A professor at a research institution in an ancient fallen empire once wrote a treatise on the nature of Talents. He had a lot of Knowledge Talents and a few interesting magical ones. He speculated about the artificiality of Talents. They were relatively unconnected to their users. You didn't actually have to chain Aspects, like having Hydromancy, gaining Limusomancy, then proceeding to Silvamancy. People often had an "anchoring Aspect" but that was most for synergy and wasn't required. You weren't advancing by specializing. You could learn something like Smoke without the components of Fire and Air.

Talents also didn't advance through use or practice. You could practice decision making to some degree but you didn't improve skills by action but merely climbing the Phases through challenges. You couldn't train Attributes either. Brawn was not advanced by lifting weights. Of course much like magic didn't seem to arise from laws of the world any amountof brawn put you beyond the peak of natural improvement so perhaps it made since that lifting weights didn't impact it.

One practical application of this was that there was no sort of resource conflict. You didn't become powerful by fighting monsters, you only improved your understanding of Talent application and got materials for economic use from their bodies. As such as we advanced through the *Far Wild* on the remaining 3 weeks of our journey we could advance our tactics and reactions through individual or small group training. No one was left out of rewards and there was safety from non-participating party members being able to step in.

I wanted to have some fun with abilities that weren't Hasting myself or others. I started off against some rats to get a measure of my individual abilities.

Breeze Rat lvl 1 *8 Health 80 Mana 40 MOV 10m/s Claw Swipe 10 dmg 1s Nip 15 dmg 1s 5Mana Swift Claw 30 dmg 1s 20Mana Chronomancer Health 78 Mana 357/384 +9/s MOV 5m/s Haste 3s Quicken 0s

I start out 40m away from the rats and cast Quicken on myself. Haste is just so good. Of course I now have 3s of time to cast other spells unlike in team fights.

The rats cross 10m. I realize how silly I am and simply cast Mini Nova. With 80 magical damage the rats are toast. I push a little deeper by myself but still in rescue range until I find some high end level 2 Dire Rats.

Dire Rat lvl 2*4 Health 200 Abs Phys 10 Mana 100 MOV 10m/s Fierce Claw 30 dmg 1s Massive Claw 70dmg 2s 10mana Furious Chomp 100dmg 2s 30mana 2s

I consider my options and realize I can still solve the issue purely with Mini Nova. First Quicken, then cast Mini Nova 3 times. 240-15=225. 225>200. As long as I can catch all my enemies in the AoE, which is admittedly easy since rats and small and clump, I can handle even double digits of lvl 2 monsters solo. Chronomancy was part of that, though. Haste let me get off the third spell. They'd have attacked on their 5th phase and I couldn't have finished 3 Mini Novas in less than 6 of my phases. Of course Haste can't solve everything. The one downside is you are still spending mana. 37+222=259. 2-3 more expensive spells and I'd be out.

Dire Forest Wolf lvl 3*4 Health 320 ABS 20 Mana 160 MOV 15m/s Claw Rake 50 dmg 1s Dark Chomp 100 dmg 2s 40 mana

My last battle was against a pack of Dire Forest Wolves. They were 45m out but they moved fast. After 4s they'd be on me unless I could do something. A key issue with early Time magic is that it is all single target and capped at 20m of range until you get to Phase 2. It would take me 7 seconds to eliminate them with my basic strategy. Quicken, Nova, Nova, Nova, Quicken, Nova, Nova. And I would actually be 6 mana short. Orbital Capture could buy me 1 extra second per cast but I was already short on mana. The Cleanser and the Shieldmaiden were luckily prepared to help me out. None of our individual party members could really handle the wolves. Without Haste for action economy and/or good control abilities no one could juggle mana, damage, and control effects. The Crusher was perhaps the closest but without buffs Dark Chomp could mostly mitigate her absorbtion.

After reaching the limit of my individual options for now I enlisted the Shieldmaiden and the Crusher into my pratice. While Corporomancy was purely passive at Phase 1 the extra mana and some of the powerful buffs from Burnishing had given me an idea. After a little scouting effort while maintaining our movement towards the Ducal Seat we finally find what we were looking for. A trio of Quartz Behemoths. This would be a long fight with just 3 of us.

Quartz Behemoth lvl 4*3 Health 700 ABS 40 Mana 350 MOV 5m/s Quartz Aura: -2s control Boulder Fist 100 dmg 2s Stun 1s Pounding Smash 200 dmg 3s Stun 70 mana 2s

We started about 25m away for a simple reason. There was not a ton of chain buffing to do and we wanted the Crusher and the Shieldmaiden to engage as melee range. I cast Quicken, she cast Mantle. The Maiden cast Invigorate. The enormous hairy beasts trundled forward.

I cast Accelerate on the Maiden thanks to Invigorate and then one second of Accelerate on the Crusher. The Maiden cast Invigorate once, since double casting buffs just refreshes the cooldown, then Empower on herself and the Crusher. The Crusher cast Roar and Might. Action increases were sadly utility buffs but Might got 2 extra seconds of duration while Roar added +2 strikes, totalling 4, to each of them. Mantle went to 7. The behemoths advanced another 5m.

