You could do that its in fact one of the things locked behind the places of power chain of actions although it could be unlocked in a few other ways.
But if you'll get that insight you'll have also gotten an empire action that would fucus on just improving the land around the capital to make it healthier and such.
If I had to gauss probably because you cast it before I actually opened the vote (IE: Pressed the button)
But doing a manual recount means your vote only brings it to a tie and this is as good of a tie breaker as any (well that and I already rolled for your 3 earth insights).
Of those you've taught throughout the times many have complained of the difficulty and slowness of cultivation.
While the benefits are apparent, scares are those who have both the discipline and patience for the effort required.
For cultivation is a long path where advancement is measured in decades rather than wells or months.
The first step is perhaps the most difficult even though it is the fastest of all the current steps.
This step requires the cultivator to infuse Qi in a part of his body while undergoing heavy physical stress to refine their body and expel impurities.
In general, any such cycle of purification takes about half an hour of exercise and infusion.
For the average practitioner -setting aside notable talents- it takes about three thousand such cycles for a certain part of their body to be considered of the next stage and they then need to re do such cultivation five times to get all the other parts of their body.
So, in total they need ten months of full dedicated effort just to advance a single minor stage.
And well… people need to sleep, to eat, to socialize and do a hundred other things.
No Keku exists that can focus the totality of his existence on cultivation, not even you.
The second step is even worse.
To expend ones dentian, a cultivator must cycle his Qi through his denitan and push and push, push enough for one to feel as if their hearts are going to pop from the stress.
And for the dentian to expand just a tiny bit, they must maintain this for about an hour.
It takes roughly about fifty thousand repetitions of this cycle to move up a minor stage and while those of the second step require less sustenance and sleep, they also can't truly separate from the world at large.
The third step is where things start to differ.
Where before you only had to repeat a certain action a certain time, to advance in the third step you must slowly gather Qi and shape it into a pillar of your soul.
And if it falls?
Then you have lost all of your progress on that pillar and must start anew.
You don't have enough third step cultivators to deduce some kind of average but it hasn't escaped your notice that you have managed to erect two new pillars in the four decades since your rule started, while your daughter just barely finished one.
The third step is where Qi control and focus paves your way forward rather than repetition.
And the focus needed to make sure no mistake is made is almost absolute.
When constructing a pillar, you must be focused on your Qi and on your Qi alone.
It was this fact that allowed you to detect the new mote of energy that entered your dentain even though compared to the sea that was your Qi it was barely a single drop.
The new energy was still Qi, just a different kind.
A kind you've never seen before.
It feels almost alive and you can swear you could hear it whisper to your mind.
Focusing on it fills your mind with possibilities and on a whim, you send the mote of Qi toward your pillar a reckless act only done from the surety that it will do you no harm.
And the result is breathtaking, at the passing of the strange mote of Qi the pressure on your pillar lessens and its foundation strengthen and when finally, the mote of Qi reaches the pillar and is carefully slotted into place you piler rises as if a full day of work has passed.
You know not what this strange energy is but curiosity fills your mind.
Casting your perspective from outside your soul back to your chambers.
At first glance nothing seems amiss.
Your chambers are as they always were, bare but for the essentials.
But your true senses could see what your mortal self couldn't.
A small tendril of the strange Qi drifts into your room and then into your body.
A trail to follow.
If you were truly pushing it you could fly the breath of the empire in two days' time.
At a more sedate pace it only took you a day and a half of flight to find the origin for the strange Qi.
A small village somewhere in the far western portion of your empire.
So small that you doubt it was ever on a map.
From your vantage point you could estimate that barely seven families called this hamlet home.
Unfortunately, you couldn't identify the source of the anomaly from the air so you must descend to fully investigate.
Landing in front of one of the farmers in the field, his eyes widening when he catches sight of you.
You move to question the farmer about his home but before you can he swiftly bows before you, his head all but touching the ground as he speaks.
