Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

[Humbaba]

Sorry for the late response, I've been busy.

@Hangwind @Mr.rodent I think you're misunderstanidng my argument. I am very aware that Ling Qi, and the concentration of talent in this year are both extrememly abnormal.

However, extremely talented people like Ling Qi and Ji Rong are still vastly, vastly more common than people like Sun Liling and Cai Renxiang, both of whom are virtually guaranteed to be the heirs of their ducal houses, and have resources thrown at them to match (which basically never happens). Meizhen is less rare, having lesser (but still relatively enormous) backing due to her house having vastly more possible heirs.

The question is not are the 'monsters' impressive to the poor schlubs trapped in the tournament with them, and I include literally everyone including Ling Qi who isn't one of the monsters in those schlubs (they undoubtedly are). The question is, from the perspective of one of the higher ranking and powerful adult observers, is their cultivation progress actually that remarkable compared against the standards set by others of their birth rank and resources?

The seperate question secondary question then becomes, how impressive is this compared to someone like Ji Rong or Ling Qi, when considering their circumstances?

I am also very aware that people are more than their cultivation, with Cai having far and away the best achievements amongst them (from an outside perspective), and that can factor in to the outside judgement of how impressive they are. Altough as a side note the early rounds were Shenhua pounding it into Renxiang's head that slacking off on her personal direct combat strength in favour of group leadership arts was not acceptable to her.

So having noted that Ducal Heirs (and scions to a much lesser extent) are in and of themselves extremely rare, imagine that somehow all of them from history were scooped up and placed in the same year and magicallly provided with the same level of backing they would have had in their time. Where would the "monsters" rank then, including their non-cultivation abilities and achievements? Would they still be head and shoulders above the pack, would they be in the top 5%, 10% 40%, would they be middle of the road?

I definitely don't feel they are the best of the best. I feel like they'd probably place in the top 20% easily, but I'm much less sure about anything beyond that.

Now on the entirely seperate point of their where I feel their impressiveness stands in comparison to Ling Qi or Ji Rong, think of it this way: It is very, very impressive for anyone to get into one of the world's top Universities. It is even more impressive for those people to be at the very top of their classes, especially if they're also doing a lot of extra-curricular activities. Doesn't matter if they've had tutors, extra help etc. all their life, it is extremely impressive.

But if you then look at the next highest people in the class (who are still getting very high marks) and find that they were from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds, who started education extremely late (especially in comparison to the aforementioned people) and are working part-time jobs in addition to their studies to help cover their living costs.

There is no doubt who is doing better academically, or in terms of social life. But who do you instinctively feel is more impressive?
Even if the former are still extremely impressive as people, even if you point out all the extra help that the latter have taken advantage of once then arrived, when you place the former next to the latter they don't feel as impressive as they would next to anyone else.

 

[Deadly Snark]

Except, as I understand it, that's exactly the sort of thinking sending them off to a sect is supposed to deal with. Because, as Meizahn and the Bai in general testify, it causes problems. More, it makes the sects an active destabilizing influence on the Empire as a whole. In this case, Sun is much more likely to be a problem in the future now. Again, why do they exist if they only cause problems? Remember, they thrive only because of the patronage of the Empress.

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What you are not considering that just because the sects are training grounds for up and rising Nobles, it does not give them supreme authority over the young nobles that comes from the high ranking noble families.

Sure everyone will pretend that all the rules also apply to Liling, CRX an Meizhen. Because that is the polite thing to do. The Ducal Heirs give the sect face by accepting the Sect's authority, within reason. And in return, the Sect must give the high ranking younger nobles, or rather the families behind said younger nobles face by knowing when they can push said authority and when they shouldnt.

Punishing Liling in a noticeable manner and having that punishment be accepted by Liling is a case of the former. Everyone knows she fucked up, so she has to take that punishment, or else the Sect loses face and appears weak, and this will damper the Sun and Argent Sect relationship. But at the same time, having that punishment being only a very loud and visible, but not much more than a slap on the wrist is case of the later. She is a Ducal Heir, punishing her too hard will only piss off Sun Shao and shame the Sun, and thus the Argent sect avoids that. Its was a punishment that got across the Sect's dipleasure and saved their face, but at the same time gave the Sun face by not pushing too far.

