KtH rants

Spell style

Question: what does taking Spells as a fighting style get you in terms of non-technique stuff?
Obviously you can fluff your techniques as fancy magic, but like... without techniques a sword user can still stab someone. Do spell users get some miscellaneous collection of magic and rituals or anything like that?

Having some misc. spells is within reason, yes. So something like cantrips in D&D. Small, easy to use spells that don't do much in combat but are nice for QoL or for dealing with low level jobbers.

As for more complex rituals, that's more in line with a profession. At most, maybe they'd know some of the older non-combat spells that take a few minutes to cast (which is forever and a half in a setting where people can kung-fu at super sonic speeds). They'd probably be around the level of a technique, and a lot more energy efficient but in exchange for being absolutely worthless in combat.

Techniques necessary?

Honestly, i have to ask, are techniques even completely necessary?

Pretty much yes. Techniques are rather large multipliers. Like using a traveling technique in combat wouldn't be too bad. It'd be a disadvantage, but it's not jobber tier. But not having a movement technique at all means being extremely slow relative to someone that does- they'd be able to easily stay out of range of your your melee attacks and they'd be fuck all to do about it. Same deal with attacks. If you just punch out without even using a technique, other people on your level can reliable no-sell that punch with just an endurance technique.

In general terms, no techniques would be a -1 Realm Grade debuff in terms of your overall power. This is why I hand out freebies.

Also, there's no rules against having non-cultivation techniques that are flavored as using multiple systems. Such techniques will get dragged down if one of those systems are significantly weaker than the other however.

Normal fighting vs body tempering attack

What's even the difference between a normal fighting style and a body tempering attack technique?

Think of it like the difference between a basic attack and an active skill in a game that heavily favors skills

Sealing vs ambush or reversal

Hmm, what would be the difference from a sealing technique from ambush or say the reversal technique?

Honestly sealing techniques in general are kind of ambush-y in that they're an unexpected and unorthodox way to suppress the opponent.

Generally speaking, a Sealing Technique done as an attack technique should be obvious and brute force. A solid Buddhist style example is forming a giant bronze bell made out of shimmering light that lands on the target and then traps them within.

Meanwhile a Sealing Technique done as an Ambush Technique should be tricky and unexpected. One fun example would be a case of a hidden trap, where you invisibly place the Sealing Technique where you stand and bait the enemy into following you, at which point the ground opens up and swallows them, trapping them inside an earthen pit. Sneaky attacks like a fireball that turns into a flaming snake that swallows and seals the opponent, or even a soul based seal that invisibly forms a cage around their soul, cutting it off from their body are also possible examples.

Incidentally, something like the Gentle Fist from Naruto could be a good representative of a Barrage- where every single blow that lands is a tiny seal that closes an energy pathway in the targets body. Or a trump card could be like summoning a giant hand in the sky, with each finger bearing a different element. The hand forms a palm and crashes down onto the target, with the five elements mutually supporting each other and covering for their weaknesses.

Fallen Immortal Young Master + Jade Ring

What sort of dangers can a Fallen Immortal Young Master of a sect/empire/clan fluffed as being the reincarnation of it's founder expect if they take Treasuring a Jade Ring?

The main issue isn't that the founder reincarnated (that's not very hard for an immortal)- it's that he/she managed to reset their lifespan in doing so. So basically anyone that's on the older side (like immortals and gods) are going to see you as a walking secret to regaining their youth. Worst case, you might get an actual hoard of gods joining forces to extract that secret (even if you yourself can't help them because you don't even know how it happened).

If you might be wondering 'if they're immortal, why do they care about youth?', then it's because immortals don't have a lifespan, but they still get 'older' (if at a very slow pace). The older a cultivator gets, the slower their cultivation can progress, until eventually they can't make any more progress at all. If they could unlock the secrets to the Fallen Immortal encounter, they could restart and use all their wisdom and proficiency to speedrun their cultivation and reach for a much higher Realm.

Winged tiger

While you're still around, I really should ask, I didn't understand the "like a tiger that grows wings" advantage, what exactly does it do? Free treasures?

It can be used for fodder treasures that don't meaningfully affect your combat power. So it's not normally a combat perk. It's also a source of spending money if you want to be a rich person that solves problems with money.

The most powerful use of the perk is together with professions. Most professions have some kind of material that they use to make their products. Immortal Chefs need food ingredients. Alchemists need rare herbs. Item Refiners need ores. Talisman makers need stuff that can be grinded into ink, etc, etc. The 'Like a Tiger with Wings' perk means you have a fluffable supply of those materials and are allowed to mass produce the things that you yourself know how to create- So an Alchemist with it can just have a hundred bottles of healing pills in his bag of holding just because he made them himself. And alchemist without the perk might be able to fluff themselves as having a bottle of pills, but that's about it since he couldn't afford the materials to make more. (is the intent).

Talisman Inscription tiers

A bit. I'm thinking for the spearfu that the Inscription is ridiculously op now a sits tao treasure tier, but it's scaled to hell and back with inheritance treasure, so it's not at that level effectively (so the "invincible position" would require him to go up multiple grades first). I'm considering something spatial related to have that promise of it being op (and I just like that theme...). Like for the usable effect some space rending for basic passive offensive buff, and for active the ability to teleport owner/spear/spirit to a location of another of the three (so throw a spear and teleport to it, or just teleport it back to yourself to throw again, or swap position with waifu etc). Would that work?

Yeah. That's pretty much how Inheritance treasure is meant to be used- all the abilities have a common theme of 'tearing space' and have a clear progression of power.

At Grade 1-2 it would just clad the spear in 'spatial energy' or something, making it oddly sharp.
At Grade 3-4 it'd let you do some minor and handy trick.
At Grade 5-6 it'd start getting silly.
At Grade 7+ you can use the true form of the Talisman Inscription.

Your teleport / swap idea could work for either Magic or Immortal level depending on how hard you wank it. But it's 100% in line with what I intended for this kind of thing.

