Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

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New Good Seed and Omake Rule Updates
Good Seed and Omake Spreadsheet Rules:

Firstly, if you have questions about Good Seeds and the like please read here. If that doesn't answer your question please ping me in thread, or on Discord.

If you write a new Good Seed, or write an omake, please update the spreadsheet if you have access.

If you do not have access, please ping a collaborator (Swordomatic, Alectai, Quest, TehChron, Insane-Not-Crazy, Humbaba, ReaderOfFate, Kaboomatic, no., BungieONI) letting them know what you want and they will update the spreadsheet here. To gain access, you will need a gmail account of some kind. Throwaway emails are fine (I'm using one for the spreadsheet), but to gain access it's as simple as sending me either your email via PM, via DM in Discord, or just in Discord's #spreadsheet-requests channel.

This is mandatory. If a Good Seed does not record their omake by pinging collabs (or just requesting access and editing things themselves - this is the preferred option), I won't give out awards. If a new Good Seed is not recorded here, they won't advance. By doing this it makes the whole thing manageable for me - it's gotten pretty unwieldy!

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Omake Writer Instructions:

There are four fields you need to fill out.

Omake Link, which is just a link to your first omake for the turn. This makes it easier for me to read them as I do the update - without this it's tough to know off the bat which omake were written this turn, and to properly

Requested Bonus, which is your requested bonus for your omake. You can leave it up to me if you like. You can see more info in the Good Seed infopost here.

Cultivation Aims. For those following unorthodox paths - higher than 9th Heavenstage or later than 7th Dao Pillar paths. Please put in what you are aiming for before you break through. I have left it as 'default'. If you do not edit it, I'll go with that.

Turn Notes - Do you want to do something specific? Enter a Secret Realm? Help the Clan out in some way? If you have something specific you want to accomplish on this turn, put it in turn notes so I can adjust your Fate around it.

All other fields are for QM use to record character information to properly run the flow of the game.
 
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Ferenike 23 - Paradiso
Ferenike 23 - Paradiso​

Ferenike hummed happily as her quill scratched over a ledger detailing the amount of water remaining in Tank 39. Of no serious consequence since their other tanks were anywhere from three quarters to completely full, this one had been taken down for maintenance before the siege and was now being refilled. Beside her were a stack of papers detailing the successful delivery of the final bits of the Foundation Building loot Rina had sorted out and sent her way. That stuff had been helpful in ways the other girl might not have immediately realized, as quite a few were healing treasures of a sort which had helped Eirene, Peta and Wajo, and Achille, and had been a big load off her medical supply issue for the first week there.

She hadn't been able to interact much with the Thirteen since the battle beyond talking to Eirene, as busy and focused as she was, as they all were, but that was fine with her. She had confidence they'd be able to speak again in the future and that was enough.

With a final swish of her quill she finished and then leaned back to stretch for a long moment, rolling her neck as she took a brief break from her meditative breathing. Paperwork was a good meditative aid she'd found. With a happy sigh she spent a moment pondering the time. Right. Getting up she walked over to her door, stuck her head out and hollered. "HEY! All you juniors, shift's over, go have fun and be back in the morning!"

There was a great clatter as newbie juniors jumped in surprise, others setting down their work, and a general sigh of relief and happy chatter as they grouped up into their little social circles and filtered out with a good number of "Goodbye Centurion" farewells. Tisamenos was the last one to say goodbye as he carefully wrapped up his own writing project. Out of all of her staff he'd been the one to get used to her schedule the fastest. And there were a lot more juniors now, a month after Pleuron. Recruitment had skyrocketed apparently, at least around here and caused her staff to expand as she snapped up some of the promising candidates.

She walked out herself and snapped her fingers as she exited, shutting off the lights. Unlike the others though, instead of heading for home or any of the nightlife spots, she turned to head to the library. She had a lot of research to get through and one of the side benefits of a Pure Body was a much reduced need to sleep, which she was exploiting to its limits.

The streets of Pleuron were a lot quieter now after the celebrations wound down as well, but there was a happy air to the place as people hung colorful tapestries advertising services and goods from their windows and goods began to flow with their usual vigor again and many mortals were also moving to the city to set up shop. The coming of a Legate and the Foundation Experts had also resolved a lot of their remaining supply issues.

It meant there weren't as heavy crowds which made getting to the library easy enough. The tall building, multiple domes peeking up from its roof, was near the center of the city and the multi floored edifice was blessedly well ventilated via clever arrays. She walked in, received a nod from the receptionist. "Ferenike."

"Jin. Nothing interesting happen recently?" She asked.

The bald woman, glasses perched on her nose and garbed in a simple Clan archivist robe leaned back in her chair, reading a news pamphlet. "Nope." She said pleasantly. Ferenike threw a glance at the three new and dejected looking teenagers who were currently sweeping the reception area. Well they looked like they were regretting whatever trouble they had gotten into. Business as usual then.

Ferenike raised her legion identification array and ran it past the array on the archive door and entered the stacks. Instead of going into the maze of towering scroll and book shelves, she instead turned left down an aisle until she found a descending spiral stair and went down. And down and down, more than a li underground. Buried deep in the sandstone, there were stacks of more dangerous scrolls and books, open to her due to having enough cultivation to survive one if it got aggressive and to cow them without damaging them too badly.

It was dark down here, even darker than the stacks above, as some book spirits drank light to fuel themselves. And some were agitated by sound. Keep it dark, keep it quiet, those were the rules you had to follow in this library. So she walked in utter silence, taking tiny whispers of breath and her eyes saw the path through the stacks via the incredibly weak spirit lights high above on the ceiling. All around her were books and scrolls lying quietly, locked behind barred gates of spirit bronze. Down here was a maze of tunnels carved out of the sandstone, a labyrinth of knowledge with an equally byzantine organizational system.

After about fifteen minutes of walking through the confusing tunnels, she returned to the hall which held her work station and several other study and research rooms, a long line of doors. She stepped up to her door and a flash of her qi into the lock, keyed to her personal aura, caused the door to pop open and she stepped into the room. It was a room about the size of a large cottage, with a small number of containment shelves against the wall opposite the door, a number of large slates she could draw diagrams on spread about the space and a desk with a single small magic light. Paper and quills and ink were present in the desk drawers for any of her notes, and there was already a stack of them on the right corner of the desk.

Giving it a once over she satisfied herself no one had entered it since she had been in here last night. Pulling the door closed behind her, the room became a little pocket of faint light in seeming endless dark. Qi outside the room was muted to prevent incidental distractions, though attacks and real trouble would be still perceivable, as was sound and light. Just a little box all to herself.

Stepping across the room she reached her containment shelves and reaching out to the lock undid it. There was a bubbling of malevolence from the books held within as she opened the door. Hissing and the flickering of shadows at the edge of her vision occurred as she pulled out one volume, Magnificent Liao Tzu's Meditations Upon Demon Plants, but a sharp look and slap of qi made the book shut up. It was a large thing, about fifteen centimeters thick and it was big enough to be used as a small shield. She was strong enough to manhandle it with a single hand and carried it over to her current diagram work mapping her hypothesis for Xiao Yi's meridians. There wasn't much there unfortunately, as the structure of the grove was incredibly obfuscating to her senses.

She began to read.

For as almost malevolently dry as the words were, as well as self-aggrandizing, there was some useful tidbits found within the many, many pages. Incidentally the book's incredibly detailed descriptions of the feeding habits and methods of Demon Plants had given her insight into how Xiao Yi could still be alive at this point. Drinking in the qi of his enemies at first, to sustain his own body after the blow that had cut him in two, but now he would be fed by the sun and the qi of the sands which Liao Tzu detailed came from two places; the qi of the Spirit Stones buried beneath it which bubbled up through it and which fed the dragonlines, and the qi from wind which blew across the desert and then settled upon the sand.

She herself had experienced the interaction of the qi of the sands and the qi shining down from the sun driving the winds as they spiraled against each other. In many ways thus, the wind drove itself. A useful insight for her Oasis as well, the work for which was taking up another entire board off to her right. She was splitting her time between helping her friend and working on that, and in a curious happenstance had found them to have many related parts. At least for the current approach she was taking of trying to return Xiao Yi to a human shape, by finding a way to induce his qi to flow and shape itself into such a form in a stable fashion without unduly harming him.

Long into the night as the moon rose high above the desert she worked in the dimness, the tiny click of chalk on slate and her breaths the only sounds.



It had been six months since the events of the siege and Ferenike now stood on a muster yard in the eastern quarter of the city. All around it were short walls five meters high and a few squat rectangular barracks to one side arranged in a circle around a central tower which contained several defensive emplacements and arrays. A little fortress tucked away in the city.

Before her were thirty two volunteers in the first and second heavenstages, all in their fifties and unlikely to go much further, but furnished with a respectable amount of experience working with Formations. They had served under her in the siege, though it'd still taken some haggling about work hours and duty assignments with the other commanders to get her hands on them. That was how it worked in Pleuron. The same amount of work needed to get done, so if you took someone from somewhere, you'd best have an alternative or replacement which could do the job or some means to get it done with less people but just as good. To a degree such arrangements also persisted in the wider clan, as they were often useful for finding people with the proper skills.

Like she had done with these volunteers, who were sat in meditative positions, spread out in a loose gathering without ranks or much ordering. She walked amongst them and noted the qi flows between them, their breaths in a natural rhythm. She did not link herself to the flow of qi, as this needed to be able to function without her presence in the flow or her direction. She gave thanks to Xiao Yi for reminding her of that particular pitfall.

The swish of her robes against the smooth stone of the courtyard and the clack of her boots underscored her voice as she lectured on her memories of her insights. "...water is the energy and life of the Oasis, it bubbles up from the rivers below and condenses as dew on the leaves of orchards in the heat of the sun. They persist for longer than our lifetimes, before suddenly vanishing without warning..."

In her mind she watched and modeled these people and what they did as they shared Qi, the dozens of different methods and means they had, idiosyncratic and novel. She wished to see for herself how others manipulated Qi when they wished to work together with others. The wider the base she had, the stronger the foundation and the better the final product would be. The more constitutions she had experience with, the more methods she witnessed, the easier it would be when she went to develop the Qi circulation patterns that would initiate the formation as those needed to be generalized in an easily used and widely understandable manner.

And, seeing what they were already doing was giving her ideas as to the steps after that, as a murky streams and waves of golden energy flowed between her thirty two volunteers. Within her inner mind and soul she shaped her inner models, placing tiny chunks of red glass and altering the grander mosaic which shaped her vision of the Oasis.

In red glass, it was an image of wave like dunes blending into a swirling pool of water, and in its heart stars from the night sky above were reflected. A sense of oneness permeated the image, every piece reflecting a little part of the whole. But for now, it was static, unfinished.

She finished her round and walked to stand in front of her gathering, then clapped her hands. They all opened their eyes and stopped their meditations. "Good work. You'll be duly compensated by tomorrow, just talk to Anton in my office. Same offer will be open day after tomorrow."

They all saluted. "Yes Centurion!" They all said and then began to filter out. A few lingered, talking with each other and her. One in particular, a man named Eli with long greenish hair was griping about a merchant named Ji.

"Yeah, so this jackass Ji tries to sell me junk Spirit Silver for three stones by feeding me a line about it being from a Thousand Year Mine. I called him on his bullshit and he has the gall to try and demonstrate his 'enlightened wisdom' to a 'junior'. Anyway, don't go to his shop if you want honest prices." Eli grumbled to a lady friend of his. The woman was rolling her eyes and nodding in commiseration.

"Yeah I had a similar experience with some Spirit Herbs from that guy." The woman, Irida, responded.

