- Location
- Malaysia
Like someone else said, it would also make it easier for Yrsillar to write. It's like a short time skip. The next time we see Ling Qi interacting with her friends again, she'd be significantly more powerful.
Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
Did GM clarify that part? is it on single action or on all?
Breakthrough Action 1 (Spiritual) -> Failure -> Medicine Reroll -> Failure -> Medicine Negates Penalty
Breakthrough Action 2 (Spiritual) -> Failure -> Spiritual XP lost
or
Breakthrough Action 1 (Spiritual) -> Failure -> Medicine Reroll -> Failure -> Medicine Negates Penalty
Breakthrough Action 2 (Spiritual) -> Failure ->Medicine Negates Penalty
Breakthrough Action 3 (Spiritual) -> Failure ->Medicine Negates Penalty
Breakthrough Action 4 (Spiritual) -> Failure ->Medicine Negates Penalty
Breakthrough Action 5 (Spiritual) -> Failure ->Medicine Negates Penalty
Breakthrough Action 6 (Spiritual) -> Failure ->Medicine Negates Penalty
Technically, @yrsillar said socials couldn't be attached to breakthrough attempts. Something like the puzzle box may be possible. An archive action would be pushing it though.
A Bitter Pill
- Location
- Illinois
A Bitter Pill
[X] Quickly return to your fort. It is likely that the Bai was being used to distract you from what was happening to your holdings. While you have some confidence in your followers and the defenses you have erected, you are certain that Cai Renxiang will bypass them quickly enough. It is likely too late already, but you must return to salvage what is left quickly.
Your return was a bitter one. After your clashes with the snake, you had returned to find your carefully built fort was all but broken, and your followers gravely demoralized. Cai Renxiang had acted quickly it seems, much to your dismay, and Bai Meizhen had played her part spectacularly. Her dogged persistence in attempting to continue her fight with you would normally have been welcome, but with time at a premium, you could only feel annoyance.
From what you could discover of what had transpired, Cai Renxiang had attacked shortly after you had sprung your trap on Ling Qi. Without your presence to counter her, she and her enforcers had quickly overrun your followers, though you were satisfied to learn that your defenses had managed to do a fair bit of damage to some of Cai's enforcers.
That satisfaction was minor though, compared to the unyielding rage that filled you now. You had known that what you were planning was risky, that leaving your fortifications would be dangerous. But the chance to take that increasingly annoying Li Qing off the board for a time had seemed to be worth it. Your preparation had been nearly flawless, and her own power was nowhere near great enough to oppose you for any real period of time.
Of course, that had been the problem, had it not? You had ignored what you had been taught, and had assumed that your enemy would be unable to react in a way that you could not predict. You had assumed that you knew all her options, that there was no way for her to escape or to defend herself, and worst of all, you had been too confident in yourself.
You threw yourself into salvaging what was left. While it initially appeared hopeless, you knew that there was still great potential left here. That Cai bitch might be overbearing, but even she knew her limits. As word of your crushing defeat spread, you knew that you would lose support, and that many others would assume this meant you had lost completely. Your followers and 'followers' would start to question your leadership, would wonder why you were the one they had to obey. The road ahead looked long, hard and bitter.
In the privacy of your home, you grinned at the thought of what lay ahead, your blood surging through your veins.
This. This was what you lived for. Strong enemies, so assured of their power, entrenched with allies and resources, while you had little of your own. Enemies that would grow stronger yet, that sought to crush you, to break you.
Enemies that you could fight with abandon, with only the fruit of your own labors to aid you.
This was a setback, you knew. But then again, that was truly the only way this game could be fun.
After all, a Cultivator could only be judged by the quality of their enemies, could they not?
[] Reorganize your forces
-[] Which?
[] Visit the Archive
-[] Search for a technique
-[] Study or improve formations
[] Cultivate on your own
-[] Physical
-[] Spiritual
-[] Qi
-[] Meridian (which one?)
-[] Art(Which one?)
[] Chu Song is furious after this debacle and has already taken her own people and left. You can work to try to bring her back into the fold, though you suspect doing so will be an uphill battle...
[] Spend some time with Ji Rong, he seems like a fun sort.
[] You have yet to go over that book you had found. It might not be what you'd like to spend your free time on, but you should get around to it sometime...
[] You might not be able to personally go after Ling Qi after what just happened, but you can work with Yan Renshu to keep track of her, and more importantly, keep her from further interfering.
A.N. Yeah, so shit kinda hit the fan while you were playing tag. Updated front page with the damages.
