Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

Wiggin42 · Jul 23, 2018

With regards to the argument that the Sun block already knows that we can take a hit since we tanked a spear hit, I don't think that really holds water. As I recall, we only took a single hit. Rather tan assume we departed from our skill set, it seems more likely to me that they would assume we have a talisman that let us scrub a hit? Seems like even middling talismans can pull of cool effects if you overcharge and break them. Ji Rong might think he only needs to blow through a temporary or limited-use barrier instead of an actual defense.

Alectai · Jul 23, 2018

archangis said:
Yes, I suppose if you ignore every other arguments, you can say that most arguments revolve around zhengui being an after tought.

Also fail gracefully ? After according to arkeus losing half our qi ?

...

Fucking what?

We use an eighth of it at most in our opener, and regenerate most of that with our flower hairpin by the time the techniques fade.

Karnax626 · Jul 23, 2018

[X] Alectai

Dessard · Jul 23, 2018

[x] Set up and Stick in
[x] Plan Untethered

archangis · Jul 23, 2018

Arkeus said:
Well, I personally believe that while Qi is not a concern per se (we probably outclass Chu Song enough to win even with a bad strategy, though it worries me) it's still inefficient. @yrsillar, you would have told us if Ling Qi noticed Chu Song was appraisal right?

Beginning on the fist turn with OwS+GCD+OtW+Twilight Beauty Means using 4+3+4+1 Qi in the first turn (12Qi) while disengaging from combat, meaning we probably won't get Qi regain. From then on, there is the choice between using all our instant defensives techs while trying to stay stealth far enough we can set up either an ambush or a perimeter (the actual vote is not actually setting up our perimtre, just an ambush) and not doing so.

If we do set up our defensive techs, this probably means having to use 2-3Qi/turns (depending on whether we need to continue using Twilight Beauty), but if we don't, it means that we can get a Chu Song in our face bashing our head in at any time.

So basically, shadow plan more or less either decide to gamble Chu Song can't bash our head in while we don't have most of our defensive suit, or else decide to begin our 'ambush' when we are ourself maybe at half Qi.

Considering we don't actually gain anything by doing said ambush combat-wise, this is more or less deciding to throw away half our Qi for no reason.

EDIT: Oooor... we could use a pill before the ambush. Still need us to actually never get seen and be able to have enough time to set up said ambush, so a gamble that doesn't give us anything, but at least there is an 'out' for the Qi.

Alectai said:
...

Fucking what?

We use an eighth of it at most in our opener, and regenerate most of that with our flower hairpin by the time the techniques fade.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you are not reading arguments against your plan yet I am. And qi regen only work in combat, which I assume is not your plan as otherwise not only would we lose qi and action but even worse we would loose dices from not having the first strike bonus.

Arkeus · Jul 23, 2018

Humbaba said:
We'll still be in combat time so I see no reason our flower won't work. You also seem to assume that Chu Song can catch an ungodly fast Ling Qi who is intent on disengagement whilst still able to use her full offensive techniques (I.e. not dashing).

Our stealth is good enough in low light that Chu Song would want a perception boost to reliably beat it. Then we should have a turn or two to set up our buffs andZhengu for an ambush while she searches for us.

You're acting like Chu Song is much better in every area than she should be, whilst insisting that the defensive buffs we can get up in a turn whilst remaining in range will totally beat her in her first strike speciality. It's contradictory.

Chu Song has no reason to be vastly slower than Ling Qi given she is wind/thunder, and Ling Qi can't reliably double-run as Stealth takes a main action if we lose it and need to regain it, while Chu Song can double run. We don't just need to beat Chu Song's perception, but we need to be able to do it enough for us to gain significant distance so that she can't reach us in 1-3 turns once she finds us again.

I am assuming that Chu Song will have the same kind of techs every melee people we know of has (Hong Lin, Meizhen, Shen Hu, Han Fang/Han Jian, etc) to close a gap extremely quickly, and I am also saying we don't know Chu Song has any first strike speciality.

If we can reliaby stealth/disengage in the first turn, it by default also means we can FVM in first turn without Chu Song hitting us in melee unless you are insisting that we'll not only go first (likely we will go first) but that we'll be able to reliably stealth in our first turn. This would mean that we would have 2 turns before being hit in melee.

