Novel Full Chapter 834 - Taming the Fifth Year - Mathematics of Power - 2
Chapter 834 – Taming the Fifth Year – Mathematics of Power – 2
In a perfect theoretical example Selphira sometimes utilized to demonstrate her points in her private classes for Liora, she’d use a hypothetical tamer who achieved 100% general increases through equal bonuses in every aspect of himself… It seemed to be simply a human “twice as strong” when described casually.
Double strength, double speed, double endurance. It sounded understandable, within a frame of reference that ordinary people could process. Just twice as good as a normal person, surely that meant they could handle two normal people, right?
They’d end up tied in a battle against 2 humans, the fast logic went. Two against one with double strength equals even odds.
But that couldn’t be more false as a characterization of what those multipliers really meant in practice.
A tamer with 100% increases wasn’t “twice as strong” in the way people imagined. They were exponentially more capable in ways that defied simple arithmetic.
Considering strength alone. If a normal human could lift 100 kg, the enhanced tamer could lift 200 kg with the same ease. That much was straightforward.
But now consider what that meant for leverage, for momentum, for kinetic energy. The force of a punch didn’t just double, it increased by far more because force equals mass times acceleration, and both components had also increased. A punch that was 2× stronger traveling at 2× speed didn’t deliver 2× damage. It delivered 4× damage at minimum, potentially more depending on how well the energy transferred thanks to the new density the extra Defense in the skin and bones is providing.
Then add in doubled speed affecting reaction time, doubled endurance meaning they could maintain peak performance twice as easier, but still weight almost the same while opponents tired faster, doubled toughness meaning attacks that would injure them only bruised or bounced. Each factor multiplying against the others.
The augmented tamer wouldn’t tie against 2 normal humans.
They’d defeat 5. Maybe 8. Possibly more if the normal humans lacked very good coordination.
Even in a scenario where you had a highly trained human who was perfectly cloned, creating two identical individuals in every aspect, and one of those clones received only 10% more in reaction speed, physical strength, and damage resistance, that improved clone would almost always win in direct confrontation against its twin.
In the end it wouldn’t be a close competition or a victory that depended on luck or tactics.
It would be consistent domination because each exchange would favor the improved clone by margins that accumulated.
The improved clone would hit 10% harder, meaning each strike would cause more damage. Small difference on paper, devastating in practice. It would move 10% faster, meaning it would connect more strikes while dodging more. The speed differential meant better positioning, superior timing, the ability to dictate the pace of engagement. It would resist 10% more damage, meaning the hits it received would be less effective..
It was an advantage in every aspect of combat that compounded with each passing second of the fight.
The benefit would snowball.
All from “just” 10%.
And if the human had double speed, double reaction time, double strength and resistance in every relevant category, it would be absolutely ridiculous as an advantage.
Not a fight but a one-sided massacre.
A human with double strength could jump 4 meters vertically instead of 2 giving access to new mechanics of combat. They could move twice as fast to attack and exit range before a counterattack. Reaction windows that were already narrow became impossible to exploit. Defend with force that made penetrating the guard impossible, then attack again before the opponent could recover. The cycle would repeat endlessly, each exchange widening the gap.
Based on analysis she’d conducted over years studying tamers, Selphira estimated that 10 or even 20 clones with the original base strength couldn’t defeat the doubly improved battle trained human in combat.
Because the improved human could simply eliminate them one by one faster than they could react, superiority of speed and strength allowing executions that didn’t leave opportunity for superior numbers to matter.
Numbers were an advantage. Surround and overwhelm or divide attention and create openings.
But that only worked when the power differential was manageable. When one fighter was too strong, numbers became almost irrelevant. They’d kill the first opponent before the second could react, kill the second before the third could close distance, kill the third and fourth in rapid succession before the fifth to ten ran for their life.
And when you took a tamers defense to levels as high as 500% of human baseline, which was achievable just for some exceptional tamers fused with beasts of superior ranks, then if there was no way to damage that defense appropriately, it didn’t matter if you had 10, 100, or 1,000 first-level humans attacking simultaneously.
They couldn’t defeat you because their attacks would simply bounce harmlessly off defense that completely exceeded their capacity to penetrate.
It was the ultimate stalemate, but worse, it was the ultimate slaughter waiting to happen. Because if you have 500% in Defense you have at least 300% in Strength and Attack, while they couldn’t hurt you, you could hurt them.
Saying that noble tamer “is only 5× stronger” in that scenario was ridiculous as a description of real advantage. It was minimization so extreme it bordered on complete falsehood.
A Platinum beast made you almost invincible against normal humans. Not strong. Not powerful. Invincible.
The percentages were tremendously underestimated by those who hadn’t invested time understanding how they applied in multiple contexts simultaneously. They saw “500%” and thought it was “pretty good”. They should have been thinking “unkillable god among mortals.”
And yet, paradoxically, relative strength was so easy to understand using those same percentages when applied appropriately.
If you knew Beast A had 300% more strength and Beast B had only 100% more defense, you could predict with reasonable certainty who would win in direct confrontation of brute power. The numbers didn’t lie when used correctly.
The math was simple. The implications were what people missed.
The strength of beasts, on the other hand, was a completely different base to multiply compared to ordinary humans.