Hello,
This is my first time posting here and I would first like to say that I'm a total noob at this type of quest, so I apologize if some of what I'm going to say is not quite right in the context of the quest, or if parts have been said before in one way or another. This is also not exactly the right timing for this post considering the events happening right now in the story, but I just got caught up and I feel like I need to post this.
I came across this quest after reading Forge of Destiny on RoyalRoad and then finishing the previous quest here.
My perspective is primarily as a reader and not as a "player" in the quest.
The main point of this post is to express my frustration with the way the story has been progressing recently and perhaps give some ideas how this can possibly be fixed, assuming there is a majority of people here who would agree with my points.
Let me start by saying that even though this is the first quest like this one that I've even read, let alone participated in, I do understand that one of the primary (if not the most important) goals of the quest is to make the main character grow as quickly as possible and get as strong as possible.
On the other hand, I do believe that the story itself is just as important, and for me - much more so.
Saying this, and I hope this doesn't insult anyone involved, I feel like the people who have been part of the majority on certain decisions, have been making straight up terrible choices based on trying to get the most "benefit" for Ling Qi, rather than basing the choice on what actually makes sense for her character based on her personality traits and the story as a whole.
The main bad decision in my mind, which has been leading to worse and worse developments in the story, has been the decision to become Cai Renxiang's vassal. The story as a whole started out great in the first quest and then somewhere towards the end of that quest and the majority of the current one, has been rapidly going downhill for me in terms of enjoyment, and I think it's all because of that.
The problem is that by being involved with Cai Renxiang, this will just lead to more and more politicking and less and less actual fun adventures and interesting situations. I don't know about you guys, but if I wanted to read about boring crap like politics I'd go read a newspaper, not a cultivation xianxia story... I also don't understand why people like to overcomplicate stories with this kind of stuff, when they were already great to begin with without all that.
As a further argument of why this doesn't even make sense in the context of the story, one of the absolute core traits of Ling Qi's personality has been (or at least was in the beginning) her desire to have freedom of choice. Now, I know some of you have previously argued that her choice to become Renxiang's retainer is an expression of that freedom and it makes sense why she would want to move away from the struggle and uncertainty she has always had in her life by directly attaching herself to someone powerful.
However, and I say this as a person who also has this personality trait where freedom of choice is one of the most important things for me, I can tell you that someone who thinks this way would absolutely never, under any circumstance, place themselves in a subordinate relationship where they aren't allowed to deny an order from their superior and also aren't allowed to quit. This basically takes away all freedom of choice in the context of that relationship, assuming the goals don't always align (which let's be real, they won't). For Ling Qi this would be the equivalent of being a slave, and it just makes no sense that she would ever agree to put herself in that situation.
Now, since it's already too late to change the initial decision, and the story has already been moving in this direction for a while, the question is whether there is any way to change the direction, assuming the majority opinion has changed since then.
Obviously, if the majority of people still believe the way the story is currently going is the right way, then this story is simply no longer for me and I'll leave it at that.
I do urge people to not only think of the material benefits for Ling Qi though, because if you consider it, if she doesn't entangle herself with politics, then there is really not that much reason why she needs to grow super quickly in her cultivation. You can't convince me that there's no way she can't just do her own thing and ignore all the nobles without them aggressively going after her. Some perhaps would have personal grudges depending on her actions (like maybe a little thievery here and there
), but that can be dealt with on her own. She is already strong enough to take care of her family and it's not like she will stop if she doesn't have excessive resources. Who knows, if she goes exploring and adventuring, it might actually end up being better than being gifted things. Of course, her life would be less secure and probably more of a struggle, but hasn't this always been the case before? Why would she be afraid of that?
Now, even though I have never really participated in a similar quest before, I'll give you my shot at how it may be possible to change the future direction of the story, while at the same time (I believe) this will make for a much more interesting story in the current quest as well.
Firstly, my main idea for detaching Ling Qi from the vassaldom would be to "fail" at achieving the necessary sect rank at the end of the period Cai Shenhua gave Ling Qi, and have her force Cai Renxiang to drop Ling Qi as a retainer (might have to fail pretty spectacularly). If Ling Qi also manages to distance her relationship (at least on a professional level) from Cai Renxiang before that, it's likely Renxiang won't fight her mother too much on that point. She might be able to do that by becoming seemingly more and more mediocre over time, and making small mistakes here and there just enough to frustrate Renxiang.
Obviously, doing this openly would be extremely dangerous since if Cai Shenhua catches wind that Ling Qi is doing this on purpuse, she mind just end up killing her. It is also likely that Cai Renxiang will see this plan coming and simply force Ling Qi to do her best.
So, this has to be done in a way that's not obvious.
To get this started, Ling Qi has to first start seeing the problems with where the vassaldom will lead her. I believe she already has started seeing some signs that her choice might've been a mistake. She does not like the social events Cai Renxiang is forcing on her and she also has problems with some other aspects of what will be expected of her (like marriage, playing diplomat, etc).
It would probably be fairly easy to get Ling Qi to realize she has to stop this before it goes too far.
At that point, she needs to make a plan that would make sense and be secretive enough that no one will find out. In order to do that, one idea I can come up with would be to start building Ling Qi's relationship with Bao Qingling soonish, so that by the time she figures out that she needs to escape the vassaldom, she may be close enough to Bao Qingling for her to share her secret method of hiding her cultivation. How the relationship could be built to that point would also be difficult, but maybe going with options that include Suyin and Bao Qingling until some relationship starts forming might be the way.
At that point, Ling Qi can slowly start to "fall behind" on her cultivation and then start incorporating small failures over the course of her work with Renxiang.
She could also lose a duel or two on purpose by choosing opponents that are seemingly within her range to defeat but are still stronger than her.
Eventually, she won't have a high enough rank at the end and also will no longer seem as capable in the eyes of Renxiang (and eventually Shenhua), as she does now.
That was it for my wall of text. I hope some of the above made sense and people would consider it.
