Imagine watching from the audience as Ji builds up his charge, forming a rioting storm overhead. You're at the edge of your seat, absolutely sure that Ling has to beat him before it hits or she's doomed, watching with baited breath as she doesn't. You're expecting a flash, the sound of thunder, and the obliteration of everything around Ling in a devastating finale.
And then there's nothing. No spectacle, no climax. Ling floats up to Ji, and touches his shoulder.
Regardless, this was an amazing fight scene but I would absolutely love to have it written from the spectators viewpoint. From someone either unbias or objective of course because both put in a great showing.
Honestly, I feel like we should actually be expending some AP on Sect military jobs, but people keep making the not unjustified argument that we can get all the rank advancement and points we need from free military activity in story arcs
2: Liao Zhu
515: Bao Qingling
580: Wen Cao
617: Ruan Shen
621: Luo Zhong
625: Bian Ya
700: Cai Renxiang
704: Bai Meizhen
705: Ling Qi
706: Sun Liling
710: Xuan Shi
728: Ji Rong
741: Yan Renshu
749: Li Suyin
750: Shen Hu
768: Kang Zihao
780: Yu Nuan
784: Du Feng
800: Su Ling
2: Liao Zhu
514: Bao Qingling
580: Wen Cao
615: Ruan Shen
620: Bian Ya
623: Luo Zhong
694: Bai Meizhen
696: Cai Renxiang
701: Ling Qi
706: Sun Liling
711: Xuan Shi
720: Ji Rong
730: Yan Renshu
734: Kang Zihao
735: Li Suyin
742: Shen Hu
768: Yu Nuan
780: Du Feng
801: Su Ling
Something this fight also showed off in amusing clarity is how qi efficient Ling Qi's set up is, because she pulled out all of her stuff and was still fine even after a precipitous drop in qi from Black Mirror. There was no internal narration about her being tired or spent, whereas Ji Rong got worn down trying to fight up hill and ran out of gas at the end there.
There was a distinct feeling of her defense being much more energy efficient than his offense I think.
Honestly, I feel like we should actually be expending some AP on Sect military jobs, but people keep making the not unjustified argument that we can get all the rank advancement and points we need from free military activity in story arcs
I do think we need to spend some AP on other things soon. We need more advanced insights which requires trials. However, not ever trial will give an advance insight, as the mission underground showed, so I think we need to start looking at more exploring for challenges or right now sect jobs for combat experience.
Then he was in front of her, his fist outstretched, sparking knuckles nearly touching her nose. Ling Qi became the wind, and scattered as the heavenly bolt crashed through her. In the boom of thunder, her laughter could be heard.
"Such a defense," Cai mused, standing with her blade in both hands on the pillar where Ling Qi had been standing. "One would not expect it of you."
"I might prefer to dodge, but I like being able to take a hit too," Ling Qi replied, renewing her defensive arts, feeling her way toward the refinements that would carry her to the next level of mastery. She was still a survivor at heart she supposed, whatever other trappings she might have picked up.
Something this fight also showed off in amusing clarity is how qi efficient Ling Qi's set up is, because she pulled out all of her stuff and was still fine even after a precipitous drop in qi from Black Mirror. There was no internal narration about her being tired or spent, whereas Ji Rong got worn down trying to fight up hill and ran out of gas at the end there.
There was a distinct feeling of her defense being much more energy efficient than his offense I think.
It's also, I feel, a distinct advantage of having incredible amounts of qi for her stage of cultivation. Our qi is pretty ridiculous for not having actively trained it at all.
On the other hand, we've not only remained ahead of Sun, we're actively pulling away from her now. Sure, that's mostly out of her control at the moment, but it's really gotta sting her pride.
I do think we need to spend some AP on other things soon. We need more advanced insights which requires trials. However, not ever trial will give an advance insight, as the mission underground showed, so I think we need to start looking at more exploring for challenges or right now sect jobs for combat experience.
Apart from it being weird that we don't spend time on Sect work, yeah, I agree.
Like, if we're trying to upgrade our music skill, then exploration for moon trial stuff is arguably a logical way to proc that. For Fade... honestly I feel like tutoring would actually make sense there. We've never had any lessons in spiritual evasion, and tutoring would make sense for tying it into Sable Grace/Dream Step which both fit well.
