Distant Stars. (a WH40K/Xianxia civ Quest).

uri · Aug 19, 2024

In order, fortress one is attacked by the following units 1 point of mechanized, 1 point of garrison and 1 point of garrison with light damage, they aren't assaulting the fortress but are attempting to degrade its integrity.

They don't have much a heavy equipment or anything that would be useful for it (they still have some) so they do it at reduced effectiveness.

The difference in total scores is enough (210vs110) they degrade the integrity by 10% (to 90%) and no side suffer any damage (well any relevant damage to be tracked they still get a few survival roll penalties for any other injury roll).

This maneuver counts as a full battle and so any reserves sent here are available to any additional battles.

1 point of mechanized was sent to fortress one from the reserves.

This puts the forces arrayed here as.

Windfor:

1 point of mechanized.

2 points of garrison

1 support point of second steps

and demfor:

1 point of mechanized

1 point of garrison.

And one point of garrison with light damage.

The enemy commander chooses to retreat in the face of reinforcements and friendly forces decide to be cautious in their pursuit, only inflecting light damage on (rolls) the full health garrison unit.

And here ends the fight.

Windfor:

1 point of mechanized.

2 points of garrison

1 support point of second steps

Fortress 1 at 90% integrity.

and demfor:

1 point of mechanized

2 points of garrison with light damage.

In the long history of Keku warfare fortresses were heavilly disfavored, for many reasons, any half decent force could just bypass any large and static fortification and all but the greatest of defensive positions provided less of a benefit then the natural mobility of the keku.

Technology has changed this balance, with better and better bulwarks offsetting the problems form the low mobility and the inclusion of heavier equipment into the order of battle that could not be carried in flight.

And of course, an enemy which is know to not be able to fly.

But while necessity and advancement has allowed fortresses to become relevant outside the extremely small inch they had before it has also improved the ability of the attacker to crack them open.

The high-altitude dive maneuver (and its low altitude variant) has been adopted in ancient times to break settlements and the few fortresses that were erected.

The maneuver was simplicity itself to preform, merely pick up a small stone and rise high into the air before diving towered the fortress, releasing the stone while still high up in the air that no enemy projectile might reach you (or relying on the high speed gained from a long dive to pass before they can aim at you, in the case of a low altitude dive).

Sure, more than half of the projectiles missed their target and it was a tiring maneuver but literally everyone could do it and all it required was a rock.

The speed imparted by the dive made the projectiles absolutely deadly and powerful enough to crack stone.

This was in ancient times, in modernity it was not rocks which were thrown (although a force could do so) but specialized ball bearings made exclusively for this function.

Made from steel and designed to be more aerodynamic and with a few variants with different shapes for different specialized purposes) they are faster and stronger and all the more deadly for it.

Not to mention that some variants possessed explosives in them.

And it was why the three second steps assigned to fortress one, were attempting to deflect as many of the ball bearings -with small bursts of wind- as they could.

Their effort was respectable but even they could not deflect hundreds of projectiles and some got through.

Thankfully by the time reinforcements arrived and the enemy force retreated little damage was actually achieved.

The enemy has assigned 1 support point of second steps (with heavy damage buts that's hidden form you, obviously in a real fight I wouldn't point out that it was hidden), 1 point of regulars with light damage, 3 points garrison with medium damage and the artillery.

And they have decided to settle in for a siege.

This means that the units inside now have 8 turns (FL*2) of supply left before they can't fight and must either sally out or attempt to retreat.

Assigning further forces can attempt to break the siege.

As the attacking side possess artillery, they will bombard the fortress and do (artillery Tech level -FL) *10% damage every turn (to a minimum of 5%).

And that's it on this front.

Fortress two had a few hours of quit before the sound of shells flying through the air shattered the quiet morning.

Ensuring all of his units were fully protected by the fortress the defending commander settled in to a siege.

You have sent the following out to raid

1 point of first step cultivators.
1 support point of second steps.
yokoto- support the battle.

A raid is an advanced form of skirmishing that attempt to find a concentration of enemies and attack them.

It has three stages, a skirmish and if successful a scouting roll to see what you find and then a battle if its within your forces capabilities to defeat.

The skirmish is absolutely your win (this amount of force will disintegrate whatever it is that comes against it) and you've destroyed 1 point of a garrison unit (which had medium damage previously)

The scouting roll is bypassed by Yokoto spending 10% Qi to find a good target (IE: make a maximum scouting roll).

She finds the following:

4 points of garrison with heavy damage.

1 point of garrison- decimated.

1 point of regulars- decimated.

1 point of mechanized- decimated.

Suffice to say that this is a bloodbath, the question is if this takes more than a single round.

A first step unit with second step support has an attack score of 450 all of the enemy units together have a defense sore of 143, with a champion on your side that is (rolls survivability for enemy units) not enough to kill them all.

All of the decimated units were destroyed and only 2 points of garrison remain and they are both decimated.

But that is enough for their reinforcements (which have been lying in wait) to arrive.

Demfor has the following units for the second battle.

2 points of second steps,

1 point of first steps (light damage).

2 units of garrison with medium damage

2 units of garrison which are decimated.

Half step.

Maktu.

Terkahu.

Against windfor unit composition of:

1 point of first step cultivators.
1 support point of second steps.
yokoto

Combat 2:

Round 1:

Yokoto orders an ordered retreat, it will take 5 rounds of combat to reach friendly lines but the forces under her suffer no plenty, as this force is fully composed of cultivators, they will lose demfor mortal units at the start of round 2.

Inorku moves to assist and will arrive on the start of round 3 he spends 10% Qi (60% left) to arrive on the start of turn 2 instead.

Wind for cultivators with second steps will attack demfor first step cultivators with second step support 1.

And will be attacked by them and all mortal units in turn.

Maktu, Terkahu, the half step and 1 support point of second steps will attempt to trap and capture Yokoto.

Resolution.

Yokoto is at a great disadvantage here, outnumbered and the enemy has made preparing for her, she spends 60% of her Qi (20% left) to avoid capture, while Maktu, Terkahu and the half step all spend 10% Qi (35%, 60% and 30% left respectively) further the second steps and half step suffer light wounds (the half step now with medium wounds).

You first steps have an attack score of 450 and a defense score of 420 against a combined total of 510 for attack and 480 for defense, this results for light wounds for both first step cultivator units (demfor cultivators now with medium wounds).

Round 2.

Demfor mortal units are no longer in the battle.

Inorku arrives and will try to suppress Terkahu

Maktu, Terkahu, the half step and 1 support point of second steps will attempt to trap and capture Yokoto and she will try not to be captured.

Windfor first step cultivators will attack and be attacked by demfor first step cultivators with both being supported by second steps.

Resolution.

Terkahu will spend 10% Qi (50% left) to reduce the damage he gets from ignoring Inorku suppression attempts and will take light damage instead of medium, inorku spend 10% Qi (60% left)

Yokoto spends the last of her Qi to attempt to not be captured (0% left) but the odds are so against her she dos get captured (captured means that they found a way to hold her down) but she didn't go down without a fight, inflicting medium wound on the half step and second stems (both at heavy wounds now) and light damage to Maktu. the half step, maktu and Terkahu spend 15% qi (down to 15%, 20% and 35% respectively).

Wind for first step cultivators have an attack score of 450 and a defense score of 420, the same is true for the demfor cultivators but they are moderately wounded and receive a 25% penalty for their scores o they have a 338 attack score and 315 for a defense score, windfor receive light wounds (now up to medium) while demfor first step cultivators receive medium damage (now up to decimated) and the second steps supporting them get light wounds.

Round 3.

Yokoto will attempt to break out and the half step will be sitting on her so she can't succeed.

Inorku will attempt to free Yokoto.

Maktu and Terkahu will attempt to suppress him so he can't do that.

Windfor first step cultivators will attempt to finish of dem for first step cultivators.

The second steps unit 3 (the second one of the demfor) will be helping demfor first step cultivators.

Resolution.

Inorku spends 40% of his Qi to ignore the suppression almost completely, only receiving light wounds (now medium wounded) and succeeding in freeing Yokoto. Maktu and Terkahu spend 10% Qi (10%, 25% respectively).

Yokoto ,now free, pummels the half step, killing him (just to keep track until now, in this combat, Yokoto would have suffered 24 total health levels of damage but she just doesn't care).

Widnfor first step cultivators are wounded so their scores would be 338 and 315 for attack and defense. Demfor first step cultivators are even more damaged but they get another second step support point (a wounded one) stacking more support points on the same units lowers their effectiveness and their attack score is 164 while their defense sore is 134.

Suffice to say, demfor cultivators are destroyed, and both second steps support point receive light damage (one with medium damage and one decimated).

At this point demfor just give up the match the following battle will just be a slug fest they will lose and they don't have enough units to make assaulting the remining fortresses a viable tactic.

And the exercise ends in windfor favor.

The raid into enemy territory has gone well initially.

Speed is the birth right of the keku and the power of cultivation allowed the raiders to overrun any resistance in their way.

Finding the enemy wounded has been easy, too easy in hindsight, and the cultivators under Yokoto fell upon them like the wrath of god.

In mere minutes of battle thousands of keku have fallen and not a single solider under yokto was injured.

That is when things started to go wrong, hidden in the foliage were the cultivators of the enemy, headed by their three champions.

Makin a snap decision Yokoto order the retreat and singled Inorku to reinforce them.

And then the battle became a running one, flying low through the foliage to not allow any powerful dives to pick them off the forces under Yokoto gave as good as they got.

Yokoto herself spent her Qi like water to stay a stay ahead of the many Qi infused branches attempting to grapple her, she knew Tekarhu, he had to have spent hours infusing all of the branches he utilized but it gave his a distinct advantage.

Outnumbered three to one, Yokoto would have been swiftly taken down if she cared for mortal injuries but as it was, she managed to stay a step ahead.

Inokru arrived with fire and wind, attempting to pry Tekarhu of her with blast of elemental poweress but Tekarhu paid him no mind – for which he prayed a price- but as the last drop of Qi left Yokoto dantian she could fell herself getting slower and saw the branches she so easily evaded before close around her.

Inokru dived through wooden platforms and raking claws and prayed the branches of her and Yokto returned the favor by pommeling the half step which attempted to keep her contained.

The sounds of cheers arose form the first steps under her commend and glancing in their direction it she saw they had won against their opponents.

Tekarhu -which ahs also seen this- seemed to have come to a decision and raised a small white flag.

Yokoto felt a small smile adorn her face.

A smile which was wiped out by thinking of all the clean up she had to do.

And with this the exercise ends, here are the force compoestions as of the end of this exercise.

Undamaged

3 points of garrison. 1x tired. BP:42 A: 37 D: 37.

1 points of regulars. 1x tired. BP:119 A: 62 D:62.

1 points of regulars. BP:125 A:85 D:85.

1 point of mechanized. 1x tired. BP: 189 A:127 D:127

2 points of civilians. BP:10 A:20 D: 20.

1 point of second steps cultivators. 1x tired. BP: A: D:

Yokoto- 0% qi remining. (well she's injured it just doesn't matter for her)

Damaged.

1 point of first step cultivators. Medium damage. 1x tired. BP: A: D:
1 point of garrison- light damage. (4 health ticks remining). 1x tired. BP: 42 A: 37 D: 37

1 point of garrison- medium damage (3 health ticks remining). 1x tired. BP: 42 A: 28 D:28

1 artillery point- heavy damage (2 health ticks remining). 1x tired.

1 point of mechanized- heavy damage (2 health ticks remining). 1x tired. BP: 189 A: 97 D: 97

Inorku- medium damage (3 health tick remining), 20% Qi left.

Destroyed

4 points of garrison.

1 point of regulars

Undamaged.

1 points of mechanized regulars

1 point of artillery/ heavy equipment.

Damaged:

4 point of garrison- heavy damage (2 life ticks/boxes remining).

1 point of garrison- light damage (4 life ticks remining).

2 units of garrison- medium damage (3 life ticks remining).

2 point of garrison- decimated (1 life tick remining).

2 point of regulars with light damage (4 life ticks remining).
1 point of seconds steps- heavy damage (2life ticks remining)

1 point of second steps- medium damage. (3 health ticks remaining).

1 point of seconds steps- decimated damage (1 life ticks remining)

Maktu- medium damage (3 health ticks remining) 15% Qi left.

Terkahu- light damage (4 life ticks remining). 25% Qi remaining.

Destoyed.

6 points of garrison.

1 point of regulars.

1 point of mechanized regulars.

1 point of first step cultivators.

And the half step champion.

All in all, I will say that you did well, most of your high value units are whole (if incredibly tired) you lost a single fortress but the depo didn't get under threat and you most killed more enemy units then your got killed (and that ratio would have likely gotten better if we continued).

Honestly B+ is the grade I would give this.

Which brings us to two points.

The first is your bonus.

Looking at this battle, the most appropriate I can think of is that your fortresses will now be more resistant to being destroyed by champions (owing form this experience having your engineers take such things into account).

It's a minor bonus but it can be very impactful.

Wich brings me to the second point.

This exercise has reveled to me that this system isn't understood well enough and is more clunky than I would wish for and as such I'm thinking of replacing it for something more narrative in nature.

And I would like your opinion.

[] change it, it's too complicated.

[] don't change it, we can work with it.