If the Sect could just punish the Younger Nobles of the Great Noble Clans at will. Then all hell breaks loose on multiple levels.

Firstly. That would send the message that said Great Noble House is toothless and weak. Unable to protect their children, throw their weight around for them either due to a lack of resources, power or will. Now this means that the other Great Noble Houses would see this and begin sharpening their knives and going after said apparently toothless clan, going after their children and territory. If said Clan is that weak, then welp, the Sect has just broadcasted to the whole Empire their weakness and before they die out they might just try to take the Sect down with them. And if Said Clan is actually super power, welp the Sect just pissed them off stupidly, and in order to regain face they must crush the Sect with everything in their power in order to demonstrate their power and get the other clans to back off.

Secondly. None of the Great Noble Clans will ever accept giving the Sect, a third Party, the authority to just punish their children. That is entirely a duty and privilege of the House itself. No one can fuck with members of their extended families except for them. In all of their eyes that would be a hilarious overreach of the Sect's authority. They will never accept that. If the Sect did this, this would be one of the few times you'd see even rival great clans uniting their power and influence and absolutely crushing the Sect for its stupidity.

Thirdly. As you said, the Sects thrive because of the patronage of the Empress. Have you even considered what that means politically by taking into account my first and second points? If the Empress is the patron of the Sect, and the Sect does that shit. Well taking into account point 1 and 2, that would translate to the Empress trying to use the Sect as an political tool to play the Houses against each other by exposing the weakness of some houses and then trying to bypass the limitations of the Imperial Authority. Using the Sect as an way to crush down the Great Noble Houses and break down their privileges without technically dipping into the realm of being a Tyrant. That is exactly how the Great Noble Houses would see it as, even if that wasnt the case. And the fact is, that those things are exactly what the Empress is trying to achieve with her patronage of the Sects, so that would be the truth. Its just that the Sect blew the load by acting like idiots. So that means that when the Houses protest furiously the Empress would be left with two choices. Either chastise the sect and let it be devour and ripped into pieces by the Houses and thus appearing like she has no power. Or potentially going to war with all the Great Noble houses the Sect would have just pissed off.

And congrats, the social structure of the Empire has just taking another critical blow on top of everything.

The Sect is a training ground yes. Its meant to allow the future important members of the Noble houses to interact and form connections. Its meant to allow the young nobles to form connections with Imperial Institutions. Its meant to train new nobles into productive members of the Empire. It is not meant to discipline the High ranking nobles like young Ducal Heirs and members of the Ducal Houses. Sun Liling made a mistake? Correcting her and teaching her new ways is Sun Shao's responsbility and duty. CRX kind of fucked up by not focusing on Cultivation? The Sect can say it, but correcting that is not up to them, but to Shen Hua.

The Higher Ranked Nobles like the Ducal Houses innately receive preferential treatment within reason, because the Ducal Houses are each powerful enough to form independent Kingdoms in their own right. Pissing them off by shoving equality with the lesser nobles and commoners down their throat is just going to make them either want to take revenge on the Sect, or outright break away and dare the Empress to try and bring them down. Thus to keep peace and stability, the preferential treatment is necessary.

The Sects exist as a way of reinforcing the status Quo. You are suggesting that they piss that away and start some kind of horrible mess due to not understanding how the politics involved works.

 

[Humbaba]

I'd argue that we don't see enough of the social consequences (in large part due to Ling Qi's personality) of these things either.

In regards to thunderdome 2 in particular Sun being booted out was a pretty big punishment from what the sect can do in the first place, but it also did a fair bit of damage to Sun's reputation becasue of her philosophy. She publically boasted of her personal strength and espouses the might makes right philsosphy, but everyone knows that the only reason her allies didn't get looted to the ground swiftly afterwards was because of her political connections.

Whilst that level of protection might be something her future subordinates were happy to have you can bet a lot of people were laughing behind their hands at her.

Plus that they were even willing to go as far as they did is a pretty big 'you messed up' sign hanging over Liling.