Ferenike stepped up beside them, causing them to both pause. She leaned closer. "So, where might I happen to find this 'Ji' fellow?" Her smile was a thing of sharp teeth and a deep well of viciousness.

Irida and Eli, after a moment's surprise, also started to smile. They told her, in detail.



Chen Ji of the Sorrowful Blacksmiths was happily organizing some of his stock in his back room when he heard the door of his shop open with a jingle of a bell and the hint of a smell of cinnamon blew in on the air. A customer! He spoke up on reflex, "I'm in the back dear customer, one moment please!"

There was no response from the person outside, but that didn't put him off, they were probably just looking at stock on the shelves in his shop. He ran a hand over his hair, making sure his appearance was proper for a businessman of his station and then he stepped through the curtains in the back of his shop and out behind the counter. Standing on the other side of the counter, resting her hand on it, he saw a tall woman of the Golden Devils. Her skin seemed to be entirely metal, one of the more extreme versions of the demonic blood he'd seen, though she was unusual in that her nails seemed to be red glass and a spark of red lingered in her pupils.

She had only a presence in the first heavenstage, wavering and weak. She clasped her hands in front of her and bowed. "Senior, this one has heard of your wares." She said politely. He couldn't fault the Golden Devils on their politeness, he gave them that.

He put on his best businessman smile, bolstered a bit by his third heavenstage Qi. "That is good ma'am. I carry several things, such as these excellent Heart Gold Topazes, mined directly from the foot of Turtlebone Mountain I assure you." He entered into his practiced spiel as he pulled out a bag from under his counter and emptied half of it onto the counter, to reveal thumbnail sized yellow gems. Just some Carp Yellow Gems, not of incredible worth, though they were pulled from rivers that flowed from Turtlebone Mountain so that part was kind of true. "Might I have your name?"

"Nike." She said simply, and he still couldn't get over how their names sounded, harder and strange in this sweltering land. She pierced him with a stare. A part of him paused at the intensity in that look, but the rest barreled on as she said the magic words. "I'm interested in your Spirit Silver" Another fish on the hook. These desert savages were so easily hooked with mention of the mountains' metals.

He turned to one of the shelves behind the counter, made out of a good mahogany and pulled down a small cherry wood box. It clanked and clattered as he carefully set it on the counter, sweeping up the Carp Yellow Gems and instinctively counting them as he put most of them back in the pouch and stored it away, leaving a few to glint on the counter and highlight the box. "This is my Spirit Silver, from a Thousand Year Mine deep in the Sorrowful Blacksmith lands, carved from the highest peaks where it is said the Serpent Princess of Resplendent Snow makes her den." He opened the box and revealed a cache of thumb sized nuggets of a shiny and silvery metal. They were mostly Spirit Sand, mixed with some Spirit Silver and then forged into these refined 'nuggets' and given a hint of Qi to make them seem interesting. They might be useful as toys, but hardly worth what he was asking. Not that they'd know, these desert savages.

"For only four spirit stones these powerful pieces can be yours. I'll even throw in a few of the gems." He said cheerily. His brain tingled as he saw the red in her eyes flash, some instinct which was ignored by his eyes fixed on the money. Then his instincts started screaming as his customer's face twisted horrifically, glass swallowing it and forming a frightening fanged devilish maw and terrifying eyes, all pits to a hellish flame.

"Truly, it is impressive that you would try to sell sand to a Clan of desert dwellers whose blood sings with alloyed metals." A terrible cracking voice like an inferno rattled his eardrums as a suffocating presence swallowed his shop, carried on a wave of cinnamon scent. He froze.

And then he choked as a glass covered hand snapped to his throat and lifted him up. T-tenth Heavenstage, she was Tenth Heavenstage, oh god he was dead. Dead dead, so fucking dead those were flames dancing on her tongue sweet dragons!

The devil woman pulled him over the counter, banging his shins painfully and knocking his wares to the ground with a crash. Holding him before her he was forced to look into her eyes as he frantically tore at her searing hot grip on his neck, the pits of her eyes burning into his mind and setting his thoughts afire with fear. Smoke blasted from the open pits of her nose in a snort. "Chen Ji of the Sorrowful Blacksmiths, I am Centurion Ferenike of the Golden Devils."

The bottom dropped out of his stomach and his heart dropped with it. Shiiiiiiiit. Even a frog in a well knew that name, especially here in godsforsaken Pleuron. "P-p-please please I swear, I swear I didn't know my, my supplier must have tricked me!" He babbled, working his mouth for all he was worth.

There was a dreadful crackling laugh. "What sweet lies. Come with me charlatan." And then he was jerked bodily forward and impacted her with a painful whumpf of air. Her sharp shoulder dug into his gut as she slung him over her shoulder and walked out of his shop. He had a brief moment of thought of pleading for his life from the townspeople, but he realized that would be very stupid for two reasons. One, this was one of those dreadful Thirteen demons, and the townspeople loved them and two, he was now realizing that his practices had caused some hmm, trouble. Yes, that is what you called it when you were slung over the shoulder of a demon woman and about to quite possibly bloody die!

He was never coming back to Pleuron.

Chen Ji's mind worked frantically all the way through their trip to the gate and the out of the city towards the... grove. Oh no. He started screaming then in sheer terror and flailing like mad. His clenched fists did nothing as they bounced off this woman's glass armored metal body, but he did not want to be plant food! Fuck!

They approached the slowly writhing grove, its black-green vines slowly slipping against each other. Ji had not braved the innards of this place, he wasn't suicidal and he knew the stories of it eating fifty Foundation experts in the Trials. And they were getting closer to it! His screams turned into a high pitched keening.

And then they stopped about ten meters from it and he flew through the air, his screams reaching a fever pitch as he twisted and then landied with a thud face first in the sand. He heard the grove shake and slither ahead of him and he looked up and saw it reaching slowly towards him, runners and vines slithering in the sands like snakes. He frantically tried to scramble away on four limbs before a heavy foot landed on his back, pinning him with absurd strength. The vines, mercifully, paused.

"I am angry Chen Ji. Your practices give merchants a bad name and you are not Clan. If you had come a year earlier I might well have killed you." The devil woman standing on top of him said pleasantly. Her fiery voice continued. "But I am trying to be more merciful after the siege. So I have a bargain for you."

"A bargain?" He asked, half-disbelieving, half-hopeful. Was he...?

"Yes. You sell us proper wares at the proper prices in Pleuron and you receive great wealth, for we are honest dealers. Or I feed you to my friend Xiao Yi." She said, her voice digging into his brain and stoking the flames of fear even higher.

"Yes yes! YES! I swear, I swear on my Dao-heart I'll give you the proper prices! Please don't kill me!" He begged, clawing and kicking weakly at the sand. Like hell he was going to ignore this bargain! He was a merchant and his life was the most valuable thing he owned!

"Good. Return to the city." She said and stepped off him. He edged away in a frantic skitter and then crab crawled on his butt away from the glass armored monster standing before him. She was not looking at him but he could still feel a mass of her attention focused on him.

He breathed, choked and coughed out some sand and then he turned and ran. Back towards the city, back towards his home, burdened with a terrible lesson. Throwing a glance back he saw her disappear into the grove, entirely fearless and unharmed by the writhing tendrils. Oh gods. He looked straight ahead and rushed back through the gates, and straight to the nearest bar to drown his fear and shaking hands.



Another year, more disappointing progress. It'd been nearly four years now since the siege and progress on helping Xiao Yi and refining the Oasis was slow going. Her contact Wei Fuxi in the Tactika Bureau, a Foundation Building expert she was trading letters with as she researched the publishing process was interested but still. Time. Always more time was needed for the incremental progress she was making. Her eightieth birthday had passed not to long ago. She'd spent it meditating in Xiao Yi's grove.

As strange as it might be, it was in its own way an oasis she had come to find, and she'd actually noticed some improvement as she went there over the years. The grove had almost calmed, slightly, becoming safe enough for mortals to enter a few months after the siege if they were watched carefully. Their prayers to her friend were strange on her ears, she found the concept of worshiping her friend very weird since she'd seen the dumbass drunk off his ass before and not very godly, but she kept an eye on them all the same. There'd been a few ominous and almost amused rustles before but now it was simply dark and brooding.

Strange bedfellow with peace honestly. But now, she was here and talking to him. Or at least in his direction.

"...and that is why I think there might be some parts of my future path that will take me from these lands. I can feel it now, bubbling up from within, a sense that my horizons lay beyond the Mountain Wall for now. I hear they have cherry trees and other amazing things out there. I only seen them as illustrations in books." She said as she sat kneeling in the grove, Qing Yun sleeping beside her, her fingers tangled with small vines on wriggling in the sand. Her tone was contemplative and slow. "I'll visit Qiguai after I publish my work and there seek lore that might improve it. I'm not sure how long it will take to find a way to help you but the Century Oasis I can finish in the next five or six years I think. I think you'll like to see it."

The vines rustled and there was a groan of shifting plant matter. She nodded. She knew he was aware, in some fashion, but she wasn't sure if he could still understand speech. And so she did what she always did when she visited, a ritual of sorts now. She pulled a wine bottle from her storage and uncorking it poured it into the roots below the trunk-like mass Xiao Yi was fused with and once it was empty began to meditate on the Oasis.

She breathed and she imagined its motions. A roiling, rotating thing, almost like a sandstorm or a thunderstorm. Pieces of qi being passed around in constant motion which would become self sustaining once there was enough being passed around and they connected into the energies of the desert itself. Warmth spread through out the dark grove as she meditated.

Her troubles now was that the energy she sought to touch was so diffuse. Grasping the trick to it was incredibly difficult and she'd only inconsistently managed it, and once that hurdle was passed would come the further hurdle of teaching how to do it to others, such that they had an easier time of it. She had chosen to do all of this however, and so it would be done.



She stood again on the muster ground as a bunch of wet behind the ears newbies flailed about like kittens through their katas of Legion Standard. Her pipe smoked pleasantly as she stood easily before them and watched them work.

Her gaze slid to one pair, a lean and whip fast boy facing off against a spry and gangly girl. Dimitri and Shamo Liegou. Liegou pulled a trick with her feet as she slammed her palm into Dimitri's chin, getting in his guard and knocking him off balance to land him flat on his back. He fell with a choked scream and a thud. Ferenike watched Liegou blink, surprised and then look down at the boy holding his chin and rolling on the ground groaning. The poor girl froze.

Ferenike raised her hand, gesturing at them and shouted towards them. "Up! Liegou, get him up!"

"Ah. Ah! Yes ma'am!" She shouted in a half-panic as she knelt beside him and helped him sit up and then stand. With a shake of his head he nodded and waved his hand at the girl.

"Lets go again Liegou!" He said, slightly slurred. His jaw must be killing him. They were all mortals still, barely onto their first steps to Qi Condensation.

Flicking a quick glance at the others as the two stood and walked back to their starting positions, Ferenike found the other trainees performing acceptably. Her red glimmering gaze rotated back to watch these two. She felt something, rumbling just out of hearing.

They entered their First Stance, a straightforward thing with the left or right foot forward dependent on handedness, the torso turned to the side and the leading arm's forearm raised to swat or deflect blows with the other arm held slightly out. It wasn't too different from the stance used to hold a shield and spear.

Dimitri initiated and as his foot slid Liegou reacted perfectly, rotating slightly out of his path and towards the space between his arms. Then her arm snapped out and slammed a fist into his solar plexus before he could defend with either arm or twist away. Then the girl blinked and seemed to focus again. She let out a little eek as the boy went flying, knocked off balance and then tripping on his own feet, landing on his back again, holding his chest and groaning.

