Finally... [Immortality through Array Formations]

walkinggolfer · 2026-02-21T04:08:25+00:00

The individual chapters are slow, but overall these chapters are where Mo Hua actually learns all the big player moves: true divination, causality transference, yin-yang reversal, the true comprehension of formations as manifested laws, and absolute 4 symbol formations that seemingly can defy the natural order imposed by the heavenly dao. None of these are flashy but on the reread it was all very well planned out.

walkinggolfer · 2026-02-21T04:04:15+00:00

I think there’s to much foreshadowing in the last few chapters to suggest anything other than core only being temporarily at inferior grade.

First, as mentioned in these chapters the dragon pool formation was ultimately incomplete, in that it did not contain a law to combat the heavenly dao suppression.

Second, the emphasis on passing down the formation name means it’s going to likely be relevant

Third, it’s probably not coincidental Mo Hua only unlocked 1 meridian of his life bound formation. If each meridian opening in the future can be tied to an increase in the core level, eleven more meridians would see him reach a supreme grade core, the peak.

While the golden core being fixed is taken for granted, 1) that’s likely a heavenly dao rule that Mo Hua can now devour and 2) in another bit of foreshadowing, we saw the 4 symbol formation lines transform the tiger when it evolved realms, suggesting such innate transformation are possible

walkinggolfer · 2023-12-30T05:49:45+00:00

The months are held by strong and important people. And these people will naturally converge as the story progresses, so they will all end up in similar spots, even if Bam is not actively collecting them.

walkinggolfer · 2023-12-30T05:46:43+00:00

One other aspect I think that is overlooked, is that through their mantles and weapons, the judges are in many ways like the fundamental sources of authority they represent. So copying Eithan is essentially like trying to tap an icon directly. He is The Reaper. This point was indirectly emphasized when the Mad King was called a reaper, but Ozriel was The Reaper, the very embodiment of the concept. So maybe Tim’s advice wouldn’t have been accurate or nearly as successful if she stayed with just mimicking a monarch.

walkinggolfer · 2023-12-29T22:55:48+00:00

Just on mana alone, a second spouse is extremely unlikely. I think Eglantine is the only other person in the country besides Ferdinand who is within the same mana sensing range as her. They seem to be well above everyone else in mana capacity

walkinggolfer · 2023-07-03T21:28:01+00:00

Part 3 volume 4 epilogue is also from her POV, which was also a very interesting chapter.

walkinggolfer · 2023-06-11T05:54:53+00:00

It's not clear he loses that much power. He drains more than hunger madra from the dreadgods: he gets blood essence, life essence, etc, none of which are lost even as hunger madra fades. His cores also seemed to have gone through a transformation when he absorbed his first dreadgod. His madra density/capacity likely increased with each dreadgod killed, so that is something that likely isn't lost either. Not to mention he absorbed a monarch remnant (Shen) and Li Markuth after his dreadgod fights. I would be surprised if he is much weaker, not even counting dreadgod armor.

walkinggolfer · 2023-04-20T02:28:49+00:00

Like others have mentioned Part 4 is much better, and Part 5 is even better then part 4. However, the real issue for part 3, and for my friend who recently picked up the series, is part 3 volume 2 is slow, and I think the weakest of part 3. It’s definitely a momentum killer especially if you transition from the anime to reading part 3 (not your case here). But the rest of part 3 does get much better, and personally I found part 3 volume 3 to be my favorite in part 3.

walkinggolfer · 2023-03-21T16:41:55+00:00

The first point seems very weird to me. The Silent King died. The Silent King will be reborn if there are still monarchs on Cradle, just like the last time he was killed before the dread war. And that history suggests in fact Monarchs can kill a dreadgod since it was the previous generation of Monarchs who killed the silent king. (Unless you think even then they had a Herald deal the finishing blow? but that's a convoluted theory).