However, even if Chu Song is, as I believe she is, able to close 150~m in one round and attack us in melee, then setting up FVM is our best bet for being able to have our defenses up and be able to not be hurt too much if she does hit us. While GCD+OwS+Twilight Beauty defense wise (assuming we do use OtW) would bring our defence to 42 + 2Perfect Defence and MotV+GCD (assuming we use Dissonance so not TRD) would bring our defence to 44 + 1 perfect defence, the latter will have Diapason filter + -3 to enemy attack + Zhengui to block Yan's attack, the latest maybe halving the damage we could thereotically take.

Alectai said:
...

Fucking what?

We use an eighth of it at most in our opener, and regenerate most of that with our flower hairpin by the time the techniques fade.

The issue is that in Shen Hu's fight we wouldn't have been losing Qi like the narrative said we did if our hairpin worked between us beating someone else.

So it's very, very likely it only works while actively being engaged in combat, not when "in combat".

Nolrai · Jul 23, 2018

Man I cant tell who is being dumb. :/

Alratan · Jul 23, 2018

Grigori said:
I'd also say that Ducal families don't particularly care about those on our level. Any interest Shenhua shows in us is because Renxiang has to prove herself by forming a stable faction. The uniqueness of this position and opportunity was the driving force for joining up with Cai, now.

It's worth considering that CRX has no particularly need to keep Ling Qi or GG close to her after her time in the sect. If she's proved herself and been given more resources and responsibilities she'd be best off recruiting from the greater range of candidates available outside the sect, or from previous or future graduates. They're useful pieces for this round of this this particular game.

Indeed, a future test that Shenhua could easily set is about putting aside tools when they're no longer the most useful one for the job at hand...

Note that put aside doesn't mean completely discard, but it seems inevitable that her current minions will significantly decline in relevance when she has the opportunity to recruit more talented and more experienced people to work for her. GG and Ling Qi are sworn to her as her vassal, but I don't see anything that stops them being sidelined. Just look at the precedent of CRX's father, who are far greater commitment was made to.

This means that along Wi will also need to keep proving herself to be truly exceptional if she wanted to keep her current relative position.

SITB · Jul 23, 2018

Alectai said:
Well, yeah, but if she's passively capable of beating what we can only pull off with a technique, then she probably had to make other sacrifices to do that, in which case, at least we know this now, that she was worried enough about us trying to do a stealth run that she designed her accessory and art suite around defeating it.

Because if she concedes the cat-and-mouse duel, then she loses the match, because we can wind up our hellstorm to full potential before battle is joined, at which point she's powerless to stop it. It forces her to react to us instead of just ceding the initiative because we had the arrogance to assume she can't stop us. Even if it's true, it's a bad habit to get into, because it's the kind of thing you only need to be wrong about once.

And hell, my opener still gives us a minimum of two Perfect Defense on top of our regular defenses--if there's a full turn where she doesn't know where Ling Qi is, it gets harder and harder to find her as she gets further away, and then we win because we have enough space to wind up in peace. More likely, she brought consumables or active techniques that can help her reacquire us, which she's now used to even the odds instead of just buffing herself through the stratosphere like you fear, and those aren't the same things that buff her offense.

Let's break it down:

Your opener starts with face-tanking Chu Song anywat since you assume that she has higher initiative than Ling Qi. Then you follow up by using OWS which is a bad combat art (it gives no defense dice and ends the moment Ling Qi takes damage). And the hide in a inside a literal darkened area due to twilight beauty.

Second round Chu Song hits again and we know she has an AOE attack, if it deals semi-perfect damage pop goes (if Ling Qi uses TRF to tank the damage she can't use the ablative HP because then she loses OWS). Chu Song still knows where in general Ling Qi is (due to the whole aura of darkness) and can easily deduce where Ling Qi is within 50 meters.

The kicker is, even if somehow Ling Qi manages to disengage ambushing Chu Song still lives Ling Qi worse off since by now Chu Song had time to throw up all her defensive arts, while ambushing only gives 8 dice for one attack. Ji Rong got dunked on when he was ambushed because he only had one defensive art on, this won't happen to Chu Song.

TL;DR Ambushing means letting Chu Song cast all her buffs and still doesn't guarantee that Ling Qi would get away or even land a blow after dithering so much.

Alectai · Jul 23, 2018

It was brought to my attention that some aspects of my previous plan were unclear, which may be contributing to the debate. To that end, I've made tweaks to clarify my intent.

For reference, the old version is here.