"Oh great emperor you bless this unworthy one with your presence, you must allow our humble village to show our appreciation for the life you gifted us, please I beg of you".
Without even waiting for your reply, he rises and begins to rush back towards his home and with no other recourse you follow.
On the way back you meet a few more inhabitants of the village, who all supplicant themselves before you upon seeing you and then rush in different directions.
Something is very wrong here; you have seen many reactions for your status and power.
Desire, fear, curiosity all played a part in the tapestry of emotion the average Keku experienced when they met you and recognized who you were.
But here there was none of that, even setting aside that the farmer somehow recognized you at a glance, none of the emotions on display were anything like normal.
It felt more like devotion or worship.
And soon enough you found out why.
In the center of the village, at its highest point there was a shrine.
A shrine for you.
At least of your interesting all the paintings and small sculptors they had of you correctly.
And you could feel it in your soul this shrine was the source of the energy you felt.
It was divine Qi gained through the worship of willing Keku.
The only question left unanswered then is, how did this worship come to be?
You really doubt this village could scrap enough coin for many of the masterwork paintings on display here even if they saved for centuries.
Thankfully this question would be answered soon enough by a rather small Keku flying over the crowd that was gathered around, attempting to disperse it.
A keku you recognized.
Finally succeeding in his attempt to disperse the crowed the keku approached you and dropped to a short bow before speaking "Master, what brings you to this parts?" you could see his shifting nervuslly and glancing at the shrine dedicated to you.
"Trekanu I assume this is your doing?" Trekanu -one of your older disciples- winces.
"Yes master, I was going to report about this finding sometime in the next few years, when I was fully done with this experiment"
"Oh? Well, I'm here now, so do explain" you commend to your old disciple who seems ever more nervus.
"It satreted about five years back, I remembered about how you spoke of how our thoughts and action influence the Qi within us and imbue it with a part of our self" you have indeed spoken about it, it was a something naturally done by the Qi claimed by a cultivator this phenomena could be used to achieve more efficiently in Qi techniques by aligning one actions and thoughts with certain concepts, it is also the way you imbued your own pillars with meaning -if to a far lesser extent- unknowing of your musing Trekanu continued without pause " and well… I was curious how thoughts that place another at its center effect ones Qi"
Hmm.. that is an interesting question and if you had to gauss this was the result.
"I tried to start with cultivators but it was difficult to get them to fully dedicate their thoughts to another, I had far better successes I had far better successes with mortals to whom our abilities could be easily explained as divine blessing's and I've got to say the results are…. Exceptional"
Even though his nerviness was radially apparent there was an undeniable source of pride in his findings "Yes, the divine Qi I felt and that has led it me here" at your words surprised flash on Trekanu face.
"Divine Qi master? You've felt it?"
"Was I not supposed to?" you say a little bit of steel coloring your tone.
"No, no, of course not, I wouldn't dream to try and hide this from you" the shifting seemed to double in mere moments "its just that… well I didn't think that it would actually reach you seeing as were so far from the palace"
"Yet reached me it did, maybe it's a certain quality of this Qi" you muse "no matter tell me of your findings."
"Ah well, there's not much to be honest, I could use it to cast techniques higher potency but such functionality is limited before reaching the second step, so my research in that direction didn't go far" pausing to choose his words carefully he continues "the cultivation benefits on the other hand are significant, I reached treasure body a year back".
Tresure body? Last you remember Trekanu reached the pure body stage and gave up on his cultivation – a somewhat common occurrence among cultivators who don't dare attempt the tribulation but tire of pushing their body further- for him to reach the treasures body stage in such a short time, demonstrates the benefit of using Divine Qi in cultivation.
The question is how far do you want to push this.
Do you want to clad yourself as a god-emperor whose word is divine mandate?
Could you afford not too whit the apocalypse coming ever closer?
You can hear it in the wind this decision will have far reaching consequences and many unknown dangers.
What path do you take on worshiping yourself (and as such all cultivators as your divine servants".
