Does that mean that if the emperor of light ever ascended or died the Lord system would begin to collapse. If it needs his direct action no one would be able to make new land bonds or take his place as sovereign.
-
Going forward, links to content from Twitter (now X) will no longer be embedded. Pre-existing links should not be affected.
Money and Power: A Xianxia Merchant Quest
- Thread starter Mr. Prokosch
- Start date
Does that mean that if the emperor of light ever ascended or died the Lord system would begin to collapse. If it needs his direct action no one would be able to make new land bonds or take his place as sovereign.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
The cultivation info post posits that someone already initiated to Lordly cultivation could succeed him. The problem is becoming a Lord in the first place without Deva level enlightenment.
Another may theoretically take his place isn't exactly strong proof one way or the other. I'd asked to see if it was a political or practical decision that the emperor was the one to give out each land bond personally.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
We know that the Emperor has to do it and reverse engineering the process hasn't worked for anyone so far, but it's unclear if that's because the Deva of Divine Light is the only one who can do it or if the Sovereign is the only one who can do it, and given the mechanics of the system, there's no way to test that without him leaving the throne, however that happens.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
I still support heavenly cultivation on account of lordly one being both part of a pyramid scheme and dead end (if the emperor doesn't let his people grow), but if saints are limited from interfering, we can push someone from our family like our sister to get this ownership, hey, why just our sister, we can probably use magi-tech to conquer other unconquerable places, like the abyss.
I think it was mentioned the emperor ascending means he must give his title to someone else, basically the current emperor is a descendant.
It is a pyramid scheme, so I don't see why not.
- Location
- Canada
I'm leaning towards Sainthood myself, but it's a long way off. We can forge that bridge when we come to it.
How would other people even know you went back in time? My guess is a really strong fate reader is just messing with people.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
There are stories about it, but what you say does make more sense, reading fate sounds easier than going back, there is also the question of your past self, Chaci goes bacj and saves her father, what about past Chaci? Did she transfom into future Chaci, are there two now, does it need to be close timeline so we need to teach past Chaci to become a saint so she can go back in time?
[Experiment] Attempt to exemplify Diamond over a prolonged period by closely examining and refining our routines and actions in search of a perfect and precise order. Iterate until we see no more room for optimization or refinement, then attempt to stick to a rigid schedule. Correct as necessary until it can be sustained.
Heaven-Forged Diamond
[Insight] The perfection of a diamond is inherently unstable. The world will reject its flawless order and force it to decay into baser matter. Well, that just made me sad if it's true. But it's not really about diamond, it's about the flaws in the world. (No bonus)
[Insight]The slight bending of fate to the favor of a Diamond Soul is tied to the way that Diamond corresponds to the heavens and their fated plan. While the heavens (may) favor such a soul, there is more to it than that. Diamonds are good tools for divination and so therefore a diamond soul on some unconscious level can perceive the same light of fate emanating from heaven that divination reads. Perhaps even interact with and nudge it. (Small bonus)
[insight]Light can flow through a cable/channel of crystal, bound and reflected ever inwards. Perhaps teotle flows though your body not as liquid through the banks of a river but instead as light through wires of crystal. Oh, yeah, the Orthodox Path uses building metaphors but my teachers almost always used water metaphors. Maybe neither is perfect, and Teotl cannot be captured by any single way of thinking. (Bonus to Teotl theory)
[insight]For all that diamond is tied to the Heavens and Light, so too is it clearly tied to the Earth and Stone that birthed it and the Dark that it was buried in for untold millennia. Perhaps it is a bridge between the two, or perhaps this is merely an example of the way that all things are tied together (Small bonus).
[insight] Diamond is OLD. Even the oldest human or human institution is insignificant on the geological scale that dictates the pressures and motions of the earth that create diamonds and bring them shallow enough to be mined. It is age that ties diamonds to the heavens despite being born of the earth. An affinity for divination and millions of years for that affinity to steep the stone in the heavenly light of fate that shines unobstructed through such banal barriers as miles of stone and dirt
+
[Insight] Diamonds are old. Inherently. Putting aside the mystical influences of Essence and Teotl, diamonds take over a billion years to form.
+
[Insight] Diamonds are a result of significant effort. The right materials, placed in the right conditions and kept there for over a billion years without being shifted into suboptimal conditions that might halt or reverse the process of their formation.
(small bonus).
[insight] Diamond is. It exists. It is not just a concept or something ephemeral like Dreams but a concrete corporeal object. (Small bonus)
[insight]"Diamonds are associated with strength, love and health. Throughout history, diamonds have been worn by leaders or power figures to symbolize strength and invincibility. Diamonds have also been associated with good health and represent long life and good heart health. Diamonds have long been linked to the heart and are often associated with an everlasting love. It is one of the reasons why diamond rings are offered during a marriage proposal today." What greater strength and invincibility can there be than the heavens? What else can love eternal? Diamonds bind and link but also are of great use as cutting tools. When diamonds cannot bind they cut away cleanly and without hesitation.
+
[insight] The Emperor bound Law and Light to the land and Earth by inventing Lordly Cultivation. The Emperor rules with Mandate of Heaven and wields Light. The Emperor also has declared Abyssals as anathema. Diamond rejects the Abyssals and is of Earth and Order and attuned to Light and the will of Heaven (and fate). There is a confluence here, though whether the Emperor created it or this is a manifestation of a higher Truth is... likely far beyond Chachi's ability to discover
+
[insight] Diamond has an affinity to clear and defined hierarchy both in terms of value and of organization.
+
[Insight] Purity is not a subjective belief but rather an objective truth and one can study what is pure and get an objective truth. This absolute and unalterable truth is the same truth that heaven draws upon to declare what is righteous.
=
(Perfect bonus)
[insight] Diamond is True because it cannot be ought but itself. To deviate is to cease to be diamond and thus all diamond is True diamond (Small Bonus)
[insight] Diamond is associated with the number 4 due to the bonds its atoms make, and 1 due to its single element composition
+
[insight] Diamond is tied to emotions. Likely four of them, as the carbon that makes it up binds four times. Pride, Wrath, Love, and Refusal of Compassion. Pride, Love, Wrath, and... Mu:
+
[insight] Diamond is merciless and pitiless, a heart of stone unstained by compassion. Thus Diamond is characterized by an emotion perhaps best described as "Mu" or perhaps "Yin": An absence of compassion that is nevertheless an active emotion. Not merely an uniformed ignorance or apathetic disinterest but instead an active and decisive void.
+
[insight]Diamond symbolizes eternal love, but for all mortals romanticize eternal love, it is something utterly alien. A love eternal is a love unbound by judgment or care for whether the subject of its love is alive or dead or happy or sad or saintly or monstrous. It requires neither interaction nor contact and is closer to a static stone-like state of being than fleeting mortal passion.
+
[insight] Diamond is old, powerful, beautiful and pure. It exemplifies self righteous pride. A pride that everything is in its place or will be set in its place and that Diamond's proper place in the hierarchy is high indeed.
+
[insight] Diamond is wrathful. It hates with the fires of its birth, but hardened into the eternal cold fury of its crystalline form. Just as its love is eternal so too is its anger. There is no forgiveness for that which is Anathema.
+
[insight] Another reason the Diamond Soul is unable to form use techniques is that Diamond is passive. It does not act upon the world of its own volition. Unlike Chachi.
+
[insight]Diamonds are not merely tied to Order but to a specific order. Diamonds do not merely enforce patterns in their structure but a specific pattern. Order is not enough, it must be the right Order.
+
[Insight] The crystalline structure of diamond forms both a cube, and a hexagon. The most common, and most efficient shape for storage. Hexagons are the bestagon. Are they?
+
[Insight] Diamonds shine with an inner light, that can glow even in darkness. Well, most diamonds don't. But one does...
(These together are a Transcendent Bonus. End of this post will outline how this bonus can be used.)
[insight]Given enough heat, even diamond burns. Though it requires air of sufficient purity to be a self sustaining reaction. Weird, Diamond didn't burn in my experiment (No bonus).
[insight] In addition to the incredible force and heat needed to make them, diamonds are only able to be surfaced through a rare kind of volcano that reaches deeper and stronger than most. The normal geological forces that would bring them up would have them break back down into baser carbon. To ascend toa higher realm, diamonds must reach deeper and rely on greater pressure (and no small measure of luck), rather than taking the well trodden path (No bonus - these are another iteration of 'Diamond formation is analogous to cultivation'. This stuff together might help her comprehension about some things later, but doesn't contribute much to Diamond insight specifically. This is a more universal truth.)
[Insight] Diamonds subdue. To be Adamant is to be Unbreakable, only ever cleaving in the ways it already was, but never shattering to brute force. I shattered a bunch of diamonds. Should diamonds shatter? Something feels wrong about that. (No bonus)
[Insight] A Diamond's extreme durability comes from its capacity to transfer energy, with any force acting on one portion of the diamond, acting on many others, distributing the force to the point it becomes negligible. This additionally makes them excellent conductors of heat, and excellent insulators of lightning. Yeah, the distributive nature of the structure is part of its strength. (Small Bonus)
[Insight] Diamonds are epiphany. Rigid, yet illuminating. Focusing both light and the mind. All truths exist in the universe, and diamond reveals those truths to those who know how to use it. (Small bonus)
[Insight] Diamonds care not for context or situation, only for what is. All poison is poison, regardless of if it is being moderated into medicine. Similarly, while you may want flint or coal or some other stone in a given situation, Diamond doesn't give a shit. It is what it is (Small bonus).
[Insight] A diamond is formed of earth Essence under pressure, yes, but it is as much a structure of that Essence as the Essence itself. Which of these, then, is the true diamond? The essence of a diamond is not just a physical instantiation, it is also the ideal of that structure, an order imposed upon base materials which converts them into a greater, stronger, more pure whole. (Small bonus. As you note, some of these would be perfect bonuses if they weren't covering a lot of similar ground.)
[Insight] Diamonds naturally and artificially form facets, and when light is shined through them they divide it into its components. Diamonds are truth but they are also, literally, multifaceted and help with separating the different aspects of the single, unified truth of a situation into smaller, but no less true, truths that are more easily analyzed. Right, yeah. I feel like Diamond is comfortable with many people having their own truth. (Small bonus).
[Insight] Diamonds are unstoppable. There is no natural material diamond cannot cut, including being the only natural material capable of cutting diamond (Small Bonus).
[Insight] The purity of a diamond tends towards specific materials, it can only purify things down to "base materials" such as water, alcohol, or lead. (Small bonus)
[Insight] Diamond affects living and nonliving matter differently, this is because the effects of Diamond are changed when it comes into contact with living things, they are protected by their own concept of perfection/purity, whereas nonliving material can only be rendered down into base matter. (You didn't do an experiment on this, but most living things cannot be "purified" in the way nonliving things can. So small bonus)
[Insight] To gaze on a true Diamond is to be purified by it, no action from the Diamond is necessary (Small bonus).
[Insight] Diamond is truth, regardless of what any noble or law may have to say on the matter. Become ungovernable. Diamond is truth, but I think the Emperor and his Structure may be a reflection of the same heavenly truth (No bonus).
[Insight] The diamond is LIGHT, life, the SUN; it is an emblem of purity and perfection, of invincible spiritual power, and it is the stone of commitment, faithfulness, and promise between husband and wife. Symbol of light and brilliance; unconquerable; treasures, riches, and intellectual knowledge. (Small bonus. Good insight, when you first chose Diamond by raffle I looked up a bunch of these blurbs and then continued on from there.)
[Insight] A Diamond is not made lesser by shattering, in any meaningful way. A Diamond is a Diamond is a Diamond. From a gem the size of an oxen heart to a crystal the size of a grain of sand, all true, pure diamonds are the same. If you shear a Diamond in twain, you do not get two halves of a Diamond. You get two Diamonds, each as pure and perfect as the original.
+
[Insight] Diamonds are not unbreakable, but they are unalterable. The core aspect of a diamond the purity of it's endless repetition cannot be changed without destroying it. A diamond will always be a diamond unless it is completely destroyed.
(Small bonus)
[Insight] A Diamond takes in pure white light, and from it creates individual pure colors. From this we know that purity does not require isolation, but can be created in a harmonious blend of smaller parts. (Small bonus).
[Insight] Diamonds are not weak to fire. (Small bonus)
[Insight] Beauty is a surface level truth for a diamond, for the flaws that the diamonds reject bring out their true beauty. (Would be a harmonic insight, but too similar to an earlier one)
[Insight] Diamond's subtractive purity extends to purity of action, people are (somewhat) unable to take actions that would violate the contract. (Small bonus)
[Insight] diamonds are not deceivers. Clear and nearly transparent, no lies may stay hidden within the purity of diamond for there is nothing to hide behind. (No bonus just because this has been covered pretty well already)
[Insight] even so light is refracted through diamonds crystaline lens, pure and unsullied by the shadows(lies) diamonds may be, but even so the light(truth) may be twisted and refracted through the lens. (No bonus)
[Insight] diamond is valuable in society, this much is undeniable. Yet truth be told diamonds are a more common stone than some realize, even so they are prized. For beauty and purity begets greed and the common can become rare for the price of blood. (No bonus just because the Blood Diamond thing isn't really a thing in the Empire. Diamonds are not that rare, but it is hard to find a truly pure diamond, which is actually not as pretty as a flawed diamond but is more useful as a cultivation tool).
----
Chachi eats some diamonds! She can sense them inside her, so there's no need for special tools. They do not disrupt her flow of Teotl at all. She experimentally consumes some minor poisons that would give her stomach pains, and they do not poison her. But, that worked before she ate a diamond because she has a Diamond Spirit already. She made an assistant eat one too, and it did help somewhat with poison ingestion but only when the diamond was in her stomach, once it passed lower in the intestine it did not have the preventative effect. The diamond seems unchanged after passing through her body.
Chachi tries to break and then fix a diamond. She cannot do it without the Forge. With the Forge it's trivial, though at significant Teotl cost. Regardless of what diamond she puts into the Forge, she can produce a flawless diamond. If she tries, she can produce a flawed diamond too. She uses the Art of Evaluation to analyze the precise structure of a diamond, breaks it apart, and then re-Forges it precisely as it was before. As far as she can tell, it's the same diamond. It might not actually be the same, her own memory is both the blueprint and the check. A jeweler and a crafting assistant are incapable of detecting any change as well.
Chachi tries to form other Essences into the diamond structure. Essences that dislike being in a crystalized structure decay instantly into a more natural state. So, a water essence crystal, when reformed into a diamond, is only diamond-structured for a micro-second before it becomes a pool of very high-essence water. This leads her to an investigation into Essence Crystals. It's one of nature's great mysteries that over time, at high essence sites, stable crystals of that essence will slowly form. Her traps reproduce the process but without fully understanding it. Each crystal has its own intricate, beautiful structure. Interesting that gems are also crystals, and have useful spiritual properties like many natural materials, but do not act as 'essence containers.' A ruby looks a lot like a Fire Crystal, but without the eternal heat or the ability to use Teotl to draw torrents of flame. Internally, they're very different, a Fire Crystal has a much more complex internal structure. Chachi compares an earth crystal to a diamond. Earth crystals have a muddy brown color and are firm but malleable, unlike a diamond's extreme hardness.
Chachi finds she can make more firm materials diamond-like by imposing diamond's structure on them. Metal essence is particularly interesting. Using only Metal Essence but imposing diamond structure she gets a very hard, opaque, lump that she christens Diamond-Steel. After a few tests, it lacks some of diamond's spiritual properties, but may have others? A few quick tests don't reveal anything. It is very, very strong. She may make some treasures out of a material like that in the future.
She can't think of how to impose a diamond structure on something like the clan. She talks with Teo about it for a while, and after a while they conclude together that it's best for each member of the Clan to be a 'diamond' in themselves by exemplifying Honesty, Integrity, Transparency, and Love for the Clan, but for the clan as a whole to be more fluid so they can adapt to a changing market.
Chachi makes some flawed diamonds in the forge. She plays with their coloration and style. They are very pretty, but the further they go from the Diamond Ideal, the weaker their properties. She already learned this from the jewelers, the most pure diamonds are used by cultivators but the flawed ones are only decorative.
Chachi can't tell the difference between weapons based on their history, even if the history was terrible. She can tell that one was once used with a poison technique.
Chachi goes back the the oddities in her purification experiments and is a bit more systematic this time. She finds that distilled alcohol turns into pure alcohol, fermented juices and such turn into water, and drinks that were created by the mixing of liquids with different origins turn into the water/alcohol mix. She mixes lead with water, and can purify that to just water. She makes an assistant drink some lead-poisoned water, purifies her, and then checks her body for trace-lead with diagnostic tools. The assistant seems to not be lead-poisoned. Good. Teo does not think the powder has much value, but maybe as an exotic spice of some sort. Chachi finds it a bit unpleasant, but she gives it to her personal chef and he does find a way to make a meal that tastes agreeable to her. Her clan already produces an anti-poison elixir. Pushing things further, she takes a venomous wasp and tries to purify it, then lets it sting an assistant. The venom was not purified within the wasp, but is after it's struck the assistant.
She tries to find an overall pattern. It still seems odd to her. From other mediations on the nature of diamond, she concludes that purification is about putting things more in line with the Heavenly Order, by either eliminating them or re-ordering them. Lead belongs with the earth, so it cannot be purified from the earth. It does not belong in the human body, or in water. The venom belongs within the wasp, but not within the assistant's body. This purification does not adhere to her personal preferences or convenience, but more to a rigid model of the World as it Should Be.
Chachi refines her routines to be more rigid and precise. There's a lot that's different every day, and a lot more that's already been precisely laid out by her assistants (following Teo's instructions). But she does have free time every day, and she attempts to optimize that schedule. It's tedious and constraining, but also oddly comforting. Teo is delighted by this change in her behavior. She's unsure if it's helping her be more diamond-like. Maybe. It does make her feel less creative, and less happy, but more productive.
---
With careful study, experimentation, and reflection, Chachi developed a strong grasp of Diamond in a short time. She feels comfortable progressing her cultivation. But, something also feels wrong. From deep investigation into the structure of diamond she found that its numerical association is primarily 4, and possibly 1 or 5 as well. Those are inauspicious numbers. 3 is the number of exhaltation, 7 of perfection, 13 of transcendence. 1 is the number of existence and 5 the number of safety, which is fine. But 4 is the number of mundanity. A More Perfect Diamond Structure would be based on 7s, not 4s. Diamond should be perfect.
That night she slept fitfully. She dreamed of forges, and planets, and a masterpiece greater than worlds.
She woke troubled.
Diamond should be perfect.
Diamond should be perfect.
Could it be more perfect?
What was the name of her Foundation?
Every cultivator with a Mastery technique earned the title of Perfect, yet they were far from equal. A 3 Pillared Master was demonstrably weaker than a 7 Pillared Master. The Core itself was called Perfect after Hungering. It would never hold more Teotl. It would never give more strength, or more life. Building then took the Perfect Core, and built a new specialized structure around it, to maximize its use. But, she was more than Perfect. Her Core held more Teotl, more strength, more life. She was the Herald of Infinite Perfection. More perfect, infinitely.
Chachi ordered the Fortress to take a small detour. In Ehecatl City she found what she was looking for: A Frozen Moment. This form of artwork used Teotl to produce an absolutely perfect image. She needed that, not just a piece of art. She was sure she could find one without much effort, because it was the most common subject of a Frozen Moment in the empire: a public appearance by the Emperor of Light in full regalia. She used a series of lenses to magnify a particular point on his crown. The Imperial Crown had many significant jewels, but the greatest was Heaven's Gift, a diamond said to be the heart of a fallen star. The Most Perfect Diamond. It glowed eternally with a soft, heavenly light. Chachi magnified the image of Heaven's Gift until only a single spec of it filled her view. Then she used Art of Evaluation.
THERE! YES! There.
She sighed with relief as the pieces came together. Heaven's Gift did not have a typical diamond's structure. Seven bonds to form a heptagon structure, repeated. Not a cube. A More Perfect Diamond, greater than what the heat and pressure of this base earth could Forge.
Could she make one? Reproduce Heaven's Gift, the Imperial Diamond, the Crown Jewel of the Emperor of Light? It would take several orders of magnitude more Teotl than a four-bonded diamond, more than she had. She would also need to Spiritually Refine it. But, she thought it was possible.
For what purpose? She could feel trepidation battling with her growing excitement as she considered it. She could not just use it for her body or mind, she felt that intuitively. If she used an earthly diamond for her spirit but a Heaven-Forged Diamond elsewhere, the imbalance would tear her apart. No, she'd need to start again. But, if she could make one Heaven's Gift, she could make three. Spirit, Body, Mind. Each a Heaven-Forged Diamond, each letting her wield the hidden potential of the gem in its more perfect form.
But did she want that? Some facets of diamond were disturbing and she hadn't even progressed to diamond mind. Could she stand committing herself even more fully to this harsh ideal? How much would she lose, if she became not just Diamond-Minded but Heaven-Forged Diamond-Minded?
You've accumulated a LOT of bonuses by this point. Maybe more than I should have allowed... But here's an opportunity to burn a bunch of it! You have two options:
[] Heaven-Forged Diamond Spirit
Reforge your diamond spirit to turn it into a Heaven-Forged Diamond. It will change Chachi's powers, generally to be more in-line with the potential of Infinitely Perfect and the Cosmic Forge. But it will also have mysterious consequences. You cannot align your soul so closely with Order and Heaven without sacrifice. You have sufficient insight to do this safely.
[] Reject Heaven's Light
Use your insights to rush through Diamond cultivation. Bank your Transcendent Insight to gain further control over the final Harmonic powers.
[Insight]The slight bending of fate to the favor of a Diamond Soul is tied to the way that Diamond corresponds to the heavens and their fated plan. While the heavens (may) favor such a soul, there is more to it than that. Diamonds are good tools for divination and so therefore a diamond soul on some unconscious level can perceive the same light of fate emanating from heaven that divination reads. Perhaps even interact with and nudge it. (Small bonus)
[insight]Light can flow through a cable/channel of crystal, bound and reflected ever inwards. Perhaps teotle flows though your body not as liquid through the banks of a river but instead as light through wires of crystal. Oh, yeah, the Orthodox Path uses building metaphors but my teachers almost always used water metaphors. Maybe neither is perfect, and Teotl cannot be captured by any single way of thinking. (Bonus to Teotl theory)
[insight]For all that diamond is tied to the Heavens and Light, so too is it clearly tied to the Earth and Stone that birthed it and the Dark that it was buried in for untold millennia. Perhaps it is a bridge between the two, or perhaps this is merely an example of the way that all things are tied together (Small bonus).
[insight] Diamond is OLD. Even the oldest human or human institution is insignificant on the geological scale that dictates the pressures and motions of the earth that create diamonds and bring them shallow enough to be mined. It is age that ties diamonds to the heavens despite being born of the earth. An affinity for divination and millions of years for that affinity to steep the stone in the heavenly light of fate that shines unobstructed through such banal barriers as miles of stone and dirt
+
[Insight] Diamonds are old. Inherently. Putting aside the mystical influences of Essence and Teotl, diamonds take over a billion years to form.
+
[Insight] Diamonds are a result of significant effort. The right materials, placed in the right conditions and kept there for over a billion years without being shifted into suboptimal conditions that might halt or reverse the process of their formation.
(small bonus).
[insight] Diamond is. It exists. It is not just a concept or something ephemeral like Dreams but a concrete corporeal object. (Small bonus)
[insight]"Diamonds are associated with strength, love and health. Throughout history, diamonds have been worn by leaders or power figures to symbolize strength and invincibility. Diamonds have also been associated with good health and represent long life and good heart health. Diamonds have long been linked to the heart and are often associated with an everlasting love. It is one of the reasons why diamond rings are offered during a marriage proposal today." What greater strength and invincibility can there be than the heavens? What else can love eternal? Diamonds bind and link but also are of great use as cutting tools. When diamonds cannot bind they cut away cleanly and without hesitation.
+
[insight] The Emperor bound Law and Light to the land and Earth by inventing Lordly Cultivation. The Emperor rules with Mandate of Heaven and wields Light. The Emperor also has declared Abyssals as anathema. Diamond rejects the Abyssals and is of Earth and Order and attuned to Light and the will of Heaven (and fate). There is a confluence here, though whether the Emperor created it or this is a manifestation of a higher Truth is... likely far beyond Chachi's ability to discover
+
[insight] Diamond has an affinity to clear and defined hierarchy both in terms of value and of organization.
+
[Insight] Purity is not a subjective belief but rather an objective truth and one can study what is pure and get an objective truth. This absolute and unalterable truth is the same truth that heaven draws upon to declare what is righteous.
=
(Perfect bonus)
[insight] Diamond is True because it cannot be ought but itself. To deviate is to cease to be diamond and thus all diamond is True diamond (Small Bonus)
[insight] Diamond is associated with the number 4 due to the bonds its atoms make, and 1 due to its single element composition
+
[insight] Diamond is tied to emotions. Likely four of them, as the carbon that makes it up binds four times. Pride, Wrath, Love, and Refusal of Compassion. Pride, Love, Wrath, and... Mu:
+
[insight] Diamond is merciless and pitiless, a heart of stone unstained by compassion. Thus Diamond is characterized by an emotion perhaps best described as "Mu" or perhaps "Yin": An absence of compassion that is nevertheless an active emotion. Not merely an uniformed ignorance or apathetic disinterest but instead an active and decisive void.
+
[insight]Diamond symbolizes eternal love, but for all mortals romanticize eternal love, it is something utterly alien. A love eternal is a love unbound by judgment or care for whether the subject of its love is alive or dead or happy or sad or saintly or monstrous. It requires neither interaction nor contact and is closer to a static stone-like state of being than fleeting mortal passion.
+
[insight] Diamond is old, powerful, beautiful and pure. It exemplifies self righteous pride. A pride that everything is in its place or will be set in its place and that Diamond's proper place in the hierarchy is high indeed.
+
[insight] Diamond is wrathful. It hates with the fires of its birth, but hardened into the eternal cold fury of its crystalline form. Just as its love is eternal so too is its anger. There is no forgiveness for that which is Anathema.
+
[insight] Another reason the Diamond Soul is unable to form use techniques is that Diamond is passive. It does not act upon the world of its own volition. Unlike Chachi.
+
[insight]Diamonds are not merely tied to Order but to a specific order. Diamonds do not merely enforce patterns in their structure but a specific pattern. Order is not enough, it must be the right Order.
+
[Insight] The crystalline structure of diamond forms both a cube, and a hexagon. The most common, and most efficient shape for storage. Hexagons are the bestagon. Are they?
+
[Insight] Diamonds shine with an inner light, that can glow even in darkness. Well, most diamonds don't. But one does...
(These together are a Transcendent Bonus. End of this post will outline how this bonus can be used.)
[insight]Given enough heat, even diamond burns. Though it requires air of sufficient purity to be a self sustaining reaction. Weird, Diamond didn't burn in my experiment (No bonus).
[insight] In addition to the incredible force and heat needed to make them, diamonds are only able to be surfaced through a rare kind of volcano that reaches deeper and stronger than most. The normal geological forces that would bring them up would have them break back down into baser carbon. To ascend to
[Insight] Diamonds subdue. To be Adamant is to be Unbreakable, only ever cleaving in the ways it already was, but never shattering to brute force. I shattered a bunch of diamonds. Should diamonds shatter? Something feels wrong about that. (No bonus)
[Insight] A Diamond's extreme durability comes from its capacity to transfer energy, with any force acting on one portion of the diamond, acting on many others, distributing the force to the point it becomes negligible. This additionally makes them excellent conductors of heat, and excellent insulators of lightning. Yeah, the distributive nature of the structure is part of its strength. (Small Bonus)
[Insight] Diamonds are epiphany. Rigid, yet illuminating. Focusing both light and the mind. All truths exist in the universe, and diamond reveals those truths to those who know how to use it. (Small bonus)
[Insight] Diamonds care not for context or situation, only for what is. All poison is poison, regardless of if it is being moderated into medicine. Similarly, while you may want flint or coal or some other stone in a given situation, Diamond doesn't give a shit. It is what it is (Small bonus).
[Insight] A diamond is formed of earth Essence under pressure, yes, but it is as much a structure of that Essence as the Essence itself. Which of these, then, is the true diamond? The essence of a diamond is not just a physical instantiation, it is also the ideal of that structure, an order imposed upon base materials which converts them into a greater, stronger, more pure whole. (Small bonus. As you note, some of these would be perfect bonuses if they weren't covering a lot of similar ground.)
[Insight] Diamonds naturally and artificially form facets, and when light is shined through them they divide it into its components. Diamonds are truth but they are also, literally, multifaceted and help with separating the different aspects of the single, unified truth of a situation into smaller, but no less true, truths that are more easily analyzed. Right, yeah. I feel like Diamond is comfortable with many people having their own truth. (Small bonus).
[Insight] Diamonds are unstoppable. There is no natural material diamond cannot cut, including being the only natural material capable of cutting diamond (Small Bonus).
[Insight] The purity of a diamond tends towards specific materials, it can only purify things down to "base materials" such as water, alcohol, or lead. (Small bonus)
[Insight] Diamond affects living and nonliving matter differently, this is because the effects of Diamond are changed when it comes into contact with living things, they are protected by their own concept of perfection/purity, whereas nonliving material can only be rendered down into base matter. (You didn't do an experiment on this, but most living things cannot be "purified" in the way nonliving things can. So small bonus)
[Insight] To gaze on a true Diamond is to be purified by it, no action from the Diamond is necessary (Small bonus).
[Insight] Diamond is truth, regardless of what any noble or law may have to say on the matter. Become ungovernable. Diamond is truth, but I think the Emperor and his Structure may be a reflection of the same heavenly truth (No bonus).
[Insight] The diamond is LIGHT, life, the SUN; it is an emblem of purity and perfection, of invincible spiritual power, and it is the stone of commitment, faithfulness, and promise between husband and wife. Symbol of light and brilliance; unconquerable; treasures, riches, and intellectual knowledge. (Small bonus. Good insight, when you first chose Diamond by raffle I looked up a bunch of these blurbs and then continued on from there.)
[Insight] A Diamond is not made lesser by shattering, in any meaningful way. A Diamond is a Diamond is a Diamond. From a gem the size of an oxen heart to a crystal the size of a grain of sand, all true, pure diamonds are the same. If you shear a Diamond in twain, you do not get two halves of a Diamond. You get two Diamonds, each as pure and perfect as the original.
+
[Insight] Diamonds are not unbreakable, but they are unalterable. The core aspect of a diamond the purity of it's endless repetition cannot be changed without destroying it. A diamond will always be a diamond unless it is completely destroyed.
(Small bonus)
[Insight] A Diamond takes in pure white light, and from it creates individual pure colors. From this we know that purity does not require isolation, but can be created in a harmonious blend of smaller parts. (Small bonus).
[Insight] Diamonds are not weak to fire. (Small bonus)
[Insight] Beauty is a surface level truth for a diamond, for the flaws that the diamonds reject bring out their true beauty. (Would be a harmonic insight, but too similar to an earlier one)
[Insight] Diamond's subtractive purity extends to purity of action, people are (somewhat) unable to take actions that would violate the contract. (Small bonus)
[Insight] diamonds are not deceivers. Clear and nearly transparent, no lies may stay hidden within the purity of diamond for there is nothing to hide behind. (No bonus just because this has been covered pretty well already)
[Insight] even so light is refracted through diamonds crystaline lens, pure and unsullied by the shadows(lies) diamonds may be, but even so the light(truth) may be twisted and refracted through the lens. (No bonus)
[Insight] diamond is valuable in society, this much is undeniable. Yet truth be told diamonds are a more common stone than some realize, even so they are prized. For beauty and purity begets greed and the common can become rare for the price of blood. (No bonus just because the Blood Diamond thing isn't really a thing in the Empire. Diamonds are not that rare, but it is hard to find a truly pure diamond, which is actually not as pretty as a flawed diamond but is more useful as a cultivation tool).
----
Chachi eats some diamonds! She can sense them inside her, so there's no need for special tools. They do not disrupt her flow of Teotl at all. She experimentally consumes some minor poisons that would give her stomach pains, and they do not poison her. But, that worked before she ate a diamond because she has a Diamond Spirit already. She made an assistant eat one too, and it did help somewhat with poison ingestion but only when the diamond was in her stomach, once it passed lower in the intestine it did not have the preventative effect. The diamond seems unchanged after passing through her body.
Chachi tries to break and then fix a diamond. She cannot do it without the Forge. With the Forge it's trivial, though at significant Teotl cost. Regardless of what diamond she puts into the Forge, she can produce a flawless diamond. If she tries, she can produce a flawed diamond too. She uses the Art of Evaluation to analyze the precise structure of a diamond, breaks it apart, and then re-Forges it precisely as it was before. As far as she can tell, it's the same diamond. It might not actually be the same, her own memory is both the blueprint and the check. A jeweler and a crafting assistant are incapable of detecting any change as well.
Chachi tries to form other Essences into the diamond structure. Essences that dislike being in a crystalized structure decay instantly into a more natural state. So, a water essence crystal, when reformed into a diamond, is only diamond-structured for a micro-second before it becomes a pool of very high-essence water. This leads her to an investigation into Essence Crystals. It's one of nature's great mysteries that over time, at high essence sites, stable crystals of that essence will slowly form. Her traps reproduce the process but without fully understanding it. Each crystal has its own intricate, beautiful structure. Interesting that gems are also crystals, and have useful spiritual properties like many natural materials, but do not act as 'essence containers.' A ruby looks a lot like a Fire Crystal, but without the eternal heat or the ability to use Teotl to draw torrents of flame. Internally, they're very different, a Fire Crystal has a much more complex internal structure. Chachi compares an earth crystal to a diamond. Earth crystals have a muddy brown color and are firm but malleable, unlike a diamond's extreme hardness.
Chachi finds she can make more firm materials diamond-like by imposing diamond's structure on them. Metal essence is particularly interesting. Using only Metal Essence but imposing diamond structure she gets a very hard, opaque, lump that she christens Diamond-Steel. After a few tests, it lacks some of diamond's spiritual properties, but may have others? A few quick tests don't reveal anything. It is very, very strong. She may make some treasures out of a material like that in the future.
She can't think of how to impose a diamond structure on something like the clan. She talks with Teo about it for a while, and after a while they conclude together that it's best for each member of the Clan to be a 'diamond' in themselves by exemplifying Honesty, Integrity, Transparency, and Love for the Clan, but for the clan as a whole to be more fluid so they can adapt to a changing market.
Chachi makes some flawed diamonds in the forge. She plays with their coloration and style. They are very pretty, but the further they go from the Diamond Ideal, the weaker their properties. She already learned this from the jewelers, the most pure diamonds are used by cultivators but the flawed ones are only decorative.
Chachi can't tell the difference between weapons based on their history, even if the history was terrible. She can tell that one was once used with a poison technique.
Chachi goes back the the oddities in her purification experiments and is a bit more systematic this time. She finds that distilled alcohol turns into pure alcohol, fermented juices and such turn into water, and drinks that were created by the mixing of liquids with different origins turn into the water/alcohol mix. She mixes lead with water, and can purify that to just water. She makes an assistant drink some lead-poisoned water, purifies her, and then checks her body for trace-lead with diagnostic tools. The assistant seems to not be lead-poisoned. Good. Teo does not think the powder has much value, but maybe as an exotic spice of some sort. Chachi finds it a bit unpleasant, but she gives it to her personal chef and he does find a way to make a meal that tastes agreeable to her. Her clan already produces an anti-poison elixir. Pushing things further, she takes a venomous wasp and tries to purify it, then lets it sting an assistant. The venom was not purified within the wasp, but is after it's struck the assistant.
She tries to find an overall pattern. It still seems odd to her. From other mediations on the nature of diamond, she concludes that purification is about putting things more in line with the Heavenly Order, by either eliminating them or re-ordering them. Lead belongs with the earth, so it cannot be purified from the earth. It does not belong in the human body, or in water. The venom belongs within the wasp, but not within the assistant's body. This purification does not adhere to her personal preferences or convenience, but more to a rigid model of the World as it Should Be.
Chachi refines her routines to be more rigid and precise. There's a lot that's different every day, and a lot more that's already been precisely laid out by her assistants (following Teo's instructions). But she does have free time every day, and she attempts to optimize that schedule. It's tedious and constraining, but also oddly comforting. Teo is delighted by this change in her behavior. She's unsure if it's helping her be more diamond-like. Maybe. It does make her feel less creative, and less happy, but more productive.
---
With careful study, experimentation, and reflection, Chachi developed a strong grasp of Diamond in a short time. She feels comfortable progressing her cultivation. But, something also feels wrong. From deep investigation into the structure of diamond she found that its numerical association is primarily 4, and possibly 1 or 5 as well. Those are inauspicious numbers. 3 is the number of exhaltation, 7 of perfection, 13 of transcendence. 1 is the number of existence and 5 the number of safety, which is fine. But 4 is the number of mundanity. A More Perfect Diamond Structure would be based on 7s, not 4s. Diamond should be perfect.
That night she slept fitfully. She dreamed of forges, and planets, and a masterpiece greater than worlds.
She woke troubled.
Diamond should be perfect.
Diamond should be perfect.
Could it be more perfect?
What was the name of her Foundation?
Every cultivator with a Mastery technique earned the title of Perfect, yet they were far from equal. A 3 Pillared Master was demonstrably weaker than a 7 Pillared Master. The Core itself was called Perfect after Hungering. It would never hold more Teotl. It would never give more strength, or more life. Building then took the Perfect Core, and built a new specialized structure around it, to maximize its use. But, she was more than Perfect. Her Core held more Teotl, more strength, more life. She was the Herald of Infinite Perfection. More perfect, infinitely.
Chachi ordered the Fortress to take a small detour. In Ehecatl City she found what she was looking for: A Frozen Moment. This form of artwork used Teotl to produce an absolutely perfect image. She needed that, not just a piece of art. She was sure she could find one without much effort, because it was the most common subject of a Frozen Moment in the empire: a public appearance by the Emperor of Light in full regalia. She used a series of lenses to magnify a particular point on his crown. The Imperial Crown had many significant jewels, but the greatest was Heaven's Gift, a diamond said to be the heart of a fallen star. The Most Perfect Diamond. It glowed eternally with a soft, heavenly light. Chachi magnified the image of Heaven's Gift until only a single spec of it filled her view. Then she used Art of Evaluation.
THERE! YES! There.
She sighed with relief as the pieces came together. Heaven's Gift did not have a typical diamond's structure. Seven bonds to form a heptagon structure, repeated. Not a cube. A More Perfect Diamond, greater than what the heat and pressure of this base earth could Forge.
Could she make one? Reproduce Heaven's Gift, the Imperial Diamond, the Crown Jewel of the Emperor of Light? It would take several orders of magnitude more Teotl than a four-bonded diamond, more than she had. She would also need to Spiritually Refine it. But, she thought it was possible.
For what purpose? She could feel trepidation battling with her growing excitement as she considered it. She could not just use it for her body or mind, she felt that intuitively. If she used an earthly diamond for her spirit but a Heaven-Forged Diamond elsewhere, the imbalance would tear her apart. No, she'd need to start again. But, if she could make one Heaven's Gift, she could make three. Spirit, Body, Mind. Each a Heaven-Forged Diamond, each letting her wield the hidden potential of the gem in its more perfect form.
But did she want that? Some facets of diamond were disturbing and she hadn't even progressed to diamond mind. Could she stand committing herself even more fully to this harsh ideal? How much would she lose, if she became not just Diamond-Minded but Heaven-Forged Diamond-Minded?
You've accumulated a LOT of bonuses by this point. Maybe more than I should have allowed... But here's an opportunity to burn a bunch of it! You have two options:
[] Heaven-Forged Diamond Spirit
Reforge your diamond spirit to turn it into a Heaven-Forged Diamond. It will change Chachi's powers, generally to be more in-line with the potential of Infinitely Perfect and the Cosmic Forge. But it will also have mysterious consequences. You cannot align your soul so closely with Order and Heaven without sacrifice. You have sufficient insight to do this safely.
[] Reject Heaven's Light
Use your insights to rush through Diamond cultivation. Bank your Transcendent Insight to gain further control over the final Harmonic powers.
Last edited:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS6fWwpI1A0
So this is probably a matter one of three possible issues:
1. Authorial knowledge gap
2. [insight] the spiritual nature of Diamond has altered the reactivity of diamonds that would be implied by their mundane chemical structure
3. [insight] As a Diamond cultivator, Chachi's presence may alter or emphasize certain properties of diamonds in her presence
To be clear this was less about "experimentally learning about diamond" and more about "see if this can help Chachi align herself to the concept of Diamond through deed by creating a ritual of personal significant"
[X] Heaven-Forged Diamond Spirit
Last edited:
- Location
- It's a whole new world we live in
I'm very hesitant to go for it, given how she already noticed a hit on her creativity by trying to emulate diamond in her routine. If she was just a regular cultivator, it might be worth it, but with the celestial forge being the cornerstone of her dao?
[X] Reject Heaven's Light
[X] Reject Heaven's Light
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
The infinity perfect is also infinite potential, everything we gives up can be regained and made better, it only takes time.
I am really tempted to improve our merging object, this is basically being given something even better fitting for our cultivation, the next stage should also allow us to turn off the downsides temporarily (by also turning down the benefits).
And many of us are going for heaven cultivation, I suspect this us the best path forward to becoming a saint, but that we will also take some saint downsides, like how they care about karma.
[X] Heaven-Forged Diamond Spirit
[insight] The seventh bond of the seven-bonded diamond deserves deeper investigation as it likely is some sort of direct spiritual manifestation or something else equally profound. After all, carbon only has 6 electrons with which to bond.
[insight] The truly (arrogantly) audacious option would be to seek not a More Perfect Diamond but a Transcendant Diamond with 13 bonds. This is almost certainly beyond Chachi's current capability but it's something to keep in mind for a later reforging of her core.
edit: oh huh, didn't know that: https://www.realclearscience.com/20...hows_that_carbon_can_form_7_bonds_281042.html
That said @Mr. Prokosch my big question is if Chachi thinks that there's any risk of the swap ruining her ability to keep reforging her cultivation due to the increased alignment with Order
Last edited:
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
It says it aligns better with cosmic forge and infinity perfect, I think if anything, it will improve.
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Might be worth to look into after we finish our current projects, maybe we can start with constructing a room that mimic space, we already saw buildings that can defy gravity, we can probably create vacuum, maybe we can find a way to distill radiation from the atmosphere, it would leave some parts, but a room sounds easier and a good start, will also bounce off Chaci's genius to see if she thinks going to space will improve it even more.
Last edited:
This is just bad. Being less creative and less happy will burn in the long run no matter the short run gain in productivity.
[X] Reject Heaven's Light
Honestly the pattern of what insights gained the highest bonuses paints a picture of diamonds being a very bad pick to complement the Cosmic Forge. Rigid perfection without creativity means we'll be stuck. Perfection without creativity is stagnation. I'd rather turn away from it than dive into it deeper.
This would be a great bonus for a more normal cultivator, but the Cosmic Forge changes what sort of traits are desirable.
Last edited:
Roth963
If I become inactive with this massage, I died
Don't forget this is just the first stage in a three stages step, first we align ourselves with diamonds, becoming more diamond, which will include the downsides you mentioned.
The next stage is doing the opposite, finding what we are that is not diamond, and being it, which will allow us to turn off the negatives (by turning off diamond spirit, body or mind), the step after it is finding how both things can improve each other.
So lack of happiness, or creativity, is only until the next stage, every merging material will have downsides, the more powerful, the more extreme.
It is said heaven forged diamond is actually aligning more strongly with the cosmic forge and infinite perfect, so in the long term, heaven forged is likely to be stronger.
And don't forget how the cultivation system works, removing the downsides is part of it.
Last edited:
- Location
- USA
That's probably something for the next step and the one after. Recognize a way she's lesser for being diamond and something that's distinctly her. Creativity is gonna be one of the biggest elements for that. A diamond can improve, because of the pursuit of perfection. But a diamond cannot create because that likely requires a spark of disorder for that dramatic change.
There's probably some factor of Chaos can be shaped into Order, but Order cannot be used to create New Order. Order may only be Refined into Greater Order.
But that's fine since we're not Diamond and we're never going to be just Diamond. We'll always be Chachi too. In the end we'll take the best of Diamond and Chachi to make ourself better.
Then we just need to figure out the step after that, lol.
Huh, so I predicted a good chunk of that, but I didn't extrapolate it far enough. Although I'm glad for the experiment drive it clarified things and brought about a conclusion.
I also wonder if Chachi doesn't like the spice because she doesn't like spicy things, or if it's former nature as a poison is disagreeable to her?
********
[X] Heaven-Forged Diamond Spirit
I like interesting drawbacks, but these drawbacks also feel like they fit well with the cultivation system. We won't loose out on the Forge, and crafting should mostly be improved because of that.
However, we're probably gonna get locked out of truly radical things permanently here. And by truly radical I'm talking about making peace with the Abyssals and Human-Abyssal Hybrid Cultivation. Things that are anathema to the Natural Order. Probably will be banned from things that would get called "Demonic Cultivation" in Xianxia too. This includes, but isn't limited to, genocide of innocents for power, Human Cauldrons, Demons, Zombies, Beings labeled enemies of Heaven, and other evil acts for pleasure rather than power.
In D&D terms, I suspect we'd be irreversibly hard locked out of Chaotic Evil, and soft locked out the rest of Chaotic and Evil. Considering SV generally likes to be the Good Guys, I don't think that's too much of a loss.
[X] Heaven-Forged Diamond Spirit
The way cultivation has been described while we will be restricted in this stage, when we start working on criticising Diamond and working out what Chachi is we'll start to remove the negatives of this cultivation approach and just eventually just keep the positives. In that way of thinking this is a relatively easy choice, it just means we can't be doing anything anti-Diamond/Heaven in the near to medium term future.
That's less of a restriction than it could be though as we want to be pure given we facing familial annihilation if its discovered we have Abyssal cultivators within our ranks, so this can only be helpful in discovering any that remain as well as ensuring any potential interrogation goes our way even further. Its a struggle to accuse someone who is aligned to such an extent with Heaven with daemon/abyssal cultivation after all, particularly if we invoke the Emperors image.
The way cultivation has been described while we will be restricted in this stage, when we start working on criticising Diamond and working out what Chachi is we'll start to remove the negatives of this cultivation approach and just eventually just keep the positives. In that way of thinking this is a relatively easy choice, it just means we can't be doing anything anti-Diamond/Heaven in the near to medium term future.
That's less of a restriction than it could be though as we want to be pure given we facing familial annihilation if its discovered we have Abyssal cultivators within our ranks, so this can only be helpful in discovering any that remain as well as ensuring any potential interrogation goes our way even further. Its a struggle to accuse someone who is aligned to such an extent with Heaven with daemon/abyssal cultivation after all, particularly if we invoke the Emperors image.