Alectai said:
Wind, Thunder, and Mountain are Elements primarily good at getting in your face and then beating you to a pulp there, they're not necessarily so good at situational awareness. Make use of One With Shadow and Grinning Crescent Dancer to fade into the darkness of the forest--using Twilight Beauty if needed to achieve Low Light early on--and deny Chu Song a target while finding a good spot, and then arrange an ambush along with Zhengui. If she decides to sit tight instead, she can accept you having as much time as you want to spool up your mist and other debuffs, and fall on her with the force of an avalanche. Be willing to summon additional help with Abyssal Exhalation if you need to set up a multiple attacker mosh pit, but keep PLR and the Horror up our sleeve at the moment.

The corrected version is below, changes in bold.

Wind, Thunder, and Mountain are Elements primarily good at getting in your face and then beating you to a pulp there, they're not necessarily so good at situational awareness. Make use of One With Shadow and Grinning Crescent Dancer to fade into the darkness of the forest--using Twilight Beauty if needed to achieve Low Light early on--and see if we can use this to open the distance--if she can detect us and keep up consistently, pivot to a snap ambush with ourselves and Zhengui, making use of Stone in the Soil and our One With Shadow Backstab as our opener, and prioritize her spirit beast if they're both out. If she decides to sit tight instead--or if we can open up enough range that she can't contest us, she can accept you having as much time as you want to spool up your mist and other debuffs, and fall on her along with your companion with the force of an volcanic avalanche. Be willing to summon additional help with Abyssal Exhalation if you need to set up a multiple attacker mosh pit, but keep PLR and our Horror up our sleeves for now.

PrimalShadow · Jul 23, 2018

Alratan said:
It's worth considering that CRX has no particularly need to keep Ling Qi or GG close to her after her time in the sect. If she's proved herself and been given more resources and responsibilities she'd be best off recruiting from the caster range of candidates available outside the sect, or from previous or future graduates.

I think the sticking point here is personal loyalty.

Yes, CRX could probably bank on her prestige to pick up some Cyan retainers, and then rely on their skills over ours; certainly we wouldn't be able to compare as far as raw capability goes given the cultivation gap. HOWEVER, said retainers wouldn't be directly loyal to CRX, and CRX's position in the relationship means it would would be tricky to build said loyalty. In contrast, she is in a position to make a direct and meaningful impact on our lives, and persevere against adversity together with us - both of which build loyalty.

veekie · Jul 23, 2018

MobiusC said:
While a mild rebuke in the short term, this actually works in the Sect's favor long-term. By rebuking them for letting all the meddling in the prelims happen, this ironically (purposefully) allows the Sect to become more independent and be more forceful in limiting outsider meddling. Basically, the Sect will much more easily be able to say 'no' and do what they want now if they can reference Cai's punishment of such meddling in the past.

Cai Shenhua is efficient. Why do one thing when you can do four things at once?

Erebeal said:
Hmm, stealthing away makes most sense if you're more worried about dispels than s.def. This is not unjustifiable, given that Chu has a dispels. Otoh, it failed back in Growing Pains, and we have waaayyy more dispel resist now. Also, losing actions due to dispels is better than losing them to misses, since dispels require her to spend an action too.

I'd note that Chu is likely aware she has a dispel weakness and may have saved up for an expendable talisman for that effect.
Not a high probability, her family isn't rich, but it exists.

Grigori said:
I'd also say that Ducal families don't particularly care about those on our level. Any interest Shenhua shows in us is because Renxiang has to prove herself by forming a stable faction. The uniqueness of this position and opportunity was the driving force for joining up with Cai, now.

Liling isn't being tested in the same way, as far as we can see, and the Sun already have loyal and powerful subordinates. They have no reason to scout children who haven't proven they can maintain their relevance without burning out. We have no reason to call Ji Rong a vassal when he could still end up staying with the Sect.

Note that the Liling interludes show that while its not the MOST important thing she could be doing...its up there, it matters strategically to a measurable extent because she's the hope of the Sun.

PrimalShadow said:
I am exceedingly doubtful that the Cai-Bai alliance was in ANY WAY motivated by something happening to Gan. The scopes just don't line up. Such an alliance carries massive cost and equally massive benefits; a schoolhouse tussle wasn't going to be enough to budge the scales at all from whichever way the Dutchess decided they leaned.

On the other hand, it is reasonable to suspect that the manner and style of the reveal was done in a way that also struck back against the slight slight that e matchups presented. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the Dutchess set things up with the INTENT to be slighted so she could respond with overwhelming force by revealing the alliance which she had long decided on.

Possible. We don't know the details, but while booting Gan out is itself not really worth her attention, manipulating a Sect in HER territory to do so is probably not acceptable to her.

