In a Cultivation World with a Cheat System (Xianxia inspired quest).
- Thread starter Kolarthecool
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
Leingod
Immaculate Blooming Lotus
Hey, does anyone mind if I flood Taoist Costco with a lot of low-level stuff taken from Legends of the Wulin and other wuxia stuff? I figure we'll want a wide array of effective low-level manuals and stuff for our clan and whomever else we want to train/uplift, and simple, straightforward stuff like the Boundless Prosperity Manual and Iron Body Method seem like they'd be good cost-effective ways to do that.
To be fair, it's not like we really do know why it happened (and why to us) or how it works, so points for honesty.
To be fair, it's not like we really do know why it happened (and why to us) or how it works, so points for honesty.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
Feel free to add them to the Taoist Costco Order Form. Although honestly, getting low ranked manuals for that is a waste. It'll only take a dozen or so Class 1 Beasts to be able to afford a Low Earth Realm manual which is already better than pretty much everything our clan has access to. Killing maybe 60 Class 1 Beasts to elevate the clan with five Earth realm manuals to the top of the heap wouldn't be significantly harder than getting a bunch of mortal ranked manuals.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
Resource if it's one use, otherwise, tool.
- Location
- Dual citizen of SV&SB
Honestly, telling the truth is also an option, guys? Mentioning that we saw a screen and such (Even if we don't go into full detail?)
If we give our family (Who took care of us when we were a cripple) the benefit of the doubt, we don't have to keep coming up with excuses for where we get these techniques.
Because honestly? We have what is likely the kindest sect family in all Xianxia, barring a few notable exceptions. Why does it need to be a secret? Why do they need to be lied to?
(If need be, we can phrase it to say we aren't certain it's truthful... but we have no reason not to see if we can use it, since we'd be fighting those beasts anyways.)
If we give our family (Who took care of us when we were a cripple) the benefit of the doubt, we don't have to keep coming up with excuses for where we get these techniques.
Because honestly? We have what is likely the kindest sect family in all Xianxia, barring a few notable exceptions. Why does it need to be a secret? Why do they need to be lied to?
(If need be, we can phrase it to say we aren't certain it's truthful... but we have no reason not to see if we can use it, since we'd be fighting those beasts anyways.)
Because if we have one jealous family member who tells people we die. Our family is obviously fairly backwater since it treats Earth Rank as high tier, so if it gets out some backwater kid has this super special ability Xianxia law dictates someone trys to kill us for it.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
Maybe pretty it up a little to be more pleasing and believable. How about this:
Father: "Xiǎo Tian! Your spirit roots have become full and strong since yesterday! How did this happen my son?"
Zhang Tian: "Father, I have dishonorably kept a secret from you. Two weeks ago a spirit visited me in my sleep and granted me some amount of knowledge. I had thought it a dream until now but when I was out with Cho Meng the spirit returned! It said that it would grant me gifts of knowledge and power in return for becoming strong and defeating many foes in its name, as well as sacrificing certain objects to it. It has already cured my ailment and granted me a Heaven realm trait as well as the first portion of a potent cultivation manual in order for me to become strong enough to defeat foes and gain its favor. I hope you will support me in my endeavors to please this Shen and bring honor and new knowledge to our clan."
All basically true. A spirit did grant him knowledge, John, and a spirit was presumably the one in charge of the system. Also, Xiǎo means little in the endearment sense and Shen means spirit or god.
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- Location
- Dual citizen of SV&SB
We don't need to tell the entire sect about it; just the sect leader (Our parent) at least.
More, if they know, then life becomes much easier for us, since they can be more accommodating to what we need to do.
Leingod
Immaculate Blooming Lotus
Okay, keeping it constrained to that is much more reasonable. We still need something to tell the rest of the clan, though.
- Location
- New Mexico
Hm, maybe the public story is that your going off on a combination training mission/cure hunt. Then when we return there's a plausible explanation that everyone family-wide already knows.
- Location
- Dual citizen of SV&SB
Ooh. I like this as a potential deflection, if we don't just tell the truth.
The only concern about jealous family members is our older brother; Up until this point He's been the shoe in for sect leader, whenever that happens.... However! That's going to be a potential issue whether or not we tell the truth about what happened! More, we might be lucky and he'll just be happy for us, instead of jealous. It is noted that he is our beloved older brother, who dotes on us.
We can explain it in general about as having a fortuitous encounter, potentially the spirit excuse above. But you know what? Our sect has been good to us. Very good to us. We can't share the innate talents we buy... (Potentially innate techniques, but not certain on that.) but we *can* share the cultivation methods we purchase, can we not? Let us drag our clan into glory alongside us!
The problem is we had no spirit roots. We couldn't cultivate, training wouldn't change that.
- Location
- On a Journey Through The Decade
Actually, yeah. Only telling people close to us the truth sounds like a great idea. This being Xianxia, we must assume everyone is willing to screw us over until they prove otherwise. Cho Mang has been a total bro (by the sound of it) and even if he does get jealous, he's unlikely to screw us over because of how important we are to him (hell, he'd most likely feel guilt over any jealousy he felt). As for our parents; they took care of us when we were a cripple, so it's clear that they love us. On top of that, having a strong child is generally a good thing. And while we don't know much about our brother, it has been stated that he 'doted on us', again, despite being a cripple.
So right off the bat, we have four people who we can potentially tell the truth with no negative repercussions.
So right off the bat, we have four people who we can potentially tell the truth with no negative repercussions.
Leingod
Immaculate Blooming Lotus
I mean, I already suggested writing up a bunch of manuals based on stuff from Legends of the Wulin to maybe make a bunch of Mortal-level stuff that we could buy to give them a wide selection to choose from.
Speaking of which, I wonder... is it better to cultivate a mid-level manual that you're really well-suited for, or a high-level one that you aren't?
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The problem with sharing cultivation methods means that enemy clans might unite against us. If all the clans/sects notice we suddenly have wayyy better cultivation methods they might try to unite together and steal them. If it is just a few high earth ranks clans probably wouldn't notice, but once we start giving out heaven ranks people are gonna get suspicious. Instead I think we should get a defensive formation for the clan grounds, or some type of qi collecting formation, giving us a home-field advantage.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
We could just make clear that we'll be too busy kicking ass and taking names and just give him a high Earth realm manual and equivalent leveled weapon and pills and leave him in charge.
- Location
- New Mexico
If there's a decent relationship between us all we need to do is throw our support behind him, making it absolutely clear that (a) we respect his claim, (b) we endorse his claim, and (c) we are loyal to him on both personal and familial levels.
That would likely help.
Hm, good question.
I suppose that there's situations where you could have some high-level ones you're not particularly suited for in anticipation of being able to stack w/ abilities/techniques/equipment -- eg planning for the "Ultimate Ninja/Thief"-style character (or whatever) -- and it could work out. It seems to me to be a case of where you're focusing your investment payouts: near-term, or long-term.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
What are they gonna do about it? Even if we hoard Heaven Realm manuals to ourself and maybe Cho Mang that's still two Ascended Mortals that used much more powerful and effective cultivation manuals than the other ones. There are maybe ten ascended mortals around and for the low low price of 225 Class 1 Beasts we can get Greater Universal Body, a Low Heaven complimentary technique for Cho Mang and a Low Heaven Weapon for either of us. So that's 10 ascended mortals who got there with shit tier cultivation arts vs two that got there the right way and have way better gear.
@Kolarthecool, how common are Class 1 Beasts? Our expedition turned up several hundred eggs and that toad had three eggs so there must have been 67-100 toads in that forest and killing them wasn't going to lower the population enough to endanger the potentially profitable resource. Also, how common are Class 2s and how valuable is killing them and/or cashing in their cores?
Leingod
Immaculate Blooming Lotus
You know, it doesn't come across in the actual game mechanics, but the fluff for the top-level stuff in the Internal Styles of Legends of the Wulin makes them out to be pretty high-power for wuxia. Like, take the capstone for "Ice Sutra":
"The sutras tell of the creation of the world, when all sprang forth from nothingness. You emulate this primordial void in your thought and power. Invoking it ceases thought, action, and being."
That sounds suspiciously like you're doing that thing with Rukia's bankai and literally freezing things down to Absolute Zero, or at least close enough as makes no difference to the poor motherf*ckers who are literally frozen in time by how cold you're making it.
"The sutras tell of the creation of the world, when all sprang forth from nothingness. You emulate this primordial void in your thought and power. Invoking it ceases thought, action, and being."
That sounds suspiciously like you're doing that thing with Rukia's bankai and literally freezing things down to Absolute Zero, or at least close enough as makes no difference to the poor motherf*ckers who are literally frozen in time by how cold you're making it.
Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
Faster growth v higher power, probably?
But you'll never use the latter as well as you could use the former, so they'd probably balance out in terms of effective strength until you master the latter enough to make it fit you.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
To supplement my earlier statement, even the ten scrub tier Ascended is worst case scenario. From a political perspective they can't really afford to deploy like that. Even on the off chance that they trust each other not to stab them in the back when they're weak from fighting us, if we were to kill even one of them it would cause major political upheaval. Not to mention giving us, at minimum, a new high Earth realm technique or trait. Literally not to mention actually since we probably don't want them to know that. Although leaking that our cultivation grows stronger from combat and that cultivators are worth more than equivalent classed beasts but we don't kill unless provoked due to a sense of honor might be a good idea.
Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
I'd probably assume that the 3 eggs in that toad aren't a representative amount, under the assumption that spirit beasts are similar to standard ones.
@Kolarthecool Does the effort involved in slaying a beast matter?
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
How do you mean? Even if it had more eggs but only three were viable reagents that's still enough data to extrapolate the rough number of beasts he killed.
Also, @Kolarthecool, what are the natural lifespans of the four realms we know of?
Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
There are countless reasons why only three out of a hundred eggs would be viable reagents.
There is also the possibility that the toad hid all its other eggs and these were just the ones in its body.
It doesn't really matter, though, cus we're just going to go by what Kolar's answer is.
And I guess it would be preferable if there were more wild toads... though at the same time, we could always farm them...