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Even Further Beyond [Complete]
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
thanks for keeping us in the loop Rihaku, I appreciate it!
I guess we have another super build vote.
True incarnation is good for give us 0.25 stage and maybe more and increase our true spell slot too.
We pick amplification as true spell with true incarnation then we can do another form of balance or elder beast and can outgrown Kong's prediction.
Another true spell is game changer in itself.
True incarnation is good for give us 0.25 stage and maybe more and increase our true spell slot too.
We pick amplification as true spell with true incarnation then we can do another form of balance or elder beast and can outgrown Kong's prediction.
Another true spell is game changer in itself.
Da Boyz
The Cutest Apocalypse.
Can I just stop to point out that we're looking through a quest 7 years old now for hints?
- Location
- The willow crowned hill
- Pronouns
- She/They
Opuses have access to unique effects normal artifacts can't produce. Something on the scale of the ring of truth couldn't have been matched by an ordinary artifact, even one made at our essence level.
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Eh, maybe? I'm assuming you're basing that off Baenlixnaire's sacrifice but it's worth keeping in mind that A) he didn't give up his Vengeance and B) A Magnum Opus can gain access to effects outside the capacity of normal Artifacts.
duh
all aspiring wizards should be willing to plumb the depths of ancient lore vaults in search of insight. after all, what else are they going to do with their time? have an emotionally fulfilling relationship? hah!
speaking of which:
On Elves and Majesty:
Here's something that could be an interesting experiment, could the Ringbearer of Majesty theoretically talk an elf into comprimising their ideals?
On the one hand, Glory's blurb does literally say that their favoured means of communication is "elevated to the realm of supernal perfection" and could talk a Primordial into acting outside their nature or defusing a Solar in the throes of Limit Break.
On the other hand, we from the description of the Half-Elves that it's the Highborn's spiritual resilience that allows them to control themselves despite their superhumanly powerful emotions, which suggests it's at least on the same level of Majesty's power.
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Yeah okay, this phrasing has shown up enough that I think it's a Thing. It was also said that humans were the champions of Truth in this world, which was apparently why humans populated both Elysium and Jotunheim.
Perhaps the undiminished Elves are embodiments of Grace, and that's the reason why they're considered perfect and thus unable to Cultivate. Meanwhile, the other races are associated with various ideals, but don't universally hold to them the same way the Elves do, thus they can modify themselves
This might also be connected to True Incarnation i.e. we also become an embodiment of an ideal, which gives us a similar level of resistance to unnatural mental influence. However, we don't have an immunity to natural mental influence since we can still change and grow due to All Paths.
Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm on to something here or if this is all apophenia.
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- Location
- The willow crowned hill
- Pronouns
- She/They
Speaking of the Truth, let's talk Throne of Stars. The overlord's cheat skill, which was to the Diagram what Thrice-Great has been to cultivation. Besides providing means to take diagrams Further Beyond, we have one sentence of real description:
This explanation does have one weak link. The Original Throne of Stars seems to merely parallel, rather than reflect its namesake.
Except, possibly...
The diagram has long been associated with a tower to the heavens, and the stars themselves, leading me to believe that this is meant literally. Of course, the Throne was almost certainly more than simply a means to securely store grands, and quickly cast lesser diagrams.
I think that the Throne's power was something similar to As Above, but not tied to some internal reality. True reality effects, as they were. Of course, such an ability carries the seeds of its undoing. A cultivator seeks dominion, for their reality to be more potent than the surroundings, and such True reality effects would probably be narrow affairs capped at low GS level.
This explanation does have one weak link. The Original Throne of Stars seems to merely parallel, rather than reflect its namesake.
Except, possibly...
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Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Easily? Their magic has comprehensive logistical superiority and leagues greater reliability and efficiency. Plus, they magi themselves are infinitely more pragmatic and ruthless than all but the most diminished of elves, while being saner than the batshit loco Fellborne type chucklefucks.
