Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

Hmm, I remember @yrsillar mentioning something like this in response to someone making a plan that has a vote for checking the archive for Art... Was that you @Arkeus?

Anyone remember what page that was?
I've been looking for that myself and here's what yrsillar said on it:
Just which meridians you want it to use. So say arm art or a combo spine/head art or whatever. You can also specify an element, but if you do there will probably only be two or maybe three choices.
 
So basically...specify as little as possible for the most choices?

Just meridians then. Or even jusy ONE specified meridian leaving the rest open
 
Hmm, following the chain of posts...

Ling Qi found the first few that she could locate that only took a single heart meridian. There are upwards of a hundred art scrolls on the first floor
On the one side? That's cool. On the other side, how are you going to mechanic selecting from "upwards of a hundred art scrolls on the first floor" if we *do* get a library key?
You guys tell me what kind of art you want, and I make a list of four or five that catch Ling Qi's eye.
How specific or general can we be? Do we have to say 'Spine', or could we say 'Disease inflicting?'
Just which meridians you want it to use. So say arm art or a combo spine/head art or whatever. You can also specify an element, but if you do there will probably only be two or maybe three choices.

So we say, single Arm, and yrs would list four or five related Arts, that peruse only one single Arm Meridian at its first stage, from various elements, and a small blurb about what moves said Arts contain.

We can also say:
- first stage uses at least an Arm meridian, with the assumption that there would be more than one meridian
- first stage uses a Wind Arm meridian, which might give a more specific smaller list
- first stage uses Dark and Wind Meridians, without specifying the places

We possibly can say:
- an Art that grants kicking or flying knife moves...
- maybe even ask a Head Art that grants extra damage bonus...
But best to say what we expect from the Art, without specifying the Meridian and Element, in order to get a larger list.

At least, that's my opinion.
 
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Whew, just caught up. First, I'd like to say we definitely need to do the Han Jian personal action next week, not just group training again, and I am also strongly in favour of talking to Suyin and Su Ling and just telling them straight "Look, my other group of friends has been struggling, I'm worried about them, and I'd like to give them access to this vent to help them in their cultivation. I know they were asses to you, I'm sorry, but do you think you could maybe come to some kind of business arrangement with them, where they help you with training or resources or things like that, and in return, they get access to this place?"

I'm just... seriously feeling the tension in the Han Jian group right now, and feeling very sorry for Han Jian since he's clearly struggling. I know we're closer to Suyin and Meizhen, but Han Jian is the first person who helped us out in this sect, he gave us a leg up, and maybe it was for political reasons, maybe it wasn't, but the fact remains that he helped us, and I want to help him in a more concrete way than just talking to him. Loaning him our archive token might help too, but we apparently can't do that this week since we need to look up arts ourselves, and I honestly think the vent will help them more. I really wish Social Animal had won this week, but since it didn't, I hope a plan like it can win next week.

[x] 1 Life Essence Salve
[x] Meizhen's thoughts on cultivation goals for the second realm
 
Hmm, following the chain of posts...








So we say, single Arm, and yrs would list four or five related Arts, that peruse only one single Arm Meridian at its first stage, from various elements, and a small blurb about what moves said Arts contain.

We can also say:
- first stage uses at least an Arm meridian, with the assumption that there would be more than one meridian
- first stage uses a Wind Arm meridian, which might give a more specific smaller list
- first stage uses Dark and Wind Meridians, without specifying the places

We possibly can say:
- an Art that grants kicking or flying knife moves...
- maybe even ask a Head Art that grants extra damage bonus...
But best to say what we expect from the Art, without specifying the Meridian and Element, in order to get a larger list.

At least, that's my opinion.

Looking at yrsillar's posts I am actually pretty sure that we can name, say, a specific weapon.

He wants to avoid having to write up a dozen different arts we only take one from, not restricting us to only naming element or meridian.

These were just his examples.

