Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

Re: Six and Lanlan leaving.

I think we need to expand our social circle. And not just into the nobility that Cai wants us to. Like, develop our own circles here that aren't just people we've pulled in from the outer sect. That way we aren't left knowing only a few people as others move on, and we're more likely to have someone we know where we're going when we ourselves leave. It doesn't have to be the level of the people close to us, but I also think friendships that aren't super deep is something LQ needs to learn, and hasn't been very good at.

Arkeus said:

The issue would have been if Ling Qi had seen them unable to catch up... and then decided to try to force them. That would have been the worse of both world. If she had seen them unable to catch up, and then gone "Well, it's fine, I still love them", then it would have been perfectly OK.

I am saying Ling Qi is going the greedy choice because she doesn't want to even leave the option for "Spirits don't catch up and that's life". She'll make sure she tries her hardest to have them be with her.

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I agree that forcing them would have been bad.
Truly, there are many possible choices in this scenario. I visualize it like a group of climbers trying to reach the peak of a mountain, the leader of the group watching over the rest.

The leader could choose to try and grab and push them up because she is tired of waiting for the slowpokes taking their time. The leader could decide to keep going herself without stopping to look behind, after deciding the group can't really make it to the peak. The leader could simply decide to wait for them and go at their pace, and perhaps even declare "It seems this is as far up as we will go, we're stopping here", if it seems the others can't keep going.

There surely are plenty of more ingenious ways to solve the problem. Reach the top first, then send down ropes to make the ascent easier for the others? Stay below and support them to make sure the others can arrive to the peak, before going up herself? Pull forward only those who WANT to keep going, while letting the other members of the group abandon the group if they don't want to keep going? It is not a binary choice, I'd say.

This rambling metaphor has somehow led me while typing to consider this: Ling Qi had not yet faced the situation of "Someone in my family decides they don't want to/ can't be part of the group anymore". With Six and maybe Xiulan, this may be the first time she has to face this dilemma. Six seems unwilling to go on. Xiulan may likely be forced to abandon the group and start 'climbing' on her own, away from the group LQ tried to create.

How LQ handless the loss of a family member, or the very real possibility of it, at least, might be key in determining her next family-related insight.

Oh hey, moratorium has been over for 10 minutes.

[X][Zhengui] Blazing Blood
[X][Hanyi] Lonely Winter Maiden

My reasoning:

picklepikkl said:

Now that I've infoposted the current states of the arts (ha ha I am so clever), I think my preferred things to improve would be Blazing Blood for Zhengui and Lonely Winter Maiden for Hanyi. If we want to maintain our "highly mobile stealth+speedster"-ness, focusing Zhengui on his long range abilities (so he can continue to participate even if the fight moves away from him) and Hanyi on her "taunt" abilities (to lure enemies out of position for someone on our team to pick off) seems best to me.

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@yrsillar, you should reformat the vote in the post, because the tally doesn't work if you go [description][x]; it has to be [x][description]

No one talking about Zhenguis domain? I think it's awesome!

NotAlwaysFanfic said:

The conflict was already there, we just discovered it early. Refusing to stop and sticking with family do have that bit of incompatibility, which would only grow as we raced ahead of those close to us.

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What we need is an advanced insight that helps us ruberband those close to us.
Edit: Or allows us to do a sort powers combined thing.

[X][Zhengui] Blazing Blood
Basically, I think that if we are going to make TRF+ this will help Zhengui's Blooming from Ash, and if Zhengui is getting help for both Blazing Blood and Blooming for Ash, then Verdant Ash Duality would be easier.

[X][Hanyi] Lonely Winter Maiden
For this one, Frozen Peak Serenade is already something Hanyi got help with, and Ling Qi using FSS all the time means Hanyi is going to keep being good at it. However, if we focus on Fleeting Spring's Chill, Hanyi will keep having her 'best' offence being FPS and her only defence being FSC. However, with LWM, it not only enhance Hanyi's ability to do something Ling Qi herself is less good at, but she'd have an actual choice in how she can optimally contribute offensive wise, while FSC will keep being used defensive wise.