This time though the gangly girl reached out for the fallen boy, a trembling smile on her face. "Are you okay?"

The boy nodded and reached out and took her hand. Ferenike's eyes zeroed in on that grasping of hands and the smiles on their faces.

Huh, that was it wasn't it? That light, airy feeling which pulled your lips into a smile that lay close to the heart of friendship and comradery. That was what she was trying to set as the core of the Oasis. She gave a happy puff of her pipe, sparks and smoke bubbling up. Well then!

"Good job you two! Liegou, when this is over come talk to me." Ferenike bellowed. They both turned and saluted.

"Yes ma'am!" The shouted and then commendably, got right back to it before she told them too.

She'd have to get that girl a good tutor, because that had been impressive use of action. It reminded her of Katerina Salviati, the little hellion. Her expression smoothed out as her regret bubbled up a little at the thought.

She was regretful Agha and Katerina, those two girls she had trained could not be a part of her own squad. But the situation required that they be distributed where they could help most and truthfully speaking she was quite happy for them. They'd go on to have their own adventures and probably train their own crop of newbies at some point.

Much like the Thirteen, her hat maker whose son and daughter were now making them, and her trainees she was trying to keep an eye out for news about them. She hoped they lived well every day, though the world wasn't always that kind. Unfortunately.

But that is why she was making this little slice of paradise.



She was back in the library underground again, in her little workroom. This time there were no books on the shelves and her writing slates were pushed up against one of the walls so that she had space in the middle of the floor to sit cross-legged and meditate. The spirit light was off and her mind was cast out to the Qi that existed all around her, permeating the stone, rising up and up until it breached the sand and flowed into the air and up into the vault of the sky.

In her core she shaped her mosaic of red glass shards into a mirror of the night sky and the sands swirling around the city, each shard carved with tiny channels through which Qi could run. Step by step she placed the pieces where they must go, each a part of the greater work but reflecting it almost like a fractal. Into these pieces she put her memories; of staying in Grandfather Laosha's oasis and its reflection of the night's stars, she thought of Xiao Yi's grove, dozens of qi concentration arrays, her own home in the dunes with Ales and her servants, the wagon she had been born in and remembered as fond feelings of warmth and comfort. Then beyond those things, the desert itself, a sanctuary and retreat of sorts in a harsh world.

At the end of the path she placed that light and airy feeling, that little budding offshoot of friendship, and in it was invested the feeling of Clan. With a tug she pulled on the entire mental construct and felt it reach up and down and out, sweeping through the stone and air above to catch upon the qi of the desert and the dragonlines to draw it in a twinned funnel.

After a year of work she'd finally done it. She reveled in the faint feeling of qi she had entering her system, a smile breaking out on her face, red teeth glinting in the faint golden and red light which surrounded her. She'd done it! Now, now she could work on figuring out how to teach it to others.



It was a good nine years after the siege now and another group of trainees stood before her and now she was at the final step, testing the Oasis with them. Once this was complete she could publish! It hadn't been too difficult to get authorization to move to this step with a few spirit stones here and there.

And in other good news the Ninth Prince had reawakened a few days ago, and after roping her into a very pleasant drinking contest had hared off to go do bombastic snake-man things somewhere. She hadn't heard any screams of terror and booming laughter recently so he probably wasn't in Pleuron right now, but you never knew with that rascal. She had a feeling he popped up extremely unexpectedly at times, to unpleasant results for his enemies.

Now however, she was working with thirty two trainees arranged in four ranks of eight, walking around them with her eyes shut and her esoteric senses trained on them. They were moving through a slow, undemanding kata from Legion Standard, meant to stretch the muscles in the arms and lower legs.

"Think of every drink of water you've ever taken, shape the qi to rotate anti-clockwise, think of the wind driven to blow between sand and sun." Her voice surrounded them all as she spoke, almost chanting, watching them as they shaped qi along the paths she had laid out.

"The Formation is one of where you must pass along the qi constantly, never ceasing, ever cycling. It draws from the sand beneath your feet," she had ordered the training field filled with sand for this express purpose. "And the sky above your head from the heat of the sun. Draw that energy up and connect with the others around you, share your vitality and endurance, fuel them with the qi of the desert you are drawing in." She kept speaking, watching them get closer and closer to finishing the network.

One person started pulling harder, as if to create the Hoplite and she stepped closer.

"Easy easy, its like a hug. There you go!" She said brightly, rotating her hand slightly as she watched their qi flow. Her group of trainees was so close!

And then with a rush of air that set her robes flapping it clicked into place with a thrum. A pool of Qi pulled from the desert sands and the air and sun far above and supplemented by the users. Already she could see what fatigue they had fading away and their auras were surging in her qi senses.

She opened her eyes and looked upon her creation. The Century Oasis Formation manifested as a reflective pool of energy hanging in the air and spread between the people supporting the formation, as if they were deep underwater. And the phantasmal images of trees and other plants appeared in golden hues.

"You have it! Maintain it for an hour and we'll take a break, then go again!" She said to her trainees as she clapped her hands.

"Yes Centurion!" They shouted in unison.

She'd finally done it after more than forty years of work. A week later, long after the sun had set she settled down to her desk and wrote up her findings and a cover letter for the Tactika Bureau.

Enclosed within one will find the necessary insights to enact a new Formation invented by myself, Ferenike of the Ninth Legion.

The purpose of this Century Oasis Formation is to share the users vitality, speed of healing, and endurance to enhance logistical capabilities and the use of Spirit Stones for armies on the march. This formation draws on the power of the desert sands, air, the sun and the moon, tapping into the dragonlines which flow through the desert towards the mountains and it concentrates this power amongst the members of the formation. The shared vitality of the users of this formation is thus further amplified by the concentrated amount of desert Qi and this concentrated Qi is what enables a more efficient logistical tail, increased army endurance and wounded recovery time, and advantage in matters of attrition. Thusly, cohorts using this formation will find themselves expending fewer Spirit Stones to heal and march through the desert, and improving the effect of Spirit Stones they do expend.

Ideologically it draws on some design principles of the Twin-Eagle Formation. That formation is for use in quick mobilization to and retreat from a theatre of operation, and my own experiences at Guo Wu and during the Trials has demonstrated to me its success as a tool for rapid movement. The Century Oasis is therefore a counter part to it, meant to be used when one reaches your destination and wishes to recover from a battle.

In the attached documentation I have given my insights and directions for forming the Formation with groups of multiple sizes ranging from two individuals all the way up to one hundred and fifty six. At this time the formation is best used by Qi Condensation individuals, but true to its name my work on it shall continue, with the eventual goal of elevating it to the same rarified heights of the Kataphractoi and Twin-Eagle Formation.

Blessings upon you Seniors.


Attached to the letter was a thick binder of her findings and insights which should hopefully help clarify the matter. With a happy stretch she set off for bed. She'd visit Xiao Yi in the morning and give him some of that Golden Grass Wine she had found recently.


Okay @occipitallobe here's my next omake for Turn 6! I am now asking for my Century Oasis Formation bonus, which I am giving to the clan. For convenience I'll also detail it again here so you don't have to dig through the entire omake, and as a neat format to match the other Formations on the clan sheet:

Century Oasis Formation. This formation draws on the power of the desert sands, air, the sun and the moon, tapping into the dragonlines which flow through it and it concentrates this power amongst the members of the formation. The users of this formation share vitality, speed of healing, and endurance which is further amplified by the concentrated amount of desert Qi. Thusly, cohorts using this formation find themselves expending fewer Spirit Stones to heal and march through the desert or improving the effect of Spirit Stones they do expend, thus enhancing our advantages in our home.

Thank you to @Liliet and @Quest and @Alectai for mentioning me in your omakes as well. Thanks as well to @Kaboomatic for that collab.

Also writing what is basically a Xianxia Scientific Abstract is hilarious fun.
 
In theory, she considered, they could have lost. She could be... evacuated as the only survivor or one of the few? But by whom? They weren't expecting reinforcements, that was the entire thing. Of course, there could have been unexpected reinforcements... in theory, she have just been... personally rescued. Or even kept by the invaders for entertainment or something, although that was even more of a dubious proposition. Still, not technically impossible.
Erm ouch, her instantly jumping to the BAD END makes me feel bad.
Actually, most of her body was refusing to bend. She'd managed to sit up somehow, more through not noticing it wasn't possible than anything, and now it seemed she was going to be stuck like that for the next while, before the stiffness and the pain subsided enough for her to make her next movement.
This kinda makes me imagine her as being in a full body cast.
She talked to Ferenike - it was her new adjutant-or-whatever-he-was-called that had kept the notes for what happened during the siege and allowed her to follow the whole picture for the events she only ever saw her small part of, ever running, ever doing something, ever asking what she specifically could do, leaving strategy to strategists. Now she knew, and she knew what happened to every single one of them - Minervina with her body turned into a cauldron, Magnus having turned himself into an injector and somehow survived that... they all lived? They all lived. All of the Thirteen who'd pledged their lives to the protection of those who needed protection in this trials lived.
This is nice. Very clearly showing how for some of the 13, the big moment is one they actually need to get info on via the records of others. Kind of a neat contrast that for the act that made their name, some of them had to ask around on if it was successful.
They, uh, won. They beat a Core Foundation cultivator. Rina Callista, Minervina Barda, Magnus Centenius...

she needed to be as good.

She needed to be as good at her job as they were at theirs, and while illusions were good and fine she couldn't forget what had been her plan for being a cultivator in the first place.
Yeowtch. That sense of self-blame and pressure. I'm sure it'll push her, but it sure feels like it'll lead to a burnout.
His friends (all cousins of some description, its that type of town) eagerly took their share of the pilfered food and proceeded to destroy all evidence of the crime. They sigh in joy at the taste of the tender fish inside the doughy balls.

One of them though, is a contradictory soul and she points out around a mouthful of food "Thats not true though. You wouldn't dare go to the witches house!"

Snack finished the boy next to her piped up. "What do you know? She ain't a witch. My Pa says shes a Demon, come to take all our souls. He says if she so much as glances at ya, you fall over and die." He clutches his chest theatrically and collapses, to the amusement of his peers.

"She so is a Witch!" The first girl retorts, wagging a finger illustratively. "My aunt says she can cast spells that make snakes pour out the ground and eat men whole!" Woots and whistles greet this revelation as the children speculate on how big the snakes might be, what colours they would be and how many bites it would take to devour them whole.

A third voice chips in, quieter, more serious and somehow studious. "I don't think that's quite right. My grandmother says she's family, a Cultivator that left the village a hundred years ago and has returned to rest a while. She said to be polite if I ever met her, but that family would never hurt us, that all that other talk was just stories people make up."
I really like the different focus here. Showing her from the perspective of superstitious Mortals + brats as well as just how short mortal memory is.
This boy naturally incurred a great deal of scorn from his peers, who loudly rubbished the idea. A Cultivator? Ridiculous. While none of them had actually seen one of those mythical warriors, they had all heard the stories. The witch in the hut did not match a single one of them.

Where a Cultivator should have a gleaming sword, she walked with a battered cane of driftwood, visibly struggling for every step.

Cultivators had the refined manners and wealth expected of one touched by Heaven. The witch wore stained rags each day and when she toiled in her garden her curses could be heard clear across the lake, some so vile as to make the fishermen blush.