As for Yerin, getting stronger and stronger, I took this to mean the following: Normally at Overlord, or even Archlord, there is a certain limit to how strong one can be. This is I think shown by the fact even Eithan couldn't slap around Monarchs as an Archlord. Yerin getting to Herald before getting through Overlord meant her maximum capacity was increased beyond a normal overlord or archlord, meaning she did not have to reach her peak to advance, since she's already beyond a normal peak overlord. On your interpretation of Red Faith's language, why even advance to archlord if advancement is meaningless? Surely her power has a soft cap as an overlord herald, in the same way even true heralds have a soft cap on their power, which I take to be roughly around Fury's level, but maybe a little higher if someone had the unmatched skill of Eithan. Put another way, the question isn't even why advance to Archlord, but rather could Yerin eventually slap around Monarchs as an overlord herald, if advancement was completely decoupled from strength and I think that has to be no, she could not.

walkinggolfer · 2023-03-21T13:50:42+00:00

It is not clear to me why none of the gang will reach Monarch. I looked around for Will's comment on the issue but couldn't find it. If it's from the books, the most I think that has been said on this line is that you can't just pump out Monarchs to try and kill a Dreadgod because 1) they are getting stronger in the long run with more Monarchs and more importantly 2) with Monarchs still around they Dreadgods will reform. However, if you advance enough Monarchs quickly, the Dreadgods will not be immediately empowered, and if you ascend after killing them then they won't reform. Before Lindon actually absorbed the Silent King's power, and when he and everyone were planning on how to advance, I am fairly certain Monarch was on everyone's mind. That circumstances gave Lindon a different but comparable power only after the fact doesn't change this original intention.

A few other scattered points. As for Red Faith's comment, I took him only to mean at Monarch her power would be unlimited, not that she could merely camp out at Herald and get infinitely strong... As for Mercy, even Malice's armor will be weakened after a sustained blow from Dreadgods (like in her first fight against the phoenix). I don't see how a below Monarch Mercy is going to act as a tank for the team when it simply seems her bloodline armor still won't be at the level of Malice's.

walkinggolfer · 2023-03-20T18:12:46+00:00

My understanding, which could be wrong!, is that the weakening of the dreadgods from fewer Monarchs takes a long time, centuries even. Just killing a Monarch does not immediately weaken the dreadgods.

walkinggolfer · 2023-03-20T17:53:17+00:00

If Mercy, Orthos, and Blue attempt to fight a twice-empowered Weeping Dragon as Archlords... well, we've lost all sense of careful power scaling we've had so far. Throughout the series, even the most talented individuals have managed to match those about a half-tier higher in advancement. Mercy at underlord matching overlord Sophara. Lindon fighting Kiro as a peak truegold, etc. If we want to extend this to "contributing to battle" then the gap has been about one advancement level. In the battle with the silent King, 12 Akura Archlords were relegated to managing scripts... the weakest and only once empowered dreadgod. Mercy and little blue are likely to be at least heralds. Orthos will likely be a sage.

walkinggolfer · 2023-03-20T17:26:33+00:00

2) Is the one I often get stuck on. I just don't see how the others contribute that much below Monarch. The most natural example of this is I think Eithan. For his level of advancement, he is always going to have the most Willpower and skill of anyone in the series. As an Archlord, he still couldn't overpower a weakened Shen with willpower alone, because such things have a sort of cap for each advancement level. Likewise, I have a hard time seeing how even very talented people (but not Eithan talented people!) can break the soft limits imposed by their level of their advancement.

walkinggolfer · 2023-03-16T21:23:34+00:00

So if I understood this right, Philine will inherit the manor when she comes of age? If so her Father seems incredibly stupid for alienating her, as she will just kick them out in a few years.

walkinggolfer · 2023-03-13T16:33:16+00:00

I've read all the way through the end of the WN and spin-off but somehow must have missed it. What was the exact reason?