Arkeus said:

I am saying Ling Qi is going the greedy choice because she doesn't want to even leave the option for "Spirits don't catch up and that's life". She'll make sure she tries her hardest to have them be with her.

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Mmm, I'm not sure one should get too attached to that reading though? Like, it's not invalid, but Ling Qi's feelings were more focused on "not wanting to hurt her #PreciousPeople like she had recently". Jumping to "teach them and raise them up" as the solution might be jumping the gun a bit?

Arkeus said:

[Zhengui][X] Blazing Blood
Basically, I think that if we are going to make TRF+ this will help Zhengui's Blooming from Ash, and if Zhengui is getting help for both Blazing Blood and Blooming for Ash, then Verdant Ash Duality would be easier.

[Hanyi][X] Lonely Winter Maiden
For this one, Frozen Peak Serenade is already something Hanyi got help with, and Ling Qi using FSS all the time means Hanyi is going to keep being good at it. However, if we focus on Fleeting Spring's Chill, Hanyi will keep having her 'best' offence being FPS and her only defence being FSC. However, with LWM, it not only enhance Hanyi's ability to do something Ling Qi herself is less good at, but she'd have an actual choice in how she can optimally contribute offensive wise, while FSC will keep being used defensive wise.

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Heads up: the formatting @yrsillar put in the update isn't going to work. The tally doesn't recognize it. You have to put the X before the description.

fictionfan said:

What we need is an advanced insight that helps us ruberband those close to us.

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This though i think its impossible or it'd be done before.

Sure we could try to provide better resources with our barrony and maybe create a better argent series techniques but being a sugar daddy would definately affect their Ways in a bad way.

what else can we do to push everyone we know higher along with us?

helicopter Ling Qi go!

I hope this internal conflict won't just be resolved after a couple votes now that we know about it. The real struggle should come when trying to fix it.

Erebeal said:

Mmm, I'm not sure one should get too attached to that reading though? Like, it's not invalid, but Ling Qi's feelings were more focused on "not wanting to hurt her #PreciousPeople like she had recently". Jumping to "teach them and raise them up" as the solution might be jumping the gun a bit?

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Like, half of what Zhengui asks is not just Ling Qi to not hurt them by sacrificing herself, but also not hurting them by leaving them out of the fighting. That's why she has to jump to "make sure they can contribute" (or give up growing stronger).

If we had refused the promise, it would have meant that Ling Qi could have chosen to not take them fighting with her, not just could have sacrificed herself.

Regarding Six, we seems to be getting an arc for them soonish. Then we will see where this goes, but the options are pretty much that LQ somehow gets them to understand that the mortal world is more then bad things or good things. Or they go back to the dream and stay there forever.

Both are goodish, but going to the dream means that they go back to being unchanging spirits and that... is kinda sad.

[X][Zhengui] Blazing Blood
[X][Hanyi] Lonely Winter Maiden

Well, I called this happening within the next three updates (this one included) but I honestly expected it to happen closer to the third one than the first.

Domain conflict. This is not as much of a problem as people seem to believe, in fact this is an incredible opportunity!
Ling Qi has been skirting around this issue for some time, and now with a clear and present problem in the way of ignoring it we can convince her that spending time focused on its resolution is the way of future growth.

Honestly one of the best ways to go about this might be going to build a house or something and hoping for a natural insight when LQ tries to build one wall higher than the others or have her repeat her little music challenge but as a chorus instead of one voice. We have to make her realize that her family, friends, and spirits are not seperate from her strength but a PART of it and a part she has been neglecting severely. The moment she decided to put the hugs in her domain, was the moment she should have expanded her personal perception of power to include those other people.

Right now instead of a single arrow flying through the sky, Ling Qi is a bundle of assorted projectiles hugging each other in a loose fashion. Its time to turn this into a ballistic missile that can up the payload as needed or [insert some better metaphor about turning an assortment of weapons into a power rangers style superweapon here].