Moreover, weren't Cultivators supposed to be immortal? Ageless even! Well, that old herb woman was the exact opposite, a hunched crone with brittle, faded hair and sallow skin. Just looking at the old ghost could make a man feel Deaths bony hand on his shoulder.
I LOLed slightly at this. Poor Minervina being dissed because of daydreams of how Cultivators should look, because those are the Cultivators that shine in stories for the Mortals.
Tassos, looking down on the others from his rock-perch like Solomon bringing wisdom to his petitioners, brings out the final damning evidence. "Besides, everyone knows we don't get fancy Cultivators around here." The others nod in unison at this pearl of wisdom and the quieter boy reluctantly nods along, feeling like he has no choice but to agree.

"Which is she then" The girl asks Tassos. "A devil or a witch! We have to decide somehow!"

Theirs a quiet excited moment as the others watch Tassos think. They follow the boy for a reason, he *always* has the best ideas for how to fill their idle hours.

Sure enough, that wicked smile they love appears on the boys handsome face. "Well we just have to go ask her don't we?"

He dashes off, pulling the others along behind him and explaining his master plan. They would throw rocks at the old woman's house until she came out and answered their question.

'What could possibly go wrong' Tassos thinks to himself gleefully 'whatever people say she's just a batty old woman.'
God what a brat. Time for some "Scared Straight: Xianxia Edition"

Looking forward to next chap to see him get his comeuppance.
If Goals are a thing, can I set hers as 'meditating on the nature of the venoms in her body alongside her Dao of Transformation. Trying to transform her body into a proper Poison Constitution that she can use as a tool and weapon without harm to her Cultivation Base.'
Goals should still be there, and we can probably update them when the Turn 6 spreadsheet is fully out!
 
Xiuying Ten Jiang 4 - Starting Line
Xiuying Ten Jiang 4 - Starting Line

Things had fallen into a daily routine for Xiuying. In the morning, she would wake up and help her father prepare the ingredients for the noodle stand, and work during the day as a waitress or a kitchen hand depending on how busy the noodle stand was. In the late afternoon, she would go find Jiang for her training. Jiang would alternate between physical conditioning and helping her with her attempts at cultivation.

To her dismay, even after several months had passed, Xiuying had yet to breakthrough into the first step of becoming a Cultivator. Jiang had told Xiuying not to worry, saying that it was likely that Xiuying wasn't a great talent and that Sword Law was a Dao that talent was not particularly necessary. While it helped, in order to master Sword Law, it was important to develop the proper mindset.

"To discard thought," Jiang had answered when Xiuying asked what was the proper mindset. "A brain is useful only up until the point when you are faced with your enemy. Then it is useless. The only truly useful thing in this conflict-filled world is Will. You must suffuse your worthless body with its terrible heat. You must be so hot that even if your enemy should strike your head off, you shall continue to decapitate ten more men. Your boiling blood must spring forth from your neck and mutilate the survivors."

When Xiuying tried to picture the scene in her mind, to imagine her headless body moving by its own volition to continue killing men, all while boiling blood poured out upon the survivors, burning them like boiling oil, she couldn't help but shudder at the image.

How terrifying would it be to witness such a scene in real life?

"Your face. It's the same as mine when Meti first told me what was important. It says everything. Yes, you understand as I did what mere mortals feel upon gazing upon such terrible power. For to look at Divinity is to be burned into ashes." Jiang slammed the scabbard of his sword down in the ground, forming a small crater where it landed. "Tell me, girl. Can you cast your mind adrift and transform your body into a vessel for the terrible fires of Will, Xiuying?"

Xiuying could only answer in one way. "No."

"I will teach you how. I will teach you to Exhale. I will teach you how to Exalt."

It took a little over a year since the start of her training for Xiuying to begin feeling the faintest wisps of qi begin to burn within the core of her body.

Xiuying had endured months of tough physical training, slowly reshaping her body from a cute young girl that was a little plump from all the noodles she ate to a fit, and athletic young woman with a toned body and muscles to boot. She really liked her abs. Enough of her hair had grown back that she could now style it into a cute wavy bob cut.

Her relationship with her father who she used to be very close with had...not quite deteriorated but rather a wall between Xiuying and her father had appeared. While the rest of her family was understanding and even encouraging about her decision to pursue the path of Sword Law, her father had been angry even though they didn't show it. These days, they hardly spoke to each other outside the noodle stand. It was something that Xiuying was beginning to regret but she had no clue how to resolve the issue between her father and herself.

Master Jiang hadn't been helpful in that regard, citing that his own father was the world's greatest scoundrel and manwhore and that he'd been tasked with cutting off his father's penis as punishment for running away from his mother before Jiang had been born - a task that he had yet to accomplish, much to master Jiang's chagrin.

During the year, Master Jiang had been patient with Xiuying throughout all their training sessions together. Until Xiuying reached the 1st stage of Qi Condensation, there was little for Jiang to do except oversee Xiuying's physical training and her attempts to cultivate through the special breathing exercises that he taught her. After discovering that Xiuying was illiterate, he proceeded to add lessons on writing and reading to the training regime.

One day, while she was meditating and her stomach growling from skipping both lunch and dinner, her body suddenly vibrated, a prickling numbness spreading through her limbs followed by an itchy, painful, and unpleasant sensation. Then, it seemed as if tiny wisps of invisible fire condensed within her flesh and blood, then seeped out of her body. After that, just for an instant before it disappeared, Xiuying felt a tiny flame appearing inside herself.

Instantly, Jiang was at her side, giving her body a quick examination to make sure that everything was alright. After finding no abnormalities with Xiuying's body, Jiang let out a breath of relief and happily informed his student that she was getting close to breaking through to the First stage of Qi Condensation.

From that point onwards, Xiuying's training began to escalate.

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

An open palm slammed into Xiuying's chest, sending her rolling backwards for a few meters before stopping upside down, her legs spread on both sides of your head. Fortunately, she had taken to wearing shorts and pants after her skirt and dresses kept getting ruined by her training. "Oooow..."

Today's training was all about building Xiuying's toughness and endurance, according to Jiang. All Xiuying had to do was do her best to defend against her master's attack. It sounded simple enough but Xiuying soon realised that it was much tougher and more painful than she thought it would be.

"Come on, get back up. If you can still make sounds, you are still doing well." Jiang commented, waiting for Xiuying to get back on her feet. "How's your Qi? Can you sense it faster?"

Xiuying pushed herself to a standing position and sighed while rubbing where the palm strike had landed. "I think so...Yes! I'm definitely sensing it faster!"

Jiang nodded in approval. "All life is fundamentally fire." Jiang proclaims as he approached you, cracking his knuckles loudly. Xiuying immediately stood up, knowing what was coming. "All souls contain a spark of the Flame Immortal, the pure essence of Divinity, and are filled with the awful heat of Will."

His open palm lashed out again. Xiuying, knowing nothing about fighting, could only raise her arms in defence. Even though Master Jiang was holding back their strength, each blow seemed to shook her deep to the bones.

"Exhale the hot breath of the Flame Immortal, my student!" Jiang shouted through the onslaught of open palm strikes, forcing Xiuying further and further back. "Reach heaven by violence!"

"You still haven't explained what that means!" Xiuying shouted back before clenching her fist and attempted to toss out a fist of her own.

"That's why I'm teaching you," Jiang remarked before sending Xiuying rolling again, face down this time. "Though honestly, I think it's to be taken both metaphorically and literally."

Xiuying could only groan in response.

"Indeed. Have a ten-minute break." Jiang said before walking away, leaving Xiuying on the ground for the time being.

While Xiuying was grateful that the Qi now within her had made her body tougher, even if she couldn't actually control it just yet, it just gave an excuse to Meti to push her even harder.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Xiuying breathed deeply, closing her eyes and willing the flame of spiritual energy to circulate throughout her body, spreading its heat through her blood vessels along with that unpleasant itchy feeling that she felt while meditating. In that moment a loud sound reverberated in her head, like a wordless prayer or song, followed by the Qi suffusing every corner of her body. For a few, blessed moments it felt as though Xiuying was floating above the ground.

"Congratulations, you've finally broken through to Qi Condensation." Jiang's words brought Xiuying back to reality. Before Xiuying could say anything, she felt a rough calloused hand playfully pat the top of her head affectionately. "Though it took you longer than the average would-be cultivator, far more would have given up long ago. That shows you have good Willpower, and Will, as I've mentioned before, is necessary to mastering Sword Law."

Xiuying could feel her cheeks heat up from the praise given to her by her master. "What now then, Master Jiang?"

"Now? Now you can start doing what all Sect Disciples do: trying their damndest to cultivate faster than other Disciples by getting their hands on every possible advantage." Jiang said with a solemn expression on his face. Said expression lasted only a few seconds before he let out a soft chuckle and grinned at Xiuying. "Or you can decide to use your time for better things than a glorified dick waving contest...like say learning how to wield a sword?"

"...Does that mean I can learn how to use a sword now?" Xiuying asked with growing anticipation.

"Later, still need to lecture you on a couple of things," Jiang said before drinking some water. "Now, as I told you several months ago there is a ceiling after which breathing exercises become useless to increase your Qi. If you continue as you did until now, reaching the peak of Qi Condensation and then transcend to Foundation Establishment would take decades, maybe a whole century."

Xiuying frowned as she tried to imagine what life would be like a century from now. Even if Qi now extended her lifespan, she still thought like a normal mortal person, and a century was a very long time to practice for so long and yet gain so little.

"Meditating in places rich with natural spiritual energy helps, but they're rare. And likely already claimed by a Sect." Jiang continued. "That leaves either preparing and consuming Spirit Pills, which I happen to know a thing or two about, or hunting Spirit Beasts and consuming their Core, which I am quite adept at. Alternatively, you can try dual cultivation but I doubt you have the right constitution to make full use of it or find the right partner to dual cultivate with and not be crippled."

Xiuying tilted her head in confusion. "Spirit Beasts? Core? Dual cultivation?"

"Spirit Beasts are animals capable of Cultivation. Some are innately magical and simply grow stronger over time, while others must actively practice a Cultivation method." Jiang explained. "They are more intelligent than mundane animals, and some are capable of speaking the human language and take a human form. All of them possess a Spirit Core inside their bodies which contains spiritual energy. Think of it as a naturally formed Spirit Pill."

"Okay." Xiuying nodded in understanding before frowning. "What's dual cultivation?"

"Er...Hey! Let's get started on teaching you how to use a sword!" Jiang said, changing the subject. While Xiuying was still curious about what dual cultivation was, there was no way she was going to miss the chance to finally get to learn the way of the sword. "Here, catch."

Without warning, Jiang threw a sword still in its scabbard at Xiuying. Caught off-guard, the leather sheath struck Xiuying right in the face, knocking her down on her back.

"...Whoops," Jiang said sheepishly.

After rubbing her bruised face, Xiuying looked at the sword that Jiang had given her. Unsheathed, Xiuying saw that it was a double-edge straight sword, a jian if she recalled correctly. It looked quite old but otherwise it was in decent condition. It was, she noted, also heavy. Not just weight but in a feeling she didn't know how to describe.

Eventually, Xiuying stopped examining her new sword and waited for Jiang to begin the lesson. Seeing that Xiuying was ready, Jiang began his first formal lesson on swordsmanship.

"Listen well, Xiuying. To train with the sword, first master sweeping. When you have mastered sweeping, you must master the way of drawing water. Once you have learned how to draw water, you must split wood. Once you have split wood, you must learn the arts of finding the fine herbs in the forest, the arts of writing, the arts of papermaking, and poetry writing. You must become familiar with the awl and the pen in equal measure. When you have mastered all these things you must master building a house."

Xiuying blinked in confusion before nodding slowly. "Okay...And then you learn how to use a sword?"

"No. Once your house is built you have no further need for a sword, since it is an ugly piece of metal and its adherents idiots." Jiang said proudly.

