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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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[] The tale of the lonely girl and an ugly city. A tale of youth, a tale of want. (Music skill advancement quest unlocked)
Given Jaromilla's questions of Ling Qi's motivations.

[] The tale of a daughter and mothers. A tale of loss and a tale of growth. (Jaromila bond up, Hanyi gains insight/bonus toward FSS successor)
Seems topical given the meeting just now.
 
It's possible that the lines between energies constituting Shen and those constituting Qi vary from system to system, sort of like how the (clear to an imperial cultivator) line between Shen and Sovereignty just straight up doesn't exist under the Chakras model.
 
[] The tale of a dreamer and a nightmare. A tale of fear and loathing. (Internal Insights, progress on heart demon)

We've been stuck on our heart demon for a long time, and it's going to hold us back even more if we don't address it.
 
[] The tale of a daughter and mothers. A tale of loss and a tale of growth. (Jaromila bond up, Hanyi gains insight/bonus toward FSS successor)

I am tending this way, because I don´t see a better place to gain useful insight on winter related arts(and themes) in any near feasible future. Hanyi maybe getting a better idea who she wishes to be and Jaromilas bond up are certainly side positives too.
 
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[] The tale of the lonely girl and an ugly city. A tale of youth, a tale of want. (Music skill advancement quest unlocked)

This is the most unvarnished description of who Ling Qi is. Unfortunately it also deprives Jaromila of the context necessary to actually understand it. This answer is fairly unproductive

[] The tale of a daughter and mothers. A tale of loss and a tale of growth. (Jaromila bond up, Hanyi gains insight/bonus toward FSS successor)

This one tells most of the same information as the first, but sacrifices a piece of it in order to cast things in terms that Jaromila can understand. It will leave some things out because of that, though

[] The tale of a dreamer and a nightmare. A tale of fear and loathing. (Internal Insights, progress on heart demon)

I don't see how this one actually answers the question of who Ling Qi is. Rather it is mostly a session of soul searching. On the plus side it will almost certainly tell Jaromila exactly what we've sacrificed for our cultivation and it does tell her a lot about us, but only tangentially. It is also the most vulnerable of the stories.

I'm personally leaning towards
[] The tale of a daughter and mothers. A tale of loss and a tale of growth. (Jaromila bond up, Hanyi gains insight/bonus toward FSS successor)
 
So one of the interesting things to note here is that where both these folks and Imperials become more and more spirit-like as they rise in cultivation, I suspect one of the reasons that being ruled by quasi spirits has worked so well for the Imperials is that their cultivation method ultimately means that people cultivate into "spirits of themselves" rather than spirits of a specific mantle they had high compatibility with.
You still end up with issues of very powerful and inflexible people making all the big decisions, but they are at the very least a caricature of the person they used to be rather than a mountain or whatever.
 
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picklepikkl said:
Hrm. I wonder why Indigo counts as the first step of apotheosis. You don't get Sovereignty until the sixth realm. There's nothing really... special about Indigo, as far as we understand it, so clearly there must be something we don't understand.
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I wonder if it's literally that that's the halfway point between human and spirit. Mortal, four realms of more human than spirit, four realms of more spirit than human, then Great Spirit.

Varder said:
I feel like I will die trying to pick something among these 3. I want all of them.
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"I still wish to know you better," Jaromila said after a moment. "I propose an exchange of tales. One tale of the past that you think informs who you are for one of mine. Is that acceptable?"

"Triple or nothing."

"What?"

"What?"
 
lioli said:
wonder what would happen if the two paradigms are merged; an Imperial crafter enhancing material from the body of a Polar Gates spirit cultivator, and a Polar Gates cultivator growing using a high-end talisman made by an Imperial cultivator. (Turning the iron fortress of the Polar Gates into a super robot, maybe?!)
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Shame we didn't go heavy on crafting. This could have been a chance to become OP.
 
[X] The tale of a daughter and mothers. A tale of loss and a tale of growth. (Jaromila bond up, Hanyi gains insight/bonus toward FSS successor)

[X] The tale of a dreamer and a nightmare. A tale of fear and loathing. (Internal Insights, progress on heart demon)

The first one for the Hanyi insight and the second because is about the heart demon
 
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[] The tale of a dreamer and a nightmare. A tale of fear and loathing. (Internal Insights, progress on heart demon)

If I remember right this heart demon is nerfing something.
 