I think we very much can also look for a "defense ignoring art" or a "high damage high charge time" art.
 
[X] 3 Wellspring pills, 1 Life Essence Salve

[X] Meizhen's thoughts on cultivation goals for the second realm
 
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[X] 3 Wellspring pills, 1 Life Essence Salve

[X] Meizhen's thoughts on cultivation goals for the second realm
 
Why are people voting to get more things than could be used during the event? Ling Qi already has three Wellspring pills (and a maximum of two can be used per day) and a White Peak salve (a maximum of one can be used per week).
 
[X] 3 Wellspring pills, 1 Life Essence Salve
[X] Imperial politics and recent history in general


Why are people voting to get more things than could be used during the event? Ling Qi already has three Wellspring pills (and a maximum of two can be used per day) and a White Peak salve (a maximum of one can be used per week).
They can still be used after the event, so why not? Also, we can perhaps feed them to Cui if needed. :D
 
They can still be used after the event, so why not? Also, we can perhaps feed them to Cui if needed. :D
Because we're already running through money like water for drugs? Becuase our income is already vastly outstripped by our spending and we have all the medicinal supplies we can practically use?

Meizhen will almost certainly have her own medicinal supplies for her and Cui and spending a massive portion of our funds on to oversupply on medicines we're unlikely to use is a bad idea.

Frankly if we run into enough trouble to use all our current medical supplies in this raid we should be retreating not pressing forward.

@yrsillar Do we have to vote explicitly to not buy any supplies or does no vote for that count as a vote not to buy?
 
Because we're already running through money like water for drugs? Becuase our income is already vastly outstripped by our spending and we have all the medicinal supplies we can practically use?

Meizhen will almost certainly have her own medicinal supplies for her and Cui and spending a massive portion of our funds on to oversupply on medicines we're unlikely to use is a bad idea.

Frankly if we run into enough trouble to use all our current medical supplies in this raid we should be retreating not pressing forward.

@yrsillar Do we have to vote explicitly to not buy any supplies or does no vote for that count as a vote not to buy?
Salve-wise, it is good, but pills-wise, if we don't want to save in case of future use, low level ones can still be re-sold for the same price.

I'd assume Wellspring is still low level.
 
Because we're already running through money like water for drugs? Becuase our income is already vastly outstripped by our spending and we have all the medicinal supplies we can practically use?

Meizhen will almost certainly have her own medicinal supplies for her and Cui and spending a massive portion of our funds on to oversupply on medicines we're unlikely to use is a bad idea.

Frankly if we run into enough trouble to use all our current medical supplies in this raid we should be retreating not pressing forward.

@yrsillar Do we have to vote explicitly to not buy any supplies or does no vote for that count as a vote not to buy?

I guess we will get some sellable loot from our dungeon dive.
The payout from the unique board missions is also nice.

While this should not make us spend our stones recklessly, to have some extra healing items can be very useful depending on how the mission will proceed and how long it will take.

If we won't need them - nice, we do not need to buy them the next time we have a combat mission or dungeon dive.
But if we need them and don't have them, well, worse case we would not fulfill an objective we could have had otherwise.
 
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A tall xixhang capped with a silver hoop
xīzhàng?
"No touch can reach but mine
reach him?
and the other girls interactions with her had been
girl's?
who could bargain at least somewhat equally with her housemates family.
housemate's
but she didn;t have time for that sort of comprehensive education right now.
didn't
 
So looking back on it, does everyone outside of maybe Han and his group think we are Bai's vassal? And are they right? Almost everyone at that meeting showed up with a second and the discussion seemed to imply that even if we had failed at breaking through to yellow we still would have been allowed in as escort to Bai. Xuan sending a greeting to Bai through us could have been knowing that we were friends, but honestly I wouldn't be surprised if everyone but Ling Qi read more into it than that. Most importantly, she is an elder cultivator that has provided us with protection, medication, advice, and consumables to help advance in return for aiding her in projects. Aid that we immediately went off to provide the instant we were qualified to do so.