Actually now that you mention it, it has more merit than it seemed on the surface.
She practically foreshadowed Gan's loss upon her arrival didn't she?
Every piece leading in is obvious if you knew all the people involved.

Sun Liling's pride is well known.
Sun Shao's love for Liling is well known.
The lineup fucking is predictable when you know Cai Renxiang has two vassals and one of them is in striking range. Ling Qi is harder to take out the same way because a full Green with Green arts probably wasn't going to go down that easily.
Gan's loss is ALSO predictable once you take into account that he'd have limited manpower available, owing to the fuckery.

archangis said:
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you are not reading arguments against your plan yet I am. And qi regen only work in combat, which I assume is not your plan as otherwise not only would we lose qi and action but even worse we would loose dices from not having the first strike bonus.

We asked about qi regen...way way back during one of the Trials. They work as long as you're basically in a combat scene, so combat stealth, chases and all that still count as being in a fight.

SITB · Jul 23, 2018

Alectai said:
It was brought to my attention that some aspects of my previous plan were unclear, which may be contributing to the debate. To that end, I've made tweaks to clarify my intent.

For reference, the old version is here.

The corrected version is below, changes in bold.

Wind, Thunder, and Mountain are Elements primarily good at getting in your face and then beating you to a pulp there, they're not necessarily so good at situational awareness. Make use of One With Shadow and Grinning Crescent Dancer to fade into the darkness of the forest--using Twilight Beauty if needed to achieve Low Light early on--and see if we can use this to open the distance--if she can detect us and keep up consistently, pivot to a snap ambush with ourselves and Zhengui, making use of Stone in the Soil and our One With Shadow Backstab as our opener, and prioritize her spirit beast if they're both out. If she decides to sit tight instead--or if we can open up enough range that she can't contest us, she can accept you having as much time as you want to spool up your mist and other debuffs, and fall on her along with your companion with the force of an volcanic avalanche. Be willing to summon additional help with Abyssal Exhalation if you need to set up a multiple attacker mosh pit, but keep PLR and our Horror up our sleeves for now.

OWS require Ling Qi to hide in the shadows of Chu Song which means closing the distance to someone you want to stay away from.

It still doesn't solve the problem of ambushing with what actually? FFS? Chu Song can tank the hit and then retaliate on melee distance Ling Qi. FVM? It's a pass/fail check and getting in melee dustance of Chu Song isn't worth it since the actual win condition is using Traveler's end.

EDIT: You are too attached to the concept of using stealth in combat despite the fact that the mechanics make it unviable.

Humbaba · Jul 23, 2018

Thor's Twin said:
Your information is unfortunately outdated. There is a maximum qi reduction of 6 on any given tech.

Ugh I really wish @yrsillar would update the front page when he makes significant changes like this. Maybe put the note on our gear (max reduction 6).

@Arkeus i don't see why we can't dash for a turn or to to gain distance then attempt stealth. It makes more sense to me for Ling Qi to work out when she can break for stealth vs running away than your extremely literal reading of the vote.

Alectai · Jul 23, 2018

SITB said:
OWS require Ling Qi to hide in the shadows of Chu Song which means closing the distance to someone you want to stay away from.

It still doesn't solve the problem of ambushing with what actually? FFS? Chu Song can tank the hit and then retaliate on melee distance Ling Qi. FVM? It's a pass/fail check and getting in melee dustance of Chu Song isn't worth it since the actual win condition is using Traveler's end.

The point is that if we can't shake her, we can at least get a good hit off before the unavoidable melee duel against a cruise missile.

The win condition isn't using traveller's end, the win condition is winning the fight. With the bonus prizes for limiting what we reveal in the process. Traveller's End is good because it means FVM is now protected from dispels and augments the effects. It's not a battle winner in itself.

Arkeus · Jul 23, 2018

Humbaba said:
@Arkeus i don't see why we can't dash for a turn or to to gain distance then attempt stealth. It makes more sense to me for Ling Qi to work out when she can break for stealth vs running away than your extremely literal reading of the vote.

Well, if we dash for a turn or two she can too? Unless you are saying that we are sufficiently faster than her that we'll gain ground?

veekie said:
The lineup fucking is predictable when you know Cai Renxiang has two vassals and one of them is in striking range. Ling Qi is harder to take out the same way because a full Green with Green arts probably wasn't going to go down that easily.
Gan's loss is ALSO predictable once you take into account that he'd have limited manpower available, owing to the fuckery.

