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

occipitallobe · Oct 2, 2020

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!

-----------------------

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.

TehChron · Jul 6, 2021

Yeah just hoping to randomly flip them was too optimistic a take from the very start

Still, we took the approach most suited to making the inroads necessary to doing so

Specifically, by having the Flood Dragons recruit from among them as an intermediary

TheCount · Jul 6, 2021

....tasty.

I really want to get this.
A mostly controlled beast tide? All we need to do is send in our builder, fortify and, just to be safe, talk with the tower, before sending in our willing juniors.

Also, I like the ghost forest. Seems like good people.

Aklyon · Jul 6, 2021

The place might be a huge mess, but I was amused by the description of Hidden City.

Faraway-R · Jul 6, 2021

occipitallobe said:
The Ghost Tree Forest Kings are bizarre ghost cultivators. As research has shown, ghosts are merely Wills perpetuated by vengeful desires, immense hate fueling Wills into existence that can be generated with far more strength than we might otherwise suspect. The Ghost Tree Forest seems to generate ghosts from dead mortals nearby, increasing their strengths through means we are unsure of. A few mortal cultivators feed on these ghosts, using them to raise their own cultivation, and summoning them at need. The Ghost King is a Core Formation Elder who can summon hundreds of Foundation-equivalent ghosts to him, and killed Elder Changchung six years ago in a battle, wounding Elder Sa Fen and forcing her to retreat in humiliation. The Ghost Tree Forest formed when the Beast-Surge portal first opened, those the relationship between them is not clear.

Actually this makes me wonder.

Path of Ghost Cultivation is not, should not count as Blood Path...

But how much difference does it make?

If a Blood Path cultivator butchers a city of a million mortals and consume them?

If a Ghost-Eater cultivator butchers a city of a million mortals and consumes their ghosts?

How much difference does it make to them, and in what particular aspects?

fictionfan · Jul 6, 2021

Faraway-R said:
Actually this makes me wonder.

Path of Ghost Cultivation is not, should not count as Blood Path...

But how much difference does it make?

If a Blood Path cultivator butchers a city of a million mortals and consume them?

If a Ghost-Eater cultivator butchers a city of a million mortals and consumes their ghosts?

How much difference does it make to them, and in what particular aspects?

I am guessing that the difference is that the heavens have not cursed ghost cultivators so they can still use beast cores and spirit stones if they want to.

Olivebirdy · Jul 6, 2021

Thanks for the information the Bandits, Occi, this should be interesting.

occipitallobe said:
To reach out our hand and rebuild those kingdoms would merely serve as an invitation for Blood Path growth, and so we were bound by our conscience to ensure the lands were not rebuilt.

And Jingshen have better things to do than rebuilding, so that's something we may be able to beat them to. I concur with Jingshen that there's nothing much in wealth worth keeping here, but there is military usefulness in converting the area if we can. As they say, it's an excellent place to raid from.

occipitallobe said:
The Bandit Kingdoms are considered to be the most likely avenue in which they will subvert our rule, the place at which we are perhaps most vulnerable. While there is little of worth there, losing the territory would open us up to a large soft underbelly, allowing the Devils to repeatedly raid our Spirit Mines just north of the Bandit Kingdoms with impunity.

It seems that the trade routes to the New Jingshen Territories do not run through the Bandit Kingdoms, which makes it a lower flipping priority. It would only be cutting them off from one impoverished territory.

occipitallobe said:
We exact light tributes from it - it is worth more as a bulwark than a tributary, even now. Rich enough, and incredibly defensible, we tread lightly there to ensure that we do not turn Seven Temples against us. In the event of a war with the Devils it would be an invaluable strong point.

