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

[occipitallobe]

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.

 

[occipitallobe]

Will you inform me of what treasure ambrus got for saving the guards in the 20yrly update or do i need to decide what he got myself? Personally id pref if you randomized it a bit lol.

Click to shrink...

For Good Seeds I'll be sort of vague. The goal is to provide a framework to write around.

So it might be 'Magical earth element axe'. But I won't go into a massive history or anything, or name it.

 

[Empere]

@occipitallobe

How do governments work in this xianxialand? Are all rulers cultivators are are their mortal kings and emperors? Because some xianxia works make it so that yeah, there exists a dude whose an expy of a Chinese Emperor but he's a mortal rulers of mortals so he's hilariously unimportant in the grand scheme of things once the Protagonist becomes a cultivator and realizes just how many layers of power there are.

 

[occipitallobe]

@occipitallobe

How do governments work in this xianxialand? Are all rulers cultivators are are their mortal kings and emperors? Because some xianxia works make it so that yeah, there exists a dude whose an expy of a Chinese Emperor but he's a mortal rulers of mortals so he's hilariously unimportant in the grand scheme of things once the Protagonist becomes a cultivator and realizes just how many layers of power there are.

Click to shrink...

Almost always, rulers are cultivators. In a world where one dude can be your nuclear option and people are still human and love power, it's rare to see mortal kings and emperors unless they're part of a dynasty with many cultivators. Even then, we're talking little tiny kingdoms - 100,000 people, max.

 

[Empere]

Almost always, rulers are cultivators. In a world where one dude can be your nuclear option and people are still human and love power, it's rare to see mortal kings and emperors unless they're part of a dynasty with many cultivators. Even then, we're talking little tiny kingdoms - 100,000 people, max.

Click to shrink...

I'll be doing some editing of my character's backstory and omake I'm working on then. Thank you for the info!

 

[occipitallobe]

(Note: My hand is playing up, so I dictated this in Google Docs. If you see any weird grammar or word placement, or the writing is clunkier than last post, that's why.)

Manuel let out a sigh. It was admittedly tiresome, waiting to see what results the mission to the Oasis Rebels had come back with.

The rebels in the Oasis had been fighting the Battle Blood Cannibal Sect for some time. The demands of the Cannibal Sect had grown too large - if death was the result of obedience, one would soon find their subjects in rebellion. It had been the notion of Manuel to send in some cultivators to assist them. Not in direct combat of course, But rather a group of excellent operatives who would be able to assist in funnelling resources to the rebels, and providing them with notions of where to strike. By causing the Oasis Rebels to become more difficult for the Battle Blood Cannibal Sect to subdue, it would open up new opportunities against the Battle Blood Cannibal Sect, and would take pressure off the defences of the Golden Devil Clan.

While he waited, he sat back thinking about the lectures he had given over the last few years. Lecturing on cultivation had always been interesting to him. When he was dealing with Qi Condensation juniors, it was easiest of all.

Dealing with Foundation Building Realm cultivators was significantly more difficult in a number of ways. Firstly, you needed to account for the Dao. Giving lectures that were in opposition to a given cultivator's Dao could potentially ruin their prospects. This meant each lecture needed to take into account every single cultivator one was dealing with, and fit at least one of their Dao Pillars each. Not impossible, but very difficult.

Core Formation cultivators were incredibly hard to deal with, as they dealt with but a single Dao, and letting them stray from the path could be deadly, to both their cultivation and their life. If you lectured to Core Formation juniors, it was one at a time.

Qi Condensation juniors on the other hand were following a path that was already well-trod, aiming to perfect their bodies so that they might form a Dao Pillar. This meant he only needed to lead them in the right direction, understanding their troubles and offering hints that would let them explore further.

He remembered the first lecture he had given. It had been an enjoyable time for him, using his spiritual sense to scout out the meridians of his new students, giving them a small snippet of information each that might help lead them a little further down the path of cultivation.

It wasn't until the fifth lecture that he started having fun. He smiled, remembering that entertaining scene. Turning himself into a sparrow was not a technique he used often - being pointless in combat and easily detected by any cultivator in Core Formation Realm or above. It was, however an excellent way to teach students to question their surroundings.