"...Huh?" This was not what Xiuying was expecting at all. She thought that all sword cultivators loved their sword and thought highly of them. Even if her ultimate goal was to learn how to cut beautifully, it rubbed her the wrong way how her master seemed to have little regard for the sword.

However, Jiang was looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to respond. After mulling over her master's words for a minute or so, Xiuying asked them a question in a stiff, uncertain tone. "Then...how does one become an adherent of an ugly piece of metal?"

Xiuying didn't quite think her master was wrong but she had since learnt that Jiang often likes to try and seem mysterious and sagely, even though his attempts usually failed. There was a deep meaningful message here, even if she didn't really understand it.

Jiang once again began to speak with a tranquil, dissonant tone. "God's glory is great, and you may know this by two paths: the sanctioned words and the sanctioned action.

The sanctioned words are YS ATN VARAMA PRESH. The meaning of these words is Divinity and their attainment is Royalty.

The sanctioned action is to Cut. To Cut means Division by the Blade of Want, that parer of potentials that excises infinities."

Xiuying stared at Jiang as she tried to comprehend what her master said. This time she was sure what he said was something profoundly wise and mysterious. Unfortunately she didn't understand a single bit of it.

"I don't expect you to understand it immediately, even if you're a bigger idiot than I was when I started," Jiang commented, returning to a conversational tone. "For now we'll just work on making you get used to swinging your sword and training the muscles of your arms. Meanwhile, I want you to meditate on the meaning of this phrase: 'There is no such thing as a sword'."
 
Oh god I just love that we have a K6BD sword cultivator in this now. It is way too good.

I'm just sitting over here eating popcorn watching these two idiots fumble their way through high level metaphysics.
 
The spreadsheet says that a 13th stage is only 28x stronger then a mortal. Which is really strong, but it doesn't seem strong enough to be able to break into a sealed concrete bunker which could be created by mortals. The main ingredient of concrete is sand.
 
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The spreadsheet says that a 13th stage is only 28x stronger then a mortal. Which is really strong, but it doesn't seem strong enough to be able to break into a sealed concrete bunker which could be created by mortals. The main ingredient of concrete is sand.
My napkin math says the opposite: Concrete supposedly has a maximum stress of ~3MPa based on random Googling. Wolfram Alpha has human punch strength at around 1500N, so assuming a 10 cm^2 impact surface, we're looking at 14x strength.

This napkin math is terrible, but I think you get the point. It's certainly not implausible enough for me to suspend my SoD.
 
Tasos Basilakes 9 - Torpor.
Torpor
A Tasos Basilakes Omake



The fighting at Pleuron didn't end with the Core Formation cultivator's fall - but the enormity of what had happened had taken the wind out of the Fifth Sea's sails, and the Waycastle got a moment of respite that would let its inhabitants recuperate, then hold until the end of the trials without nearly as much resistance as before.

After all, a miracle's worth was only great if, after it, those present managed to run it home.

When the endless waves of enemies stopped coming, disappearing into the air as if mirages of the desert or some cruel spectres of nightmare, Tasos didn't notice. He'd been barely looking - his brain too tired to truly interpret what his eyes saw - and drew again, sending an arrow whistling past the upper walls. It was the sound of it burying into the dunes, a dull almost imperceptible thud which Tasos should not have heard but in his adrenaline-fueled focus still did, that drew him out of his trance.

He dropped from his roost high upon the upper tower arms aching and hands unresponsive from the sustained shooting but otherwise unharmed - and took upon the ruin around him. He'd known Pleuron - the Basilakes estate was not far from the Colossus Foothill Path and it had long been his family's responsibility to look over the area. Yet the Pleuron he remembered, eclectic and stubborn and oftentimes so vibrant, where Clan and Outside mixed and blurred, was now enveloped in smoke and soot and grey. With the sounds of battle temporally gone, the town was instead scored by boots on cobblestone and adorned by the sounds of pain and desperate action in the nearby field clinic, at the corner of the central plaza.

Pleuron had not fallen - not yet, but Tasos could still see the damage done to its spirit. Pleuron would survive - it was built tough, and so were its people. But the scars were still there.

Tasos spent two hours standing motionless in Pleuron's central plaza, until one of his new companions dragged him away to eat. He'd soon return to his roost, steeled with newfound anger.



There was a small funeral, once the trials ended - when the fighting stopped for long enough to allow for such ceremony. It honored those that had perished in defense of the Waycastle and of the Clan - names he'd known and names he didn't. Friends - or at least something akin to that, such as Xiao Yi.

Once the ceremony was over, Tasos hid inside a ruined house for a day. When he emerged, he headed straight for the healer's camp and spent every waking hour helping out there.

It wasn't until Theodora found him curled over, shivering from the cold and unconscious after passing out assembling a puppet-hand not unlike the one he'd given her months earlier, that he stopped to rest.

"Why are you doing this!?" She demanded, voice cracking with desperation at the disheveled state of her closest friend. Tasos was thinner, eyes bloodshot, and could barely stand straight.

"Because I can" he answered bitterly. His hand reached out to wrap itself around Thea's own prosthesis. "I'm always the one unhurt, in the end - I can help. It's only fair".

Tasos was not allowed back in the infirmary for months after that. Not until he understood that cutting off pounds of his own flesh to feed others wouldn't make it right - and that he had no right to make, anyways.

He still came back, and this time Thea and Eudokia with him. And for the first time in many years, Tasos's greatest contribution was not made at arrowpoint.

Thea kept the wooden hand, even after Tasos found a way to regenerate her and Eudokia's injuries. She cultivated until it grew into her flesh, the Bronze in her blood turning it metallic even as it became part of her flesh. And when Tasos went to Acrocorinth, then to Thrake, she would be there - bronzed wooden hand wrapped around a bronze-skinned one, steady in the storm.

She'd given a pound of flesh to save his life, before the trials. He'd been willing to give it back - but she refused. And slowly, together, they rebuilt the Waycastles - healing each other as they went.

Such is that the soul heals - brick by boring brick. With the patience of the company only misery keeps, and yet the one that keeps it away.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.



This is thought-streamy intentionally, even for me. I hope people liked it. Oftentimes in heroic fantasy we forget the harm that conflict does to people - I don't want to forget. And I don't want to forget the people who are there to get you out of there.

This was written on my phone. I'll edit it later. Had to finish, it wouldn't let me sleep.
 
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Savvas Nicolidis 5 - The Muyi Tree
Savvas Nicolidis 5 - The Muyi Tree

It would be wrong to say that Savvas felt pure and complete respect for the Muyi Tree, as he had termed the spirit tree that used to be Xiao Yi. Mu, for 'wood', and Yi, carried over. Muyi! It would be more correct to say that Savvas felt respect, curiosity and awe, in that order of emotion.

Respect, for the Xiao Yi that laid down his life (or maybe he lived on as a tree?)
Curiosity, for to be Savvas was to have a burning interest in all things cultivation.
Awe, for this was the first time Savvas had ever heard of a cultivator becoming a tree, willingly or otherwise.

Also, this was a public attraction. Unlike most Foundation-Building level trees, the Muyi Tree didn't actively try to kill Savvas! Such an opportunity to study a novel, nonhuman, cultivator was rare. Perhaps even unique. Savvas might never get this opportunity again, and if he did, it might well have to contend with other, more pressing issues. Would the Muyi tree even remain standing, and might it's nature irrevocably chance regardless, if it survived anyhow? All sorts of critical data might be lost.

The Muyi Tree's cultivation, as far as Savvas could tell, is identical to that of a human. Maybe because it's still a human inside? From the outside, it's a labyrinth of vines, a 'Muyi Jungle' really, more suited to a secret realm than here, on the gates of Pleuron. It was amazing, really, how the vines had absorbed the Qi of all the weapons and armor of the 5th Sea Trial hunters, to keep itself alive(?). Getting through the maze was difficult, and would have been impossible for Savvas, suicidal in fact, if the Muyi Tree wasn't friendly.

Savvas could actually see the vines all around the area, rustling without wind, ready to strike at deadly speed against presumably enemies of the clan that dared come. Closer to the core, he noted that Xiao Yi's body was no longer present. Subsumed into the Muyi tree already? Or perhaps not a distinction to properly make in the first place. He could feel the emanation of the tree's cultivation, enough to drive most lesser cultivators away, survival instincts telling them not to mess with a senior. Not Savvas, though.

Touching the trunk of the tree and putting his will into it, not unlike the good seed contribution boards or a jade slip, Savvas found another mind lurking within the tree. The Muyi Tree itself? Xiao Yi, still alive somehow? Giving up is for lesser men. Another mind, hungry. Savvas withdrew, noting the agitated vines. He was sure of it now, though. The Muyi Tree/Xiao Yi (still) had a dao-pillar, at least one, anyway. Turning into a tree had not remade their cultivation, as of yet. Perhaps cultivation was similar across other plants and animals, but then this was a special case. Savvas needed more data still.. well, in time.

Savvas wondered if the Muyi Tree might be able to feast upon human cultivators without the usual consequences of the blood path. There were plenty of blood cannibals to go around, and if the clan, or even a single clan member could benefit from the Blood Path without any of the consequences... He'd have to keep visiting this amazing tree in the future, when he had time.

---

The 'Muyi Fruit'

The Muyi Tree's fruits are a valuable tourist product, of course. You couldn't find them anywhere else in the desert, well in fact there were no trees in the desert, once you excluded oases and like. Red in color, they looked sort of like apples trees that he read and heard grew in the plains. But smaller. When ripened, they were yellow. They were delicious, and decidedly safe for consumption. Mortals could eat them, even! They were certainly expensive (by mortal standards), and might become a significant part of the mortal economy in the future, if the Muyi tree persists.

Addendum: The Muyi Tree does not produce fruits. Or, if it does, the seeds from the fruits look suspiciously like normal cherry plants, and nothing at all like the original Muyi Tree. This is a disappointing outcome, as it means growing Muyi Trees elsewhere in the clan is an unviable, or at least, a nontrivial prospect. It also means I have been scammed by mortal merchants in purchasing ordinary cherries under the guise of them being a 'Muyi Fruit'.

@Mochinator :D
 
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Erm ouch, her instantly jumping to the BAD END makes me feel bad.

Eirene has a very particular kind of optimistic outlook - the kind where she doesn't expect things to end well so much as she's always prepared to define anything as "well enough" lmao.

I, huh, I don't think I'd even know how to write a character without anxiety issues XD

And I don't think enough emphasis has been put so far on the sheer hopelessness of the situation the way it looked before the success. The Pleuron miracle was a desperation play, a "we might as well try this". Everyone pushed themselves beyond the limits in a way no-one could have foreseen, that's like the entire thing, right?

A million to one odds only succeed nine times out of ten in stories, and in-universe Eirene has no guarantees she's in one :3

This kinda makes me imagine her as being in a full body cast.

Well, it's sort of like being in a full body cast, except it's a bruise! :D

This is nice. Very clearly showing how for some of the 13, the big moment is one they actually need to get info on via the records of others. Kind of a neat contrast that for the act that made their name, some of them had to ask around on if it was successful.

I might or might not be channeling my frustration with occipitallobe's trolling in the Good Seed Fates XD

but also, yeah! There are lots of different points of view on this event, and to fill one that others didn't before fills me with pride :3

Yeowtch. That sense of self-blame and pressure. I'm sure it'll push her, but it sure feels like it'll lead to a burnout.

I mean, this is cultivator universe. Overworking yourself is the name of the game really XD

But yeah, this'll come back to bite her if it's not stemmed :3

I LOLed slightly at this. Poor Minervina being dissed because of daydreams of how Cultivators should look, because those are the Cultivators that shine in stories for the Mortals.

