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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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I think, at this point... I'd like to try dating one or both in a public setting, rather than just us. Would it be acceptable, do you think, to come on the arm of both of them to seperate events, or is there a level of closeness required to be seen as a couple in front of peers?

I basically want to see how Li can play off of them when they are playing the role of our date in conversation. I'm interested in the boy that can better let us sparkle but keep us from error, since I think both are solid people.

Ultimately I have my eye on disciple #2, (moonbro is best bro) but I think there needs to be a bit more time and perhaps a meeting between them where they are equals for a night in some manner.

I also kinda want sixiang to help Qing explore her own sensuality a bit more, because I think the gender-fluid spirit would be very good at being who Qing needs in the moment to negotiate her own feelings about this sort of thing. And I think it would do her good to shed baggage or explore feelings more as she moves into human relationships.
 
Glau said:
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... I would rather not want to be two timing a ducal and bao for the utter shitstorm that'd follow from that.

Qi is very touchy already about relationships as is with her background, Bao's a champ trying his best to understand and connect something without being pushy.
It's... difficult for Qi to think of anything as a date without Lakegate Flashbacks
 
[X] A fully fortified 'Panic Room' fortified to the limit of Xuan Shi's skill (7 Green Stones, owed favor to Xuan Shi.)

globalwarmth said:
as we've seen the rat things fuck with escape tech. Not optimal



EVERY FREAKING TIME LING QI!
EVERY TIME WE GO OUT TOGETHER THIS STUFF HAPPENS!

"Ohh no its just a simple spirit hunt, you need only help tracking"
"Just a little divination, escape talisman at the ready"

I LOST MY CAVE QI! 😣
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Yu Nuan meets Su Ling and they start comparing notes on their Qi adventures.
OneArmedYeti said:
Thoughts on vote: My vote for the 7 stone option is honestly more about the favor owed to Shi. Ingratiating ourselves in with (nobles like) him is literally one of the main directives our boss has given us. This societies social relationships run on favors, and they're also fun to do.

Thoughts on husbandoing Shi: Its definitely a lofty goal, but we have a few advantages that Meizhen didnt, the biggest two being Zhengui and (through CRX, who's out of Shi's league imo) access to Lumber which the Xuan need a constant supply of.
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He'd invite us on another dungeon crawl with the favor only to discover a Cloud Tribe lovenest instead.
 
Can Panic Rooms be made mobile so we can lug it with us to the Cai?

Actually, not really mobile, just something we can assemble and disassemble whenever we switch locations...
 
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Neshuakadal said:
We have wog from discord that a panic room will be big enough for the entire household, staff included. So we don't need to worry about size.
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I see.
[X] A fully fortified 'Panic Room' fortified to the limit of Xuan Shi's skill (7 Green Stones, owed favor to Xuan Shi.)
Ohnonono said:
Can Panic Rooms be made mobile so we can lug it with us to the Cai?

Actually, not really mobile, just something we can assemble and disassemble whenever we switch locations...
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Certainly. Cai Shenhua can do it with cultivation sites. But can Xuan Shi do it, or can it be done to a room that wasn't designed for it?

705: Ling Qi
706: Sun Liling
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Ah, so we're just being used as a political chess piece to dunk on Sun. Well, that's nothing new, though I'm surprised anyone with the power to decide the rankings is pissed off enough at her to do it. Then again, she is taking important assets away from the war front.
 
Ohnonono said:
Can Panic Rooms be made mobile so we can lug it with us to the Cai?

Actually, not really mobile, just something we can assemble and disassemble whenever we switch locations...
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I would find it likely that the more thorough the protections are the more closely tied they are to the location. In general changes like that are also a good way of introducing vulnerabilities into a system. Think about those times when you've revised a long post and introduced grammatical errors. Now think about what would happen if your family's survival depended on no one being able to find any of them.

Cultivation also generally makes things become obsolete as people advance. The work of a Green, no matter how skilled, just isn't going to remain relevant as we continue to advance realms.
 
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[X] A fully fortified 'Panic Room' fortified to the limit of Xuan Shi's skill (7 Green Stones, owed favor to Xuan Shi.)
 
DeusExBritannia said:
Non-Cabalists: "Huh. That's not that much."
Math Cabal: *heavy breathing*
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I'ts basically as @Mellithae said. This is a ~7% reduction in costs but because our plans run on a very tight and packed schedule, having 5-7 more AP to play with means an effectively 50% increase in our free AP to pursue stretch goals with. Stretch goals like putting 8 levels on FSS+ instead of 6, or sparing an AP to experiment with art modding.

storryeater said:
Many things to answer here.