Note, this isn't actually a vote just a way for me to gauge the thread opinion.

And to heed it off, any conversion I will make to the system won't be to your detriment so don't take that into account when voicing your opinion.

Now our regularly scheduled turn posting will likely have to wait a week or two until I finished all my exams but this has been fast and easy enough to push out.

uri · Aug 21, 2024

Okey, seeing how I'm bored but can't sit down to write right now (or for the next several days) I figured instead of letting the thread sit ideal we'll do an ask Okertaku section.

You've known him long enough -and shikatu is good enough- to get information from him (even some he might not want to share).

Basically, ask a question and okertaku will answer (we'll fluff it as being one of your conversations throughout the decades).

You can ask pretty much anything from the state of the galaxy, his perception of a character, his opinion on local cuisine to pretty much everything.

Assume he already told you the basics, so you know the imperium exists and know of the major factions in the galaxy.

If only in general terms.

He won't tell you everything (namely what his actual plan is) and he doesn't know everything so keep that in mind.

I think limiting it to three questions per person would be enough to stop me from being swamped (I'm looking at you Pittauro).

Hopefully this will a fun little world building session, you don't have to rush with your questions as I'm going to keep this open until I start writing the turn end and I'll only really begin writing that a week from now (at least).

As a reminder, you know that Okertaku is an old if fiarlly minor god who possess the following three domains, Order, Hierarchy and Stagnation.

You know he had a minor presence on your world (which is how he found you) and that he's generally aligned against the four.

And I think that's it.

So, ask away.

uri · Aug 26, 2024

As the emperor of keku kind and the foremost cultivator, you rarely sleep anymore.

As a cultivator of the core formation step you naturally need less sleep than a mortal and regularly surging your lifeforce is enough to push the need of sleep you do need away.

If at the cost of years of life.

That is a sacrifice you're willing to make to help your charges survive the coming trials.

There is just too much to do for you to actually sleep, even with the ability to teleport and inkeku thinking speed.

Every day you go through thousands of reports, anything from the status of the empire mines to the state of the water supply to the problems some farmers in the north have with their harvests.

Ruling an empire takes a lot of paperwork, recently you've installed a high-rate monitor and a high-end computer in your office.

Which you utilize to more efficiently go through the stacks of paperwork -and to school some noobs in the more popular games on your few breaks-.

There are benefits to digitalization beyond just allowing you to go through things faster -your reading speed surpassing the integrity of paper long ago- things like organization become so much easier.

Surprisingly, there is a lot more resistance to transfer to a digital bureaucracy than you expected.

You could force it but you've found that a softer feather is often preferable to the sharp claw.

Bit you digress, suffice to say sleep isn't a normal occurrence for you.

But even a Qi enhanced body needs rest from time to time and every few months you stop to nap for around four hours.

And when you finally close your eyes, you dream of better days.

This time in particular you dream of the party in the wake of kuvara birth.

Keku Were dancing without reservation, their wings flapping without stop, the wine flowed like a river.

And the songs sung from the keku beaks could be heard for miles around.

You've actually haven't participated in the revelry yourself, too busy with the birth of your daughter.

But you've dealt with the aftermath so you knew the general shape of them.

Enough to know what you were dreaming about.

This time you joined the party, letting loose.

You danced your heart content; your beak clacked the strongest and you drank wine like water.

You met a beautiful woman there, her looks were radiant, beyond any mortal compare, her singing voice was heavenly.

You've danced with her, that women who resembled your late wife, for who knows how long

You've danced on the wind as a pair, her rare touch gentle and sensual.

You don't know how long you were in that state before you suspected something.

But what matters is that you did.

This dream was too vivid, too real to be just a dream.

You came to a stop in your dance and took your surroundings again.

You saw nothing new yet… "This isn't a dream, is it?"

"Oh, but it is" it was the keku you danced with which answered your question "it is all but a fragment of your imagination" her voice still seemed like that of an angel but just below you could feel the tone of something…

Ancient.

"This is real, it can't be a dream" you retort.

"Hmm... why not? Dreams are as real as anything else" even while conversing with you the woman hasn't stopped dancing or singing.

"Who are you?" you ask.

"You know who I am" she returns "but I suppose formal introductions are in order"

"You may call me Slaanesh"

The world around seemed to shake and buckle under the mention of the name and you, yourself did not come out unharmed.

You could feel blood leaking for your eyes and hundreds of your veins being torn open from the weight of the name.

The damage was extensive but it did allow to come into a realization.

You aren't really here, oh sure your conscience is certainly here but your body?

Your soul?

They aren't here.

This has a few implications.

The greatest is that while you might die here, the only consequence of such would be losing this conscious stream.

You would still wake up tomorrow as if nothing ever happened.

Hmm... you wonder how many times this ended up happening before pushing that thought for later.

You look at the creature that even now seeks your daughter's death and the destruction of your home and ask "what do you want? "Without fear.

"My, my, so short" ~~Slaan~~ the lord of pleasure seems more amused than anything "what happened to the great time we had?".

"Speak or begone" you declare.

The body of the lord of pleasure sighed expressively "oh, very well, you have something of mine and I want it back"

Something of his? What do you possess that belongs to the lord of pleasure?

Wait.

"You're speaking of the blood drop"

"Of course, I do" the lord answers "you have nothing else I would wish for".

"Why do you think I'll even contemplate giving it to you?"

"I'll withdraw my support from the invasion if you do, I'll even not intervene against your daughter until after it has concluded one way or the other".

The prince words have made you swallow your instinctive no, if what he offers is true it would be a great boon, If. "What guarantee I have you wont renege on your word?"

You couldn't see it but you felt as if the world itself rolled its eyes "is my word not good enough? If you were not already on the kill list that insult would have brought you there".

You said nothing, just continued to stare at the lord.

He rolled his eye again, this time with his actual body "fine, I'll swear on my soul, that good enough for you?"

"What dos tha—" you attempt to ask but are interrupted by your conscience being flung back to your body.

The lost words you herd were "Ask okertaku, he'll be happy to explain"

And then you awoke back in your chambers.

You've wasted no second, Qi flooded your body and you've flown through your wall, uncaring for the damage, every second mattered.

The wind carried you swiftly to the closest river.

Unfortunately, you've existed the river far from where you wished to and that added another half a minute to your journey but you've reached your destination in the end.

You've set down in the cave Okertaku claimed and stepped into his domain.

The avatar he used to speak with you flapped down in front of you "why have you come here friend?" he began "our next meeting isn't scheduled for another month"

"iv met one of the lords" you could see his focus sharpen the instant you've mentioned the lords, as more power was gathered and more attention was shined on this conversation.

"Tell me everything" he demanded and so you've did.

"Hmm…" Okertaku Hummed in thought after you finished telling him of your encounter "are you absolutely sure he said I will swear on my soul?"

"yes" you reply having already gone over your memories watching for any sign of tempering and finding nothing.

"Hmm…" Okertaku hummed again "in that case he would most likely not betray you, even slight damage to his soul would outweigh anything he could gain from possessing the drop"

"So, is it safe?" you ask.

"I can tell you he won't betray you but if the deal itself is a trap is somewhat harder to tell, I know what he will likely gain form it and even though he is likely the one who invested the least in the coming invasion breaking the unity of the four in this matter is valuable, asserting weather this is a poisoned chalice is difficult"

"What is he likely to gain from it?" you ask "it's a powerful regent but I would think it isn't something that would give him some great advantage"

"The blood drops contains the very essence of the gods, in the hands of others it represent a vulnerability " Okertaku spoke "he won't use it, doing so would just see the three band against him but he would be able to compel some concessions out of them, this is all I can really tell you"

It is an uncertain offer, the benefits can be great but the danger of the unknown are many, it could be a trap but it might not be and you must make a decision.

You could attempt to divine the future and attempt to weasel out whatever trap is being sprung, if one is, but you'll be going directly against one of the lords.

And you do want to accept the offer.

[] Accept The lords of pleasure offer, give up the blood drop and gain a non-aggression pact and accesses to the lord of pleasure mercenary board offers. Possibility of a trap. (+2 votes)

[] attempt to divine the offer and gain more information. Costs 1 AP.

-[] pick which actions you're giving up.

[] reject the offer. ???

You have suffered the Slaanesh infatuation 2 condition, this condition adds 1 vote to all actions that would benefit Slaanesh per stack, removing a stack with your insights would cost 3 divine charges and 30 lifespan.

As a reminder the following are the actions you may drop this turn.

--[X] The from of Qi- in some of your endless musing you have theorized of a way to change the Qi in ones dentian into another matter state, form liquid to gas or solid if successful this will revolutionize the second step as your cultivators could increase their power in ways that don't just conform to advancing higher.

--[X] To close a breach- your method of closing a breach is primitive and unrefined, it is costly and slow, this is unacceptable you must refine it so you might stand a chance at closing one of the tears and while you're at it you'll also contemplate other ways to close or shrink the tears in the world. (new).

--[X] the power of the few (must be taken with power of the many)- while fighting the daemon you have touched on a way to pull the power of cultivators together and empower it beyond its parts, you have tasked your disciples to search for that power again but you feel as if your help would be especially useful.

--[X] The tide P.2- in your vision you saw many types of beast's, small and big, deformed and consisting of perfect form. Attempt to more correctly ascertain what it is that you'll be fighting.

--[X] locate the breaches- you now know how your enemy will arrive, now you must locate the potential tears in realty and determine how many will occur.

And here we are, your first official meeting with chaos gods, Slaanesh is probably the easiest for you to interact with.

I'm open for question if you have them (I expect a few).

I hope you enjoyed the subtle dread and horror of the chaos god.

We'll have a 4 hour moratorium to allow some discussion.

uri · Sep 5, 2024

Okey so I'm going to do a quick voting round on what to do with your G1 herb production.

This is the note I have in the plan but well after the body nourishing meal the benefit is very marginal.

--[X] Body nourishment meal (for impressive first steps, expand every first grade herb we can't keep, if we have leftover we can't keep, give it to second steps for what meal they wish, if we still have leftover, use it as rewards for scientists and such).

And I'm pretty sure you've overlooked an option to spend the herbs.

So for context, after all the body nourishment meals are all made (and I'm taking into account the five sect 1st steps, all 1200~ of them). you are still left with 75 G1 herbs to spend.

First option is to store them, your current method of storage allows you to store 3X your production and you aren't anywhere close to the cap.

You can of course continue with the original plan; it would give marginal benefits for the second steps and I suppose it would give you some loyalty from your mortal subordinates but they are generally mostly loyal anyway.

The third option is to use it to boost the awakening pills you're crafting this turn, I think it went under the radar that its even an option because you didn't have enough production to really do so but you could add ingredients to already existing recipes of a lower grade to increase the effect.

Its inefficient but it's a possibility.

You are making 13 charges of awakening pills (or getting 260 new first steps from pills alone) adding a single G1 ingredient to a G0 pill increases its effects by 25%, any additional ingredient use halves that bonus (IE: the fist adds 25%, the second 12% the third 6%).

For the awakening pill in specific this means 5,2,1 new first steps respectively per ingredient.

Spending 39 G1 ingredients would boost the total number of first step you gain form the pills by 104.

For a few helpful numbers, 250-300 first steps is what I consider enough for one step toward getting a cultivator AP and 1000~ or so first steps is what I consider enough for a unit of first step and for every 10~ I add another first step who attempts tribulation (there some rolls which influence things).

Don't worry too much about the numbers they are juts there to give you some look into the mechanics behind the scene, fell free to vote complete on vibe.

So, for this vote I want you to tell me.

[] how much you store.

[] how much you spend on second steps and mortals.

[] and how much you spend on boosting the potency of your pills (for ease multiples of 13 are probably best).

As a reminder you currently have 75 G1 ingredients to spare.

And please for the love of all that is holy use Plan votes.

uri · Sep 10, 2024

Finally, turn 13 is done (well there is still the war in the wrap section but still) we've started this turn in late July more than a month ago and it wasn't just empty time either.

There are likely a few mistakes here and there, if you can point them out, I'll fix them.

I hope you enjoyed; I've dropped some of this update to pass the time but I still left a few juicy things in it.

Another decade has passed and with it passing you're inching ever closer to the apocalypse.

With the help of your divination, you estimate that the apocalypse will start anywhere between 2-5 decades (turns) from now.

Your information about the coming apocalypse is minor but even so you can tell you are not ready.

You saw the legions that march toward your land, you saw there power and number.

You aren't ready.

You aren't close to ready.

You must be.

-[X] the watchful eye. (new).

On every conner, in every shop, on every lamp.

Wherever they could fit one the hunter put a camera to gain the very beast coverage of everything going on the cities.

The cost was astronomical and training the staff to go over the millions of hours of footage was deemed impossible with out the use of simple AI to flag anything suspicious.

The cost was worth it, in the fist year of the operations -before all the cameras were even instilled- seven demonic cultivators were discovered, and the information extracted from them led to a dozen more.

Over all, more than one hundred demonic cultivators were found out and more then a thousand people were arrested -and subsequently executed- for dealing with them knowingly.

You've busted an entire underground ring selling keku to be eaten.

The hunters are going over every inch of evidence to determine how they could have missed that.

Kekita is investigating how the guard and local police forces didn't even catch a hint of it going on.

And hopefully you'll have their reports soon.