[] Forbid it- the potential dangers are too much to trifle with.
[] allow it- the befits are too much to give up on.
[] allow it and encourage its spread- you are emperor and if you let it known that you approve of this practice many obstacles on its path would be removed.
[] allow it and not only encourage it but entrust your servants to spread it far and wide- the more Keku that will worship you the more divine Qi you will gain and the stronger you become. (this option will open actual empire projects and some cultivator ones that deal with spreading the new religion).
Divine Qi is Qi gained through worship at its most basic the more people worship you the more you gain of it (there is some loss to distance) and it has many uses of which you currently know two, it can be used to increase the potency of techniques (this is mainly a combat bonus although it can boost certain actions) and boosting cultivation (in effct you slowly gather Devine Qi charges that can be substituted for AP on cultivation -and only cultivation- actions).
While we're at it, I'll also throw in the insight vote, vote for one of each from the bellow and don't forget to vote for the above, this vote is not a plan vote. And seeing the importance of it were going to have a 4-hour moratorium to allow some discussion and for me to answer any question you have.
Earth
[] "A child of the earth, your mother will never reject your presence" you may travel through the earth, albeit with some difficulty.
[] "The earth nourishes all life, and if you'll let it will nourish you too" so long as you touch the earth you will need no food and would effectively count as having a pure grade 2 spiritual diet (which makes you slightly stronger, healthier and even speeds up cultivation and Qi regeneration although at your stage the benefits are negligible on the cultivation front) if the land you touch is particularly healthy or full of spiritual energy (like a place of power) this effect will be increased (seeing as you live in a place of power -or right next to one but same thing- you will actually have grade 3 spiritual diet).
[] "The earth sees all and hears it all, and if you listen attentivity it may share its wisdom with you" you may attempt to listen to the earth and have it revel to you pieces of information it knows that are relevant to you (a few example's would be pinpointing where an army is, accertain type of tree, finding something buried and eventualy conversition's)
Teaching.
[] "What is a teacher without a diligent student?" gain a supernatural sense as to determine who is going to be a great student under you (no guarantee they would be good or talented just that they'll learn very well under you).
[] "teacher to student, there is a heavy bond in this relationship, a bond that passes through generations, for what is a teacher student's if not students to that teacher, teacher? "Gain a connection to all of your students and their students and their students and so forth to the ninth generation, this connection allows you to ascertain their status at time (general level of health and general location) and may allow more with further experimentation.
[] "Sometime as a teacher it ss your duty to teach not what the student wants but what he needs" students under you get a small bonus to learning topics that are related to their main focus (think a biology student getting a bonus to learning math).
[] allow it and not only encourage it but entrust you servants t spread it far and wide- the more Keku that will worship you the more divine Qi you will gain and the stronger you become. (this option will open actual empire projects and some cultivator ones that deal with spreading the ne religion).
Could we try and set up a pantheon system so that our students can also benefit? We'll personally benefit less but helping our students with their bottlenecks would be a significant force multiplier.
As for the Insights I'm thinking these two
[] "The earth sees all and hears it all, and if you listen attentivity it may share its wisdom with you"
[] "teacher to student, there is a heavy bond in this relationship, a bond that passes through generations, for what is a teacher student's if not students to that teacher, teacher?
The first will give us benefits on tracking the rebels, finding Places of Power, possibly other cultivation resources like if there are magic trees or spirit stones, and talking to the earth will hopefully let us get a handle on spirits in general sooner than otherwise.
The second is the only one that works on an Imperial scale, especially if we make an effort to become Teacher to enough of a seed population that everyone who passes through our public education system counts as at least ninth gen student. Plus the other two involve a lot more personal time spent teaching which is a bit of an issue.
[] allow it and not only encourage it but entrust your servants to spread it far and wide
[] "The earth sees all and hears it all, and if you listen attentivity it may share its wisdom with you"
[] "teacher to student, there is a heavy bond in this relationship, a bond that passes through generations, for what is a teacher student's if not students to that teacher, teacher?
