The Path Unending (A Cultivation Quest)

[Chronobreak]

It is ME, Chrono, back at it again. I'm gonna go over the questions that will currently make it in the vote by the 50% rule.

[X] So that was technique integration... I have also heard the term channel cultivation, what benefits do that provide and how can I do it?
37 people have voted

Requirement for Farmer required. At the very least this is one half of the technique integration thing we just did, so there's some basis for asking the question. The sooner we get to to Farmer, the soon were get more AP!

[X] Sometimes I find myself at the time wonder I found not of my own volition, any idea how this could happen? it the time anam messing with my subconscious or something?

This vote has typos in it, so I fixed them. This fits into the whole time is bad news thing, so it works as a question. We are well on our way to blaming SiR for all our problems.

[X] The healer disciple mentioned that integrating Sage techniques could help revert the changes. Have you seen any charms that can do the same? Could I make something that helps?
34 people have voted

Actually related to the task at hand, moving on.

[X] is time anam sentient? from my time interacting with it it seems to have a personality
34 people have voted

Relevant to the topic at hand. Kind of inter-related with the wandering to the Second of Eternity thing, so it might be kind of redundant.

[X] Do you have any advice for dealing with kukuni?
34 people have voted

Relevant to T-Money. I approve at the dedicated brainmeat spaces, especially since we want to get that fusion dance powerboost eventually, but I think kukuni are pretty easy to understand, so this is more a characterization question than an informational one to me.

[X] Can you tell me about the next Step? How do I take it?
32 people have voted

This question seems like a cheat, and I think people should just stick to channel cultivation instead of the huge swerve in topics.

[X] what are time techniques capable of? Is there any I should avoid? Do you know of any?
28 people have voted

I don't think Bi is in a position to give us a comprehensive answer. It's relevant and possible, but I expect to get a answer along the lines of 'it's not the technique, its the person who uses it' or 'what SiR used'.

[X] do you know of any Sage techniques that I could learn that might help with the changes?
28 people have voted

Relevant, but redundant with the charm question-they can be combined.

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I have to admit I wasn't expecting a coherent interrogation. Why, the only questions I consider meta is the one related to the Farmer's Step, and I'm the one who brought it up. Good job team, though I think personal questions for Auntie are terribly lacking. We should ask her how the folks are doing, or the comparative advantages of harems opposed to reverse harems.

 

[Reader of all]

Well then I guess we will be using an action to find out time anam's opposite or get blindsided by it when we least expect it at least we cannot say the gm did not give us the opportunity to ask

 

[ShyGuy]

Technique Mastered: Stallion's Enclosed Garden!
Appearance +1!

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Well, it seems we now know the benefits of mastering techniques. Hopefully we put some more effort into the ones we currently have.

[X] is time anaam sentient? from my time interacting with it it seems to have a personality
[X] So that was technique integration... I have also heard the term channel cultivation, what benefits do that provide and how can I do it?
[X] Sometimes i find myself at the time wonder i found not of my own volition, any idea how this could happen? it the time anaam messing with my subconscious or something?
[X] The healer disciple mentioned that integrating Sage techniques could help revert the changes. Have you seen any charms that can do the same? Could I make something that helps?
[X] Do you have any advice for dealing with kukuni?
[X] Can you tell me about the next Step? How do I take it?
[X] do you know of any Sage techniques that I could learn that might help with the changes?
[X] what are time techniques capable of? Is there any I should avoid? Do you know of any?
[X] Elder said my father was sworn to secrecy about this. Why do you and father know this? Should I keep this secret?
[X] Has using the Stallion's Enclosed Garden to avoid hearing the song of the Symphony-in-Rags been put into practice before?
[X] Just as my core is strong with Time, it is weak in Fate, do you know anything of Fate? Do you think there is any connection with what you just told me and Fate?

Gonna go with this for now.

 

[Reader of all]

Core of the Forge Eternal: Kong Zhi has taken the Soldier's Step by forging a core of Steel, Smoke, and primarily Time in the very heart of his spirit. He now generates his own unaspected anam at a rate of 2 points per day (Empathy(Primary Attribute)/3). Time Techniques are 30% less expensive to learn and use. Steel Techniques are 10% less expensive to learn and use. Smoke Techniques are 10% less expensive to learn and use. Mist Techniques are 10% more expensive to learn and use. Lightning Techniques are 10% more expensive to learn and use. Fate Techniques cost 50% more to learn and cause Kong Zhi mental stress if used. ??? Techniques cannot be learned at all.