Just because the consequences aren't as obvious and immediate doesn't mean they aren't there. Reputation and reputational damage is an important thing even if people aren't able to insult you to your face. Take the example of the Bai and how their reputation turned against them once they weren't completely unassailable.

 

[veekie]

However, extremely talented people like Ling Qi and Ji Rong are still vastly, vastly more common than people like Sun Liling and Cai Renxiang, both of whom are virtually guaranteed to be the heirs of their ducal houses, and have resources thrown at them to match (which basically never happens). Meizhen is less rare, having lesser (but still relatively enormous) backing due to her house having vastly more possible heirs.

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Uh, that is incorrect. You get commoners of said talent level about once per mortal generation per province. Talent is rare outside of cultivator or spirit bloodlines, and most of the noble clans scoop out the various Talent 4-5 commoners to serve in their military and work forces, which probably does no favors for the natural talent of the general population, assuming normal heritability, you'd be seeing most of the Talent 5 blood move into minor cultivator families like the Mas.

You get High Nobility Scions(with relevant levels of patronage), vastly more often, the rarity is that most clans prefer to keep their best and brightest in house(where they have synergistic arts, drugs, and sites for generations) rather than outsource their upbringing. The Great Clans can afford to raise up someone of their standards pretty regularly, the problem with the Young Master archetype is usually less the resources put into them, and much more a lack of work ethic. Heirs is rare, but thats mostly because Heirs are usually picked out much later in life...the amount of resources they cost their clan at Yellow and Green just isn't going to be significantly different between heir and non-heir, they can buy as many drugs as they want to use, with the gating mechanic being Spirits and Tutors

The Monsters are not unusual for the level of talent or resources invested into them. They are unusual because they're monstrously driven, with above average Talent AND access to Ducal resources.

 

[Arkeus]

Uh, that is incorrect. You get commoners of said talent level about once per mortal generation per province. Talent is rare outside of cultivator or spirit bloodlines, and most of the noble clans scoop out the various Talent 4-5 commoners to serve in their military and work forces, which probably does no favors for the natural talent of the general population, assuming normal heritability, you'd be seeing most of the Talent 5 blood move into minor cultivator families like the Mas.

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Please don't give numbers when we have no clue about them. Especially as considering that everyone the MoI spells get is Talent 6+, it's very likely that, well, you get someone like Ling Qi every year in every Great Sects, and Ji Rong every handful.

Heirs is rare, but thats mostly because Heirs are usually picked out much later in life...the amount of resources they cost their clan at Yellow and Green just isn't going to be significantly different between heir and non-heir, they can buy as many drugs as they want to use, with the gating mechanic being Spirits and Tutors

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The big difference between, say, Xuan Shi and Meizhen is he doesn't have a Xuan Wu yeah. If he had one? instant fourth monster.

Likewise, CRX has a spirit item of the highest value, and Liling's spirit beast is probably preeetty insane.

 

[veekie]

Meizhen mentioned the Bais had Grandfather tutoring on a limited allocation as well.

So we got a spectrum of High Nobles:
-Han Jian - Super Kitty way more badass than him, no notable Tutoring mentioned. All the Drugs but not motivated to train pre-sect(but from what we see he has a broad based Art grounding, in that he's pretty well rounded even with his support focus).
-Xuan Shi - No Spirit, no notable tutoring mentioned. From his progress he either has great talent or All The Drugs. Either motivated or he's found a way to indulge his hobby while cultivating.
-Bai Meizhen - Super Snek, tutoring from Grandfather. All the Drugs. Motivated AND started super early.

The Spirit might be the most visible sign of family favor, since getting a good pedigree to obey you is not an easy matter, but in terms of raw value I suspect tutoring from senior family members is probably the most valuable and limited resource, because its an elder spending time babysitting instead of doing High Cultivation Level Things

 

[Humbaba]

Uh, that is incorrect. You get commoners of said talent level about once per mortal generation per province. Talent is rare outside of cultivator or spirit bloodlines, and most of the noble clans scoop out the various Talent 4-5 commoners to serve in their military and work forces, which probably does no favors for the natural talent of the general population, assuming normal heritability, you'd be seeing most of the Talent 5 blood move into minor cultivator families like the Mas.