For example, how are the Elves supposed to counter a wizard just teleporting into their territory via Open the Way, dumping a shitload of corpses out of a Vault and animating them with Vigor Mortis? That's an army of 200 Organ Refiner equivalents just showing up out of nowhere, with almost no ability to cut them off at the source.
And all that would require is one second rank caster, using three spells. Against the full might of the Diagram Schools, it's unsurprising they were destroyed.
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RedV
Refuelling
- Location
- Right here
Well, we don't know how powerful Naturalism is - it's certainly possible for an Elrond-like "call the river" effect to exist, and Elrond is nowhere near peak Elf capability.
True. But the diagram had one advantage that is hard to beat. Numbers. 100 years is long enough for one elf generation. Meanwhile, 5 or so generations of wizards can come about.
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It doesn't really matter? Elrond isn't peak Elf, no, but he's a lord and there aren't enough of his kind to guard all of their territory at all times, which is what they'd need to not die to attrition. In the time it would take him to react, there'd have been 200 zombies, each capable of easily leveling skyscrapers, wrecking their lands.
It's death by a thousand lessenings.
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Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
This specific combo requires those corpses to be capable of Organ Refining strength, however, per Vigor Mortis. I suppose it depends on the interaction between Diagram and Elven Naturalism/Artifice, Naturalism in particular. Was the Threisis Flower created expressly for Cultivators, or did it have another purpose prior to it?
I don't think at level above soul the diagram mage can kill cultivator.
Mortis only give control to organ refining and above stage cultivator can kill army of lesser stage.
Xianxia is just that unfair in their power level.
Per word of Rihaku a bunch of 3.9 willing to made sacrifice can do defensive battle with 4.0 but stage beyond that is so unfair no amount of sacrifice can do anything.
Mortis only give control to organ refining and above stage cultivator can kill army of lesser stage.
Xianxia is just that unfair in their power level.
Per word of Rihaku a bunch of 3.9 willing to made sacrifice can do defensive battle with 4.0 but stage beyond that is so unfair no amount of sacrifice can do anything.
Plus 100% Potentation.
A diagram mage with sufficient prep could kill or disable higher end cultivators through the use of grand essence and blood diagrams, but even then I would imagine it'd be very difficult
The Final Overtaking
Rihaku
The Internet
The Final Overtaking
Power beyond all reason. Power beyond the remit of human intuition: too vast for mortal wisdom to straddle, though not vast enough to be beyond the explication of mortal minds. Power of that scale was a dangerous intoxicant, poison dripped upon the throat of the world, for it carried all the effulgence of understanding with none of the restraint of experience.
In the bosom of the Thrice-Great, by his hand and eye and mind, the Age of Might blossomed at last in full.
Might was not Truth's purpose, more its incidental cast-off, the product of a thousand million interactions acquired in its quest to reify and understand all things. Truth led to Might as knowledge lead to power - indirectly. So too had Kong Suizhen's eyes lead him to Truth.
Nameless stepped forward, atomizing the tide of beasts and verdigris before him. Behind him, the defenders of Yongshan stood frozen, as if suspended in lucite, prisoner to their simple lack of speed. In the space between their heartbeats he could clear out their whole nation, sunder both heaven and the Mountain that ruled all below it. But he did not. That was not his purpose this day.
Destruction rippled like a molasses wave through the ranks of the rampaging beasts, row after row bursting into contrails of shredded flesh as they contacted the impact of his forward step. Suizhen looked upon the scene with ambiguous eyes. He glanced briefly at her before walking into the Overgrowth.
Zang Kong's penultimate creation was a supernal wasteland, a desert of teeming lushness that encircled and devoured all perception, calculation, and every iota of selfhood that dared trespass within. There was no respite within its endless bounds from life, cacophonous life: bough and branch, leaf and stem, beast and bird, lichen and root, fern and fen, flock and worm, hunter and swarm, sloth and ape and every impossible monster that ever sprang from mortal cranium besides.