[x] The tale of a daughter and mothers. A tale of loss and a tale of growth. (Jaromila bond up, Hanyi gains insight/bonus toward FSS successor)
 
LightLan said:
I wish yrsillar had given us that vote with us only choosing the story and having no idea about the reward(s).
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Oh God no. "This vote has mechanical consequences but you don't know what they are" breeds oceans of salt as people dissect the QM's words to try to get hints.
Wardragon said:
If I remember right this heart demon is nerfing something.
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-.2 multiplier on our cultivation, which is nontrivial but also not crippling.
WiFi said:
[x] The tale of a daughter and mothers. A tale of loss and a tale of growth. (Jaromila bond up, Hanyi gains insight/bonus toward FSS successor)
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Take the x out, there's a 2 hour moratorium on all votes and that's not up yet.
 
[] The tale of a dreamer and a nightmare. A tale of fear and loathing. (Internal Insights, progress on heart demon)

It's becoming a serious issue - got to work at it
 
Just checking - what step/realm was it that Shenhua and... that other guy who advanced way earlier than normal leapt to again? Was it indigo (5th) or violet (6th)?

Asking because this discussion of apotheosis and the pieces you sacrifice in cultivation (and how multiple styles still involve such sacrifice), makes me think maybe part of the "cheat" people have speculated that those 2 achieved involved making much more extreme sacrifices (and actually surviving to break through, rather than it backfiring or stunting them permanently like an extreme step/risk might normally be expected to cause)

We know that we've seen Shenhua seems particularly extremely dehumanized compared to other high tier cultivators we've seen. Maybe that's related to more extreme sacrifices of self that helped to speed her up?

I'm not sure if we had any evidence that the other guy was a particularly extreme personality, because I can't remember who he was and because we haven't actually seen him (iirc he's dead?)
 
Huh... It appears to me as if they are concerned about the possibility of ice leading to life a concept that they just dont believe in.
What Hanyi appears to be is an outgrowth a case of life living With or alongside Ice rather than just being Ice which is what they seem to think of Spirits like Zeqing. I am not sure how she was produced asides from spirit bullshit but Hanyi appears to be proof that spirits are not just their concept rather they appear to be connected to a concept and some others. Whichhas... Implications for a society that thinks of spirits as their concept rather than just manifesting or being the concept.
A subtle and razorthin difference but perhaps proof that their spirits are not all encompassing or as understood as the Ice Mothers think.
In a nutshell, the ice people and the Empire dont understand spirits or the world nearly as much as they think and they have plenty of surprises left.

[] The tale of a dreamer and a nightmare. A tale of fear and loathing. (Internal Insights, progress on heart demon)
There really is nothing what i absolutely want.
have no interest inJaromila up. Music skill advance is.... I dont know.
we need this but not sure it is nnecessary. Only picked cause this seems the most needed and immediately useful
 
yrsillar said:
"Those who walk the way so high can be pretty monstrous," Ling Qi acknowledged. "But… I think our ways are different, you can hold onto who you are if you cultivate properly."

...For most of the way at least. The Elders, they had their oddities, but they were still people. They weren't… like Shenhua. Probably, maybe she was just worse at hiding it.
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Pipeman said:
So one of the interesting things to note here is that where both these folks and Imperials become more and more spirit-like as they rise in cultivation, I suspect one of the reasons that being ruled by quasi spirits has worked so well for the Imperials is that their cultivation method ultimately means that people cultivate into "spirits of themselves" rather than spirits of a specific mantle they had high compatibility with.
You still end up with issues of very powerful and inflexible people making all the big decisions, but they are at the very least a caricature of the person they used to be rather than a mountain or whatever.
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Yeah, I wonder if the Way is one of the great advantages of Imperial Cultivation. Sure, your Way means you must stick with a rigid worldview and work to ensure it becomes reality. But you develop your Way in Green, when you are still mostly human, and therefore are still capable of caring about little things like Mortals and hardship. So the Way of even the greatest of Imperial Cultivators is almost always in some way related to regular concerns, and rarely become truly alien.

Even the cruel Way of the Duchess is all about making life better for everyone. It just doesn't care what they think about the change.
 
Caligstro said:
Just checking - what step/realm was it that Shenhua and... that other guy who advanced way earlier than normal leapt to again? Was it indigo (5th) or violet (6th)?