ExaltedLight said:
Sloom said:
Veeks said:
Friendly_Whale said:
Odin's Uncle said:
Alextai said:
Ridiculously Photogenic Guy said:
BungleOni said:
TotallyEvil said:
Yin said:
Note: So, haven't fully read the thread yet, only the updates and some of the omakes. But this is the first time I've actually had access to a computer in like a week and a half, and I really wanted to make an omake. Since I was catching up to this quest, this is the one I had an idea for. So please excuse any mishandled characterization, or failed understanding of the setting.
Edit: Was told to tag you, @yrsillar
Last edited:
Malaysia actually. And a native speaker of Chinese yes.
But due to the tones used you're almost never going to get the Traitor pun even accidentally unless transliterating and flattening 4 tones into one.
I mean you could take the (unlikely) possibility of Han(Sweat) and Jian(Minus) for the initial Slacker he started out
true, but don't Chinese puns sometimes ignore or transcend tones? like the infamous Grass Mud HorseMalaysia actually. And a native speaker of Chinese yes.
But due to the tones used you're almost never going to get the Traitor pun even accidentally unless transliterating and flattening 4 tones into one.
I mean you could take the (unlikely) possibility of Han(Sweat) and Jian(Minus) for the initial Slacker he started out
Literally never heard it used that way except by non-native speakers. You get cross dialect puns/swears more often, where you expand the pun dimension by another axis by switching dialects.true, but don't Chinese puns sometimes ignore or transcend tones? like the infamous Grass Mud Horse
E.g. Super White.
Intonation is pretty significant. But non native speakers have a weaker ear for tones. Some are physically incapable of distinguishing tones.
Last edited:
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
Yeah, if you don't grow up speaking a tonal language parts of your brain related to langauge won't develop to distinguish some of the sounds. You will never speak one with true fluency.
Same way non bilingual Chinese and Japanese can't say R.
NaanContributor
Provider of delicious flatbread, and nothing else.
- Location
- Hawaii
It doesn't follow that masteries are three times more difficult than other skills because Ling Qi got three times as much XP for archery. That would mean it's easier, not harder.
Can you run me through your argument from the start, because I am honestly really confused by what you're saying.
- Location
- Staring into the void
I've been told (but can't confirm) that leaning music can negate this limitation somewhat.
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
It's a step further going from non-tonal to tonal, from what I understand. There's sounds you aren't trained by your native language to hear, but you can learn as a adult. Going the other way though never perfectly works, and adults simply can't learn to hear some of the tonal differences.
- Location
- Cyberspace
After re-reading what he's said I think it's that:
1. Because masteries are three times as difficult to raise as other skills, they're far more valuable to cap out. (I dispute this assumption, but it's what he believes)
2. Because archery improved so much faster than other masteries, it's three times the gain for the same amount of effort. (Again, I dispute this assumption; I recall there being no particular difference in gain, just in the goal per dot*)
3. Capped skills and attributes will give breakthrough bonuses. (While I'm open to the possibility, there's not really been much evidence for this either)
Ergo:
3. Archery is the most important skill to max out as it'll give the biggest breakthrough bonus and be the most impressive display.
* I definitely remember Sword and Spear each taking only a week of training with the Golden Fields group to go from 0/3 to 3/3, and I recall seeing Resilience getting 2 or maybe even 3 progress per training action with Meizhen.
EDIT: Okay, I went back to the early days. First two masteries to show up in advancement were after Zhou's test.
* Dodge 1 was at 3/6 after week 5 + Zhou's Test.
* Throwing Knives 1 was at 3/6 after week 5 + Zhou's Test.
Then, week 6:
* Dodge went to 4/6 after Zhou's lessons
Then, week 7:
* Dodge went to 7/6 after Zhou's lessons + training with Han Jian
* Throwing Knives went to 6/6 after Zhou's lessons + training with Han Jian
* Unarmed went to 2/6 after Zhou's lessons
EDIT 2:
Ahah, I dug up archery.
* Week 16: Trained archery from 0/3 to 3/3
** Also trained Heavy Polearm +1, Dodge +4, Unarmed +1
* Week 17: Trained archery from 0/5 to 2/5, then Moonfill brought it to 3/5
** Also trained Heavy Polearm +1, Dodge +1, Unarmed +1
* Week 18: Trained archery from 3/5 to 6/5
** Also trained Resilience +3, Heavy Polearm +1, Dodge +4, Knives +2
* Week 19 + Thunderdome: Trained archery from 1/8 to 6/8 (+5)
** Also trained Resilience +3, Spear +2, Dodge +6
* Week 20 + Disappearances: Trained archery from 6/8 to 3/11 (+5)
** Also trained Spear +1, Resilience +6, Dodge +5
* Week 21: Trained archery from 3/11 to 5/11 (+2)
** Also trained Dodge +1, Knives +1, Resilience +2, Swords +1
So I think I see where he's getting "Archery advances faster than other masteries" - he's looking at when Ling Qi started training FSA (which only advances archery) and was used in events and taking that as a baseline... and ignoring how others were also improving rapidly (Dodge and Resilience in particular) with use.
