Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- United States of America
Maybe later! But right now she doesn't know what it is and she knows enough about cultivation that trying to do so without a dantian would be... extremely difficult.
- Location
- UK
Ah well, we have it a good go fellow Kouhai Cabalists.
Husbando Hunting it is!
Husbando Hunting it is!
- Pronouns
- They/It
While I was excited to see some more tutoring shenanigans, It's hard to complain about us continuing to rub elbows with one of the highest ranked inner sect members. 
Hmm, Ling Qi doesn't really fit the Sith or Jedi mold and most of the force powers attributed to each side don't fit her that well, besides animal friendship, alter environment, and a bunch of force stealth powers. As for her lightsaber style I would have to say either Shii-Cho, Soresu, Ataru, or Niman. Although, her domain weapon experience might help her with telekinetic lightsaber combat.
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FeFe
Black Noise
Curious
- Location
- About 1AU from Sol
Drew things in the dead time of a night shift.
@yrsillar
I bet she has these expressions a lot when interacting with LQ or her friend(s?).
May finish a more realistic version later, time/motivation permitting.
Bonus Hanyi concept:
I mean she basically is the corpse of a little girl that's quite far from human reason (for now).
May finish a more realistic version later, time/motivation permitting.
Bonus Hanyi concept:
I mean she basically is the corpse of a little girl that's quite far from human reason (for now).
@yrsillar
Wait.
I know why Ji Rong has a dragon.
It's because his heart was pure.
The dragons can tell that Xiulan is a gold digger who's not being authentic. That's why nothing she does works. Ji Rong otoh wasn't looking for a dragon. He was just out there braving the storm as an expression of his authentic manliness. That's why a dragon came to him.
I know why Ji Rong has a dragon.
It's because his heart was pure.
The dragons can tell that Xiulan is a gold digger who's not being authentic. That's why nothing she does works. Ji Rong otoh wasn't looking for a dragon. He was just out there braving the storm as an expression of his authentic manliness. That's why a dragon came to him.
Are you comparing dragons to unicorns and Ji Rong to a fair, pure-hearted maiden?
I was kinda thinking of us and Zhengui, but that works too.
- Location
- Fabulously Rainbow Ireland
I'unno, could have been a lady dragon and Ji Rong now has a new admirer
Sure! Because he was out there authentically.I'unno, could have been a lady dragon and Ji Rong now has a new admirer
Like, I'm sure dragons around the sect are perfectly used to - and unimpressed by - desperate young cultivators throwing themselves at them like the power hungry gold diggers they are. Xiulan isn't going to get anywhere acting like that.
- Location
- Fabulously Rainbow Ireland
That's virgins silly not the pure of heart
- Location
- The Temple of the Winds
This expression should be "not <larger example>, let alone the <smaller example>". It makes no sense otherwise.
Oh, i definitively what to read about this "latter" ! She's definitively going to do down the Sith Inquisitor path though i wonder how her Ling Qi-ness will resist the Sith brainwashing academy... or rather how the Sith will resist Ling Qi!
And ... wasn't there that Jedi(?) woman that fought with three(?) flying lightsabers ? That's definitively a girl that knows what she's doing.
His heart is pure.
Pure unadulterated
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Its a known thing. Dragon princesses can't resist mortal heroes, especially those who punch them first.
- Location
- Europe
Abode.
Dragons are masochists, more news at eleven!
- Location
- United States
A momentary grammar error (should be "their").
I enjoyed it but... was a bit surprised at how it seemed to be mostly pre-story.
- Location
- Finland
You know, if Ji Rong neither drops out of the story, or actually becomes an interesting character, he could become a funny one.
Give him an ever increasing harem of powerful spirits that become utterly useless in combat because of jealousy towards each other.
And all the while Ji Rong just keeps pining after Sun Liling who barely notices he exists.
Give him an ever increasing harem of powerful spirits that become utterly useless in combat because of jealousy towards each other.
And all the while Ji Rong just keeps pining after Sun Liling who barely notices he exists.
- Location
- USA
He's interesting but not relevant, I think. We just don't care very much.
- Location
- Finland
I can barely remember who he is.
No, he is not interesting, atleast as far as our story is concerned.
He could be interesting, with more focus, but that takes lot of screentime and we are short on that already.
Extremely difficult probably describes her training in general, though maybe not from her pespective. I can see it now. "Okay, yes passion, ambition, and anger are effective emotions for harnessing the force, but have you considered the close bonds of family and the solace they bring in an uncaring world?"
Come to think of it, the Jedi would probably find her pretty difficult as well.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that.
- Location
- UK
"I'll make my own Force Sect, with friendship and hugs!"
Jokes aside, feel this would be a really interesting path to take.
- Location
- scrabbling
I mean, I'd think that LQ's first reaction would be to assume that her situation is an illusion or formation or a Great Spirit's creation. Not that there is actually no qi. Having no qi to her is like us having no physics, or maybe no air. It's not congruent with her previous paradigm. Meanwhile she's already been in situations where those above her are completely capable of shutting off parts of reality, like the Moon journey or the Silent Stones or Jiao's formations. Being caught in another one of those would make much more sense to her than being in another dimension. 'Being in another dimension' or another body is the kind of thing that we the readers of FoD including ThorsTwin might jump to, because we've read a lot of fiction and fanfiction where that takes place and we're already reading fanfiction of webfiction, but it's not something that she could be exposed to.
- Location
- Canada
She'd probably be fine as a Jedi in the current period. It was only post-Russan that they doubled down on the 'no attachments' paradigm, and she otherwise has plenty of experience with meditation and spirituality, which essentially makes up the rest of it.
May the Force be with you Part 2
- Location
- United States of America
May the Force be with you? Part 2
Sweat beaded on Ling Qi's brow as she glared at the training robot. Another violent swing by the robot was met with a simple block and a backward step, putting her out of easy reach by her opponent's sword. As it was programmed to do, the robot pursued aggressively, stepping right next to a discarded sword. Ultimately, this was its downfall. With a quick tug of the force, Ling Qi telekinetically threw the discarded sword up and into the droid, past its defenses and straight into its power supply. The light dimmed in its eyes and it fell forward, almost on top of Ling Qi herself.
While Overseer Ragate had been very reluctant to actually teach Ling Qi soresu, once she had fully explained the style she wished to employ, Overseer Ragate's opinion had dramatically shifted. After being handed a basic primer of the different accepted styles of blade combat at the academy, and having watched some of the more advanced acolytes spar and train, the defensive style of soresu seemed to be the most effective method for surviving. Especially when combined with the telekinetic powers of the Force to effectively wield another blade behind the opponent. The idea had come to her after reading a story about an older Sith Lord called Darth Traya, and her ability to wield three lightsabers telekinetically. Apparently, while very few proper Sith every bothered with the extremely defensive style of soresu, Overseer Regate loved the cunning and viciousness needed to combine the two styles. The fact that it didn't occur to many Sith didn't surprise Ling Qi though. After all, pretty much all of them were absolutely insane.
Everyone here used the dark side of the Force to get stronger, and apparently the dark side of the Force favored negative emotions, like anger, rage, hatred, envy, jealousy, etc. Ling Qi knew full well the enticement of getting stronger and found it disturbing that most Sith seemed to indulge in all of their base negative emotions to do so. Anger led to more power, but to get even more power they needed to get even angrier. How anyone thought that getting a bunch of perpetually angry, hateful, spiteful, and jealous individuals leadership positions based on their strength in the force was beyond her. This entire system was completely insane! Even the first line of their spirits forsaken code predicted what will happen to the system. "Peace is a lie" just meant that the systems entire purpose was to create strife and conflict! How this group even formed an Empire was beyond her when every person in authority was affected by, and seeking, perpetual strife and conflict with their peers would be something only the Great Spirits could answer.
Even her months of research in the Academy's library gleaned no further answer as to how a system advocating being "free" could create an Empire whose entire political structure was determined by the rank held and what authority and power could be exercised on those lower in the hierarchy. Cai Renxiang would likely die of a heart attack just learning that such a convoluted mess of a system could exist. And while Ling Qi still struggled to understand the system that had been thrust upon her, other paths of research in the library proved much more fruitful. holobooks regarding how to conceal one's presence in the force were plentiful, as were datapads and sheets of flimsiplast on how to improve the telekinetic power of a Force push or pull. Other sections of the library were filled with sagas and ballads from a pre-empire sith order. Many of the songs, poems, or ballads gave her some interesting insights into the older Sith magic, or sorcery, and how nearly anything was possible with enough practice and skill. There were whispers and allusions in those ballads and songs of the magic being able to raise the dead to serve, to twist life to your whim, and to even shatter reality. Hopefully, she could find, or in the worst case attempt to develop, a spell intended to send a being back to where it belonged. At least… that was the idea.
Overseer Ragate, though, was ecstatic that an acolyte in her charge would be interested in Sith magic. Apparently, she was the administrator in charge of the more ancient knowledge in the academy, including the more arcane applications of the force. Which was fortunate, given that Ling Qi would need all of the ancient knowledge she could gather to piece together the means to return to where she had come from. There was even some information on Sith magic she had been able to scrounge from dark recesses of the library dealing with the very promising aspect of forging, breaking, and using connections between places, items, and beings. Although the warnings of intense dark side corruption were… disconcerting.
The date of Ling Qi's trial had arrived, on the anniversary of her arrival to this accursed place. Overseer Ragate had been given some leeway in when to give her trials, but apparently at least once a year was expected, unless special dispensation had been granted. No such dispensation had been granted for Ling Qi, and so into the Tuk'ata maw she was thrown. Sure, send the apparent twelve-year-old out into the desert of Korriban to find an aggressive pack of the carnivorous beasts and kill them. That sounded like a fantastic idea! Absolutely nothing could go wrong with that plan!
Sighing, Ling Qi continued her treck up the rocky, dusty hill to find a vantage spot. Dressed in a light red and brown robe with a grey hood sheltering her face from the noon-day sun, she had her two short sabers attached to either side of her body, and a pitch black flute hanging from her backpack. It was time to put into practice the very things she had been learning under Overseer Ragate's tutelage. Reaching the peak of the small hill, Ling Qi sat down and withdrew a tall, thin, cylinder from her pack. Then, with one massive heave, she sent it straight down a patch of soft sand almost burying it completely.
"Well," Ling Qi muttered, "its time to begin."
Sith magic was unique in force abilities given that it had a strange property of being understood differently by different people. Ling Qi found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that she sensed it as if it was a musical melody. And to her, music was the best way to invoke the power of Sith magic. True use of Sith magic was rare among the acolytes, and even rarer was one who used music to invoke it. As such, there was hardly any information about the subject, and it took her long nights under the watchful eye of Overseer Ragate until a system of transcribing the spells found in the books of Sith magic to specialized sheet music was created. Overseer Ragate was… disappointed with the results given that it made the spells take even longer to invoke than normal, but Ling Qi had been quite happy with it. It significantly reduced the chance of dark side corruption when using this method. Well, at least for her. She had trained under Zeqing, the Winter's Muse, and had developed her own understanding of the way music could affect the world. Her training and dedication to music had led to a deeper understanding and control of the more conceptual aspects of melodies than any of these Sith could imagine. And to finally use music to once again impose her will upon the world? It brought back a joy she thought she might have forgotten about on this accursed world.
Unlatching her flute from the backpack, Ling Qi brought it to her lips and began to play. Strange notes and melodies drifted forth, barely perceptible to the ear, but the effects on the Force were very visible. The Force began to reflect the melody, cascading and diminishing with the crescendos and decrescendos. As expected, the Force tried to mingle with her own presence, to corrupt it with darkness, anger, hatred, and envy, but she rebuffed it. It was hers to control, and she had no desire for it to infect her. And as the spell began to reach its conclusion, the Force became more insistent until finally it found a small breach and flooded her. But it was too late, the spell had ended, and the connection had been forged between herself and the tall cylinder in the ground. And through that connection, she dumped all of the discordant notes the corruption represented into the cylinder, cleansing herself in the process.
Looking up at the Sun in the sky, Ling Qi sighed. It had taken an hour, maybe an hour and a half to forge the one-way connection. Taking a swig from her canteen, Ling Qi began the second step of the plan. Hopefully, this would go quicker.
It didn't. Night had long since fallen when the last notes from Ling Qi's flute petered out, but at least the trap had been set. All around her small perch, a flat placid sheet of darkness had expanded. Covering the entire top of the hill, it offered no way to reach her without first stepping foot on top of the pitch black surface. Even the space around her had been warped, knotted into impossible invisible patterns that would send any leaping Tuk'ata straight into the endless abyss surrounding her. The cost, however, had been enormous. The grounding cylinder next to her was closing in on a critical mass of dark side corruption. Hours of suffering from intense corruption had been placed inside, and now it was almost too dangerous to handle without proper equipment. Which was a shame as each cylinder had to be handcrafted, molded and filled and that took weeks of time.
It would handle a little bit more, hopefully. With careful precision, Ling Qi began to weave an entirely different melody, a melody that the Force seemed almost eager to indulge in. Notes just outside of the normal hearing range of humans, but still well within the Tuk'ata's spread out, with an insidious command echoing in the Force. Come. The reports had said that the Tuk'ata's den was somewhere near her, and so, ideally, they would all hear the music and be enticed by the dark side to come to her. And it worked. A pack of Tuk'ata appeared, numbering in the twenties, and hungry for a feast. Climbing up the hill at lightning speeds, the first Tuk'ata reached the pool and jumped for her, jaws widening in preparation, only for the beast to be slammed down on to the sheet of darkness. Immediately, the pool began to work its magic, pulling the heat and energy out of the animal in violent fashion. Blood expanded in its veins and air contracted in its lungs. Without even time to whine in pain, the Tuk'ata died, frozen upon the pool as a statue. The pack, in their mindless aggression, soon followed. Each leaping at Ling Qi or stepping on the pool of their own volition. And each died the same way. Once the last member of the pack had frozen solid, Ling Qi stopped playing and grimaced at her handiwork. It was like a gruesome statue garden of hideous monsters in various poses, all distorted and made more disturbing by the ice that coated and destroyed their body.
It took a surprising amount of effort, but Ling Qi was finally able to release the pool of darkness and the space she had bent to her will. Walking over to the deceased pack, she began the distasteful work of taking the right ear from each beast as a trophy and evidence of a task completed. Hopefully, she wouldn't have to do something like this again for at least another year.
A/N: @yrsillar another omake for the omake throne! As always, comments, critiques, and criticisms are welcomed.
Sweat beaded on Ling Qi's brow as she glared at the training robot. Another violent swing by the robot was met with a simple block and a backward step, putting her out of easy reach by her opponent's sword. As it was programmed to do, the robot pursued aggressively, stepping right next to a discarded sword. Ultimately, this was its downfall. With a quick tug of the force, Ling Qi telekinetically threw the discarded sword up and into the droid, past its defenses and straight into its power supply. The light dimmed in its eyes and it fell forward, almost on top of Ling Qi herself.
While Overseer Ragate had been very reluctant to actually teach Ling Qi soresu, once she had fully explained the style she wished to employ, Overseer Ragate's opinion had dramatically shifted. After being handed a basic primer of the different accepted styles of blade combat at the academy, and having watched some of the more advanced acolytes spar and train, the defensive style of soresu seemed to be the most effective method for surviving. Especially when combined with the telekinetic powers of the Force to effectively wield another blade behind the opponent. The idea had come to her after reading a story about an older Sith Lord called Darth Traya, and her ability to wield three lightsabers telekinetically. Apparently, while very few proper Sith every bothered with the extremely defensive style of soresu, Overseer Regate loved the cunning and viciousness needed to combine the two styles. The fact that it didn't occur to many Sith didn't surprise Ling Qi though. After all, pretty much all of them were absolutely insane.
Everyone here used the dark side of the Force to get stronger, and apparently the dark side of the Force favored negative emotions, like anger, rage, hatred, envy, jealousy, etc. Ling Qi knew full well the enticement of getting stronger and found it disturbing that most Sith seemed to indulge in all of their base negative emotions to do so. Anger led to more power, but to get even more power they needed to get even angrier. How anyone thought that getting a bunch of perpetually angry, hateful, spiteful, and jealous individuals leadership positions based on their strength in the force was beyond her. This entire system was completely insane! Even the first line of their spirits forsaken code predicted what will happen to the system. "Peace is a lie" just meant that the systems entire purpose was to create strife and conflict! How this group even formed an Empire was beyond her when every person in authority was affected by, and seeking, perpetual strife and conflict with their peers would be something only the Great Spirits could answer.
Even her months of research in the Academy's library gleaned no further answer as to how a system advocating being "free" could create an Empire whose entire political structure was determined by the rank held and what authority and power could be exercised on those lower in the hierarchy. Cai Renxiang would likely die of a heart attack just learning that such a convoluted mess of a system could exist. And while Ling Qi still struggled to understand the system that had been thrust upon her, other paths of research in the library proved much more fruitful. holobooks regarding how to conceal one's presence in the force were plentiful, as were datapads and sheets of flimsiplast on how to improve the telekinetic power of a Force push or pull. Other sections of the library were filled with sagas and ballads from a pre-empire sith order. Many of the songs, poems, or ballads gave her some interesting insights into the older Sith magic, or sorcery, and how nearly anything was possible with enough practice and skill. There were whispers and allusions in those ballads and songs of the magic being able to raise the dead to serve, to twist life to your whim, and to even shatter reality. Hopefully, she could find, or in the worst case attempt to develop, a spell intended to send a being back to where it belonged. At least… that was the idea.
Overseer Ragate, though, was ecstatic that an acolyte in her charge would be interested in Sith magic. Apparently, she was the administrator in charge of the more ancient knowledge in the academy, including the more arcane applications of the force. Which was fortunate, given that Ling Qi would need all of the ancient knowledge she could gather to piece together the means to return to where she had come from. There was even some information on Sith magic she had been able to scrounge from dark recesses of the library dealing with the very promising aspect of forging, breaking, and using connections between places, items, and beings. Although the warnings of intense dark side corruption were… disconcerting.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The date of Ling Qi's trial had arrived, on the anniversary of her arrival to this accursed place. Overseer Ragate had been given some leeway in when to give her trials, but apparently at least once a year was expected, unless special dispensation had been granted. No such dispensation had been granted for Ling Qi, and so into the Tuk'ata maw she was thrown. Sure, send the apparent twelve-year-old out into the desert of Korriban to find an aggressive pack of the carnivorous beasts and kill them. That sounded like a fantastic idea! Absolutely nothing could go wrong with that plan!
Sighing, Ling Qi continued her treck up the rocky, dusty hill to find a vantage spot. Dressed in a light red and brown robe with a grey hood sheltering her face from the noon-day sun, she had her two short sabers attached to either side of her body, and a pitch black flute hanging from her backpack. It was time to put into practice the very things she had been learning under Overseer Ragate's tutelage. Reaching the peak of the small hill, Ling Qi sat down and withdrew a tall, thin, cylinder from her pack. Then, with one massive heave, she sent it straight down a patch of soft sand almost burying it completely.
"Well," Ling Qi muttered, "its time to begin."
Sith magic was unique in force abilities given that it had a strange property of being understood differently by different people. Ling Qi found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that she sensed it as if it was a musical melody. And to her, music was the best way to invoke the power of Sith magic. True use of Sith magic was rare among the acolytes, and even rarer was one who used music to invoke it. As such, there was hardly any information about the subject, and it took her long nights under the watchful eye of Overseer Ragate until a system of transcribing the spells found in the books of Sith magic to specialized sheet music was created. Overseer Ragate was… disappointed with the results given that it made the spells take even longer to invoke than normal, but Ling Qi had been quite happy with it. It significantly reduced the chance of dark side corruption when using this method. Well, at least for her. She had trained under Zeqing, the Winter's Muse, and had developed her own understanding of the way music could affect the world. Her training and dedication to music had led to a deeper understanding and control of the more conceptual aspects of melodies than any of these Sith could imagine. And to finally use music to once again impose her will upon the world? It brought back a joy she thought she might have forgotten about on this accursed world.
Unlatching her flute from the backpack, Ling Qi brought it to her lips and began to play. Strange notes and melodies drifted forth, barely perceptible to the ear, but the effects on the Force were very visible. The Force began to reflect the melody, cascading and diminishing with the crescendos and decrescendos. As expected, the Force tried to mingle with her own presence, to corrupt it with darkness, anger, hatred, and envy, but she rebuffed it. It was hers to control, and she had no desire for it to infect her. And as the spell began to reach its conclusion, the Force became more insistent until finally it found a small breach and flooded her. But it was too late, the spell had ended, and the connection had been forged between herself and the tall cylinder in the ground. And through that connection, she dumped all of the discordant notes the corruption represented into the cylinder, cleansing herself in the process.
Looking up at the Sun in the sky, Ling Qi sighed. It had taken an hour, maybe an hour and a half to forge the one-way connection. Taking a swig from her canteen, Ling Qi began the second step of the plan. Hopefully, this would go quicker.
It didn't. Night had long since fallen when the last notes from Ling Qi's flute petered out, but at least the trap had been set. All around her small perch, a flat placid sheet of darkness had expanded. Covering the entire top of the hill, it offered no way to reach her without first stepping foot on top of the pitch black surface. Even the space around her had been warped, knotted into impossible invisible patterns that would send any leaping Tuk'ata straight into the endless abyss surrounding her. The cost, however, had been enormous. The grounding cylinder next to her was closing in on a critical mass of dark side corruption. Hours of suffering from intense corruption had been placed inside, and now it was almost too dangerous to handle without proper equipment. Which was a shame as each cylinder had to be handcrafted, molded and filled and that took weeks of time.
It would handle a little bit more, hopefully. With careful precision, Ling Qi began to weave an entirely different melody, a melody that the Force seemed almost eager to indulge in. Notes just outside of the normal hearing range of humans, but still well within the Tuk'ata's spread out, with an insidious command echoing in the Force. Come. The reports had said that the Tuk'ata's den was somewhere near her, and so, ideally, they would all hear the music and be enticed by the dark side to come to her. And it worked. A pack of Tuk'ata appeared, numbering in the twenties, and hungry for a feast. Climbing up the hill at lightning speeds, the first Tuk'ata reached the pool and jumped for her, jaws widening in preparation, only for the beast to be slammed down on to the sheet of darkness. Immediately, the pool began to work its magic, pulling the heat and energy out of the animal in violent fashion. Blood expanded in its veins and air contracted in its lungs. Without even time to whine in pain, the Tuk'ata died, frozen upon the pool as a statue. The pack, in their mindless aggression, soon followed. Each leaping at Ling Qi or stepping on the pool of their own volition. And each died the same way. Once the last member of the pack had frozen solid, Ling Qi stopped playing and grimaced at her handiwork. It was like a gruesome statue garden of hideous monsters in various poses, all distorted and made more disturbing by the ice that coated and destroyed their body.
It took a surprising amount of effort, but Ling Qi was finally able to release the pool of darkness and the space she had bent to her will. Walking over to the deceased pack, she began the distasteful work of taking the right ear from each beast as a trophy and evidence of a task completed. Hopefully, she wouldn't have to do something like this again for at least another year.
A/N: @yrsillar another omake for the omake throne! As always, comments, critiques, and criticisms are welcomed.
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