Unfortunately, another problem has surfaced, the large-scale monitoring has raised the issue of privacy among the general papules and something must be done too quiet them down.

Large scale monitoring of the cities established; initial discoveries are worrying to say the least. Privacy issues. vote to come

-[X] expansion and preservation of the schooling system.

It is with great pride that you read report after report on how the locals all over the empire were marshaling to safeguard their education.

Entire organization forming from the grassroots to help and teach.

To feed the fire of curiosity.

The amount of effort you invested in this seems small in compression.

Gain the extensive education trait and gain educated Populace IV. Kkeu culture swings toward curiosity and knowledge seeking.

-[X] the track of progress. (must be in the top three priorities).

More and more lines.

You don't think the work on the rail has ever stopped since its invention.

By this point the entire empire is connected.

All that's left is refurbishments and double tracking high demand lines.

+50 EEP. Medium logistics network increases to large. +150% economic growth, +10% EEP. maintenance 100 EFEP.

-[X] military refitting.

Instead of fully replacing the factories you've just created, you have decided to just build new ones and let the old ones supply second line units.

The equipment being produced isn't too far behind and you've got many troops you need to equip.

Better an outdated gun then no gun at all.

Factories of war updated: +3 artillery army worth per turn, +7 army point converted to mechanized per turn. Some tech production, some jets production (exact amount will be determined in a vote later on). Technology for army points is set to 8. +3 army points converted to mechanized at tech 7 (used for garrison first and then civilians) starts to solve the lack of equipment of civilians units) Avert many negative events.

-[X] preservation of skilled workers.

Preserving skilled workers is difficult work.

It is not a guarantee that one skilled in one set of work would be competent in another even if they resemble each other.

But you do what you can to limit the damage of jobs lost.

Workers retrained (mostly) no loss of economic power.

-[X] city expansions. (updated).

Slowly the various cities of the empire expend. Husing more and mor of your population.

Until miraculously the flow stops, not completely of course but several order of magnitude less people were leaving the country side.

Investigations for why this has happened reveled that with the fast advancement of the rail and personal driven cars, people have decided to commute to work when possible or to move to a different village form which it was possible.

Your growing cities would still need expansions to deal with natural population growth but that can remain a local matter.

Cities expand. Problem solved.

-[X] refitting and modernization. (new).

Modernization, with the rapid pace of technological progress it is all but impossible to keep pace.

Evry year things get better, considerably so in almost all aspect of life.

The cost to even try is immense, the cost not to even greater.

So, you try your best, an army of bureaucrats and engineers behind you and by decades end you have at least achieved some successes.

But the price of progress takes its toll, entire business lines go bankrupt, villages lose their purpose of existence.

You do what you can but there is little more that can be done other then teach them new skills and many are too old to wish to change.

+0.5 tech multiplayer. Gain the problem "obsolete purpose" the exact details of which will be determined in a vote before the start of next turn.

-[X] arrange mass prayers.

This decade like the last, you have arranged many mass partyers for Kuvara.

Paryer for battle, prayer of health anything and everything you could think off.

With the experience earned last time the process was smotherer and more effective.

So much so that Kuvara reported getting around the same amount of power even with the lesser investment.

Hopefully that power would be enugh.

Kuvara gains more faith, all of her actions this turn are enhanced, your share of the divine Qi lower by 0.5%, your cultivators share of the divine Qi lowers by 0.5%.

-[X] Immortal meals (see the relevant tab for costs). (new).

--[X] Body-mind energizing meal (given first to third steps than talents, if someone ascend with the cheat methods this turn to the third steps, they get the herbs, otherwise, anything we can keep goes to the most impressive second steps).

Used for extra insights rolls

--[X] Lifeforce reinforcing meal (for us).

-1 turn to injury timer.

-[X] fang shui pattern

--[X] Pattern of auspicious fortune

It is hard to fully quantify luck but events did seem to be more favorable than not this past decade.

The usefulness of that is debatable but your happy enough with the results.

????

[X] change alchemy production? (doesn't cost an action).

-[X] max capacity awakening pills

-[X] mercenary board (doesn't take an action) 23 tokens.

--[X] Lord of war lore- 5 divine charges.

--[X] Lore of fate lore- 10 divine charges.

--[X] Knowledge of the other lords- 2 divine charges.

Much of your time this decade has been spent learning of the four this decade and dissimilating this information to the various organs of the empire.

You learned of their names, of their nature, their domains.

You learnt the signs of their presence, there most common blessing, there champions and agents.

And most importantly on how to banish them, to throw them back into the warp.

With your elders you have adapted this knowledge into a special banishment technique.

+Lords lore (assume you know anything common and anything the imperium at large knows), increased effectiveness in rooting out plots, a banishment technique, the ability to attempt banishment rituals.

--[X] 24 advancement point- 2 divine charges per.

(Post reduction, that's 52, we got 23 tokens, plus non Shitaku production of 32, that's potential 55, we leave three aps to our cultivators to experiment with).

-[X] close the wound (increased effectiveness if taken after or with close the breach)- you know your going to need to close tears in the world so theca your disciples how to do so on their own. (new).

You've spent many hours teaching your disciples the refined technique for closing the wounds.

For most this knowledge would be useless but knowing even a bit of the technique would only help with the formation used to close it.

All cultivators know the tear closing technique.

-[X] invest cultivators- you need more herbs, you need herbs of a greater power, the only way you will get those in a timely manner is to permanently second cultivators to grow them. (spend 1 Permanent Ap +50 G1 herbs +5 g2 herbs). (new) X2 (create institution).

Farm after farm has been sown by your disciples.

The intent of a cultivator is magnitude of order purer and more concentrated than that of a mortal.

The farms under the care of cultivator produce more spiritual herbs then not.

The investment of so many cultivators in this pursuit has already seen returns, with a special fertilizer discovered by utilizing a large number of G1 herbs to ease the growing of g2 and g3 herbs.

+2 herbology lore.

Spirit fertilizer- by utilizing a large amount of low rank herbs the growth of higher-grade ones can be eased and boosted. -25% G1 ingredients, +10% G2 ingredients. +1% G3 ingredients.

Current ingredient production per turn.

G1- 112. 50 (mortal production) + 100 (cultivator production) = 150*0.75.

G2- 11. 10 (cultivator production) *1.1.

G3- 1 every two turns.

-[X] the power of many- when fighting the demons you have tapped into something, a way to pull the power of cultivators and to be greater than the sum of its parts now that you have touched on it replacing this feat should be fairly easy so task you disciples to do so.

On an autumn eve hundreds of first steps gathered in on of the field around the capital, the third day of their toil completed with another advancement in the study of formations.

And with the day works done, you set and contemplated the finding so far.

There are two types of formations, grand formations which involve hundreds of cultivators at once and simple formations which only require a handful of cultivators to work.

Their purpose is distinct enough form one another to merit this distinction.

Grand formations harness the power of hundreds to achieve effects beyond them.

While simple formations share the control and understanding of the participants to achieve effect beyond them, consulting with Okertaku has revealed to you that simple formations are also known as choirs in the galaxy at large.

While both types of formation strive form the same purpose, they could not be more different.

You still have much left ahead of you; to grind down all the inefficiencies in the Qi connections and to fully understand the way one can connect to another.

Yet you are content with the progress you have made today.

You've unlocked formations and discovered one grand formation and one choir formation (which was boosted by your interactions with Okertaku) additionally you have refined the grand formation you accidently discovered in the last demonic incursion. Grand formations are formations that at minimum require hundreds of cultivators (or more correctly 1 full unit of cultivator) to function.

Grand formations:

The emperor's generosity formation (refined)- this formation allows the sharing of Qi (and other resources at heavily reduced efficiency) between its participants and pulling it all together for one massive technique. Soft cap (going over reduces efficiency): 2 units. Efficiency: 60%. Effect: Slight combat boost for cultivator units, tactical and strategic option for Qi sharing.

The hurricane strength formation- the first steps posse very little Qi to utilize on external techniques and so they have focused on empowering the self. This formation pools their power to great, great but temporary power. Soft cap: 1 unit. Efficiency: 90%. Effect: massive combat strength increases for first step units for a battle, when the battle ends unit suffers the Qi drained modifier.

Choir formations:

Enlightenment of the breeze formation- for but a moment the wilders of this formation may share a single insight between themselves. Difficulty: hard. Soft cap (the soft cap here refers to increase difficulty: 2 champions.

-[X] the power of sacrifice (no option under here takes AP)- either by way of insight or technique you have found a way to greatly empower yourself by sacrificing something. (current lifespan 670)

--[X] sacrifice life- sacrifice 10 years of life span for 1 AP (current lifespan 670). X 4

-40 lifespan +4 AP.

--[x] pillar of divinity- you have decided to draw essence of divinity into your pillar, the essence of your daughter, it will take time to ensure no danger comes to you or her. (new)

Gifted by your daughter you imbue the essence of the wind in the pillar of keku pacifying the corruption and folding it into your core.

It still doesn't feel truly yours but it doesn't seem to hurt your core.

You've imbued your keku pillar with the essence of divinity, with the essence of wind and slotted it into your core, this has a few implications, for one it has pushed Kuvara closer to claiming the keku domain, it also functions as a dao shard for its insights (empowering them) the biggest effect is that it allows you to utilize divine Keku insights as material for core insights.

--[X] the first of twelve (0/2)- in your studies of the soul you have stumbled around twelve points where the body and soul interconnect with enough Qi and time you can widen and fully open the connecting. The effect can only be positive although as of yet eluding your sight. (new) (6 Divine qi) (Unlock first two meridians).

Power flows throughout your soul, divinity given form is used to pry open the gateways between your soul and body.

And when they are finally opened your breath like you have never before.

Each breath deeper and richer in Qi then before.

You have unlocked your first two meridians, the twelve meridians give the three following bonuses in order Qi capacity increase, Qi regeneration increase and a 5% cultivation discount. Each of the bonuses is given 4 times over the entire 12 meridians.

There may be other benefits to opening the meridians you don't know about yet.

--[X] The from of Qi- in some of your endless musing you have theorized of a way to change the Qi in ones dantian into another matter state, form liquid to gas or solid if successful this will revolutionize the second step as your cultivators could increase their power in ways that don't just conform to advancing higher.

You always wondered and contemplated on the nature of Qi. With new information reveled throughout the ages you're understanding has shifted.

Qi is thought given form; raw warp energy distilled down into a drop of refined energy.

This drop takes the form of liquid and flows throughout your body.

But why must it be just liquid?

You have long theorized of ways to turn liquid Qi into different phase states and you've finally found a way.

The trick is not in changing the Qi itself but the way you refine the initial warp energy.

You have found two new states Qi may be transform into.

A solid form, slow, hard to control and dense in power. And a gas form, fast, easy to control but thin in power.

Thos new states of Qi do not offer power just a way to trade it around.

Yet in your research you have a found a new lead.

A way to transform the Qi in your core into a supercritical state, gaining all the benefit of a gaseous form with none of the downsides, in fact it seems to take the benefits of Gas Qi and empower them.

All you need to achieve this state is time and a way to trigger the transformation.

Working with the third step you've entrusted alchemy to you have found it in a pill and may proceed if you wish.

Unlock gas and solid form of Qi, each form brings unique advantages and draw back to Qi use. Unlock the cultivation project "achieve supercritical" to transform you Qi into a supercritical form which possess enhanced advantages of the gas form with none of the draw backs.

Qi transforming pill- cost per charge: 500 EFEP. 3 charge of G1 herbs,1 charge of G2 herbs. craft per charge: 50 capacity. effect: start the transformation process to super critical Qi. Toxicity: 5.

--[X] To close a breach- your method of closing a breach is primitive and unrefined, it is costly and slow, this is unacceptable you must refine it so you might stand a chance at closing one of the tears and while you're at it you'll also contemplate other ways to close or shrink the tears in the world. (new).

Refining a technique is a time-consuming work, especially when you don't have a way to actually practice its effect, still a thousand or so hours going over its flow chart and removing unnecessary channels and changing them to more appropriate ones. Has at least seen the cost of the technique reduced.

It's still not something that anyone below the third step should be casting alone -or with anything but a grand formation- but at least you can channel it more than an hour now.

The actual effectiveness of the technique would be tasted during the apocalypse itself with little that can be done to truly taste it before then.

Contemplating other ways of closing the breaches has resulted with some leads.

The first -and most obvious- is your healing insight. You have described the tears as wounds in the world before and you smacked yourself of not thinking to try to heal it with your insight before.

Some testing has shown you were correct and that you could heal the world -you've burnt down a forest and then healed it, restoring it- the actual cost to utilize the insight for this purpose would only be found when you stand in form of one such tear.

You doubt you'll manage to close all the tears such but even one can be more then worthwhile.

The second way is Kuvara, her avatar allows her to channel her power in the physical realm and Okertaku has taught her how to utilize it to close the tears. This dos requires her avatar to be present at the breach and concentrate on this act but it is swifter than a qi technique and only require kuvara avatar instead of thousands of cultivators.

Another potential lead is a fang shui pattern which would draw the energy which the breaches release and turn it into healing them instead.

At this point the above is nothing but a lead, the pattern would need to be developed and even if it works (and it might not) it would be a slow if a wide method to deal with the breaches.

You have also theorized that you can craft a beacon which will close a breach instantly from one of the high-grade materials you can convert the drop of blood to.