Note that knives, which were being used less (arrows being preferred) and barely trained at all, only inches along during this period.
Last edited:
Yes, but the Four is Death meme is literally a cross-tone pun and Grass Mud Horse wasn't created by non-native speakers. Grass Mud Horse - Wikipedia
I definitely remember sword and spear taking 3 weeks for the initial dot of mastery each. We have exactly 1 dot with no additional exp, and there was multi-week debate over them at the time. We've never swapped weapon training focus in consecutive weeks.
Anyway, maybe they felt that masteries are more difficult to raise because other skills more frequently (excluding archery) have multi-exp gains instead of just 1? The thing that that perspective misses is the types of activities that go into those relative gains. Activities centered around other skills tend to be more focused. If we're taking an action to do something, often an action that does not even involve cultivating an Art, getting more than 1 exp just makes sense. For masteries, we've either been cultivating an Art or Physical, and splitting exp between Dodge/unarmed/Throwing Knives/Archery/other most weeks.
Resilience has benefitted from a capable tutor (Meizhen) and the Black Pool later on as it rose, so even in the absence of truly dedicated focus, its relatively rapid improvement makes sense. Archery is unusual in its consistently rapid tutorless growth, but because it's unusual, it's a poor candidate to extrapolate from in making judgements on mastery vs skill exp gain.
Last edited:
- Location
- Cyberspace
Yeah, I dug up the items. I was mistaken on spear (which took two weeks), and heavy polearms and swords (three weeks each) but I did remember resilience correctly. Here's the initial period of training archery. This is also when FSA was being trained and archery was being used in a series of events (Moonfill, Thunderdome Redux, Disappearance).
Sword, spear and heavy polearm were never serious weapons to be trained and have never been used in practice - they were, as I recall, a brief aside so Ling Qi has some understanding of some of the classic 'noble' weapons. The bulk of the weapons training (and usage) during this time was archery, and I suspect that's the major reason why it advanced so fast during these weeks.
Look particularly at dodge below - it advances in large leaps as it's used almost exclusively by Ling Qi as her defense. Resilience gets a large jump for Dark Dream and for Disappearances.
Meanwhile knives, which was just as much affected by the ??? trait and mostly abandoned in favor of archery for the offense... doesn't improve much at all.
Without training FSA and using it in missions, you see archery declining in improvement, as in weeks 28 and 31-32.
During this period Archery improved by 55 progress; Resilience improved by 43 progress and dodge by 38 progress (but capped at week 28; by then archery had only progressed 35 and resilience 27). In what is probably not a coincidence, these were the most used masteries, and all of them progressed at a similar pace (and in a similar pattern - steady progress with training, then spikes for intensive use). Unarmed and Knives were used a bit, and Polearms et al were trained a bit.
EDIT: On a whim, I started up a spreadsheet for this info and began with attributes. The number of progression points each attribute has gained between weeks 16-35 are:
Strength: 25
Dexterity: 24 (capped week 26)
Stamina: 38
Intelligence: 33
Wits: 39
Resolve: 45
Presence: 18
Manipulation: 47
Composure: 34
Now, there's a catch, omake points, which skews the "natural" progression somewhat. Still, I think it suggests where Ling Qi's attention and usage lies in regards to attributes.
Stamina, for example, has been surprisingly well-cultivated; Ling Qi endures remarkably well. Manipulation isn't a surprise, of course, as is Ling Qi's lack of Presence
Last edited:
- Location
- Staring into the void
Doesn't breakthrough increase the caps?
Breakthroughs also reward reaching caps
- Location
- Cyberspace
Welll... that's actually not certain. There's definitely rewards for levels of arts (and possibly extra weight for reaching either mastery or the cultivation realm soft-cap), number of meridans and amount of qi. But Ling Qi hadn't hit a skill or attribute soft-cap before breaking through... and we only have that first pair of breakthroughs to get data from.