My favorite part tbh. How do cultivators pass unnoticed among mortals? By not looking like a cultivator! Eirene does this too, as a hobby :3
 
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Diogenes Aparámillos 1 - One Sky
> editing before posting

what dark sorcery is this
the sorcery of "It's 3 in the morning and a friend said it's all good, so Imma post it now"

Diogenes Aparámillos
In
One Sky

Deep in the heart of the territory of the Golden Devils lies a great forest. In ages past, it may have been green once, but now it's trees lie dry and as stone, transformed by the sand of the desert. Many were but pillars of rock, at this point, but the farther in you came the more…. Lifelike they would seem. Branches would be more whole, leaves would begin to appear, as if they were growing from the stone branches. In nearby villages, it was even whispered that at the heart of the forest lie trees with bark of Gold and Silver, leaves of Jade, and fruit formed from single, pure gemstones! Many a mortal fortune seeker would wander in, seeking that very thing, only to never return.

Those stories don't really matter, to me. All I care about, right now, is peace and quiet, and this forest is isolated enough that no-one's going to come and disturb me. As I leapt from tree to tree, speeding through the forest, my mind drifted inward, back to that single question that had begun to percolate within me from the first moment my body had begun to itch when I drew Qi into it.

Why did Cultivation hurt?

I'd asked around, early on, but had gotten little to no satisfying answers. Usually, it was explained as purification - as the body painfully rejected the impurities that built up naturally within it. Some made references to Heaven's Will, that the pain was heaven attempting to dissuade mortals from setting foot on the path of immortality. And...they all made sense, but they didn't feel complete. For some reason, I felt these answers had a piece of the truth within, but there was something missing, something incomplete in these answers, and that more than anything else was frustrating.

And so, I traveled out here, to this out-of-the-way stone forest, with what stock of Spirit Stones I could scrounge together to allow for my Cultivation to advance, and searched for a decent place to set down. Finally, I found it - a place that looked like it had been carved, the ruined remains of stone trees lying haphazardly around like someone had gone logging and then forgotten to take the trees with them. Coming to a stop, I placed the bag I'd carried all the way out here, setting it on the ground as I took a seat, drawing forth one of the many low-quality Spirit Stones within and beginning to carefully draw out the Qi within.

One after another, I drew out the Qi within the stones, turning over the question that had defined my Cultivation even as I cycled the energy though my meridians. Day became night, became day, became night again, time blurring together as the question burned within my mind, and the Qi burned within my body. And yet… I came no closer to an answer. Hundreds of possible solutions entered my mind, and yet none of them fit. None of them felt like they were any closer to the truth then I already was. At some point in my cultivation, my Devil Silver Body had activated, metal boiling up from my bones to sheathe my skin, and yet my Cultivation did not advance. Pathetic… truly pathetic. Is this all I can do?

The answer came with the feeling of steel being drawn.

My eyes snapped open, but not to perceive the forest as it now was. Before me, two Cultivators faced down, one wielding a sword of Legion make, and the other wielding a weapon shaped like a simple house key. They clashed, power matching power, and yet to the senses of my Qi, there was only one there. The Cultivator of the Legion felt no different from the empty air, his Qi seeming to be nowhere and yet everywhere like his strikes. Was this… Sword Will? The Legion Cultivator... why was he there, yet not? Where was his own Qi?

...Wait.

To Cultivate, one draws the energy from Heaven and Earth into their own body, into the pool that was their 'Own Qi'.

My mother...for the longest time, she would break out in hives upon touching an onion. For some reason, her body viewed onions as hostile invaders, to be purged violently - no matter the cost to my mother. Even her Cultivation could only blunt this, not prevent it.

Could that be it? Could it truly be that simple?

A Cultivator draws on the 'Qi of Heaven' and the 'Qi of Earth', a foreign energy. The body recognizes it is foreign, just like one would recognize pollen as foreign when you inhale it, and seek to purge it. The Qi of Heaven and the Qi of Earth would, thus, wage war within one's own body, against one's 'Own Qi'. This was it… this was the answer I needed!

But… now the problem was fully seen, how to cure it? Well, that was simple, was it not? All I needed to do… was cut. I turned my will inwards, deep within me, seeking my 'Own Qi'. At the end of the day, there was really no difference between my 'Own Qi' and 'External Qi'. Deeper and deeper I went, until I found it - the lake of power that was 'Myself', separated by a barrier of storm from the greater ocean outside.

There was One Sea, One Sky.

In that instant, at that edge of understanding, the Devil Silver Body became but a blade, and I stared at the wall of storm that separated the Qi that was Mine and The Qi that was The World's.

One Destiny.

I faced the wall, from the mere lake that was my own Qi, and I cut.



I know not how long I spent in that place, but when I came aware, the palace I had been meditating in had been ravaged, like a storm had washed over the area, tearing great stone trees from the ground and scattering those fallen logs like toothpicks around me. I felt…

Great.

I picked up the last Spirit Stone, and drew its power into me. It would still take years from this point, but… I now had set my first foot upon the path I was to follow. Now to walk, until I may someday glimpse Mount Tai.


AN:
So yeah, this omake has been in the works for a while, and actively fought me until I figured out what Diogenes was actually about as a character. This is what happened way back in either Turn 3 or 4, when Diogenes got really lucky and went from 1rst Heavenstage to 9th.

Not sure where to put this request tbh, but I'd really like a Lifesaving Treasure please.
 
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AN:
So yeah, this omake has been in the works for a while, and actively fought me until I figured out what Diogenes was actually about as a character. This is what happened way back in either Turn 3 or 4, when Diogenes got really lucky and went from 1rst Heavenstage to 9th.

Not sure where to put this request tbh, but I'd really like a Lifesaving Treasure please.
He finally earned his Omake bonus. All it took was surviving the run to blow up the Death Star
 
The fighting at Pleuron didn't end with the Core Formation cultivator's fall - but the enormity of what had happened had taken the wind out of the Fifth Sea's sails, and the Waycastle got a moment of respite that would let its inhabitants recuperate, then hold until the end of the trials without nearly as much resistance as before.

After all, a miracle's worth was only great if, after it, those present managed to run it home.

When the endless waves of enemies stopped coming, disappearing into the air as if mirages of the desert or some cruel spectres of nightmare, Tasos didn't notice. He'd been barely looking - his brain too tired to truly interpret what his eyes saw - and drew again, sending an arrow whistling past the upper walls. It was the sound of it burying into the dunes, a dull almost imperceptible thud which Tasos should not have heard but in his adrenaline-fueled focus still did, that drew him out of his trance.
I like how this expanded on what happened after the Climax at Pleuron. The mental image of Tasos pushing himself to continue making shot after shot because he's one of the few that is intact + has a ranged option conveys up image of the Sniper defending a pass.

Makes me feel guilty about not putting more work into that Poison Arrow formation i developed. If i have a free turn, i'll probably have Muyi consult with Tasos since the idea for the FB upgrade is no longer everyone pulling together QI to fire 1 poison arrow.

Instead, taking inspiration from his new state, it's gonna summon a bow constuct for each Formation Member that allows them to fire poison arrows. With the Qi of all involved being distributed out as Quivers of Arrows.
He dropped from his roost high upon the upper tower arms aching and hands unresponsive from the sustained shooting but otherwise unharmed - and took upon the ruin around him. He'd known Pleuron - the Basilakes estate was not far from the Colossus Foothill Path and it had long been his family's responsibility to look over the area. Yet the Pleuron he remembered, eclectic and stubborn and oftentimes so vibrant, where Clan and Outside mixed and blurred, was now enveloped in smoke and soot and grey. With the sounds of battle temporally gone, the town was instead scored by boots on cobblestone and adorned by the sounds of pain and desperate action in the nearby field clinic, at the corner of the central plaza.

Pleuron had not fallen - not yet, but Tasos could still see the damage done to its spirit. Pleuron would survive - it was built tough, and so were its people. But the scars were still there.

Tasos spent two hours standing motionless in Pleuron's central plaza, until one of his new companions dragged him away to eat. He'd soon return to his roost, steeled with newfound anger.
I like the snip of Pleuron that was. It adds history to the place and Tasos' ties to it make it more then just a place where a Stand was made, it turns it into the place that if lost would likely mean the death of his kin.

It really helps to tie in to the above idea of him pushing himself because he's also defending home and the kin within it.
Once the ceremony was over, Tasos hid inside a ruined house for a day. When he emerged, he headed straight for the healer's camp and spent every waking hour helping out there.

It wasn't until Theodora found him curled over, shivering from the cold and unconscious after passing out assembling a puppet-hand not unlike the one he'd given her months earlier, that he stopped to rest.
Ah yes, the survival guilt. It's nice that alot of our Good Seeds are showing the Cost of war, something that honestly is only really starting to get added in published fiction.

It's also a nice contrast where the higher you get the more inhuman you become while in this quest, it's no matter how high you get, you remain Human.
"Because I can" he answered bitterly. His hand reached out to wrap itself around Thea's own prosthesis. "I'm always the one unhurt, in the end - I can help. It's only fair".

Tasos was not allowed back in the infirmary for months after that. Not until he understood that cutting off pounds of his own flesh to feed others wouldn't make it right - and that he had no right to make, anyways.

He still came back, and this time Thea and Eudokia with him. And for the first time in many years, Tasos's greatest contribution was not made at arrowpoint.
I think what's interesting about this is that it establishes that we have a understanding of PTSD and ways of managing it.

Which if you think about it makes sense. We're one of the few factions that faces Total War on a constant basis. When the trial starts, everyone has to be ready to fight, unlike even the siege because i'm sure they have rotations off the front for the Righteous Members involved.
This is thought-streamy intentionally, even for me. I hope people liked it. Oftentimes in heroic fantasy we forget the harm that conflict does to people - I don't want to forget. And I don't want to forget the people who are there to get you out of there.
It was great. The shortness helps lend impact to the theme of Guilt and PTSD.


Also, this was a public attraction. Unlike most Foundation-Building level trees, the Muyi Tree didn't actively try to kill Savvas! Such an opportunity to study a novel, nonhuman, cultivator was rare. Perhaps even unique. Savvas might never get this opportunity again, and if he did, it might well have to contend with other, more pressing issues. Would the Muyi tree even remain standing, and might it's nature irrevocably chance regardless, if it survived anyhow? All sorts of critical data might be lost.
I keep hearing echoes of the Orochimaru laugh when i read the Omake, the "Kukukukuku"

The Muyi Tree's cultivation, as far as Savvas could tell, is identical to that of a human. Maybe because it's still a human inside? From the outside, it's a labyrinth of vines, a 'Muyi Jungle' really, more suited to a secret realm than here, on the gates of Pleuron. It was amazing, really, how the vines had absorbed the Qi of all the weapons and armor of the 5th Sea Trial hunters, to keep itself alive(?). Getting through the maze was difficult, and would have been impossible for Savvas, suicidal in fact, if the Muyi Tree wasn't friendly.

