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The Path Unending (A Cultivation Quest)

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Just some pondering about different versions of timeloop stories. I don't really have a point here just trying to put things in writing and see if it jars something loose.
  1. Groundhog's Day: The classic. In this case, some impartial force is looping events until the "right" result is achieved. There's plenty of variations on this, I'd call it the archetypal template, though a low-fantasy version with no explanation for the loop. Happy Death Day is another favorite of mine in this theme - a girl keeps getting murdered until she figures out how not to be. Usually only one person is aware of the loop.
  2. Stargate SG-1 - Window of Opportunity - A weird interaction between the Stargate and other alien technology causes the loop. Largely a Groundhog's Day take, with only two people aware of the loop. The solution is for Jack to use the loop to acquire a whole new skillset and translate some alien writing.
  3. Higurashi: When they Cry: A supernatural being is cycling through timelines in order to find the one where a tragic calamity can be averted. The people inside the loops largely have no idea what's going on, except in brief interstitial bits where they briefly exist between loops that they gradually become aware of. Each loop gives the viewers pieces of the puzzle. Unusually for timeloop stories, while the tragedy remains constant, each "loop" is substantially different.
  4. Mother of Learning: Oh boy. This one is multilayered and honestly I'm fuzzy on the details. Not actually a "time" loop but a simulation inside a very powerful artifact that happens to resemble a timeloop to avert a catastrophe. Twists include multiple loopers acting at cross-purposes and the ability to learn magic making it abusable for training montage purposes.
I've also been referencing Cabin in the Woods because it felt like the villagers were playing along not because they were forced, but because they were playing along, and because of the whole "let them slumber, let them dream" bit. But Ves's latest post makes me really doubt that explanation.

What's confusing about this story is that it appears to be maintained by this kukuni, but we don't know why. It's had probably tens of thousands of loops to get "it" "right" whatever "it" might be. What is the victory it wants? There is some variation allowed (we've seen minor differences in the two loops, and the kids were able to talk without... whatever happened with the weaver happening), but only so much, and then the kukuni seems to send people to the cornfield. But if it's trying to get a particular result it's not getting, it should want variance. Also, in the most recent update it implies it would sacrifice anything, maybe even the whole village, for "victory." It can't be a perfect day for all the villagers if it's willing to erase the villagers. Reaching for some platonic ideal of Perfection/Joy that's unattainable because life is imperfection and imperfection is beautiful yada yada yada...

This does suggest that the loop itself is what the kukuni wants, but... why? Is it just repeating it's "moment" and trying to get stronger? If so, it's either broken in some way that means it doesn't realize it's not working, or it should be incredibly powerful after as many centuries as we think the loop has been going.

🤔o_O:confused:
 
You know what this situation brings to mind? Mafia, that game where you have innocent villagers and evil mafiosos with a day-night cycle.
 
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[X] A hound bellowing out a warcry.

It's the emotional attachment that I have to this one that has me pushing for it.
 
It was mentioned that Natural Wonders had extra effects in the Garden, so that might be true in the wider world as well.
 
Triage said:
Is it possible that the time loop was kicked off by a Natural Wonder forming and the kukuni formed later as a side effect of the loop?
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The time loop repeating does seem like it potentially give lots of individual experiences within the loop lots of opportunities to be felt strongly enough to prompt their formation?
 
Alternate Theory: There is no time loop. There is no village. We're all prisoners in a shared dream.

The details keep changing because it's a dream so they're not fixed. So sometimes the weaver is working on pants, sometimes on a shirt. Sometime she has a real loom, sometimes she just has a wooden frame. Sometimes the name of the village is Shoubiao's Wake, sometimes it's Yin Chang. Either someone is rewriting reality between time loops with godlike power in really tiny pointless ways or it's just messy dream logic.

The Kukuni might be protecting people in the sense that their mortal bodies perished while they were dreaming and waking up would be lethal. It's investing energy to keep them dreaming but also feeding off them until it stops being cost effective. The point of staying on script is just to avoid being startled into wakefulness.