The soil was alive with vermin, and through it violet mist steamed upwards that clung to the skin, humid and intolerable like a diaphanous veil. The deeper one trod, the vaster the beasts, until the air and earth shook and trembled under the onslaught of their everyday perturbations. Hooting and howling, barking and cackling, roaring in fury or in agony, every monster with a voice that threatened to upend the world entire, a blast of sound that would liquify lesser men, turn blood to gel and organs to slurry.
There was a noxiousness to it that unsettled him, misshapen creatures that more resembled the output of some haphazard algorithm than any organic process, all terrain and life itself in thrall to its wanton artificial flourishing. An endless profusion of forms, but all derived from a singular essence.
Heterodox Cultivation, naked beneath its mask.
If there were Kong here besides the Patriarch and Nameless' own retainer, he did not encounter them, nor did he exert much effort to look. The Overgrowth annoyed Nameless, and he razed it where he walked, preserving only the beasts for a moment while he transferred their energy to himself or Suizhen.
A behemoth sat paralyzed between his index finger and thumb. Its eyes were misty moons, each ridge on its back a mottled canyon, the fur of its mane a forest of sleek bristles. The flick of its paw could bring a Great Sect to their knees. Mighty as they were, these nascent Titanic entities were still infinitesimal before his power. As life drained from the beast and into Nameless' internal reservoir, Suizhen looked around warily.
"I've never been this far in," she admitted. "Only Zang Kong's most trusted dared to venture around here."
"The journey wouldn't even be possible without a space-time Dao or post-Titanic speed," Nameless mused. "Even I'm not sure how far in we actually are, except that the convulsions of these Titanic beasts aren't felt at all in the outside world."
Were he incapable of opening a portal to any point in the coordinate plane, it would have been a troubling development. As it was, they proceeded with reckless speed, for Nameless had little idea how slowly - or not - the Fates would cotton on to his latest scheme. The power of his Scepter to transfer the essence of beings with minimal deadweight loss allowed him to "cultivate" faster than any mortal alive, so long as he had a bounty of powerful targets to absorb. And Zang Kong's Overgrowth, the crucible of a Stage IV Titan, was the perfect hunting ground.
At his current rate of advancement he would exceed even his most pessimistic estimates of Zang Kong's power before the year was up, which meant he was presently a greater threat to the world than even the Elder Beast of Reason. Harvesting essence with peerless efficiency, he could elevate a peasant to a Titan with only a moment's exertion - indeed, before the target of the transfer could even apprehend the fact of its transpiring. The Overgrowth itself showed little sign of abating before his progress, though he doubted that Zang Kong would allow it to spawn creatures beyond the power of his pre-Cocoon self.
Were Nameless forced, like a Titanic Cultivator, to inefficiently channel his power through an inner universe, even direct absorption of an enemy's Cultivation base would not allow him to advance so rapidly. That the Unshattered Glade had pared that inefficiency away meant that his power far surpassed that of a Titan at his equivalent Stage.
Might compounded upon might, that was the lesson of its Age. Some would even say compound interest was the mightiest force of all.
But time burned, as always. The end of his contest with the Fates drew near. Those wayward Divinities would either cheat him, or he would cheat them, but whosoever acted too rashly would then end up at the mercy of Zang Kong.
The moves remaining were limited, his further compoundings finite. Turmoil wracked the Labyrinth Empire, its cause cryptic and imperturbable. He would not long survive if he played the Fates' game.
"You should rule," He said to Suizhen.
"S-sir?!" Suizhen pointed to herself. "B-but I-"
"Lack social graces, organizational acumen, and political insight?" He waved off her objections. "The bureaucrats can take care of that for you. Your strengths are much less common. You've got a strong moral center, actual integrity, and my trust."
"Miss Aurelia has those as well," she hesitated.
