The problem is, is it a test of bravery? Ambition? Humility? Wisdom? Friendship? Obedience?
It is entirely possible it is just what it appears and the quality it tests for is leadership- there are plenty of ways to obtain cooperation from another cultivator beyond violence, starting with intimidation and ending with bribery.
Yeah, it's completely possible that we're giving up something good. But I'm fine what that - this whole dungeon is bonus and gravy, and our friendship is worth more the whatever is at the end of this.
Old Ling Qi would work with people and get close to them and abandon them when they weren't useful any more. That sounds overly harsh and more intentional than it really was- but it's the truth. But now she's trying to change, to let herself grow close to others- to grow strong enough that she can afford to stand besides someone through thick and thin.
Wow. Congrats on passive aggressively seizing character analysis to suit your own agenda- I liked the parts where you were blatantly wrong.
You missed the part where I don't really give a shit but I'll point out abandoning people to die/=/ drifting away from friends with different issues, habits, and lifestyles. Or are you implying we're all monsters for no longer being friends with the child friends we had in kindergarten?
The stress on the relationship is up cultivating passed them. It's only 'abandoning' them in that I (and others) are arguing that it's not worth it to sink actions into a SL that's damaged by us succeeding.
Ling Qi gets into ID and they get...what exactly? Sure it's not a death sentence but don't they have an agenda that's just as personally important to them as Ling Qi's is to herself?
Abandoning people to twist in the wind without making any effort is OK...as long as they don't end up dead or similar degrees of fucked. It's a little improvement I guess?
I think what people who look at it this way tend to ignore is that Ling Qi didn't really regret what she did on that score of using people and abandoning them because she felt she had few choices. Her final take on it was 'Now I can afford to TRY to be a better person SOMETIMES.'
There was no declaration that Friendship Is Magic or that she is now Paladin Ling Qi and forevermore on the side of Good. If anything, there was an acknowledgement that life WAS going to continue to force her to make tough choices- just, at the same time, now she can afford to be a bit better in how she treats people. But still, there was also a sense of 'When I can- not always'.
That's not at all the same thing as some seem to imply- frankly the comparison between abandoning a little boy to be beaten half to death by guards versus spending less time with a powerful noble heir who has his own posse is just absolute absurdity.
[X] Volunteer to return. She had only come here to help Meizhen after all
It could be a bluff, but is probably not. To that end, this kind of *is* Bai Meizhen's find; Ling Qi was needed because she's a second pair of hands, and she played a role in the fight against the bats, but this is her roommate's prize. Ling Qi has already gained a *lot* from this event. Argent Mirror, some cores, a good amount of battle experience... no need to be greedy.
Plus, if there's a trial after this, it's unlikely that Ling Qi will be able to pass any better than Bai Meizhen and Cui. Bai also gets Cui - so there's actually two people to face any future trials. If there's some prize, then Ling Qi might later trade access to Argent Mirror for access in return.
Besides, between the two, Bai Meizhen is actually under greater danger than Ling Qi. Su Liling is going to want a rematch, for one, and Kang is almost certainly going to be waiting in the wings for an opportunity to cripple or even kill her.
Not all the clashes were transcribed because NUMBERS, NUMBERS, NUMBERS that don't actually add much.
Also, few things are as anticlimatic as 'get ready there are dozens of foes in the cave' followed by 'and then you soundly thrashed all of them in two minutes'.
[X] Volunteer to return. She had only come here to help Meizhen after all
It could be a bluff, but is probably not. To that end, this kind of *is* Bai Meizhen's find; Ling Qi was needed because she's a second pair of hands, and she played a role in the fight against the bats, but this is her roommate's prize. Ling Qi has already gained a *lot* from this event. Argent Mirror, some cores, a good amount of battle experience... no need to be greedy.
Plus, if there's a trial after this, it's unlikely that Ling Qi will be able to pass any better than Bai Meizhen and Cui. Bai also gets Cui - so there's actually two people to face any future trials. If there's some prize, then Ling Qi might later trade access to Argent Mirror for access in return.
Besides, between the two, Bai Meizhen is actually under greater danger than Ling Qi. Su Liling is going to want a rematch, for one, and Kang is almost certainly going to be waiting in the wings for an opportunity to cripple or even kill her.
Really, to be honest, if the reward Meizhen gains is something shareable (like an art), then she might well be willing to share it with Ling Qi - especially if Ling Qi offers to share Argent Mirror in return.