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This is Kong Zhi's core notice the big ??? there that indicates what type of techniques he cannot learn also notice that he can learn fate techniques it will just cause him mental stress I really do not know why you guys are so hung op on fate type techniques.

 

[Vesvius]

And Vote is closed!

 

[acegunner]

Are there any time dilation or timestop techniques?
Or slight precognition techniques?
Combined you would not need to be faster. Dodge the attack, or Timestop then dodge the attack. Manipulate time so you are faster than anyone else alongside better reaction speed due to the flow of time going faster for oneself. Admittedly this sounds energy intensive.

 

[KreenWarrior]

If we could get even a one round Haste or Timestop that would let us deploy the Box that'd be fantastic.

 

[Edkose]

Are there any time dilation or timestop techniques?
Or slight precognition techniques?
Combined you would not need to be faster. Dodge the attack, or Timestop then dodge the attack. Manipulate time so you are faster than anyone else alongside better reaction speed due to the flow of time going faster for oneself. Admittedly this sounds energy intensive.

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I'd imagine that there'd be a technique where the effect is that you can do two actions in one round. Mei used charms that was free to use during an ordinary action, so it's not that much of a stretch.

I'm a bit conflicted whether we should go the the archive to get a technique or not in week 13. One that we can cycle at one of the wonders we have access too.

We should be getting our allowance in week 13, so we'd have cash to spend. I suppose we'll see if we get some sect points from Xu Yun this week, but our agreement with him was that we get his income for a month and the accounting would start in week 11. He'll have the points for week 11 and 12 at hand when we meet him, and he is a bro. So I doubt that he'll hold onto those points for another two weeks just because...

So we'll have the most money we've had in our hands to date in week 13 which kind of makes it an ideal time to look at techniques. At least we could find out if it's better to buy pills for BSA or get a tech we can cycle at a Wonder.

@Vesvius Is it possible to look at techs and go to the market in one action? IIRC we can go to the archives without having sect points since it's close to the Talent exchanger.
If that is not possible, and it has to be two actions. Can the spending of the resources be in one vote?
He'd check out the techs and possibly do other research, go to the market spend whatever he has and then copy the tech.

 

[KreenWarrior]

The problem with getting a technique right now is we wouldn't have much opportunity to learn it before the Deeps. Techs start at level 0, after all. Personally I'd rather spend our money/points on mastering the techs we have. One way to do so would be to commission Shouxi now that he's free.

 

[Corvo Montés]

The problem with getting a technique right now is we wouldn't have much opportunity to learn it before the Deeps. Techs start at level 0, after all. Personally I'd rather spend our money/points on mastering the techs we have. One way to do so would be to commission Shouxi now that he's free.

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I'm with you, we should master the techs we have right now, we could even offer the beast matt that we have to Shouxi to make Beast pills more cheaply.

 

[Enjou]

The problem with getting a technique right now is we wouldn't have much opportunity to learn it before the Deeps. Techs start at level 0, after all. Personally I'd rather spend our money/points on mastering the techs we have. One way to do so would be to commission Shouxi now that he's free.

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Yeah, my plan for next week is to do his social and include asking him about commission prices. BSA is the priority since we can likely master it on pills alone, but WC is second and we can see about Beast pill prices, maybe Sound, and we can later rent that Earth/Sound wonder to get enough anam to master the tech.

 

[Edkose]

The problem with getting a technique right now is we wouldn't have much opportunity to learn it before the Deeps. Techs start at level 0, after all. Personally I'd rather spend our money/points on mastering the techs we have. One way to do so would be to commission Shouxi now that he's free.

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We need around 39 wood anam and 26 earth right? The cost from market if there is grade 2 wood pills there would be around 79 sect points.

Assuming that we get Shouxi to make them and he removes the 20% commisioning (again assuming that the pill seller charges the same as the charm seller) we're down to 65 sect points. (might be wrong with the calc.)

Should be doable if we can give him Talents instead of hoping for a good exchange rate, I suppose.

I just figure if we get both Xu Yun and Nokai on board the Sigil train, how much is BSA going to be a decisive factor?

We could get a grade 2 steel or time tech to phase 3 with three cycling actions, assuming that the start cost is 10 anam to unlock and they progress as BSA.

Yeah, my plan for next week is to do his social and include asking him about commission prices. BSA is the priority since we can likely master it on pills alone, but WC is second and we can see about Beast pill prices, maybe Sound, and we can later rent that Earth/Sound wonder to get enough anam to master the tech.

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I can see why BSA can get priority, but not why WC would get more attention than a potential Sage or Defender tech that we have a wonder for.