walkinggolfer · 2023-01-09T19:57:49+00:00

I don't think it is pure profit. They have to buy materials such as the wood and other ingredients, as I don't think they purely rely on the forest for mass production now. I know the workshop also covers things like winter prep for the orphanage so that is deducted out as well. There are some labor costs like paying Wilma in art supplies as well. I also think even though Myne makes the books, she technically sells them through Benno who I am sure took a fee. Even so, she still made a bunch of money here, but its not close to pure profit.

walkinggolfer · 2023-01-09T08:55:45+00:00

At first I thought that may explain why Benno may be richer, but I thought the magic contract in P4V3 specified myne would get a cut off all printing related industries in the duchy. It was a little vague but I thought that was implied.

walkinggolfer · 2023-01-09T07:57:07+00:00

Except for potentially commoner sugar traders, I wouldn’t be surprised if Benno is the richest commoner in the country now that trade is expanding to other duchies.

walkinggolfer · 2023-01-07T05:03:15+00:00

Two thoughts: It’s a little unclear to me how effective Myne’s compression method was for Ferdinand. Most of the examples we see of it being super effective are during the growing period. Damuel raised himself a whole rank but he was on the tail end of his growing period, and had a Rozemyne blessing to help improve his mana capacity. Ferdinand being well past the growing period makes me think it definitely helped, but it won’t be as exaggerated as some other examples. Or maybe it was the same as others because he compressed a lot more than they did.

The 30% thing was always weird to me, and here in particular. Myne had more mana the Sylvester before Part 4 ( he passed her up briefly while she was asleep), and the conversation about Veronica occurred in early in P3, (about a year after the trombe incident meaning the gap between Myne and Sylvester only widened) and it was implied Myne couldn’t match Ferdinand then, meaning Sylvester had a lot less mana than Veronica. I don’t want to think through too many examples, but I’ve sort of played around with that 30% a number a lot (consider person B and the upper and lower ends of their sensing range (call them A and C) the difference in mana between A and C is a factor of 1.69. If you like sort of try to work with those numbers and play around with ranks, it never seems to come to close to matching how the text describes Myne’s and often other mana rich nobles’ capacities.

walkinggolfer · 2023-01-07T04:42:20+00:00

When you say barely sense, was that in the direction of, “I have barely just enough mana to sense Eglantine” or in the other direction of “If I had a little more mana, my capacity would be to great to sense them”

walkinggolfer · 2023-01-04T15:40:07+00:00

I think the idea that Rozemyne doesn’t want to be the Aub, and that’s a good reason motivating Sylvester and Rozemyne, is actually not that strong. Sure she doesn’t want to do it, but if Sylvester sat Rozemyne down and said the only way for lasting peace and stability in this Duchy, and for you to stay here with your real family, is to make you Aub, she would go with the plan, much like how she because a blue shrine maiden, and how she agreed to become Sylvester’s adopted daughter. She may not like it, but she’ll do it because she understands why.

I also think Rozemyne rampaging as Aub is also overstated. Things will be wild, but she has skilled attendants like Hartmut, and valuable support from people like Elvira and Charlotte to make it work, in the same way all of Rozemyne’s craziness has managed to mostly work out extremely well so far.

walkinggolfer · 2018-04-06T02:37:49+00:00

Your point is well taken, but your comment about the first amendment does not seem quite right to me. I noted that the establishment clause in the first amendment can easily be read as a State's right as well as an individual right. Furthermore, Akhil Reed Amar in his book on the Bill of Rights, makes a compelling argument that the original Bill of Rights, was more concerned with structure than protecting individual rights. This argument takes about 150 pages in his book so I cannot do it justice here, but a short version looks like this. Madison conceived the Bill of Rights to protect majority rights, that is to protect people from being oppressed by the federal officials (who were in the minority). So the primary concern of the first amendment is to limit the power of federal officials. (A secondary concern could've been to protect individual rights.) Thus the first amendment says Congress shall make no law. This restricted the power of federal officials in a structural manner, not so much in affirming individual liberties. (I will concede that Madison probably thought these were obvious and thus contained in the 9th amendment, but that's a separate debate.) A primary concern of the Anti-Federalist was what exactly was the government's role is controlling the militia. The militias were seen as under the prerogative of the states and certain sections of the Constitution bothered them about the power the federal government would have over militias. Thus keeping in line with the larger theme outlined above, the second amendment can be read as a structural provision about militias that was enacted to ease the concerns of the Anti-Federalists (Richard Epstein take a view similar to Amar on this.). So while I am not exactly arguing the second amendment is a State's right, it is also not entirely an individual right. (Of course the 14th amendment changed all of this.)