It's actually been vaguely frustrating that the sect doesn't seem to have lessons or texts or the like that outline what makes for a 'good' breakthrough. Oh, I wouldn't expect hard numbers, but guidelines on what to work on seems to be a bit of a no-brainer for a sect whose cultivation art is well-known for being excellent for establishing a cultivator's foundations. Rivalrous theories as to how many elements to pursue, how many arts to attempt to master, thoughts on focusing on arts vs. qi vs. raw cultivation, etc - those would be extremely handy bits of information for disciples and ones that would offer the sect higher-quality disciples in return.
But instead there's a bit of info about what the elements mean, some discussion of formations, some practical training and... that's about it. Ling Qi's got a bit of supplemental advice from a couple of her allies, but...
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
The people that the Argent Sect are actually geared to develop are people who would already know this stuff from their superiors.
So there's not really any need to talk about it in any real detail--anyone who's liable to achieve Green is either going to hit their limit there (In which case, a superior breakthrough is mostly redundant, because you're already not going to be terribly impressive), or already has a backer who can give them specific information.
Like, I'm sure you can find out the general details if you're willing to shell out on the Sect Points to peruse the library, but what it boils down to is that the Argent Sect doesn't really make allowances for a super talent to rise up from nowhere and actually need to know this kind of thing to avoid getting pushed out by the other super talents. Again, it's chiefly the playground for the nobility--who would already know all of this business. Remember as well that the Tournament normally has it that a peak Second Realm has a good shot at getting into the top eight outside of a Monster Year like this--which means that anyone who lucks out to getting promoted is going to have time to get a crash course regarding a great breakthrough from the Inner Sect.
This year is an extreme outlier in how much talent is concentrated here after all--it's not surprising that it's not designed to function properly in light of that. After all, a normal first year hitting Green is going to curbstomp most of the opposition, and even second years aren't necessarily going to be strong Greens. But as it stands, we've got at least three Strong Greens coming up from the first years, and at least two more who have a good chance to also be Monster Tier. Then we've got Kang Zihao and Gan Guangli who are probably going to successfully breakthrough.
Like, seven fucking first year Greens? Minimum? (Gu Xiulan and Han Jian are also strong candidates to breakthrough I might add, and I doubt Han Fang will be far behind). That's obscene, I legitimately doubt that their system is designed to cope with that kind of perfect storm of Talent--and the fact they're still having to go "We'll only take the luckiest and strongest eight of these super talents, the others can get fucked" is probably something that's causing them something akin to physical pain.
But precedent is a hell of a thing in Fantasy China. Especially for groups with a long history.
That being said, I wouldn't be surprised as more of the Super Talents break through and start asserting dominance in the final months, if we won't see the Elders creating clues towards alternate graduation methods which they'd normally keep hidden as rewards for the super diligent and lucky. Because they probably just need an excuse to grab a bigger share of this super crop of rookies.
Last edited:
I think it's more in line with the Sect's general philosophy of not spoon feeding information. They hand out one month of lessons and if you want anything more you have to go earn it somehow. If it were a modern college type of setting you would see, for example, Elder Jiao giving seminars on formations. Instead students have to complete a difficult quest in order to earn a chance at a limited number of one on one tutoring sessions.
Also, it's hardly impossible for an upstart to acquire information via noble backing. Ling Qi has a backer in Bai Meizhen who has coached her up on what to expect when you're expecting (a breakthrough). Ji Rong has had the chance to dig for information from a couple people on going Green.
Information may also be available through non-noble channels if you're willing to put in the work to dig it up. If Ling Qi were more of an analytical person she could have had Suyin borrow her archive pass and compile a report on the leading theories re: breakthroughs to green. And who knows what kind of information Fu Xiang has for sale.
Well, the thing is I do sort of expect someone like Elder Jiao to be giving seminars on formations.
Just to the Inner Sect rather than the Outer.
The Outer Sect is a combination cheap labor force/talent sifter. The Inner Sect are who they're actually interested in teaching.
At least, that's how it usually shakes out in xianxia.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think you've seriously misunderstood something here? Because Athletics isn't very important, much less all that involved with speed.
Speed calculations are done in the following manner: Dex+ Str+ 5+ Physical cultivation level+ Misc
Athletics does not affect our speed in the slightest. What Athletics does do is affect Athletics tests, since there are certain situations in which we proc Stamina + Athletics to determine how tired we get after a strenous activity (Zhou's Test part 1), or we proc Dex+ Athletics and Str+Athletics when chasing someone around (Moonfill part 2). In fact, we haven't used Athletics since Moonfill. Whereas we do use our Archery quite often, as it's one of our main modes of attack. The benefit we'd get from maxing Archery is actually better than the one from Athletics, because believe me it's really not that amazing of a skill.