For three hours he played a cat and mouse game with them, guiding them through the nearby forest in order to ambush them all one by one.The point had been considerably different to what the students expected. Not some esoteric lesson about how to spot Spirit Beasts. Nor to understand how ambushes were set up, or how to survive in a forest. Rather, he had let them into the forest to give them a single jade slip that had been written almost specifically for them. Not a cultivation technique, but a single word that would both encapsulate their current difficulty, and give them a hint to help them advance.

Four hundred disciples had come to that lecture. It had taken him almost a week to write all the jade slips, using his Soul to investigate and understand their troubles. But each single word, he estimated, would add six or seven months to that disciple's cultivation progress.

As much as he had enjoyed it, the point was not to simply impress his juniors. Rather, it was to show them the value of Contribution Points. Contribute, act ever in the interests of the Clan and you shall be rewarded. Some disciples had gotten points by scrubbing dishes, or chopping wood and carrying water. Not things older disciples would be rewarded for, or even be expected to do. No, this was setting a precedent. For those disciples who had worked hard and completed boring, mind-numbing tasks to demonstrate their value to the clan, they would get a scrap of attention from a Nascent Soul Elder.

Manuel did not think he was prideful when he considered his time the single most valuable asset of the clan. He could not do one-tenth of what was needed of him, and this too, taught a lesson. Your elders can help you so much - that they do not do so, surely they have a reason? To inculcate a sense of trust in the elders as well, that they were competent and caring enough to look after the interests of their juniors.

He let himself have a quiet moment, enjoying the serenity of his surroundings and thinking about helping his juniors.

It was at this moment a messenger arrived shouting, desperately for his attention.

"The Oasis Rebels! Elder, the- the Oasis Rebels, the-."

The man was holding a jade slip. Manuel took it from him, and sent his spiritual sense inside, to seek the images within. What was there horrified him - he had not expected this. He had known the possible consequences for failure, of course, but such a team should have been able to escape anyone below Nascent Soul.

He looked over the group. They were all there. One Core Formation Elder, leading 25 Foundation Building juniors. A team sufficient to offer some serious assistance to the Oasis Rebels, and if that failed - at the very least to escape.

They were being tortured to death. Some impaled on spikes, some having their entrails torn out with pokers. Other manners of horrors invaded his mind. Manuel frowned, and blinked. He had seen worse, but it was discomfiting. He had, after all, sent them to their deaths.

A man waved from the video inside the jade slip.

Child Corpse Gulper.

Still missing his leg, still with an twisted expression of fury on his face.

"Elder Nikephoros Theophylaktos. I believe one of these is yours."

Child Corpse Gulper smiled, and tore a large chunk out of a whimpering man's leg with his teeth.

"Ioannes Theophylaktos, no?"

Manuel winced. Nikephoros's beloved nephew - Nikephoros had fought to get him assigned to this mission, aiming to have a beloved family member accomplish something great. He would need to watch Nikephoros over the next few months, to ensure this didn't weaken his Dao-Heart too badly. Another task. Never enough time.

Three days. Three full days of footage. Tortures that Manuel would have vomited from seeing had he been a youth again. He had seen worse than this, though. To some particularly vile Blood Path cultivators, he mused, he had done worse. Manuel watched it all, going over it all in detail watching it once, twice, three times.

If someone watching the outside they might have presumed he was doing it out of guilt. Manuel did not feel guilt over this. He had gambled with the precious lives under his command, and he had lost. This had happened before. It would happen again - more would die because of him. It was his hope that the lives would outweigh the deaths. He would have a reckoning in time, but he did not have the luxury of feeling guilt, of wallowing in his own emotions.

No, he watched this for one reason and one reason only.

Child Corpse Gulper was foolish enough to record three full days of him taking action. Three days of personal quirks, three days of movements, three days of small tells, little things the man did habitually. Three days of potential weaknesses to be ruthlessly exploited.

Of course watching it all only took Manuel a few minutes, his spiritual sense enough to allow him to watch this with incredible speed. One benefit, if you could call it that, of a Nascent Soul.

