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

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Blademaster said:
She could just as well have started earlier-same effect, but even in our age she is not as talented as we are, since assuming she started at 10, she is cultivating 6 years, while we have 2(she probably is older still).
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Cai Renxiang reached the first realm at six years old. She is a Ducal Scion with the best resources, planning, and help anyone could get. She's currently at Threshold, the same stage as Xia Lin and half a stage above Ling Qi. Bai Meizhen is considered an exceptionally high Talented Ducal and she reach Green just months before we did. Gu Yanmei is supposed to be a genius and she wasn't anywhere close to this.

Let's not just compare Xia Lin to Ling Qi, I don't mind people being stronger than us, but we've pretty clearly been said to be at the same Talent as some of the highest nobles of the Empire and if Yrs just threw out an equal to them every time he needed someone who we could respect then that would lose all meaning. If we get two members of Viscount and Count clans, both at precisely the same age and a once in a few decades Talents, then was either an astronomically small chance or it cheapens the value of the Ducal's supposedly insane cultivation.
 
dycouza said:
Cai Renxiang reached the first realm at six years old. She is a Ducal Scion with the best resources, planning, and help anyone could get. She's currently at Threshold, the same stage as Xia Lin and half a stage above Ling Qi. Bai Meizhen is considered an exceptionally high Talented Ducal and she reach Green just months before we did. Gu Yanmei is supposed to be a genius and she wasn't anywhere close to this.

Let's not just compare Xia Lin to Ling Qi, I don't mind people being stronger than us, but we've pretty clearly been said to be at the same Talent as some of the highest nobles of the Empire and if Yrs just threw out an equal to them every time he needed someone who we could respect then that would lose all meaning. If we get two members of Viscount and Count clans, both at precisely the same age and a once in a few decades Talents, then was either an astronomically small chance or it cheapens the value of the Ducal's supposedly insane cultivation.
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Talent alone doesn't get you that far. What's rare is the intersection of good talent, top percentile drive, high-end resources and/or lucky encounters, along with enough challenges and self reflection to not get stuck at bottlenecks.
 
dycouza said:
Gu Yanmei is supposed to be a genius and she wasn't anywhere close to this.
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Just saying, I believe Gu Yanmei was 20 or 22 when she hit Cyan? We don't actually know how fast she went through the Green stages, probably shouldn't make assumptions.
I mean I get why people would think we'll be Cyan at 18 years old or something and maybe we will. However the stages and realms are supposed to get harder as you progress. If Yrs made it too easy for us to level up, it'd actually be kinda boring.
 
dycouza said:
Cai Renxiang reached the first realm at six years old. She is a Ducal Scion with the best resources, planning, and help anyone could get. She's currently at Threshold, the same stage as Xia Lin and half a stage above Ling Qi. Bai Meizhen is considered an exceptionally high Talented Ducal and she reach Green just months before we did. Gu Yanmei is supposed to be a genius and she wasn't anywhere close to this.

Let's not just compare Xia Lin to Ling Qi, I don't mind people being stronger than us, but we've pretty clearly been said to be at the same Talent as some of the highest nobles of the Empire and if Yrs just threw out an equal to them every time he needed someone who we could respect then that would lose all meaning. If we get two members of Viscount and Count clans, both at precisely the same age and a once in a few decades Talents, then was either an astronomically small chance or it cheapens the value of the Ducal's supposedly insane cultivation.
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Ling Qi actually is more talented than Meizhen and CRX. She caught up with them in less than two years after they cultivated with far more resources for 6-8 years before LQ
 
Blademaster said:
Ling Qi actually is more talented than Meizhen and CRX. She caught up with them in less than two years after they cultivated with far more resources for 6-8 years before LQ
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While exact Talent level is up in the air, and Ling Qi probably is a bit more talented than Meizhen and CRX, her catching up to trail them is less of an indicator of that than you might think.
14, the age at which Ling Qi entered the Sect and started, is the prime cultivation age, cultivation at ages younger than that has rapidly diminishing returns as cultivation penalties stack up
Most children of families with the means to cultivate typically start somewhere at the age of 10-12 to get a bit of a head start and most of them will not progress past red until they hit 14 due to the penalties, and they'll mostly focus on building up qi and working on some family arts instead
CRX starting at age 6 is not the norm for a reason, even aside from the risks to developmental health there is just no tangible benefit from that early a start

