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Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

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archangis said:
Creative scuicide attempt aside, you know what they say about energy fields bigger than your head.

Always throw disposable minion in them first.
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Well, yeah, that's what we did with the Weilu Tomb:
Ling Qi couldn't help but smile, it seemed even a place like this was known to the Sect. The small part of her excited by the discovery of something new was a little disappointed, but she supposed it was silly to expect the Sect not to know of any major sites on their land. They probably exploited it for treasure materials themselves, and by discovering it, she earned the right to take a few. Still, she couldn't help but wonder. Crouching down, Ling Qi picked up a stone, and gently tossed it across the lake.

The moment it crossed into the broken field of qi that covered the island, the stone exploded into powder. No, more accurately, it aged. In the fraction of a second that she had to watch it, she had seen pockmarks and cracks forming at impossible speed across the rock.

Which left the lake she supposed, as the plaque said. Expressing from her ring a small tree branch she had taken from outside for just this kind of purpose, she prodded at the liquid, and noted the way that the bark came away withered and gray. As she thought, it drank in Qi and vitality.

She would only get a few tries to grab something out, however… there were signs of where the treasure lay, places where the smooth surface of the liquid was troubled it's flow diverted by objects beneath the surface.

In the end though, all she could do was guess.
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We first checked the isle with a rock, then the lake with a branch, and then we dived in to try and get the loot before we ran out of Qi.

There is no particular reason for the minions to, well, be expensive if they don't need to be.
 
Rayous said:
can anyone point me to the threadmarks that had the tomb, i want to reread that section
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Here it is. It's actually a bit confusing and rushed at the end, as we aren't quite sure how Ling Qi god the items- they were in different places in a wide lake that drain Qi and vitality, so she couldn't exactly have used a branch to dig things up at the bottom. She probably dived in, but arguably she could have been using the worms too.
 
CRX will probably be given the task to reach a certain ranking within the Inner Sect, either alone or together with a small subset of subordinates. Whether she was ordered specifically to "take over the Outer Sect" or something, or given a more vague instruction like "impress me", then either way after she's shown her organizational chops in the Outer Sect (where it's easy to be top of the heap cultivation-wise) next she'll want to show her personal prowess or political abilities in an environment where she's not automatically a leader.
 
I more or less agree. The inner sect will prove more of a political challenge.
It is a much different enviroment compared to the outer sect.
Cai has no chance of comparing on a martial/cultivation level to the majority of the inner disciples, not in just one year.
What she needs to succeed in the inner sect is to play the court and intrigue game, and to play it well.
 
Neshuakadal said:
If you want to go and find arts that will help with those hazardous situations level them up to be useful then equip them and hope not to get into a fight go ahead and try a get a plan like that through. Or we can sit back and drink tea while working on EPC while a little mouse skeleton gets what we want.
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Err, we're going to need to pick up more Arts eventually no matter what. Broadly applicable Arts are the best, but there are places for more specialized Arts, as well. There isn't a pressing need right this instant, given that we still have a number of Arts left to improve, but we're getting there.

On the offensive side, we've maxed out Fleeting Zephyr and Falling Stars Art, and we're at the Fourth Flow of Argent Current and the Third Rumble of Argent Storm.

For Perception, we're going to max out Argent Mirror this turn and push Abyssal Exhalation to rank 3 - but perception is very much a secondary part of Abyssal Exhalation.

For Movement, we've maxed out Fleeting Zephyr, and will push Sable Crescent Step to rank 6 this turn, with Argent Storm at Rank 3. I think SCS will max out during Green Foundation (9). Phantasmagoria of Lunar Revelry (PLM) also increases our base speed, and we're at the Second Revel.

For Physical Defense, we've got Thousand Ring Fortress at the Fifth Ring, and we'll max it out at Green Appraisal (8), and Argent Storm at Rank 3. PLM is at rank 2.

For Spiritual Defense, we're getting the True Reflection of Argent Mirror this turn and bringing Abyssal Exhalation to rank 3 (of eight). PLM is at rank 2.

For Crowd Control/AoE, Fleeting Zephyr is at max rank, we're pushing Forgotten Vale Melody to the Seventh Measure this turn (of eight), Frozen Soul Serenade is at rank 2 (of six), Abyssal Exhalation will reach the rank 3, and PLM is at rank 2.