He did not relish the conversation Nikephoros and he would have later. Still…

A pang of guilt rose in his heart. He pushed it down, allowing himself not even a breath of time to feel sorry. There was no time to spend in useless guilt. Not for him.

 

[gale]

Well that is painful but useful

 

[occipitallobe]

Well that is painful but useful

Click to shrink...

Technically this should have been a mere miserable failure, not a complete disaster.

Heaven put its thumb on the scale, though.

 

[TehChron]

All things being equal huh

Hmm. So we really are playing against the dice, arent we.

Very well then.

 

[ReaderOfFate]

Side effect of having that 1 Shiny Debt resulting in us having worse-than-average Karmic Luck, I guess.

That was a thematic choice considering the general theme of the chargen plan, but ouch nonetheless. Well, as long as we don't play too risky, we should be fine.

 

[DangerKitty]

now i'm imagining manuel facing off against child gulper joseph joestar style predicting what he is going to say and do because he has studied him so much as he visciously, efficiently and brutally counters his every move lol.

 

[Empere]

Well that hurt. Manuel is right, these are not the first or the last cultivators we will send to their deaths. The only thing we can do is try to spend lives responsibly and manage our risks.

Also we will need to rip out Child Corpse Gulper's heart at some point, but that's a given.

 

[LordEdric]

What level was the core formation expert we lost at, it is the big loss and I want to know how bad

 

[Leon12431]

How would you describe breaking into the 1st Heavenstage? @occipitallobe

Also what would be an expected result of a person beginning to cultivate around 14 instead of 16. For a slightly above average person.

 

[Twisted Mind]

@occipitallobe My good seed is only 19 but is in the 4th Heavenstage Realm. Is that going to be a problem?

 

[ReaderOfFate]

@occipitallobe My good seed is only 19 but is in the 4th Heavenstage Realm. Is that going to be a problem?

Click to shrink...

Probably. The reason the Third Heavenstage is a semi-bottleneck is because you're intentionally not supposed to go too fast through it, or you'll negatively affect your future development. An average cultivator breaks to the third at 30, so being at the fourth at 19 implies you didn't spend much time at the third.

Here's the quote to the chart, btw.

Starting as a 16-year old mortal
1st Heavenstage - 21
2nd Heavenstage - 25
3rd Heavenstage - 30 (Semi-bottleneck, though not major. The Acupoint Awareness stage. Advancing too fast through the 3rd Heavenstage will negatively impact future development)
4th Heavenstage - 35

Click to shrink...

 

[KreenWarrior]

Good Seed:

@occipitallobe

Name: Cheilas Apion
Age: 17 (2nd Heavenstage)

Background: Cheilas was born into a minor branch family of the Golden Devil Clan, raised with the expectation that he would be little more than a foot soldier among the ranks. However, his nature was to be always curious, always restless, never satisfied. It is likely he would have had a poor career, had not a chance encounter lead to him catching the attention of an eccentric pill forger by the name of Zeno.

Soon Cheilas's life was filled with the simmering of cauldrons, the retrieval of rare spirit herbs and the occasional explosion. At least it wasn't boring.

Overall concept: Primarily a pill forger tasked with pushing forward the boundaries of that science, with a sideline of hunting after rare spirit herbs and natural treasures and so on to make the things.

Good Seed Bonus: Orsino, a Spirit Boar that Zeno blood bonded to Cheilas after Cheilas risked his life to save it as a baby. Good for hunting for Spirit Herbs and will grow to be formidable in combat.

 

[Alectai]

Oof.

Painful blow, but not a critical one unfortunately. We win some, we lose some, and this is the nature of the world we rail against.

The surprising thing, of course, is that Corpse Gulper did not get fucking eaten by the other elder, which is telling in its own right, as it suggests an unusual degree of internal cohesion for what looks like a bunch of frothing savages. In every other incident they've apparently shown a self-destructive degree of "Hammering the Defect button in a Prisoner's dilemma", but when offered a peak level prize and an opportunity to gain advantage at the expense of a weakened peer, the other Nascent Soul Elder...