Firstly and most importantly, I never claimed we wouldn't get our ass kicked, just that a fight wouldn't be hopeless anymore. Big difference. I agree that the matchup is harshly disfavorable, I am just claiming we are catching up.

And I am basing that on several reasons.

Firstly, we are a genius. Yes, most ducals are boosted into being geniuses anyway, but I am not sure their talent is equal to ours based on their progress. Considering npcs can have talent values that aren't whole numbers, I think we are 0.1-0.3 talent points faster than the ducals. And unlike Ji Rong, we have the money to take advantage of that.

Secondly, even if their talent is equal or better, we have the advantage of the math cabal, which in universe translates to Ling Qi being a calculating cultivation freak that makes the most out of everything. By comparison, Ji Rong doesn't seem as dedicated to the time consuming stuff (I could be wrong here), Cai lacks time, and Sun is in relatively dire straits and Bai ... Bai we may actually not manage to overtake.

Thirdly, we have started performing some major feats. We may be underestimating Ling Qi.

Fourthly, we have more spirits (each spirit grants several bonuses) and high tier ones to boot, especially Zhengui. Their spirits may be higher level, but each has 1 and none higher than Zhengui (they may be equal, but not higher), so we got the advantage there.

Fifthly, our moon path is sponsored by an insanely powerful spirit, and every technique that came from it is of ducal quality or greater, its just that we do not have enough of those to go solo moon.

Sixthly, the higher one goes in green, the less quality differences between techniques matter.

And seventhly, we have been getting insights granting B and A rank skills pretty fastly. Yes, each of the ducals likely has at least an S rank, which is why I think we ain't winning, but we are getting stronger and more well rounded fast by the way of danger, which in universe is the often the great bridging.

So no, this is very different from an adult vs a master and we are NOT actually going against the low hanging fruit, as proven by the fact that we trash pretty much anyone at our level that isn't a ducal or a genius. If we went after the low hanging fruit, we should be weaker than Xiulan. Are we even gonna reach the ducal monster height of fruits? Debatable actually, which is why we are debating this, but you guys are underselling Ling Qi's talents and efforts. However, it is both in tropes and in universe precedented for someone to become a monster from a commoner background, especially since family techniques matter less and less the more one goes up.

I also do not understand why this thread is always either "we'll definitely win" or "we'll definitely lose" and balks at a more nuanced assessment. It does that both here and with the Ji Rong situation. This is a story, things change, fights can be even or even low probability possible.
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We're definitely catching up, but it's important to realize that we're not there yet, and the balance of power is such that being a full stage, ~1 rank behind on stats, and 1-2 letter grades behind on Domain is way too big of a gap to overcome just by having our build set up competently for the first time. Maybe against talented peer like some melee cultivator with a stage on us, but Ducals have a deep bag of the most unfair tricks and no exploitable weaknesses, such that even a small disadvantage translates into a very heavy skewing of winrates. And the current disadvantage is not small.

Ask again when we're G5. Might breach double-digit % win chance by then, depending on advanced skills, integration with PLR, wind thief and music (especially FSS+), and the progress rate of our spirits.

sergit said:
[X] A fully fortified 'Panic Room' fortified to the limit of Xuan Shi's skill (7 Green Stones, owed favor to Xuan Shi.)

With a bit of luck, Zhengui an watch and learn a thing or two about Xuan Shi. And maybe even grow genuine, if begrudging, respect towards him.
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I think Zhengui already has some of that begrudging respect considering he called him by his Name.
 
[X] A fully fortified 'Panic Room' fortified to the limit of Xuan Shi's skill (7 Green Stones, owed favor to Xuan Shi.)

Kitchens and bathrooms sell houses in our world and I'm sure panic rooms set up by Ducals really add to the resale value of the house in a death world like that one. Unless the house gets leveled in a raid and we'll be really happy we had it installed. There is a short term hit to our savings but I trust the math cabal's analysis enough to not worry about a cultivation hit.
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by Killer_Whale on May 29, 2020 at 3:38 AM, finished with 251 posts and 101 votes.
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[X] A fully fortified 'Panic Room' fortified to the limit of Xuan Shi's skill (7 Green Stones, owed favor to Xuan Shi.)
 