Savvas could actually see the vines all around the area, rustling without wind, ready to strike at deadly speed against presumably enemies of the clan that dared come. Closer to the core, he noted that Xiao Yi's body was no longer present. Subsumed into the Muyi tree already? Or perhaps not a distinction to properly make in the first place. He could feel the emanation of the tree's cultivation, enough to drive most lesser cultivators away, survival instincts telling them not to mess with a senior. Not Savvas, though.
Respect the survival instincts Savas, RESPECT THEM! It's thanks to the Bronze blood that you're not a dead scientist.
, Savvas found another mind lurking within the tree. The Muyi Tree itself? Xiao Yi, still alive somehow? Giving up is for lesser men. Another mind, hungry. Savvas withdrew, noting the agitated vines.
I mentioned it in the Discord, but i like the mention of the other mind, which is basically the Darkness, where his dark thoughts, primal instincts and the Demonic vines have merged into one.
Addendum: The Muyi Tree does not produce fruits. Or, if it does, the seeds from the fruits look suspiciously like normal cherry plants, and nothing at all like the original Muyi Tree. This is a disappointing outcome, as it means growing Muyi Trees elsewhere in the clan is an unviable, or at least, a nontrivial prospect. It also means I have been scammed by mortal merchants in purchasing ordinary cherries under the guise of them being a 'Muyi Fruit'.
Thank you for contributing to the Pleuron Rebuilding Fund. Sucker :V



Why did Cultivation hurt?

I'd asked around, early on, but had gotten little to no satisfying answers. Usually, it was explained as purification - as the body painfully rejected the impurities that built up naturally within it. Some made references to Heaven's Will, that the pain was heaven attempting to dissuade mortals from setting foot on the path of immortality. And...they all made sense, but they didn't feel complete. For some reason, I felt these answers had a piece of the truth within, but there was something missing, something incomplete in these answers, and that more than anything else was frustrating.
I think what's interesting about this is what it symbolizes. The fact that the answer given kept digging at him, convincing him that it was not the truth means that his Dao Heart is firm. That his belief in it and what it means is so strong, that even when faced with what is perceived to be the truth, his Dao says no.

It's definitely the start to the Cultivator pursing their own Dao/Path. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but i feel that it perfectly shows the scene of a Cultivator undergoing a "bottleneck" in their cultivation and eventually breaking through it.
My eyes snapped open, but not to perceive the forest as it now was. Before me, two Cultivators faced down, one wielding a sword of Legion make, and the other wielding a weapon shaped like a simple house key. They clashed, power matching power, and yet to the senses of my Qi, there was only one there. The Cultivator of the Legion felt no different from the empty air, his Qi seeming to be nowhere and yet everywhere like his strikes. Was this… Sword Will? The Legion Cultivator... why was he there, yet not? Where was his own Qi?

...Wait.

To Cultivate, one draws the energy from Heaven and Earth into their own body, into the pool that was their 'Own Qi'.
What strikes me as curious about this is that the battle appear out of nowhere. There were no hints or indicators of what they are. They could as easily be leftover wills dueling each other in a eternal fight, they could also be his subconscious mind hinting at the path to his Dao.

The vagueness involved and the enlightenment is the exact kind of breakthrough that is non-flashy and hard to convey.
My mother...for the longest time, she would break out in hives upon touching an onion. For some reason, her body viewed onions as hostile invaders, to be purged violently - no matter the cost to my mother. Even her Cultivation could only blunt this, not prevent it.

Could that be it? Could it truly be that simple?

A Cultivator draws on the 'Qi of Heaven' and the 'Qi of Earth', a foreign energy. The body recognizes it is foreign, just like one would recognize pollen as foreign when you inhale it, and seek to purge it. The Qi of Heaven and the Qi of Earth would, thus, wage war within one's own body, against one's 'Own Qi'. This was it… this was the answer I needed!
This is a unique approach that is very in keeping with how each cultivator views the world and their interactions with Heaven via different lens. It can just as easily be viewed as the cultivator amassing more Qi in their body

But the concept of purifying Qi and making it your own to minimize the side effects feels like the kind of act that will lead to a new cultivation method. One about not constantly amassing Qi but about purifying what you have already gotten.
But… now the problem was fully seen, how to cure it? Well, that was simple, was it not? All I needed to do… was cut. I turned my will inwards, deep within me, seeking my 'Own Qi'. At the end of the day, there was really no difference between my 'Own Qi' and 'External Qi'. Deeper and deeper I went, until I found it - the lake of power that was 'Myself', separated by a barrier of storm from the greater ocean outside.

There was One Sea, One Sky.

In that instant, at that edge of understanding, the Devil Silver Body became but a blade, and I stared at the wall of storm that separated the Qi that was Mine and The Qi that was The World's.

One Destiny.

I faced the wall, from the mere lake that was my own Qi, and I cut.
I can't remember if he was a Sword Cultivator, but this is very in keeping with their style of doing things. I cut at all that seek to stop my cultivation, my foes, myself and the world. None shall bar me as long as i can swing my sword.

Very great stuff.
 
This is a unique approach that is very in keeping with how each cultivator views the world and their interactions with Heaven via different lens. It can just as easily be viewed as the cultivator amassing more Qi in their body

But the concept of purifying Qi and making it your own to minimize the side effects feels like the kind of act that will lead to a new cultivation method. One about not constantly amassing Qi but about purifying what you have already gotten.
For some reason, this makes me wonder what sort of treasures one may make with Diogenes's body, what with the Devil Silver Body and the approach to Cultivation he revealed here

it puts a Weird Fear into me
 
For some reason, this makes me wonder what sort of treasures one may make with Diogenes's body, what with the Devil Silver Body and the approach to Cultivation he revealed here

it puts a Weird Fear into me
The Soul Severing Silver Sword - A sword forged from the corpse of a golden devil with a unique silver body, it is a blade that incorporates both his body and his Dao - to cut away the world until nothing of it was left. Until all qi was One Sea, One Sky and One Destiny. A cut from this sword will strike the Dao heart, cutting pieces off of the target until nothing is left of the Self. As the original Cultivator once cut away the world, the sword will cut away the Self until all that remains is the World.
 
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The Soul Severing Silver Sword - A sword forged from the corpse of a golden devil with a unique silver body, it is a blade that incorporates both his body and his Dao - to cut away the world until nothing of it was left. Until all qi was One Sea, One Sky and One Destiny. A cut from this sword will strike the Dao heart, cutting pieces off of the target until nothing is left of the Self. As the original Cultivator once cut away the world, the sword will cut away the Self until all that remains is the World.
Good try, but your description managed to miss what that final bit actually meant to Diogenes

once I reveal the name of Diogenes's Dao, this post will become p funny :V
 
With a final swish of her quill she finished and then leaned back to stretch for a long moment, rolling her neck as she took a brief break from her meditative breathing. Paperwork was a good meditative aid she'd found.
This is the weirdest thing about Ferenike. Even more then the metal lady thing. Actually liking paperwork! Ye gods! :o
Ferenike raised her legion identification array and ran it past the array on the archive door and entered the stacks. Instead of going into the maze of towering scroll and book shelves, she instead turned left down an aisle until she found a descending spiral stair and went down. And down and down, more than a li underground. Buried deep in the sandstone, there were stacks of more dangerous scrolls and books, open to her due to having enough cultivation to survive one if it got aggressive and to cow them without damaging them too badly.
o_O mysterious hidden library! Point to consider here being that if we have one such library in a normal Waystation, what kind of Forbidden Lore do we have in our main HQ ??

Also very nice Magic Library vibe, the mention of living scrolls and books definitely gives off a Western Feel that suits the Clan over the usual bamboo slips used in Chinese Xianxia.
After about fifteen minutes of walking through the confusing tunnels, she returned to the hall which held her work station and several other study and research rooms, a long line of doors. She stepped up to her door and a flash of her qi into the lock, keyed to her personal aura, caused the door to pop open and she stepped into the room. It was a room about the size of a large cottage, with a small number of containment shelves against the wall opposite the door, a number of large slates she could draw diagrams on spread about the space and a desk with a single small magic light. Paper and quills and ink were present in the desk drawers for any of her notes, and there was already a stack of them on the right corner of the desk.

Giving it a once over she satisfied herself no one had entered it since she had been in here last night. Pulling the door closed behind her, the room became a little pocket of faint light in seeming endless dark. Qi outside the room was muted to prevent incidental distractions, though attacks and real trouble would be still perceivable, as was sound and light. Just a little box all to herself.
Oh neat. it's both a library and a workshop. I think i can see myself using this Workshop idea when i get around on redeveloping the Philocates formation from the FB perspective.

Also, silent and isolated.. Sounds like a great place to take a nap. Looks like Muyi could have gatecrash at the workshop instead, the Xianxia version of the Netcafe. :V
Stepping across the room she reached her containment shelves and reaching out to the lock undid it. There was a bubbling of malevolence from the books held within as she opened the door. Hissing and the flickering of shadows at the edge of her vision occurred as she pulled out one volume, Magnificent Liao Tzu's Meditations Upon Demon Plants, but a sharp look and slap of qi made the book shut up. It was a large thing, about fifteen centimeters thick and it was big enough to be used as a small shield. She was strong enough to manhandle it with a single hand and carried it over to her current diagram work mapping her hypothesis for Xiao Yi's meridians. There wasn't much there unfortunately, as the structure of the grove was incredibly obfuscating to her senses.

She began to read.

For as almost malevolently dry as the words were, as well as self-aggrandizing, there was some useful tidbits found within the many, many pages. Incidentally the book's incredibly detailed descriptions of the feeding habits and methods of Demon Plants had given her insight into how Xiao Yi could still be alive at this point. Drinking in the qi of his enemies at first, to sustain his own body after the blow that had cut him in two, but now he would be fed by the sun and the qi of the sands which Liao Tzu detailed came from two places; the qi of the Spirit Stones buried beneath it which bubbled up through it and which fed the dragonlines, and the qi from wind which blew across the desert and then settled upon the sand.

She herself had experienced the interaction of the qi of the sands and the qi shining down from the sun driving the winds as they spiraled against each other. In many ways thus, the wind drove itself. A useful insight for her Oasis as well, the work for which was taking up another entire board off to her right. She was splitting her time between helping her friend and working on that, and in a curious happenstance had found them to have many related parts. At least for the current approach she was taking of trying to return Xiao Yi to a human shape, by finding a way to induce his qi to flow and shape itself into such a form in a stable fashion without unduly harming him.

Long into the night as the moon rose high above the desert she worked in the dimness, the tiny click of chalk on slate and her breaths the only sounds.
This part is nice because it really ties into the Xianxia idea of how everything is connected and that a lot of the stuff is different ways of viewing the same subject.

Which in this case being the relation between the Demonic Plants with the Earth, and the Oasis formation with the Earth. Same underlying concept, different results.
Like she had done with these volunteers, who were sat in meditative positions, spread out in a loose gathering without ranks or much ordering. She walked amongst them and noted the qi flows between them, their breaths in a natural rhythm. She did not link herself to the flow of qi, as this needed to be able to function without her presence in the flow or her direction. She gave thanks to Xiao Yi for reminding her of that particular pitfall.

The swish of her robes against the smooth stone of the courtyard and the clack of her boots underscored her voice as she lectured on her memories of her insights. "...water is the energy and life of the Oasis, it bubbles up from the rivers below and condenses as dew on the leaves of orchards in the heat of the sun. They persist for longer than our lifetimes, before suddenly vanishing without warning..."

In her mind she watched and modeled these people and what they did as they shared Qi, the dozens of different methods and means they had, idiosyncratic and novel. She wished to see for herself how others manipulated Qi when they wished to work together with others. The wider the base she had, the stronger the foundation and the better the final product would be. The more constitutions she had experience with, the more methods she witnessed, the easier it would be when she went to develop the Qi circulation patterns that would initiate the formation as those needed to be generalized in an easily used and widely understandable manner.
I feel that this shows the difference between Muyi's Formation and the one Ferenike is developing.

At the root, the philocates Formation is just a refinement of the Kataphract Formation focusing on one aspect. It's basically swapping parts around and then fine-tuning it.