Chose not to Defect.

That is concerning. Because it suggests a higher power who isn't so short sighted is capable of tard wrangling them. That their infighting will not rise to the point of actually impacting their strategic threat because there is a line that the most powerful (And sort of by definition, most depraved) will not cross despite being willing to transgress in literally every other case.

It'd be one thing if the guy just ganked our dudes in secret, but he made a big show of it for three days, being visibly crippled, and he did not get shanked for being obviously in one place for days while vulnerable.

Even if we assume they're internally coherent, nobody else took a swing at the guy despite these guys apparently being Public Enemy Number One. He also managed to specifically identify his target as the son of who he thought fucked him up. That's not just a random flailing, someone pointed him this way, someone who knew enough about our operations that they picked up on a clandestine deployment and could pass that information on to a Blood Cannibal, while also making sure nobody else noticed a regional menace in a bad position sitting publically in one place, away from his fortresses, isolated, and wounded. for three fucking days.

It suggests we've got an intrigue motherfucker who's puppetting the Blood Cannibals, and the Heavens putting their thumb on it simply meant that it came to the attention of the guy we specifically fucked up a short while ago first, so he did it personally instead of a murderball of 'Regular' Blood Cannibals rolled in.

 

[LordEdric]

Magnus Centenius​

Magnus Centenius Building Pillars, and starting Biological Warfare AKA Turn 1

@occipitallobe

Magnus received the greatest birthday gift possible, he broke through the next level of cultivation. Now at 50 years old, he finally reached the 5th heaven stage level, but he was not depressed that his speed slowed. He knew that finding poisonous beast cores would be difficult and bottlenecks happened, so he focused on understanding and building his Dao.

Originally, Magnus thought his true Dao would be of Poison and he would only focus on this until he reached Core Formation. Poison was his passion, his method of battle, how he would make his mark upon the world, but he was not a genius like his brother. Magnus knew he would not be able to form his Dao with just one pillar and so he spent the next year thinking about what his first Pillar should be.

It all changed when Elder Manuel held a special lecture. Magnus had heard of the legendary lectures by the last Elder of the Clan, but had never been able to afford it before. This time, his recent work on the Poison Absorption Pill had giving him just enough for the special lecture. The lecture was nothing like he ever experienced. The students were forced into a game of hide and seek with the Elder who gave each of them a slip with a single word. Magnus's word was "Adapt".

At first, he believed the Elder was telling him he needed to adapt to the changing situation the Elder was putting them all in. Then it hit him like a Heavenly Tribulation. The first Pillar for him would be Adapt. It represented how poisons could be adapted to harm and help. How any creature could adapt to the poison to become stronger. Poisonous animals could adapt to new poisons and make their own stronger. Even his personal pill recipe was about adapting the body to poisons.

Thus, Magnus spent the next 9 years turning his work to studying adaptation and how things adapted not only to poisons, but how to make poisons that can adapt to defenses. At first, all the poisons he played with only changed when he did something to it, but was not able to change itself. He discovered some organic poisons known as "bacteria" from an ancient book from before the Clan entered this world. This "bacteria" apparently was he cause of sickness in most mortals and when it didn't kill the patient, the patient would adapt and grow defenses to it. Just like how a person would become resistant to poisons they had been exposed to before.

1D100 => 83

Magnus removed many samples of bacteria from various sick mortals using his Qi, saving them in the possess, and tried to make one that could harm a Cultivator. He exposed these samples to various dosed of his own poisonous Qi to see if he could make them stronger. Large quantities of Qi killed all the bacteria before any of the samples could adapt, this is probably why most cultivators didn't get sick. The ones exposed to low doses did not show any effects. Magnus believed that it didn't cause enough change from the Qi in Heavens and Earth to affect the bacteria. It was the moderate doses of Qi that caused the changes he wanted. These bacteria were partially killed, but the survivors were able to adapt and use the Qi as fuel to grow stronger and multiply. It took the next 2 years for Magnus to find the perfect level to encourage growth while not killing to many of the bacteria to slow growth.

