Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
[X] Push forward, Su Ling had found the trails of several people leading here, coincidence was unlikely
update said:
"I'm not oblivious," she said obliviously.
Ling Qi, honey, when the wildwoman of your grade calls you oblivious, you might want to re-think your social awareness.
[x] Retreat, you should speak with the guards and workers for more clues before you engage anything.
Ever since Zhou told us not to retreat I don't think we've retreated a single time. At some point, that's going to burn us. It might not be today, but we're being way too casual about this for me to be comfortable.
Now while I doubt this vote will win, but I don't see why we shouldn't take this seriously and cautiously and do our prep work. There aren't any obvious disadvantages to going back and asking people while there are manifest advantages to doing so. It's rare that a QM will give you three options one update, and then during the next update will let you go back and pick both the options you didn't pick the previous update.
This is a 25 point mission. As is we have to rely on 'nope, that was too easy for a 25 point mission' to figure out if we're on the right track or not fight-wise before we hit something that may hit us back ridiculously hard. While I doubt we're up against a third realm beast, the fact that a 15 point two-man mission against a high-grade second realm that can use illusions and drains qi makes me wonder what a 25 requires.
On a more update-ish bent: If neither Su Ling nor Li Suyin are aiming for the Inner Sect, who are the Inner Sect Production Student candidates?
Also, now that we know neither of them want to be Inner Sect I hope we can re-visit the idea of going on more life-changing fieldtrips with the Golden Fields group. They're probably aiming for Inner Sect, not because they're superior to Li and Su, but because they've got more expectations on their shoulders.
Roughly 550 pages ago, when arguing for the merging of the Argent Vent group and the Golden Fields group I said:
We've consistently shared more resources with Su Ling and Li Suyin out of a desire to make them strong enough so that they can stand with us. Turns out, they're probably going to be the first people we'll outpace and feeding them a continuous stream of rare candies isn't helping because their frame of reference when it comes to Inner Sect candidate is 'The Inimitable Ling Qi'.
(Ironically, I think that the one realistic scenario for Su Ling going for Inner Sect despite her lack of desire would be Fan Yu pissing her off so much she went for it out of spite. However, I'm... pretty sure that even the Golden Fields group is feeling the pressure to perform what with Ling Qi having outpaced them too. I'm not sure if even Fan Yu and his incredible ego believes he can make it in)
Social Link-wise we need to decide whether or not we want to invest more time in the Argent Vent group (we will, to stay human) if we want to invest more time in the Golden Fields group (ditto) or if we want to take a look at the others who're genuinely in the running to get into the Inner Sect.
My own opinion is that it is possible with this new knowledge we might actually try to reach out to people we have no pressing reason to reach out to (like Xuan Shi), but that if we did do so due to this it'd be really sad because then it's obvious that we're making friends for strategic/power/political reasons, not because we wanted to reach out. I'm kind of torn.
- Location
- United States of America
I only remember people, specifically @PrimalShadow, saying they would like to only have one of the cards used. I don't believe there was any mention of storing Cresent grace, and if there was I still wouldn't have placed it in my plan. The reason being that there was no discussion at that point about giving the Qi cards to any of our allies during any of our fights. The idea was to allow us to save qi for our one soak technique. Cresent Grace is an instant for us and we have the qi to be able to use it fairly consistently.
Also, I'm confused at why people think that Su Ling is in a spot of trouble. We know nothing about Su Ling's art set other than she has good perception, an illusion art, and a good fire art. She might have gotten some defensive arts after the Argent Vent fight. If people aren't confident in her ability to survive the mission, why did they vote to bring her and not try to bring Han Jian or someone else?
Anyway, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of information to go on for this vote, but I did notice an interesting tidbit in the update about the economic status of the region. If the Emerald Sea province is renowned for their exportation of wood and The 1000 Lakes Province is known for the exportation of pearls, among some other things, it may be that various provinces are focused on the production of a couple of exports. If that is the case, then I wonder what the impact of the fight in the Golden Fields had on the mortal provinces? If the Golden Fields produced wheat, then was there a major famine after the province got decimated?
To be fair, part of the reason here could just be the unknown factor.
It's more risky because they don't know exactly what the danger is.
Yeah that is part of Ling Qi personality.
Motile Mollusc
Bitten by a radioactive were-tilde
- Location
- Here
[X] Hold where you are and deal withwhat comes.
Combination of "we can take 'em!"* and " don't engage a possibly water spirit near water "**
*
** of course, it may not be a water spirit
Combination of "we can take 'em!"* and " don't engage a possibly water spirit near water "**
*
** of course, it may not be a water spirit
- Location
- Staring into the void
[X] Hold where you are and deal withwhat comes.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Didn't Li Suyin basically say "I want to go the medicine Hall route to the inner sect" to us?