Could we try and set up a pantheon system so that our students can also benefit? We'll personally benefit less but helping our students with their bottlenecks would be a significant force multiplier.
Its already happening in a sense, all cultivators (well most, not all) would get a certain cut of the total energy produced as they would be considered your "angels".
[] allow it and not only encourage it but entrust your servants to spread it far and wide- the more Keku that will worship you the more divine Qi you will gain and the stronger you become. (this option will open actual empire projects and some cultivator ones that deal with spreading the new religion).
We need to be carful with this however. If we know anything from 40k being a god emperor comes with its cons.
[X] allow it and not only encourage it but entrust your servants to spread it far and wide- the more Keku that will worship you the more divine Qi you will gain and the stronger you become. (this option will open actual empire projects and some cultivator ones that deal with spreading the new religion).
We need to be carful with this however. If we know anything from 40k being a god emperor comes with its cons.
That definitely is something to consider. So long as we don't get stabbed and confined to eternal life support, we should be able to address issues as they come up though.
That definitely is something to consider. So long as we don't get stabbed and confined to eternal life support, we should be able to address issues as they come up though.
Well, good news, if someone manages to stab you like that (and manages to overcome your toughness and armor) you won't even get to be on life support you'll just be dead.
Anyway, vote is now open. Remember not a plan vote.
[X] allow it and not only encourage it but entrust your servants to spread it far and wide
[X] "The earth sees all and hears it all, and if you listen attentivity it may share its wisdom with you"
[X] "teacher to student, there is a heavy bond in this relationship, a bond that passes through generations, for what is a teacher student's if not students to that teacher, teacher?
[X] allow it and not only encourage it but entrust your servants to spread it far and wide
[X] "The earth sees all and hears it all, and if you listen attentivity it may share its wisdom with you"
[X] "teacher to student, there is a heavy bond in this relationship, a bond that passes through generations, for what is a teacher student's if not students to that teacher, teacher?
[X] allow it and not only encourage it but entrust your servants to spread it far and wide
[X] "The earth nourishes all life, and if you'll let it will nourish you too"
[X] "teacher to student, there is a heavy bond in this relationship, a bond that passes through generations, for what is a teacher student's if not students to that teacher, teacher?
I think spiritual diet is best pick, our ability to cultivate is our strongest ability, we should speed it up as much as we can.
Could we try and set up a pantheon system so that our students can also benefit? We'll personally benefit less but helping our students with their bottlenecks would be a significant force multiplier.
I think we can share it if we want, the kid stole some of it to refine his body, so obviously it will benefit everyone, being the target of worship give us more control.
I think we can share it if we want, the kid stole some of it to refine his body, so obviously it will benefit everyone, being the target of worship give us more control.
Yes, the Kid -whose like eighty years old-Did get most of the energy but mostly because he was a lot closer to the epicenter of it rather than because he did it deliberately.
[X] allow it and not only encourage it but entrust your servants to spread it far and wide
[X] "The earth sees all and hears it all, and if you listen attentivity it may share its wisdom with you"
[X] "teacher to student, there is a heavy bond in this relationship, a bond that passes through generations, for what is a teacher student's if not students to that teacher, teacher?
Yes, the Kid -whose like eighty years old-Did get most of the energy but mostly because he was a lot closer to the epicenter of it rather than because he did it deliberately.
I am curious how geomancy or the nth degree student link will affect that. How viable is giving some lectures at the imperial academy so that their teachers teach other teachers and disseminate the line of learning down to the public school system?
[X] allow it and not only encourage it but entrust your servants to spread it far and wide
[X] "The earth sees all and hears it all, and if you listen attentivity it may share its wisdom with you"
[X] "teacher to student, there is a heavy bond in this relationship, a bond that passes through generations, for what is a teacher student's if not students to that teacher, teacher?