You get High Nobility Scions(with relevant levels of patronage), vastly more often, the rarity is that most clans prefer to keep their best and brightest in house(where they have synergistic arts, drugs, and sites for generations) rather than outsource their upbringing. The Great Clans can afford to raise up someone of their standards pretty regularly, the problem with the Young Master archetype is usually less the resources put into them, and much more a lack of work ethic. Heirs is rare, but thats mostly because Heirs are usually picked out much later in life...the amount of resources they cost their clan at Yellow and Green just isn't going to be significantly different between heir and non-heir, they can buy as many drugs as they want to use, with the gating mechanic being Spirits and Tutors

The Monsters are not unusual for the level of talent or resources invested into them. They are unusual because they're monstrously driven, with above average Talent AND access to Ducal resources.

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Please provide citations on the number of commoners of our talent level that turn up.
Edit: Whoops Arkeus already pointed out that we don't know either way.

And no the level of support we see Cai Renxiang or Sun Liling get vastly outstrips what a typical high noble or even ducal scion would get. Liming is literally one of the most complex (and presumably expensive) creations in the world, with only two or 3 other of the same quality in existence.

Sun Liling's grandfather dotes on her (as she said herself in her interlude), and it's clear from the narritive that at the very least the amount of political capital he's using on her is vastly greater than a mere scion would get. Beyond that both have had a significant amount of personal attention and the time of and training from a white cultivator, in itself an almost priceless resource.

Whilst Meizhen has had some amount of time with her Grandfather and Aunt, it is also clear that this was not personalised or occured very, very rarely. They are also prisms, rather than whites, which is a significant difference.

Heirs are of a whole other calibre of backing even compared to regular scions, and Meizhen isn't truly regular given the clear affection her aunt has shown her and the extra resources she has undoubtedly recieved for her actions against Liling so far (which a ducal scion would not get ordinarily).

Plus you can't simply buy "all the drugs" or at least ducal families don't. All the common drugs may well be available (although what is commonly available will vary geographically) but the really really good drugs like sable light pills etc are still the province of the really lucky or whose family are willing to invest significantly more resources into them than normal (see Elder Su's comments when we showed her).

Meizhen mentioned the Bais had Grandfather tutoring on a limited allocation as well.

So we got a spectrum of High Nobles:
-Han Jian - Super Kitty way more badass than him, no notable Tutoring mentioned. All the Drugs but not motivated to train pre-sect(but from what we see he has a broad based Art grounding, in that he's pretty well rounded even with his support focus).
-Xuan Shi - No Spirit, no notable tutoring mentioned. From his progress he either has great talent or All The Drugs. Either motivated or he's found a way to indulge his hobby while cultivating.
-Bai Meizhen - Super Snek, tutoring from Grandfather. All the Drugs. Motivated AND started super early.

The Spirit might be the most visible sign of family favor, since getting a good pedigree to obey you is not an easy matter, but in terms of raw value I suspect tutoring from senior family members is probably the most valuable and limited resource, because its an elder spending time babysitting instead of doing High Cultivation Level Things

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Han Jian had tutoring from his father alongside Heijin's dad, he just tended to slack off a bit, with it being less noticable due to his natural high talent. He still came in ready to breakthrough basically immedietly despite his slacking ways and much later start than the ducal children. Heijin was only actually a bit stronger than him when they came to the sect, Han Jian just got stuck in breakthrough hell for ages.

We know almost nothing about Xuan Shi's life previous to the sect, so I have no Idea what you're basing your analysis (EDIT: [of his tutoring]) on.

 

[Sirrocco]

So that's an interesting point about Bai Miezhen. How the hell is she one of the Three Monsters? By our best understanding, she's been basically on par with Sun Liling as far as raw combat ability, and Sun Liling has had *way* more backing. Bai Meizhen is cultivation-obsessed, and her family does some pretty unhealthy things for power, but Sun Liling doesn't seem to care about much of anything other than cultivation, training, and fighting, and her family is also willing to do some pretty unhealthy things.

Is it just a raw talent differential? Are the secret techniques and bloodline effects of the Bai just that much stronger than anyone else's? What's the deal here?

