It seemed that 'normal' xuan wu usually had some ability to manipulate their environment, altering currents, or creating small sinkholes, or at the higher end outright manipulating the weather or causing earthquakes, as well as sinking or raising islands.
In Zhengui's case, his ability seemed to mainly affect plants. They hadn't exactly figured out everything it could do yet though. It seemed to repair nicks and damage to his shell, though Ling Qi refused to test that any further. It extended his awareness, allowing him to feel things from further away, with greater effect if there were trees nearby.
As Zhengui grows, he's going to be a monster in the Emerald Sea -- the old growth forests means his awareness covers basically everything and his environment manipulation is boosted to outrageous levels. And, provided the trees he grow reach ship-quality and the ability doesn't take too much out of him, he's going to be a powerhouse in the economic realm, too! The Xuan would probably be
very interested in making ships out of wood made and suffused with the Qi of a Xuanwu, and pay to match.
Also, combat healing! If TRF or its evolutions doesn't give combat healing, Ling Qi can easily develop an TRF evolution that emulates what Zhengui does, right?
"Big Sis?" she jerked a little at the feeling of Zhen hissing in her ear, his forked tongue tickling her cheek. "No worrying," the snake declared. "Will bite anyone who bothers Big Sis."
Spirit Upkeep reduced to 8
Oh good, confirmation that upkeep is a function of both parties: both the cultivator and spirit must advance their own relationship to the other before the Qi upkeep is reduced. I was wondering about that.
And Zhen, of course, remains entirely too adorable. The interactions between Zhengui and Ling Qi are some of my favorite scenes.
Older students were mostly not their concern since 'permanent' outer disciples were usually commoners like her who were essentially full time workers for the sect.
The nobles I suspect just leave after they've been proven to be incapable of progressing much further...
So this is how the Imperial Throne makes its claim on the commoner talents it finds: the Great Sects are the only place for them (since they're not rare talents like Ling Qi who any noble house would like to have), and the Great Sects take orders from the Throne. Thus, the Throne removes talents who would otherwise be retained by their home noble houses and places them into sects controlled by the Throne. The noble houses are starved of the commoner talents they used to rely on to fill out their ranks and refresh the bloodlines, and the Throne gets armies and logistics based out of the provinces.
"The Great Sects are somewhat new as a part of the Empire's governance. Sects have always existed of course, as centers of learning and competition for noble youth, but the power they hold now worries some, and it may be wise to consider that such a position may be… unstable."
...Which basically mean the Bai are considering breaking the Great Sects, and with them, the power of the Imperial Throne. As is Cai Shenhua, if my reading of Renxiang's interlude is correct, as part of her ambitions to reform the Empire. And Meizhan is part of the main family and has a good education and head for politics, so other high noble houses are probably also considering the same thing. So there's rumblings of an overarching future civil war plot...
The pouch seemed like it was full of junk. There was a clay jar for of polished and painted anklebones, a torn headband worked with elaborate embroidery and beads, the broken halves of an unusably tiny bow, and other such things. They were all burnt or bloodstained too. Ling Qi couldn't imagine why trash like this would be so well protected. They weren't even broken talismans as far as she could tell. The barbarian had probably been pretty unhinged, she supposed.
Mementos of his extinct family. Probably even childhood toys, if that bow was actually meant as a practice bow for a child. And Ling Qi doesn't even have the context to understand that because she doesn't really believe the Cloud Tribe people are actual
people. Imperial propaganda is pretty strong...
Though, really shows how cultivation-centric her thought processes are. We get indications that Ling Qi is a cultivation machine from plenty of other people (e.g. Su Ling, Gu Xiulan), and there's jokes in-thread about it, but in-universe, there are costs to that sort of lifestyle. Even if it doesn't really make an impact on the narrative, Ling Qi has already started on the process of abandoning the mortal world and its concerns at this point.
Blood of Father Sky: Allows the user to reduce all second, third and fourth breakthrough rolls by five
Milk of Mother Earth: Allows the reroll of a single breakthrough roll, and on failure prevents lost progress. Effective on second, third and fourth breakthroughs
OK, so these make attempting to make all breakthroughs rolls in a single week even vaguely reasonable. These are amazing and I'm wondering why the shaman guy even had these things! He was planning on suiciding for his ritual, right?!
Whatever earth art she used to drain away the melody's hostile qi into the ground was pretty potent.
So here's the Earth art Elder Ying gave Meizhan! An Area Dispel, in keeping with her specialty.
The next stages of Eight Phase ceremony demanded a more active mastery, and trying to absorb it even during a trying battle was pretty good practice.
Is this an indication of EPC4 giving conbat Qi regen?! That's amazing! It means not good things about Sun Liling, who probably has similar high tier cultivation arts, and Ling Qi's chances against her, but combat Qi regen means Ling Qi's stall tactics become even more overwhelming to face!
I suppose there are other possibilities -- +dice to all clashes involving Yin arts, +more successes to cultivation from Larceny/Stealth tests, etc. -- but combat Qi regen sounds more fun.
"I'll give it some thought then," she said quietly. "But, Meizhen, you know I'll stay in contact no matter what, right?"
"...Of course you will," she couldn't see her friends face, but she could feel the warmth of her hand. "Thank you, Qi."
Ling Qi didn;t feel the need to say anything else.
This is heartwarming. (Also, over in Meizhan Quest, this is where the Ling Qi social link ranked up, right? She called her by her first name!)
[x] To aim for one of the small but impossible to remove gaps in guard coverage and sneak in.
Stealth is one of Ling Qi's specialties, and yrsillar confirmed Ling Qi is confident getting out is well within her capabilities. The only question is how she can get in, and sneaking in sounds superior to getting a scout in. We're in this primarily for EPC successes, after all, and sneaking in gets us more sux than using a scout.