Futhermore the Outer Sect is not built to support Greens, Meizhen and CRX made the jump to Green in the Outer Sect in good time and then the resource crunch slowed them down for the rest of the year
Now in the Inner Sect with the greater resource availability we've all been more or less keeping pace with each other

As an aside the Talent difference is unlikely to be a discrete full number anyway, jumping up by a full digit is a mechanical abstraction, in universe it's more of a continuous scale
So Meizhen's Talent could be 5.6 in comparison to Ling Qi's 6 for example
 
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dycouza said:
Yes but we're practically caught up with CRX and Meizhen. The early advantage was quickly lost in our case. If Xia Lin is from our year that means she could give Ducal Scions a run for their money and is an equal in cultivation to CRX. Threshold is the level of Wang Chao who's two years older and of middling Count Talent. Xia Lin being one year older seems much more likely if she's firmly in the fourth stage as that would put her closer to GG's uncommonly high but not absurd Talent.
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Are we sure Wang Chao is a middling talent in general, or just compared to other count kids in the inner sect? Because people like Huang Da and even Fan Yu are count scions and Wang Chao is on a different planet than they are.
 
Blademaster said:
Ling Qi actually is more talented than Meizhen and CRX. She caught up with them in less than two years after they cultivated with far more resources for 6-8 years before LQ
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It's been said that it's difficult to progress before the age of fourteen, Bai Meizhen entered the Sect as the best Bai cultivator of her generation at Yellow. That's not because she couldn't do in a decade what Ling Qi did in less than a year, it's because cultivating becomes easier as you come into the right age. Ling Qi has it easier to catch up as they grow older but the closer it gets the slower it goes.
memoryofglory said:
Are we sure Wang Chao is a middling talent in general, or just compared to other count kids in the inner sect? Because people like Huang Da and even Fan Yu are count scions and Wang Chao is on a different planet than they are.
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yrsillar said:
Wang Chao was that patriarch's grandson, but wasn't particularly high in considerations of succession. One of his aunts was the head of the clan, and one of her adult sons was the heir. His father was one of their generals, and his mother was a courtier from the Celestial Peaks. He wasn't the least talented of his siblings and cousins, he was just kind of… middle of the pack.

Something he was a bit prickly about, going by what she had picked up. Which wasn't surprising, he was eighteen years old and she was already swiftly catching up to his cultivation. However, she did have an opening, though she would have to be careful not to prick his pride too much.
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He's two years older than us and at the fourth stage of Green. This is about where I could see Huang Da at in two years and Fan Yu is even below average for a Count but could probably still reach the early stages of Green by that time. And there's a years variance there because not everyone is born at the same time of year.
 
I don't think Ling Qi is more talented than Meizhen or Renxian, she is more driven, and has less package from expectations of what she should become.
She is also incredibly lucky, not just in finding cool shinies, but in that she gained the attention of one of the major great spirits as a child.
 
dycouza said:
It's been said that it's difficult to progress before the age of fourteen, Bai Meizhen entered the Sect as the best Bai cultivator of her generation at Yellow. That's not because she couldn't do in a decade what Ling Qi did in less than a year, it's because cultivating becomes easier as you come into the right age. Ling Qi has it easier to catch up as they grow older but the closer it gets the slower it goes.
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She was older, but it is still a gap, and Meizhen had far more resources, especially at the earlier times. LQ are more talented, just not to that amount
 
