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Recursive Cultivation (Original Xianxia Cosmology)

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The Froggy Ninja said:
I'm really confused about how grandmist works. Like, you dispel it but then when your inner world is destroyed what happens to that hollowed out space? Or is it impossible to know because no one has successfully make inner worlds close enough to interact with each other?
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The empirical facts are that an World is always surrounded by Grandmist, and this continues to be the case no matter how much the World expands. There are no cases of something being "found" in receding Grandmist, whether that be another actual World or the scars of a collapsed World.

There are two main theories in-setting to explain this.
  • Some reason that the creation of a Dantian literally creates an infinite sea of Grandmist as well. Then, when a world collapses, said infinite sea disappears with it. This fits the empirical evidence perfectly, but leaves people questioning how the creation of a Dantian can create an infinite world. Normally, any creation is supported by Qi, so an infinite creation doesn't seem possible - and of course, normally a creation can only return the Qi invested in making it, so it seems absurd that the birth, growth, and death of an inner world somehow generates Qi overall.
  • Others argue that the Grandmist Sea actually exists somewhere; it is just unfathomably large, to the point where collisions between worlds have negligible probability. This fits the data as well, though it leaves open the question of where the Grandmist actually is and what kind of scar is left in it after a world dies.

So your question doesn't really have a knowable answer in-setting.
 
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The fundamental parts of a World
  • Threadmarks
    • Any world has four fundamental components.


    The first component of a World is Reality. Reality is the region of a World that consist of Laws - including Existence. No person or thing from inside Reality can leave its boundaries, because without the Law of Existence to act as a substrate there is no way for such an entity to actually be. Reality is thus the region where all of the activity of an Inner World takes place. The nature of this region can vary vastly from World to World, because that nature is determined by a World's Laws, and those Laws are different from Cultivator to Cultivator. The only observed universal is the Law of Existence, which is required to form the substance of the World in the first place. And of course the Law of Cultivation is near universal, because without it an Inner World doesn't expand as is limited to its original (and typically minuscule) size.


    The second component of a World is the Heavens. While the uninformed refer to the entire sky and everything beyond it as "the Heavens", in truth the Heavens is an infinitely thin, contiguous one-sided film - albeit one that is usually attached to reality from above. Fundamentally, the Heavens has three main qualities:
    • First, the Heavens acts as the vessel holding the Will of the World's cultivator. In this way, the Heavens is simultaneously an anchor for said cultivator's existence and also a tool by which said cultivator controls their Inner World.
    • Second, the Heavens are metaphysically linked to the outside surface of the Dantian. It functions as a bridge, allowing for the passage of Qi from the Inner World to the Outer World or vice-versa. As part of this aspect, the Heavens can directly act as a pump for this Qi, drawing in Qi from the Inner World, or expelling Qi into it.
    • Finally, the Heavens dictate the Laws of Reality. While the denizens of the World can use Laws externally to make local changes, those are temporary and must be built on the native Laws of the World, and only the Heavens can set those Laws or change them.

    The third component of a World is the Firmament. The Firmament is a connected region of impassable space; one that can't be breached by any means, including the expansion of reality outwards. The most well-known use of the Firmament is to make up the foundation that a world rests on; in a typical World, if you dig deep enough below soil and bedrock you will find Firmament. However, while that is the most famous usage of Firmament, it is not the most universal. Using Firmament for the "floor" of a world is technically optional; there exist Worlds in which that is not the case. What is universal, however, is using Firmament to hold up the Heavens. Because the Heavens are one-sided and that side borders Reality, something must exist on the other side - and that something is Firmament.


    The final component of a World is Grandmist. Anywhere that you don't have Reality, the Heavens, or the Firmament, you must have Grandmist. Arguably, Grandmist isn't a component of the World at all and rather merely a description for all the space that the World doesn't cover - the "blank canvas" that a World has not yet painted, so to speak. Whatever the case, Grandmist is what you find when you reach a boundary of the world not blocked by Firmament. In practice, Grandmist is actually very similar to Firmament, and could arguably be called the same substance save for one crucial difference: expanding the Laws of Reality out to the Grandmist dissolves the Grandmist and leaves room for the newly-formed Reality to exist.
     
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    • The Froggy Ninja said:
    What shapes can worlds be? Like, could you expand in a straight line rather than outwards?
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    The only restrictions on a shape of a world is that it is embedded in 3-dimensional space, the Heavens and Firmament are each continuous, and the Heavens have their "front" open to Reality and their "back" supported by the Firmament. Subject to these restrictions, any shape is possible - though to shape the initial world into anything other than the default plane requires an advanced understanding of the Existence law when you create your Inner World.

    I hadn't actually thought of a "road" as a world shape, but it is absolutely feasible.
     
    Are any Worlds set up like ours but with a floor and a roof? Also, I was thinking Tower more than road, though both have potential.
     
    My guess is that ends one of two ways-
    A Firmament that leaves a hole in the floor allowing mortals to fall right into the GrandMist,
    Or the Heavens surrounds on all sides, letting Cultivators get to close and start poking it, letting Qi leak out, or let's them try and start experimenting, forcing the God of that world to swing down and thump some sense into them.
     
    Well, color me quite interested.

    Are you planning on writing any stories set within this setting? If so, I'd love to read them.

    If not, would you mind if other people wrote stories set within it?
     
    zinay said:
    If the world is surrounded by heaven and therefore firmament there isn't any direction the world can expand
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    You get a cookie.

    Yep, this is exactly it. A World like this has no regions for expansion, which means no method of advancement. If you make a tiny planet as your initial Inner World and plan to just expand it, you will find yourself entirely blocked.

    A more reasonable approach would be to start off with a small piece of a planet and grow out a big planet from that. This approach still leaves you with no route for growing your Inner World in size, but hey, at a certain point more size isn't critical.
     
    Zaealix said:
    Or the Heavens surrounds on all sides, letting Cultivators get to close and start poking it, letting Qi leak out, or let's them try and start experimenting, forcing the God of that world to swing down and thump some sense into them.
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    Cultivators pocking the Heavens isn't terrible, but it is really distracting and distrupts Qi control somewhat, so basically the Heavens don't like being touched as a rule. You definitely don't want to set up your Heavens as a floor for people to walk on, though; that is going to basically drive you insane. Someone touching the Heavens is effectively them poking your soul; having that happen any time anyone anywhere takes a step would be unmanageable sensory overload.

    On the other hand, Gods are actually pretty limited in how they interact with their inner World. Basically, it is closer to a developer being able to edit a world's physics engine, as compared to a modder who can select individual objects and make changes to them. It is not uncommon to set up Heavenly Tribulation striking down anyone who touches the Heavens, but individual interventions as opposed to systematic changes aren't really in the direct purview of the Throne of Heaven.
     
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    Addemup said:
    Are you planning on writing any stories set within this setting? If so, I'd love to read them.
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    I'm afraid not. I like the idea of writing, but I recognize that the amount of time and energy that would be required to come up with a full story far exceed what I have available for this project. I can imagine writing single-chapter vignettes or "what-if" type omakes for this setting, but nothing more comprehensive than that.

    Addemup said:
    If not, would you mind if other people wrote stories set within it?
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    No. If anything, I would be massively flattered.

    If this is something you are interested in doing, feel absolutely free to PM me, and I'll be happy to discuss whatever details of the setting you need.
     
    PrimalShadow said:
    I'm afraid not. I like the idea of writing, but I recognize that the amount of time and energy that would be required to come up with a full story far exceed what I have available for this project. I can imagine writing single-chapter vignettes or "what-if" type omakes for this setting, but nothing more comprehensive than that.
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    Ah, okay then.

    PrimalShadow said:
    No. If anything, I would be massively flattered.

    If this is something you are interested in doing, feel absolutely free to PM me, and I'll be happy to discuss whatever details of the setting you need.
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    Alright, thanks.

    I think I'll wait and see what you have to post in the future until I begin planning out a story, though (if I even decide to write one).

    To be honest, I'm not sure if I would be able to write something like an entire novel, either, since almost all of my previous stories have been abandoned after no more than a month - but I'm sure that it would be easier for me to write something shorter instead to begin with, like a short story of no more than 10k words.
     
    PrimalShadow said:
    You get a cookie.

    Yep, this is exactly it. A World like this has no regions for expansion, which means no method of advancement. If you make a tiny planet as your initial Inner World and plan to just expand it, you will find yourself entirely blocked.

    A more reasonable approach would be to start off with a small piece of a planet and grow out a big planet from that. This approach still leaves you with no route for growing your Inner World in size, but hey, at a certain point more size isn't critical.
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    What's stopping them from making a normal roof/floor structure but just hanging planets in the void rather than building them on the floor?
     
    Actually, why can't you fuck with your scaling laws so that everyone in your world is planck-scale from our perspective, so that you can fit an enter full-fledged Galactic Supercluster (at least in terms of number of habitable bodies) within a fairly modest amount of Reality?
     
    The Froggy Ninja said:
    What's stopping them from making a normal roof/floor structure but just hanging planets in the void rather than building them on the floor?
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    Sure. What you've described is just a standard "disk" World, but one where gravity is towards planets instead of away from the heavens, and Reality mostly consists of empty space speckled with planets instead of air on top and soil on the bottom.

    It should also be noted that there is a recommended soft limit to how much space between the roof and floor there is. You don't want stuff to be too far from the Heavens, because that makes it much more difficult to interact with Qi or Laws there. You don't have to do that if you don't want, but why put in the work to open up all that space if you aren't taking full advantage of it?

    I just write said:
    Actually, why can't you fuck with your scaling laws so that everyone in your world is planck-scale from our perspective, so that you can fit an enter full-fledged Galactic Supercluster (at least in terms of number of habitable bodies) within a fairly modest amount of Reality?
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    Basically, any sort of deviations for the "vanilla" template for a Universe require understanding of Law, with greater deviations requiring greater understanding. Reducing things in size by a factor of 10^35 is probably not feasible. I can see people getting 10-100x reductions if they applied themselves, but any more seems doubtful.

    Also of relevance: cultivators need Qi, and there is a limit to how dense you can have your floating Qi because at a high enough point it starts expanding Reality out into the Grandmist. If you scale everything down but keep Qi density constant, then suddenly Qi becomes super-sparse. You can't cultivate without Qi, and normal life functions sometimes rely on Qi as well, so shrinking things down runs into lack of Qi per (shrunk) unit area as a problem.
     
    PrimalShadow said:
    Sure. What you've described is just a standard "disk" World, but one where gravity is towards planets instead of away from the heavens, and Reality mostly consists of empty space speckled with planets instead of air on top and soil on the bottom.

    It should also be noted that there is a recommended soft limit to how much space between the roof and floor there is. You don't want stuff to be too far from the Heavens, because that makes it much more difficult to interact with Qi or Laws there. You don't have to do that if you don't want, but why put in the work to open up all that space if you aren't taking full advantage of it?


    Basically, any sort of deviations for the "vanilla" template for a Universe require understanding of Law, with greater deviations requiring greater understanding. Reducing things in size by a factor of 10^35 is probably not feasible. I can see people getting 10-100x reductions if they applied themselves, but any more seems doubtful.

    Also of relevance: cultivators need Qi, and there is a limit to how dense you can have your floating Qi because at a high enough point it starts expanding Reality out into the Grandmist. If you scale everything down but keep Qi density constant, then suddenly Qi becomes super-sparse. You can't cultivate without Qi, and normal life functions sometimes rely on Qi as well, so shrinking things down runs into lack of Qi per (shrunk) unit area as a problem.
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    Sooo in short, any Cultivator trying to pull being a giant is probably doing Zhengui-esque shenanigans- making a massive body supported by Qi but a normal-sized spirit/soul underneath all that physical bulk?
     
    PrimalShadow said:
    ...throughout a cultivator's life. After all, an active effect releases its Qi when reduced, and this is just as true for the Laws supporting an Inner World as it is for any other effect. Upon one's death and the destruction of one's Dantian, the Laws supporting the World therein collapse, releasing Qi. The amount of Qi released will always be more than the amount drawn in by a cultivator in their lifetime; after all, that released Qi encompasses both the Qi the cultivator consumed and the Qi created by overwriting Grandmist.

    In effect, the practice of energy cultivation is intrinsically tied to the process of using Qi to "digest" Grandmist - of which there is a seemingly infinite supply. All this energy and more is locked into maintaining the cultivator's inner world while they live, but once they expire their death returns all the Qi they took from the parent world back, with hefty dividends.
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    I like that this sets up the dynamic where cultivation is "against the will of the heavens" and yet the world is still full of cultivators. The god of a world has a strong incentive to produce powerful cultivators, but only if they eventually die without ascending. It seems like this would also create a dynamic where most cultivators in existence have important parts of the practice of cultivation (whatever parts are required to leave their world) intentionally hidden from them. I suppose over time with an exponentially large number of people under that point, one of them would eventually stumble across the correct practice anyway and allow it to be rediscovered anyway.

    This also seems a little Ponzish, in that expanding your inner world seems to be a loss to the cultivator unless they reach the point of having inhabitants with their own inner worlds, who are subject to the same rule. Eventually most of the benefits must come from people who invested in their inner worlds but never saw any personal return.

    Is it possible to intentionally dissolve part of your inner world to realize some of the gains before your death?

    PrimalShadow said:
    The third component of a World is the Firmament. The Firmament is a connected region of impassable space; one that can't be breached by any means, including the expansion of reality outwards. The most well-known use of the Firmament is to make up the foundation that a world rests on; in a typical World, if you dig deep enough below soil and bedrock you will find Firmament. However, while that is the most famous usage of Firmament, it is not the most universal. Using Firmament for the "floor" of a world is technically optional; there exist Worlds in which that is not the case. What is universal, however, is using Firmament to hold up the Heavens. Because the Heavens are one-sided and that side borders Reality, something must exist on the other side - and that something is Firmament.
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    If the Firmament is the floor and the Heavens are the roof and they both have to be single contiguous regions, I'm not sure how you can have the Firmament hold up the Heavens. Do such worlds also have a wall or central pillar to connect the two?

    Is there any effect to the Heavens being larger or smaller?
     
    Skelm said:
    The god of a world has a strong incentive to produce powerful cultivators, but only if they eventually die without ascending.
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    Gods are motivated to have cultivators from their Inner World ascend as well, actually - just for different reasons (and it is a different risk/reward tradeoff). I'll be discussing this in a later threadmark.

    This also seems a little Ponzish, in that expanding your inner world seems to be a loss to the cultivator unless they reach the point of having inhabitants with their own inner worlds, who are subject to the same rule. Eventually most of the benefits must come from people who invested in their inner worlds but never saw any personal return.

    Is it possible to intentionally dissolve part of your inner world to realize some of the gains before your death?
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    Investing in your Inner World can be called a form of return in-and-of itself; since a larger Inner World is very useful on your cultivation journey. In particular, the larger your Inner World is, the more Qi you can store in total, the more Qi you can draw on at once, and the more space you have for having stuff happen. Plus expanding your inner world automatically expands the Heavens with it, thereby acting as a form of Will cultivation.

    Cultivators who cultivate aren't typically doing it because it will help the World the live in; they do it because it helps themselves.

    If the Firmament is the floor and the Heavens are the roof and they both have to be single contiguous regions, I'm not sure how you can have the Firmament hold up the Heavens. Do such worlds also have a wall or central pillar to connect the two?
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    You get a cookie.

    Yes, the standard setup for a World (which is a disk, with a Firmament floor and a Heaven ceiling with an ever-expanding perimeter of Grandmist) includes a "Heaven-Earth Connecting Pillar".

    Is there any effect to the Heavens being larger or smaller?
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    Broadly speaking, the Heavens act as "surface area" for contact with Reality, and it is through the Heavens that Qi can be moved and changes in Laws can propagate.

    It is possible to e.g. create a World where your Firmament is a small round ball and your Heavens is its covering - but that means that your "reach" won't expand as the World expands at all. This is why good World design typically encourages the Heavens to be spread out throughout the whole world, so no place in Reality is especially far from it.
     
    Since you can copy-paste Laws without fully comprehending them, do people ever set up worlds designed to challenge the inhabitants and then reap the rewards of their comprehension? And how much control over the inner world do they have? They can form an avatar in it and change its general shape but could they, for example, make artifacts or buildings?
    EDIT: Also, if a cultivator lacks an inner world (either from not having grown one yet or from managing to survive being crippled) could they subsume the dantian of a dead cultivator and what would be the pros and cons of doing so?
    EDIT2: Since their will is bound to their dantian, how important is their body? Is lichdom possible?
     
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    Do a World's Heavens need to be in one contiguous piece, or can bits be separated from each other in Reality?
     
    The Froggy Ninja said:
    Since you can copy-paste Laws without fully comprehending them, do people ever set up worlds designed to challenge the inhabitants and then reap the rewards of their comprehension?
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    Typically, you copy-paste from your Outer World to your Inner World. Basically, the Law of Cultivation lets you sense Laws you are exposed to and try to comprehend them - but a requirement here is exposure, and God isn't really exposed to Laws that someone in their Inner World is using.

    That said, there is a different method for a God to gain the Law Comprehension of their flock, and is a common method of cultivation at the intermediate power levels. I just haven't revealed it yet, though I've given hints.


    So yes, setting up a world to reward one's flock for gaining insight into Laws, especially original Laws, can be lucrative. Of course, the fact that one's prowess as a cultivator is deeply tied to laws (basically, anything you'd think of as a "technique" is a usage of Law) means that the don't need much in the way of encouragement.

    The Froggy Ninja said:
    EDIT: Also, if a cultivator lacks an inner world (either from not having grown one yet or from managing to survive being crippled) could they subsume the dantian of a dead cultivator and what would be the pros and cons of doing so?
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    No. To control a Dantian, your Will needs to be inside it (more precisely, as part of the Heavens). When you create an Inner World, your Dantian actually forms around your Will; you don't start outside the Dantian and then force yourself in. There is no way to force one's Will down through the barriers of a Dantian, any more than there is a way to force physical objects through. Up is a different matter, and is an important part of Ascension.

    The Froggy Ninja said:
    EDIT2: Since their will is bound to their dantian, how important is their body? Is lichdom possible?
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    It isn't. After forming their Dantian, people can technically survive without a body immediately; you just can't really draw in Qi (because part of drawing in and shaping Qi externally is having a body with Meridians), and you are entirely vulnerable to attacks from the Outer World.

    Furthermore, orthodox cultivation approaches have cultivators learning to form "energy bodies" as the next step after making a Dantian, which lets you Manifest a body externally - and once you've reached that point, a loss of your body is just a very temporary shortfall. Mind you, "very temporary" is still long enough for someone to kill you in combat, so not losing your body is still important there - but in general, every cultivator can in essence be called a lich.
     
    I just write said:
    Do a World's Heavens need to be in one contiguous piece, or can bits be separated from each other in Reality?
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    One of the cosmological rules of this world is that the Heavens and the Firmament both must each be continuous.
    There is no way to get around this, because the way you expand Heaven/Firmament is by expanding Reality out into Grandmist. As you do so, the Heavens and Firmament can "grow" with Reality, remain at it's boundaries. So there is no way to "seed" a piece of the Heavens somewhere apart from the original block of Heaven. Furthermore, because and Heavens are indestructible*, you can't "cut" the Heavens into multiple pieces and get disconnected blocks that way.

    *Terms and conditions apply.
     
    Hmm... Can I set up a Dantian to contain multiple axes of Time, and generally be extremely permissive of time shenanigans? I've got a scheme to generate truly absurd amounts of Qi even by Cultivator standards, but it requires time paradoxes in order to work
     
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