People voted for her, I think, because they had this idea this mission in particular was tailored to her (spirit being seemingly like what her mom did, her being a tracker, etc). A constant argument not to bring her was that she would be killed, but since then she broke through to yellow (or silver?).
Also, the other person to bring was Gu Xiulan or Bai Meizhen, both of them being busy for different things this week (and Gu Xiulan fit the Kang Zihao action more). Han Jian and Han Fang are a bit too distances currently? I don't know.
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- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- They/Them
- Location
- United States
[X] Hold where you are and deal with what comes.
Hey, I suggested Xuan Shi way back when.
No? She said she wanted to go become an apprentice at the Medicine Hall and that she wasn't confident enough to take the end-of-year tournament test. Assuming that she's aiming for the Inner Sect is being optimistic af, especially when Li Suyin aiming for the Inner Sect should have come up in the conversation about getting to the Inner Sect with Su Ling.
If Ling Qi had known it, she would have mentioned it to Su Ling to support her position (hey, look, I'm not that special, Li Suyin's trying for it too), if Su Ling had known it, she would have mentioned it to Ling Qi as a 'I'm not like the two of you'. In-Character, it appears neither of them think that Li Suyin is aiming for the Inner Sect which you'd think would happen them being her best friends and all.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Ah, I guess we are reading what being an apprentice to the medicine hall means differently. I took it as either being in the inner sect, or as being an inroad to it that isn't the tournament.
Likewise, I don't see at all why Su Ling would have to precise "the two of you" when speaking to Ling Qi, especially as production is still a tournament, so it's not like it's equivalent to the medicine route either if that one isn't (unsure).
Ling Qi wasn't trying to 'support any position', either. She was asking Su Ling what she wanted, not trying to influence Su Ling.
Given how competitive the Inner Sect is, I'm pretty sure that not all the medicine hall disciples are Inner Disciples. It'd make more sense that the majority of Medicine Hall disciples are actually Outer Sect disciples who specialize in medicine and get certain perks in exchange for X number of responsibilities.
But, of course, we don't know because we never asked. This was actually (sort of) on my list of questions I wanted to ask Elder Su when we still had access to her way back when.
I'm not saying Ling Qi wanted to convince Su Ling of joining the Inner anything. However, Ling Qi was definitely weirded out that she was being treated as someone exceptional rather than someone who tries really hard. In her case, it's fair: she did start from nothing and claw her way up from the bottom; but Su Ling's right that her talent and work ethic are ridiculous. If your argument is 'I'm not exceptional' (which she did argue) then bringing up Li Suyin would make sense in that context.
You're right that Su Ling didn't have to bring up Li Suyin, but imo it's likely Li Suyin would figure in the conversation somewhere if both of them knew she was going for the Inner Sect.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
It's possible yeah. OTOH it's pretty clear that a°) the relationship between Li Suyin and Su Ling has Li Suyin as the teacher; b°) Li Suyin actually 'didn't start from nothing', in the sense that she has really powerful familial techniques, while both Ling Qi and Su Ling are gutter rats/etc. The conversation between Ling Qi and Su Ling sort of felt more like a 'between gutter people' conversation, so putting Li Suyin there would have felt awkward to me.
Still, I can't deny a good part of my argument comes from wanting Li Suyin to get in the inner sect
Motile Mollusc
Bitten by a radioactive were-tilde
- Location
- Here
Just push to learn formations until we can time-stop all her competition.Still, I can't deny a good part of my argument comes from wanting Li Suyin to get in the inner sect
We should take this stumble with Su Ling as a lesson - being a named character doesn't make you special. Elder Jiao made it pretty clear when we entered the sect - the majority isn't going to go particularly far, at least as far as progressing through the sect is concerned. There are hundreds of people in our year at the sect alone*, and only sixteen people are accepted into the inner sect a year. Certainly, it is possible to try again on subsequent years, but you will also be competing with older students. The underlying calculus in unchanged - hundreds of students are accepted to the outer sect each year but only 16 inner-sect slots open up, which means that we can at best expect a single slot to be available for 10 people.
There it is, by the numbers. If we pick out a face from among our peers at random, their odds of getting promoted to inner sect, ever, are 10%. Admittedly, this is only an a-priori estimate; once we learn more about the face we've picked out, we can and should update this estimate. Take Bai Meizhen, for example. To start, her bearing and the way people responded to her marked her as special; people who stand out from the crowd like that are unlikely to be riffraff. And of course, once we learned that she was at Mid-Yellow cultivation, there wasn't even a question; her chance of making it to the sect is a near certainty, at least barring unfortunate accidents (which nevertheless need to be taken into account, reducing her chances from 99% to something more modest like 80%).
