Medicinal Crucible: A Xianxia Planquest
- Thread starter Blackstar
- Start date
- Original
CrabMonarchy
Allegedly Dutch
- Location
- the Netherlands, apparently
[X] Plan: Ablative Outer Disciples
[X] Plan Cave and War Preparations
[X] Plan Cave and War Preparations
Cannon Omake: Five-Element Shatteringstone Physical Poison Pill
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
Five-Element Shatteringstone Physical Poison Pill
Star Grass (Physical Poison - Secondary) -> Stone Seed Flower (Qi Hardening - Primary) -> Black Rot-Herb (Physical Poison - Primary) -> Rose Tallow (Elemental Shift - Primary) -> Relentless Growth Vine (Physical Poison - Secondary)
A physical poison pill build around a core made from combining various physical poisons with a deliberately imperfectly ground Stone Seed Flower. By twisting the normal effects of Qi Hardening, particularly with corruptive effects of the Relentless Growth Vine and Black Rot-Herb, the normal Qi Hardening process can, instead of increasing the body's resilience, cause the Cultivator's muscles to harden into a sharp yet brittle rock-like form, which upon any degree of movement, are liable to shatter, crippling the Cultivator's limbs and sending sharp shrapnel ripping through their body.
More advanced variants of the Shatteringstone Poison Pill can introduce a larger amount of Qi Hardening-aspected ingredients, allowing the pill to appear, upon a cursory examination, to merely be an unusual combat pill that secretly retains its poisonous qualities, making it an even more effective tool for assassination, particularly as the effects of the pill are maximized if ingested just before strenuous physical activity. Successfully making a pill in this manner without diluting its lethality is an extremely difficult process however, one that not even the Jade Seed Sect's Elders feel comfortable doing without the use of the Jade Pill Furnace.
Star Grass (Physical Poison - Secondary) -> Stone Seed Flower (Qi Hardening - Primary) -> Black Rot-Herb (Physical Poison - Primary) -> Rose Tallow (Elemental Shift - Primary) -> Relentless Growth Vine (Physical Poison - Secondary)
A physical poison pill build around a core made from combining various physical poisons with a deliberately imperfectly ground Stone Seed Flower. By twisting the normal effects of Qi Hardening, particularly with corruptive effects of the Relentless Growth Vine and Black Rot-Herb, the normal Qi Hardening process can, instead of increasing the body's resilience, cause the Cultivator's muscles to harden into a sharp yet brittle rock-like form, which upon any degree of movement, are liable to shatter, crippling the Cultivator's limbs and sending sharp shrapnel ripping through their body.
More advanced variants of the Shatteringstone Poison Pill can introduce a larger amount of Qi Hardening-aspected ingredients, allowing the pill to appear, upon a cursory examination, to merely be an unusual combat pill that secretly retains its poisonous qualities, making it an even more effective tool for assassination, particularly as the effects of the pill are maximized if ingested just before strenuous physical activity. Successfully making a pill in this manner without diluting its lethality is an extremely difficult process however, one that not even the Jade Seed Sect's Elders feel comfortable doing without the use of the Jade Pill Furnace.
Cannon Omake: Five-Element Breakthrough Pill
Rockeye
Plausible Engineer
- Location
- Midwestern U.S.
Five-Element Breakthrough Pill (Wood) (Theoretical)
Rose Tallow (elemental shift) --> Spotted Shrub (breakthrough aid) --> Star Grass (Meridian Flow) --> Blood-Curdling Hellwart (Elemental Shift) --> Black Rotherb (breakthrough aid)
While still theoretical for now, with the assistance of newly acquired blood-curdling hellwart and its metal alignment a substantially improved five-element breakthrough pill should be possible by cycling through the elemental wheel. By combining all of spotted shrub, star grass, and the black rotherb, with rose tallow and blood-curdling hellwart to bridge the elemental gaps, the effect should be a liberation of the spirit and qi during the brief moments where one attempts a breakthrough. The black rotherb must naturally be reserved for last for its water nature to nourish the wood of the sect's cultivation method, necessitating beginning with a base of liquified rose tallow. The spotted shrub's mental and spiritual poisonous effects remain a severe challenge, but by extremely careful trimming and separation they can be minimized enough for the final two ingredients to suppress. Star grass is not actively cultivated currently, but records on its preparation remain, and it should be easy enough to add shredded stargrass stalks to the tallow mixture.
Blood-curdling hellwart is currently the greatest unknown. While it should sufficiently bridge the gap between star grass and black rotherb producing a coherent final result, its properties are currently completely unknown and much observation and experimentation is needed before someone valuable ingests a pill made from the dubiously acquired hellwart. The black rotherb is at least somewhat better understood, and must be carefully singed with fire qi to remove the most debilitating mental effects which would be inimical to successfully breaking through, while keeping the helpful effects. A good deal of physical poison remains as removing it entirely would also remove any benefits but poisons of the body can be endured and an antidote taken after the breakthrough, so in the event of a success it should merely extend the period of consolidation slightly. Of course the constant problem with five-element pills is the interplay of all five types of elemental qi constantly threatening to destabilize and destroy each other.
Such a pill would be extremely valuable for cultivators stuck at bottlenecks if the many problems separating this wild theory from an actually viable pill can be breached.
@Blackstar omake
Rose Tallow (elemental shift) --> Spotted Shrub (breakthrough aid) --> Star Grass (Meridian Flow) --> Blood-Curdling Hellwart (Elemental Shift) --> Black Rotherb (breakthrough aid)
While still theoretical for now, with the assistance of newly acquired blood-curdling hellwart and its metal alignment a substantially improved five-element breakthrough pill should be possible by cycling through the elemental wheel. By combining all of spotted shrub, star grass, and the black rotherb, with rose tallow and blood-curdling hellwart to bridge the elemental gaps, the effect should be a liberation of the spirit and qi during the brief moments where one attempts a breakthrough. The black rotherb must naturally be reserved for last for its water nature to nourish the wood of the sect's cultivation method, necessitating beginning with a base of liquified rose tallow. The spotted shrub's mental and spiritual poisonous effects remain a severe challenge, but by extremely careful trimming and separation they can be minimized enough for the final two ingredients to suppress. Star grass is not actively cultivated currently, but records on its preparation remain, and it should be easy enough to add shredded stargrass stalks to the tallow mixture.
Blood-curdling hellwart is currently the greatest unknown. While it should sufficiently bridge the gap between star grass and black rotherb producing a coherent final result, its properties are currently completely unknown and much observation and experimentation is needed before someone valuable ingests a pill made from the dubiously acquired hellwart. The black rotherb is at least somewhat better understood, and must be carefully singed with fire qi to remove the most debilitating mental effects which would be inimical to successfully breaking through, while keeping the helpful effects. A good deal of physical poison remains as removing it entirely would also remove any benefits but poisons of the body can be endured and an antidote taken after the breakthrough, so in the event of a success it should merely extend the period of consolidation slightly. Of course the constant problem with five-element pills is the interplay of all five types of elemental qi constantly threatening to destabilize and destroy each other.
Such a pill would be extremely valuable for cultivators stuck at bottlenecks if the many problems separating this wild theory from an actually viable pill can be breached.
@Blackstar omake
Last edited:
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan: Ablative Outer Disciples
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
Oh yay, rolls finally.
Bleh, no super-high rolls like we'd need to actually Breakthrough. This is why I was against Closed Door Cultivation and wanted us to spend an action on getting the Inner Disciples to do all the other crucial stuff I wanted done.
EDIT: On the other hand, it looks like everyone else is having an equally miserable time.
Bleh, no super-high rolls like we'd need to actually Breakthrough. This is why I was against Closed Door Cultivation and wanted us to spend an action on getting the Inner Disciples to do all the other crucial stuff I wanted done.
EDIT: On the other hand, it looks like everyone else is having an equally miserable time.
Last edited:
- Location
- [REDACTED]
Well, hopefully it's enough to scratch our character's cultivation itch for awhile. Give us time to focus on getting the inner disciples into shape.
Turn 6: Local Unrest and Still No Cultivating Results
- Location
- The United States
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Turn 6: Local Unrest and Still No Cultivating Results
AA552 Dong Liang
Spirit Stone Vault: 182.1k - 0.9k Expected
Internal News:
Poor recruitment and incompetent disciples have been the main issues plaguing the sect as the cave has so far been inconsistently supplied with both ingredients and pills. Closed-door cultivation is meant to be supplied by the sect but they have time and time again delivered ingredients late or of subpar quality despite the importance of the work underway. The year has been a bad one with the loss of a core formation elder but several fortuitous breakthroughs to become inner disciples have somewhat buffeted the blow. Two new villages have been established by the mortals with the shipments of gold attracting those willing to move to the interior of the province seeking riches, new veins, and adventure.
A new sect hall has been built for education along with a small garden of stone seed flowers established by the inner disciples to have a good supply of ingredients. It has of course been mismanaged due to the imbeciles involved in planting but not so much that it is useless, just that a few seeds are consistently wasted on harvesting from every hundred due to an improper amount of grinding before planting. Two new prodigies have cropped up with fast breakthroughs to the core formation before any expected time, placing them amongst the youngest in sect history. Both cannot manage to stand each other, apparently competing for the status of the most competent disciple and constantly arguing with each other. As the conflict has been both amusing and significantly improved their cultivation, several elders have continued to play into it, securing the sect's future if these prodigies continue at their pace.
Provincial News:
Outside a good harvest, the worst news has arrived with the arrival of a Heaven-Blessed golden core somewhere in the Jewel Blossom sect's lands. She has in short order found seven demonic cultivators and brought them to justice without damaging the city along with some idiot from the sect who decided to propose to her on the spot. The imperial garrison has fared far worse as a dozen poisonings have brought any unity in the garrison to a standstill and investigations have only just started to look at why the poisonings have occurred. Jewel Blossom has for its efforts attempted to keep the garrison as far away from its city as possible, going as far as to build them a manor in the countryside to avoid any additional attention and the collection of local taxes to fund the demonic cultivators.
According to the latest rumors the Heaven Blessed is headed North across the river looking for something going off on some half-baked rumor. This is a major factor of concern as dealing with the Heaven blessed only leads to tragedy for all as they cannot contain their energy or capabilities. She has so far avoided a swath of destruction and disorder but the second the heavens shift away from her she will surely cause widespread destruction. The good provincial harvest and general good fortune for the sect are likely to get her to stay away as things are too orderly for the heaven-blessed but that cannot be depended on. The original tax inspector has also yet to be found with him likely perishing on the way to the province from some spirit beast.
New infestations of Fire Cats and several packs of White Wolves have crossed through the province killing many junior disciplines but staying away from mortals. Their hunting methods have been organized around the pack hunting of individual lower-level cultivators, taking down those even beyond their cultivation base who are incautious, effectively blind, or incompetent. The packs are expected to leave in a few years but something needs to be done to reduce their numbers and push them away to protect the junior members of the sect. In the meantime, the Towering Horizon sect has chosen to organize a tournament on their Northern border for Golden Cores, moving the proverbial bomb away from their sect and onto ours.
Personal Actions
Cultivate: A strong sect deserves a strong leader and while the further stages of the Open Lotus Art are undiscovered, that simply means more and harsher cultivation must be done. The golden core stage is not the end of the art and dozens have attempted to break through, with some historically accomplishing it. The methodology is unknown but it is certainly possible. Starting work from seeping the Qi into a general domain from the core to nourish the core is the current safe theory of cultivation and it must be attempted vigorously to achieve a great breakthrough. (-30k Spirit Stones) (30, 48, 28, 45, 75)
The Pure Heaven Light has proven revelatory and instrumental to further cultivation. A concentration of pure Qi is not significantly different from the formation of a golden core if one aspected so deeply that any semblance of non-harmonious technique would be lethal. Contemplation on it has revealed several novel methods for gathering Qi into otherwise inanimate objects as the orbs practically breathe and filter the environment around them without either a talisman, working harmoniously despite the sheer energy concentrated. The tragedy of it all is that increasing purity only leads to failure with many stories through the sect's history of elders losing access to all but the most basic of wood-aspected techniques in the process without any semblance of a breakthrough for hundreds of years.
Hyper-purification of Qi has been confirmed as an entirely mistaken approach to a breakthrough. Creating a second golden core is a theory for making a pill that is more potent than any other of a single ingredient that can be handed off to a discipline as a secret technique for evaluation. The approach is not useless and only requires the precise arrangement of qi for sixteen thousand breaths to execute allowing any but the most incompetent golden cores to perform it. Evaluation of these pseudo-cores as pill ingredients will take time and demands evaluation as a route towards improved pill formulations that can sustain effects well above current formulations.
-Alchemical Journal 77156
Meditative and revelatory theories of breakthrough have been tested at length with personal attempts failing to achieve significant gains. The concentration of power was greatest after the consumption of six sustained Qi regeneration pills with a pill of meridian growth but the results have been disappointing. Six thousand spirit stones for an estimated 0.2% expansion in Qi measured on the use of known transmutation techniques per catty is progress but near irrelevant progress. Future application assessment needs to involve more intensive testing of higher quality pills and energies to achieve a solution capable of achieving a breakthrough.
-Alchemical Journal 77159
The sheer control of an area and perceptible influence of a domain foundation beast is its distinctive marker and offers something approximating another route towards a breakthrough. Domain foundation inherently involves the control over a domain but that would involve the dispersal of Qi to the point that a golden core would only form the bare essential route. Theoretically, this is possible but to do so immediately would be an exotic method of death more than a cultivation method. Ways to survive such a dispersal and practical local calamity offer another route to a breakthrough with two dozen pills likely sufficient for bare survival but the risk of crippling one's cultivation base is too much to bear.
-Alchemical Journal 77160
[]Pursue the Pseudo Core: The formation of a Pseudo-Core can be refined as a technique beyond its origins as a basic cultivation method with several applications expected for both pill-making and cultivation. It's not entirely impossible that with the assistance of a golden core, a core formation cultivator could break through, greatly expanding the power of the sect at some cost in versatility. Of course, the method could fail with such concentrations proving unstable but there is no shortage of those willing to try.
[]Pursue the Concentration Theory: Despite several historical examples of explosions happening from the excess concentration of Qi, the methodology is likely not entirely invalid. Approaching a breakthrough as the formation of an even denser central core capable of overcoming the power of any other golden core likely will not work for a breakthrough but several techniques can certainly be learned from the concept. If the approach does work then the costs for each breakthrough would be immense, but even these can be overcome.
[]Pursue the Dispersal Theory: Dispersing a Golden Core and then surviving it has been used as an absolute emergency survival technique several times by several other sects. In every observed instance of a beast attempting to break through the largest noticeable effect has been the dispersal of Qi but the question of whether it comes due to or because of the breakthrough is an open one. Pursuing this theory will require means to survive the dispersal along with a drawback of pure qi to achieve some growth in total qi and a theoretical breakthrough with this as the highest risk method.
Organize Provincial Education: As much as it would break the natural order, one of the scholars has made something of a point after overhearing the discussion on the education of the juniors. Rather than trying to chase those who already know what they are doing, a wider net can be cast amongst the province. Every child can be recruited outside the spring and fall harvest seasons to be educated by reading Confucian texts, writing characters, and performing arithmetic. The cost is expected to be negligible to sect finances and outside of a few over-important gentry complaining few problems are expected. Even better, if every child is educated then parents will finally stop the destructive practice of incompetently hiding prospective cultivators from the sect. (64) (-2k Spirit Stones per Turn)
Work on establishing education has been given to four reliable outer disciples to set up enough schooling to deal with the thousands of peasant children who would not know any better. Instruction in calligraphy, civil service exams, and basic mathematics has proven popular between the growing seasons as one of the disciples recommended a program that would still allow the youths to labor. To say that test scores improved would be a vast understatement as the first-year graduates managed to pass exams with some consistency, learning techniques when explained to them at a vast rate. Rumors that the neighboring mortal nobility has started sending their children away for the chance to become cultivators and for a free education have been dismissed but several scholars have noted that the local economy has improved. A four-year course is expected to make newly incoming mortals competent, capable, and instruct-able instead of the imbeciles typical of most recruitment.
[]Advertise Education: If foreign nobility want to send their already partially educated youths to the Sect for education then so be it. The river provides a convenient flow of students and the local instructors have received enough patronage to build up. A flow of educated disciples will be instrumental in expanding the sect and making it more capable and taking from the most fortuitous mortals will produce the best results. A massive academy-city can be built with thousands of scholars funded to move to the province and construct a true center of mortal education capable of producing not just talented youths but true scholars over eight years. This would grow a local town and build a new city that lower-level disciples can effectively spread through to reduce the cost of instruction. (-10k Spirit Stones) (Builds a University)
[]Ignore Matters: If the mortals want to do things the mortals can, every child that is born or comes to the province needs the chance to be educated to be recruited as a capable cultivator. The nobility having ideas on sending their children for an accelerated chance and an education does not fundamentally change the circumstances around educating them for cultivation. Keeping matters as they are would leave the burden on other cultivators to enforce their mortals staying in their provinces. The sect can be entirely innocent in the theft of youths and cultivation potentials.
[]Ban Foreigners: Avoiding giving insult to a series of stronger sects is a decision based on weakness but the sect is currently weak and incapable of standing up to stronger local secrets. The province-wide misfortune has not erased the results of the auction and it is almost certain that they are looking for any excuse to strike against the sect. Taking the position that foreigners cannot come to the university but loosening enforcement will be a conciliatory gesture for most and if a few particularly clever mortals sneak through then clearly they were meant to be cultivators.
12 Hour Moratorium
AA552 Dong Liang
Spirit Stone Vault: 182.1k - 0.9k Expected
Internal News:
Poor recruitment and incompetent disciples have been the main issues plaguing the sect as the cave has so far been inconsistently supplied with both ingredients and pills. Closed-door cultivation is meant to be supplied by the sect but they have time and time again delivered ingredients late or of subpar quality despite the importance of the work underway. The year has been a bad one with the loss of a core formation elder but several fortuitous breakthroughs to become inner disciples have somewhat buffeted the blow. Two new villages have been established by the mortals with the shipments of gold attracting those willing to move to the interior of the province seeking riches, new veins, and adventure.
A new sect hall has been built for education along with a small garden of stone seed flowers established by the inner disciples to have a good supply of ingredients. It has of course been mismanaged due to the imbeciles involved in planting but not so much that it is useless, just that a few seeds are consistently wasted on harvesting from every hundred due to an improper amount of grinding before planting. Two new prodigies have cropped up with fast breakthroughs to the core formation before any expected time, placing them amongst the youngest in sect history. Both cannot manage to stand each other, apparently competing for the status of the most competent disciple and constantly arguing with each other. As the conflict has been both amusing and significantly improved their cultivation, several elders have continued to play into it, securing the sect's future if these prodigies continue at their pace.
Provincial News:
Outside a good harvest, the worst news has arrived with the arrival of a Heaven-Blessed golden core somewhere in the Jewel Blossom sect's lands. She has in short order found seven demonic cultivators and brought them to justice without damaging the city along with some idiot from the sect who decided to propose to her on the spot. The imperial garrison has fared far worse as a dozen poisonings have brought any unity in the garrison to a standstill and investigations have only just started to look at why the poisonings have occurred. Jewel Blossom has for its efforts attempted to keep the garrison as far away from its city as possible, going as far as to build them a manor in the countryside to avoid any additional attention and the collection of local taxes to fund the demonic cultivators.
According to the latest rumors the Heaven Blessed is headed North across the river looking for something going off on some half-baked rumor. This is a major factor of concern as dealing with the Heaven blessed only leads to tragedy for all as they cannot contain their energy or capabilities. She has so far avoided a swath of destruction and disorder but the second the heavens shift away from her she will surely cause widespread destruction. The good provincial harvest and general good fortune for the sect are likely to get her to stay away as things are too orderly for the heaven-blessed but that cannot be depended on. The original tax inspector has also yet to be found with him likely perishing on the way to the province from some spirit beast.
New infestations of Fire Cats and several packs of White Wolves have crossed through the province killing many junior disciplines but staying away from mortals. Their hunting methods have been organized around the pack hunting of individual lower-level cultivators, taking down those even beyond their cultivation base who are incautious, effectively blind, or incompetent. The packs are expected to leave in a few years but something needs to be done to reduce their numbers and push them away to protect the junior members of the sect. In the meantime, the Towering Horizon sect has chosen to organize a tournament on their Northern border for Golden Cores, moving the proverbial bomb away from their sect and onto ours.
Personal Actions
Cultivate: A strong sect deserves a strong leader and while the further stages of the Open Lotus Art are undiscovered, that simply means more and harsher cultivation must be done. The golden core stage is not the end of the art and dozens have attempted to break through, with some historically accomplishing it. The methodology is unknown but it is certainly possible. Starting work from seeping the Qi into a general domain from the core to nourish the core is the current safe theory of cultivation and it must be attempted vigorously to achieve a great breakthrough. (-30k Spirit Stones) (30, 48, 28, 45, 75)
The Pure Heaven Light has proven revelatory and instrumental to further cultivation. A concentration of pure Qi is not significantly different from the formation of a golden core if one aspected so deeply that any semblance of non-harmonious technique would be lethal. Contemplation on it has revealed several novel methods for gathering Qi into otherwise inanimate objects as the orbs practically breathe and filter the environment around them without either a talisman, working harmoniously despite the sheer energy concentrated. The tragedy of it all is that increasing purity only leads to failure with many stories through the sect's history of elders losing access to all but the most basic of wood-aspected techniques in the process without any semblance of a breakthrough for hundreds of years.
Hyper-purification of Qi has been confirmed as an entirely mistaken approach to a breakthrough. Creating a second golden core is a theory for making a pill that is more potent than any other of a single ingredient that can be handed off to a discipline as a secret technique for evaluation. The approach is not useless and only requires the precise arrangement of qi for sixteen thousand breaths to execute allowing any but the most incompetent golden cores to perform it. Evaluation of these pseudo-cores as pill ingredients will take time and demands evaluation as a route towards improved pill formulations that can sustain effects well above current formulations.
-Alchemical Journal 77156
Meditative and revelatory theories of breakthrough have been tested at length with personal attempts failing to achieve significant gains. The concentration of power was greatest after the consumption of six sustained Qi regeneration pills with a pill of meridian growth but the results have been disappointing. Six thousand spirit stones for an estimated 0.2% expansion in Qi measured on the use of known transmutation techniques per catty is progress but near irrelevant progress. Future application assessment needs to involve more intensive testing of higher quality pills and energies to achieve a solution capable of achieving a breakthrough.
-Alchemical Journal 77159
The sheer control of an area and perceptible influence of a domain foundation beast is its distinctive marker and offers something approximating another route towards a breakthrough. Domain foundation inherently involves the control over a domain but that would involve the dispersal of Qi to the point that a golden core would only form the bare essential route. Theoretically, this is possible but to do so immediately would be an exotic method of death more than a cultivation method. Ways to survive such a dispersal and practical local calamity offer another route to a breakthrough with two dozen pills likely sufficient for bare survival but the risk of crippling one's cultivation base is too much to bear.
-Alchemical Journal 77160
[]Pursue the Pseudo Core: The formation of a Pseudo-Core can be refined as a technique beyond its origins as a basic cultivation method with several applications expected for both pill-making and cultivation. It's not entirely impossible that with the assistance of a golden core, a core formation cultivator could break through, greatly expanding the power of the sect at some cost in versatility. Of course, the method could fail with such concentrations proving unstable but there is no shortage of those willing to try.
[]Pursue the Concentration Theory: Despite several historical examples of explosions happening from the excess concentration of Qi, the methodology is likely not entirely invalid. Approaching a breakthrough as the formation of an even denser central core capable of overcoming the power of any other golden core likely will not work for a breakthrough but several techniques can certainly be learned from the concept. If the approach does work then the costs for each breakthrough would be immense, but even these can be overcome.
[]Pursue the Dispersal Theory: Dispersing a Golden Core and then surviving it has been used as an absolute emergency survival technique several times by several other sects. In every observed instance of a beast attempting to break through the largest noticeable effect has been the dispersal of Qi but the question of whether it comes due to or because of the breakthrough is an open one. Pursuing this theory will require means to survive the dispersal along with a drawback of pure qi to achieve some growth in total qi and a theoretical breakthrough with this as the highest risk method.
Organize Provincial Education: As much as it would break the natural order, one of the scholars has made something of a point after overhearing the discussion on the education of the juniors. Rather than trying to chase those who already know what they are doing, a wider net can be cast amongst the province. Every child can be recruited outside the spring and fall harvest seasons to be educated by reading Confucian texts, writing characters, and performing arithmetic. The cost is expected to be negligible to sect finances and outside of a few over-important gentry complaining few problems are expected. Even better, if every child is educated then parents will finally stop the destructive practice of incompetently hiding prospective cultivators from the sect. (64) (-2k Spirit Stones per Turn)
Work on establishing education has been given to four reliable outer disciples to set up enough schooling to deal with the thousands of peasant children who would not know any better. Instruction in calligraphy, civil service exams, and basic mathematics has proven popular between the growing seasons as one of the disciples recommended a program that would still allow the youths to labor. To say that test scores improved would be a vast understatement as the first-year graduates managed to pass exams with some consistency, learning techniques when explained to them at a vast rate. Rumors that the neighboring mortal nobility has started sending their children away for the chance to become cultivators and for a free education have been dismissed but several scholars have noted that the local economy has improved. A four-year course is expected to make newly incoming mortals competent, capable, and instruct-able instead of the imbeciles typical of most recruitment.
[]Advertise Education: If foreign nobility want to send their already partially educated youths to the Sect for education then so be it. The river provides a convenient flow of students and the local instructors have received enough patronage to build up. A flow of educated disciples will be instrumental in expanding the sect and making it more capable and taking from the most fortuitous mortals will produce the best results. A massive academy-city can be built with thousands of scholars funded to move to the province and construct a true center of mortal education capable of producing not just talented youths but true scholars over eight years. This would grow a local town and build a new city that lower-level disciples can effectively spread through to reduce the cost of instruction. (-10k Spirit Stones) (Builds a University)
[]Ignore Matters: If the mortals want to do things the mortals can, every child that is born or comes to the province needs the chance to be educated to be recruited as a capable cultivator. The nobility having ideas on sending their children for an accelerated chance and an education does not fundamentally change the circumstances around educating them for cultivation. Keeping matters as they are would leave the burden on other cultivators to enforce their mortals staying in their provinces. The sect can be entirely innocent in the theft of youths and cultivation potentials.
[]Ban Foreigners: Avoiding giving insult to a series of stronger sects is a decision based on weakness but the sect is currently weak and incapable of standing up to stronger local secrets. The province-wide misfortune has not erased the results of the auction and it is almost certain that they are looking for any excuse to strike against the sect. Taking the position that foreigners cannot come to the university but loosening enforcement will be a conciliatory gesture for most and if a few particularly clever mortals sneak through then clearly they were meant to be cultivators.
12 Hour Moratorium
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
Okay then. The way our Art works with forming a mighty Lotus flower as a base I think is important for figuring out which path we should take from here. Looking at the IRL lotus flower:
As for education...I really want to set up an academy city, but we can't afford the negative attention it would give us. The Sect is still trying to find its feet and has taken a couple of nasty blows. We can't afford to get hit by a number of raids as well. Especially not with a Xianxia Protagonist around and liable to explode in spectacular fashion. I think Ignore Matters is best to just avoid drawing attention to the issue.
This whole laying seeds across the pond feels like it's something we should try to mirror in Cultivation in order to reach the next step. With that in mind, I think we should look at either Pseudo Core or Dispersal. Either I could see being about the "seeds", but Concentration is just trying to push through by sheer brute force of Qi, which doesn't really fit for us.
As for education...I really want to set up an academy city, but we can't afford the negative attention it would give us. The Sect is still trying to find its feet and has taken a couple of nasty blows. We can't afford to get hit by a number of raids as well. Especially not with a Xianxia Protagonist around and liable to explode in spectacular fashion. I think Ignore Matters is best to just avoid drawing attention to the issue.
Last edited:
- Location
- UTC+0
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They
Oooops
Anyway, I say we either do the University, or Ban Foreigners. The former is a bit risky in that it draws some unwanted attention, but its cool.
As for cultivation method, I like the sound of dispersal, it seems the most "natural" way of doing, which pairs well with our method of cultivation imo
- Pronouns
- he/him
this might be the best time to advertise education because of the protagonist. anyone who wants to go to war with us for it won't because the protagonist could get involved and that's bad for everyone. sure the university might attract her attention, but that's much less likely to be an issue that destroys our sect. the university itself, maybe, but not our sect.
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
Huh, that's a good point actually. Turn the university into either something we set up while everyone's keeping their heads down, or a distraction so that the protagonist blows it up instead of our Sect as a whole.
- Location
- [REDACTED]
On initial read-through, I think that pseudo core is our best bet. And the least likely to blow up in our faces. Even if it doesn't result in a breakthrough, we might make some interesting advancements in pill-making from it.
I say go for the University. It's true we're still trying to get our feet under us, but I think it's worth the risk to continue building a pretty solid foundation for our sect. Being seen as a center of education and trade puts a target on us, but it also gives us the resources to deal with that target. It'd be best if we could figure something out so that it's either not worth the cost to fight us OR make it worth it to them to keep us around. Which is easier said then done, I suppose.
I say go for the University. It's true we're still trying to get our feet under us, but I think it's worth the risk to continue building a pretty solid foundation for our sect. Being seen as a center of education and trade puts a target on us, but it also gives us the resources to deal with that target. It'd be best if we could figure something out so that it's either not worth the cost to fight us OR make it worth it to them to keep us around. Which is easier said then done, I suppose.
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
The best way to do that would be to build up a substantial stockpile of Combat Pills. While we're disadvantaged in regular raids, in set-piece battles we have a significant advantage so long as we can pop a large number of pills to supercharge ourselves.
At which point any uptick in raiding can be responded to with organized War Party activity that the rival Sects would struggle to match.
Personally I'm thinking either Pseudo Core or Dispersal to pursue. The latter is the very high risk method, but when is cultivation not risky? The former also feels kind of like it could be every so slightly demonic perhaps, which could be good or bad depending on how much we want to do a funny. Like we probably wouldn't actually use the theory of the technique that way, but consuming golden cores as pill ingredients but we're only using pseudo-cores we made ourselves feels like it could be in the same vein as "only making corpse golems out of horses and utility animals" and "only using the ultra evil ritual sacrifice knife to strip the meridians out of Spirit Beasts".
As for the schooling I'm thinking either Ban Foreigners or Ignore, leaning the former. Mostly because I just don't feel like going for state building and getting much more involved in the mortal affairs of our province when we're already going to have to herd cats with our own sect.
As for the schooling I'm thinking either Ban Foreigners or Ignore, leaning the former. Mostly because I just don't feel like going for state building and getting much more involved in the mortal affairs of our province when we're already going to have to herd cats with our own sect.
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
Personally, I'm in favor of looking into the Dispersal Theory since it feels like the sort of thing that has a thematic resonance with actions taken thus far. All this state building in this sect's lands suddenly becomes the plan all along if the further arts of the Open Lotus decrees that it is not just the self that one is cultivating, but also the land into which one is dispersed and to which the art is open.
On a metaphysical level, and the biologic lotus, I feel like Dispersal might be tied to scattering seeds, rather than concentrating on the creation and use of a singular seed. Though with the somewhat ominous note that, in likening the the dispersal of the core to the scattering of seeds, it also might be likened to the death and rebirth of it's namesake flower.
On a metaphysical level, and the biologic lotus, I feel like Dispersal might be tied to scattering seeds, rather than concentrating on the creation and use of a singular seed. Though with the somewhat ominous note that, in likening the the dispersal of the core to the scattering of seeds, it also might be likened to the death and rebirth of it's namesake flower.
Personally i am very torn on the cultivation technique i think the "proper" way to do it would likely be the dispersal it just sounds way to dangerous to attempt so i am probably leaning towards pseudo core. For education i think university it would be really risky but i fear that if we don't take this chance now when we stabilise we will no longer have the option because it is so radical
Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
Well, keep in mind that we just had a turn of high casualties and a lot of other stuff that needs addressing. It might be another turn or two before we can actually pursue whichever choice we make.
We took pretty heavy casualties and had poor recruitment for new disciples this turn, so we're running dangerously low on Qi Formation Disciples (though our Inner Disciple numbers actually look pretty good.) We may need to do a lot of actions for enhanced recruitment and casualty prevention in order to stabilize, plus making more pills for war chest preparations.
But once those are recovered, part of the virtue of a Sect is that they're built to survive the occasional Sect Leader exploding themselves (or massive casualties once in a while.) Which means that so long as we've built up a good enough foundation, we should be able to try the process out and feel secure about the risk. Plus, we've already gambled on Breakthrough attempts, since IIRC there was a chance that if we do Closed Door Cultivation while Pondering the Orbs for the first time, our Sect Leader could have screwed up and become the sixth Orb.
We took pretty heavy casualties and had poor recruitment for new disciples this turn, so we're running dangerously low on Qi Formation Disciples (though our Inner Disciple numbers actually look pretty good.) We may need to do a lot of actions for enhanced recruitment and casualty prevention in order to stabilize, plus making more pills for war chest preparations.
But once those are recovered, part of the virtue of a Sect is that they're built to survive the occasional Sect Leader exploding themselves (or massive casualties once in a while.) Which means that so long as we've built up a good enough foundation, we should be able to try the process out and feel secure about the risk. Plus, we've already gambled on Breakthrough attempts, since IIRC there was a chance that if we do Closed Door Cultivation while Pondering the Orbs for the first time, our Sect Leader could have screwed up and become the sixth Orb.
Last edited:
There was some pretty solid support for restocking both our personal war pills as well as our junior in the second and third place plans for this turn yeah, as well as doubling up on making the Inners train the Outers. We've also got lacking equipment to sort out that would get us spears and escape charms for our juniors, and we've still got a bunch of ingredients still only as seed stockpiles.
Add on that we'll really want to take a look at the new Hellwart we blew a lot of our stones on, doing things like the bestiary so we might lose less juniors to hunting, and maybe us getting a personal action to deal with the much worse than normal spirit beast infestations and we've got a lot on our plate. Might have to go for an "off again on again" cultivation schedule where we alternate turns caving ourselves to try and crack the breakthrough issue with ones focused on dealing with sect stuff entirely.