 

[TehChron]

So that's an interesting point about Bai Miezhen. How the hell is she one of the Three Monsters? By our best understanding, she's been basically on par with Sun Liling as far as raw combat ability, and Sun Liling has had *way* more backing. Bai Meizhen is cultivation-obsessed, and her family does some pretty unhealthy things for power, but Sun Liling doesn't seem to care about much of anything other than cultivation, training, and fighting, and her family is also willing to do some pretty unhealthy things.

Is it just a raw talent differential? Are the secret techniques and bloodline effects of the Bai just that much stronger than anyone else's? What's the deal here?

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Well, yeah

Compared to the Sun and the Cai, as a Ducal clan the Bai have an almost infinitely deeper foundation.

This goes for treasures, talismans, resources, Uncapped stats, wealth, art libraries, stocks of potent spirits, etc. It's an absolute quantitative advantage. If anything, Liling and Renxiang cheat through Dharitri and Liming respectively to match her.

 

[Arkeus]

Meizhen mentioned the Bais had Grandfather tutoring on a limited allocation as well.

So we got a spectrum of High Nobles:
-Han Jian - Super Kitty way more badass than him, no notable Tutoring mentioned. All the Drugs but not motivated to train pre-sect(but from what we see he has a broad based Art grounding, in that he's pretty well rounded even with his support focus).
-Xuan Shi - No Spirit, no notable tutoring mentioned. From his progress he either has great talent or All The Drugs. Either motivated or he's found a way to indulge his hobby while cultivating.
-Bai Meizhen - Super Snek, tutoring from Grandfather. All the Drugs. Motivated AND started super early.

The Spirit might be the most visible sign of family favor, since getting a good pedigree to obey you is not an easy matter, but in terms of raw value I suspect tutoring from senior family members is probably the most valuable and limited resource, because its an elder spending time babysitting instead of doing High Cultivation Level Things

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Han Jian- Given Heijin when he was awakened. Mention specifically that he didn't take advantage of opportunities granted to him, and Heiji is bitter about it. He doesn't have a broad base of art, and only got access to the good arts once he proved himself in outer sect.
Bai Meizhen: No tutoring mentioned, just common "all the kids" classes. Mention that she didn't have all the drugs, did start super early, got Cui, got special art from Aunt.

Compare to:

CRX: Started super early, personal tutoring from a White, Unique spirit that she was fitted to when 6yo.
Sun Liling: Personal tutoring from a White, Sunflower Spirit that does [Error].

Meizhen was more or less a normal Ducal scion that was favored by her Aunt, Han Jian was ''son of the heir" that disappointed the father and is only making effort now. Xuan Shi was a normal ducal scion without special gifts (unless those are about his production stuff).

Sun Liling and CRX, however, were groomed personally to be heirs, even more so than Han Jian. They had the direct attention of the strongest clan cultivator, and were not allowed to slack off.

So that's an interesting point about Bai Miezhen. How the hell is she one of the Three Monsters? By our best understanding, she's been basically on par with Sun Liling as far as raw combat ability, and Sun Liling has had *way* more backing. Bai Meizhen is cultivation-obsessed, and her family does some pretty unhealthy things for power, but Sun Liling doesn't seem to care about much of anything other than cultivation, training, and fighting, and her family is also willing to do some pretty unhealthy things.

Is it just a raw talent differential? Are the secret techniques and bloodline effects of the Bai just that much stronger than anyone else's? What's the deal here?

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Meizhen has the ''You killed my mother" drive, and had the attention of the clan heir. The Bai is also a clan with a significantly stronger foundation than the Cai or Sun.

She still had significantly less ressources than they did, but ultimately Ducal ressources are Ducal ressources. If Xuan Shi had a Xuan Wu, he would be the ''fourth monster".

 

[CatOnTheWeb]

She still had significantly less ressources than they did, but ultimately Ducal ressources are Ducal ressources. If Xuan Shi had a Xuan Wu, he would be the ''fourth monster".

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He's already a monster when you look at some of the shear bullshit his formations are, he's just not nearly as combative or noticeable as the other monsters.

 

[Orkus Majorkus]

He's already a monster when you look at some of the shear bullshit his formations are, he's just not nearly as combative or noticeable as the other monsters.