Unfortunately, this beacon would need to remain in place to keep the breach closed and as such would both need protecting and would only be sufficient for one breach.

You have refined your Breach closing technique, making it cheaper to cast. Additionally, you have found 4 different way you may close a breach, 2 are within your ability currently and 2 are just leads that must be further developed.

--[X] The tide P.2- in your vision you saw many types of beast's, small and big, deformed and consisting of perfect form. Attempt to more correctly ascertain what it is that you'll be fighting.

Divining the future has always been a difficult task.

Doing so when your sight is contested is even harder but with time and effort succeed you will.

With every dive into the river of time you return with but a single lead, a single nugget of information, a single moment in time of a future yet to be.

And with enough pieces a picture is constructed.

A picture of demons great and terrible, whose power corrupted the minds of mortals and strength could shatter the greatest of tanks.

Even cultivators might have problems battling them.

The only consultation you have is that their numbers are limited.

Yet in their shadow you find something even more concerning.

A legion of armored clad warriors, their weapons powerful enough to pierce through cultivator toughness and their experience and prowess enough to fell even experienced cultivators.

Three banners you see flapping in the wind, new dark blue and brass, one of azure, yellow and gold and one of black silver and gold.

And at their head two powerful entities hidden from your sight, off which you find nought but a name.

Perturabo and Magnus the Red.

You have found out that 40 points of greater demons would participate in the apocalypse, they are divided equally between the four gods and average 500 BP (I'm still working on the new combat system so for now I'm using the old one statistics to help describe things).

Further you have found that three legions would take part as well, they would be led by Perturabo and Magnus the Red (not that you have any idea who those guys are IC).

--[X] half steps- over the last decade you've mended the pillars of your half steps, now you must find a way for them to infuse a pillar with a concept so they might fully stand in the third step. (new).

in your time at the third step -and with many new third steps arising- you have realized what a pillar just is exactly.

Qi, enlightenment and soul.

Qi provides the structure, soul the power and purity and enlightenment the direction.

When a second step cultivator attempts to rise to the third, he first raises a pillar and imbue a concept within it, he is then struck by tribulation.

Should he succeed, he will utilize the divinity in the reaming lightning and his soul power to complete the forging of the pillar, purifying concept and Qi both to the highest degrees and step fly into the third step.

Should he fail but not so far as to have his pillar completely collapse, the pillar forging will be complete and without the purification of the soul it would not be able to hold a concept leaving him one foot into the third step yet not fully there.

You have theorized different ways to remedy this.

The first is power, enough energy can force a concept to stick in a pillar, divine Qi is the most obvious candidate but you suppose a specialized pill may substitute for it with little problem, should you posses' other high density power sources they may also be an option yet no matter what you will use this option will always be costly.

The second is Dao, a good enough understanding of the conapt the half steps would attempt to imbue would allow understanding to support the pillar in place of the soul but the enlightenment requires would be harsh, at least a shard, if not a star.

The third and most likely to work is a tempering tribulation, the power in it can be utilized to purify the pillar and strengthen it, the downsides are obvious of course, the chance of injury and death are lower in a tempering tribulation but only lower, not gone. One would also need several such tribulations to imbue a conapt in a pillar. Of course, at that point It might just be better to dissolve the pillar and try again.

The fourth is soul surgery, I skilled enough soul surgeon could over time cut away small section of the subject soul, not enough to damage it but enough to matter, and break way small sections of the pillar and refill them with purified matter, of course one small mistake and you've either crippled their soul or completely destroyed their pillar and you're not sure you can actually manage this successfully.

The fifth and final way, is to utilize the essence of divinity to imbue the pillar with its meaning, this means using Kuvara essence like you've done with your own pillar but instead of only partly infusing the pillar you're total converting it. this would be the end of the cultivation journey of the subject, yet their infused pillar would allow them to gain insights and the essence of divinity infused in them would allow them to act as pseudo avatars for Kuvara or Okertaku if he would agree to give you some of his essence.

Several theorized ways to make a half step into a full third step. (I say theorized because you haven't tasted any of them and there is a chance they wont work -if a small one- and a greater chance that you're not fully accurate on all the details).

Advancements.

--[X] 24 advancement point- 2 divine charges per.

More knowledge, more help form Okertaku.

Your society has advanced rapidly and you clearly see it hurting.

But even so, the Keku will is too strong to fall.

The secrets of the sword start to unravel and space opens to development.

If only you could survive the future looks bright.

Tech level advances to 8 (2/27 to 9) the third secret of the sword is discovered. Cheap Reusable landing gear advancement (major)- lowers cost of all space projects.

Cultivator reports.

This past decade six hundred and twenty cultivators have been awakened, three hundred and twenty five form pills.

The worst of the bunch have been seconded to the military to start awakening soldiers whose talent is deficient to enter the sect in truth.

This decade two hundred and sixty four first steps have braved the tribulation of them eleven have broken through.

Utilizing volunteers, 4 new third steps have arisen. To your surprise one of the volunteers has managed to survive the tribulation.

And its wounds.

And many other wounds beside when you got to tasting things.

You have no idea what you stumbled upon but you're intrigued.

A net gain of 355 new first steps.

A net gain of 11 new second steps.
+ 4 third steps.

Found ???

Much of Vakatu time this decade has been spent preparing for the tribulation (which he successfully passed.

Still he has managed to make several advancements.

Refining two pill recipes, the awakening pill and basic body refining pill.

Vakatu has stepped into the second step and refined two recipes.

The awakening pill (refined)- cost per charge: 10 EFEP. Craft per charge: 15 capacity. effect: each charge spent in a turn awakens 20 new first step cultivators(note that overuse may lower quality of cultivators produced). Toxicity: 1.

Basic body refining pill (refined)- cost per charge: 30 EFEP. Craft per charge: 70 capacity. effect: upon consumption of a charge 20 first steps become ready to face ascension. Toxicity: 2

Three new pillars have Haku raised and still she had time to work with the runic institution to refine the divine runes just discovered.

Haku has cultivated her fifth pillar, she and the runic institution have refined the divine wind flowing rune (yes, the dice did land on the exact new rune you've got).

Divine flowing wind (refined)- this huge array allows entire army units to teleport to everywhere the wind touches for a small Divine Qi cost. Subsequent refinement of the runes has lowered the cost of activating them and increased the amount they could transport.

In contrast to last decade, this time around Okokuto cultivation has gone incredibly smoothly so much so that he hasn't even noticed stepping into the treasure body stage.

Unfortunately, such good luck did not carry over to his formation work, only managing to find a pattern which seems to inhibit cultivation.

Oh, he's sure he'll find a use for it.

Okokuto reached refined body. Gain the havens shackles pattern.

Faction reports.

The five sects: the five sects continue their steady work, raising more second step elders and training more first steps, they begun to more heavily drill their members for war as the apocalypse draws ever closer.

The nobles: the nobles were quite this decade especially after the demonic bust, thankfully (for them) following investigations have cleared them of demonic corruption.

The army: you have seconded the worst of your new batch of cultivator into the army to start awakening those wo fight but aren't suited to push for advancement. current estimations are that assuming the army doesn't expand beyond its current scope it would take an upward of a thousand years to awaken everyone even going for worse but quicker ways, this is less a matter of ability and more a matter that you don't have enough teachers for this.

uri · Sep 13, 2024

"We must acknowledge that we are not just one warm draft of wind behind our opponents but many, many hundreds of such drafts behind" the wizened master of the hunters started "our enemies have spent thousands of years perfecting the craft of deceit and infiltration, their servant chosen and trained to crack the thought of fortresses and bring them down with words, there is nothing we can do to stop their infiltration, it is in a word impossible".

"You will have us do nothing!" Okun, one of your most senior generals, interrupted, slamming his wing on the large table you all set around.

The old master wasn't fazed by his outburst and calmly answered "not at all, we must act but it's important to understand what is within our means and what is not, we can deadly, we can bleed and hurt, we can make it costly and minimize the wounds we suffer but we cannot stop this infiltration" the old master took a moment to breath before continuing "not with the currant resources of the empire".

"There might be a grain of truth in your statement, Ikuno" you begin "but we gathered here to hear the report on our most recant debacle, perhaps we should save the long speeches and talk of solutions for after hearing the report?"

"Very well" Ikuno replied, "Though there is not much to report, all signs point to local corruption, extremally local. Were currently having many of the less harmfull of our suspects under heavy observation, though we don't expect to find anything as those assets would be burnd for any operator with a brain, which I think we already concluded how they are far better at this then us."

"Tell him the rest" your daughter -and steward- commended.

Ikuno scowled "I was just getting to that, see the corruption is all real but even corrupt officials know well enough to not mess with us"

"Yet they did" you point out.

"That they did" Ikuno agreed "but many signs point toward some sort of mental tampering"

"Mind control?" you ask alarmed.

"Nothing so overt and powerful but of those we brought in and questioned, non-remember who paid them, what he paid them for, or that they weren't actually paid at all despite insisting that they did."

"How sure are you in your assessment?" asked another of the generals participating in the meeting.

"Reasonably sure" Ikuno replied "there is the possibility that they are hiding greater capabilities but with the power to mind control people outright they would have done far more damage than they did till now".

The gathered military Keku broke into discussion but before it could go too far you intervened "I assume you have a plan?"

At your words Ikuno scowl darkened even further "expansions, and fast, more eyes and more minds to look everything over, we count outsmart or out maneuver our enemy but brute force might suffice where guile will fail".

"You're hopping to get lucky" one of generals stated "you plan to leave the fate of the empire and its citizens to luck?"

"Not fully" Ikuno replied, and lifted the brief for this meeting "page seven has the breakdown on my requested budget and what it'll be used for, many of those would help mitigate the damage but at this point luck is all we can rely on".

You turn to page three and read the sums requested and pause, that is a lot of money, granting it would put the hunters at contention for heist budgeted government organization, competing with the military for that title.

You read through some of the detailed use for that amount of money and stop on one particular line. "I would have thought you would push for a higher intensification of the monitoring system; this is nothing more than a minor expansion."

"We decided to scale back a bit, let the problem with it settle" Ikuno replied.

"Why?" you ask "the results speak for themselves".

In response Ikuno straightens his spine and stars into your eyes "It is the hunter's official position that the initial results of the camera system are a trap".

The rooms fell into silence at his words, it was kekita who broke it "A trap? How so?".

"For decades we barely manage to capture more than a dozen demonic first steps a decade and when questioned they know next to nothing about others of their kind" Ikuno voice claimed higher and higher as he talked "and now suddenly, we find dozens of demonic cultivators and they all seem to know about each other? Its suspicious"

The assembled Keku didn't seemed convinced, one of the junior generals pointed out "that there are many reasons why there could be such a change, most blatantly the use of a new tool"

"But its not just that" Ikuno voiced was raised once more, "their actual knowledge of demonic cultivation is lesser than those who came before and although we captured a few seconds steps all of them, first and second steps were shit cultivators even by the standard of the demonic, obviously raised as expendable pawns, we also didn't catch anyone with the e power to influence the mind".

"And you think that our enemy planed this to get us to trust our new tool more then we should?" you asked, not fully convinced yet but why have those councils if you don't give anyone a chance to change your mind?

"Yes" Ikuno replied "an attempt to get us to overcommit and press our wight on a still open wound, your divine word would reduce the voice crying out against the breach of their perceived privacy considerably but not fully, a fact that can be capitalized upon."

Hmm… you aren't entirely sure but this dos sound like something the four would attempt. "Could it not be that the trap is set on the assumption we'll know it's a trap? " You ask "you did say that the clues were relatively obvious".

"We already thought of it my emperor, which is why were still planning to expand the systems but also deal with the underlaying problem".

Of course, the trap could just be slowing down your use of an effective too… on second though all three are traps, after all the best trap is the one you must walk into.

Still, you read through the rest of Ikuno proposal and budget allocations and when you finished you decide to--.

[] Approve it.

[] Modify it.
-[] how? (either add, remove of modify one of the terms).

1. 600 EFEP will be given over to the hunters every turn for three turns (T14,T15 and T16) at which point the results of the previous three decades would be gone over and a new proposal and path forward will be made.

2. A minor expansion of the currant monitoring system.

3. sensible privacy laws regarding the camera systems to reduce unrest about its use.

4. third and second step help with vetting recruits for possible mental tampering. (this would mean 1 cultivator AP next turn and no third step actions taken as they help here instead).

"With this matter concluded" you begin "lets move to our next subject, Okertaku offer".

Okun was the first to speak "Can we even afford not to agree? What he's offering would do a great deal to close the technology gap between us and the enemy".

"But is it worth it?" another general asks, turning to you before continuing "from my understanding this Divine Qi he's asking for is a priceless resource, can we afford to give so much of it up? No to mention the emperor time".

"It's not a matter of if we can afford to or not" Okun responds "we must. The benefit not just to our armies but to the amount of equipment we could produce would significantly shift the balance in this war".

"Are we sure he's not bluffing" a third voice states "we know they are his enemy too; he might not care when he leaves if he left us something he wanted us to pay for".

"Maybe" you reply "his domains would not lend themselves to acting in such a way outside of the deal, it's risky".

After another half an hour of discussion you decided to –

[] Accept his offer.

[] Decline his offer.