But look over our other acquaintances, and take a moment to think about how they measure up; are their advantages really enough to boost them from the baseline 10% to something truly respectable? I can see Han Jian slipping by on Backing and reasonable cultivation speed; I think his odds are over a third, though perhaps less than half. Then there is Gu Xiulan, who may not have quite as much backing but does have a highly-placed sister to give her advice; her chances too would probably be in the 1/3-1/2 range.
And then there are Li Suyin and Su Ling. Make no mistake, I'm happy to have them as friends, and I do acknowledge that they have advantages of their own. But do I think that makes it more probable than not that they will get into the inner sect? I think not; and on the off-chance that they do, I expect it to take more than a year.
I'm not going to go into depth about Su Ling, since we don't really know here well in the first place - but consider Li Suyin. What do we know her advantages to be? Well, she was one of the top five or so cultivators in Elder Su's Spiritual Cultivation class. Promising, but not especially significant - there were only something like 30 students in that class in the first place, after all. We also know that Li Suyin didn't go to the Physical class, and that in general her talent for physical cultivation trains behind her abilities at spiritual cultivation; a point against her. We know that she has little backing, other than the presence of a single good "clan" art; I would say she is somewhat neutral in that respect. And she is good at taking notes and is sensitive to Qi, so that is a point in her favor. Overall? I'd give her maybe a 1/4-1/3 chance of getting into the inner sect, at some point. Not a chance that it will be this year, though; at least unless the production competition disadvantages older cultivators to make things fairer to our year.
*It is actually quite tough to estimate how many people our year has; I don't think it is mentioned outright anywhere. However, after passing Zhou's second test there are a touch under 50 disciplines remaining. Our own trials required us to go up against two groups in test 1 and a lone discipline in group 2, which would suggest a roughly 1-in-6 passing rate, but others may have had different trial; still, I think it is safe to say that there were 100+ test takers. Considering that not everyone was taking the class, I think it is safe to say that the number of people in our year should be in the low- to mid-hundreds. Then again, there were only 30 people in Elder Su's first class, so that is a point in favor of low-hundreds over mid-hundreds.
There it is, by the numbers. If we pick out a face from among our peers at random, their odds of getting promoted to inner sect, ever, are 10%. Admittedly, this is only an a-priori estimate; once we learn more about the face we've picked out, we can and should update this estimate. Take Bai Meizhen, for example. To start, her bearing and the way people responded to her marked her as special; people who stand out from the crowd like that are unlikely to be riffraff. And of course, once we learned that she was at Mid-Yellow cultivation, there wasn't even a question; her chance of making it to the sect is a near certainty, at least barring unfortunate accidents (which nevertheless need to be taken into account, reducing her chances from 99% to something more modest like 80%).
But look over our other acquaintances, and take a moment to think about how they measure up; are their advantages really enough to boost them from the baseline 10% to something truly respectable? I can see Han Jian slipping by on Backing and reasonable cultivation speed; I think his odds are over a third, though perhaps less than half. Then there is Gu Xiulan, who may not have quite as much backing but does have a highly-placed sister to give her advice; her chances too would probably be in the 1/3-1/2 range.
And then there are Li Suyin and Su Ling. Make no mistake, I'm happy to have them as friends, and I do acknowledge that they have advantages of their own. But do I think that makes it more probable than not that they will get into the inner sect? I think not; and on the off-chance that they do, I expect it to take more than a year.
I'm not going to go into depth about Su Ling, since we don't really know here well in the first place - but consider Li Suyin. What do we know her advantages to be? Well, she was one of the top five or so cultivators in Elder Su's Spiritual Cultivation class. Promising, but not especially significant - there were only something like 30 students in that class in the first place, after all. We also know that Li Suyin didn't go to the Physical class, and that in general her talent for physical cultivation trains behind her abilities at spiritual cultivation; a point against her. We know that she has little backing, other than the presence of a single good "clan" art; I would say she is somewhat neutral in that respect. And she is good at taking notes and is sensitive to Qi, so that is a point in her favor. Overall? I'd give her maybe a 1/4-1/3 chance of getting into the inner sect, at some point. Not a chance that it will be this year, though; at least unless the production competition disadvantages older cultivators to make things fairer to our year.
*It is actually quite tough to estimate how many people our year has; I don't think it is mentioned outright anywhere. However, after passing Zhou's second test there are a touch under 50 disciplines remaining. Our own trials required us to go up against two groups in test 1 and a lone discipline in group 2, which would suggest a roughly 1-in-6 passing rate, but others may have had different trial; still, I think it is safe to say that there were 100+ test takers. Considering that not everyone was taking the class, I think it is safe to say that the number of people in our year should be in the low- to mid-hundreds. Then again, there were only 30 people in Elder Su's first class, so that is a point in favor of low-hundreds over mid-hundreds.