Talisman Inscriptions examples

Thanks. Could you expand on Talisman Inscriptions while you're at it? Some more examples of what they could do?

Honestly? It's just a vague sense. Magical items in Xianxia tend to do weird things that can't be well explained.

Mortal Treasures are pretty simple- they don't do anything fancy. At most they light on fire or maybe make arrows out of water.

Magic Treasures are do small gimmicks. Magical effects that are generall useful and/or powerful but don't seem very high level. The invisibility example was used because it won't help you once the enemy knows roughly where you are- they can just attack your general location to expose you and figure out your exact location. If it seems useful, but can only play a supporting role instead of being a major threat in and of itself, then it's probably a Magic treasure.

Immortal Treasures do very magical things that are generally very impressive. The example of hiding in a pocket space was given because spatial manipulation is a very high level power and it's hard to mess with, but at the same time, if you want to go on the offensive, you need to open yourself up to get counter attacks by deactivating the effect. If it seems extremely powerful, but there's a flaw that means enemies can work around it, then it's probably an Immortal Treasure.

Tao Treasures do impossible bullshit things that don't make sense. The example was basically a paradox because if you can interact with the world, then you should be in that dimension, and if you can't be interacted with, then that's a sign that you're not in that dimension- and yet somehow both are true. If it's capable of putting you in an invincible position outright, then it's probably a Tao Treasure.

That's generally the logic I used- which really isn't much. It's just subjective. I don't think there's too much control I can or should exercise with custom abilities. Regardless, hopefully it was at least a little useful.

Sealing

Speaking of it, how have i not asked for a rant on sealing yet? How shamefur of me.

It's nothing too special. The most basic ones are like the offensive use of a barrier technique where you just wrap your attack around the target and trap them inside.
Some of the more advanced ones can even shrink the target down to trap them into a tiny space, or alter the state of their body- something like petrifying them or turning them into a wooden figurine.
It's also possible to seal the energy pathways inside the targets body to make them powerless. (Note that the sealing technique needs to be formed outside the targets body and then forcefully implanted).
If someone had their Heart (the storage unit for Life Force), their Inner World (the storage unit for Qi), and their Mind Sea (the storage unit for Soul Energy) all sealed up, they'd be pretty much screwed. They'd be like a unusually chad mortal with a bizarrely long lifespan. Of course, if instead of sealing, you just the same amount of power and stabbed them in those spots with a sword, they'd be screwed too- that's just death.

From what I've seen sealing as a Profession Technique would be open to having beneficial effects, akin to sealing magical power inside of someone to buff them. So in theory a sealing technique could also be a form of buffing technique (which would probably be an 'Other' technique unless you did it through a profession).

Life-Bound Treasure

Thanks. The pic does have a spear though (in his right hand, the tip isn't visible, but it goes out of frame), that's why I asked. And since Life-Bound Treasure was mentioned. Could it in this case be hidden both inside him and inside her spirit body (and by extension also she hiding inside him)? And yeah, I guess it would be kind of a companion. I viewed it a bit like Soul Eater (never finished that anime, only seen a couple episodes when it was coming out, but it matched here).

The spear can be hidden inside your body. It can be hidden inside of her body.

If she's hidden inside of your body, it can be both at once. If she leaves your body, then it's either inside your body or inside her spirit-body and not both, unless duplicating itself is it's Talisman Inscription, akin to the Ruyi Jingu Bang staff.

In short, your body is a bag of holding for the spear. Her spirit body is a separate bag of holding for the spear.

Which is to say that if she keeps the spear inside of herself and goes to the other side of the world, you can't just pull her out from inside your body. You'd need to go catch up to her.

Treasure spirit human form

A question about treasure spirits. It has a human form, right? Is it like a transformation or more like a djinni and a lamp? As in for spearfu, can she be in her human form while the spear still is usable or no? Asking because I started looking for an image and it made me wonder. I guess I could still say that pic related is just metaphorical if it's a transformation (and that's how I first imagined it), but thought I'll ask.

Treasure Spirits can have a human shape, yeah. It's not required. It could still be a frog or something. And it's more like a djinni and a lamp situation, where the spirit leaves the treasure.

If a treasure spirit can transform it's actual body (the treasure) into a human form, that means it's managed to become a demon (which is possible, by the way), but such things exist outside the scope of the CYOA since that wouldn't be a treasure anymore- that would flat out be a companion. In other words, it's not illegal, but it's not supported either. It'd be like writing your mentor in your Taoist Roots into being your body guard and journeying with you.

That aside, the picture is 100% possible. Although they are spirit forms, they can exert physical force it they want to- same with all ghosts of that level. So giving a hug is easy-peasy. Even the lack of a spear can be explained- he probably just stored the treasure into a 'bag of holding' or even inside his own body via the Life-Bound Treasure function. Neither of those things would stop her from coming out to give him a hug.
It's also possible that she just stored the spear inside of her own spirit-body in a process similar to the Life-Bound Treasure feature.

Formations

Is the technique a specific formation or is it just needed to make them? Asking to make sure since I'm pretty sure you're saying it's a specific formation.

I was just talking about Profession (Formations) techniques when I said:

but for Formations, you would need a technique and Comprehension (formations), in addition to the resources, all of the appropriate grade.

In other words, the grade of your Profession technique is limit of the formations you can create.

The reason why this is a thing, is because Formations don't require any power or energy from the user. In theory, a complete mortal with no cultivation at all could set up a formation. Talismans on the other hand require a certain amount of energy from the crafter. It's something akin to saving spells for later in a spell scroll in D&D, with the exception that you don't need to be able to cast the actual spell that you're storing.

As for Specific Formations granted by refluffing non-profession techniques (i.e. attack techniques or barrier techniques), those would revert back to playing by the Grade system rules where it's based on your own strength, but in return can be set up mid combat. it's not exactly logical, but balance is balance.