1. Shikatu will Okertaku all of the divine Qi generated by the empire for the next turn (all the divine Qi that doesn't go to Kuvara).

2. Shikatu will spend at least 4 AP on divination aid for okertaku breakout attempt.

3. Okertaku will provide enough knowledge and technology to raise the empire to techlevel 20.

"Regardless if we act or not, the rapid advancement has left a large segment of the population and the empire behind and obsolete and something must be done" said Kekita, raising the next topic of this meeting.

"I looked over the numbers gathered, it would be a lot of effort to invest" started Juk your treasure "it might the callus but people will sort themselves out and leaving them to themselves would save a significant part of the budget".

Ikuno laughed at his words "and level them open to the four? Might as well put a Kinfe to our throat" he said "especially if we accept Okertaku offer, then things would get really bad without some help"

In the end you've decided to—

[] pass the uplifting aid program.

[] reject the uplifting aid program.

1. 500 EFEP would be spent next turn (T14) to help people adjust, then 250 EFEP on the turn after that (T15)

2. if okertaku offer is accepted, spend 1500 EFEP on t14, 1000 on T15 and 500 on t16.

3. not passing this program is likely to result in some economic damage.

"And lastly" Okun begun "we have the matter of doctrine".

It Ko which spoke next "With the rapid advancement of the empire, we have to redesign pretty much every piece of equipment, which means this is the best time to decide on our overarching doctrine and how we'll build our army"

"The first choice" this time it was a third general, one by the name of Jubuk "is maneuver warfare, our forces will be light and fast, able to reach anywhere in the battle field and leave before the enemy can do anything about I it, this doctrine is the one we have most experience with as it is our current one, meaning there would be very little growing pains."

"But its also not as effective in the type of fighting were expecting" Ko responded "the scaleof the battles and the fact we'll be swiftly driven back toward places we must protect leave it a dangerous doctrine to utilize, I propose its opposite, entrenchment"

"Our units will be trained and supplied with the best digging and constructing equipment to be able to swiftly fortify positions and bleed the enemy for every ich of our home they take".

"Entrenchments is just about the opposite of the Kkeu nature as can be, we do not stand still" Okun said "I propose the overwhelming fire doctrine, produce as much artillery and tanks as we can and let the enemy walk through a solid wall of fire.

"A wall of fire that will falter the moment it could not breach the enemy armor" a fourth general interrupted "I propose the mass conscription doctrine, were already going to be drafting the entire population, lets focus on cheap, reliable and fast to produce equipment even if it suffers a bit in its power, to let all of those coscripts a have sufficient equipment to challenge the enemy."

"And none of those doctrine will let use win, the enemy comes form underground and we must prepare to met his there" a fifth general said " I propose the underground fighting doctrine, a focus on compact and reliable equipment for underground fighting and training in enclosed spaces".

Choose your army fighting doctrine (note: this is the focus, not the only thing, the maneuver warfare doctrine would still have artillery and would still try to equip as many of the conscript as it could, it would just not focus on that).

[] Maneuver warfare.

[] Entrenchment.

[] Overwhelming fire power.

[] Mass conscription.

[] underground fighting.
[] write in (ping me and explain your resoning for it and I'll either allow it or veto).

Let's start off with 6 hours of moratorium as this vote is important, please vote in plans. I'm of course a valuable for any questions and I hoped you enjoy.

Lastly (and this should be outside the plane vote) please vote for any specialist unit you want, specialist units are as implied special, they are meant to preform very specific tasks. As an example, the emperor hand, the super heavy tank unit meant to be carried with his insight and protect him.

Basically, this is where you put your various ideas, I call this a vote but t anything submitted would get at least a test by the actual military of the empire to see if its worthwhile to develop.

[] just put your ideas here.

uri · Sep 18, 2024

[X] plan uplift and hunters, overwhelming firepower
-[X] Approve it.
-[X] Accept his offer.
-[X] pass the uplifting aid program.
-[X] Overwhelming fire power.

AN: And finally, I'm done with turn 13, next up is turn 14 options (which would take a little).

Anyway, this is something of an experiment for me, last time I showed every action and a lot of the mechanical churn behind it, this time I didn't do that and mostly focused on narrative.

In your honest opinion, do you think this is better? Is it easier to go through? More understandable?

Kuvara drifted through the warp, touching all of her people, he subjects and worshipers.

Like the wind she drifted between them, touching them briefly but never for long, whispering in their ear's words of encouragements and resolve.

Those who had departed would be claimed and shown into her domain, the worthy turned into deva to fight the endless fight, the unsuited harvested and returned to the cycle of reincarnation, a small bit of their soul now forever more receptive to her power.

As she drifted through the warp, she imbued it with the meaning of her domain and woven her essence throughout it, slowly but cut surely claiming her place in the warp.

Kuvara has regathered her attention when she felt the entity approach, when the tendrils of the lord of pleasure fell upon her world once more.

Her father has spoken of him, as he has all of the lords, she has also land of true nature in one of her many lessons by okertaku.

She knew she could not challenge the lord of change directly not now and perhaps never s she retreated, returning fully into her avatar.

This situation has vexed her, she was the wind. Movement was her life, to be cooped up was anathema to her very nature. She could bear it for a time, her domain weight always felt lesser when she fully habituated her avatar but she always had to return or she will still and die.

This was a different annoyance, she knew from her father that the lord of pleasure did not come for her but for him, to batter his will until nothing would remain.

She could do nothing to help her father, to challenge the lord of pleasure in his own domain would see her torn apart in mere moments.

But the lord of pleasure did not target alone and where he walked many of his daemons followed behind, already large swath of the empire government, even many of the lower disciples experienced break downs from tortured dreams.

Them, Kuvara could deal with even barred from the warp as she was.

Evry night, her avatar passed throughout the imperial palace and the city beyond and blessed the dreams of her worshipers and when the daemons returned, they found their parry protracted by a storm.

Kuvara (with Oteka help) infused 2 more points of deva this turn; she has also continued in her fortification attempts and managed to add a total of 32 dots of fortifications (unchallenged as she was. Her total fortification now stands at 50 dots.

She has also negated Slaanesh daemons attack on the populace (this action was taken instead of healing herself) that would have given massive penalties if successful. She could do nothing to help Shikatu though as he suffers the Slaanesh personal attention.

While Kuvara was busy with protecting her followers war raged across the warp.

This was not a war of blade and bullet for fighting in the warp did not require such crude instruments. The warp was a palace of thoughts, of ideas, of concepts.

That bloodletter skewering an inkspreader did not actually skewer the deva of Okertaku but merely expressed the idea of being skewered to it, the inkspreader in return expressed the concapt that the bloodletter possessed no right to skewer it for it was to low on the totem pole to do so.

In this specific instance the bloodletter refined his concept more and so was the inkspreader skewered.

This farmwork was followed form the lowest of demons to the greatest of gods.

And so, war waged in the warp, a war of concepts a war of ideas.

Order clashed with destruction, stagnation with change, hierarchy with anarchy and many more.

The gods clashed, their domains grinding against one another and between them hundreds of daemons and deva fought, each a small fragment of their greater god, merely replaying the fight of the gods in lower scale.

For an uninformed observer this war would seem a stalemate. But okertaku knew better, slwolly he was driven back, slowly his deva were cornered and destroyed.

He could still hold, for decades more but he was losing.

The four were starting to take things seriously, the support the four give for the one the Keku call the lord of fate increasing with every day.

Already a second of the four has personally intervened, the other two would not be far behind. Thankfully by the time they intervened Okertaku would have left.

He liked the Keku, he really did, Shikatu has made an orderly empire that was soothing to his sensibilities but Okertaku did not mean to die for them.

Chaos still reigned in the galaxy and it was scattered to a hundred different factions.

A decade more he has promised, and a decade more he will buy them.

And after he would break thorough this blockade and leave the Keku fate in their own hands.

Okertaku has protected Kuvara once more, warring with the four in the warp, he destroyed some daemon and lost some deva but things are mostly stable. He has completely stopped any attempt at destroying the fortifications erected.

uri · Oct 5, 2024

Okey, I've been staring at the blank page for the starting blurb for a few days now and it just isn't coming for me. So, in the interest of moving things along I'll just post the actions and may edit something in later (or just do it in a whole different post).

We have a 4 hour moratorium and there is a lot to discuss but were starting to reach the end game (for the apocalypse at least) which is fun.

[] To go beyond. (updated).

Form time primordial the keku have always wondered about the stars.

The spread of knowledge and understanding has done nothing to reduce this fascination.

The infrastructure constructed in decade pastis mostly obsolete by now, but obsolete does not mean useless.

You can utilize the work you already down as a seed from which more will grow.

The main work of this decade would be to construct a fusion fleet for lift off operations and construct a few space stations for both research purposes and in attempt to create a primitive zero G shipyard.

And if enough funding is invested it might even be completed before this decade ends.

If you wish to be ready for asteroid mining by the time the next decade comes around and to perhaps even have the option to create a colony on the moon a maximum investment is required.

A minimum investment would only start the commissioning of a fusion lift of fleet and only put a single space station for research and experience gathering. But there is a benefit to going slow with such delicate operations.

[] the unseen eye. (must be lowest priority).

The hunters have put forward their camera system expansion plan.

Mostly it adds hidden ones in the wilderness and country side in an attempt to catch something when someone thinks they are safe.

Even with the wide scale of it, the expansion is minor and the cost smaller still. A minimum investment is more then sufficient to meet the request.

[] Hover craft.

Fast and unencumbered by terrain, Hover crafts are vehicles which float slightly of the ground by various means.

Unburdened by the need to remain withing a certain weight so they could move over the train without sinking, hover craft are bulker and poses far thicker armor. All the better to protects the soldiers inside them.

All that's left is to trains the personal and construct them.

Despite the complex technology integrated into the hover craft they are relatively simple and cheap to construct with a maximum investment you could see the entire standing force and all of the garrisons supplied with such craft within two decades.
Minimum investment on the other hand would only see you finish converting your standing legions to their use in around three decades and the garrison four decades after.

[] Infantry equipment.

To be effective on the battlefield Infantry require a whole bag of equipment, form the guns and body armor they utilize to slay their enemies and remain alive.

To the bullets and fist aid supplies they require to do so.

While no one item is all that expensive, together the cost of production is high, especially considering the amount you need to produce in the first place.

With a maximum investment you'll modernize your entire standing legion and half of your garrisons within a decade, fully outfitting the militia however would take centuries if not thousands.

A minimum investment would see you fully modernize your legions and garrison in three decades and the less said about the militia the better.

[] Power armor.

Power armor is a powerful piece of equipment, offering defense unmatched by other armor types and enhancing the power of its wearer.

Its also such a complicated and expensive system to construct that outfitting anyone other then your cultivators (and perhaps commanders) for the next few centuries is a pipe dream.

There is also the problem that your version of the power armor is more primitive than the schematics you possess, for the simple reason that you completely lack certain tools to manufacture the highly precise pieces needed.

As an upside to the low production rate of the armor, every piece can be covered in a basic rune package meant to enhance its defensive properties. Without straining the rune carvers.

A maximum investment would see you equip all of your champions with power armor by the end of the decade and start on scattering some units of it to your disciples although finishing the process would likely take eight decades at the least.

With a minimum investment you would equip all of your champions with power armor within two decades but you can forget abut fully equipping your disciples for the next three centuries.

[] Keku claws.

In the coming apocalypse you're going to need as many claws holding weapons as possible.
Yet there is no real way to equip them all in any reasonable timeframe with the best of your equipment.

The solution is to not equip them with your best.

Your generals have provided you a list of equipment that is inferior to you line weaponry but far cheaper -in both cost and expertise- and while it irks you to not send your subjects with the best you can. Two decent guns are better than a single good one.

With the focus being on lowering production costs rather than power or effectiveness, the equipment you will produce for the militia is cheap, very cheap.

This means that with a maximum investment, the militia would be fully equipped within a century and a half.

Minimum investment would push that time table to two and a half centuries.

[] To rule the sky. (must be within the 3 lowest priorities)

To the keku the thought of a machine for flight comes unnaturally, yet with the knowledge of the capabilities of air crafts it is a thought that must be internalized.

The age of Keku domination of the sky comes to an end and new way must be devised to ensure the sky remains the keku friend.

Unfortunately, the air craft are expensive to both build and maintain and require rare minerals. So, the maximum investment possible is capped.

Its hard to say how much production would be achieved as you (and your experts) have very little experience with this kind of equipment.

[] The roar of thunder (must be top priority)

You have chosen the doctrine of overwhelming fire and now you must ensure that you would possess enough modernized artillery pieces to create the wall of fire you envisioned.

Proposed expansion would see you replace your current artillery pieces (which would be seconded to third rate units) within the decade and then proceed to triple your artillery fleet every decade hance.

The last decade saw both the fast expansion of the number of cultivators and also the expansion of their reasonability's (2 AP).

new mechanic: third step intervention- in an attempt to make third steps more influential, in addition to the bonus they give form now one each one of them has a small chance (5%~ to free up enough of their time and energy to grab one of your cultivator action's. those actions will be picked semi randomly.

Teachers: it is expected that around 278 new 1st step cultivators would be recruited and trained this decade (at current pace you're expected to get another AP in 5 turns).

Tribulations: 19 second steps have indicated that they would face their tribulation at the end of this decade from now (on turn 14).

