Update Time!

Okay, so the Tactician is only slightly better than Neriads. He thankfully has more actual health and armor options, but he also has awful LP like them and the Formation he teaches is better served with a sturdier class. On the other hand, he is next to Thief as one of the fastest classes in the game, and he's a pretty decent mage, but unfortunately that means he can't spark anything...

I decided to try and grab the Dark Magic option and this turned into a bigger headache than I imagined. You lose the revenue from two cities, you lock yourself out of access to the Salamander Race, your current emperor/empress abdicates the throne making you choose a new successor, and you have to fight a really nasty boss. Said boss walloped my party. Hell just trying to get to him eroded away most of my party LP. This boss was obnoxious because he regenerates 10% of his health after every round which was like 994HP. He also exclusively uses Fusion Magic. This battle came down to a few things, my damage output, whether he successfully charmed anyone, or if he used the Sandstorm spell which was pretty much a TPK if he did so cause my team is ill equipped to deal with magic attacks. He pretty much kicked my ass all evening. Finally I decided to chance grinding a few skills or levels in the dungeon and sadly my team simply refused to Spark anything. Luckily the grind wasn't a total waste because I did raise a few people's HP and I found a second Poseidon Spear which I gave to my Imperial Guard. That weapon alone practically doubled her attack. After that, it was just a suicidal charge against the boss that finally beat him. Afterwards my Emperor abdicated the throne and I had to choose from among my party my actual successor. I went with the Imperial Guard who teaches a really nice formation that is up my alley. It's an improved version of the Imperial Cross move called Imperial Arrow which boosts most of my team's speed. My Nomad also Sparked a really good Axe skill.

Afterwards, I recruited Capella,a robot servant the local mad scientist made for me as a gift. She's amusing because she's actually pretty foul mouthed. She's an odd character, and one I imagine most gamers would actively avoid. She starts with 99 LP and Lv. 15 in all physical stats as well as comes with a huge collection of Martial Art skills. She can't use magic, spark abilities, or wear armor, but her stats are superior to most of my party. The real catch here is that she's A.I. controlled and does her own thing. It works out most of the time for me, especially with the Imperial Arrow formation since I have her on point taking the brunt of the enemy attacks. Still I know some people hate these types of characters.

Afterwards, I returned to the scene of my battle with the Sorcerer and claimed the Dark Tome and some other items. I swung back by the Amazon village and remembered I had some unfinished business with Rocbouquet of the Seven Heroes. I did my rematch with the Stone Guardian and won thanks to the awesome Axe skill I picked up and I was even able to seriously raise some of my magic global levels. Ooh, and my Empress sparked the unique skill from the Burning Sword which is not a bad skill. Rocbouquet learns some info in the tower and wanders off to another tower in the jungle, but I choose to return back to Avalon to drop off the Dark Tome, teach one of my characters dark magic, and approve a crap ton of Fusion spell research I unlocked by grinding some magic levels. I then return to the Jungle and enter the Shrine, but it's late so I save for the night.

I'm pretty sure this will be the last Emperor before the Final One. Assuming defeating Rocbouquet doesn't end this era, I'll try to unlock Diver or Desert Warrior next. Though it looks like I do need to beat all of the Heroes before the final dungeon unlocks so I'll at least get the chances to unlock them with the Final Emperor. I also learned this game has a NG+ and for once it's actually worth it. Not necessarily because you unlock new content, technically the game is so content rich it's damn near impossible to see everything in one go. Hell I just learned that it's possible to unlock the final dungeon and beat the game before the Final Emperor shows up. What you get to keep is all of your money, Global Levels, Formations, magic, and any skills unlocked in the Dojo. Unfortunately, anything learned or acquired by the Final Emperor's team does not carry over. Not as bad of a loss as you would think, especially since enemies scale with your team, so the likelihood of reacquiring any lost skills is still fairly likely in NG+. Regardless, this means that if I can continue pass this current scenario without a jump, I should focus on grinding some more and try to acquire some more skills to take with me into the final chapter, especially since I would still like to at least acquire all of the first tier Fusion spells and level up Dark Magic since it's actually pretty OP.

Here's a great fanart piece of Rocbouquet. She probably has more fanart than the whole cast combined.