[X] allow it and not only encourage it but entrust your servants to spread it far and wide
[X] "The earth sees all and hears it all, and if you listen attentivity it may share its wisdom with you"
[X] "teacher to student, there is a heavy bond in this relationship, a bond that passes through generations, for what is a teacher student's if not students to that teacher, teacher?
Now that you unlocked it you'll get options to find out more about this and improve what you're getting from it (or finding other uses) just like what happened with artificing.
Seeing as a day passed with no new votes I'll go ahead and close the vote and I'll start writing the end of the turn (although I am a bit under the weather so it might take me some time).
Scheduled vote count started by uri on Jan 24, 2024 at 3:52 PM, finished with 9 posts and 6 votes.
[X] allow it and not only encourage it but entrust your servants to spread it far and wide
[X] "teacher to student, there is a heavy bond in this relationship, a bond that passes through generations, for what is a teacher student's if not students to that teacher, teacher?
While I'm writing the end of the turn (which is progressing nicely) let's talk about AP.
More specifically what it is and how you gain it.
In the last pillar vote, there has been some push to get a time pillar for the possibility to get more personal AP, so I figured I should talk about this (I probably should have done this during that vote but the second-best time to plant a tree is today and all that).
With that said let's get to it.
Empire actions.
By its very nature you will never get more empire "actions" because the "actions" are just focuses.
The 6-8 to actions you get every turn are specific things that are being focused that turn, they are influenced by the overall focus (which you'll actually get to choose a new one for next turn) the problems you need to solve, various opportunities or prepare for the apocalypse if there is something appropriate.
But a lot of things are done behind the scenes and below the level of abstraction for example new villages and settlements are founded all the time by the empire but the action to do so was for doing it in a massive way you didn't fund a few dozen or so new villages but hundreds.
Another example is that your army has been slowly expending in the background after you had created enough of a core for it to do so (and I really should be working on that army tab its going to be important).
This is done (at least may intention for it is) to signify that an empire of millions of people isn't limited to a few projects at a time but is limited in doing large reforms or seemlier scale projects.
Now this dose means that as your empire grows larger and more powerful the scale of the projects presented to you and their effects are going to be increased and the same time more things are going to be delegated to the background.
Cultivator actions.
Cultivators AP is basically the time and effort the cultivators below you can (or will) put into your directives.
As such the easiest way to gain more CAP is to just increase the number of cultivators you have, stronger cultivators count for more but not that much more then those of lower steps (the level of cultivators mostly determines the kind of actions you can take rather the number of them you can take) for example if way back then you would have taken the quantity option you'll have probably had 2-3 more ap in this category then you have now (of course then you tribulation ratios would have been worse, your cultivators weaker and your options slightly worse, so it's just a tradeoff).
But as was at mentioned in the last update cultivation is a very time-consuming processes like your cultivators spend more then half of the day just cultivation which doesn't leave a lot of time for other things.
So, unlocking and advancing ways to speed up the process would also give you more CAP as your cultivators spend less time cultivating and have more time and energy to give to other things.
For example, divine Qi is one of the things that with further development would do so. Personal actions.
Personal actions are -as their name implies- the actions you (your character) can do on their own an as such they are limited by the characters limits.
You only have so much time in the day to do stuff and only so much energy to use in that time.
And because of that there aren't a lot of way to gain PAP (in fact the only way you're going to get more is by advancing to step 4) but there are ways to get pseudo-AP.
Divine Qi is one example that you've already unlocked that gives you such letting you slowly gather charges that can be spent in the place of AP on cultivation actions.
Alchemy could unlock ways to get a "spend one but get the effect of spending two" effect on certain actions.
A sleep or dream infused pillar might offer an insight that allows you to do stuff through your dreams.
A mind pillar might give you an insight that would allow parallel thoughts streams, which would allow you to use one AP to do two actions (of a certain kind).
And a lot more besides, in a sense getting more AP and pseudo-AP means breaking your limits which I think is appropriate for a cultivation setting.
If you have any questions about this topic (or any other) I would be happy to answer.