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Ji Rong: Pfft. Wuss.

*gets trapped in time again*

 

[BungieONI]

Well, yeah

Compared to the Sun and the Cai, as a Ducal clan the Bai have an almost infinitely deeper foundation.

This goes for treasures, talismans, resources, Uncapped stats, wealth, art libraries, stocks of potent spirits, etc. It's an absolute quantitative advantage. If anything, Liling and Renxiang cheat through Dharitri and Liming respectively to match her.

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30,000 year history tends to do that.

 

[victor janus]

I'd just like to point out to hangwind that banishing her was a punishment. If she hadn't been she wouldn't have been punished period. What makes you think the sect would allow CRX to snub their authority to allow her to do harm of such a level to such a prominent person.
Hell given the sects political purpose the fact that they let CRX do as much as she does is a pretty solid sign that they like the Cai. Further emphasized by giving up their chance to show off the power of their own sect(remember that they got budget cut to put that in context) to allow the Cai to make a political statement.
So no I don't believe you. The sect is about as Pro Cai as they are allowed to be.

 

[Yeangst]

The thing about comparing the resources Bai Meizhen, Sun Liling, Han Jian, Xuan Shi and all the other scions got, is that at the end of the day, we're talking about resources for red and yellow cultivators.

We're talking red and yellow stones, pills that use third grade beast cores at most, that can be synthesized by Outer Realm disciples.

There are some expections, like CRX's Liming, Meizhen's flying sword or the spirit beasts that Meizhen, Liling and Jian got, but it seems like mathematically, a family's (above viscount level, I'd guess) resources aren't really going to be strained until you have to start throwing around Green Stones around.

Until that point, what differentiates cultivators is motivation/talent, luck and to a slightly lesser extent, the existence and quality of a pre-curated art suite (or 'build').

It seems that clans don't withhold resources out of scarcity, but because they want to test their scions and see them earn it. For example, we see examples of Xiulan and Han Jian not being given access to powerful family Arts until they earned them. But producing copies of those has very low marginal cost, maybe a few red stones for the jade slip and a a yellow stone for the DRM.

It just like how Adobe doesn't hand out free copies of Photoshop, but it's not because the CDs cost too much.

 

[OneArmedYeti]

It's also a factor that before you give your kids stuff, you have to make sure they aren't scrubs that are going to lose it all in a fight.

That's likely why we haven't seen anyone with an item spirit on screen except for CRX.

 

[Sirrocco]

The thing about comparing the resources Bai Meizhen, Sun Liling, Han Jian, Xuan Shi and all the other scions got, is that at the end of the day, we're talking about resources for red and yellow cultivators.

We're talking red and yellow stones, pills that use third grade beast cores at most, that can be synthesized by Outer Realm disciples.

There are some expections, like CRX's Liming, Meizhen's flying sword or the spirit beasts that Meizhen, Liling and Jian got, but it seems like mathematically, a family's (above viscount level, I'd guess) resources aren't really going to be strained until you have to start throwing around Green Stones around.

Until that point, what differentiates cultivators is motivation/talent, luck and to a slightly lesser extent, the existence and quality of a pre-curated art suite (or 'build').

It seems that clans don't withhold resources out of scarcity, but because they want to test their scions and see them earn it. For example, we see examples of Xiulan and Han Jian not being given access to powerful family Arts until they earned them. But producing copies of those has very low marginal cost, maybe a few red stones for the jade slip and a a yellow stone for the DRM.

It just like how Adobe doesn't hand out free copies of Photoshop, but it's not because the CDs cost too much.

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Huh... interesting points... and by that perspective, Bai Meizhen would have been getting some pretty nice support.

As far as I can tell, her family had three objectives for her in the sect. She was to cultivate, improve the diplomatic situation, and punish/damage/shame the Sun. This is bearing in mind that the Bai are *terrible* at diplomacy. The Sect was basically Remedial Diplomacy 101 for her, because the Bai thought it might be nice to have some people in the family who had at least learned remedial diplomacy.