Lightening reflection arrays: 27 (+7 per turn)

Alchemy: 195/200 capacity. Total cost: 13 G1 ingridants 130 EFEP. Total production:

[] change alchemy production? (doesn't cost an action).

-[] to what?

[] Recruiting- if you wish to have a hope of survival the current number of disciples is pitiful, your disciples would focus on going out and training potential cultivators in order to find new talents and increase their number. With a crude but passable way to determine talent you can now weed out the untalented. Increasing the power and quality of your new disciples.

[] Cultivation boot camp- its beyond clear that you're going to need many more cultivators, it is beyond clear that even shoddy cultivators possess unique and powerful advantages. you already started training less talented disciples in faster and less pure ways but you can always train more. The quality of the resulting cultivators wouldn't be great but you'll get a lot more of them. (new).

[X] (locked 1 AP) oversight - plot after plot has been stopped, uncountable resources spent toward the safety of the empire and now you must spend time vetting the watcher and searching them for the slightest of democide taints a time-consuming task even when the hunters aren't quadrupling their kekupower. (new).

[] Opening the twelve meridians- the twelve meridians don't offer any kind of straight combat power but they do grant great battle endurance as more Qi can be stored and gathered enough that even first steps might cast a powerful technique or two. give your disciples the instructions and leave to go about opening their meridians you'll be surprised if more than a tenth manage it within the time frame assigned but that may be a powerful boost to your armies. (new).

[] To draw on the emperors might- the emperor soul is connected to those of his students, the connection is thin, almost nonexistent but it is there. the emperor has speculated that he could share at least some of his Qi through this connection and might even be able to, at great cost, express his insights thorough it but much experimentation must be conducted to see if any of the above are actually possible and this kind of experimentations would require hundreds of cultivators. (new).

[] Cleansing taint- with the newly acquired lore of the lords, your disciples believe they can slowly, over the decade, and with the help of many cultivators cleanse the demonic taint of the sword you acquired some time ago. This will make the sword safe to utilize and grant you a powerful artifact for use by your champions and would likely increase the ease at which the sword secrets are studied but may destroy any of the demonic enhancements on it. (new).

[] Push forward- your disciples have their own cultivation to pursue and they will do so regardless but giving them more time to do so would allow them to make more progress.

[] rune study- new knowledge has brought your disciples another avenue of growth you very little about the runes you've found and how they work but were there is two there are three and your disciples are eager to find out more so let them and slowly you'll unlock the secrets of artificing.

[] craft- supernatural knowledge is at your disciples' beak and call, maybe they should do something with it.

-[] condensing arrays- perhaps you have changed you opinion on how they should be divided? If so you will need to replace the current arrays. (doesn't cost an AP just don't go changing it every turn)

-[] heavenly lightening deflection array- a special array that is incredibly helpful when challenging tribulation, unfortunately the power of the tribulation burns it out so it can't be used. Charge your disciples with constructing it. taking this action will give 2 such arrays.

-[] shield array's- able to protect a small city for outside attack so long as its fed sufficient Qi, the shield array represent a paradigm shift for defensive siege warfare

-[] something else?

-[] pills- you have a need for more pills so task more disciples with crafting them. (+500 capacity)

[] the building blocks of the world part 3- the world is full of possible alchemy materials that you haven't even touched yet, with at least a somewhat better understanding of the underlaying principles of alchemy you can continue to attempt mixing and matching materials and see what new recipes you can come up with.

[] cultivating perfection- the road to perfection is endless but it is a road that must be walked, refine one of your alchemy recipes lowering the requirements to craft it or unlock its more powerful version.

-[] which recipe?

[] expend the farms- there is no denying that the spiritual herbs are far more effective and potent as ingredients for alchemy and immortal cooking both and while you currently produce more then you need, this won't be true for long so expend the farms that produce them. (+25 G1 herbs)

-[] invest cultivators- you need more herbs, you need herbs of a greater power, the only way you will get those in a timely manner is to permanently second cultivators to grow them. (spend 1 Permanent Ap +50 G1 herbs +5 g2 herbs).

[] To perfect your taste- to eat immortal cooking is an experience out of this world but your chefs think they can do even better, that they can create something that tastes so good all other foods are ruined forever more…. You're kinda scared but also intrigued?

[] fang shui – your disciples have reached a good enough understanding of Fang Shui that they can move forward with purpose rather than throwing shit together and seeing what happens.

-[] The Breach Closing pattern (1 cultivator AP, 1 emperor AP)- the emperor has conceived of a general Fang Shui pattern that in theory should help close the breaches naturally. Spend some time with your disciples in an attempt to actually craft said pattern. (new).

-[] describe the general direction of the feng shui patterns you want (something for combat, diplomacy, economy so on and so on.

[] formations- the power of formations is undeniable, task you disciples which creating and refining new ones.

-[] describe (in general terms) what you want the formation to do and if it should use any special resource/triggers (divine Qi, lifeforce, ingredients/materials, rituals).

A long decade is awaiting you, there is much to do and not enough time to do it all (4 personal AP). (6 divine Qi). (4 AP locked to helping Okertaku)

You are injured. timer until fully healed: 1 turns.

[] The eternal flame (doesn't cost AP)- from the black flames you have crafted a unique artifact which can either enhance your talent in divination or be used to allow another to divine the future.

-[] enhance your divination action you've taken this turn.

-[] or chose a free divination action to be taken at small penalty.

[] the power of sacrifice (no option under here takes AP)- either by way of insight or technique you have found a way to greatly empower yourself by sacrificing something. (current lifespan 630)

-[] sacrifice life- sacrifice 10 years of life span for 1 AP (current lifespan 450).

-[] sacrifice wealth- commend your empire to tribute 150 Estimated Economic Power worth of wealth and gain 1 divine charge.

-[] sacrifice divinity- spend 1 divine charge to gain 6 lifespan.

-[] attempt healing- spend divine charges and lifespan to heal a certain condition.

--[] a half step- spend 2 divine charges and 20 lifespan to allow him to fully step into the third step. (not picking this option for both of your half steps means the go the Kuvara route) (updated).

-[] Yourself- you are injured, spend 1 divine charges and 10 lifespan to heal yourself.

[] Push higher- your power alone would not save you or your kind, but more power would certainly be useful, so push ahead on this path that you've created oh so long ago.

-[] condense your core (0/15)- pour ever graters amount of power into your core to increase the pressure placed upon the Qi inside it and then crystalize your insights at the moment of condensation.

-[] meditate upon your insights (may be taken more than once)- meditate upon your insights in preparation to combining them, spend years pondering their natures so when the times comes to combine them your chances of success will be higher.

-[] the third of twelve (0/6)- in your studies of the soul you have stumbled around twelve points where the body and soul interconnect with enough Qi and time you can widen and fully open the connecting. The effect can only be positive although as of yet eluding your sight. (updated).

-[] Distal understanding (may be taken more than once)- you are standing on the cusp of enlightenment, push further and break the wall to understand a greater portion the Dao.

-[] seek life (0/3)- you have spent a decade in the realm of the dead and have come out with new knowledge but now your understanding is unbalanced, seek death counterpart to regain the balance, seek life and the great Dao so that balance may be returned.

-[] Achieve supercritical (require special pill)- recently you and your disciples have conceived of a special Qi state, supercritical Qi a way to gain the advantage of liquid and gaseous Qi with none of the downsides. Invest the time to ready yourself to the transformation. (new).

-[] The connection of it all- following your new insight you have hundreds of links connecting you to your students and many more from them to their students, the ability to know your daughter is alright at all times is the dream of all fathers but maybe you should try and see if this connection has other uses. Your new understanding has shown that this connection is more than just something simple but a lick between souls, its likely behooves you to at least understand the implications of such information.

[] the lords- who are the lords? what are the lords? And how do they fit into your world? You know not the answer but you could find out.

-[] to shield one's mind- your mind is under assault, the god of dreams comes for your soul and your defenses are all but nonexistent before his might. Try to shield your mind by various ways and hope something shows some sign of success. (new).

-[] heavens remains- you know what the energy of heavens is, you know why it remains attempt to discern a way to disperse it and banish it back into the warp before it sets permanently into the world. (new).

-[] a drop of primordial blood- you have acquired a drop of blood you know nothing about expect that its important, attempt to study it and see what it may be use for. (updated).
-[] pick which use you want to use.

[] Glimpse the future- you have a gift, a gift that no other has. It has set you on this path and you must both hone and use it, to see the end of this path. Cast your eyes into the future and the apocalypse to come and attempt to draw any piece of information that might give you an advantage.

-[] The tide P.3- in your vision you saw many types of beast's, small and big, deformed and consisting of perfect form. Attempt to more correctly ascertain what it is that you'll be fighting.

-[] the maelstrom [very dangerous]- in your journey through the sea of time you have encountered a being that defies understanding. One way or the other this being is connected to the coming apocalypse, already without even knowing you desist it shrouds your sight of the future, your sight now returning with less and less details. So cast your gaze once more to the future and attempt to ascertain its nature and perhaps you'll find ways to avoid it. But beware as should you be caught death is the only mercy you can expect. New knowledge as to the nature of the lord of fate would allow you to more easily escape its sight. (updated).

-[] locate the breaches part 2- now that you know the general amount and locations of the tears in reality it is time chip away and improve the accuracy of your information. (updated).

-[] Can you stop them? (increased effectiveness in taken with or after locate the breeches)- you know your enemy will arrive from tears in the world, the question that must be asked is could you stop them? can you act now and let the ripples of time reduce the number of tears opened?

-[] Perturabo- Perturabo, a strategist unmatched, from the Knowledge gained form Okertaku few in the galaxy are equal in his talent for war. you know frighteningly little about him so attempt to pierce the shadows shielding him form your sight. (new).

--[] what kind of information are you looking for? (True name, equipment, Skills, weaknesses, strengths, reactions to certain actions and so on)

-[] Magnus- Magnus, the mad sorcerer, from the Knowledge gained form Okertaku you know that Magnus is a powerful sorcerer (perhaps the greatest in the galaxy). you know frighteningly little about him so attempt to pierce the shadows shielding him form your sight. (new).

--[] what kind of information are you looking for? (True name, equipment, Skills, weaknesses, strengths, reactions to certain actions and so on)

[] The burdens of an emperor- a farmer, son of a farmer turned into a sage, you never thought, nor wanted the burden of rule but here you are with a crown upon your head.

-[] To rule well- taking the time to listen to your subordinates and subjects as well as taking care of the small problems that arise would free your subordinates from the need to do it. (OOC: with the competent ruling action being removed from the empire action list -having achieved a good enough administrative efficiency that it doesn't need to be focused on- this action still helps with the rule of the empire and solving any problem that might crop up).

-[] The bounty of the ocean- the ocean and seas contain untold wealth both of food and of metal, by use of your new insight it is possible to now tap into that wealth with relative ease bringing great wealth to the empire.

-[] catch up (0/10)- you have just thrown most research disciplines upside down, a thousand years' worth of knowledge crammed in less than a decade and like your subjects you are also lost the information you so long relied upon now outdated and incorrect, you will attempt to rectify this when you can. Yet the burdens of running an empire and cultivation would make this a process of centuries so instead reserve some time to dedicated study and improve yourself. (OCC note: the benefit for this action are gained with every AP invested, you will naturally gain 1 AP worth every 3 turns) (new)

[] The burdens of a teacher- you have come to enjoy teaching, but the very act gives you a certain obligation to those you teach.

-[] Haku- it has been some time since you have taken a student personally but some talents are worth it.

-[] Vakatu- it has been some time since you have taken a student personally but some talents are worth it.

-[] unforgotten- your new insight makes your lessons quite literally unforgettable, you have a lot of knowledge to impart many of it would normally go over most first steps head but now that they quit literally can't forget it you can impart upon them knowledge that will be supremely useful for their cultivation efforts.

-[] To teach the next generations- you're going to need many more cultivators to face the end that comes, and you have taught many, do so again and help train the defenders of the future. Your new pillar makes you even more suited to this task.

-[] The next step- you have many students pushing for the next step in their journey, take the time to share your wisdom and guide them in surviving the tribulation, with your new insights this is even more effective as your advice can be kept in mind at all times.

-[] The broken- you have your cure, you have your skill get around to pulling the ruptured cultivation bases of your broken, you'll still need to find a way to heal their bodies but they could advance once more and would regain most of their former selves swelling your ranks.

-[] The damage of heaven- for one reason or another the power of heaven is resistant to your healing techniques spend some time researching the problem and see if you can come up with a solution.

[] Listen to the earth- your new pillar allows you to understand the language of the earth all you must do is listen, you're not likely to get any useful information but practice makes perfect.

-[] attempt to pry the secrets of the noble's- somehow the nobles managed to get a third step, listen to the earth and try to ascertain how they did so.

-[] just listen- the earth has much to say and instead of directing it for a specific piece of information you can just listen, you wont get any useful information but it would make for very good practice.

-[] discover the secrets for its health- your new insight scales based on the health of the land you live on and who is better in showing you how to care for it then the land itself? Attempt to listen to the earth and ask for how you may care for it.

[] The burden of a god- whether it was a mistake you will perhaps never know but you are now a god or at least worshiped as one. and being divine -fake or not- comes with some benefits and no less reasonability.