Incidentally, I wonder what Meizhen got from beating the mimic worm - did she pick up an art? Same art? Something else?
I'll grant that, thinking about it, there's some temptation to have Ling Qi wait for Bai Meizhen to answer - mostly to find out what she'd say. Perhaps she sees a loophole?
Actually I'm coming round to the idea that waiting for Meizhen may be the best action as she'd have the occult dots to figure out if there's anything beyond the obvious here.
Here's a bit of (possible) background folklore. I borrowed a touch from a couple Mongolian mythological figures and tried to make it in a "mythological" tone, but I'm not sure if I entirely succeeded.
Article:
The First Formation
The following is a transcription of one of the many creation myths of the Cloud Tribes. The source of cultivation, formations and spirits is often ascribed to different origins from tribe to tribe, and this one puts the credit on apocryphal folk hero Gesar. Formations and the binding of spirits have been often tied together in Cloud Tribe culture, with the most important role of their older cultivators being dealing with the many spirits that roam their mountain territories. - Dai Chin, Imperial Scholar
It was in the time of the third generations of sons descended from clay, some two hundred years after heaven's firstborn, walked the land that his brother stretched across the water that the houses of the tribes lay plentifully upon the land, which was then as flat as a palm. The land was then welcoming, with trees and game in plenty and the spirits were quiet and avoided men out of respect of the firstborn of Father Heaven.
But then the land trembled and arose. The houses shattered and the tribes were divided one from the other by the peaks and valleys seen even today. Trees withered, game starved and the spirits ran wild. Malicious demons stalked the land at night, in the shape of the loon whose legs Ulgen Tenger broke, and many whispered that Father Heaven had perished.
It was into that time that Gesar was born, under a fateful star to a mother who perished in the birth. For this he was despised by his father, who had loved his mother more than life, and his six brothers. The infant was given to a goat to suckle, the open sky his roof and the fence his walls.
Nevertheless, he grew strong and wise, learning to speak from the whispers on the wind and the ripples on the lake. The energy of the earth and sky flowed through him, and from gazing upon Father Heaven he learned the secrets of cultivation.
When the earth shook again and the mountain he lived upon tumbled down upon his eldest brother, his father and five remaining brothers left the mountain, abandoning the infant Gesar to the wilderness, for they had little food for the journey.
After some years, Gesar grew lonely, for the loyal goat, his nanny, did not speak, and he grasped not the squeaks of the ground-rats below nor the chirps of the birds above. And while he did not fear the spirits of the world, who had grown wicked and hostile outside his mountain peak, neither would they speak with him, only departing wordlessly into the mist. No matter what he said, he could not get them to stay, no could he, even with his understanding of the secrets of the soul, hold even the simplest of them to him. And thus the child grew more and more determined. Scheme after scheme he hatched, but none availed him.
It was on a dew-filled morning that he caught sight of a spider, spinning from fragile thread. Having nothing better to do, the black-skinned youth watched for hours as the web formed, and listened to the wind as it wound around and around the glistening strands. And then, once it was finished, he watched a bird, dozens of times the size of the spider, fly into it. As it struggled against the mass of threads, any one of which it would not even notice snapping, he understood.
Line after line he drew forth from his soul, laying them upon one another in a pattern upon the dirt. As he entwined them between one another, he brought forth his yearning and his wishes and wove them too into his web. And in the center he placed a stone he had found, one that shone with the glory of the rainbow, along with three drops of his blood, and then he hid in the bushes.
Soon the aroma of the blood, mixed with the light of the stone, spread through the forest and eventually the rabbit, Tuulai, approached. Cautiously scenting the air, Tuulai, who could not resist the call of the stone, opened his mouth wide to devour it, and it was at that moment that Gesar sprung his trap. The many lines of his soul snapped shut, leaving Tuulai held in place, unable to flee the boy as he had done dozens of times before.
And it was with this feat, the first time a spirit was bound by a man, that Gesar embarked on his path.
[X] Volunteer to return. She had only come here to help Meizhen after all -[X] Ask if we can wait on this side while Meizhen passes so we can hear / see that she makes it to the other side safely
[X] Offer it some of the fragments from the corpse of the great beast as a meal in exchange for allowing both of you to continue.
-[X] If this fails volunteer to be the one to return.
[X] Volunteer to return. She had only come here to help Meizhen after all -[X] Politely ask for a guarantee that Meizhen, the one who passes by, will be safe from him