Blademaster said:
She was older, but it is still a gap, and Meizhen had far more resources, especially at the earlier times. LQ are more talented, just not to that amount
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They're around the same age
Unless you're refering to the age which they started cultivating? But again that isn't actually that big of an advantage, diminshing returns and all
And Meizhen's resources were fairly limited in the Outer Sect, she came in with more than we had and she got a care package or two, but she had to earn those care packages with good performance, for the most part she mostly operated using the resources available in the Outer Sect itself
That's the whole point after all, the environment is supposed to breed competition over limited resources, connections definitely help but they aren't going to let you just sit back coasting off of care packages, refusing to engage with the system
And I've mentioned how the resources available in the Outer Sect aren't really meant to sustain a Green which slowed the Monsters down before they got to the Inner

Meizhen also wasn't a particularly favored scion of her clan until she started making waves, from the perspective of many of her cousins back home she kinda came out of nowhere, so she didn't come to the Sect loaded to the gills with goodies
 
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CrimsonOddball said:
They're around the same age
Unless you're refering to the age which they started cultivating? But again that isn't actually that big of an advantage, diminshing returns and all
And Meizhen's resources were fairly limited in the Outer Sect, she came in with more than we had and she got a care package or two, but she had to earn those care packages with good performance, for the most part she mostly operated using the resources available in the Outer Sect itself
That's the whole point after all, the environment is supposed to breed competition over limited resources, connections definitely help but they aren't going to let you just sit back coasting off of care packages, refusing to engage with the system
And I've mentioned how the resources available in the Outer Sect aren't really meant to sustain a Green which slowed the Monsters down before they got to the Inner

Meizhen also wasn't a particularly favored scion of her clan until she started making waves, from the perspective of many of her cousins back home she kinda came out of nowhere, so she didn't come to the Sect loaded to the gills with goodies
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I dont say we are far more talented, but we are still more. Close, but more talented. Also, Ling Qi in the outer sect had no resources at all. Meizhen had a large advantage, and starting at yellow is quite an advantage still. We are more talented, but we are close
 
Blademaster said:
I dont say we are far more talented, but we are still more. Close, but more talented. Also, Ling Qi in the outer sect had no resources at all. Meizhen had a large advantage, and starting at yellow is quite an advantage still. We are more talented, but we are close
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Not sure if that's true.
Might be, but not convinced of it, we have benefits beyond raw talent.
 
I'm not really involved in the thread or the discord, etc. But I like the quest. And even I know by osmosis that one signficant source of Ling Qi's 'leg up' on other cultivators is the math cabal/quest format/omakes/pure protagonism power.
 
storryeater said:
While I agree she is a containter for goodest person, I'll have to say that Su Ling is also one, and I am notsure which is goodest.
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Also Li Suyin, i think.
Lawfull good Renxiang, Su Ling for Chaotic Good, and Li Suyin for neutral?
Ling Qi hovers around the good/neutral/chaos corssroads, while being steadily pulled towards good, and somewhat less towards lawfull, or atleast neutral, by her friends.
Meizhen is probably Lawfull Neutral bordering on evil, steadily moving away from evil, nice person to her friends, but way too ruthless against enemies to be really good, but not selfish or cruel enough to be truly evil.
 
Valmond said:
Also Li Suyin, i think.
Lawfull good Renxiang, Su Ling for Chaotic Good, and Li Suyin for neutral?
Ling Qi hovers around the good/neutral/chaos corssroads, while being steadily pulled towards good, and somewhat less towards lawfull, or atleast neutral, by her friends.
Meizhen is probably Lawfull Neutral bordering on evil, steadily moving away from evil, nice person to her friends, but way too ruthless against enemies to be really good, but not selfish or cruel enough to be truly evil.
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Honestly, I'd categorize Ling Qi as good too. In a "yes/no" system, a problem is created that when someone is good but less good, they seem neutral compared to someone more good, but I do not think someone isn't good because another is more good. I'd say Ling Qi is good, then, at this point of time, just not in contention for goodest. Other people also in this category: elder Jiao, fashion uncle, Xuan Shi.

Also, I think mud boy (rip) is the goodest neutral good in this story, but I digress.
 
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