Now that I think about it... that recent fight with the Barbarians should be a good insight bed too. 90% of those guys were trash beneath our feet but because they worked together (and in a different way than imperials normally work together) they were able to accomplish their goals and dip. Not only have they revealed our weakness early, they've given us the tools to succeed.
The pride of dragons indeed. Thanks for the power up.

Challenges and pitfalls with this method:

• It creates external vulnerabilities in our Way in the form of allies . We may take critical damage from someone else biting the dust even if we ourselves are otherwise unhurt. (Though to be fair, this has been the case for quite some time. I don't think we'd survive the death of Meizhen scott free even before the tournament, for example.)
• We would also have to be careful to allow for the free movement of people in and out of our lives. Becoming a Zequing tier possessive is going to be a constant threat for us with the dark route + family route. Someone suggested a teacher mindset and I would support that or perhaps a choir one.
  • Potential elemental solutions: Wind (more wind for more freedom allowing family to come and go as they please), Moon(same as wind but changing phases of existence, bit weaker option), Sun (hard option since its opposed to our darkness but would fit with the Wood to create a Grow and Nurture vibe), Darkness(not reccomended, but she could just go full Zeqing and eat her friends ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).

tl;dr This is a good chance to get Ling Qi and co to stop acting like five fingers and instead become a fist. Stop being the bunch of lads walking down the road and fork out cash for a car. Focusing on ally stuff in the near future counts towards 'advancement' and lets us conveniently shore up this problem in our cultivation.

BeepSmile said:

War is cruel. Poor Sixiang. At such times, we need the beauty they inspire all the more.

I hope Li does not loose her friend.

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Six needs to realize that everything is relative.
Without greedy selfishness, there can be no real Generosity.
Beauty only exists if there is Ugliness to contrast it.
Peace is only given it's true value once you've come to learn about War.

I think that we have just seen why even most nobles don't get beyond the third realm. It isn't just that their realms get bigger, but more conflicts like this turn up. The 4th realm could be exactly the same size as the 3rd realm and still be a huge filter just because of Domin conflicts.

I really like the Ling Qi as teacher angle. I don't think Ling Qi can go to much further without any really goal besides get stronger and I think that her aspiring to pull others up with her could be an interesting development. Also, it fits nicely with CRX's goals. Of course, we might not end up going in that direction but I think it has some good potential.

Mmm, on the voting front...

For Hanyi I think I favour LWM. Thematically, it ties in well to the current arc/situation, and tactically it's arguably her most useful ability to combo off Zhengui and us. FSC ofc helps us be reassured about her not going splat as easily, which might reassure LQ but doesn't necessarily help Hanyi contribute. FPS is arguably the one we can help with the most, but is also perhaps the least useful and boring - thought it still isn't bad.

[X][Hanyi] Lonely Winter Maiden

For Zhengui... hmm. Blooming from Ash is ofc the big upgrade he just forced here for the base defense. Helping him solidify that would make sense. Blazing Blood otoh is the one he's been working on (in terms of Volcanic Shot), and is something he needs to work on more if he's to get viable anti-air for the coming war. Verdent Ash Duality would fit in well with the current arc in terms of it being about both Zhen and Gui, and it being the thing that has things like Ashfield Flowering if he's wanting to keep Ling Qi healthy...

Mmm, tactically I kinda feel that Blazing Blood is the most important here tbh. He *needs* anti-air if he's to help against the nomads.

[X][Zhengui] Blazing Blood

yrsillar said:

Up to three times per scene, may change the target of a enemy spiritual effect to himself.

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Oh cool, that's an effect like what Xuan Shi had during the love nest arc! The one where he could deploy a fortress wall and tank hits that would have gone to Zhengui and Hanyi.

Though I kinda wonder how mechanically effective it would be? Zhengui's s.armor is ok, but his self-dispel isn't particularly good, is it? (I suppose, then, that Ling Qi might acquire or make a resist art that Zhengui could then modify for his own use...)