Conversely, if we do tip it, it would be just as useful for us. The Seven Temples are not vulnerable to Beast Tides, so unless they have sympathy for the other mortals along the waters or have some form of ideal matching the Daylight Prince whereby they're morally opposed to Beast Tides, stopping or blunting the tides won't do much to sway them towards us. However, we wouldn't need that much to sway them towards us, judging by how carefully Jingshen is tiptoeing around them.

occipitallobe said:
The Dreamlike Tower

I'm not sure what our current ratio of noob cultivators to Core cultivators is, but 1:20,000 sounds pretty good. If we willing to kill all the other raffle contestants, anyway.
Too bad Jingshen can't be blamed for Beast Tides, they've got a pretty good alibi.

occipitallobe said:
Gotun and Ekbar Kingdoms

Ruins can be camped out in or rebuilt. If I were Jingshen, I'd be considering rebuilding Gotun as a fortress against a Golden Devil invasion. Or if it came to us invading, we could use it ourselves. Ekbar could be a useful place for us to camp out as well, bordering Grand Scorpion Sect and the New Jingshen Territories as it does.

occipitallobe said:
The Tao Bandits

These are my favorite bandits, as we could just give them power and they'd just do what they're already doing, which is mostly raiding Jingshen, but better. Very fire-and-forget, just dumping a bunch of goodies on them doesn't take much time or effort.

occipitallobe said:
The Gaohao Bandits

Good guys. They protect mortals, I like them, but they're not useful to us militarily as they're closer to us than to Jingshen. On the other hand, they are close, and thus easier to work with across the border. If we were going for hearts and minds, supporting them would be helpful.

occipitallobe said:
Hidden City

I'd be pretty happy to have these pigmen come into contact with the Hong Xuan pigmen. They're not forbidden to cultivate, and they might improve the Hong Xuan pigmen's abject situation. They're not slaves, they're paid for their work, but they die a lot in the mines.

occipitallobe said:
The Northern Bandit Kings

Not nice people. I wonder if the new cities they're raiding are Jingshen colonies. "These guys raid everyone" doesn't sound very worth supporting, unless it's necessary for the realm's defense.

occipitallobe said:
The Ghost Tree Forest Kings

Don't have much of an opinion on these guys. Down south where they are, they wouldn't have anything to do with the Ghostly Beast Cure Vein, but they might be a key to traversing the area.

occipitallobe said:
As things stand, the lands are hostile and yet must be held. Primarily we seek to maintain our hold over Seven Temples. Current doctrine says there is nowhere else worth taking - even if we were to spend Nascent time and energy seizing these lands, they could at best be pacified and not made useful for a long time. Conversely, while the Heavenly Bandit Kings hate us, they are not particularly inclined to bow or ingratiate themselves with the Golden Devils. Consequently leaving these lands hostile in general has more utility than immediate pacification.

The Heavenly Bandit Kings hate Jingshen more than they hate us, but they're not pressed for anything at the moment and have no real incentive to give up their independence to us. There's nothing much in the area worth taking. Maybe the Dream Tower.

If we removed the Beast Tides from the equation, the Gaohao and non-Seven-Temples mortals would appreciate it, Tao would be less able to cultivate Beast Path and would need to prey on Jingshen more. Going to the Dream Tower would be less taboo (I can't imagine anyone would be happy about people entering a raffle where the prize is the deaths of millions of mortals) and the Heavenly Bandit Kings would get more Cores. Might be a good thing to do.

Gore17 · Jul 6, 2021

Olivebirdy said:
I'm not sure what our current ratio of noob cultivators to Core cultivators is, but 1:20,000 sounds pretty good. If we willing to kill all the other raffle contestants, anyway.

It's 1:10,000. The tower is only half as good, but in exchange it's way faster.

Sirrocco · Jul 6, 2021

Gore17 said:
It's 1:10,000. The tower is only half as good, but in exchange it's way faster.

It also doesn't cost external resources... and if you manage to get the beast surges on farm status, it even generates resources.

Apparently the beast surge river delta would also be a great place to build up mortal populations, if you could control the beast surges.

As a combo move, that could get real strong, real fast.