If you plan for renting the natural wonder, why not get the most of it and save some phases of the BSA as well. We need 36 sound anam and we're capable of getting that with around 4 actions or so, so we have time enough to cycle earth there as well. I get that we can get Shouxi to make Beast pills out of the Crab vestige shell, but it's still a pretty high cost to max it with pills and rented wonders.

A problem we have is that the techniques we have are of aspects that we don't have a wonder for and doesn't match our core, getting one that does should have priority before mastering a second one that we don't have anything for.

 

[Knight-Radiant]

We need around 39 wood anam and 26 earth right? The cost from market if there is grade 2 wood pills there would be around 79 sect points.

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As of now, we need 33 Wood anam and 22 Earth.

Wood pills are 7 points for grade 1 and 13 for Grade 2 IIRC. So we would need three Grade 2 and one Grade 1 wood pills to max it out. That adds up to 46 points. We have one Grade 2 Earth pill, so if we don't spend it on the deeps we'd need one more and one Grade 1 pill, together that's another 13 points.

So 59 points to Max out BSA using Pills, if we buy them from the market

 

[glare31337]

So 59 points to Max out BSA using Pills, if we buy them from the market

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Hmm, do we have any idea how much it costs to rent natural wonders? It might be cheaper than pills in this case.

 

[Knight-Radiant]

Hmm, do we have any idea how much it costs to rent natural wonders? It might be cheaper than pills in this case.

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There is a Wood/Beauty wonder for rent... but it costs 50 sect points.

The other relevant option for us is a Earth/Sound wonder that's available for 30 sect points. The optimal solution would most likely be to stock up on Wood and Beast pills then Rent the Earth/Sound wonder. That way we can max out the Blooming Spear and the Warhound's Cry

 

[Enjou]

I can see why BSA can get priority, but not why WC would get more attention than a potential Sage or Defender tech that we have a wonder for.

If you plan for renting the natural wonder, why not get the most of it and save some phases of the BSA as well. We need 36 sound anam and we're capable of getting that with around 4 actions or so, so we have time enough to cycle earth there as well. I get that we can get Shouxi to make Beast pills out of the Crab vestige shell, but it's still a pretty high cost to max it with pills and rented wonders.

A problem we have is that the techniques we have are of aspects that we don't have a wonder for and doesn't match our core, getting one that does should have priority before mastering a second one that we don't have anything for.

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Getting a new tech we have a wonder for and getting our existing techs up aren't mutually exclusive. Mastering WC could benefit us by increasing our Resolve stat, which will improve our anam capacity, which we really, really need due to our small capacity.

The other relevant option for us is a Earth/Sound wonder that's available for 30 sect points. The optimal solution would most likely be to stock up on Wood and Beast pills then Rent the Earth/Sound wonder. That way we can max out the Blooming Spear and the Warhound's Cry

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Though I'll note that we probably couldn't master BSA before the Deeps that way unless we wanted to rent the wonder twice, so we may just have to bite the bullet and just pay for both the Wood and Earth pills for that one and just use it for WC later.

 

[Profectus]

For WC couldn't we just train along Nokai and her doggos again?

 

[Enjou]

For WC couldn't we just train along Nokai and her doggos again?

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No, that was apparently a special event tied to just unlocking it.

 

[nothingtoseehere]

Our sect points are limited, and the three main things to spend them on are "materials for charms" " on-aman techniques" and "aman pills/renting wonders". Given Techniques and charms are both permament boosts, they should take priority for our limited sect points over pills or wonder access. If we get a Time, Steel, or war technique we have access to unlimited aman to train it. And even a Fire, Air, or Smoke technique can be slowly trained over time for free once we acquire it. Pills to boost existing off-aman techniques are a much worse use of our money than saving for new techniques we can train for free forever.

Hell, we might even be able to get Jai Fa to teach us the steel body technique for free then we can cultivate it to our hearts content. That saves us precious sect points to be spend on crafting materials for our new arm/leg/eye

 

[Enjou]

Our sect points are limited, and the three main things to spend them on are "materials for charms" " on-aman techniques" and "aman pills/renting wonders". Given Techniques and charms are both permament boosts, they should take priority for our limited sect points over pills or wonder access. If we get a Time, Steel, or war technique we have access to unlimited aman to train it. And even a Fire, Air, or Smoke technique can be slowly trained over time for free once we acquire it. Pills to boost existing off-aman techniques are a much worse use of our money than saving for new techniques we can train for free forever.