This new bacteria proved able to resist much higher levels Qi then before. When tested on some simple animals, it killed them in bloody and gruesome ways. Magnus' parents actually worried he was trying to use Blood Cultivation because of his recent slow growth. Fearing his new creation, Magnus bought a several weak heaven stage spirit beast and gave them various doses of his Qi bacteria to see if it could adapt to this and grow stronger.

1D100 => 9
1D100 => 96
1D100 => 80

The first one died such a horrific death that Magnus wondered if he could use this as a mass death weapon against the Blood Cannibals. The third subject received the smallest dose and only developed a small bloody nose for a few hours. Later examination showed that it had created defenses that stopped the Qi-enhanced Bacteria from surviving, even with larger doses injected later. The really interesting success was the second subject. It started screeching almost as soon the bacteria was introduced and bleeding from every orifice. Magnus was ready to call it dead when it suddenly woke up after an hour. Upon close inspection, he found that the beast's body could not fight off the bacteria so it somehow ate it and is using the bacteria to produce Qi for it. How it did this, and if he could use this for a cultivator Magnus didn't know. He would need some captured enemy cultivators to experiment on. Thus, he went off in search of the Elder that set him on this path hoping he could help...

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Yeah, I turned my seed into a mad scientist type with a possible bioweapon, next update will show it can only hurt Qi cultivators and below. Kind of want to see Elder's response
So, since our OP is rolling dice for our good seeds, I figured I could do it too. I'm not really a writer so let me know how it is.

edit: I just noticed that I was making this about my seed finding his firstDao pillar, but I side tracked into genetic engineering, my mind is so strange

 

[TehChron]

Adding onto what Alectai was discussing earlier we can begin to analyze the barebones of what these background rolls look like:

Contextual flat checks with tiers of success or failure, based on straightforward die rolls. Simplicity of structure is great for everyone involved, and I'm glad to see it. It means that what happened the update previous was the result of a high-critical success keyed into additional successes that only were not a gank by virtue of a light buffer caused by the poor luck malus.

Of course, given that the dice are sapient, what that means is we had an opportunity to gank a powerful enemy only for us to stumble onto the classical blunder of attacking to wound, rather than kill. Which is fine in its own right, since this gave us a way to make reads on the presence of a Nascent Soul-level Intrigue spec Elder being involved in the Cannibals affairs. Had we continued on our previous route their existence would have been a nasty shock to us since a string of successes would have gotten us too used to the ideas of the Cannibals being unthinking, rabid savages.

Thankfully we now know the true state of affairs of the Cannibal Sect, and also possess the initiative against them. Which isnt too bad. We have four turns to cripple them before the hundred year trials come again, and while we don't have an ideal means of laying attrition on them, we have a grudge amongst their current leadership, we have them at a disadvantage in terms of their preferred resources, and we have a bead on the strengths that their own Elders can bring to bear.

All that's left is prepwork to kill their Elders in an ambush.

Difficult, but this is the kind of intel that we would have had to spend lives and resources to acquire regardless. Granted, its not perfect...But we already know to expect their most dangerous card that could be kept hidden. Next, we just need to get a more concrete image of what the Cannibals look like, and we'll be able to properly suppress them if not strike them down outright.

Not great, but we were always going to take a beating getting out from under our three enemies before they could really get going methinks.

 

[Mr. Prokosch]

The Girl Caught between Worlds

Nothing makes you miss the wilderness like a year at home.

Peta sweated while her aunt lectured. She tried to concentrate on the pain in her muscles, it was far more pleasant than the pain in her heart.

"Your parents were cowards. Scum. Lower than worms. They should have stood in the Hoplite. They may have lived. They may have died. In living or dying they would have strengthened the clan. They chose to abandon their clan. ABANDON THEIR CLAN! This made them thieves. The clan gave them resources. The clan gave them strength. The clan gave them life. They stole these things by fleeing."

Her aunt's bronze eyes flash with barely contained rage. She wants to lash out, but she won't. Not physically.

"Be grateful that we do not believe in passing the sins of a father to his children, or the mother to hers. I do not punish you for their mistakes. I punish you for echoing them in your treacherous heart. Repeat: The clan is everything."