I don't think it is necessarily bad if this as seen as true, or even if it is true, I just think it is something that ought to be brought up. Even if it isn't true yet I would be rather surprised at this point of Bai wasn't planning to at least try to get her assigned to her province so long as the relationship continues in this vein, and once we set up there I don't think there would be any way to dispute that we were her vassal.
 
They think so, but that Ling Qi didn't pull a seat for Meizhen drew some attention.

Also, yes, Meizhen has been hinting so with Ling Qi.
 
What's a Xixhang/Xizhang supposed to look like anyway? I googled it and it wasn't giving me consistent results or wikipedia articles.
 
[X] Meizhen's thoughts on cultivation goals for the second realm

Not really caring about this vote too much. All the choices are good. Although I'd be interested in the thoughts of someone who's nearing green so guess I'll go with that.
 
[X] Imperial politics and recent history in general

Stuff we need to learn given what's going on in the Sect ATM is like mini-Empire politics that we're blundering around into.

Hopefully, everyone will choose to spend time with Han Jian this week. I'm a little worried it's too late - that the time to 'strike' so to speak was last week while he was still thinking on it, but we should try. In that vein, I'm leaving spirit talk to Han Jian, and we can offer to unlock the starlight pills for him and Xiulan.

I don't think cultivation goals is that important - we have a good idea already, and no one 'in-verse' will know the specific numbers, which is what people want to know anyway.

Opposition might change closer to the tournament and no doubt we'll have an action for that later.

Lastly, I was already thinking of it, but this update confirmed to me, at least, that we'll need to give up on any revenge stealing or duels of our former ... nuisances, since I suspect most of them are Red Soul (and maybe not even Late Red Soul). The downside to doing such really isn't worth it, and our AP is better spent elsewhere.

Also, jeez, Ji Rong. There's social stigma and then there's piss off every notable faction in the Outer Sect. Must have rolled a crit fail. I know some people were somewhat interested in approaching Ji Rong, but the guy must have like 0 ability for impulse control and apparently has a long memory for grudges. He's going to keep getting into random and seemingly dumb fights with others.

(I hope this cave gives some red stones. We're running out of money.)
 
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Awesome chapter as always. Shame that we're still not finidhed with the tokens and that Han Jian's lot are still awkward around us but we get to go on an adventure with Best Snek so nothing else really matters. Hearing more about Xuan Shi was interesting too, he's even giving us a chance to catch up with our rival. Really want Dissonance in the Night to become Instant.

[x] 3 Wellspring Pill, 2 White Peak Salve, 3 Life Essence Salve
[x] The finer details of spirits and binding


(because it'd be upsetting if we found an awesome spirit in our Best Snek adventuring but didn't have enough time to get down the theory of binding to catch it.

I wonder if we could combine formations research with Li Suyin with the tokens action.

Actually I got the feeling the tokens are meant to motivate us to research formations!

Good idea.

I am hoping mom tracks us down and moves into the nearby town.
I like the synergy between the tokens and formation research but with the idea of mum moving near here I'd be worried she'd be attacked as a slight to us.
EDIT: On checking the Dramatis Personae threadmark, it says that she's a third generation cultivator but her mother is the Duchess, meaning that unless I'm misinterpreting it one (or more) of her grandparents was the first cultivator in the family, but her mother was the one to reach White super young.
Sorry, but I couldn't actually figure out which it was so I was kinda vague. The name of the White cultivator was there but I'm not sure whether it was the mother or grandmother
I'll make that clear then
I'd be totes down for a bunny spirit . It would be an interesting dynamic with cui

"Hello prey , ssssssssss"

"Quit your yappin ya oversized boot befor ah sink mah teeth in ya" (I kind of want a male bunny with an Australian accent don't ask me why)

---'''
Obviously E. Aster Bunnymund is speaking through you
I think this may be my favourite omake, kinda excited to see yrsillar's response
 
[X] Meizhen's thoughts on cultivation goals for the second realm

It is a fire that needs to be handled but at the same time we never were part of the group as a whole . And while I do like them as characters im OK with just being friends with them. Gu needs to still come to terms that we are both an equal and possible will surpass her.

