[ ] The lesson of the roots
"There, you would learn of the tools which abrade a person down to their least selves," Shu Yue said. "You have learned to walk in the mind, in the personal Dream of a cultivator. Here you would learn to hurt, with the deliberation of a surgeon's scalpel."
This is to learn what reduces people to the inner rat. Of fear for kin, of hunger, cold and desperation.
Its a lesson Qi already knows the surface of, the blade of Isolation. Where Community is torn apart because you value some things more than other things.
What strength lies in a sworn brotherhood when your child is held hostage? How long can you be defiant when water runs dry and the stores barren?
This aims for the Individuals that fill Societies.
[ ] the lesson of the palace
The corner's of her tutor's lips curled back up. "It is a choice. There is another lesson. You have seen her. The vortice in the canopy. The Empty Ascension. The Palace of One. She whose dream was never shared, the throne of ideals. You have floated in her orbit. I would take you deeper. To know the terrible, scouring fire that is hope. To know how minds may bend toward a distant and unreachable dream. And how these things may be turned. How they may be broken and twisted, the lesson the descendants took from her. This would be another lesson of sight. But as befitting the coming war, it too is a lesson of hurt, if one lesser than the roots."
This is to learn of the fire of idealism and revolution. Of An and Jiao whose ideal brought upon rivers of blood, of Xia Ren and Cai Shenhua whose fires burned indiscriminately to take only the raw materials of what remains. How your successors and subordinates will pervert your Law to their personal benefit and how people seek comfort and gain where possible
Its a field where Qi knows little, she who had only recently touched Power, to know the Dreams her friends possess.
It aims at the masses, the complex answers rendered down to a simple leading radiance, all the collective can be trusted to do is follow the light, not navigate the hazards.
[X] the lesson of the palace
I think at her point in cultivation, she needs to experience the side she has no prior knowledge of, if she wants to retain the capacity to address it later.
E: to clarify, both of these aim at the community, Roots does so by targeting the individuals that form a community and breaking them down to the inner beast, Palace does so by targeting the ideals of the masses and how it can be twisted or turned to ruin.