For Leadership/Support/Buffs, we've maxed out Fleeting Zephyr, Thousand Ring Fortress is at the Fifth Ring, and Argent Current is at the Fourth Flow. Ranged/Physical Defense/Melee.

Musically we've got Forgotten Vale Melody and Frozen Soul Serenade - we really need an Art that works alongside the 'basic music attacks' here.

Socially we've got Argent Mirror (Composure, Resolve, Empathy, Perception) and PLM (Social).

For Stealth/Spying, we've got Sable Crescent Step and Argent Mirror (Investigation).

Damn, PLM is crazy good.

Anyway, we have room to improve for quite some time without any new Arts, but there are areas we will need new arts or upgraded Arts in.

Our Melee is going to cap soon, our ranged is capped, our general Perception will cap this turn but the earth-based AE won't. Defensively TRF caps at Green Appraisal and Argent Mirror caps this turn, but AE and PLM will remain open for quite a few Cultivation ranks yet.

Hm, we need Green Appraisal for quite a bit, now don't we? Probably wisest to bring our Physical Cultivation to the same level as our Spiritual before pressing on though, given how many of our Arts are Yin-aligned it looks to be all too easy to veer heavily towards the Spiritual.
 
finally found the post with the map, week 38 part 1.
"For now though, she would just have to store her new map away… and remember to look into a few other interesting looking locations she had spotted glancing over it."
Are we going to have any time after the tournament? Because I kinda want to do a scavenger hunt. Mark the places we already know on the map, check out the other places, invite all our friends (since we are no longer competing there is no problem all of them with looting the outer sect dry).
 
I doubt yrsillar would allow us to exploit the map further. At most it'll be used as a gift/trade with our friend(s) not going to Inner Sect with us.
Assuming they don't get barred from First Year Outer Sect treasure spots.
 
Arkeus said:
I did say we would be 'much better' at it, and that's because Thousand Rings Unbreaking negate damage from any source, even "soul damage" or "death damage"... but I would be very surprised if 'soul damage' or 'death damage' is not also poison or disease.
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What about curses? I am positive that there are such areas that are heavily cursed either from the spirits that had lived there or by spiteful cultivators. The shaman's totem curse did no damage but weakened us. If it could weaken us a much stronger curse could do much worse.

There is also the idea that you are espousing that we can be in more then one place at once. If we have a puppet that can search for rare drops and bring them back to them why wouldn't we? That way we can get the drop and cultivate at the same time. How would you suppose to accomplish such a task with out using formations?
 
Neshuakadal said:
There is also the idea that you are espousing that we can be in more then one place at once. If we have a puppet that can search for rare drops and bring them back to them why wouldn't we? That way we can get the drop and cultivate at the same time. How would you suppose to accomplish such a task with out using formations?
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1. Getting a puppet high enough level to go out and do that kind of thing would require massive investment. Note that Renshu needs to manually control his puppets for anything serious.

2. Even if we could achieve that, I wouldn't want to. That sounds really boring. Getting out and about and going on quests makes things interesting, and provides more variety than just sitting around grinding cultivation. Trying to offload the quests so we can sit around and just grind cultivation sounds like it would just be a terrible idea quest-wise.
 
Neshuakadal said:
What about curses? I am positive that there are such areas that are heavily cursed either from the spirits that had lived there or by spiteful cultivators. The shaman's totem curse did no damage but weakened us. If it could weaken us a much stronger curse could do much worse.

There is also the idea that you are espousing that we can be in more then one place at once. If we have a puppet that can search for rare drops and bring them back to them why wouldn't we? That way we can get the drop and cultivate at the same time. How would you suppose to accomplish such a task with out using formations?
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I highly doubt that puppets are somehow the one answer to curses no one never thought about. I strongly suspect getting our puppets able to bypass cursed treasure vaults would demand much higher investment to being able to do it ourself.

Beside what Erebeal has said, I was not implying we could be in two places at once (though we could, we know clones are a thing). I was saying we would be better than puppets at doing it. Being better means not only bringing more loot obviously, but doing it ourself also means being able to gain more experience from the adventure as well as personal insights... but also such adventures can gain us allies (Hanyi, Zhengui, Zeqing, Sixiang, etc). I don't really think that it would have been any good for us to sent a puppet in our place to the tower indicated by the map.
 
Erebeal said:
1. Getting a puppet high enough level to go out and do that kind of thing would require massive investment. Note that Renshu needs to manually control his puppets for anything serious.