"The clan is everything!" Peta panted with as much force as she could muster.

"No! You lack conviction! You will fail as they did. You will perform a thousand more thrusts, and you will repeat the mantra. You will do this until I am convinced of your sincerity, or until you fall."

Peta fell.

---

Her brother's calm voice soothes her heart, laying on the cool metal of her bed soothes her muscles.

"Take the wind-breath and guide it to your paws. Don't force it. You cannot catch wind like a salmon, you cannot trap it in your cave. It will escape or die."

"Paws?" she jokes. But it gives her brother serious pause.

"Yes, hands for you? I'm… I'm not sure. They aren't the same. The meridians may not match. Ask your aunt?'

Peta sighs, "can't I just make paws out of qi or something? I think it'd be easier."

Her brother, as usual, takes her joke seriously, "if there is a way, I don't know it." He lifts his paw to show her, "I was born with mine, so I never needed to learn such a technique."

---

Pain.

"Again. Straighten your back. Thrust. No. Higher. Sloppy. You have lost many years. If you ever hope to catch up, you must push yourself much harder than your age peers. They have had years to prepare the body with the basic forms of combat before they begin cultivating. You are backwards. We will fix this with blood and sweat. The forms will feel unnatural. Ignore this. They are better than your childish instincts. You will inscribe the superior combat forms of your clan on your body. Just as you will inscribe loyalty in your heart. You will not fail in this. Repeat: The clan is everything."

---

Soothing.

"Shape it like a roar. Yes, a roar. You can roar, it's just less impressive. What is the sound of a still roar? Nothing. Yes. You understand, right? Don't you? The iron of your throat, it pushes the wind, shapes it."

---

Pain.

"What is this? Some beastly excuse of a cultivation method? The Bronze Furnace has served our family for countless generations. Our elders refined it to match our bloodline legacy perfectly. You will discard your pet's foolishness and master the orthodox path. If you do otherwise, you will cripple your own cultivation, you will fail to contribute to the clan, and I will have wasted my time. The furnace will strengthen your body with layers of hardened qi. You will not fail. You will stand firm. Repeat: The clan is everything."

---

Soothing.

"Iron and wind. Iron is strength. Wind is speed. Strength is speed. Speed is strength. The wind pushes the iron. The iron guides the wind… Should I say bronze? Your body is bronze as mine is iron. Are they the same?"

---

Pain.

"I will give you nothing more that you have not earned. You have earned nothing. This is the contribution board. You will use it to give what miniscule strength you now have back to the clan. When you have proven that you are capable of contributing, then I will continue your instruction. In addition to the gift of my attention, the clan will give you contribution points for your efforts. You will use them to learn cultivation from your betters. The Grand Elder is lecturing. His time is far more valuable than mine, or yours. Whatever your meager contributions, you will not deserve his attention, yet he will give it. The clan is generous. We trust that their member will return this investment in the fullness of time. You will not betray this trust. Repeat: The clan is everything."

---

So Peta attended the Elder's lectures, and they were enlightening. She expected to hear more of the same. Yet the sheer diversity of students, and the way the elder respected their differences, opened her eyes. There was no one path to being a part of the clan, no matter what her aunt said. In fact, it seemed like the most talented cultivators were the most heterodox. Poison, and soul eating, and some strange kind of magic song, and so much more!

When the Elder gave her a word, she almost knew what it was before she read it:

Mix

It was her problem, yes. How to reconcile the loving admiration she had for her parents with the harsh fanaticism of her aunt? How to combine her aunt's orthodox cultivation technique, so perfectly suited to her bronze body, with her brother's deep insight?

It was also her solution. Do not embrace one and reject the other, the elder said. Find a way to mix them fruitfully, to combine the lessons and make her own path, her unique Dao (though she was not yet ready for even a single pillar).

Peta sat and meditated. She did not think of pain, or its temporary dissolution. She sought the truth.

A man who gave his life to buy his family time was no coward, but in hindsight it was hard to justify his actions in full. There were few paths that would have ended worse for their family than the one her parents followed. If the clan was everything than it was nothing, a closed circle that existed only for itself. Empty and cruel, as her aunt had become. The clan was valuable only if its ideals were. Peta must learn those ideals, and decide for herself if she would someday make the sacrifices her aunt demanded of her, the sacrifices her parents refused to make.

With that ache in her heart finally resolved, there was the lesser matter of combat and cultivation styles. If she could master her brother's techniques, they could be a valuable contribution to the clan. It wouldn't be enough to merely follow him though. He had a tendency to forget she's not a bear, and knew nothing of her bloodline's unique properties. Her aunt was a late foundation cultivator and an excellent warrior. She'd taught Peta a great deal in a short time, even if it hurt. She would learn the orthodox path and understand her unique nature, then she would adapt her brother's lessons to it. She would mix them, and make something new.

Peta listened to her aunt, understood her, but did not become her. She listened to her brother, understood him, but did not become him. She took the first step along the new Soaring Bronze Style.

1147 Words
Bonus: Cultivation Speed Boost

 

[Wing101r]

Damien Silver

Beginning

Why do you like something, is it because it's related to a past experience, because others like it, or some other reason. I don't the reason why others might like something but I can confidently say that I love the Sword no matter what ever since I first laid eyes on a sword and learned about swordsmanship.

It started like any other day when I was about Six yrs. old ever ever since I was taken in by the Antons. I was woken up by River for breakfast took a bath then was allowed to do what I wanted which I figure I would just take a nap or play with River like usual. But that day I saw Uncle Ford train with a sword normally he would train with a spear and shield which was his preferred weapon but that day he decided with the sword he used as a backup weapon in order to maintain his skill.

The minute I saw the sword I was fascinated and when Uncle started practicing my eyes where glued on each of his movement etching them on my mind. It doesn't matter that my Uncles swordsmanship was nothing special I simply wanted to swing a sword with my own to hands. Immediately I asked uncle to teach me swordsmanship and while at first he was baffled I kept on asking and he decided to indulge me on the end carving a piece of wood into a wooded sword for me to practice with then he gave me pointers on the basics of swordsmanship. Even though he wasn't serious when teaching I listened to everything he said with all my heart and then began practicing. The first time I swung a sword I was delighted and frustrated at the same time happy at swinging a sword yet frustrated at how sloppy it was on my next swing I tried to do even better same with all followibg swings. Ever since then I walked to path of the sword before I started cultivating, when I became a cultivator at First Stage Qi Condensation and now as I begin my life as a sword Cultivator.
_________________________________________

Here's my Omake for this turn just a short since I wrote this on mobile.

Bonus: Cultivation Speed.

Also some question. I know the bigger and better the omake the better the bonus so if I write a say 10 000 work omake and chose creating a technique for the bonus will that be a powerful technique compared to normal technique bonus?

 

[Alectai]

Damien Silver

Beginning

Why do you like something, is it because it's related to a past experience, because others like it, or some other reason. I don't the reason why others might like something but I can confidently say that I love the Sword no matter what ever since I first laid eyes on a sword and learned about swordsmanship.

It started like any other day when I was about Six yrs. old ever ever since I was taken in by the Antons. I was woken up by River for breakfast took a bath then was allowed to do what I wanted which I figure I would just take a nap or play with River like usual. But that day I saw Uncle Ford train with a sword normally he would train with a spear and shield which was his preferred weapon but that day he decided with the sword he used as a backup weapon in order to maintain his skill.

The minute I saw the sword I was fascinated and when Uncle started practicing my eyes where glued on each of his movement etching them on my mind. It doesn't matter that my Uncles swordsmanship was nothing special I simply wanted to swing a sword with my own to hands. Immediately I asked uncle to teach me swordsmanship and while at first he was baffled I kept on asking and he decided to indulge me on the end carving a piece of wood into a wooded sword for me to practice with then he gave me pointers on the basics of swordsmanship. Even though he wasn't serious when teaching I listened to everything he said with all my heart and then began practicing. The first time I swung a sword I was delighted and frustrated at the same time happy at swinging a sword yet frustrated at how sloppy it was on my next swing I tried to do even better same with all followibg swings. Ever since then I walked to path of the sword before I started cultivating, when I became a cultivator at First Stage Qi Condensation and now as I begin my life as a sword Cultivator.
_________________________________________

Here's my Omake for this turn just a short since I wrote this on mobile.