-[] spend time with your daughter's- form the sacrifice of your pillar and the soul of your people has your new daughter been born and while she is far older then, she is also incredibly young and ignorant, you cannot teach her of her domain or her nature but you can certainly tach her about mortality. Besides that, just spending time with her Avatar would help her with the stress of the coming decade, kekita would also be happy to join the family time.

-[] to change realty- your experiments with divine Qi has shown you that its nature is to change the rules that govern realty at least when it comes to techniques attempt to see if it can be used more broadly. (new).

-[] Edict formation- with the knowledge gained from Okertaku and a massive amount of divine Qi you may attempt to issue an edict, or to at least learn to do so. from your understanding Edicts are mainly a way for gods to automate some of their actions to not require direct attention and you aren't sure how useful they would be to you but you can attempt to learn (new)

-[] The seed of creation- you have realize that for a god to be born some sort of seed is needed, attempt to divine its nature.

-[] Divine infusement- with the new knowledge and a versatile power sources in divine Qi you may attempt to directly infuse divine Qi into an object or organism, the precise effects are not known but guaranteed to have some positive effect. (new).
--[] what are you infusing?

[] ancient secrets- recently a strange pyramid has been excavated. No one knows what you will find inside but danger practically radiates off the whole thing in you will have to descend to its depths, best to be prepared. All actions gain increased effectives from Okertaku knowledge.

-[] Start the expedition (doesn't take an AP)- you're preparations are complete and the smell of treasure lures you to the depths, gather your man and descend who know what you might find.

-[] sight unseen- use you're talent to divine some of the potential dangers you'll face and potential ways to counter them.

-[] fight practice- to fight in such close quarters is a difficult prospect for your species and it might be beast to practice such before attempting to enter the pyramid.

-[] buried secrets- the earth seems to know something about the strange pyramid you have found, attempt to decipher their words..

[] Research- there are many ways you can put your experiences and knowledge to help, invest the time and hope the results will be worth it.

-[] The experiences of age- with several new third steps perhaps it is time to pick up a project your daughter started? Much has changed since she first wrote the cultivation almanac and with your experience and knowledge as well as the help of the other elders even more conapts could be included as well as expending the concepts interactions to the fifth order.

-[] To turn backwards (0/4)- even though you have advanced you wish to turn back and perfect your foundation even more, this is a difficult project and will probably not work for anyone but you as temporarily liftin your core form your foundation is all but impossible for lesser talents.

-[] The power of blood (desperate)- demonic cultivators seem to posses a way to rapidly advance by eating the life energy of others, study their methods and contemplate their use to rapidly increase in strength before ethe coming of the apocalypse.

-[] the undying- a young keku, brave and kind volunteered for his grandfather tribulation and surprisingly didn't succumb to it, you have never seen anything like it but okertaku has supplied you with the name for the phenomena although he knew little more. apparent immortality is an intriguing and fascinating research subject run some simple tests to see if you can find anything helpful. (new)

-[] write in- ping me with an idea and I'll tell you how much it will cost and if its viable.

[] The power of nature and life- your new core insight has given you power over the building blocks of life. Now you can do mor then heal you can force life to change, to evolve to become better. (base cost of 1 AP +1 AP per 2 mutations after the first done in the same turn). (new).

-[] Small mutation- make minor change, with such a change very little can go wrong and the change is unlikely to be radical for good and Ill (low risk, low reward). 1% chaos.

-[] Medium mutation- make a medium change, a change big enough to have massive reprocations upon the body if things go wrong but can also drastically improve the subject (large risk, medium reward). 5% chaos.

-[] Heavy mutation- force life to change drastically at this point more of the life form is changed then remains. With drastic results to match (very large risk, large reward) 10% chaos.

--[] On yourself- mutations on the self are more likely to be positive but also carry more risk as even with your healing abilities something may go wrong.

--[] On another- mutations on another (willing) subject are less likely to be positive but do not carry the inherent risk of doing it on yourself.

---[] What kind of mutations do you want? (not guaranteed).

THE WAR IN THE WARP.

The four great chaos gods gather their strength to in time struck you down, to ravage your lands and wipe your name from history.

They are not yet ready to cross the boundary between the real and the unreal yet they need not.

For a new goddess has been born.

Kuvara, goddess of the wind patron deity of the Keku, a species the four has deemed a mortal enemy.

Did you think even for a second that they will let her gather her strength in peace? To accrue experience and allies?

The warp is the domain of the four and only theirs

To be a god in this land means to cower before their might and hope they never turn their eyes toward you to hind and flee at every opportunity, for to face even the slight attention of one means death to any but the mightiest.

And Kuvara has the attention of not one but all four.

For any other god this would have been a death sentence, yet your sacrifice has granted Kuvara an avatar in the mortal realm in which she can hide beyond the reach of the four.

Yet Kuvara is a creature of the warp and going too long without breathing its energy will kill her all the same.

And so war has come, a game of cat and mouse as your goddess gathers strength while the four chaos gods attempt to struck her down.

Thankfully, while the power the four posses is all but infinite, their abilty to channel it in specific areas is limited and their attention more so.

And in a true chaos fashion three of the four are content to watch from the sidelines to either swoop for the prize or to stab a knife in their brother side, in time they will unite but for now they stand divided.

On the one side we have Kurvara who possess the following traits and attributes.

Outer shell: 26/40

Inner shell: 10/10 (this is her HP, only inner shell damage actually hurts and penalizes her)

Attention 100: +0 (0 per attention level).

deva (4 dots): +4 (+1 per dot). Oteka (II).

Fortification (50 dots): +300(+2 per dot of fortification, +1 per dot of deva).

Avatar: Kurvara may more directly intervene in affairs on the non-warp side of things, outer shell damage received cannot be higher than 2 per clash as Kurvara may retreat into it (note: using this function means abandoning all presence in the warp temporarily).

And Okertaku who posses the following traits:

Outer shell: 8,9000/11,000.

Inner shell: 4,000/4,000.

Attention 100: +400 for all rolls. (+4 per attention level)

Major daemon presence (41 dots, +3 per dot) +123 to contested rolls.

1 greater deva- a rank III champion.

6 lesser deva- rank I champions.

Orderly: the nature of okertaku makes him suited for war for contested rolls he gains +1 from his attention for every 10 dots of demons present, (currently he gains +8 per attention level instead of 4 for contested rolls).

Stagnation (mitigated): by his nature okertaku cannot force too large of a change limiting his actions, this flaw has been mitigated increasing the range of actions available and may be ignored for a small time.

For the following turn Kuvara will attempt the following:

1. Create Deva.

Kuvara will attempt to create enough Deva to have a minuscule presence of them this isn't a contested roll as Kuvara gets enough souls to do this passively but she will roll to see if she manages to snag a good enough soul to create a greater Deva.

Oteka assigned to help in the gathering of souls.

2. protect the dreams of the keku.

Kuvara will attempt to shield the dreams of the keku form Salleenesh deamons.

The higher the roll the better she dos in this task.

3. Fortify the local warp

Kurvara will attempt to fortify the local warp, giving her a scaling bonus to defensive contested actions as well as increasing the effectiveness of her Deva in such.

this action is uncontested and as such assumed to build the maximum possible for the energy utilized (+-)

For the following turn Okertaku will attempt the following:

1. interception (contested).

Okertaku will attempt to intercept and interfere in any plot to contest Kuvara actions, allowing her to act uncontested.

This action is constated.

2. Protect kuvara.

Okertaku will attempt to defend Kuvara, joining her in any clash and receiving half the damage for it.

3. hunt deamons (contested).

Okertaku will attempt to hunt down any daemons as to reduce their presence.

This action is contested.

Actions:

Empire action (must replace other empire actions):

[] arrange mass prayers.

In the hopes of supplying more power toward Kuvara, your empire will organize massive prayers, day and night tens of thousands will be led in fervent prayer in the hopes that the extra power will help their goddess in her fight.

The more you invest the more people will be able to dedicate a large potion of their day for prayer.

Cultivator actions:

None so far.

Personal actions:

[] Sacrifice 10 life span and 1 divine Qi to heal 1 outer shell level for Kuvara. (doesn't cost AP).

[] Attempt to contest Tzeentch divination (not as dangerous as it sounds as you mostly try to divine his action after his divination, while he dos the same to you) for every AP spent on this action lower the number of points Tzeentch gets to distribute to his rolls by 200.

Reminder there is a 4~ hour moratorium in place. vote in plan format.

Plan format example:

[] plan name.
-[] empire action with highest priority.
-[] empire action with lower priority.
-[] empire action with lowest priority.
-[] cultivators actions.
-[] personal action.

As a reminder maximum investment refers to putting the action the highest in the plan and minimal investment means putting it the lowest.

For the war in the warp section, you should be putting the actions from there in their normal spot (IE: personal actions go in the personal actions section, empire alongside the empire actions and so on).

I hope I remembered everything but I'm sure I'll remember if I didn't (or I'll get reminded).

uri · Oct 8, 2024

Okey I'm going ahead and closing the vote and we'll move right on ahead to ask if you want to use your first core insight this turn. As a reminder you are at 20% and the floor is 15%, every turn Chaos is reduced by 5% and using the insight costs 5% chaos.

This means that the first use is "free" but you could let your chaos dissipate.

[] don't use the insight.

[] Use the insight.
-[] pick 7 objects to look at.

Adhoc vote count started by uri on Oct 8, 2024 at 12:42 PM, finished with 70 posts and 5 votes.

Posts

6
3 people have voted
[X] plan preparing for the endgame
-[X] The roar of thunder (must be top priority)
-[X] To go beyond. (updated).
-[X] Infantry equipment.
-[X] Power armor.
-[X] Keku claws.
-[X] Hover craft.
-[X] To rule the sky. (must be within the 3 lowest priorities)
-[X] arrange mass prayers.
-[X] Immortal meals (see the relevant tab for costs). (new).
--[X] Body-mind energizing meal, prioritize Haku and second steps about to do tribulation (with the intention of them using the extra ap to meditate more and increase their chances), one Enlightening meal for us.
--[X] Body nourishment meal
-[X] use remaining herbs to empower the awakening pills, one grade one herb per pill, the rest go in storage
-[X] change alchemy production? (doesn't cost an action).
--[X] max capacity awakening pills
-[X] (locked 1 AP) oversight - plot after plot has been stopped, uncountable resources spent toward the safety of the empire and now you must spend time vetting the watcher and searching them for the slightest of democide taints a time-consuming task even when the hunters aren't quadrupling their kekupower. (new).
-[X] formations- the power of formations is undeniable, task you disciples which creating and refining new ones.
--[X] a formation to share lifespan, with the intentions of drawing lifespan into the emperor efficiently, keeping our formations third step who make such formations more efficient in mind.
-[X] The eternal flame (doesn't cost AP)- from the black flames you have crafted a unique artifact which can either enhance your talent in divination or be used to allow another to divine the future.
--[X] you suspect demonic cultivators exist in hiding, have someone use the flames to find them so you can hunt them down.
-[X] the power of sacrifice (no option under here takes AP)- either by way of insight or technique you have found a way to greatly empower yourself by sacrificing something. (current lifespan 630)
-[X] sacrifice life- sacrifice 10 years of life span for 1 AP (current lifespan 450). X 4
-[X] Sacrifice 10 life span and 1 divine Qi to heal 1 outer shell level for Kuvara. (doesn't cost AP). (Do it at the end of the turn, if we burn 10 lifespan in combat before that, cancel the action, unless something like her being close to having her she'll destroyed happens).
-[X] to shield one's mind- your mind is under assault, the god of dreams comes for your soul and your defenses are all but nonexistent before his might. Try to shield your mind by various ways and hope something shows some sign of success. (new).
-[X] The burdens of a teacher- you have come to enjoy teaching, but the very act gives you a certain obligation to those you teach.
--[X] The next step- you have many students pushing for the next step in their journey, take the time to share your wisdom and guide them in surviving the tribulation, with your new insights this is even more effective as your advice can be kept in mind at all times.
-[X] heavens remains- you know what the energy of heavens is, you know why it remains attempt to discern a way to disperse it and banish it back into the warp before it sets permanently into the world. (new).
-[X] The burdens of an emperor- a farmer, son of a farmer turned into a sage, you never thought, nor wanted the burden of rule but here you are with a crown upon your head.
--[X] To rule well- taking the time to listen to your subordinates and subjects as well as taking care of the small problems that arise would free your subordinates from the need to do it. (OOC: with the competent ruling action being removed from the empire action list -having achieved a good enough administrative efficiency that it doesn't need to be focused on- this action still helps with the rule of the empire and solving any problem that might crop up).
-[X] Divine infusement- with the new knowledge and a versatile power sources in divine Qi you may attempt to directly infuse divine Qi into an object or organism, the precise effects are not known but guaranteed to have some positive effect. (new). (1 divine qi)
--[X] looking for second step volunteer
2 people have voted
[X] plan preparing for the endgame, Modified empire plans
-[X] The roar of thunder (must be top priority)
-[X] To go beyond. (updated).
-[X] Infantry equipment.
-[X] Keku claws.
-[X] Hover craft.
-[X] To rule the sky. (must be within the 3 lowest priorities)
-[X] Power armor.
-[X] arrange mass prayers.
-[X] Immortal meals (see the relevant tab for costs). (new).
--[X] Body-mind energizing meal, prioritize Haku and second steps about to do tribulation (with the intention of them using the extra ap to meditate more and increase their chances), one Enlightening meal for us.
--[X] Body nourishment meal
-[X] use remaining herbs to empower the awakening pills, one grade one herb per pill, the rest go in storage
-[X] change alchemy production? (doesn't cost an action).
--[X] max capacity awakening pills
-[X] (locked 1 AP) oversight - plot after plot has been stopped, uncountable resources spent toward the safety of the empire and now you must spend time vetting the watcher and searching them for the slightest of democide taints a time-consuming task even when the hunters aren't quadrupling their kekupower. (new).
-[X] formations- the power of formations is undeniable, task you disciples which creating and refining new ones.
--[X] a formation to share lifespan, with the intentions of drawing lifespan into the emperor efficiently, keeping our formations third step who make such formations more efficient in mind.
-[X] The eternal flame (doesn't cost AP)- from the black flames you have crafted a unique artifact which can either enhance your talent in divination or be used to allow another to divine the future.
--[X] you suspect demonic cultivators exist in hiding, have someone use the flames to find them so you can hunt them down.
-[X] the power of sacrifice (no option under here takes AP)- either by way of insight or technique you have found a way to greatly empower yourself by sacrificing something. (current lifespan 630)
-[X] sacrifice life- sacrifice 10 years of life span for 1 AP (current lifespan 450). X 4
-[X] Sacrifice 10 life span and 1 divine Qi to heal 1 outer shell level for Kuvara. (doesn't cost AP). (Do it at the end of the turn, if we burn 10 lifespan in combat before that, cancel the action, unless something like her being close to having her she'll destroyed happens).
-[X] to shield one's mind- your mind is under assault, the god of dreams comes for your soul and your defenses are all but nonexistent before his might. Try to shield your mind by various ways and hope something shows some sign of success. (new).
-[X] The burdens of a teacher- you have come to enjoy teaching, but the very act gives you a certain obligation to those you teach.
--[X] The next step- you have many students pushing for the next step in their journey, take the time to share your wisdom and guide them in surviving the tribulation, with your new insights this is even more effective as your advice can be kept in mind at all times.
-[X] heavens remains- you know what the energy of heavens is, you know why it remains attempt to discern a way to disperse it and banish it back into the warp before it sets permanently into the world. (new).
-[X] The burdens of an emperor- a farmer, son of a farmer turned into a sage, you never thought, nor wanted the burden of rule but here you are with a crown upon your head.
--[X] To rule well- taking the time to listen to your subordinates and subjects as well as taking care of the small problems that arise would free your subordinates from the need to do it. (OOC: with the competent ruling action being removed from the empire action list -having achieved a good enough administrative efficiency that it doesn't need to be focused on- this action still helps with the rule of the empire and solving any problem that might crop up).
-[X] Divine infusement- with the new knowledge and a versatile power sources in divine Qi you may attempt to directly infuse divine Qi into an object or organism, the precise effects are not known but guaranteed to have some positive effect. (new). (1 divine qi)
--[X] looking for second step volunteer
- SirKana
- Pittauro
1 people have voted
-[X] (locked 1 AP) oversight - plot after plot has been stopped, uncountable resources spent toward the safety of the empire and now you must spend time vetting the watcher and searching them for the slightest of democide taints a time-consuming task even when the hunters aren't quadrupling their kekupower. (new).
- Roth963