2. Even if we could achieve that, I wouldn't want to. That sounds really boring. Getting out and about and going on quests makes things interesting, and provides more variety than just sitting around grinding cultivation. Trying to offload the quests so we can sit around and just grind cultivation sounds like it would just be a terrible idea quest-wise.
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1. His puppets seemed to have very high level combat ability even without his direct control there. Or he could control multiple puppets at the same time.
Also we really have no idea how much investment it would take to get a formation that could help us gather rare drops and explore dangerous areas. The reason we have no idea about is how much investment it would take is because we have done 0 major actions toward the pale manual. Who knows how big the investment is. If you are opposed to even putting any reasonable actions towards the pale manual then we are at a complete impasse. To advert a future argument I don't know what is reasonable but I do know that 0 is unreasonable.

2. Getting the argent liquid could have been a really fun quest. Moving through those corridors to small to have a human being and then getting calcified would have been a really fun read.
Past that rant rare drops are not always going to be in place that are possible for us to get into or in places far to dangerous to go into. We could set up a scout to explore areas for rare drops. Then we go on an adventure somewhere else. Then we come back and check in on the scout. If there is interesting stuff in that area then boom next adventure. However if the area is to dangerous to go into or has nothing interesting in it boom saved an action.

Edit to avoid double post:
I highly doubt that puppets are somehow the one answer to curses no one never thought about. I strongly suspect getting our puppets able to bypass cursed treasure vaults would demand much higher investment to being able to do it ourself.

Beside what Erebeal has said, I was not implying we could be in two places at once (though we could, we know clones are a thing). I was saying we would be better than puppets at doing it. Being better means not only bringing more loot obviously, but doing it ourself also means being able to gain more experience from the adventure as well as personal insights... but also such adventures can gain us allies (Hanyi, Zhengui, Zeqing, Sixiang, etc). I don't really think that it would have been any good for us to sent a puppet in our place to the tower indicated by the map.
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Your answer to every thing about the puppets is that Ling Qi can do it better. So how do you purpose that we do two things at once? A cloud tribe is invading there are two objectives. Stopping the main force, Killing the shaman (which is not with the main army as we have been told by the argent tutor). If you fullfil one objective the other will know and disappear preventing complete victory. How do you suppose to solve this? The other thing. The moon quest was a social quest. We didn't know about it at the time and we don't have a scout that could have informed us of what was going on. That is part of the point spending actions to explore the pale manual and find solutions to problems we have or will have.

Heck I am just using the current information that the pale manual has given us to extrapolate possible future benefits. For example looking at fvm 1 we had no idea of what it would end up. That is where we are with the pale manual. What other formations and rituals are in it's pale pages? We don't know since we have just started. Your complete belief about and negative view about what the pale manual can or could do for us is infuriating. We know we can control multiple puppets because Li Suyin can. What other things are hidden in those pale pages? We don't know. You don't know. We can guess. I am making a positive guess and you are making a negative guess. I am trying to drum up support by giving examples of what the pale tome could help with. I am drumming up support because I think the pale manual will have a positive impact on our ability to handle the dangerous the world Ling Qi lives in. I don't know though what the end will look like because we are at the start of the tome. You are trying to destroy support for the pale manual because of your seeming belief that learning more about the pale manual will be less helpful or even negative ability to handle the dangerous world then doing anything else. Hell learning from the pale manual will probably trigger EPC's learning new things clause at this point, but you seem bent on trying to destroy any interest in it.
 
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So how do you purpose that we do two things at once?

Delegation? We're a support build. We work best when we've got other cultivators to buff. If Ling Qi is facing an army on her own things are so fubar the best option is running away.
 
Neshuakadal said:
Your answer to every thing about the puppets is that Ling Qi can do it better. So how do you purpose that we do two things at once? A cloud tribe is invading there are two objectives. Stopping the main force, Killing the shaman (which is not with the main army as we have been told by the argent tutor). If you fullfil one objective the other will know and disappear preventing complete victory. How do you suppose to solve this?
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By having friends?

Skepticism over whether or not it's remotely practical to have autonomous puppets capable of that high level of operation, we don't need to do everything ourselves. We shouldn't be trying to. That is what we have friends for. And thematically, we are not the kind of person who can't rely on or trust anyone else and so uses puppets for everything. We get friends instead.
 