If this is the case I'm not sure if we'd be doing them a favor by waking them or not. And our big time limit would be Clerk Ni's body dying of dehydration after a few days of being trapped in the dream.
 
Vesvius said:
Yet no matter how hard they swing their brooms, not a single speck of dust emerges.
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Vesvius said:
Yet even before the hunter has made his final demand, his hand, dried and crusted with blood, is outstretched and the butcher is dropping coins into it.
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Vesvius said:
Stew bubbles over an open flame, its cook adding a seemingly never-ending parade of new ingredients with each passing moment.
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Vesvius said:
Yet they are all slightly, subtly, wrong in ways I am not sure I can even fully observe.
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I was taking these glitches as time loop shenanigans but I think dream logic fits much better.
 
KreenWarrior said:
This does suggest that the loop itself is what the kukuni wants, but... why? Is it just repeating it's "moment" and trying to get stronger? If so, it's either broken in some way that means it doesn't realize it's not working, or it should be incredibly powerful after as many centuries as we think the loop has been going.
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I'm guessing that the village itself is the Sand Nest and that the the kukuni likely has multiple places of import as it had in the game itself. They might not all work in similar ways, just as the Natural Wonders each have a special ability.

Considering that the kukuni can communicate as clearly as it does suggests to me that it's around Teacher level, or whatever equivalent that is for a kukuni. Not sure where Naixin is at, but Tiayoue didn't have a dialogue and it is well into Farmer strenght.

Putting on tinfoil hat:
Zhi heard a discordant tone during the first loop right?
If this kukuni is an adversary of Time/SiR and it wants to spread it's red anam/light all over the board to supplant the underlying anam made of Time.. then I'm guessing that the entire village and villagers will be gone the next time around, sacrificed by the kukuni.
Maybe all the times SiR has been spotted were similar struggles between SiR and the kukuni?

Could be that the red light actually is the same underlying anam that Zhi felt when first using SEG. They said it was made of Time, but could there be other components in there that makes it feel alien? If it was only Time wouldn't the anam feel somewhat familiar instead of alien and wrong? That'd make somewhat sense if Zhi manages to convert the anam, used to attack him, to Time...
 
One good thing about confronting Notzhi like this, is that now we know there is an entity in charge of the loop, and that they are not friendly.

The loop is not because of an artifact handled incorrectly, or some other freak of nature. It is targeted and it is purposeful. Letting us know that there is a hostile intelligence behind this is probably a mistake on the entity's part. Assuming we survive whatever is happening now.
 
I'm thinking it might evolve back towards what it was when it was searing chariot: a delayed attack that hits from an unexpected angle.
 
The tech sends firewood towards the enemies. The firewood can explode releasing all the potential heat at once.

Smoke envelopes the enemy and later on turns into a raging fire.
 
I'm personally pinning my expectations on a fire that ages things it touches instead of burning them, but even a delayed fireball could be really cool. Like, maybe it means you're not attacking on one round of combat so that in the next round, the enemy faces two different attacks? That'd be really cool as long as the enemy doesn't do something devastatingly powerful on the round that you use the fireball.
 
It could also radically change the technique and turn it into something like a Sage Technique conjuring flames that burn your injuries out of time, healing you (concept shamelessly stolen from the A Broken Blade Reforged technique).

Like how adding Growth to the Blooming Spear of the Auroch would've turned it into a Super Mushroom from Mario.

EDIT: The funniest outcome is if Sear grows to a WIT 3 Technique, which is a requirement that we technically fulfill but only because of the Ivory Ferryman.
 
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Parabola said:
I'm personally pinning my expectations on a fire that ages things it touches instead of burning them, but even a delayed fireball could be really cool. Like, maybe it means you're not attacking on one round of combat so that in the next round, the enemy faces two different attacks? That'd be really cool as long as the enemy doesn't do something devastatingly powerful on the round that you use the fireball.
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Fire whose burning is the withering of age would make a lot of sense, given that's the particular character of the anam Zhi is cycling right now.
 
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