"Aurelia lacks ruthlessness, which is fine if one is dealing with Elves and not Cultivators. She'd likely find a way to make it work, but it wouldn't feel natural for either ruler or ruled. You wouldn't have that problem. Your strength alone gives you legitimacy to command."
"That's not the point," she protested hotly. "I had always thought that Sir- Sir would rule! Sir is clever and cunning, kind and wise, and far stronger than this one. It- it makes no sense if Sir is not in charge!"
"Flattery will get you nowhere," Nameless huffed. "Don't try to foist this on me. There's no point in scamming if I'm already the emperor, not that I'd want the job."
"So Sir will scam me instead?" Suizhen posited slyly.
"Exactly like our current arrangement," Nameless said.
"Zang Kong still lives, and the Divinities are your enemies as well," she worried. "I- I will be happy to undertake any duties Sir assigns, but aren't we being premature?"
"Not at all." Nameless gave her a befuddled look. "How can we prevail if we don't have a future worth fighting for? If I had to actually run things after I won, I might just let oblivion take me."
"Sir could always have children to run things for him."
"Couldn't trust them." He rubbed his jaw. "They'd be related to Yong Liefang."
"And Sir accuses me of being un-filial..." Suizhen pouted.
"I'm showing proper respect for his skillful means," Nameless rejoined. "That's the very essence of filial piety!"
"It- it is not!"
"How would you know? You're just a vagabond intent on murdering her Patriarch. Hardly a paragon of that virtue..."
"I-I'm avenging my Mother and Father! And I'll have you know, I am not just a vagabond, but also the future Empress of All Cultivators!"
"W-wow. I had no idea..."
"Sir is not very observant. That's why the position of bodyguard is essential!"
"If the Empress is my bodyguard, does that obligate the Empire to defend me?"
"Only if Sir is willing to pay the Empire's wages."
"Not even crowned and you're already putting on airs!"
"Sir forgets that I am already the bodyguard to a very important personage from the state of Yong."
"Suizhen. Kill the Fates for me. In return, I'll pat you on the head."
"Sir already owes me thirty-seven times for discovering True Incarnation..."
"How calculating. Is this perhaps the power of the blood of Kong?"
"Now Sir understands that there is always a sky - no, a sword! - above the sky."
"Yeah, a sword called the Fates. I need you to kill them for me."
"Sir is in trouble, then. After all, it is known that only a sword can defeat another sword, and Sir's swordsmanship is only above-average."
"If the student is at fault, the teacher is the cause."
"I'm sorry, Sir. Perhaps this one should become a lich? Then Sir might pay better attention to my lessons..."
"What did I give you that shapeshifting Regalia for, if not for this?"
Suizhen shifted the cartilage in her neck so she could turn her head one-eighty degrees to look cheerily at him. "Sir is truly wise. This one humbly apologizes for her lack of suitable educational attire!"
"Apology accepted. We'll have to brush up on my swordsmanship another day."
Yes, there was much to do after he won, but the certainty of his victory was anything but absolute. A few final moves, his last cards to play, and then Nameless and the Fates both would face their hour of reckoning.
---
The vote component of this update will come tomorrow or Friday.
Power beyond all reason. Power beyond the remit of human intuition: too vast for mortal wisdom to straddle, though not vast enough to be beyond the explication of mortal minds. Power of that scale was a dangerous intoxicant, poison dripped upon the throat of the world, for it carried all the effulgence of understanding with none of the restraint of experience.
In the bosom of the Thrice-Great, by his hand and eye and mind, the Age of Might blossomed at last in full.
Might was not Truth's purpose, more its incidental cast-off, the product of a thousand million interactions acquired in its quest to reify and understand all things. Truth led to Might as knowledge lead to power - indirectly. So too had Kong Suizhen's eyes lead him to Truth.
Nameless stepped forward, atomizing the tide of beasts and verdigris before him. Behind him, the defenders of Yongshan stood frozen, as if suspended in lucite, prisoner to their simple lack of speed. In the space between their heartbeats he could clear out their whole nation, sunder both heaven and the Mountain that ruled all below it. But he did not. That was not his purpose this day.