Neshuakadal said:
Your answer to every thing about the puppets is that Ling Qi can do it better. So how do you purpose that we do two things at once? A cloud tribe is invading there are two objectives. Stopping the main force, Killing the shaman (which is not with the main army as we have been told by the argent tutor). If you fullfil one objective the other will know and disappear preventing complete victory. How do you suppose to solve this? The other thing. The moon quest was a social quest. We didn't know about it at the time and we don't have a scout that could have informed us of what was going on. That is part of the point spending actions to explore the pale manual and find solutions to problems we have or will have.
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I have actually pointed out where puppets could be very helpful to us in the future. Not pale manual puppets, but YR style one. E.G, using telepresence and 'fake ling qi' puppets so we can be at a gala while also stealing the secret information.
Heck I am just using the current information that the pale manual has given us to extrapolate possible future benefits. For example looking at fvm 1 we had no idea of what it would end up. That is where we are with the pale manual. What other formations and rituals are in it's pale pages? We don't know since we have just started. Your complete belief about and negative view about what the pale manual can or could do for us is infuriating. We know we can control multiple puppets because Li Suyin can. What other things are hidden in those pale pages? We don't know. You don't know. We can guess. I am making a positive guess and you are making a negative guess. I am trying to drum up support by giving examples of what the pale tome could help with. I am drumming up support because I think the pale manual will have a positive impact on our ability to handle the dangerous the world Ling Qi lives in. I don't know though what the end will look like because we are at the start of the tome. You are trying to destroy support for the pale manual because of your seeming belief that learning more about the pale manual will be less helpful or even negative ability to handle the dangerous world then doing anything else. Hell learning from the pale manual will probably trigger EPC's learning new things clause at this point, but you seem bent on trying to destroy any interest in it.
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What are you talking about?

We have learned everything we are willing to learn in the pale manual except the Gargan. This has been noted. Formations are not like arts where there are multiple levels. We can improve on pale manual formations we have learned, but those won't be pale manual formations anymore, like Suyin's formations have grown beyond the ones in the pale manuals.

We know we have finished learning everything there was to learn that interested us in the pale manual. This has been noted. We can build on it, but this isn't some kind of "we don't know what secrets there is in the future". It's "We don't know what we could create with the foundation of what we learned from the pale manual".. and we kinda do know.

We have finished the tome. Or rather, the parts of the tome Ling Qi was willing to work with.
 
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Erebeal said:
By having friends?

Skepticism over whether or not it's remotely practical to have autonomous puppets capable of that high level of operation, we don't need to do everything ourselves. We shouldn't be trying to. That is what we have friends for. And thematically, we are not the kind of person who can't rely on or trust anyone else and so uses puppets for everything. We get friends instead.
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Assuming that we always have friends with us is not great. Are you going to ask Li Suyin to hold off the army or go on a dangerous quest to kill the shaman? Maybe we have subordinates that are good enough and we trust enough to handle the situation. Maybe we don't, what is the solution then? This is an incredibly specific situation. However, I can still imagine many cases where being into two places at once creates the best end result. The point still stands that we can't do two things at once. Puppets help us do multiple things at once.

We have learned everything we are willing to learn in the pale manual except the Gargan. This has been noted. Formations are not like arts where there are multiple levels. We can improve on pale manual formations we have learned, but those won't be pale manual formations anymore, like Suyin's formations have grown beyond the ones in the pale manuals.

We know we have finished learning everything there was to learn that interested us in the pale manual. This has been noted. We can build on it, but this isn't some kind of "we don't know what secrets there is in the future". It's "We don't know what we could create with the foundation of what we learned from the pale manual".. and we kinda do know.
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How do you know that with such clarity Arkues? Where does such confidence about what is in the pale manual come from? Have the actions taken to understand the manual really been enough to understand the pale manual? How many actions have we taken to learn from the pale manual? We don't know what is in the pale manual. We know what Li Suyin found useful. I don't think she tried to short change us or hide anything from us. However, we really don't know what everything that is in the book. We may have a rough idea of all of the puppet formations but we know from Li Suyin that there are other formations in there that she has not told us.
 