Folks, I know Blazing Blood is good and all, but Verdant Ash Duality is the single most broken thing Zhengui is has:

Minds Apart: C
A Xuan Wu is two minds in one body and self, it takes age and long practice to function fully as two separate beings however. With this technique however, a young Xuan Wu may temporarily attain this ability.

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Because it breaks the action economy. Nothing is as good as that.

That'd be enought to invest on its own, but Verdant Ash Duality only has fantastic techs: it gives him AoE healing and armor buffing, it gives him counter-attacks if someone targets an ally that hit with burning poison, and it gives him the amazing Rebirth Inferno, which deals a ton of AoE armor-piercing, hard-to-dodge damage that heals him back up to "a lot" when he is at death's door.

And as if that were not enough, narratively, this tech symbolizes what Zhengui is. A being of dual natures that should be conflicting, but instead support and feed into each other. This is what makes him special: there are other spirits that are incredibly tough, there are other spirits that can spit ruinously dangerous poison.

He is not only a Xuanwu, a being of mythical might, but he is an unique Xuanwu, one that plays on the inherent Duality of his species to an entirely different level, a natural harmonization of opposing forces instead of merely different ones.

And that's what Verdant Ash Duality represents. Not Zhen the fire-serpent, not Gui the Wood Tortoise, but Zhengui, the Verdant Ash Xuanwu.

[X][Zhengui] Verdant Ash Duality

[X][Hanyi] Lonely Winter Maiden
[X][Zhengui] Verdant Ash Duality


I think we should focus on both aspects of Zhengui. Feels like we have ignored one of the each time. Also the counter tech is really useful. Though I'd also be happy trying to wokr on Blazing Blood since Gui just got a breakthrough but Zhen didn't.

The way I see the Zhengui vote is that Blooming From Ash represents Gui, Blazing Blood represents Zhen and Verdant Ash Duality represents both together. I like them both so i guess my vote goes to

[X][Zhengui] Verdant Ash Duality

Regarding Hanyi, the 3 options are slightly different imo. With her Lonely Winter Maiden is the CC option, Frozen Peak Serenade is the DPS option and Fleeting Spring's Chill is the movement option. FSC is already quite good, so for her to be better in a fight we either want the CC or the DPS option. Of those Lonely Winter Maiden needs the buff more and CC is always so i vote for

[X][Hanyi] Lonely Winter Maiden

Falconis said:

Honestly one of the best ways to go about this might be going to build a house or something and hoping for a natural insight when LQ tries to build one wall higher than the others or have her repeat her little music challenge but as a chorus instead of one voice. We have to make her realize that her family, friends, and spirits are not seperate from her strength but a PART of it and a part she has been neglecting severely. The moment she decided to put the hugs in her domain, was the moment she should have expanded her personal perception of power to include those other people.

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You know, this all brings back my old ideas about spatial pocket arts, and carrying our friends with us...

Get Hide and Seek

yrsillar said:

Domain Conflict Discovered
Early Discovery reduces impact.
-0.2 Multiplier added to spiritual and physical cultivation until conflict is resolved.

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I don't think people appreciate quite what a momentous nuclear minefield we dodged here. The higher one's cultivation level, the higher the consequences would be. If yrs wasn't such a benevolent gm that clearly wants the story to continue, I would dare say that finding out about this later could even lead to an early game over/death.

edit: had my vote here, but I think I'll rather abstain until more argumnts are heard. May abstain alltogether, as I really do not have deep knowledge of numbers nor strong feelings about this vote.

I'm fine with Verdant Ash Duality winning, but Blazing Blood is more useful because it has all of his ranged techs, allowing him to support us even if he's far away, which is relevant from the perspective of the current issue we're having with our spirits. Verdant Ash Duality is awesome, but I'm not sure making it stronger actually helps Zhengui significantly; action economy is great, but is only relevant if both sides have something useful to do. If Zhen's arts lag behind Gui's, taking double actions isn't that much stronger than taking single actions.