Incidentally, Profession (Formations) can be used to bypass Grade Requirements of other Professions to make very strong pills, tame powerful beasts, make uber-talismans, etc, and generally break the balance of the CYOA entirely- provided you can somehow get your hands on the resources to keep doing that.

It's essentially the secret 4th cultivation system alongside Qi Gathering, Body Tempering, and Soul Refining. If you look back, early in the CYOA, I talk about 4 different people that founded cultivation. One of them had not talent for any of the three 'Realms', but could still kill gods and stand on par with the other three founders of cultivation. She was the founder of Formations.

Talisman/Formation users

How does making a Talisman/Formation user actually work? Are the techniques you buy meant to represent the talismans/formations you can actually use or are they meant to aid you in making them or act as a metamagic option? Do you still need to buy talismans with the Treasure section in order to have them?(Aside from just having some at a lower grade than you thanks to Tiger has grown Wings)

You're free to fluff your other techniques as special talismans you know how to craft, but aren't required to do so.
By default, talismans aren't too powerful, but the advantage is that you can spam them without using any energy on your own part.
For balance reasons, if you fluff your techniques as special talismans, I'd also ask that you find a way to restrict it's usage, like having a limited supply due to rare materials, or that the special talisman requires the use of additional energy from the user, just like a regular technique.
However, even without any techniques beyond the profession, you can make literally any kind of talisman with any attributes- provided you can find materials with those attributes. A talisman user could theoretically make a talisman that manipulates time if they somehow found a material that has time 'energy' inside of it.

Since you can make your own talismans, you naturally don't need to buy them from the treasure section for anything you can make. Ideally, someone that dabbles in it should be able to make a talisman of their own Realm Grade. Someone with the wealth perk could feasibly mass produce them. Characters that invests heavily into talismans could possibly make products of the grade above themselves, letting them fight above their pay grade.

Formation users are even more extreme in terms of being able to defy the grade system. In theory, a formation can be strong enough to fight a Grade 10 individual even if a Grade 1 person made it. it'd just need a nonsensical amount of resources is all. The big issue is that formations cannot be moved. Moving a formation is one of the ways to break it, at which point all the materials go to waste.
The other big thing is time. A talisman can be made in minutes, but a formation can take days, months, or even all the way up to millennia to create. So you can't just set one down in the middle of a fight. At least not without some serious scheming and preparation.
And I ran out of room to say this, but for Formations, you would need a technique and Comprehension (formations), in addition to the resources, all of the appropriate grade.

Someone with only a grade 1 Profession technique and a grade 1 comprehension for formations isn't going to create a Grade 10 formation no matter how many years he's given or how many resources he uses. Such a formation would require the knowledge, comprehension, and resources all at that level. At best you can average out the 3 factors.

7th vs 3rd realm conflict

Do you really think there’s no viable narrative space to write around, say, a 7th realm cultivator and a 3rd realm cultivator and a conflict between them? Just as an example.

There's a few ways to do that, playing by the usual Xianxia rules.
One is a formal duel, in which case the Grade 7 could be required to temporarily suppress their realm (that's a thing that can be done by the way.)
There's also one-off consumables. Something like a talisman could give a major power buff for a fight, such that even a grade 1 could go clash with a grade 9.
Similar to that is a location based advantage- some places can lend power to their owner, so it could be an adventure where the low grade guy gets a head start and takes control of the place and borrows its power to fight off the high grade guy.
Another kind of location based advantage is that some special 'dungeons' can have weird rules like 'no one above Grade 3 is allowed inside'. If you break the rule, the domain instantly kill/ejects you- so the elders would need to suppress their Realm if they wanted to come inside. Or some such dungeons might just automatically adjust anyone above Garde 3 down to Grade 3.
A really basic and obvious trick is to just have the high grade guy get injured bad enough before the fight- though that'd require them not taking the Camel perk or the anon waiving off on it.

Xianxia loves letting the low level MC turn things around and counter attack against hopelessly more powerful enemies, so there's a lot of ways to make it happen.

Are low realms screwed?

But then that pretty much screws over anyone who took something else, didn't it?

High cultivation realm was never the intended niche of any of the other options. Just an unintended side effect of some of them. Not to mention that if you planned on playing as an older character to begin with, you wouldn't be affected at all.

Grade 11 talent boomers

I mean, you went out of your way to take an Grade 11 bloodline, but then it turns out you can't be anywhere close to that unless you play as a wrinkly old man?

Your advantage for having a Grade 11 Bloodline is that your body is outright better than anyone else on your level other than other people that took the same option, and the flavor of being related to some kind of ridiculous high level entity. It might end up being a small net positive to your Realm, but not as extreme as it ended up.

I'll also take this chance to make another small note- cultivators don't visually age unless they feel like or they're extremely close to death by old age. You can have an Elder level figure that looks like a child and acts like a child in spite of being millions of years old, or a junior level figure that looks and acts like an old man because he was already in his 50s when he started cultivating a decade ago.

So the age categories wouldn't control how you look or act, just how old the character is and what that age implies for their ability to cultivate further.

Cultivators interacting with normal plebs

also do cultivators just not interact with normal people at all? do they just sit in temples all day?

Most don't. Like 99.99%. Cultivators are kind of like super nobility in terms of status. Even low level cultivators are considered higher in terms of social status than mortal emperors. There are plenty of cultivators that do interact with mortals though. Some play the role of the local guardian deity, offering various forms of aid from healing to protection while they just peace out. Others just quietly go live somewhere without revealing their supernatural powers.
It's a comfy lifestyle, but it doesn't make for good cultivation progress. So it's either really weak people with no desire to fight to the death over resources or really old people that can't really make progress anymore, such that fighting over resources doesn't matter to them- so kind of like retirement.

The main exception is sect recruitment and Devil Sects. Sects will go to mortal settlements every few years to check if any mortals were born with good talent. Sometimes they even find really, really talented kids that way. Kids that pass the tests are recruited into the sect (this is usually done at a very early age- like 3-6 years old).
Devil Sects like to capture mortals and torture them to death for various evil rituals. It's one of the main reasons everyone else wants to kill them.

What do sects do

what do sects even do? are they just cults?

It's kind of like a school of cultivation, I guess? One guy cultivates and becomes very powerful, so he starts a sect. He recruits students and passes down his techniques. Over the years, all those students take more students, and eventually there's hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people, all using the same general techniques made by that original super strong guy as the basis.
They aren't usually religious (though they can be), but there is usually a strict hierarchy based on seniority and merit.

what do sects even do? are they just cults?

They're organizations of some kind. Often for the direct purpose of teaching martial arts. They have a strong connection to temples because of this (Shaolin and Wudang being obvious examples from real life history), as said temples are famous for teaching martial arts as part of their philosophy.

But they don't have to be religious in nature. Often in xianxia there are sects which are martial schools, who take in students and teach them.

As for what they do? Funnily enough, they generally vie for power with other sects. They want to try and project power, take control of areas, and continue their own legacy. So they try and project a reputation, take control of resources of all kinds, and ensure their members are strong. A lot of conflict in xianxia stories is often derived from problems relating to sects. They're like kingdoms, movements or businesses. They have their own agendas and generally, tend to care more about their own agenda than that of others.

I wanted to weigh in, so I hope I provided at least some food for thought! I'm by no means an expert though, this is just from my own observations. I could be dipping genre conventions too, since I've mostly been reading wuxia lately, not much xianxia, but it's mostly side-applicable, I reckon.

Yep. This is all very accurate to Xianxia. Especially the bits about the genre being about getting entangled with relationships and how sects tend to vie for power through reputation, resources, and raw power. I kind of enjoy how we both replied to the same question and ended up refining different parts of the answer. It's rather neat.

Why the immortal title

well for starters, why are they called immortals and not just cultivators?

'Immortal' is actually a case of 'this was the best word we have for translation purposes'. Xian doesn't really have a specific English translation. That's also why some places call female Xian as fairies. So basically it's a language issue- as I understand it.

Is immortality the goal

is immortality itself the goal of cultivation?

It's often the goal for many cultivators, and that ties into it's historical roots. You know the thing with western alchemists and the philosopher's stone, and how that was a pursuit of immortality? Taoist myth IRL is the same thing, sometimes referred to as 'Internal Alchemy'. The idea was that by breathing in 'Qi', imbibing certain medical recipes, and leading a pure life of asceticism, someone could forge a golden pill of immortality within the body that free them from the binding of disease and aging, letting them live as long as the heavens and earth.

In novels, the goal of cultivation tend to be a bit more broad- essentially 'to live as one pleases'. Some want to be tyrants. Some just don't want to be oppressed. Some want to travel the world and expand their minds and worldview. Others have some duty they believe must be fulfilled. Cultivation is a means of achieving those things, and therefore people cultivate.

Is agelessnesss immortality

and is the agelessness what they consider immortality? because there are other forms of it like reincarnating for example

Reincarnation as per the fallen immortal encounter would probably count if you could control it- most 'reincarnation' techniques don't reset the user's lifespan, oddly enough. Generally speaking, if you no longer have a limiting factor on your lifespan other than being murdered, then you're immortal. If it achieves that, then it's a valid path to immortality.

Powerlevels

Not sure if you've already answered this but what are the typical powerlevels of xianxia or KtH builds? How far can it scale between an optimized build vs an unoptimized build?

Xianxia is a pretty high level fantasy in terms of power scaling. For KtH

Grade 1-3: This is more street level, with Grade 3 being more like building destruction.

Grade 4-6: This is more beeg boy status, with being able to cause lots of damage. Cut off the tops of mountains and split the sea.

Grade 7-9: This is the truly huge power level. You can literall flatten nations small nations with a single attack. Immortals can rearrange mountain ranges and divert huge rivers with light exertion.

Grade 10: You're a god, in a somewhat literal sense. You can affect reality with mere words, and your attacks are capable of reversing cause and effect- like slashing so fast the attack arrives before you drew your blade. You can pluck the sun, the moon, and the stars out of the sky, and from that point forward the sky will just be dark and blank for millions of miles around (Xianxia worlds tend to be fuck huge by the way. A single planet might be bigger than our solar system). Forever, or until another god fixes it.

Grade 11: The exact details are unknown, but even an army of trillions of gods would fail to defeat a single sovereign. It's an enormous power spike. A Sovereign is rightfully crowned as the ruler of the world, by sheer virtue of overwhelming strength.

Soullesness

it's related to the thing about having your soul be so deep or intertwined with your inner world that it looks like you don't have one
would a soul refining technique be needed to achieve such a state?

Yes and no? It's possible to born with such a thing, so a technique isn't required to have the condition. The issue is that then the two things are tied together. Your Spirit Root isn't just your spirit root anymore- it's now a Spirit Root and a Mind Sea together. They'd be a package deal as a result- you couldn't improve one without also improving the other. So if you only used a Qi Gathering technique, it wouldn't be enough. You'd need to use a Soul Refining technique too in order to increase your realm.

So, this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with your character... but...

This is also a neat thing for one of the common MC tropes. A lot of MCs in Xianxia grow up thinking that they're cripples, only to suddenly realize that they have amazing talent.
So imagine being told 'you don't even have a soul, somehow, so there's no point trying to refine your soul.', so you focus on Qi Gathering instead, but then nothing happens.
Even after coming of age, you lack any meaningful results. Then one day, you pick up a strange technique and take the risk of trying it out- lo and behold, it was a Soul Refining technique... And it works!
Not only does your soul start making rapid progress, your Qi Gathering which stagnated for so long starts making rapid progress too! Once a cripple, you discover the secrets of your talent and set out on a dazzling, meteoric rise to the top! It's a very Xianxia-esque start to a story.

Contrarians Tao

In KtH, is there a Tao of Contrarianism? I want to make a character that is the literal anti-thesis of the great ki schools or whatever out of sheer pettiness that they think they know what's best. Would it just be best to do Devil Sect, or are there any other options to pick that would give it more flavor?

As far as being a contrarian goes, it's important to know that the word sect is kind of equivalent to the word 'company' in modern earth. They're everywhere, they all have different business models, philosophies and standards. It's a very generic term. If you really wanted to be anti- all sects, I think the closest you could come is being some barbarian that wants to destroy society and make everyone live like cave men.

Orthodox Sects are essentially just the groups that play by the rules of society. Some of them (a minority in most Xianxia settings) genuinely believe justice and heroism. Some of them just want to be left alone, so they help out a little bit to avoid giving anyone an excuse to raid them. Most of them are hypocrites that use morals and society as a weapon- they help out with good deeds like protecting their territory from bandits, beasts, and devil sects, but they only do so because it benefits them in the end. Protecting a territory means recruiting from that territory. Playing by the rules means the other Orthodox sects can't openly attack you. Being on the side of 'justice' means you can try to frame someone else for being evil so you can openly go kill them and steal their stuff, etc. In short, those sects are good guys because of the benefits.

Buddhist Temples and Scholarly Sects are fairly well known for being strict on morals, and are a lot more likely to actually teach justice as more than lip service (though evil / hypocritical groups still exist here too)

It's also worth mentioning that this is just talking about the general stance of a sect as a whole- individual members of any organization, evil Devil Sects, can be good people, and the truly just organizations still have spies and traitors to deal with.

Anyway, if you want to be a contrarian to the 'average' sect, one thing you could be is a Devil Sect member that's actually a good guy, or you could just be blunt and open about your intentions, etc.

Balanced cultivating vs one style maxing

Ideally, cultivating all 3 will only be slightly more expensive than being the next realm up in only one system.

But you'd still be paying more and be overall weaker, no? Like 7/7/7 is generally still less than 8/0/0, no?

However, if you can pull it off, it makes you extremely powerful compared to other people of the same grade

But what's the point of comparing to people on the same grade rather than comparing to people who cultivated for the same time? Like imagine you're a young cultivator, and you get a choice between focusing on one of your talents, or trying to spread out. Sure, you'll be the most knowledgeable kid in your grade, by people you started out with are already way ahead of you in grades. It's kind alike repeating each grade in school three times. Sure, you'll be the smartest fifth grader, but your peers are already in uni by then. Still, sounds to me like it's mostly for people who hit the wall in one aspect and want to use the others to keep progressing.

But you'd still be paying more and be overall weaker, no? Like 7/7/7 is generally still less than 8/0/0, no?

7/7/0 is almost as strong as 8/0/0. 7/7/7 is a bit stronger than 8/0/0.

But what's the point of comparing to people on the same grade rather than comparing to people who cultivated for the same time?

Part of it is because of resources. Being able to punch above your grade means you can fight for resources above your grade.
Part of it is because cultivation gets harder and harder the higher the grade.
The main reason is because of an annoying concept in Xianxia called your foundation (not to be confused with the term foundation in Foundation Establishment- though the term being the same in both isn't a coincidence.) I've generally been ignoring it because it just adds another layer of complexity that I think will harm more than help the setting.

However, I am sadly past my 1 hour chatter time limit, so I won't be getting into that today. You'll have to grab me next time.

How sensible/common (in terms of fluff or your goals, not just current mechanics) do you think it is to cultivate more than one realm? As is there are parts to support it (price reduction on realms, the mentions that different methods support each other), but also a lot of stuff discouraging it (the pricing on the realms, need for talents and cultivation techniques), so it seems like it's possible, but neither especially efficient nor common, but what is your goal about that balance? And if it is so rare, is there any reason for people to not spam the level 0 drawback on the realms they do not take, especially that by default they'd be 0 at them anyway?

In terms of logic / lore, cultivating multiple systems is dangerous unless you're an absolute genius. 99.99% of cultivators can't reach immortality even if they only practice one type- they get old first and stop being able to progress. Even assuming you're equally talented in all three, you'd need to cultivate at 1/3 the speed as other people and still be fast enough to reach immortality before getting so old you can't advance anymore.
However, if you can pull it off, it makes you extremely powerful compared to other people of the same grade, and it ultimately makes you a lot more likely to go farther in cultivation in the long term- as long as you're talented enough.
I'd say like 65+% of the Sovereigns were probably people that used all 3 systems.

In other words, it's common practice among the best and brightest cultivators, but if the average person tried it, they'd just be courting death.

Triple cripple

I bet you didn't expect this! I think it's against the rules, actually, but I went through with it because I thought it was fun.

It's legal. Being a triple cripple is an intended function. In theory, you could use medical techniques to indefinitely extend your own lifespan and if you're understanding of your Tao advances enough, you'd be able to use some amount of magical power that way.

That having been said, I'd personally suggest investing in Profession (Formations), as that's the main hack for triple cripples. For example, the your character would struggle to use a pill furnace as it currently stands- wouldn't be able to use anything but regular old mortal fire, and that's not enough for 99% of alchemy recipes. A master of Formations could set down a magical set of runes that would not only make magical flames, but even allow a mortal to control those flames while shielding said mortal against the supernatural heat of the flames.
Another example is that even if your character wanted to perform a surgery, they wouldn't be strong enough to slice into someone's body or stitch it back up afterwards. Their skin would be too hard for a mortal to do anything to even with a sharp enough tool. With formations, you could put down a magical set of runes that would augment your strength enough to perform the surgery.

Basically, formations are the way to make the world do stuff for you when your not strong enough to do that thing. Extremely useful for cripplemaxxers.

Mind sea

Well, i'd like to know, for example, what exactly is a mind sea technique.

I don't have exact details (as I haven't made those up for Soul Refining like I did for Qi Gathering. It's a large part of why page 5 is WIP). So I sadly can't spell it out as explicitly as last time. In general terms, it's about making the soul more 'real'. Like at early stages you'd start with training your soul to directly view the world around you. Later on your soul would be able to apply force (i.e. telekinesis is you extending an invisible hand made out of your mind sea and using it to move stuff). A ghost immortal is someone whose soul is so real it can physically exist as a living flesh and blood body.

Soul Refining has some other advantages, like an increase in precision and multi-tasking- your mind sea is literally your mind, and improving it helps your mind do more things. It doesn't exactly make you any smarter, but it helps you think of things faster and think of more things at once. The reason why Soul Refining cultivators are good with illusions and soul attacks is because they can literally extend part of their soul and invade other people's souls that way. Illusions are more gentle methods that mess with the targets perception of reality. Soul Attacks are brute force methods that attempt to directly damage the target's soul.

Qi vs body attack

And what exactly would be the difference between an Qi cultivation attack technique

As a rule, any technique can be of any type (sans the 3 cultivation techniques anyway).

A Qi based attack technique would draw out the Qi inside the user's body to attack- maybe they'd clad their fists in fire and punch the target, or maybe they'd summon a fireball.

A Body based attack technique would burn the lifeforce inside the user's body to further augment an attack- so maybe they turn their fist into steel for a moment, or they punch the air so hard it causes a shockwave. You can think of it like body enhancement magic from most fantasy genres.

Wanting to live consequences

Hmm, interesting. But then what would happen if you were, for example, really good in body tempering, but then took 'Wanting to live' for Qi cultivation? Would it just mean you'd be strong as fuck but easily taken out by someone with magic powers?

Nope. Not at all. All the drawback means is that Qi Gathering techniques don't work because the thing they rely on (your spirit root) doesn't exist. It's like trying to bake a cake without flour. Your inner world will simply never get filled in. Your body will still hold some amount of Qi in it because your life force tends to do that (Qi and Blood are related concepts), and with some training you can mobilize that Qi to perform spells.

It's also worth mentioning that even if your had some odd deficiently that made your Qi super weak, you still wouldn't be helpless against magic powers, because Body Tempering is still, ultimately, magical. You can punch fire and make it explode. You can punch ghosts and make them explode. You can punch the fabric of space and time and make that explode too- provided you're stronger that the fabric of space and time anyway.

So in multiple senses you'd still be fine.

Multiclassing

suppose i kind of understand, though that still leaves the question of having multiple "types" of cultivation that can be in wildly different levels. I mean, from what i know of Xianxia, the general idea is that you're going up levels and increasing your body power, right? So how can you be like, an Heavenly Immortal ChingChong when it comes to your body, but you're a tier zero nobody when it comes to your body (qi)?
Other anons used the 'fighter vs wizard' comparison, but the difference is that cultivation, as far as i know, is a process solely focusing on the body and soul.

Also, to address the second part of your question, you can be level 10 in one thing and level 1 in another because each improves you in a different way.

Qi Gathering is all about your inner world. It's about making it stronger and giving you the ability to borrow power from it. It's like being a mage.

Body Tempering is all about your physical body. It makes your muscles stronger, your bones sturdier, and even letting you regenerate faster. It's like being a warrior.

Soul Refining is all about your soul. It builds it up so you can perform supernatural feats like a ghost or a psychic. It's the stealthiest power, and it's the best at crafting, making it more like being a rogue.

That having been said, the 3 are related. Qi has positive effects on your body and soul. Life/Soul energy is much the same. So Body Tempering does strengthen your ability to use Qi- but what it won't do is those specific things from above. It'll make your acupoints, meridians, and inner world sturdier and more able to handle stronger loads of Qi, but it's not going to open them, nurture them, or establish anything- all because Body Tempering isn't a method to do those things. Your Qi being stronger is purely an side effect that life energy has on you. So a cultivator that focuses on Qi still has a strong body and soul compared to a mortal, but it's not comparable to a different cultivator on the same level that focuses on those things.

In terms of KtH, if you only cultivate one system, the other two lag behind by about 2 grades in terms of overall strength. So a Grade 5 Qi Gatherer can punch as good as a Grade 3 Body Temperer if they don't use any Qi at all. Xianxia in general is usually something similar to that- most of them include multiple ways to cultivate, and there's a lag in that same sense, though it may not be as concrete.

Incidentally, Qi Gathering is the OG, traditional one.

Realms ain't dimensions

I mean, do you go to some kind of fuckin' new dimension every time you get to a new realm? What's even the difference between the levels? How can someone be a level 10 in something, but a level 1 in something else?

Right, so cultivation realm. How about I just explain some of Qi Gathering? Note that this is specifically for KtH and not Xianxia in general.

The first Realm of Qi Gathering is called Acupoint Opening. In that Grade, your goal is to open your Acupoints (pretty obvious). Acupoints are like special pores in your skin for absorbing Qi from the air. The more of them you open, the stronger you get. When you open them all, your done with Acupoint Opening!

The second Realm of Qi Gathering is called Meridian Nurturing. In that Grade, your goal is to nurture your Meridians (pretty obvious). Meridians are like special veins that carry Qi through your body. The wider your meridians become, the stronger you get. Once they're fully widened, your done with Meridian Nurturing!

The third Realm of Qi Gathering is called Foundation Establishment. If it's not obvious yet, in that Grade your goal is to Establish your Foundation. Your Foundation is the world inside of your body (specifically found about an inch or two below the navel.) It's the place that allows you to actually store Qi inside your body and weave it together into something that's more than simple Qi. The exact results differ depending on your technique, but once your inner world has completely taken form, your done with Foundation Establishment!

etc.

If you can't tell by now, each Realm is part of a process of improving yourself in a very literal and direct way, with each Realm building on the previous on like the floors of a building. While I'm at it, a cultivation technique is a guidebook on how to cultivate. It tells you what exactly you need to do to open your acupoints, nurture your meridians, establish your foundation, etc. Every cultivation technique is a different approach to doing it- maybe one technique uses a magic chant. Or another uses a breathing pattern. Or maybe you jump into a pool of boiling hot medicine water made with a special recipe.

Hopefully this made some sense / was helpful.

Temples separation

Temples are, ideally, separated from the outside world

Basically the issue here is that resources are too scarce to cultivate. A mortal Buddhist Temple could stay out of the conflict, but the only way for Buddhist Cultivators to stay out of conflict is to be strong enough that they can claim enough territory to isolate with themselves. Otherwise other cultivators would come by and steal their stuff. Similarly, other cultivators fleeing to a Temple to escape conflict wouldn't change anything. If the escapee still wants to cultivate, then they'll need to go back into the conflict anyway. If they're willing to abandon cultivation, then they don't need a Temple to do so.

I think there was other stuff I had to say, but I'll also mention that I did change State of Mind to mention it's popular among Buddhists, since I do think you're right about that.

Dharma

the Dharma (path) of Lord Buddha was to spread his teachings and create the Sangham...

This world's Buddha has similar thoughts. He still wants to spread his teachings and lead all living things to salvation, but his perspective is different. He sees himself as small in the grand scheme of things, such that even if he's among the most powerful beings, it's still very little compared to the world. He sees Buddhism not as a grand revelation, but as something obvious that people were simply overlooking before, and something that would ultimately happen with or without him. His Dharma of kindness is correspondingly more humble, but it still points in the same direction- the end point is still to lead all living things to a world without suffering.

Auspicious areas

Also, if I remember correctly, this applies to Xianxia settings as well, because the temples are constructed in auspicious areas which are beneficial for cultivation such as mountains.

Correct! The same applies with basically every other faction too. Almost all of them are vying for those auspicious locations, even the empires are founded with them as their capitals. When I said that they'd need to 'claim enough territory to isolate with themselves' I was referring to this exact thing in a roundabout way.

Those areas might be attacked by competition, but it is still possible that some temples could still allow for cultivation.

Naturally it exists, but not by luck. Any temple that exists is there because the monks have the ability to defend it. Auspicious locations and the like relate to the leylines in the earth, so even if you can hide the Temple under an illusion, there's no hiding the the fact that there's a good place for a sect, or the fact that someone else is drawing energy from it already.

The real issue is that good locations are too scarce. So say you find a mountain that's enough to support a single Grade 7 cultivator. It's already rare enough for a Grade 8 to come by, because if he claims a bunch of them he can support his practice that way with the help of some tricks. Even if he doesn't need it, he might want it for his disciple because his own mountain is only enough for his own needs. If the Grade 7 cultivator doesn't find other sources of income or find a way to fight off that Grade 8 guy, he's likely to get kicked out.

...I had a little more to say, but character limit.
That other thing I wanted to say was:

Even for the few ancient temples with god level characters in the house, letting them occupy a truly blessed land, their resources aren't infinite. If they truly opened the doors and let anyone mooch off of them, they would get immediately flooded to the point of being unable to function. So even those temples need to make a choice: they either need to close their doors and recruit for themselves when members wander outside for pilgrimages and the sort (keeping their resources to a minimum), or they need to make their disciples venture into the outside world to compete for resources (make more money). Even gods can only do so much about the resource shortage.

Water yin and yang

I didn't actually mean both, more so "is there any sort of precedent for this at all?" It's just me debating if I should invest in water techniques for sharkbro, since the most yin aligned element seems counter to the ultimate goal of testosterone maxxing. But having his opponent describe his water as "pure yang" or whatever in an internal monologue seemed sorta interesting.
I'm also debating taking the mind "sea" literally, and investing heavily in that instead. Though I'm not sure how much that'd synergize with body refining or what the practical applications of that would be. May not be the most on theme besides the wordplay.

So, I guess what I mean is that a Yin Water spirit root would effectively be a Yin Spirit Root wearing the skin of a Water Spirit Root. But I could also see it being fine- basically my habit is to learn towards the least advantageous option when I'm on the fence about something.

To put it another way, specifically for water, a Yin Water spirit root that has a piercing cold, or can steal vitality would be a variant root. A Yin Spirit Root that's just very gentle water that goods at deflecting blows instead of meeting them head on- that would be a common spirit root.
Same with Yang. A Yang Water spirit root that has blazing heat or can exorcise the undead would be variant, but if it's just very forceful water that's good in head on clashes, then that's fine to have as a common spirit root.

Incidentally, water is considered to have some yang aspects. A tsunami that can crush buildings and or a raging river that can sweep away a boat are things that are forceful and violent, and therefore more in line with Yang rather than Yin.

As for the mind sea part, soul refining benefits body tempering in some ways too. For one, the increased precision would help you the kind of move where you focus more of your energy in a smaller location (the tip of your blade, or the knuckles on your fist), and it also helps refine your movements and control in terms of martial arts for superior dexmaxxing.

So adding soul refining to body tempering won't make you tankier or stronger, but it can improve your overall combat effectiveness by letting you manage your strength better and use it more efficiently.

Qi Gathering

Pyon

I completed the qi gathering part of the rant you wanted anon.

So, let's start with the history of Qi Gathering in KtH.

The first Qi Gathering expert, and in fact that first cultivator of any form, was a scholar. He was excellent in terms of poetry, reading, education, and many other things, but had no mind for politics or social maneuvering- something that was essential for a scholar in his homeland. Ultimately, he was kicked out by the schemes of a rival that was jealous of his talents. Unable to continue as a scholar, he left on a journey. He studied the stars in the sky, the passing of the seasons, and took the heavens as his teacher and the earth as his bed. Eventually, he experienced enlightenment amidst starvation and managed to 'feel' the pulse of the world, taking it into himself to sustain him. The more he took in this 'pulse' the stronger he became. With time and repetition, he slowly gained supernatural powers, becoming the very first cultivator.