For athletics/empathy/spirit ken... I feel like we need to level our arts there a bit more first. LFWT, PMR, and MoSS are obviously highly relevant to them.
It's also, I feel, a distinct advantage of having incredible amounts of qi for her stage of cultivation. Our qi is pretty ridiculous for not having actively trained it at all.
Yeah the fact that it's still relevant even now amongst the bullshit that is green 3-4s is I think impressive. But even aside from that she still gains Qi from her field effects, and is often for most of her stuff qi positive or neutral and this just gets worse for her opponents when you throw more fighters at her.
There's been a significant focus as well as great deal of luck in making Ling Qi's most common moves extremely efficient and it just means she seems to be able to last forever.
On the other hand, we've not only remained ahead of Sun, we're actively pulling away from her now. Sure, that's mostly out of her control at the moment, but it's really gotta sting her pride.
I get the impression that that might have been a train of thought for Ji Rong that had been going on for a long time now, and we just got to see the end of it.
See how he's been acting towards Relong previously, and some of the contradictions we've seen from that.
Unlikely to be so severe a domain conflict that he can't recover from it, though, especially with his talent.
the amount of GSS we can use per turn has increased, because we are G4 now, so that has been adjusted.
We still have a lot of sect points and senior talismans are definitely worth the price, so we should get one now. We actually have enough money to buy both accessories for our remaining equipment slots, but I think it is better to buy them one at a time so that yrsillar can work a better narrative around it. (also to get more Lin Hai chapters)
Physical continues with 4 AP to make progress to the next Bronze level.
Spiritual is only at 3 AP, because it gives us an AP to play with this turn and it doesn't actually affect how fast we get the next Green level (we expect to need 15 AP to get to G5).
Songseeker Ceremony is our cultivation art and the next level gives us free virtual GSS, and we really want it. The 4 AP can get us SSC4 with a 100% chance.
The Head meridian and the FSS efficiency upgrade are just two random meridian actions from a list of meridians we are going to need in the future. If you feel like changing those, we still have the list in the math channel on discord.
Beast King's Savage Dirge, Starless Night's Reflection, Winter Hearth's Resounding and Playful Muse's Rapport can all get to the next art level with 1 AP each with a 100% chance.
Melodies of the Spirit Seekers has a 96% chance to get to the next art level with 1 AP, which is still pretty good.
Now to the fun part: The Explore AP. I know that originally the idea was to free the 1 AP to play with art modding. However, we could also use it to roll the dice and see what the Moon Map provides.
The Sideboard vote is mostly about LQ switching to her social arts for social events. She is kind of doing that already, but we probably should have a vote for it.
We have a bunch of new Upkeep techs now and keeping all of them active is getting quite expensive by now, so it makes sense to have a vote on which of them we want to have active on Upkeep for that turn. We can't have them all on Upkeep this turn, if we want to keep our Available Qi at A rank. The reason why UGM is the one that stays a 'normal' technique is that we can set it up quite easily when a fight starts and because the technique is mainly combat focused anyways.
HDW = Harmony of the Dancing Wind, MoSS = Melodies of the Spirit Seekers, PMR = Playful Muse's Rapport, MSS = Moonless Saboteur's Smile, RME = Roaming Moon's Eye, LFWT = Laughing Flight of the Wind Thief, WHR = Winter Hearth's Resounding, UGM = Unstoppable Glacier's March, FSS = Frozen Soul Serenade
[X] Plan: Fire and Flowers
[X] Plan Rise of the Muses
The splitting up in and of itself isn't the salient point here.
There was a plan in place for Ling Qi and her spirits to work together towards with actual effort and subtle signalling put into it, where it started out with Hanyi and Zhengui isolating Relong from Ji Rong and then splitting up when it was time for the next step to happen as well as what happened with Sixiang.
The extent of Ji Rong's relationship with Relong seems to just boil down to "be there and hit stuff". By contrast, Ling Qi's spirits were planned to be essential helpers in actually winning the fight, particularly the Sixiang x Zhengui combo.