I cast Steller Radiation which stacked with Mantle. Then finished Accelerate on the Crusher. The Crusher ran forward leaving 5m between her and the enemy. She cast Alacrity with her last action. The Maiden had 3 actions. One was obviously Invigorate on everyone. Then she ran foward 5+5=10m to stand side by side with the Crusher. The monsters walked into melee range.

I still had Haste for one turn plus I had Invigorate. Not a ton of options but not nothing. I cast Time Stop on all 3 behemoths. Now their control resist was totally gone. The Crusher began her attack. She attacked the far left monster in front of her. She dealt +5 Gravity, +10 Light, +15 Force and physical damage of Brawn/2(11)+Hammer(10)+Bracelet*2(10)+Roar(10)+Might(10)+Brutality(7)=58. She had 4 actions thanks to Haste, Invigorate, and Alacrity. She had 144 mana plus she recovered 7 each turn after being below max so 7*2=14. She had cast spells for 30, 30, 40, and 50, leaving her with only 8 which was unfortunate. Having her uses mana intense strikes would have been awesome. Nevertheless with all their control resistance gone she could afford to double strike both the monster on the left and the one in front. This amounted to 58-40/2=38 physical damage and 30-40/4=20 magical damage twice on each enemy +4s of Stun each. 116 damage was quite a bit considering. The Shieldmaiden had a mere 3 moves. She was down to 10 mana so she just had to triple bash the right side monster. 6s of stun. She dealt Roar(10)+Brawn/2(2)+Shield Bash(20)=32 as well as +5 Gravity, +5 Light, and +10 Force. 32-ABS/2=12 and 20-ABS/4=10. She only did 66 actual damage with 3 actions but she did apply 6 seconds of stun. Luckily Shield Bash was a free Strike. The downside was shields did not boost damage and you couldn't use your weapon during a Shield Bash. All the enemies were under control effects of 4/4/6.

I cast Quicken on myself as my now only action. The Maiden had 1 more second of Haste so she doubled Bashed her behemoth. The second hit lacked Roar so she only dealt 34 damage. She also only added 2 seconds of stun due to Quartz Aura not being drained. The Crusher had 2 seconds of Haste and 4 of Alacrity. Her Roar strikes had also been drained. She did have 15 mana which she spent on a Bludgeon. Adding 6 seconds of Stun to the left side behemoth. Her damage was reduced by 10 so her 3 attacks dealt 48*3 and then her Mantle was expended. 144+116 put the middle behemoth at half health. Lacking the mana for Shatter was really unfortunate in this fight. Stellar Radiation was going to be a major boon in this fight. Over the 10s that it existed, unfortunately missing the boost from Empower, it would provide hundreds of damage of value, especially conbined with Enhanced Strikes.

I Hasted the Crusher this time. She did her thing dealing 28 physical and 10 magical damage 3x on the right side behemoth. This was so that the Maiden's Shield Bash wouldn't waste the stun impact. The behemoths each dropped a second of control.

I Hasted the Maiden to give us some extra control on the right side of the fight. She Bashed the center behemoth and the Crusher did her triple strike. She had 1 more turn of Alacrity. The central enemy had taken 414 damage at this point and was totally locked down. The enemy vainly waited out the massive stun overload.

I had a free turn but I had spent 384 of 384 mana and only recovered 63. I couldn't actually afford to do anything so I ran up 10 meters. In theory I could do 33*2.5=82 mana damage plus 10 base, for 19 mana once per turn, since the base time was 2 with this ability. Even 1 or 2 hits could help finish something off. Well actually with 40 ABS I'd lose the 10 base damage with the remaining 30 blocking 15 damage. So I'd only do 57 a hit. Still not terrible to do 114 for 38 mana. The Crusher had to deploy 6-2(res) of control on the left side behemoth so it would stay tied up. The Maiden hit the right side one twice. 2s of extra cc.

I blew another 37 mana on Quicken. The Crusher dealt another 114 on the central behemoth. 528/700 gone. Sadly her Haste was used up. The Maiden did 24 with 2 Shield Bashes. 552.

I hasted the Crusher. I was now essentially out of mana. The Maiden did another 24 damage to the middle enemy. 576 life beaten away. The Crusher only had 2 attacks to deal 76 damage. 652.

I was out of mana. The Maiden did 12 damage. The Crusher did 38, -2/700 health and the middle enemy went down. Then she double tapped the left side behemoth for 2s of control and 76 damage.

I was still out of mana. The Maiden did her 12 to the right side behemoth. She had a sad 35 mana and couldn't do any spells. The Crusher had 40 mana and she spent 30 on Shatter. The left side behemoth would die next turn. With an easy eternal stun and 1 enemy the fight was functionally over. We had won.

The Behemoth fight was pretty intense. A 4th enemy would have forced us to call for other party members. Conversely a 4th member for us, such as the Arcanist or the Cleanser would have made it trivial. Actually, I wondered how it would go with the Miasmist. Disease had a ton of ramping and finishing abilities.