Snekgirl, us , lI suyin, and su ling would make an interesting team. Bai dmg dealer plus poisen , ling qi with her support+add su ling illusions and foxfire and then our healer who can also go full hyuga style and fuck someone's day up .
Except we aren't "just being friends with them" that was the point of noting we're being ignored and feeling like an outsider.

Gu is ultimately the follower of Han. When the Han social link drowns it will at least significantly marginalize the Gu one. They're a group.
This as well.


We don't do 0 damage, and it's not silly to say that every time we damage the opponent is us being combat inefficient
You were the kind of masochist that enjoyed using Charmander or Pikachu against Brock in Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow weren't you? :p

Even FF White Mages have Holy for direct damage purposes!

What's a Xixhang/Xizhang supposed to look like anyway? I googled it and it wasn't giving me consistent results or wikipedia articles.
A priest's/monk's staff with a large metal ring on the top of it
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KhakkharaKhakkhara
A khakkhara (Sanskrit: "sounding staff"; English: monk staff; (Mandarin: xīzhàng, literally "tin stick" and Japanese: 錫杖,shakujō) is a Buddhist ringed staff used primarily in prayer[1][2]or as a weapon, that originates from India.[3] The jingling of the staff's rings is used to warn small sentient beings (i.e. insects) to move from the carrier's path and avoid being accidentally trodden on. In ancient times it was used also to scare away dangerous animals. Ringing also is used to alert the faithful that there is a monk within earshot in need of alms. In the Sarvāstivāda vinaya the khakkhara is called the "sounding staff" because of the tinkling sound the rings make.

A khakkhara may have either four rings representing the Four Noble Truths, six rings representing the Six Perfections, or twelve rings representing the twelvefold chain of cause and effect. A four ring khakkhara is carried by novice monks, a six ring khakkhara is carried by a Bodhisattva, and a twelve ring khakkhara is carried by the Buddha. Most commonly seen are those with six rings which have also been claimed to represent the six states of existence (humans, animals, hell, hungry ghosts, gods, and asuras).

In Chinese monasteries, the abbot of the temple usually wields the staff during grand ceremonies, symbolizing the hierarchy of the abbot. The abbot would usually take the khakkhara and strike the ground thrice then shaking it, symbolizing the breaking of ignorance and calling out to all beings.

The wooden shaft can either be long for use as a walking stick or short to accompany in chanting. As a staff, the khakkhara could be wielded as a weapon; in Chinese wuxia novels the khakkhara is often the weapon of warrior monks, especially those of Shaolin Temple. It has been used in defensive techniques by traveling Buddhist monks all over Asia for centuries and monks at the Shaolin temple in China specialized in its use.

In Japan the shakujō became a formidable weapon in the hands of a practiced Buddhist monk. It could be used as a staff to block and parry attacks and the metal rings at the tip could be slammed into an opponent's face to momentarily blind him. At the very tip of the metal finial is a sharp point which can be used to attack weak points of the body. The bottom end of the khakkhara has a metal butt which can be used to thrust and hit an opponent. An opponent's weapons can also be easily deflected.

A notable carrier of the staff is Ksitigarbha, the bodhisattvas of children and travelers. He is usually depicted holding a khakkhara in his right hand.

The khakkhara is the symbol of the Dharma and one of the eighteen objects which a Buddhist monk must carry[citation needed]. Shorinji Kempo also contains methods of self-defense using the khakkhara but these methods are rarely practiced today.

In popular fiction, fictional Buddhists and Tengu are often depicted carrying and even fighting with a khakkhara.
 
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