The Oasis Formation is a whole new concept being brought to life from scratch and is likely to inspire divergent variants from it. Stuff like a Formation that steals the gathered Qi used by the enemy's Formation to power it's users, a parasitical relationship with their Qi.
Standing on the other side of the counter, resting her hand on it, he saw a tall woman of the Golden Devils. Her skin seemed to be entirely metal, one of the more extreme versions of the demonic blood he'd seen, though she was unusual in that her nails seemed to be red glass and a spark of red lingered in her pupils.

She had only a presence in the first heavenstage, wavering and weak. She clasped her hands in front of her and bowed. "Senior, this one has heard of your wares." She said politely. He couldn't fault the Golden Devils on their politeness, he gave them that.
Honestly, this really shows the cheat's arrogance. Like lady met purely from metal and you have no clue on who she is. When you're based in Pleuron, the same city that she's currently based in?

No professionalism i say.
"Truly, it is impressive that you would try to sell sand to a Clan of desert dwellers whose blood sings with alloyed metals." A terrible cracking voice like an inferno rattled his eardrums as a suffocating presence swallowed his shop, carried on a wave of cinnamon scent. He froze.

And then he choked as a glass covered hand snapped to his throat and lifted him up. T-tenth Heavenstage, she was Tenth Heavenstage, oh god he was dead. Dead dead, so fucking dead those were flames dancing on her tongue sweet dragons!

The devil woman pulled him over the counter, banging his shins painfully and knocking his wares to the ground with a crash. Holding him before her he was forced to look into her eyes as he frantically tore at her searing hot grip on his neck, the pits of her eyes burning into his mind and setting his thoughts afire with fear. Smoke blasted from the open pits of her nose in a snort. "Chen Ji of the Sorrowful Blacksmiths, I am Centurion Ferenike of the Golden Devils."
YES. Now he FEARS HER. It strikes me that the fool does not realize how easy it is for someone to disappear in the untamed desert. :drevil:

How tragic, we did our best to find him....
Chen Ji's mind worked frantically all the way through their trip to the gate and the out of the city towards the... grove. Oh no. He started screaming then in sheer terror and flailing like mad. His clenched fists did nothing as they bounced off this woman's glass armored metal body, but he did not want to be plant food! Fuck!

They approached the slowly writhing grove, its black-green vines slowly slipping against each other. Ji had not braved the innards of this place, he wasn't suicidal and he knew the stories of it eating fifty Foundation experts in the Trials. And they were getting closer to it! His screams turned into a high pitched keening.

And then they stopped about ten meters from it and he flew through the air, his screams reaching a fever pitch as he twisted and then landied with a thud face first in the sand. He heard the grove shake and slither ahead of him and he looked up and saw it reaching slowly towards him, runners and vines slithering in the sands like snakes. He frantically tried to scramble away on four limbs before a heavy foot landed on his back, pinning him with absurd strength. The vines, mercifully, paused.
Yousa need me for something boss lady? Me feel thirsty! Yousa brought me snack?
"Yes. You sell us proper wares at the proper prices in Pleuron and you receive great wealth, for we are honest dealers. Or I feed you to my friend Xiao Yi." She said, her voice digging into his brain and stoking the flames of fear even higher.

"Yes yes! YES! I swear, I swear on my Dao-heart I'll give you the proper prices! Please don't kill me!" He begged, clawing and kicking weakly at the sand. Like hell he was going to ignore this bargain! He was a merchant and his life was the most valuable thing he owned!
I'm the muscle cracking my knuckles next to Ferenike's Mafia Don threat.
She'd spent it meditating in Xiao Yi's grove.

As strange as it might be, it was in its own way an oasis she had come to find, and she'd actually noticed some improvement as she went there over the years. The grove had almost calmed, slightly, becoming safe enough for mortals to enter a few months after the siege if they were watched carefully. Their prayers to her friend were strange on her ears, she found the concept of worshiping her friend very weird since she'd seen the dumbass drunk off his ass before and not very godly, but she kept an eye on them all the same. There'd been a few ominous and almost amused rustles before but now it was simply dark and brooding.

Strange bedfellow with peace honestly. But now, she was here and talking to him. Or at least in his direction.
Hey! Don't drive away my worshippers! I could have been a TREE GOD! Clearly me not hitting Nascent Soul is Ferenike's fault for not spreading the Word Of The Holy Vines.

Also point to consider, that was because i was becoming more Tree then man. So good for mortals, not so good for me
The vines rustled and there was a groan of shifting plant matter. She nodded. She knew he was aware, in some fashion, but she wasn't sure if he could still understand speech. And so she did what she always did when she visited, a ritual of sorts now. She pulled a wine bottle from her storage and uncorking it poured it into the roots below the trunk-like mass Xiao Yi was fused with and once it was empty began to meditate on the Oasis.
Thanks for the wine, the Qi within i all went to my vines!
She'd have to get that girl a good tutor, because that had been impressive use of action. It reminded her of Katerina Salviati, the little hellion. Her expression smoothed out as her regret bubbled up a little at the thought.

She was regretful Agha and Katerina, those two girls she had trained could not be a part of her own squad. But the situation required that they be distributed where they could help most and truthfully speaking she was quite happy for them. They'd go on to have their own adventures and probably train their own crop of newbies at some point.

Much like the Thirteen, her hat maker whose son and daughter were now making them, and her trainees she was trying to keep an eye out for news about them. She hoped they lived well every day, though the world wasn't always that kind. Unfortunately.
I like this changes. It shows both the change in relationship as well as the change of years for those involved.
In her core she shaped her mosaic of red glass shards into a mirror of the night sky and the sands swirling around the city, each shard carved with tiny channels through which Qi could run. Step by step she placed the pieces where they must go, each a part of the greater work but reflecting it almost like a fractal. Into these pieces she put her memories; of staying in Grandfather Laosha's oasis and its reflection of the night's stars, she thought of Xiao Yi's grove, dozens of qi concentration arrays, her own home in the dunes with Ales and her servants, the wagon she had been born in and remembered as fond feelings of warmth and comfort. Then beyond those things, the desert itself, a sanctuary and retreat of sorts in a harsh world.

At the end of the path she placed that light and airy feeling, that little budding offshoot of friendship, and in it was invested the feeling of Clan. With a tug she pulled on the entire mental construct and felt it reach up and down and out, sweeping through the stone and air above to catch upon the qi of the desert and the dragonlines to draw it in a twinned funnel.

After a year of work she'd finally done it. She reveled in the faint feeling of qi she had entering her system, a smile breaking out on her face, red teeth glinting in the faint golden and red light which surrounded her. She'd done it! Now, now she could work on figuring out how to teach it to others.
NICE, very symbolic. It has finally taken shape!
Enclosed within one will find the necessary insights to enact a new Formation invented by myself, Ferenike of the Ninth Legion.

The purpose of this Century Oasis Formation is to share the users vitality, speed of healing, and endurance to enhance logistical capabilities and the use of Spirit Stones for armies on the march. This formation draws on the power of the desert sands, air, the sun and the moon, tapping into the dragonlines which flow through the desert towards the mountains and it concentrates this power amongst the members of the formation. The shared vitality of the users of this formation is thus further amplified by the concentrated amount of desert Qi and this concentrated Qi is what enables a more efficient logistical tail, increased army endurance and wounded recovery time, and advantage in matters of attrition. Thusly, cohorts using this formation will find themselves expending fewer Spirit Stones to heal and march through the desert, and improving the effect of Spirit Stones they do expend.
Again, this is really really good and considering we're likely to be in Defensive wars? Fucking Awesome at helping us defend our lands.
 
o_O mysterious hidden library! Point to consider here being that if we have one such library in a normal Waystation, what kind of Forbidden Lore do we have in our main HQ ??

Also very nice Magic Library vibe, the mention of living scrolls and books definitely gives off a Western Feel that suits the Clan over the usual bamboo slips used in Chinese Xianxia.
That HQ Library is what my Good seed would like to see one day. There must be some dangerous and, possibly, game-changing lore hidden in the HQ. Please note that the Cool thing is the cultivation art my Good Seed Zeno Angelus got from his mother, which his mother got from an Elder in the HQ. Where else could the Elder Archivist from the HQ Library have gotten such a specific cultivation art, but from the Library in the HQ? That is at least the excuse I use, why Zenos dances are so strange compared to the average clan cultivation art. I mean, which cultivation art demands a dream test in order to be able to ùnlock the use of the dances afterwards? How these dances are connected to the concept of love and shadow will be the cultivation focus for my good seed.
Should these not be compatible in the narrative of this cultivation world then please don´t hesitate to tell me.
 
I think what's interesting about this is that it establishes that we have a understanding of PTSD and ways of managing it.

Which if you think about it makes sense. We're one of the few factions that faces Total War on a constant basis. When the trial starts, everyone has to be ready to fight, unlike even the siege because i'm sure they have rotations off the front for the Righteous Members involved.
It's actually an established historical fact (I think; it's posible that it's too new a proposition to be such) that Ancient Greece totally had PTSD management stuff. Communal viewing of tragedy in theatre was one such thing, and that's what "catharsis" is about - people recognizing themselves in others' stories!

I could probably find sources for this.

EDIT: okay the sheer number of sources overwhelms me and I don't think I can find the specific article I liked without being back home from work, but here's one that's actually scientific research rather than journalism https://www.researchgate.net/public...sorders_and_Their_Treatment_in_Ancient_Greece
(also, google "greek tragedies combat trauma" for how i got overwhelmed)
 
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That HQ Library is what my Good seed would like to see one day. There must be some dangerous and, possibly, game-changing lore hidden in the HQ. Please note that the Cool thing is the cultivation art my Good Seed Zeno Angelus got from his mother, which his mother got from an Elder in the HQ. Where else could the Elder Archivist from the HQ Library have gotten such a specific cultivation art, but from the Library in the HQ? That is at least the excuse I use, why Zenos dances are so strange compared to the average clan cultivation art. I mean, which cultivation art demands a dream test in order to be able to ùnlock the use of the dances afterwards? How these dances are connected to the concept of love and shadow will be the cultivation focus for my good seed.
Should these not be compatible in the narrative of this cultivation world then please don´t hesitate to tell me.
Na go for it! Cultivators are weird as shit. Dao of Dance? Why not? Dao of Samba might be possible as well :V

Cultivation is supposed to be a personal journey anyway, so even 2 people treading on the same Dao of Shadows can have different interpretations of what it means.
It's actually an established historical fact (I think; it's posible that it's too new a proposition to be such) that Ancient Greece totally had PTSD management stuff. Communal viewing of tragedy in theatre was one such thing, and that's what "catharsis" is about - people recognizing themselves in others' stories!

I could probably find sources for this.
That sounds like something Eirenne would do? Considering her background and her new desire to heal. A play of Pleuron focusing on other aspects such as the cultivator begging for his mother, the mother hugging her daughter as death comes and so on.
 
I mean the carnival she grew up with 100% did tragedies for legionnaire audience actually come to think of it. And obviously she sings songs about events that ARE basically condensed tragedies.

She does perform solo without a troupe though lol.

But yeah she's going to be gathering info about what happened so she can make a proper song (series) out of it!

...OH YEAH. To all Good Seed writers: anyone who wants a collab of Eirene talking to you about what happened during the Trials... (and how you feel afterwards, therapy services for free lol) ABSOLUTELY CONTACT ME LET'S DO THIS SHIT

(Also anyone is free to use "telling Eirene your story because she asked" as a framing device without involving me)
(This includes people who weren't saving Juniors or anything, any war story is an Eirene-listening-to-you story)
 
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