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Cultivating Magic

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Now now. Your last life was an engineer in a first world country, and your second was a young mage. Getting some Rogue skills down could be rather helpful. Even if everything animal related (like a transformation, then puppy-dog eyes) would be automatically disqualified until polymorph becomes a known spell.
 
Interesting that it implies that transformed diremonsters make up something of an underclass in cultivator society. Reasonable too simce they likely wouldn't have the kind of connections or education a human cultivator would have.
 
SpiraSpira said:
"Don't shake me to death!" I complained, and he coughed and let go, but I grinned too. I had parachuted in the past, not in the Navy, of course. I was a glorified mechanic, not a SEAL, but where there were military bases, there was always civilian skydiving around.
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I take it that was during training? Unless things go particularly poorly, I don't imagine the MedEvac helicopter pilots would ever have to parachute.
 
Queshire said:
Interesting that it implies that transformed diremonsters make up something of an underclass in cultivator society. Reasonable too simce they likely wouldn't have the kind of connections or education a human cultivator would have.
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Not necessarily an underclass since any transformed diremonsters are stronger than the typical human cultivator and may have unusual abilities. I suspect middle-class if not better, though it probably depends on the Nascent Souls - if one of those nascent souls is a fox you better believe they aren't an underclass.

The tactics suggested are the kind of thing you'd normally see from an underclass, but in this case they might just be necessary to those who lack human 'common sense'. Like, here's how to pick someone's pocket, this is what a pocket is and why they'd have money there, don't just kill and eat people for their stuff in the city as that's likely to go badly, even if it seems like the obvious strategy.
 
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I'm always a little disappointed in the Xanxia trope that requires a teacher or a manual to cultivate. Like... What did the first cultivators do? They didn't have teachers or manuals. They had to figure it out on their own. Why can't a clever protagonist figure their own method out based on the knowledge of the world? That's an even greater foundation than the first cultivators had.
 
kaosisreality said:
They had to figure it out on their own. Why can't a clever protagonist figure their own method out based on the knowledge of the world? That's an even greater foundation than the first cultivators had.
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In most stories they do need to start making their own techniques after a certain point. It's just much more efficient to start with techniques that were refined for centuries and certainly work. Instead of stumbling in the dark.
 
kaosisreality said:
I'm always a little disappointed in the Xanxia trope that requires a teacher or a manual to cultivate. Like... What did the first cultivators do? They didn't have teachers or manuals. They had to figure it out on their own. Why can't a clever protagonist figure their own method out based on the knowledge of the world? That's an even greater foundation than the first cultivators had.
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Zoolimar said:
In most stories they do need to start making their own techniques after a certain point. It's just much more efficient to start with techniques that were refined for centuries and certainly work. Instead of stumbling in the dark.
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I've run across a couple Xianxia where the MC either makes their own cultivation technique or there is no cultivation technique. For the no cultivation technique ones the way it works is there is kinda an overarching method to power but there isn't really any read this book. You absorb qi for qi gathering but there isn't any special methods you just do it. You do whatever for a foundation, you make a core, you form a nascent soul, ECT. But you're not practicing the eight fold fatty technique or anything, you are just doing the thing.
 
kaosisreality said:
I'm always a little disappointed in the Xanxia trope that requires a teacher or a manual to cultivate. Like... What did the first cultivators do? They didn't have teachers or manuals. They had to figure it out on their own. Why can't a clever protagonist figure their own method out based on the knowledge of the world? That's an even greater foundation than the first cultivators had.
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That's kind of like asking why do engineers use existing technology rather than developing their own from scratch.

Why don't you design your own smart phone, from growing the silicon crystal, designing and fabricating the cpus, programming an operating system from assembly, and then ensuring it works and connects to cell towers.

Mainly because it is very hard to match, let alone exceed, the accumulated knowledge/experience of numerous generations advancing upon previous discoveries.
 
kaosisreality said:
I'm always a little disappointed in the Xanxia trope that requires a teacher or a manual to cultivate. Like... What did the first cultivators do? They didn't have teachers or manuals. They had to figure it out on their own. Why can't a clever protagonist figure their own method out based on the knowledge of the world? That's an even greater foundation than the first cultivators had.
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The techniques in manuals and from a teacher are refined by generations of genius cultivators or higher realm cultivators with greater insight.
Making a passable technique yourself requires extreme talent and luck.

On common theme in stories is that younger worlds had more easily available cultivation resources and richer Qi which allowed early cultivators to compensate for primitive techniques.
There was one where the protagonist visited a very old world and the overall cultivation level was low because there was almost no Qi to cultivate but the techniques they had were more profound than his own allowing them to punch above their realm.
 
Fredo said:
That's kind of like asking why do engineers use existing technology rather than developing their own from scratch.
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That is a terrible analogy. Cultivation isn't even remotely close to engineering. It doesn't require years of underlying scientifically derived principles and mathematics to design an engine or microchip or superstructure. Literal children start cultivating by feeling the qi in their environments with basic meditation instructions. There is not a single setting in which cultivation isn't about striving for the Confucian/Platonic Ideal of a thing. "Perfect the sword" and so forth.

Calling cultivation engineering might hold some water if it wasn't filled with filial piety and revenge power fantasies. It's rare to explore the magical system that is cultivation, even moreso than it is for Western fantasy to explore wizardry/sorcery magical systems.

If cultivating with more understanding was better, then they shouldn't be teaching teenagers how to magic throat punch. They should be teaching teenagers the fundamentals that underpin cultivation. But the narrative is near universally: "I have a secret manual that allows me to super magic throat punch more better than everyone else so I'm gonna super magic throat punch everyone who has ever offended me" or "I have done nothing to offend anyone, everyone is just jealous because I am more virtuous than anyone else so I will win the day on my virtue."

The stories with people using any amount of intellect to win are few and far between. The criticism that most of the cultivation genre is basically "fight, meditate, consume magic pills, repeat" is not without merit.
 
Iridesce said:
Are you saying that the dragon does not infact seduce the bard? Why else would the bard try so hard to get in the dragons "pants".
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Martin Rudat said:
On the one hand that sounds accurate, but on the other... =)

Dragon: Rar!
Bard: oh, your beautiful iridescent scales!
Bard: roll to seduce.
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The dragon knows what they are getting into with a bard. That's why the bard thinks they rolled to seduce, but the dragon already succeeded on the seduction roll. Largely because the bard has all the kinks, but don't tell the bard: the bard is clearly a seduction expert with broad appeal.
 
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