Falconis · Jul 6, 2021

That thing is absolutely, positively, in no way worth it. We may have a 1:10,000 average rate of core from qi (based on what gore said) but the other 9999 don't end up summarily killed. They hang around and create more cultivators and handle smaller jobs for the clan.

Not only that but we have no idea what actually happens in there. It could just be a giant blood soul furnace that spits out a shiny every now and again to encourage adventurers to keep delving. Even the 'winner' loses lifespan and only gets cultivation out of the deal (as compared to accompanying treasures, knowledge, techniques, and other trappings of their power level). All told it seems like a bad deal that clearly needs to be renegotiated with whatever the tower/portal system is.

Sirrocco · Jul 6, 2021

Falconis said:
That thing is absolutely, positively, in no way worth it. We may have a 1:10,000 average rate of core from qi (based on what gore said) but the other 9999 don't end up summarily killed. They hang around and create more cultivators and handle smaller jobs for the clan.

Not only that but we have no idea what actually happens in there. It could just be a giant blood soul furnace that spits out a shiny every now and again to encourage adventurers to keep delving. Even the 'winner' loses lifespan and only gets cultivation out of the deal (as compared to accompanying treasures, knowledge, techniques, and other trappings of their power level). All told it seems like a bad deal that clearly needs to be renegotiated with whatever the tower/portal system is.

It may not be worth it for us to use on our own people, but our people are capped more by our available cultivation resources than by our initial populations. It might well be worth maintaining in operation. We don't have to throw our own people into it, after all. We can just make it easier for the pilgrims that might wish to go, perhaps with a bit of training before they enter, and be available to assist for those who come out as well. After all, it is as you said - they don't have the associated knowledge, treasures, and techniques. Possibly recycle some of the beast cores from the beast surges into sparking interested mortals up to Qi Refining. Having an asset in place that eats manageable numbers of volunteer mortals and spits out friendly core formation experts could be very, very useful.

I guarantee that 10,000 qi refiners is cheap for generating 1 core formation expert in Blood Path prices, and it sounds like these guys don't have the blood path curse.

Insane-Not-Crazy · Jul 7, 2021

TURN 11, OMAKE 9 [Lipita]
Lipita Delphi 9: Lipita Delphi & Jiang Chrysanthos - Mercantile Adventure

Emporikipolis. The great trading hub of the Golden Devils was a bustling hive of mortals and cultivators. Here, travelers from across the Organ Meat Desert drawn along the Scorpion Road gathered, hailing from all manner of lands. In the lands of the Imperial Optimatoi, this city boasted the largest concentration of foreigners among a population of over two million souls. It was said that if you couldn't find it in the markets and bazaars of the city, it couldn't be bought with mere wealth.

At the moment, Lipita Delphi was cursing the great city's unique character. An abundance of trade meant a proliferation of merchants well-experienced in gouging buyers to the bottom of their purses. Standing in the foyer of the Chow Pei's Herbs, Minerals and More, she hid her frustration behind a mask of amiability wishing that the heavens would strike down the pain in her nethers obstinately ruining her plans.

"Surely, honored Chow Jin, the price for Screeching Thousand-Year Ginseng cannot have gone up so much in just these few months? The price per tael you are quoting is an increase of tenfold." Lipita gestured at the Average Spirit Herb set in a specialized preservation pot on the counter in front of her.

To look at Chow Jin, one would believe that the portly merchant was utterly distressed at quoting the new cost for his wares. An exaggerated look of anguish and excessive hand wringing seemed to communicate the depths of the man's despair. "A thousand apologies, young miss but it simply can't be helped. As you know, the spirit herb you desire is a rare treasure that is only found the Hard Shell Mountains where the rarefied spiritual energies of the Green Scale Plains can nurture them for centuries on end to full maturity. There has been a recent upset on the Great Battlefield and transporting goods across the distance has become inordinately expensive. Oh! Truly it strikes in my heart to demand such but I am barely breaking even as is."