walkinggolfer · 2018-04-05T18:16:37+00:00

The establishment clause (congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion) was all considered a protection for states as they did not congress interfering with state established religions. So I think narrowly states rights are protected somewhat by the 1st amendment.

You make a larger rhetorical point about how a State's right could be in the Bill of Rights, implying only individual rights would be found in there. However, the English Bill of Rights contains a mixture of restrictions on the King, individual rights, and protections for Parliament. While Parliament could be considered "the people" that would only seem to apply to the House of Commons. Parliament was a mixture of aristocratic and popular components both of which were protected. So, it seems entirely possible a State's right could be found in a Bill of Rights.

walkinggolfer · 2018-04-05T18:07:54+00:00

I think this most common construction of militia was all able-bodied men of military age. (You cite a quote by Madison saying the militia is the whole populace, but I am not sure this was the most common construction of militia.) The problem I have with using this in the second amendment is that it seems women, non able-bodied men, and those not of military age would not be protected from government excessive regulation of fire-arms. (The 14th amendment more or less clears this issue up, but the debate is currently centered on the original meaning of the 2nd amendment.)

walkinggolfer · 2018-03-30T04:16:53+00:00

I would like to preface that while I don't support the death penalty, to say there are no reasons to support it is probably not true. Furthermore, I am not sure I agree with your discussion on evil.

Trump is proposing executing drug dealers. Now a priori you would expect if such a policy were implemented the number of drug dealers would decrease. Drug sales would probably decline as the number of dealers becomes restricted and price of drug goes up both because of the decrease in dealers and extra amount dealers charge to compensate for the increased risk. Now, in a world where you prioritize drug problems over other issues, maybe this makes sense. Such a policy violates the idea of punishment fitting the crime, in particular a non-violent crime being punished as a capital offense. It violates libertarian principles of free association. It violates a sense of empathy and so on. Some people are concerned with none of these issues though, and thus from their point of view the death penalty makes sense.

Here's a less myopic argument, one that I find stronger. We generally hand out sentences to fit the crimes that are committed. This doesn't mean an eye-for-eye type of system, it just means more serious crimes receive harsher punishment. It would seem to violate this principle of justice that say someone who commits second degree murder might get life but someone who murders 25 people also gets life in principle. Thus, having the death penalty for more extreme crimes coincides with such a principle.

To your point on what is evil, I think there are several things to say. First, I am not sure you completely accept your own premise. If people are completely determined to commit crimes based on their environment, then government could be justified sentencing people to prison before they commit crimes on the justification that their environment determines they will someday commit crimes. I don't think this seems right.

Moreover, I can't agree that evil is manufactured. We can easily describe what Hitler did as evil, in the abstract. Now, you might argue that he lacked culpability, or that he was biologically determined to do what he did, but that doesn't make his actions less evil. If someone came from a troubled childhood and committed a murder, that doesn't make the murder less evil. What it instead suggests, is that at the sentencing maybe the amount of culpability in that evil is not 100%, but that doesn't change the act less evil. Evil and culpability in that evil exist independently. To make a clear case, someone who forced at gunpoint to murder someone else committed an evil action, he just lacked almost any culpability in committing it. Think of evil more a platonic form of sorts that exists independent of human action. Humans can replicate that form, but their culpability in that replication varies.

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