Gan was a full green with green art too.

My impression is that Gan was seen as "CRX's hand" much more than Ling Qi though, so if you had a single reliable blow, you would use it on him rather than Ling Qi.

veekie said:
We asked about qi regen...way way back during one of the Trials. They work as long as you're basically in a combat scene, so combat stealth, chases and all that still count as being in a fight.

Shen Hu fight seems to imply it doesn't work when we are not literally fighting, though that might be me misreading stuff.

archangis · Jul 23, 2018

Alectai said:
It was brought to my attention that some aspects of my previous plan were unclear, which may be contributing to the debate. To that end, I've made tweaks to clarify my intent.

For reference, the old version is here.

The corrected version is below, changes in bold.

Wind, Thunder, and Mountain are Elements primarily good at getting in your face and then beating you to a pulp there, they're not necessarily so good at situational awareness. Make use of One With Shadow and Grinning Crescent Dancer to fade into the darkness of the forest--using Twilight Beauty if needed to achieve Low Light early on--and see if we can use this to open the distance--if she can detect us and keep up consistently, pivot to a snap ambush with ourselves and Zhengui, making use of Stone in the Soil and our One With Shadow Backstab as our opener, and prioritize her spirit beast if they're both out. If she decides to sit tight instead--or if we can open up enough range that she can't contest us, she can accept you having as much time as you want to spool up your mist and other debuffs, and fall on her along with your companion with the force of an volcanic avalanche. Be willing to summon additional help with Abyssal Exhalation if you need to set up a multiple attacker mosh pit, but keep PLR and our Horror up our sleeves for now.

This plan is somehow even worse. If she can detect us consistently one with shadow backstab is creative scuicide as she is melee specced.

Also if she can detect us, she can detect zhengui.

Katreus · Jul 23, 2018

Humbaba said:
Ugh I really wish @yrsillar would update the front page when he makes significant changes like this. Maybe put the note on our gear (max reduction 6).

It was the subject.of an extended discussion in thread. Our equipment loadout was created with the limitations in mind.

Alectai · Jul 23, 2018

Oh for heaven's sake.

I can't deal with this. How can she simultaneously be an unshakable, perception stacked bloodhound who cannot be diverted and can only be tanked head on, and yet weak enough that we don't need to be concerned about what she can do to us given the freedom to do whatever she wants.

SITB · Jul 23, 2018

Alectai said:
The point is that if we can't shake her, we can at least get a good hit off before the unavoidable melee duel against a cruise missile.

The win condition isn't using traveller's end, the win condition is winning the fight. With the bonus prizes for limiting what we reveal in the process. Traveller's End is good because it means FVM is now protected from dispels and augments the effects. It's not a battle winner in itself.

How would Ling shake Chu Song off when she leavs a giant patch of darkness where she goes? Even if Chu Song fails the perception test she still knows the area that Ling Qi is in.

You still dodged the question of what to actually hit Chu Song with. FSS is bad because damage race isn't something Ling Qi will actually win, and FVM is bad because being in melee range negates the whole lost-in-fog aspect. (Hell, it's better to use FVM and hide in the fog).

Traveler's End is the win condition because by then Chu Song is horribly debuffed and Ling Qi can go on the offense.

Alectai said:
Oh for heaven's sake.

I can't deal with this. How can she simultaneously be an unshakable, perception stacked bloodhound who cannot be diverted and can only be tanked head on, and yet weak enough that we don't need to be concerned about what she can do to us given the freedom to do whatever she wants.

The problem isn't that we assume that Chu Song can do anything at once, it's that your plan relies on Chu Song failing at everything. It has way to many reliances on Chu Song both being slow, and failing perception and not noticing the 50 meter radius darkness and have bad defenses after having enough turns to do whatever she wants.

veekie · Jul 23, 2018

Alectai said:
Oh for heaven's sake.

I can't deal with this. How can she simultaneously be an unshakable, perception stacked bloodhound who cannot be diverted and can only be tanked head on, and yet weak enough that we don't need to be concerned about what she can do to us given the freedom to do whatever she wants.

Silver Masked Speaker Art [Yin, Moon]

E: More seriously you're arguing different people using opposite points to back up the same vote. It happens. Trippy.

PrimalShadow · Jul 23, 2018

From a discord conversation with @Alectai:
So the plan is:

Primalshadow said:
1: Stealth and Disengage
2a: If (1) Succeeded, build momentum then engage
2b: If (1) Failed, pivot to a snap ambush

Correct?