Destruction rippled like a molasses wave through the ranks of the rampaging beasts, row after row bursting into contrails of shredded flesh as they contacted the impact of his forward step. Suizhen looked upon the scene with ambiguous eyes. He glanced briefly at her before walking into the Overgrowth.
Zang Kong's penultimate creation was a supernal wasteland, a desert of teeming lushness that encircled and devoured all perception, calculation, and every iota of selfhood that dared trespass within. There was no respite within its endless bounds from life, cacophonous life: bough and branch, leaf and stem, beast and bird, lichen and root, fern and fen, flock and worm, hunter and swarm, sloth and ape and every impossible monster that ever sprang from mortal cranium besides.
The soil was alive with vermin, and through it violet mist steamed upwards that clung to the skin, humid and intolerable like a diaphanous veil. The deeper one trod, the vaster the beasts, until the air and earth shook and trembled under the onslaught of their everyday perturbations. Hooting and howling, barking and cackling, roaring in fury or in agony, every monster with a voice that threatened to upend the world entire, a blast of sound that would liquify lesser men, turn blood to gel and organs to slurry.
There was a noxiousness to it that unsettled him, misshapen creatures that more resembled the output of some haphazard algorithm than any organic process, all terrain and life itself in thrall to its wanton artificial flourishing. An endless profusion of forms, but all derived from a singular essence.
Heterodox Cultivation, naked beneath its mask.
If there were Kong here besides the Patriarch and Nameless' own retainer, he did not encounter them, nor did he exert much effort to look. The Overgrowth annoyed Nameless, and he razed it where he walked, preserving only the beasts for a moment while he transferred their energy to himself or Suizhen.
A behemoth sat paralyzed between his index finger and thumb. Its eyes were misty moons, each ridge on its back a mottled canyon, the fur of its mane a forest of sleek bristles. The flick of its paw could bring a Great Sect to their knees. Mighty as they were, these nascent Titanic entities were still infinitesimal before his power. As life drained from the beast and into Nameless' internal reservoir, Suizhen looked around warily.
"I've never been this far in," she admitted. "Only Zang Kong's most trusted dared to venture around here."
"The journey wouldn't even be possible without a space-time Dao or post-Titanic speed," Nameless mused. "Even I'm not sure how far in we actually are, except that the convulsions of these Titanic beasts aren't felt at all in the outside world."
Were he incapable of opening a portal to any point in the coordinate plane, it would have been a troubling development. As it was, they proceeded with reckless speed, for Nameless had little idea how slowly - or not - the Fates would cotton on to his latest scheme. The power of his Scepter to transfer the essence of beings with minimal deadweight loss allowed him to "cultivate" faster than any mortal alive, so long as he had a bounty of powerful targets to absorb. And Zang Kong's Overgrowth, the crucible of a Stage IV Titan, was the perfect hunting ground.
At his current rate of advancement he would exceed even his most pessimistic estimates of Zang Kong's power before the year was up, which meant he was presently a greater threat to the world than even the Elder Beast of Reason. Harvesting essence with peerless efficiency, he could elevate a peasant to a Titan with only a moment's exertion - indeed, before the target of the transfer could even apprehend the fact of its transpiring. The Overgrowth itself showed little sign of abating before his progress, though he doubted that Zang Kong would allow it to spawn creatures beyond the power of his pre-Cocoon self.
Were Nameless forced, like a Titanic Cultivator, to inefficiently channel his power through an inner universe, even direct absorption of an enemy's Cultivation base would not allow him to advance so rapidly. That the Unshattered Glade had pared that inefficiency away meant that his power far surpassed that of a Titan at his equivalent Stage.
Might compounded upon might, that was the lesson of its Age. Some would even say compound interest was the mightiest force of all.
But time burned, as always. The end of his contest with the Fates drew near. Those wayward Divinities would either cheat him, or he would cheat them, but whosoever acted too rashly would then end up at the mercy of Zang Kong.
The moves remaining were limited, his further compoundings finite. Turmoil wracked the Labyrinth Empire, its cause cryptic and imperturbable. He would not long survive if he played the Fates' game.
"You should rule," He said to Suizhen.
"S-sir?!" Suizhen pointed to herself. "B-but I-"
"Lack social graces, organizational acumen, and political insight?" He waved off her objections. "The bureaucrats can take care of that for you. Your strengths are much less common. You've got a strong moral center, actual integrity, and my trust."
"Miss Aurelia has those as well," she hesitated.
"Aurelia lacks ruthlessness, which is fine if one is dealing with Elves and not Cultivators. She'd likely find a way to make it work, but it wouldn't feel natural for either ruler or ruled. You wouldn't have that problem. Your strength alone gives you legitimacy to command."
"That's not the point," she protested hotly. "I had always thought that Sir- Sir would rule! Sir is clever and cunning, kind and wise, and far stronger than this one. It- it makes no sense if Sir is not in charge!"
"Flattery will get you nowhere," Nameless huffed. "Don't try to foist this on me. There's no point in scamming if I'm already the emperor, not that I'd want the job."
"So Sir will scam me instead?" Suizhen posited slyly.
"Exactly like our current arrangement," Nameless said.
"Zang Kong still lives, and the Divinities are your enemies as well," she worried. "I- I will be happy to undertake any duties Sir assigns, but aren't we being premature?"
"Not at all." Nameless gave her a befuddled look. "How can we prevail if we don't have a future worth fighting for? If I had to actually run things after I won, I might just let oblivion take me."
"Sir could always have children to run things for him."
"Couldn't trust them." He rubbed his jaw. "They'd be related to Yong Liefang."
"And Sir accuses me of being un-filial..." Suizhen pouted.
"I'm showing proper respect for his skillful means," Nameless rejoined. "That's the very essence of filial piety!"
"It- it is not!"
"How would you know? You're just a vagabond intent on murdering her Patriarch. Hardly a paragon of that virtue..."
"I-I'm avenging my Mother and Father! And I'll have you know, I am not just a vagabond, but also the future Empress of All Cultivators!"
"W-wow. I had no idea..."
"Sir is not very observant. That's why the position of bodyguard is essential!"
"If the Empress is my bodyguard, does that obligate the Empire to defend me?"
"Only if Sir is willing to pay the Empire's wages."
"Not even crowned and you're already putting on airs!"
"Sir forgets that I am already the bodyguard to a very important personage from the state of Yong."
"Suizhen. Kill the Fates for me. In return, I'll pat you on the head."
"Sir already owes me thirty-seven times for discovering True Incarnation..."
"How calculating. Is this perhaps the power of the blood of Kong?"
"Now Sir understands that there is always a sky - no, a sword! - above the sky."
"Yeah, a sword called the Fates. I need you to kill them for me."
"Sir is in trouble, then. After all, it is known that only a sword can defeat another sword, and Sir's swordsmanship is only above-average."
"If the student is at fault, the teacher is the cause."
"I'm sorry, Sir. Perhaps this one should become a lich? Then Sir might pay better attention to my lessons..."
"What did I give you that shapeshifting Regalia for, if not for this?"
Suizhen shifted the cartilage in her neck so she could turn her head one-eighty degrees to look cheerily at him. "Sir is truly wise. This one humbly apologizes for her lack of suitable educational attire!"
"Apology accepted. We'll have to brush up on my swordsmanship another day."
Yes, there was much to do after he won, but the certainty of his victory was anything but absolute. A few final moves, his last cards to play, and then Nameless and the Fates both would face their hour of reckoning.
---
The vote component of this update will come tomorrow or Friday.
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Yes.
While fight scenes and powerups are fun, dialogue is also pretty great.