uri · Oct 13, 2024

I tried something new this time around and while I like how it turned out, as a writer its sometimes hard to judge your own work so I'm going to ask, are the perspective shifts too jarring or not understood well enough?

Also, the blanks in this chapter are from this omake if you want to cheak them out.

One step after another, Toka inched closer to his target.

The bridge connecting the two trees in the small town of Green Nest, saw little traffic this time of day, so nothing hindered Toa sight of the target.

He walked forward with confidence, readying the sharp needle in his sleeve.

He moved past several uninvolved Keku and made a deliberate effort for his body to not tense as he redid to strike.

He never saw the dagger that hit his back.

"This is our target" Toka informed his team, pointing to a picture of an older Keku, "the hunters have confirmed that he is a demonic cultivator. Divination support reveled he is a third step"

There were gasps at that revelation, his unit -or any other hunter unit for that matter- has never faced a third step in anything but friendly exercises and they lost most of those.

"Will we receive support?" Bek asked, short and to the point as always.

"We'll have a second step with us, and several first steps as a few thousands Keku at arms on standby" His answer displeased them, which was a given considering what they were up against.

"Look" he began "the hunters are stretched thin planning and executing hundreds of simultaneous operations to catch as many of the demonic cultivators and their supporters as possible before they flee and vanish, cultivator support is even thinner and priority is given to the places where a concentration of enemy assets are found, hell I heard even the Emperor himself is helping out".

"Our target is a third step, true" Toka said "but he is the only demonic cultivator in the town and all signs we have indicate he is completely unaware were on to him".

Silance reigned within the conference room as Toka speech ended before Jota -dependable as always- broke it.

"Well then, what is our plan to get out of this mess alive?"

Kos cursed as she saw Toka go down, the plan was simple on the face of it. they had accesses to a special alchemical poison; a single drop and the threat of their enemy would drop several magnitudes allowing the snipers to take him out safely.

The target shouldn't have known they were here, shouldn't have known that he was being targeted moreover he was supposed to be alone. And as Kos watched Toka being stabbed by what they thought to be a regular civilian she knew all three facts were completely wrong.

He instincts kicked in and in but a moment she put out at least two dozen shots at the cultivator -the laser warming the air and lighting up the early morning sky- before reorienting and dropping the Keku who was trying to stab Toka once more.

Despite her -and the rest of the snipers- quick action, the cultivator came out unscathed beyond a few small burns.

"This is Flight two" Kos started calmly into her personal communication devise "we're compromised. Send in the back up" all the while her hear hammered in her chest as she tried and failed to nail the bastard with her sniper rifle.

She hoped Toka was alive but she had a job to do, she can worry about him when the demonic cultivator was dead and buried.

Unfortunately, the situation has worsened in the few moments since the call for reinforcements was sounded.

"Third regiment" Joku yelled "prepare for deployment'.

At his words the Keku under his commend hurried to stand and raise their weapons, when they achieved something resembling readiness -in under eight seconds too- he nodded to the cultivator in charge and mere moments later the many runes covering the walls began to glow.

And then they flashed and Joku became wind.

A moment later he rapidly flapped his wings to regain stability as he and a thousand other Keku at arms appeared in the sky above Green Nest. From the sky the situation looked grim, fire raged in the town and he could see pockets of hunters hunkering down while repelling constant assaults of what seemed to be civilians.

He had little time to observe further as he had to swerve out of the way of his second in command attempting to gauge out his back.

And he wasn't the only one, his regiment. Comrades that knew one another for years, were tearing each other apart, dropping form the sky as weapons flashed and spot their deadly payload into the backs of friends.

He grimaced, the hunters bellow would have to hold out by themselves, he had to report this to commend and somehow survive the fierce melee that even now claimed the lives of his subordinates.

Flames lapped at his feathers as he rolled around bending the wind to divert them away. His dantian just a little bit more.

Okuitu is already dead, the flames burning his body to a crisp, same as Ituko. Yuto might be alive but she is certainly out of this fight.

And as Ausoku is forced to dodged another fire ball he is forced to admit that he might join them soon enough. Once again Ausoku cursed the one who decided to only send a single second step on this mission -him- but he also knew why he was the only one sent.

All the others were busy dealing with the rest of the demonic cultivators found and with the target alone and unaware they should have won with no trouble and on the off chance that something has gone wrong they had reinforcements waiting in the wings.

Except, Ausoku thought bitterly, they haven't and now their reinforcements were slaughtering each other in the sky. Showing the same madness that the people of Green Nest succumbed to.

This time He had to deflect the -practically large- fire ball coming toward him. His dantian now emptier then full.

He couldn't keep this up, his opponent -shoddy as his foundation was- stood in the third step, Ausoku would run out of Qi far earlier then him. So, he had to change this form a battle of Qi into one physical force.

When the next fire ball raced toward Ausoku he didn't doge or deflect but dived toward it, Qi infusing his wings and a silent prayer on his beak. He dived through the fire protected by the last of his Qi.

For all the power his opponent possessed they lacked experience and so Ausoku utilized their own flames as cover to close in. he came rushing out his claws aiming for the demon throat.

Unfortunately, his opponent was fast enough to react and Ausoku only scored a grazing hit. But that didn't matter, he was close now they were all but locked into psychical combat.

In the span of a three seconds, they exchanged a dozen blows without a sign of stopping, blood fell from the sky as Ausoku received a deep cut in his lower legs. Yet his enemy fared worse in the brawl.

Third step he might be btu the physical difference between the second and third step were not so vast that they could not be breached by experience.

It was then that he felt it, the low but constant buzzing in his head roaring anew attempting to batter down his will, force him to madness, slowed his movement and sapped his strength.

He realized then that victory has been snatched from him, that his enemy possessed some insight he could not resist.

But if he fell here today, he would make sure his opponent falls with him.

Ausoku became reckless, taking attacks that he could dodge just for the chance at inflicting pain to his enemy, he did not try for killing blows. He knew he wouldn't manage it. so, he focused on a single body part.

The wing.

Attack after attack, strike after strike it was all he aimed for and as more and more wounds accumulated on his body, he became ever more frantic.

Until at long last he fell from the sky, his body no longer able to keep him afloat.

He hit the ground before he could see if his enemy fell with him.

Toka was in terrible pain -most people would after getting stabbed- but he still inched forward, crawling a little closer to the fallen from of the demon.

Toka didn't know if Ausoku was dead -he sure hoped not, the guy was extremely nice- but if he was at least, he sold his life dearly.

During the entire battle of Green Nest Toka was mostly ignored, part of it owing to his nature as a blank and another to the fact that the demon likely thought him dead.

This allowed him to clearly see when both Ausoku and the demonic cultivator fell from the sky but where Ausoku laid unmoving the demonic cultivator even now struggled to stand.

And Toka was slowly crawling unseen toward his position, His movements were slow, one part thanks to his wound, another to try to stay below notice.

It felt like an eternity but couldn't have been more then a minute. The demonic cultivator still attempted to steady himself when Toka fell upon him stabbing as fast as he could.

Normally he would have died by now, trying to overpower a cultivator never goes well but he was severely injured and the few wound Toka managed to inflict with his surprise meant the poison was well and truly within the cultivator system slowing him down.

Toka surroundings deadened as his focus sharpened on the cultivator and he continued stabbing without any disregard to anything else.

He doesn't know when the cultivator died but at some point, the scream around him turns from of those of rage and battle to the screams of sorrow and tears of the aftermath.

Not that he stopped stabbing until he got pulled off the body.

The morning after the greatest blow aginst the demonic you set in your office and red the various reports of the operation.

Specifically, you read the reports of the battle in Green Nest and the disaster that unfolded there.

Three first steps dead and more than a thousand mortals fallen, several order of magnitude more causalities than the rest of the operation combined.

All done by a single third step.

Most of the casualties belonged to the army, the fierce fighting in the sky absolutely deadly and leaved little for the healer rushed there to work with.

The civilians -thanks for small blessings- had a lower lethality rate, mostly owing to the fact that the agents on the ground shot to disable and that the fighting took place on the ground and still more then two hundred have died.

Once more, you wished you've assigned more forces -cultivator forces- to Green nest but it seemed so right back then, a single third step alone and unaware should have fallen easier.

Yet he hadn't and others paid the price.

Overall, the operation has found and slain over four hundred first step, fourteen second steps and a total of seven third steps.

Aside from in the Battle of green nest, only a single first step and fifty or so mortals died in this purge.

The hunters are sure that you missed some stragglers -and your inclined to agree with them- although they cannot estimate how many, at least divination points to you purging all demonic third steps.

Speaking of third steps, the one you've confronted has been easy to dispatch, easy enough you managed to attempt an idea you've had for quite some time by now.

Before he died, you've reached into his soul and pulled out one of his pillars, you'll spend some time attempting to turn it into some worthwhile artifact -or at least gain a better understanding of pillars by studying one out side of the soul- but which of his pillar did you pull out?

[] Blood- the pillar of blood, embodying the vital fluid of life likely utilized in spilling it. there might be a few offensive options with it -especially as it was likely utilized for such- but you think you can influence it toward a healing artifact.

[] Hate- the pillar of Hate, embodying the dark emotion within all living things you're not entirely sure what the demonic cultivator utilized this pillar for, nor do you have any real hints as to the way an artifact forged form it would turn out but hate is a powerful emotion and the artifact will likely follow in its way.

[] Suffering- The pillar of suffering, the pain and tribulations of life, suffering is something al living things feel and your more then certain you can make a decent weapon out of this pillar.

AN: Well, that happened, you pretty much rolled over most of the demonic faction (they'll be back, they are cockroaches like that) but one of the battles didn't go your way, in total 4 first steps died in this "war" and a few more were injured and a lot of mortals died (-1 base EEP).

But you also got a few things for this, mostly you managed to snag a pillar to turn into an artifact and a few dantians (three to be exact) little more than that because your loot rolls were shit.

I don't think we need a moratorium for this vote so feel free to vote.

Distant Stars. (a WH40K/Xianxia civ Quest).

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