Asking because this discussion of apotheosis and the pieces you sacrifice in cultivation (and how multiple styles still involve such sacrifice), makes me think maybe part of the "cheat" people have speculated that those 2 achieved involved making much more extreme sacrifices (and actually surviving to break through, rather than it backfiring or stunting them permanently like an extreme step/risk might normally be expected to cause)

We know that we've seen Shenhua seems particularly extremely dehumanized compared to other high tier cultivators we've seen. Maybe that's related to more extreme sacrifices of self that helped to speed her up?

I'm not sure if we had any evidence that the other guy was a particularly extreme personality, because I can't remember who he was and because we haven't actually seen him (iirc he's dead?)
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If I'm remembering right she got to Indigo at a speed that was fairly normal for people on the great spirit track, then abruptly jumped to white in very little time.
 
Caligstro said:
Just checking - what step/realm was it that Shenhua and... that other guy who advanced way earlier than normal leapt to again? Was it indigo (5th) or violet (6th)?
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Shenhua was Indigo around 40 years old, which is "enormous talent and resources, but not unprecedented." She was then White ten years later. So she managed to speedrun the 5th, 6th, and 7th realms in one decade, which is an absurd bullshit ridiculous cheat of completely ludicrous proportions. Nobody hits White that early.
 
Oh man while it would be tempting to establish a bond with Jaromilla, I'm really tempted to make some head way on our heart demon...
 
[] The tale of a daughter and mothers. A tale of loss and a tale of growth. (Jaromila bond up, Hanyi gains insight/bonus toward FSS successor)

tale of a singular daughter and multiple mothers eh?
It's interesting that it's about us, so, it seems we saw Zeqing as a godmother/maternal even if we understood the danger of being "formally" adopted.

I think that'll be interesting for Hanyi to hear about. She is our little sister. We really want to maintain our connections.

I think this will help round out Jaromila's view of us, and is probably why it increases our bond. We don't want power for the sake of freedom/agency or for it's own sake. We want the freedom/agency so that we can maintain our connections and keep them safe. To protect those we care about to be able to grow.

but we're trying to balance making sure they're safe and making sure they're free to take risks. Same as we're trying to balance our own freedom with our desire for connections.
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Caligstro said:
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Shenhua is the highest tier cultivator we have met by a lot
the step below White is still very exceptional, but it's not White. White is uh, very strong.

and on top of that, Shenhua is mega-bullshit cheating.

The other guy you mention is Sun Shao, who is a White and we saw in an interlude how he uh. Got his daughter forcibly "adopted" by the Sunflower Demon. He got there fast but not Shenhua-Bullshit fast. He is widely regarded as having made some kind of pact/sacrifice to the Sunflower Demon.

both are pretty inhuman

but Shenhua Better :V
 
Pipeman said:
people cultivate into "spirits of themselves" rather than spirits of a specific mantle they had high compatibility with.
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I suspect the White Sky method is great for the people who're really compatible with specific mantles. Less so for the people who aren't.

For instance, they've got some pretty significant sex segregation going on. Gan Guangli would not be well served, I think.

Probably harder to come up with answers to new problems, too, with a conservative culture.
 
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yrsillar said:
"It is, and that is one of the reasons Ilsur and I believe they are so troubled," Jaromila said. "Those on the higher steps… they have too much power yes? Too much power to safely interact with humans without intermediaries. Such power that it is only good for war and intervening with the Land. You saw the ruin wrought by those who walk that road at the caldera. My mother chose that path, and though she is mighty, she is no longer my mother, though she might have lived a century more as a woman and not a spirit."

"There's nothin wrong with being a spirit," Hanyi huffed.

"Those who walk the way so high can be pretty monstrous," Ling Qi acknowledged. "But… I think our ways are different, you can hold onto who you are if you cultivate properly."

...For most of the way at least. The Elders, they had their oddities, but they were still people. They weren't… like Shenhua. Probably, maybe she was just worse at hiding it.
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To be fair Ling Qi, the average White does not rule, civic minded Whites are said to be exceptions. Prisms, who according to you can at least fake it, or (much more often) lower are the ones with the actual administrative positions, the stronk guys could assume control with a single word, sure, but they usually do not want to.

Hard to remember that when your liege's liege is one of those exceptions that is civic minded though.
 
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