Alectai said:
Essentially, yeah

Personally, I see two problems with this plan.

First, I believe that if we try to "stealth and disengage" and then fail, we are going to be in for a bad time. SITB captures much of my point here, but the general idea is that the arts we would use for stealth and the arts we would use for combat are pretty different, and trying to stealth would leave us meaningfully behind in terms of combat buffing. Not to mention that Zhengui won't be expressed, which means he effectively wastes at least one turn of potential actions, possibly more (depending on how long it takes us to pivot to direct combat). To extend on this, the recovery directive is a "snap ambush", and I question how much of an ambush we can pull off given that this is in the case where we've failed to stealth away.

Second, I think the gains if we do manage to make distance are decent, but no more than that. Yes, we have time to build up our buffs - but so does Chu Song, and while our buff chain is probably longer I don't think it is enough to decide the fight. In effect, we are spending considerable resources and taking on serious risk just to get a setup where instead of starting at mid-range, we start at long range. I don't think that is worth it.

Alectai · Jul 23, 2018

I've rolled back my plan to an only slightly modified version of the old one, because in hindsight, committing to micromanaging when I should be leaving the judgement to Ling Qi was a bad idea. I blame just getting out of bed and not having my critical thinking on yet.

The general rule I'm trying to get across is "Don't try to face tank the cruise missile that could hurt Bai Meizhen six months ago. Even if the former's gotten a lot stronger, she's had plenty of time to refine her own cruise missile nature anyway."

The best defense against that kind of thing is distance, and we know that a tracker-specced Sun Liling still had a headache trying to keep up with Ling Qi in a dead run a few months ago, and I don't think Chu Song is as good a tracker as she is.

Grigori · Jul 23, 2018

Alratan said:
It's worth considering that CRX has no particularly need to keep Ling Qi or GG close to her after her time in the sect. If she's proved herself and been given more resources and responsibilities she'd be best off recruiting from the caster range of candidates available outside the sect, or from previous or future graduates. They're useful pieces for this round of this this particular game.

Indeed, a future test that Shenhua could easily set is about putting aside tools when they're no longer the most useful one for the job at hand...

Note that put aside doesn't mean completely discard, but it seems inevitable that her current minions will significantly decline in relevance when she has the opportunity to recruit more talented and more experienced people to work for her. GG and Ling Qi are sworn to her as her vassal, but I don't see anything that stops them being sidelined. Just look at the precedent of CRX's father, who are far greater commitment was made to.

This means that along Wi will also need to keep proving herself to be truly exceptional if she wanted to keep her current relative position.

I do agree with this, our position won't remain secure so much as there's a tenuous tie between Renxiang's reputation and our success. She won't want to be known for a poor judge of character afterall and she has already visibly tied us together.

I definitely expect her to pull more people into her orbit though and if we want to continue to have a place of importance we'll need to prove ourselves worthy. The main issue with later recruitment though would be not wanting to be eclipsed by her mother's people so she'd ideally want to have people firmly in her own circle and who can't be considered above her in cultivation or competence etc.

veekie said:
Note that the Liling interludes show that while its not the MOST important thing she could be doing...its up there, it matters strategically to a measurable extent because she's the hope of the Sun.

I don't think she'll be judged on recruitment so much as effective use of assets and personal prestige. CRX is expected to make something for herself whereas I see Liling's expectations more centred on personal improvement before slotting into her home province and excelling there. That there's a difference between mechanical Talent and the harder defined type of talent that includes drive/ambition etc, means there's little value in gambling on investments this early.

Most cultivators, especially Ducal scions, would be looking to the future and a rising star's future relevance is too uncertain to bother with so low down the cultivation levels. Especially when there are already so many talented young nobles who owe you loyalty and whose families will continue to push them to excel.

torac · Jul 23, 2018

PrimalShadow said:
LING QI vs BAI MEIZHEN

While this would require ridiculous amounts of luck, the very possibility is still hilarious.

[x] Set up and Stick in
---------

I expect CRX to mainly gain three types of retainers: 1) Talented or unique youngsters near or below her own level. 2) Less talented people above her level whom she will catch up to. 3) Powerful and experienced advisors who either come with the job (e.g. local administration) or are there to teach our group.

I expect this recruitment to happen relatively quickly over the next few decades until she has a decently sized court, then slow down.

Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

Wage Slave

Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion

Crazy cat guy

weak to fangs

Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion

Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion

Crazy cat guy

Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion

Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion