Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

We could take the GF group for the mission, if people are feeling cautious.

Or Su Ling + Ma twins.

Hell, we could even go Xiulan, Suyin, Su Ling.

I would rather skip taking Meizhen. Seems too much like handholding for me (not in the romantic way...)

Yrs was on Discord today. You know the drill.

Oh! Another fun thought about the wolf mission.

For most other missions, if we screw up, we lose the value of the action. No big deal. For the wolfhunt? We screw up, we die. Which means that if Yan Renshu gets wind of this and interferes, he can plausibly arrange for us to die without killing us. Seems remarkably convenient for him, and remarkably inconvenient for us.

So I guess I should post the plan. This plan is about trying to make sure we can get everything we want by the end of week 36 (so the week after this one) while still having some leeway in case we mess things up this week or we have an interrupt.

It is also about having a nice girl's night out with Lan Lan hunting wolves, getting us AE2 through stealth there and getting us enough sect points so that we can get a archive level 3 art whenever we want one, as well as some nice bonding.

[X] Girl's night out with Lan Lan
-[X]Market Pills : Relevant ones.
Expensive this time around as we are getting all the phys pills given we are using highsun.

-[X]Rare Pills : Highsun, Skyblood
Skyblood is needed for having a good chance at FSA5/FZ5, Highsun will help meridian opening and given we only have 2 weeks left before planned breakthrough, we can't push them back.

-[X]Overflow : Physical
So we won't have to take any physical actions before breakthrough.

-[X]Grinning Moon Blessing : AE
AE2 GET.

Major actions
-[X]Hire a tutor
--[X]TRF
--[X]FSA
Getting us great odds of TRF4 next week, and good odds of FSA5 this week.

-[X] Train at the vent with Su Ling
--[X]Heart Meridian
--[X]Stop forgetting to give the pen to Suyin.
--[X] Work on formations with Li Suyin, working on a project with your friend will be fun
Meridian so we can equip FZ5 if we manage to get it, formation so we might get vault warriors which we will probably soon need.

Also, Li Suyin actions are always good.

-[X] Explore and Train with Golden Fields
--[X] FZ
50 % odds of FZ5.

-[X] Train with Meizhen
--[X] Spine Meridian
I am hesitating between spine and arm there, but we have the arm for FSA5, we just need one more for AC3, and the priority is TRF4>AC3, so spine makes more sense.

-[X] Take a job
--[X]Wolfpack Hunt
--[X] Take Xiulan along for a girl's night out.

The big one for my plan. I really love the idea of hunting things with Xiulan, and with Ling Qi's increased effectiveness and tankiness it should be more than doable.

-[X] Cai Renxiang is going to help you get your mothers legal troubles worked out, and give you a crash course on basic law to boot. LOCKED
-[X] You never did get to go out have a night on the proverbial town with Xiulan, see if she's still up for that
-[X] You need escape contingencies. Start working on that.

Those are very important- increase the fun times with Xiulan, let us go to the market so we can commision a talisman (anti scrying ? Stealth/larceny ? Something else?)


[] The Ma sisters are pleasant enough to be around. Why don't you invite Su Ling to join you in sparring with them, she needs to get out more.
This one was tempting, but ultimately we saw them this last week and so they are a bit lower priority.

PrimalShadow said:

What happens if they start buffing each other? They can do that regardless of the range to us.

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It's really hard to say (also, most of our buffs do have range limits). We don't know how many buffs they'd have, and it depends significantly on how many are actually up to us.

Like, I'd say that realistically, the Alpha probably gets to us on his own, with the others being kept out at long range due to Elegy stun. And the Alpha is the one most likely to be holding the buffs. Anyway, we can almost certainly handle a buffed Alpha on his own, and if the buffs aren't improving his defense, I'd give us good odds on being able to blow him up in a single round with Xiulan. At the very least, we should be able to do it in two, so by the time buffed wolves get to us they're demoralised from the Alpha going down, and many of them would have been blown up at range already. So we'd probably be alright.

Dieb said:

I really like doing the wolf mission this week; waiting a bit on Fu Xiang's favor makes sense as others have said, and getting the points for another tutor week 36 (if needed) would also help make sure we are ready for breakthrough week 37.

I would be much happier to do the wolf mission with Meizhen, however. For one thing we need stealth successes from the mission, and Xiulan isn't the stealthiest. Meizhen is liable to be much better at stealth; certainly Cui is a lot better than Xiulan. Not only would this hopefully result in multiple stealth rolls, but hopefully we can cut down their numbers before we get in a big confrontation. Secondly, of course, she's just much better once we get into the big confrontation, especially with Cui at her side.

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My issue with taking Meizhen is that she is too strong for this. Those are wolves we could run away from back when we were early/mid, and with a small group of cultivators they were so easy to beat that we didn't even get a real description of the fight when we took starlit meadow. This is too much like asking a carry when we can do it ourself in my mind.

Also, Xiulan is the one who has more fun just destroying stuff.

PrimalShadow said:

What happens if they start buffing each other? They can do that regardless of the range to us.

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Even if they do their dice would be so poor that they can't really attack us before half of them are dead, and them buffing each others means them losing turns by not double-moving, so more dead.

PrimalShadow said:

Oh! Another fun thought about the wolf mission.

For most other missions, if we screw up, we lose the value of the action. No big deal. For the wolfhunt? We screw up, we die. Which means that if Yan Renshu gets wind of this and interferes, he can plausibly arrange for us to die without killing us. Seems remarkably convenient for him, and remarkably inconvenient for us.

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Yes, YR interference is very plausible if he gets wind of this... but those wolves were ones we could run away from back in Moonfill. There is no real "he can lock us down" fear, here, given that while Xiulan's defence is not top notch she is very fast even without us.

Erebeal said:

Like, I'd say that realistically, the Alpha probably gets to us on his own, with the others being kept out at long range due to Elegy stun. And the Alpha is the one most likely to be holding the buffs. Anyway, we can almost certainly handle a buffed Alpha on his own, and if the buffs aren't improving his defense, I'd give us good odds on being able to blow him up in a single round with Xiulan. At the very least, we should be able to do it in two, so by the time buffed wolves get to us they're demoralised from the Alpha going down, and many of them would have been blown up at range already. So we'd probably be alright.

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That seems unreasonably optimistic. What happens if the Wolf Alpha stays back instead of charging us alone without his pack? What happens if he disrupts elegy, same way Han Jian did the "do not be enthralled!" thing to disrupt the Fungus's mental effects last week?

More generally, I don't believe the alpha will fall nearly that easily. You expect Xiulan to take down a THIRD-GRADE beast in a single turn? Really? What, do you think she can deal a dozen-plus unblockable damage in one turn? Seems ridiculous.

Erebeal said:

It's really hard to say (also, most of our buffs do have range limits). We don't know how many buffs they'd have, and it depends significantly on how many are actually up to us.

Like, I'd say that realistically, the Alpha probably gets to us on his own, with the others being kept out at long range due to Elegy stun. And the Alpha is the one most likely to be holding the buffs. Anyway, we can almost certainly handle a buffed Alpha on his own, and if the buffs aren't improving his defense, I'd give us good odds on being able to blow him up in a single round with Xiulan. At the very least, we should be able to do it in two, so by the time buffed wolves get to us they're demoralised from the Alpha going down, and many of them would have been blown up at range already. So we'd probably be alright.

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Why would the Alpha be the only one who is able to buff rather than all of the wolves having a cooperative art? It makes sense for pack animals to work togther to bring down a larger animal.

I also don't see how 10 wolves are getting killed before they even engage Ling and Xiulan while Xiulan still has enough qi to continue contributing to the fight.

EDIT: To debff the wolves to the extent where Xiulan can probably oneshot them requires Ling to win her clash, and as we saw during the Sun chase, Ling's offensive dice pool is anemic.

EDIT EDIT: Like, the first time Ling saw a wolf pack she led them into a group of a dozen cultivator that were going to harass her and the pack stilll lived until the Cai strike team went to finish them.

PrimalShadow said:

More generally, I don't believe the alpha will fall nearly that easily. You expect Xiulan to take down a THIRD-GRADE beast in a single turn? Really? What, do you think she can deal a dozen-plus unblockable damage in one turn? Seems ridiculous.

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Not on her own, but, if we look at Hungry Giant, he was actually tanky and he only had ~20 defense.

After debuffs, the Alpha will be pretty low. That's why I wouldn't be surprised if Luminescent + Xiulan could blow him up in a single round (though obviously it isn't a sure thing).

I'd be tempted to hold off until Green and try to bind the alpha. Would be nice to have a third grade spirit beast for the tournament...

Erebeal said:

Not on her own, but, if we look at Hungry Giant, he was actually tanky and he only had ~20 defense.

After debuffs, the Alpha will be pretty low. That's why I wouldn't be surprised if Luminescent + Xiulan could blow him up in a single round (though obviously it isn't a sure thing).

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Let's be real though, the Hungry Giant was dumb as bricks. And it did have good defence, it had 2 natural armor and durability 10, and it was also really stupid in that it only used Stone Sanctuary when it was about to die. I mean, look at this:

yrsillar said:

Hungry Giant Activates Stone Sanctuary Gains armorand bonus dice
Stamina+Toughness+Passives+stone sanctuary-wounds-Radiant Burn. 23 dice. +2 auto
9 4 6 3 1 1 1 9 2 5 3 5 5 9 8 6 2 9 4 8 10 4 1. 7 successes. 9 total

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The wounds penalty was -2, and the Radiant Burn I'm also going to assume is -2. If so he had a total of 27 dice, 2 natural armor, 10 durability and Stone Sanctuary also gave additional armor, but our piercing went through it.

My point is, if he was actually smart, the Hungry Giant could have had a lot of defence dice. But he wasn't.

I'm not really concerned about the wolves.

I wouldn't mind waiting on Fu Xiangs favor, but we don't know how long he is going to wait. I'd feel better about waiting on green if we knew he'd wait for us.

Forgothrax said:

I'd be tempted to hold off until Green and try to bind the alpha. Would be nice to have a third grade spirit beast for the tournament...

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I doubt he'll come peacefully. Binding by force make it more expensive.

Probably not worth it.

I can't recall, do we know how spirit beasts tend to compare to cultivators in terms of having arts? 20 yellow cultivators with arts is quite different from 20 without. If that alpha is as strong as a green cultivator he could wipe out a two person team by himself. If they are mostly without arts, it becomes much easier.

When we ran them off from the meadow they had mostly already left, so that didn't tell us much about their abilities.

Anyway, my problem with @Arkeus 's plan is that I'm not convinced that TRF+FSA actually works as a legal tutoring option.

@yrsillar, is TRF + FSA actually a viable tutoring option? Because they seem rather disconnected to me.

Asael said:

I wouldn't mind waiting on Fu Xiangs favor, but we don't know how long he is going to wait. I'd feel better about waiting on green if we knew he'd wait for us.

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He doesn't really have a choice. Anyway, if anything, the closer to the tournament we sabotage them the less time they have to recover and the better for him.

I want to make sure we have a plan to frame Yan Renshu, personally.

[X] Plan Dragons, not Wolves
-[X] Use From Inventory: 3RSS, 1YSS, Highsun Pill
-[X] Buy and Use: Channel Cleansing Pill (2), Heavy Rains Pill (10), Clear Wind Pill (2), White Hart Elixir (6), Bright Sky Pill (2), Soaring Spirits Pill (6), Vigorous Sapling Pill (2), second wood pill (6), Bear Marrow Elixir (4), Bear's Heartsblood Elixir (10), Steady Growth Pill (8), Sturdy Oak Pill (18)
-[X] Total Spending: 13 (stones) + 76 (medicines) = 89 RSS
-[X] Grinning Moon bonus -> FZ
-[X] Overflow : Physical
Actions
-[X] Research Dragons, and how one might be appeased
-[X] Train at the vent with Su Ling
--[X] Heart Meridian
--[X] (Minor) Work on formations with Li Suyin, working on a project with your friend will be fun
--[X] (Minor) The Ma sisters are pleasant enough to be around. Why don't you invite Su Ling to join you in sparring with them, she needs to get out more.
-[X] Train with Meizhen
--[X] Spine Meridian
-[X] Explore and Train with Golden Fields
--[X] Arm Meridian
---[X] Note: open this Meridian after the other two
-[X] Hire a tutor (gives -1 minor, +1 major)
--[X] Archery / Falling Star Art
--[X] Stamina / Thousand Ring Fortress
-[X] (Minor) You need escape contingencies. Start working on that.
-[X] (Minor) Cai Renxiang is going to help you get your mothers legal troubles worked out, and give you a crash course on basic law to boot.
---[X] During the breaks in tutoring, mention to Cai you've been looking for "the fourth" Argent Art, which you suspect is Heavens/Earth.

Erebeal said:

It's really hard to say (also, most of our buffs do have range limits). We don't know how many buffs they'd have, and it depends significantly on how many are actually up to us.

Like, I'd say that realistically, the Alpha probably gets to us on his own, with the others being kept out at long range due to Elegy stun. And the Alpha is the one most likely to be holding the buffs. Anyway, we can almost certainly handle a buffed Alpha on his own, and if the buffs aren't improving his defense, I'd give us good odds on being able to blow him up in a single round with Xiulan. At the very least, we should be able to do it in two, so by the time buffed wolves get to us they're demoralised from the Alpha going down, and many of them would have been blown up at range already. So we'd probably be alright.

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I'm very skeptical about your calculations.

I would not be surprised if the Alpha had at least 30 dice for tracking (the same as Sun Liling's Dhartiri), which makes getting within the range you suggest without being detected very, very dicy. Whilst Ling Qi may just be able to get within range of the wolves without being detected (though this will be very dependent on rolls) getting there with Xiulan or a groups is a much more tricky proposition.

As pack animals I'd expect them to have multiple buffers and/or debuffers (wolf howls anyone?) and we saw last update that Xiulan is not actually that strong against debuffs. I would also not be surprised if they have dispels as counter to other beasts.

I'm not sure where you're getting Xiulan's able to kill so many wolves instantly on her own, especially when you're also having her use her really qi heavy arts to try and fry the alpha before it gets to us.

I mean if you really want an example of how effective a group of lower levels working together can be against an upper level just look at us and the GF group last week. 5 of us vs a beast of a higher realm and we utterly destroyed it. You're insisting that a group of 15 predators bred to work together and of only marginally lesser cultivation are going to be utterly incapable of doing anything to whilst we are also dealing with a green relam beast. It just reeks of arrogance/

Klaus said:

He doesn't really have a choice. Anyway, if anything, the closer to the tournament we sabotage them the less time they have to recover and the better for him.

I want to make sure we have a plan to frame Yan Renshu, personally.

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Your assuming there is literally no one else he can hire to do it. I find this highly unlikely.

I suppose what will be, will be. It's not a make or break for me.

Klaus said:

I can't recall, do we know how spirit beasts tend to compare to cultivators in terms of having arts? 20 yellow cultivators with arts is quite different from 20 without. If that alpha is as strong as a green cultivator he could wipe out a two person team by himself. If they are mostly without arts, it becomes much easier.

When we ran them off from the meadow they had mostly already left, so that didn't tell us much about their abilities.

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Spirits are generally weaker than cultivators of the same rank. Not always the case, but usually so. This is due to the fact that spirits are much more rigid and inflexible, and we've seen that their art selection isn't as varied or as large. Makes their dice amounts smaller.

For example, that fungus we killed with GF? It was Green Appraisal and Early Bronze. And it preyed on a bunch of third grade beasts. We still managed to take it out with good coordination and combined capabilities.

So, to answer your question, an Alpha who's just broken through to the Third Realm isn't as strong as the average Early Third Realm cultivator.

Asael said:

Your assuming there is literally no one else he can hire to do it.

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So what if he does? No skin off our nose.

[X] Plan Escaping Eyesight
-[X] Resources:
--[X] Bought and used: Channel Cleansing Pill (2); Heavy Rains Pill (10); Clear Wind Pill (2); Bright Sky Pill (2); Vigorous Sapling Pill (2); Bear Marrow Elixir (4); Bear's Heart's Blood Elixir (10); White Hart Elixir (6); Soaring Spirits Pill (6); Steady Growth Pill (8); Sturdy Oak Pill (18); 2nd level wood Pill (6)
--[X] Used: 1 High Sun Pill; 1 Skyblood Pill; 3 Red Spirit Stones; 1 Yellow Spirit Stone
--[X] Used and bought?: Any wood pills Cai directed us to
--[X] Total: 79 Red Spirit Stones; 1 Yellow Spirit Stone
--[X] Overflow to Physical
--[X] EPC bonus successes: Abyssal Exhalation

-[X] Major Actions
--[X] Train at the vent with Su Ling
---[X] Spine Meridian
---[X] Work on formations with Li Suyin, working on a project with your friend will be fun

--[X] Visit the Archive
---[X] Anti-Scrying formations
---[X] You need escape contingencies. Start working on that.

--[X] Train with Meizhen
---[X] Heart Meridian

--[X] Explore and Train with Golden Fields
---[X] TRF

--[X] Hire a Week tutor From the Inner Sect
---[X] FSA
----[X] Use Windblown Site
----[X] Archery
---[X] FZ
----[X] Athletics

-[X] Minor Actions
--[X] Cai Renxiang is going to help you get your mothers legal troubles worked out, and give you a crash course on basic law to boot.
---[X] Ask her if she knows where to get good wood cultivation pills
--[X] You never did get to go out have a night on the proverbial town with Xiulan, see if she's still up for that

Rational time!

This plan revolves around Getting FSA and FZ done and over with this turn, while also allowing us to get TRF next week. Right now we have about 65 successes needed to get TRF done, and we can expect around 33-34 successes a turn. Which in two turns gets us TRF4. This is cutting it close, which is why we take up Cai on her offer to give us anything within reason. We don't have a minor for it, and so I just plopped the question when we are going to be spending a good amount of time with her learning law and having her help us out.

Tutoring for FSA and FZ. People seem slightly uncomfortable with the possibility of training FSA and TRF. I don't know why, as it could be survival training or the like, but I am going to offer an alternative. We have done this type of tutoring before, and doing it this week will almost guarantee FZ and FSA.

I am also using the High Sun Pill to allow us to get the two meridians that are being trained a bit easier, as well as start working on getting Physical ready for a breakthrough week 37.

Some people are not comfortable in doing the wolf mission and also want to do the Repaying debt action after we breakthrough. There doesn't appear to be another mission that fits within our parameters this week, but hopefully, the mission list gets updated after this week and we can do an awesome stealth mission next week.

The kicker to a lot of people will be the Archive/research formation action. The purpose is to start researching anti-scrying talismans so we know what they look like and how they work. There will be people who disagree with this action, a lot of people will vehemently disagree with this action. However, I think it is worth using the first archive pass to get more training and more experience in formations before the breakthrough, as well as the value of getting use to anti-scrying formations which we know is one of the ways to track us and as I have argued about before, the type of formation that Ling Qi would be naturally interested in. This also combo's well with the Escape contingencies as we will actually know what we are looking for in an advanced anti-scrying talisman and we will have access to charts and maps to figure out escape routes from our most frequent training spots.

I like formations, I know other people like formations, and I want to continue pursuing formations. I also know, that other people are interested in pursuing it. Formations can be a powerful tool in our arsenal and this is just one of the many steps that could make it so.

This plan will be getting FSA/FZ as well as allowing us to still get TRF4 week 36. While the chances are smaller of getting TRF4 in week 36 (as it doesn't tutor it), it also has a much larger chance to get FZ this week (almost guaranteed I believe). It doesn't get AE2, which I consider to be a negative, but it also ensures that we will only have 2 required actions next week for breakthrough (TRF and Arm Meridian) which opens up the floor for Mission, AC, and another TRF action if necessary (or something else!).

[X] Plan Dragons, not Wolves

[X] Plan Dragons, not Wolves

It has the dragon minor, so of course I'll take it!

Klaus said:

So what if he does? No skin off our nose.

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It's not just an errand. it's an opportunity.

Not only can it feed our cultivation, but repaying debts is important.


Besides, stiffing an information broker on the bill cannot lead to good things.

Codex said:

So, to answer your question, an Alpha who's just broken through to the Third Realm isn't as strong as the average Early Third Realm cultivator

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And the average third realm is Chu Song, not Meizhen.

Actually, one thing that is annoying here is that Ling Qi should have a better idea of Xiulan's capabilities than we do. Things like: her range, what her aoe is like, how many times she can throw things out before she's exhausted, roughly what her dice are...

@yrsillar, any chance of us getting more detailed info on Xiulan based on what Ling Qi should know from their training?