TehChron said:
....Just because the Cloud Barbarians did most of the killing, doesnt mean the Shishigui are absolved.from their part in those operations.

They are just as responsible for.giving the Cloud Tribes the confidence to move.against the villages and civilians in such force as they did.
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Eh, realpolitik wise, it is hard to get off the tiger once you start riding it. That means that if a war starts, you are stuck with your allies or are forced to forsake your own existence or at least independence when both allies and enemies turn against you. If the opponent's would take defectors or accept surrender, it would be a different thing, but the empire doesn't work this way, it sees the shishigumi as monsters and would slaugther not just the cultivators, but the women and the children too noncultivators as well. So no, they are responsible for their own warcrimes and for starting the war, but until the Empire is ready to start diplomacy, they ain't responsible for their allies warcrimes unless it is proven that they endorsed said plan.

Black Noise said:
We're definitely catching up, but it's important to realize that we're not there yet, and the balance of power is such that being a full stage, ~1 rank behind on stats, and 1-2 letter grades behind on Domain is way too big of a gap to overcome just by having our build set up competently for the first time. Maybe against talented peer like some melee cultivator with a stage on us, but Ducals have a deep bag of the most unfair tricks and no exploitable weaknesses, such that even a small disadvantage translates into a very heavy skewing of winrates. And the current disadvantage is not small.

Ask again when we're G5. Might breach double-digit % win chance by then, depending on advanced skills, integration with PLR, wind thief and music (especially FSS+), and the progress rate of our spirits.
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Well, yeah, as I stated repeatedly, I said that we got one or two percentage points at victory here, not a serious chance. I just also stated that this is very, very different from a domineering 100%.
 
storryeater said:
Well, yeah, as I stated repeatedly, I said that we got one or two percentage points at victory here, not a serious chance. I just also stated that this is very, very different from a domineering 100%.
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I'd contest that we're even at single digit % here. The best line I can see is where we successfully isolate and stealth, leading to a stalled-out draw, but that's gonna be unlikely while we're contesting a stronger Domain. Consider that 4th stage beastmaster and how he basically prevented us from leveraging Elegy.
 
Black Noise said:
I'd contest that we're even at single digit % here. The best line I can see is where we successfully isolate and stealth, leading to a stalled-out draw, but that's gonna be unlikely while we're contesting a stronger Domain. Consider that 4th stage beastmaster and how he basically prevented us from leveraging Elegy.
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Well, the QM doesn't roll dice anymore, so any battle could be either a certain loss or a certain win (in this case a loss), as giving us choice of strategy won't lead us to a below 10% possibillity, but if he did, I think that we would pretty much at the stage when the dice rolls become doable for an extreme longshot rather than a statistical miracle, is what I am saying.
 
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Black Noise said:
We're definitely catching up, but it's important to realize that we're not there yet, and the balance of power is such that being a full stage, ~1 rank behind on stats, and 1-2 letter grades behind on Domain is way too big of a gap to overcome just by having our build set up competently for the first time. Maybe against talented peer like some melee cultivator with a stage on us, but Ducals have a deep bag of the most unfair tricks and no exploitable weaknesses, such that even a small disadvantage translates into a very heavy skewing of winrates. And the current disadvantage is not small.

Ask again when we're G5. Might breach double-digit % win chance by then, depending on advanced skills, integration with PLR, wind thief and music (especially FSS+), and the progress rate of our spirits.
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They also all have a panic button. Even if we reach double digit % to beat them when we are at G5 (and they are not at G6 yet, which they might be by the tournament), in a real fight it just mean double digit % to force CRX to call on Liming, or whatever Meizhen or Liling would themselves do.
 
She seems pretty fond of dispells, so I could see her with some sort of continous AOE dispell effect. Which would horribly unfair and no fun to fight against, so keeping in character I would think.
 
[X] A fully fortified 'Panic Room' fortified to the limit of Xuan Shi's skill (7 Green Stones, owed favor to Xuan Shi.)
 
Black Noise said:
Ask again when we're G5. Might breach double-digit % win chance by then, depending on advanced skills, integration with PLR, wind thief and music (especially FSS+), and the progress rate of our spirits.
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in-story we have regular sparring matches with CRX (and Meizhen ?), it would be amusing if we get a fluff scene where Ling Qi gets lucky enough to pull off a win there
 
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