Hell, we might even be able to get Jai Fa to teach us the steel body technique for free then we can cultivate it to our hearts content. That saves us precious sect points to be spend on crafting materials for our new arm/leg/eye

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I'd agree with you, except the entire point of buying large amounts of pills and renting wonders is to master techniques. Techs do us very limited good if we don't master them.

 

[glare31337]

I'd agree with you, except the entire point of buying large amounts of pills and renting wonders is to master techniques. Techs do us very limited good if we don't master them.

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Agreed.

Given Techniques and charms are both permament boosts, they should take priority for our limited sect points over pills or wonder access. If we get a Time, Steel, or war technique we have access to unlimited aman to train it. And even a Fire, Air, or Smoke technique can be slowly trained over time for free once we acquire it. Pills to boost existing off-aman techniques are a much worse use of our money than saving for new techniques we can train for free forever.

Hell, we might even be able to get Jai Fa to teach us the steel body technique for free then we can cultivate it to our hearts content. That saves us precious sect points to be spend on crafting materials for our new arm/leg/eye

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We're almost certainly doing nothing related to charms until after we get our sigil. We're in crunch. And actions spent to learn new techs are probably of questionable immediate use. I think it's worth spending sect points for off-aman pills (maybe even selling off our excess materials if necessary) in order to master another tech or two before the depths. Other actions should be dedicated to acclimating to the new limbs and socials to garner further expedition support.

 

[nothingtoseehere]

I'd agree with you, except the entire point of buying large amounts of pills and renting wonders is to master techniques. Techs do us very limited good if we don't master them.

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Sure, but when we're paying for every drop of aman we use trying to master Blooming Spear it's vastly more expensive to master it than it would be to buy a steel technique and master that instead. Takes the same amount of actions, but it's one upfront cost of sigil points rather than a continuous drain on our resources as it is currently. Hell, we've spent enough sect points on pills for it already we probably could have learnt a technique.

And sigil-wise, I don't think we're getting it now unless Siani feels generous. Our combat capability has been shot to pieces by our mutilation and we just learned exactly the risks of exploring. I don't think it's a good thing IC or OOC to try and finish the map, and if we do we'll die trying like he expects of us. Beg mercy from Siani if we can, if not Sela is a choice, although not one which is good for our future AP. We've just had one near-death experience, we are not ready or able to jump into another.

 

[glare31337]

Takes the same amount of actions

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Is there a reason to expect this? BSA is already phase 2/5, and acquiring phase 1 of a new tech usually takes an action, doesn't it?

And sigil-wise, I don't think we're getting it now unless Siani feels generous. Our combat capability has been shot to pieces by our mutilation and we just learned exactly the risks of exploring. I don't think it's a good thing IC or OOC to try and finish the map, and if we do we'll die trying like he expects of us. Beg mercy from Siani if we can, if not Sela is a choice, although not one which is good for our future AP. We've just had one near-death experience, we are not ready or able to jump into another.

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I don't think most people in the thread are ready to give up. I'm certainly not, at least. Maybe if our situation looks truly untenable the week of the expedition, but it doesn't seem so at the moment.

 

[Chopak]

What? Who wants to give up? We have couple of weeks still left, we still got our team and our charms and we're ready to go. If anything, our new eye can actually help is in the darkness of the deeps.

 

[me.me.here]

And sigil-wise, I don't think we're getting it now unless Siani feels generous. Our combat capability has been shot to pieces by our mutilation and we just learned exactly the risks of exploring. I don't think it's a good thing IC or OOC to try and finish the map, and if we do we'll die trying like he expects of us. Beg mercy from Siani if we can, if not Sela is a choice, although not one which is good for our future AP. We've just had one near-death experience, we are not ready or able to jump into another.

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The fact that Kong Zhi on his own couldn't stand up to a high-end threat is not news (hence why the people who were thinking straighter argued for running). That's the whole reason we've been looking to rope in another artist or two to go into the deeps with us, because stuff on the level of the third map location (such as kukuni as potent as Tioayue) would crush us on our own.

The fact that we managed as well as we did in that fight without non-Box allies is pretty indicative that having Jai Fa, Mei Daiyu, and possibly another friend of ours along as well would produce a very different result. It sucks that we blew a bunch of the pills we were saving up for the depths and that we aren't as fighty as we used to be, but the vast majority of the combat power we planned on having comes from our friends and the Dance, which are all unchanged (or better than they used to be).

We had a couple of weeks of flex time in the original plan, which means we have a margin of safety to dip into while rehabilitating our arm/leg and otherwise getting our combat capability roughly back on par - this is a setback, not the death knell of our being able to succeed at earning Siani's Sigil.