Bonus: Cultivation Speed.

Also some question. I know the bigger and better the omake the better the bonus so if I write a say 10 000 work omake and chose creating a technique for the bonus will that be a powerful technique compared to normal technique bonus?

Click to shrink...

I feel like this isn't something that should be gamed, where people just set a word count to mechanically aspire towards and then do whatever it is to generate that content. It feels like a perverse incentive.

I would personally say that there should be a limit with regards to how much wordcount 'Counts' for the sake of rewards. Because otherwise we get weird shit where people get rewarded for spending thousands of words to take care of something that only needs a few hundred and encouraging unneccessary padding is bad civilization.

 

[Wing101r]

I feel like this isn't something that should be gamed, where people just set a word count to mechanically aspire towards and then do whatever it is to generate that content. It feels like a perverse incentive.

I would personally say that there should be a limit with regards to how much wordcount 'Counts' for the sake of rewards. Because otherwise we get weird shit where people get rewarded for spending thousands of words to take care of something that only needs a few hundred and encouraging unneccessary padding is bad civilization.

Click to shrink...

Fair just wanted to figure whats needed for a powerful technique bonus.

 

[Enigma]

I feel like this isn't something that should be gamed, where people just set a word count to mechanically aspire towards and then do whatever it is to generate that content. It feels like a perverse incentive.

I would personally say that there should be a limit with regards to how much wordcount 'Counts' for the sake of rewards. Because otherwise we get weird shit where people get rewarded for spending thousands of words to take care of something that only needs a few hundred and encouraging unneccessary padding is bad civilization.

Click to shrink...

I think Occipitallobe mentioned something earlier in thread about potentially having bigger and better omakes have more rewards, but I definitely agree that that could lead people gaming the system... Found it:

Here's my current thought. Rather than festoon Good Seeds with bonuses (more and more for more omake), I'm considering offering one bonus per turn max, with longer or more numerical omake offering a generic Fate bonus.

So writing 500 or 5,000 words gets you a single Bonus from the list, and I apply the rest as a positive modifier to behind-the-scenes rolls (mechanics which will remain hidden to prevent the possibility of people trying to exploit them).

Click to shrink...

Seems like they're keeping it hidden from us so we don't try to game the system like you thought might happen.

Can someone heavily involved in the worldbuidling make a post such that people like me can easily find the information for omakes?

Click to shrink...

I might have a go at collating all the stuff in a bit if I have some spare time. It might be easier to make a google doc or something that anyone can add to with references to the relevant posts?

 

[Alectai]

Fair just wanted to figure whats needed for a powerful technique bonus.

Click to shrink...

I feel that you're kind of getting the wrong idea here.

The Good Seeds mechanic is intended to flesh out the lower ranks. That a few tryhards want to try and make protagonist tiers out of them (Myself included) doesn't mean that this is supposed to be an arms race between people generating content to create OP characters.

Write what's fun to write, what you want to write, not because you feel that's a tax to get an OP character. I'm writing a smol glasses girl's journey to being the embodiment of the Juggernaut--ever advancing towards the future in spite of the obstacles set in the way by the innate cruelty of the setting, never compromising her empathy and compassion simply because the universe has decreed these to be weaknesses to be expunged. The fact that I want to protect that smile gives me power and fuel to continue writing, because in the end you do need to be This Tall To Matter in a setting like this.

That her story requires her to git gud or die tragically trying is a feature, not a bug. The fact I myself have an overdeveloped sense of empathy for fictional characters means I'm inclined to provide what support I can from behind the screen, by providing snapshots into that lifestyle.

The point is not the "OP Protagonist", the point is "Beating this shitty setting by making a marshmallow-at-heart into the heaven defying genius protagonist that can't just be co-opted by a greater power". No more, no less.