And then she's sending letters home saying things like "So, Ling Qi, that waif that I took in the first day and have been providing some assistance to, managed to make herself enough of a thorn in Sun Liling's side to get the princess's full personal attention. When I found out, I ran to her defense, and Sun Liling spent the rest of the day running away from me. Frustratingly, I wasn't able to catch her, but Ling Qi got away, at least, and my ally and possibly-friend the heir to the Cai took the opportunity to utterly disassemble what organization Sun Liling had managed to build while she was busy with us." Really, given what they sent her there to do, what more could they want?

Though that raises another point, because you missed one, and it's one of the Bai's strengths. It's not just the curated art set (though that's part of it), it's all the little system hacks they've managed to figure out and integrate along the way. My guess is, for example, that Bai Meizhen is the only person on the mountain who has access to her particular variety of tea. The fact that they play the nonlethal form of "street ratviper poison jar" with *every one of their own descendents* is probably also pertinent. They even have the poison for it.

Still, yeah, that all makes a lot of sense. Thanks.

...also, I hadn't been thinking about it, but Sun Liling really did waste a fair amount of time and effort basically half-assing her way though various forms of "gather minions and build an organization". She wasn't very good at it, but it does still cut into cultivation time.

It occurs to me that Bai Meizhen's current rep in her family is probably going to be something like "Too kind-hearted for her own good... but she's amazingly good at making friends, and that's useful. The two *could* be related." This amuses me.

 

[BungieONI]

It occurs to me that Bai Meizhen's current rep in her family is probably going to be something like "Too kind-hearted for her own good... but she's amazingly good at making friends, and that's useful. The two *could* be related." This amuses me.

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It amuses me too. I figure the Bai do understand what diplomacy is. They just do not care ninety nine snakes out of a hundred.

 

[PrimalShadow]

Especially as considering that everyone the MoI spells get is Talent 6+

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Do you have a source for this?

 

[Diomedea]

Do you have a source for this?

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Ask, and you shall receive. Relevant parts underlined.

Going through your holdings to poke around for talents then giving them some starting resources and education isn't exactly a huge innovation, I should point out. That's just kinda how you build up your lower ranks. Like the reason that the highest talent starting characters were commoners isn't because there's bunches of talent 6/7 random street kids around, it's because only the ones that talented ping the MoI divination arts for sect recruitment.

commoners who are talent 3-4 just don't get nabbed by the sects, 5's are borderline, so you won't exactly be stealing from the Sect's plate by running a training camp to get your cultivator infrastructure up to snuff.

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[PrimalShadow]

Ask, and you shall receive.

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Thanks.

Though I should note that this means everyone the MoL grabs is Talent 5+. Talent 5 is borderline so not all of them will be found, but given that there are probably a lot more talent 5s than talent 6s or higher, that would mean that there majority of those the sect picks up are talent 5.


...admittedly, that is already pretty damn high. I'm surprised people didn't treat us better, given that our starting status apparently screams "high talent". Like, I think we got looked down upon a couple of times for being a commoner (by Fan Yu, and I think by some folks in the thunderdome...).

On the other other hand, when we approached a ducal clan member out of the blue, she was willing to room with us and help us get started, and seemingly had confidence in our ability to succeed from the start. So there is that.

 

[Asael]

It amuses me too. I figure the Bai do understand what diplomacy is. They just do not care ninety nine snakes out of a hundred.

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I don't buy this for a second.

You don't survive as long as they did without understanding and using diplomacy.

 

[Orkus Majorkus]

I'm surprised people didn't treat us better, given that our starting status apparently screams "high talent". Like, I think we got looked down upon a couple of times for being a commoner (by Fan Yu, and I think by some folks in the thunderdome...).

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Old money usually hates new money. Lotta new houses, which come from these commoners, flame out or get absorbed or eaten by the Wilds. Nobles gonna noble.

Meizhen not treating us poorly just a testament to good manners and social niceties she was trained at

 

[BungieONI]

I don't buy this for a second.

You don't survive as long as they did without understanding diplomacy.

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That reasoning is part of why I made that post.

They know what it is, and thus understand it is what I meant. They just present an image of not caring, which as far as we can tell actually has some meat to it.

 

[angelofwhim]

What is Talent really? Purity of their base qi plus motivation assessment?