Part 4: Ah, yes...thermite - when you absolutely need an instantaneous chemical reaction to melt face...or an airship (yes, I know Mythbusters busted that one but it could happen...just not as the paint on the ship).

And yeah, of course it's horrifying. It's a bloody fusion reaction! You also extended the one thing you shouldn't have, you unstudied amateur magical chemist, you.

Next time, deal with liquid nitrogen. At least you only have to worry about your lungs freezing with the blowback. Along with the rest of your body of course but, we don't have time for logical implications!

I actually love Emille. She is the funniest character in this book imo. Her common sense is really something else. 😂😂

@Windsagio It's with the Professor. The Professor is the former leader of the Court Sorceress while Gardner is the new one.
(Partly the reason why Allen "failed" the exam)
The Professor and Gardner hate each other as far we know, the Headmaster as far we know doesn't have much interaction with Gardner.

Volume 4 (Premium Edition): 2 Bonus Short Stories With Sweet and Sour Jam The Things We Dislike

@Paul-Nebeling I believe we've already seen the cost. Rehzel was forcibly converted to Extra Mode, and it transformed him into a demonic deity. Beforehand, he was actually willing to pursue reconciliation with the elves, but afterwards he was singularly focused on claiming the world tree. His true goal was really just to have the right to die under its branches, but his transformation shut out his ability to consider any alternate methods of accomplishing that, or any of his other desires. It's like how when Krena was carried away by limit break and was hyperfocused on her goal of fighting a powerful opponent, without being able to think about whether or not she should.

Allen is in hell mode whilst remaining... passably sane, and the demons have talked about stepping through your extra gate, so I think there's a way to safely enter extra mode. The issue is that you can only do it yourself; having it activated for you results in your will being consumed by your own skills, which is why the Gods can't help. In a way, even though it was facilitated by the Gods, Allen entered hell mode under his own will and resolve, which is why he's able to control it. I believe Krena for example could enter Extra mode by learning to view limit break as just a normal part of her, and shattering the restrictions normal mode places on it through sheer force of will. In extra mode, limit break would probably just be a lv 7 skill that can be toggled on or off at will, just like how if Allen was in normal mode, his extra skill would probably be one of Quick Summoning (with limited duration), Deputize (one use per day), or maybe King Me.

One thing I find potentially interesting; the extra skills seem to be randomly chosen from a pool of potential lv 7/8 class skills, as not everyone with the same talent has the same extra skill, but they're always relevant to your class. However, Drops of God is likely a cleric/saint class skill and monk wouldn't get it; if he chose the monk promotion, would have have gotten a different extra skill? Similarly, Sophie's grand spirit summoning is clearly within the "spirit user" class line, and she was not actually originally a spirit user - the direct promotion of spirit wizardess is likely spirit arch-wizardess, but she chose an alternate branch. This would mean grand spirit summoning was a potential extra skill of a class she could potentially promote into, but if she had gone into extra mode as a spirit mage, she never would have gotten it.

This novel becomes harder to like with every next volume. I swallowed that everyone except the MC and a few marginal extras is a meathed and/or a bully. I can get over that every encounter is balanced and staged like a Hollywood blockbuster, where "our side" always wins after a meaningful battle, roughed a bit but without any permanent loss; when balance fails a little deus-ex-machina settles things. I can ignore that while genocide level violence happens off screen, the MCs use tactical level spells and weapons, splitting ships in half and vanquishing armies in a single swoop but never kill a single soul.

However I am drawing the line at the routine use of the technique of a conversation or inner thoughts getting to a major point just to - hey this a beautiful green griffin in the sky. And then cliffhangers left hanging for volumes. My only regret is I didn't drop this earlier, but this is a goodbye.

@piisfun said in Reincarnated Mage Vol. 4 Discussion!:

@GeorgeMTO The scary part is when the studio looks at it and says, "Given how short these volumes are, we should be able to shove ten into a single season!"

Unwanted Undead Adventurer is the only one where that might turn out well :)

Fina shook her head sadly at the butchering job done on Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear.

Not sure why the discussion link from volume 5 points here but oh well.

The part where the haremettes tie their ribbons to the MC's staff reminded me of that beautiful song, The drunk Scotsman, the one that ends on "Well, lad, I don't know where you've been / but I see you've won first prize!"

I enjoyed this volume more than I was expecting, mostly because I loved seeing Zenjirou being able to are good use of his abilities and tools to outsmart the people around him. I'm still not too enthusiast about everyone getting what they wished for from this marriage instead of him and I'm not looking forward for a repeat of this situation with Lucretia, but at least he has positive feelings for Freya and might even fall in love with her given time.

@TheWickerMan said in DUNGEON DIVE Vol. 3 Discussion!:

As someone who just finished volume 3 and is starting volume 4, I more agree with you than everyone else here. It is an interesting and different story than many of the others in this genre. I do think it went off the rails a bit and the reset is a little worrying.

Insanity and despair is interesting to read and I think the author does a good job getting the awful mental states across in text.

I worry most because the bonus stories are uninteresting to me and it seems that is what we are going to do now lol.

Volume 6 (Premium Edition): A Bonus Short Story Untitled

Volume 5 (Premium Edition): 4 Bonus Short Stories & Bonus Cover Art A Day with Olivia and Evanson A Second Day with Olivia and Sara A Fifth Day with Olivia and Claudia A Third Day with Olivia and Blood

Volume 9 (Premium Edition): 3 Bonus Short Stories Elf Talk Delinquents in Droves

@HarmlessDave I doubt even that. I think the author's personal experience is just interacting with GMs as a player. There are no mechanics or terminology that would make me think "oh yeah, only a GM would know that" - all details about GMs in this novel are things that regular players would either know or assume about GMs.
But I do think that there is some novel balancing as you refer to it (see my answer to endoftheline).

@endoftheline Well, you're generally correct that you don't usually convert your regular player character to a GM. I don't think most companies would allow you, and even if they do, you probably wouldn't want to do that either, since keeping your regular character as-is would probably allow you to go back to playing after you quit your job as GM (which, as I said, is usually a part-time job so I doubt many people would turn that into a life career). In that hypothetical scenario where you convert your player character into a GM then once you quit your job it's completely gone.
Still I wouldn't call it an error - I'm pretty sure the author knows or at least assumes nobody converts their player char to GM but wrote that anyway because they wanted the protagonist to have access to all sorts of gear. If it were a new character, the protagonist would only have GM gear, which, depending on the game, is either completely "broken cheat gear" or purely cosmetic, nothing in between.

This was much better than the previous volumes in term of digressions, though I'm a bit disappointed thatvyhe war wasn't concluded. On the other hand the last part seemed to dispel my worries that Asuka might turn against Ryoma.
Author also reminded us that this series is technically an harem, despite him not writing any romance.

@TheGrimLich yeah I think you're right.

Volume 4 (Premium Edition): A Bonus Short Story The Level 7777s Face Off

I miss Marielle!!! Sorry, I´ve to say it XD

@kuali Ah, yes, mythology, of course. There's clearly something beyond human happening here.

Also, thanks to the translator's explanation in the first volume discussion, I now mentally replace any mention of "Blue Knight Earl" with the equivalent of the Japanese original, "Sir Blue Knight Earl", which never ceases to amuse me. (: