This being Keras's story is something I'm totally in favor for, Keras is their own kind of protagonist that's very different from Lindon and Yerin and has their own path to walk. While Lindon and Yerin is heavily associated with the Abidan while not knowing it Keras is associated with the Vroshir with a vague awareness of it, Keras will also be getting a look at the more positive side of the Vroshir. It also feels like Keras is getting involved with people who don't mesh with he traditional mold in Cralde, Cheng and Risshon are perhaps the greatest examples both as a researcher and revolutionary respectively.
Funnily the closest mold for Keras in the main cast is more Eithan then anyone else. They're not quite at the level of prodigy he was but they are a highly precocious sacred artist with what seems, to an outside observer, a precocious understanding beyond their years or advancement of what the arts mean. Their weapon is a tool first in their mind and they seem to have little love for the politics and power games played around them.
Also I think it would be very, very funny to have this low ranking Vroshir eventually realize he was looking at and presumably talking shit about Ozriel some day. The Vroshir think of themselves as brave rebels against a stifling regime and Ozriel is basically Darth Vader if he was also the Death Star if you're coming from that angle.
Edit: Also while Keras pointedly hasn't just left their friends behind on the Path they are building a lead that only seems to grow larger as they go. Their talent and drive is already starting to pull them away and it's taking real effort not to let those relationships wither.
I don't recall having said that. I might have, but I don't recall it. The closest I can recall is mentioning that the story of Rock the Cradle is Keras's story, and they will not fall into the background on meeting the canon protagonists. I could've used that as an example of how canon might be different even without Keras directly affecting it.
You know, when I was reading this quest for the first time and saw that people were going with a "they". I automatically though of Keras as a fricking Najimi face-claim of all things and it sticked. XD
The way I see it, the conspiracy attempting to assassinate the Prince is one of those big-ticket, arc-spanning, ever-decreasing "X until Y" Predictions that the Quest's been building up to for months; like our duel with Olerac or the incoming Dreadgod. We can change the circumstances around those events depending on how we vote, certainly - how much we know in advance, who we've befriended and to what degree, whether the antagonist's been given any advantages or disadvantages from their theoretical baseline, and a whole bunch of other stuff - but in some form or another, the event itself will occur.
My guess is that they can do it without the poison, it'd just cost them more, since more members of the conspiracy would likely die killing him by main force, while missing out on the paranoiagasm of Whodunnit the poison would have added
My guess is that they can do it without the poison, it'd just cost them more, since more members of the conspiracy would likely die killing him by main force, while missing out on the paranoiagasm of Whodunnit the poison would have added
Yeah, I imagine they'd much prefer to kill him without any clear candidate for who was behind it to hopefully make the King purge any suspect noble houses and further weaken the upper class.
Yeah, I imagine they'd much prefer to kill him without any clear candidate for who was behind it to hopefully make the King purge any suspect noble houses and further weaken the upper class.
That would make sense as an end goal for killing the Prince, but unfortunately the vacumm that would generate could straight up lead to a civil war, where people try gather more resources than before to advance or something. It could be chaos.
Yeah, she's not necessarily nice, but she's at least rational and even handed about things. I'd still prefer to be working with her daughter, but there's far worse individuals to be under the authority of.
That would make sense as an end goal for killing the Prince, but unfortunately the vacumm that would generate could straight up lead to a civil war, where people try gather more resources than before to advance or something. It could be chaos.
Honestly, while I can empathize with the rebels wanting more equality, they're kind of blind to the world they live in. If they kill off all the overlords and underlords somehow, either some random Lord will move in and take their place, or one of the many existing neighboring powers will just steamroll over them and conquer them now that they're largely defenseless. A tiny subset of Redmoon Hall could come and slaughter a dozen cities to feed on their blood aura. It's just, very short sighted.
Honestly, while I can empathize with the rebels wanting more equality, they're kind of blind to the world they live in. If they kill off all the overlords and underlords somehow, either some random Lord will move in and take their place, or one of the many existing neighboring powers will just steamroll over them and conquer them now that they're largely defenseless. A tiny subset of Redmoon Hall could come and slaughter a dozen cities to feed on their blood aura. It's just, very short sighted.
i kind of disagree here. Cultivation is not nessecarily a zero sum game. Perhaps a more equitable, or at least meritocratic, distribution of resources to the people would let them uncover a lot of hidden talent that just gets hidden by a lack of opportunity. The nobility hoards those opportunities to themselves and extends them only conditionally to people they want to have them Perhaps a more meritocratic arrangement could push far more people further on the path.
If not for being the daughter of an Underlady, Mireya would have stalled out as a mediocre talent unsuited to her path. Instead she gets specialist care from a medical prodigy. The second prince is prideful and mediocre but it goes effectively unquestioned that someone with his backing will become an underlord. If those resources were instead being pushed towards people like Gardenia, Keras, or Badman McEvilguy how far could they go?
And that's all assuming cultivation is a zero sum game here where all resources are already being efficiently utilized. Maybe more high level cultivators are being made and that itself allows them to go out and gather the resources to make higher level cultivators. It could be that the nobility are serving to stifle the societies they rule, preventing them from getting that kind of compounding growth.[1]
The issue as I see it for the Revolution is less that they're going to rolled over by everyone else because their new model is necessarily flawed and more that it would be hard to stop all those new lords they create from hoarding the resources for themselves. That and the still quite powerful nobility deciding to kill them all first.
I mean, I'm not trying to argue that the kingdom is the best possible use of the resources in the territory, certainly not. I'm sure Emriss' territory is a lot more equitable and has a lot more spreading of sacred arts knowledge. But geopolitics is a thing you need to consider and without someone powerful enough to keep the peace during the transition to a more equitable status, someone more ruthless and powerful will take advantage of the disarray and conquer them to hoard the resources for themselves. On top of that, natural treasures need to be untouched for a *long* time to develop to the level needed for higher tier people, centuries even, and often don't take well to cultivation(of the farming kind), so if you're plucking them all early to uplift for the lower classes, then it's a lot harder for your lords to find what they need to advance or make soulfire, which is necessary for advancement and to just use to empower their techniques to match any threats they need to face, so it's a hard balance to strike. Even Mercy, the heir to a Monarch, despaired a bit at the idea of trying to shift society towards a better way.
It helps that so far precedent is that we avoid causing a deliberate fuss and every time we do its either specifically prompted by her or we do have info of critical importance to her, not just to us.
I suppose the main question becomes: what's the level of "universal basic cultivation income" that is sustainable and doesn't compromise the advancement of their leaders? Everybody is entitled to pills up to Jade? Everybody is entitled to a Remnant? Bearing in mind that there's 19 different types of madra that they would have to provide pills for, and if the ingredients for making fire pills are easier to obtain than the ingredients for destruction pills, then there's a chance of a potential shortage. If a person decides that they've reached the point where they don't want to cultivate further, are they still entitled to pills? Are there benchmarks that they have to meet to keep receiving pills? What happens if someone's experimental Path ends up being a dead end?
Thus, we come to the ugly truth about xianxia stories:
Honestly it wouldn't surprise me if we end up at the Uncrowned tourney.
Keras is currently taking things at their own pace, but we know that soon they'll be forced to radically adapt to political upheaval when the assassination attempt happens followed by the disaster that is the Dreadgod. And we know from a very early vision from their mother that Keras at least has the potential to make the tournament, since a possible future was her dueling against an Akura in the Uncrowned Arena
I'm thinking that it's almost certain that Keras is going to get pulled into the Uncrowned King tournament based off their talent and the Empire having a team that participates in it. As one of the few people in the Empire who is likely going to be be an Underlord and qualify for the Tournament they're almost certainly going to get in that's without their connections improving or them getting notable feats.
This whole conspiracy thing is going to very much shift Keras's pacing. It looks like Farzana is going to force Keras to undergo learning ocular methods and Cheng is almost certainly going to demand more of Keras's time due to Risshon going awol and Lyn leaving to do King's Eye stuff.
The Dreadgod thing is also likely going to make Keras shift their work and efforts to the next gear due to seeing the peak of Cradle and learning how small they are.
That one was in a training room, presumably one that belonged to the Akura.
Forgot to actually vote:
[X] After the arrest
This prevents Keras from having to avoid Cheng, and gives them a deeper look into why someone they looked up to is part of the conspiracy.
Plus I kinda want him to escape, should be fun if we ever meet up with him later.
The potential to have an Akura lover is interesting and not something I expected, but if it happens it happens and I'm along for the ride no matter what happens.
Also what's notable about each potential future is which Monarch Keras is aligned with. Malice, the Dreadgod Cult/Shen, Northstrider, or the Dragon personally I'm most inclined towards Northstrider since he'd let Keras have the most independence and Keras would likely vibe the best with his people.
Funnily the closest mold for Keras in the main cast is more Eithan then anyone else. They're not quite at the level of prodigy he was but they are a highly precocious sacred artist with what seems, to an outside observer, a precocious understanding beyond their years or advancement of what the arts mean. Their weapon is a tool first in their mind and they seem to have little love for the politics and power games played around them.
Also I think it would be very, very funny to have this low ranking Vroshir eventually realize he was looking at and presumably talking shit about Ozriel some day. The Vroshir think of themselves as brave rebels against a stifling regime and Ozriel is basically Darth Vader if he was also the Death Star if you're coming from that angle.
Edit: Also while Keras pointedly hasn't just left their friends behind on the Path they are building a lead that only seems to grow larger as they go. Their talent and drive is already starting to pull them away and it's taking real effort not to let those relationships wither.
Keras is someone Eithan would be very jealous and respectful of kinda in the same vein in is for Mercy, Keras is a talented Sacred Artist doing what they love and walking at their own pace but is able to maintain connections, morals and kindness, Eithan would have a lot of respect for Keras.
Ozriel is basically Darth Vader and the Tyrant's Enforcer to the Vroshir and Keras while not drinking the Vroshir juice yet is kinda inclined their way by virtue of being friends with Etaja.
Keras maintaining their ties with their friends and helping them join Keras and keep up is what Eithan would find the most notable. Eithan understands how talent, different paths and distance can effect relationshps and Keras working against that would be something he'd respect.
Also I think one of the possible Icons Keras could get would be Joy given that suits them very well and Eithan would find that very notable given he wants that Icon.
Yeah, she's not necessarily nice, but she's at least rational and even handed about things. I'd still prefer to be working with her daughter, but there's far worse individuals to be under the authority of.
Farzana is a brutally pragmatic, reasonable and fair tyrant. It's a lot better then most authority figures and people in Cradle but thing is she's still a self interested Tyrant and that matters. Keras can do work for her, have Farzana be their patron but I'm not comfortable placing Keras fully under her power. She's a much better boss and lord then you'd find almost anywhere but a Tyrant is still a Tyrant and will look after their interests always. I'm comfortable with the situation of being in between Cheng and Farzana because it takes away Farzana's leverage of being Keras's sole benefactor, Keras can afford to loose Farzana which is something that matters.
"You can weave soulfire." It's not a question. A Truegold who lacked that skill would have crumbled the first time she landed a blow, though it is also apparent they cannot use it properly.
His eyes go to Beti. "Oh. You're the miracle tree kid." Apparently you just never rated high enough for this Truegold to know the slightest things about you. "No, we have a Thousand-Mile Cloud. It will be faster. Your... tree... can wait here."
It's not up for debates as far as he is concerned. "Okay," you say. "Can someone feed Beti while I do that, then?"
"Feed?"
"Truegold sacred beast meat, if you have any. Highgold, if you don't. She technically belongs to Underlord Cheng, and he's been making good use of her."
Javed looks like this is one more issue he doesn't want to deal with today, but he doesn't complain.
A cold, empty power feels like it fills your madra channels. A reckless part of your mind considers trying to actually cycle it, to take this foreign madra in and make it your own, but the rational side evaluates that you can't and that it would be a bad idea. This isn't loose, undifferentiated aura: it's the specific path and power of someone else's spirit, so it wouldn't respond to your usual cycling and you have no idea how to change that. Even if you succeeded, you might draw in... more of the wielder than you would like. You don't want to be death embodied, not like that person is.
I'm only half joking, Lindon would have cycled it even as a Highgold. Keras will never match Lindon at this rate.
And that's okay. Keras has other strengths, like social skills, and the ability to cook drugs.
[] Before the arrest
- Curious as to Cheng's opinion.
- Safest option?
- Soonest.
[] After the arrest
- The full talky scene from someone with a growing sense of desperation.
- Character focused scene? Introspective moments, perhaps?
- Some time passes.
[X] When he escapes
- "Please take me hostage, Risshon. By the way, did you know this is all my fault?"
- Further entanglement with conspiracy?
- Anticipating Risshon's recruitment speech, or at least an appeal for sympathy.
- More time passes.
Voting for the risky option that promises drama, because it might also reveal more about the conspiracy and the conspirators (like Gardenia). We can see more of the aftereffects of the attack. And engaging the conspiracy leads to more options about what to do with it.
Also I like drama.
I don't think this will lead to what you are expecting, at least not fully tbh. I for one, hope we can maybe employ Gardenia for us since we may quite possibly need to make proper cash, so we must start selling stuff as a refiner. And since some stuff can be done with poisons and Gardenia is effectively a poison refiner of sorts thanks to her advancement, she could be useful.
The problem will be the clear pay drop, but maybe having a stable job will be enough for now. Until we become more famous, and make more money.
I don't think this will lead to what you are expecting, at least not fully tbh. I for one, hope we can maybe employ Gardenia for us since we may need to make more cash, so we start selling as a refiner.
IIRC there are seven or eight "most common" types of Aura, and dozens or even hundreds of others, some rare enough that nobody actually uses them.
edit:
"These are the seven most common aspects of madra, you see," Fisher Gesha said, pointing to each in turn. "Fire, earth, wind, water, force, blood, and life." He had studied these aspects before. There were other types of madra that he felt should have been equally common, but these seven were most widespread because they were the easiest types of aura to cultivate. Light aura was everywhere, but it was difficult to convert to madra, and required special techniques to harvest.(Blackflame ch 6)
-and speaking of, we never actually learned what type of Madra the Fishers used, beyond it being similar to Force and not interfering with Soulsmithing the way other types can.
My guess is that they can do it without the poison, it'd just cost them more, since more members of the conspiracy would likely die killing him by main force, while missing out on the paranoiagasm of Whodunnit the poison would have added
Yeah, I imagine they'd much prefer to kill him without any clear candidate for who was behind it to hopefully make the King purge any suspect noble houses and further weaken the upper class.
That would make sense as an end goal for killing the Prince, but unfortunately the vacumm that would generate could straight up lead to a civil war, where people try gather more resources than before to advance or something. It could be chaos.
The goal is to kill the Prince the posion is just a method of doing so before he advances and gets to hard to kill easily, there are other options to kill him with.
Honestly, while I can empathize with the rebels wanting more equality, they're kind of blind to the world they live in. If they kill off all the overlords and underlords somehow, either some random Lord will move in and take their place, or one of the many existing neighboring powers will just steamroll over them and conquer them now that they're largely defenseless. A tiny subset of Redmoon Hall could come and slaughter a dozen cities to feed on their blood aura. It's just, very short sighted.
Equality in a world like Cradle is very hard to achieve and is mostly achieved through anarchy and murder, there's a reason why the Dreadgod Cults and the Dragon Realms are the places that could be called the most equal and even then it's because it's a bloody kind of equality ruled by strength alone which is just another kind of inequality.
Also there's the fact as you mentioned that lacking strength means someone else will just roll over the weakened people.
i kind of disagree here. Cultivation is not nessecarily a zero sum game. Perhaps a more equitable, or at least meritocratic, distribution of resources to the people would let them uncover a lot of hidden talent that just gets hidden by a lack of opportunity. The nobility hoards those opportunities to themselves and extends them only conditionally to people they want to have them Perhaps a more meritocratic arrangement could push far more people further on the path.
If not for being the daughter of an Underlady, Mireya would have stalled out as a mediocre talent unsuited to her path. Instead she gets specialist care from a medical prodigy. The second prince is prideful and mediocre but it goes effectively unquestioned that someone with his backing will become an underlord. If those resources were instead being pushed towards people like Gardenia, Keras, or Badman McEvilguy how far could they go?
And that's all assuming cultivation is a zero sum game here where all resources are already being efficiently utilized. Maybe more high level cultivators are being made and that itself allows them to go out and gather the resources to make higher level cultivators. It could be that the nobility are serving to stifle the societies they rule, preventing them from getting that kind of compounding growth.[1]
The issue as I see it for the Revolution is less that they're going to rolled over by everyone else because their new model is necessarily flawed and more that it would be hard to stop all those new lords they create from hoarding the resources for themselves. That and the still quite powerful nobility deciding to kill them all first.
There are a lot of talented people that aren't reaching their full potential due to a lack of resources, there's a bunch of people who run into issues with their Sacred Arts for various reasons and don't have competent help to clear it up. As you stated Mireya is a great example she's not untalented but she's no prodigy but due to her family she's getting resources for advancement and had Keras to clear up her issues.
I think that while the resources is an issue expertise is as well, there's only so many teachers and people willing to actually teach people most of them are concentrated into things like Sects which is basically the option for the common man to grow as a Sacred Artist if they don't get a lucky break or a sponsor.
But I think something that should be noted is that the higher level of Sacred Arts can't be done purely through money, becoming an Underlord and above requires Willpower and self reflection and while teachers can help with that there's only so much they can do.
I mean, I'm not trying to argue that the kingdom is the best possible use of the resources in the territory, certainly not. I'm sure Emriss' territory is a lot more equitable and has a lot more spreading of sacred arts knowledge. But geopolitics is a thing you need to consider and without someone powerful enough to keep the peace during the transition to a more equitable status, someone more ruthless and powerful will take advantage of the disarray and conquer them to hoard the resources for themselves. On top of that, natural treasures need to be untouched for a *long* time to develop to the level needed for higher tier people, centuries even, and often don't take well to cultivation(of the farming kind), so if you're plucking them all early to uplift for the lower classes, then it's a lot harder for your lords to find what they need to advance or make soulfire, which is necessary for advancement and to just use to empower their techniques to match any threats they need to face, so it's a hard balance to strike. Even Mercy, the heir to a Monarch, despaired a bit at the idea of trying to shift society towards a better way.
Emriss's territory is something I haven't really thought about but given that her thing is spreading education and knowledge it's likely the most equitable territory. Man I really should've thought about Emriss.
Resources are the tricky part because knowledge can be spread but resources are fundamentally limited. It's technically possible to operate without them but it's absurdly hard and impractical to do so.
Changing the nature of society in Cradle is really damn hard it's possible but you'd likely need to sink to some pretty horrible lows in order to do so on a large level. It's possible to shape a City or even a kingdom but once you start looking at the continental level it becomes insanely hard because Xianxia World sizes.
I suppose the main question becomes: what's the level of "universal basic cultivation income" that is sustainable and doesn't compromise the advancement of their leaders? Everybody is entitled to pills up to Jade? Everybody is entitled to a Remnant? Bearing in mind that there's 19 different types of madra that they would have to provide pills for, and if the ingredients for making fire pills are easier to obtain than the ingredients for destruction pills, then there's a chance of a potential shortage. If a person decides that they've reached the point where they don't want to cultivate further, are they still entitled to pills? Are there benchmarks that they have to meet to keep receiving pills? What happens if someone's experimental Path ends up being a dead end?
Thus, we come to the ugly truth about xianxia stories:
Money as always is a very useful superpower. Most people can get to gold by the time they're adults places like the Sacred Valley and Silent Hinterlands are really really weird given they're either on top of or right net to the Labyrinth. The problem is Highgold and above and the Lord rank is the biggest rubicon.
Also something to keep in mind that while most people get to gold most people aren't proper Sacred Artists in that they're not interested in advancing more.
Thems the breaks, Keras has gotten their luck breaks with Etaja, Cheng and Vekenta. Sure Keras choose to seize those opportunities but they still needed to get luck in the first place.
But there is a difference in work ethic, for example while most higher level Sacred Artist work extremely hard people like Lindon and Yerin are obsessive workaholics that dedicate their entire lives to the Sacred Arts there's a point where hard work matters a lot it's just that you need to get obsessive about it. I think that Keras works very very hard but they haven't gotten to that level yet but it's likely that the assassination and Dreadgod will push them to that level.
Keras is someone who's noted to be very nice and cheerful but also kinda weird and creepy so they do have that kind of vibe, most of the time the creepy stuff isn't notable but when they're in their death artist mode it is.
Lindon's greed while impressive is also extremely reckless and unhealthy. Keras would possibly take the risk if they felt like they're on a time crunch but they don't really need to yet.
Keras does have more social and political skills then both Lindon and Yerin, they've gotten pretty good at reading people and the political events behind things. They're also a healer and refiner of notable skill and ability with those two skillsets working together really well. Sure Lindon and Yerin are better murder blenders but Keras has more skills outside of that and is still pretty good at fighting and being dangerous.
Also, in a theoretical "Equal Society", there are certain types of Madra that you wouldn't want used at all.
Hunger Madra being the most obvious standout there, not least because it actively incentivizes viewing your peers and rivals as resources to be consumed, but Destruction is another one due to Quality Of Life issues for those that use it and having little value beyond killing things.
edit:
Also, I'm somewhat puzzled as to why Volcanoes naturally produce Destruction Aura alongside Fire rather than something like Earth, Force, or Poison.
Also, in a theoretical "Equal Society", there are certain types of Madra that you wouldn't want used at all.
Hunger Madra being the most obvious standout there, not least because it actively incentivizes viewing your peers and rivals as resources to be consumed, but Destruction is another one due to Quality Of Life issues for those that use it and having little value beyond killing things.
edit:
Also, I'm somewhat puzzled as to why Volcanoes naturally produce Destruction Aura alongside Fire rather than something like Earth, Force, or Poison.
I mean there's useful and pratical uses for any Madra type just look at the Destruction and Death healing that happened, plus Destruction can be helpful for combat and demolition work. Hunger Madra being something that is banned would make sense given it's very nature but that's kinda the exception to the norm due to it not being natural.
It's probably something to do with human perception of them as a disaster that destroys everything around them. Sword aura is certainly a human thing, it's just sharp force aura but people mythologized it enough that it became its own thing.
I dunno, there's certainly uses for controlled destruction. Using it to annihilate disease, or poison or performing demolitions of some sort. And yes, there's always threats in Cradle being able to kill well can help with. The main problem is sourcing aura for them to cycle from, because that encourages bad behavior if they don't have an ethical source of it.
I mean there's useful and pratical uses for any Madra type just look at the Destruction and Death healing that happened, plus Destruction can be helpful for combat and demolition work.
Destruction Madra literally eats away at the channels of the person that uses it, it's like mainlining bleach if you don't spend hours repairing the damage after each use.
TLDR my opinion is that literally any other type of Madra can be substituted for Destruction for anything other than killing things or in niche cases like this, where you are using it to undo damage that it already caused to someone else.
edit:
Also, as to Death, Keras is literally acting as a filter removing it from Beti's system because it's a harmful byproduct of her diet. It's a case of "using it because there isn't anywhere else to put it".