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Neshuakadal said:
Assuming that we always have friends with us is not great. Are you going to ask Li Suyin to hold off the army or go on a dangerous quest to kill the shaman? Maybe we have subordinates that are good enough and we trust enough to handle the situation. Maybe we don't, what is the solution then? This is an incredibly specific situation. However, I can still imagine many cases where being into two places at once creates the best end result. The point still stands that we can't do two things at once. Puppets help us do multiple things at once.
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I'm sure the title comes with personal, if it doesn't then it's just a matter of hiring some.

Edit: If puppets are completely capable of replacing red & yellow cultivators, why isn't everyone doing it?
 
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Neshuakadal said:
Assuming that we always have friends with us is not great. Are you going to ask Li Suyin to hold off the army or go on a dangerous quest to kill the shaman? Maybe we have subordinates that are good enough and we trust enough to handle the situation. Maybe we don't, what is the solution then? This is an incredibly specific situation. However, I can still imagine many cases where being into two places at once creates the best end result. The point still stands that we can't do two things at once. Puppets help us do multiple things at once.
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And that's nice, but we don't get anything for free.

What about the time when we get our ass-kicked because we've been wasting time on formations rather than actually making ourselves personally stronger? What about the time when one of our friends bleeds to death because we're not a healer? What about the time when we loose a fight because we're specced for group combat and stealth rather than duels?

It is never possible to cover every possible scenario. To be perfect in all situations. At the end of the day, we have to choose to focus on things, and ignore others.

I do not see murder-golems as being an interesting, thematically/character appropriate, or necessary path for us to take.
 
Killer_Whale said:
I'm sure the title comes with personal, if it doesn't then it's just a matter of hiring some.

Edit: If puppets are completely capable of replacing red & yellow cultivators, why isn't everyone doing it?
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We are going to be a barony. We are going to have reds. How useful are reds? Hiring people have it's own problem. How are you going to find and then afford anyone that is close to our equal? Everyone that reaches green is a noble with their own problems and obligations.

What about the time when we get our ass-kicked because we've been wasting time on formations rather than actually making ourselves personally stronger? What about the time when one of our friends bleeds to death because we're not a healer? What about the time when we loose a fight because we're specced for group combat and stealth rather than duels?
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If you see formations as a waste of time with no redeemable feature then that is your view. Don't state that as fact though.

If a friend dies because we are not a healer then that will be awful. We can't specc for everything. That doesn't mean we can't prepare contingencies. Formations are great for contingencies. Puppets allow us to do several things at once. If our friend is bleeding out we can drag them away towards a healer with our puppet while we hold off what tried to kill them.

However if you find no reason or no situation that could be helped with the pale manual or formations then we will be on opposite camps and fundamentally disagree on this area.
 
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Erebeal said:
What about the time when we get our ass-kicked because we've been wasting time on formations rather than actually making ourselves personally stronger? What about the time when one of our friends bleeds to death because we're not a healer? What about the time when we loose a fight because we're specced for group combat and stealth rather than duels?
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I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, since none of those ever happened.
 
Neshuakadal said:
However if you find no reason or no situation that could be helped with the pale manual or formations then we will be on opposite camps and fundamentally disagree on this area.
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Of course there are situations where puppets would be useful. There are also situations where it would be great if we were a healer. Or if Gan Guangli was stealthy. Or if we were specced for one-on-one face-punching.

So what?

Neshuakadal said:
No but we can do more than one thing at once with puppets.
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But not for free. There is no free lunch here. Investing in puppets means sacrificing other things. And frankly I suspect that anything that needs our personal attention is also not going to be able to be handled by an automated puppet.
 
Erebeal said:
Of course there are situations where puppets would be useful. There are also situations where it would be great if we were a healer. Or if Gan Guangli was stealthy. Or if we were specced for one-on-one face-punching.

So what?


But not for free. There is no free lunch here. Investing in puppets means sacrificing other things. And frankly I suspect that anything that needs our personal attention is also not going to be able to be handled by an automated puppet.
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The so what in this case is that we have a resource to build up puppets. The other respecs you have provided would cost exponentially more. More meridians more time more drugs more time in the library.

I don't want to make our focus puppets. But pretty soon we are going to be capping our arts. We will be learning new arts. However, instead of getting the maximum number of arts we could we spend some time on formations. Sure we lose on the maximum number of arts we get but I believe that the puppets will more than make up for it. You disagree with such a statement obviously but saying that nothing is free is disingenuous. Any new art we get will not be free. I believe that work on the pale manual will be worth it though.
 
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