

The one small pet theory I have is that the Xvim appointment for Zorian's mentor was not coincidental. In a resent chapter, it said Xvim taught talented first and second years as well as 4th year classes. This probably means that he taught Damien as well. Ilsa probably saw that Zorian's grades weren't too bad and being Damien's brother deliberately put Xvim as Zoran's mentor. This shows that the teachers probably hold Xvim's abilities in high regard. Ilsa even told Xvim to not to be such a hard ass on Zorian.

It was after he showed off his talents that he got Ilsa to tell Xvim to go easy a bit. Before that her dialogue of "at least you'll have it better than his other vict- I mean charges" tells the story. Getting stuck with Xvim was not a compliment.

[deathbringer]

^^ Fair enough I must have misremembered the encounter.
Although i do fully expect something to come from the line I stated earlier. The author loves to insert foreshadowing on all his plot points and to almost break the forth wall to lampshade them. Heck the time dilation chamber was foreshadowed in a completely throw away rumor 20 chapters ago that i did not expect.

One of the reasons why I don't think Damien is the red robe is because, of what has been said about Damien. Its more of overly ambitious asshole and nothing too sinister or vindictive except maybe practicing the animation spell using Zorian.

Maybe a lot changed since Zorian last saw him but I feel that a major plot twist such as Damien being red robe would have been foreshadowed a lot more by now. Thoughts?

[Odriew]

I hope Damien isn't Red Robe. Having two people in the same family just happen to be in the time loop seems like to much of a coincidence to me.

[Namorax]

Why? One of them was destinied to become a maincharacter after all... xD
There is no such thing as a "coincidence" where maincharacters are concerned.

[Odriew]

Originally Posted by Namorax

Why? One of them was destinied to become a maincharacter after all... xD
There is no such thing as a "coincidence" where maincharacters are concerned.

I'm not really sure what you mean by no such thing as a "coincidence" where maincharacters are concerned. It's just my personal taste, but too many unlikely things happening to the main character make it difficult for me to suspend my disbelief. One unlikely thing which the story resolves around is fine (like getting into the time loop in the first place). To many unlikely things bugs me a little.

[Namorax]

Wasn't meant to say that "unlikely" things happen to Zorian... what I meant was that no matter if Damien turns out to be Redcloak or not, it won't be a coincidence because it will be what the author decided it to be.

If Damien is Redcloak, he will have been Redcloak from the moment the author described the scene where Kiri jumped on Zorian's stomach for the first time.

[Odriew]

Really I'm only talking about my personal opinion here. It would seem like a coincidence to me because time travels are rare so having two brothers entered the loop in completely different unrelated ways seems like a big coincidence to me. I accept that others see it differently, and I'm not saying they are wrong. Their opinion is just as valid as my own. I'm not trying to be critical. I'm just sharing about my personal preference as it exists at this time. Maybe something in the story will make me change my mind latter. Also, even if red rob is his brother I'm not going to stop liking the story just because of that.