The painful part of this farce was that there was enough truth to this cheat's story that Lipita couldn't outright call him out for extortion. The ginseng was as rare as he'd described and there had been dramatic changes to the Righteous Path's campaign against the Noble Devil Alliance with the raids by the Abyssal Bees in the Verdant South. None of that should have justified a price inflation of a magnitude of ten however.

A few more minutes of furtive haggling conclusively established that no matter how effusive Chow Jin was in declaiming his prices, he wasn't budging on them in the slightest. Lipita wasn't highly placed enough in the Delphi family hierarchy to cow the obstinate trader into lower prices. Besides, the Chow Pei enterprise was one of the oldest established merchant houses that dealt in trade within and beyond the borders of the Golden Devil Clan. They had sufficient influence and wealth that even with her family's full backing behind her, she would still be getting ripped of in some manner.

Paying out for her purchase with a tight-lipped smile, Lipita took the sealed container and hurried out. This had been an expensive outing but these herbs would allow her to explore some of the alchemical recipes senior Lihua Kokkinos had shared with her born from the expert's efforts to adjust conventional pills and concoctions to her unique physiology. There were some very interesting interactions recorded in the notes she'd been given which had promise from what her research had informed her of how the Yuan Clan's Man-as-Mountain array empowered fauna and flora within its effect.

She'd moved only a short distance from the storefront located in a more upscale district of the city when she was stopped by a cultivator carrying a rather large wrapped bundle. They were of clear Golden Devil stock, bronze skin and gold eyes standing out, as well as jagged branching scars on the left arm extending from the shoulder downwards. Notwithstanding the scars, their features were rather androgynous, a blend of feminine and masculine that extended even to their aura, their spiritual energies echoing a soft implacable flow rather than the normal steady march of bronze. They wore loose pants clasped tight at the ankles, cerulean blue tunic with a design of roses, green head scarf covering russet-colored hair and twin short blades in slung back holster at the hips. The expert, early Foundation Establishment from what she could tell, called out to her as she passed, asking for directions.

"Good morning, could you please point me to Chow Pei's shop? I was told it was on this street but my directions were a bit imprecise beyond that." He asked, his voice light and lilting.

Lipita turned and pointed to the store she'd just recently exited. "That's Chow Pei's Herbs, Minerals and More. A word of warning though, the storekeeper is a skinflint so watch your purse while you're in the there. You might find his prices a bit too rich for your blood."

They grinned at her words. "Thanks for the warning. I'm selling, not buying so I should be fine. Got a good harvest from a Foundation Building Fire Tortoise and I wager I can hold my own to get a good price for it."

Lipita's attention pounced on a portion of the statement she'd just heard. "Foundation Building Fire Tortoise? Did you manage to get the gallbladder and spleen intact? I'll buy them from you if they're intact and uncontaminated." Her manners caught up with her and she introduced herself, hastily. "I'm Lipita Delphi, by the way."

Hoisting the large package onto his shoulder with one arm, the stranger stretched out their arm in greeting. "I'm Jiang Chrysanthos. Pleasure to meet you. Now why would I sell to you rather than the merchant I'm already seeking?"

Lipita replied confidently, "I'll match market price and add 10% if you can give me more Fire Tortoise extracts of equivalent quality. Chow Pei will at best offer the market value if you manage to have the Imperator's own blessing in haggling and he specializes in products from foreign territories. Fire Tortoises are uncommon but a known quantity in Clan territory. Besides, stealing away a prospective customer from the guy who just gouged me and getting reagents I need at the same time is just too sweet a deal to pass up."

At her pronouncement, Jiang Chrysanthos smiled, "I like your style. It looks like you're in luck then. I run into an ornery tortoise during the Trials attacking a tribe of goatmen. Drove it off then but it turns out that there are quite a few in the area so I figured I could earn myself a tidy sum hunting them. Now, why don't we find a spot to examine my wares and finalize this deal. I have a feeling this is going to be a productive arrangement for both of us."

Lipita led her new business partner towards the Delphi family compound to formalize this deal. She'd gone a bit over budget to pay for the ginseng so she'd have to charm old Chemos into lending his cute former apprentice some support. That old fool owed her anyway for the headache that was her apprenticeship under him.

AN: (1268/2=634 words) @Alectai @no. @ReaderOfFate Please threadmark. This was a collaboration with @RyubosJ. I think this would be their first for this turn.

Alratan · Jul 7, 2021

Falconis said:
That thing is absolutely, positively, in no way worth it. We may have a 1:10,000 average rate of core from qi (based on what gore said) but the other 9999 don't end up summarily killed. They hang around and create more cultivators and handle smaller jobs for the clan.

Not only that but we have no idea what actually happens in there. It could just be a giant blood soul furnace that spits out a shiny every now and again to encourage adventurers to keep delving. Even the 'winner' loses lifespan and only gets cultivation out of the deal (as compared to accompanying treasures, knowledge, techniques, and other trappings of their power level). All told it seems like a bad deal that clearly needs to be renegotiated with whatever the tower/portal system is.

It's not worth it for most of a a cultivators life, you wouldn't do it when you're young, but if we send our Qi Condensation Cultivators there right before they'd otherwise run out of lifespan, we don't lose meaningful amounts of their labour, but we do get to spit out a small number of Core Cultivators. Those who die lose a couple of years of life, but the winners gain a very large amount of lifespan.

It's basically a final throw of the dice for those who haven't made it to Foundation Establisment.

Katana1515 · Jul 7, 2021

Alratan said:
It's not worth it for most of a a cultivators life, you wouldn't do it when you're young, but if we send our Qi Condensation Cultivators there right before they'd otherwise run out of lifespan, we don't lose meaningful amounts of their labour, but we do get to spit out a small number of Core Cultivators. Those who die lose a couple of years of life, but the winners gain a very large amount of lifespan.

It's basically a final throw of the dice for those who haven't made it to Foundation Establisment.

Thats definitely a legitimate use for the tower, but if we limit ourselves to just the elderly and the stalled out I would expect the success ratio to drop even lower than it already is.

Those guys likely didn't make it to Foundation Establishment for a reason, and while I see no reason to not give them that last throw of the dice, I expect most of them aren't top tier candidates for such an evidently brutal trial.

Alratan · Jul 7, 2021

Katana1515 said:
Thats definitely a legitimate use for the tower, but if we limit ourselves to just the elderly and the stalled out I would expect the success ratio to drop even lower than it already is.

Those guys likely didn't make it to Foundation Establishment for a reason, and while I see no reason to not give them that last throw of the dice, I expect most of them aren't top tier candidates for such an evidently brutal trial.

That's true, but it depends on how much the barrier to Foundation Establishment is in resources and fortuitous encounters and how much is down to raw talent. If a large proportion of people have the talent but simply lack the opportunity, it might work out OK. After all, thanks to Heaven's CUrse one of the major constraints to our disciples' progression is that we're resource starved.

no. · Jul 7, 2021

@RyubosJ make sure to post a link to that collab so that you can get bonuses for it. Also please note what you want for this turn's omake bonus.

RyubosJ · Jul 7, 2021

no. said:
@RyubosJ make sure to post a link to that collab so that you can get bonuses for it. Also please note what you want for this turn's omake bonus.

Insane-Not-Crazy wrote this.

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

TURN 11, OMAKE 9 [Lipita] Lipita Delphi 9: Lipita Delphi & Jiang Chrysanthos - Mercantile Adventure Emporikipolis. The great trading hub of the Golden Devils was a bustling hive of mortals and cultivators. Here, travelers from across the Organ Meat Desert drawn along the Scorpion Road gathered...

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Chrys shows up.
Bonuses - impact.

Also after this turn can chrys please be noted as retired.

Insane-Not-Crazy · Jul 7, 2021

@no. Jiang Chrysanthos is doing the bandit mission as a last hurrah before retiring.

occipitallobe · Jul 7, 2021

Faraway-R said:
Actually this makes me wonder.

Path of Ghost Cultivation is not, should not count as Blood Path...

But how much difference does it make?

If a Blood Path cultivator butchers a city of a million mortals and consume them?

If a Ghost-Eater cultivator butchers a city of a million mortals and consumes their ghosts?

How much difference does it make to them, and in what particular aspects?

If you butcher a city of a million mortals you get 100% of the energy. Pure, delicious mortal energy.

If you butcher a city of a million mortals you get a few thousand vengeful ghosts, maybe in the tens of thousands if you're incredibly evil about it. Bear in mind at that point you're torturing people to death, killing families one-by-one, etc, etc, to maximise resentment and vengefulness and to get people to really, really want to kill you. While you might not care about this as a very evil ghost cultivator, it is very time-consuming.

Those ghosts are, while more powerful than mortals, harder to use to cultivate (human to human energy is very efficient), so you sacrifice maybe ~90-99% of the available energy depending on how good you are at causing ghosts to form and how efficient your consumption arts are.

So in theory you could be a ghost cultivator on top of using Spirit Stones and the like. In practice, anyone in the position to murder a million people for a powerup is more than likely going to be the sort of person to do so in a way that gets them the most power.

Gore17 · Jul 7, 2021

Alratan said:
That's true, but it depends on how much the barrier to Foundation Establishment is in resources and fortuitous encounters and how much is down to raw talent. If a large proportion of people have the talent but simply lack the opportunity, it might work out OK. After all, thanks to Heaven's CUrse one of the major constraints to our disciples' progression is that we're resource starved.

Or conversely, how big of an influence bad luck is. Someone with immense talent but terrible luck, constantly getting badly injured and set back, would likely have their cultivation stall.

Insane-Not-Crazy · Jul 7, 2021

TURN 11, OMAKE 10 [Lipita]
Lipita Delphi 10: Lipita Delphi & Lihua Kokkinos - Meeting Senior Cast in Metal

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

Whoops, got busy and then a couple of days went poof. TURN 11, OMAKE 10 [Lihua] Lihua Kokkinos 5: Lipita Delphi & Lihua Kokkinos - Meeting Senior Cast in Metal Sweltering in the heat of her workshop beneath protective leathers, Lipita stirred the thick mixture in the cauldron slowly and...

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

AN: (1243 words) @Alectai @no. @ReaderOfFate Please threadmark. This was another collaboration, this time with @veekie

Falconis · Jul 7, 2021

Alratan said:
It's not worth it for most of a a cultivators life, you wouldn't do it when you're young, but if we send our Qi Condensation Cultivators there right before they'd otherwise run out of lifespan, we don't lose meaningful amounts of their labour, but we do get to spit out a small number of Core Cultivators. Those who die lose a couple of years of life, but the winners gain a very large amount of lifespan.

It's basically a final throw of the dice for those who haven't made it to Foundation Establisment.

That is unlikely to be true. The post says that those who came out were significantly aged so its unlikely to even be valuable for creating more lifespan. It's COSTING you lifespan and you get only cultivation out of the deal, and might also die.

Sirrocco · Jul 7, 2021

Falconis said:
That is unlikely to be true. The post says that those who came out were significantly aged so its unlikely to even be valuable for creating more lifespan. It's COSTING you lifespan and you get only cultivation out of the deal, and might also die.

It's costing you lifespan in years, but Id imagine that the gained cultivation would be high enough to more than counteract that.

The real use case is for those people who, for whatever reason, don't feel that they can get enough resources to push through. Now, the Golden Devils are wealthy enough that they can support the creation of a decent number of core cultivators, but your whole stance on the math is inaccurate. I will explain.

We currently have 17 core formation cultivators, total.

We currently have approximately 350,000 Qi Condensation Cultivators, total. So, about 20,000 qi condensation juniors for each Core Formation elder.

That's not the "how many will make the climb" ratio, though, because qi condensation doesn't last as long as Core Formation does. If nothing else, lifespan won't permit it. I don't actually know the rate at which prospective Qi Condensation juniors can be expected to make Core. I'd suspect that it's significantly worst than 1/20,000. Still, for the purposes of argument, I'll go with the number mentioned. It doesn't actually change things. Let's just say that of the current crop of 350,000 Qi Condensation juniors, we could normally expect that 35 would (after many years) make it all the way up.

Now, suppose that we put out the word about the tower, and as a result, 100,000 of those juniors decide to make the attempt, resulting in 5 new Core Formation (desperately in need of better gear) and 99,995 dead golden devils. So it's a serious boost to power in the short term. What about the long term? How many Core Formation elders could we expect out of the remaining 250,000? I'd say, probably about 35. We're not in the lowlands. Our disciples cannot cultivate just by breathing. Their Cultivation is limited primarily by the resources we can feed them, and losing a huge mass of qi condensation cultivators doesn't also cost us the resources that they would have spent to get to the top. Admittedly, it does mean that we'd have fewer qi condensation cultivators to run around doing small jobs, but recruiting more folks in at the bottom isn't all that hard, and it's not like the new Core Formation types are useless.

Now, I'm not suggesting this as a plan to go for actively. Among other things, we need those people out there breeding more Golden Devils, and there are advantages to the slow build of loyalty and so forth. Outright sacrificing our people in job lots in search of power would do a fair bit of damage to clan cohesion. Still, let's not pretend that this is an inherently bad trade as far as raw power goes.

Simon_Jester · Jul 7, 2021

Sirrocco said:
We currently have 17 core formation cultivators, total.

We currently have approximately 350,000 Qi Condensation Cultivators, total. So, about 20,000 qi condensation juniors for each Core Formation elder.

Our ratio was much higher before a Fifth Sea Nascent Soul went and randomly murdered three fourths of our Core Formation Elders a century ago. Also it's this high because we lost unexpectedly few Qi Condensation juniors in the last round of Trials.

Now, suppose that we put out the word about the tower, and as a result, 100,000 of those juniors decide to make the attempt, resulting in 5 new Core Formation (desperately in need of better gear) and 99,995 dead golden devils. So it's a serious boost to power in the short term.

Would this really be a boost to power for us?

I'm not sure having five more Core Formation Elders is actually worth losing that many Qi Condensation cultivators. Given the way the Golden Devils use formations, large groups of lower-realm cultivators actually are something more than chaff in the face of higher-realm ones, at least so long as you remain below Nascent Soul.

Furthermore, one of the things the numerous Qi Condensation cultivators do is gather resources, by going out and killing beasts, by escorting caravans, by completing missions that keep our vassals loyal and paying their tribute, and so on. Having vastly fewer Qi Condensation cultivators does not automatically mean that the resources that would have gone into raising them can be concentrated into fewer and more powerful hands. If that were true then the Trials would arguably be doing us a favor by killing off so many juniors, disproportionately more than seniors because our modus operandi for the past N centuries has been to keep the seniors in warded bunkers during the Trials while the juniors fight.

Sirrocco · Jul 7, 2021

Okay. Looking at the index pages, it is said that in the Third Sea as a whole, one in a hundred mortals cultivates (though this is more about resources than aptitude). One in a hundred Qi Condensation makes it to Foundation Establishment. One in a hundred Foundation Establishment makes it to Core Formation. That's in the Third Sea as a whole, though - not necessarily specifically for the Golden Devils. At the same time... the resources to get a mortal up to Qi Condensation aren't all that expensive. Again, I'm not suggesting doing that to our own people. I agree that that would be a poor choice. On the other hand, opening it as an option for others to take? Offering mortals who want to take the trip enough support to step into Qi Condensation, and offering training and support to help the new Core Formation cultivators that come out of it to get up to speed? If we're in a position to appreciate monster surges rather than fearing them, there are real advantages to be reaped there.

@occipitallobe just for clarity - how would one of the fresh Core Formation cultivators that came out of that thing compare, in raw combat power, to, say, 10,000 qi condensation legionnaires?

Garlak · Jul 7, 2021

Sirrocco said:
It's costing you lifespan in years, but Id imagine that the gained cultivation would be high enough to more than counteract that.

Falconis was responding to Alratan saying "You send them through when they're almost dead of old age." Falconis replied "Well if they're almost dead of old age, then they're just going to die of old age." They were talking about people who're 190 or whatever years old at Qi Condensation. They ain't gonna gain any Cultivation years because they need to break through first. And if they were stuck at 9th Heavenstage till the year 200 approached, they probably aren't breaking through, or at least are not very likely to do so. There's no real reason to send them to the tower -- especially not if it costs Beast Tides -- because I don't think the tower can magically make up for insufficient talent or insufficient time.

(Some people think the Tower transforms people into Beasts and releases them through the Beast Tide portal. Me, I felt a bit uncertain that there are enough people going into the tower to account for all the beasts. I think maybe what's going on is that it might be a redirection of power. Maybe something is holding back Beasts from coming through the portal. And that power of time is instead redirected to the Tower, to let it spend time raising people to Core Formation. i.e. You can either hold back the portal from opening, or you can power the Tower. Or something.)
(Though I guess the dead just pile up before the portal, and the portal opens whenever somebody succeeds to Core Formation, letting out all the previously-failed Cultivators. Still not sure, but.)

Anyway. We got told that "the sort of people that become Core in the tower, tend to have been the ones that would have been able to reach it anyway." That, to me, makes it sound like hurling low-ability people into the tower is a bad move; none of them are going to be able to raise to Core Formation anyway.

The tower itself, I'm starting to think, is a dead-end as far as paths go. It's less efficient at turning Cultivators into Core Formation than a good Regional Power Sect or Clan is. The only thing it has going for it is speed, immediacy. Basically, it might be a crutch for a lower-level Sect or Clan to try to match power or survive desperately, but to people who have a true legacy and system going, it's not a good deal at all; it's a dead end in that sense, in the sense that capable factions would not really want it, as it cuts their numbers in half.

Anyway.

It kills everybody who doesn't succeed it, right? (As well as costing tons of lives from collateral Beast Tides; thus meaning people are pissed at you for not protecting them. Which is a valid complaint on their end. Even if you garrison and set up defenses against the Beast Tides, that still means losing some amount of QC and FB defenders against Beast Tides. So it's not totally free.)

Which means that you not only lose 20,000 Qi Condensation who might've kept working for another century... You ALSO lose 200 Foundation Building Cultivators -- who might've kept working for up to 400 years.

You're not just losing 19,999 Qi Condensation. You're losing 199 Foundation Building experts too. And the centuries of service they could have granted you.

Sirrocco said:
The real use case is for those people who, for whatever reason, don't feel that they can get enough resources to push through. Now, the Golden Devils are wealthy enough that they can support the creation of a decent number of core cultivators, but your whole stance on the math is inaccurate. I will explain.

We currently have 17 core formation cultivators, total.

We currently have approximately 350,000 Qi Condensation Cultivators, total. So, about 20,000 qi condensation juniors for each Core Formation elder.

According to this spreadsheet, we have 510,000 Qi Condensation and 38 Elders. I believe it was updated on Turn 10.

The Tower sharply cuts down your long term growth, in exchange for giving you more power now. And tons of death in order to get that.

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

Please sir, may I have some Meows?

mook.

Pedantic

Pedantic

Pink Flamingo Cabal Grand Vizier

Person that hates Mega Evolutions.

Pedantic

Pedantic