He returned to his homeland, and rather than lash out, he shared his secrets freely, establishing the first sect, and placing the imperial family as the owners of the sect. His fame had reached the heavens, and his virtue towards his homeland was immeasurable- without even lifting a finger, the man that arranged for his exile was quietly kicked to the side and discredited by all. As time passed, the scholar's students grew up and began to create their own methods, something the scholar embraced and rejoiced in, which in turn led to the first 'Orthodox sects' being founded.

Among the three systems of cultivation, qi gathering is the generalist. It lacks the precision of soul refining or the brute force of body tempering, but it is the most flexible in terms of application. Qi can make flowers bloom, heal wounds, start fires and move mountains. In a peaceful world, qi gathering is perhaps the most useful system because the only limitations are your cultivation realm and the techniques that you practice.

1/2

In combat, qi gathering experts normally take advantage of their superior range to outmaneuver opponents and avoid clashing directly. Along with having better range, they are better able to cause large scale damage, letting them deal with large numbers of weaker foes with less danger of exhausting all their qi. Qi gathering experts are also the most vulnerable to sneak attacks, as they lack the durability of body tempering or the detection range of soul refining.

Really the skillset of qi gathering experts is more limited by their techniques than qi gathering itself- they can be experts in making magical barriers, letting them withstand mighty blows. They can masters of the sword, letting them focus their qi into a small area to deal massive damage. They can focus on wide reaching attacks, like huge balls of fire, use strange and mysterious techniques to confound their foes, etc. It's also the system that's the best inclined to borrow strength from the world around them- there isn't a lot of vital energy in the land, nor is there a lot of mental energy, but the land and the air does have ambient qi to weaponize.

Due to how flexible it is, qi gathering is used it essentially every kind of sect. If it's not a sect's first choice of cultivation method, it's almost always their second. Due to their history, Scholarly Sects and Orthodox sects, as well as Immortal Empires (something the scholar's homeland eventually became) all favor qi gathering.

In some sense, as the oldest form of cultivation, it has some inherent 'legitimacy', making it favored by any kind of nobility. Similarly, it's popular among mortals and upstarts simply because to many, qi gathering is synonymous with the act of cultivation- it's the default and it feels like the safest bet, as well as the easiest kind of technique to get ahold of.

What's the point of mortals

Hmm, what is mortal ties supposed to mean exactly?

Basically it means that you spent a certain amount of time around mortals, and that you'll probably have their life and death used as blackmail material against you at some point ala 'Come to this place in a month alone and face your death, or I'll turn these villagers I kidnapped into a pill and feed it to my dog. If you don't want your old neighbors to die, then come save them'. That kind of thing is the intent. It's something of a trope in Xianxia.

Usually, sects recruit from mortal villages and cities, seeking out mortals with talent while they're very young and offering to take them away and teach them the secrets of immortality. The drawback was basically saying that didn't happen to you, and you didn't start cultivating until you were at least a teenager, by which point you identified and were raised as a mortal.

However, the anons idea above, of setting out and spending time in a small village of mortals is also a valid interpretation. The important thing is just that you can be blackmailed easy if someone learns that you lived there for a while.

Meridian shattering

Unrelated question, what's actually needed to shatter/sever someone's meridians?

Most attacks from other people won't do it. For example, getting an arm cut off and reattached won't affect them, unlike the Dantian that can be damaged just by stabbing the target in that general area. Damage to meridians is based on energy of any kind circulating through them that exceeds what it can handle.

So maybe think of it like a tube made of paper, treated with something to make it waterproof and held together by scotch tape. If you ran some water out of a faucet through the tube, it'd be fine. If you tried to run a fir hydrant hose into the tube, it'd break. If you tried to run lava through the tube, it'd burn up.

So in terms of specific examples, there's a few ways. One is just trying to use a technique that you're not ready for, and then you end up pushing too much qi through the meridians. Another is if someone's attack leaves harmful qi that starts running through your body. One last example is that some kinds of qi are innately bad for the meridians, like the deathly Yin qi of the undead- the deathly cold can make your meridians fragile.

Of course, if a technique is explicitly crated to harm someone's meridians, then that's a separate issue. That's normally the kind of thing a combat spec-ed doctor might get into. In practice those kinds of moves are like Gentle Fist style ala Naruto.

On the other side, there are techniques and consumable items that help widen and strengthen ones meridians, allowing them to withstand a greater load. Experts that cultivate both the body tend to have stronger meridians simply because their entire body is more durable in general- meridians included.

Heart Domain

What a Heart Domain will do in KTH? It feels to vague right now.

I suppose it's the kind of thing that's vague by design? In Xianxia, there are often cases of 'but I clearly dodged that! How did I get hit!?' Heart Force and Heart Domain are representatives for that. The Tao Heart is essentially a stand in for the willpower to defy fate and choose your own future. Heart Force is the ability to impose that willpower on reality. As far as Heart Force vs Heart Domain, the former is a single target affect. You can affect a single action at a time, like affecting your own attacks. The latter is an AoE affect, so you could do something like affecting 100 different attacks all aimed at you.

On an additional meta layer, The Tao and Tao Heart are supposed to be 'the really mysterious and impossible to understand' thing. The kind of magic with no finite rules for the crowd that doesn't like pseudo-science disguised as fantasy. (I'm also kind of just trusting anons to balance themselves and not abuse the ambiguity to powergame- I feel mcyoag has earned that much trust).

Bloodline how strong

How strong will be the bloodline? It is going to be UNGA BUNGA only or have neat tricks attached?
Example: The custom physiques of the OG run of Martial Path.

All three systems are meant to be equal. Bloodlines are meant to be the most direct method. So that doesn't meant they can't have any tricks at all, just that they shouldn't be as tricky as Spirit Root maxxers.

Someone with a Phoenix bloodline might be able to wreath themselves and fire or even cheat death by exploding into fire and reforming their body, which I'd say are neat tricks.

On the other hand, an Exotic level Fire attribute Spirit Root might let you light people on fire with a glance, make magical fires that even burn water or dirt, or stuff.

The general idea is that bodymaxxers have the highest base stats but the least options in how they confront problems. There is some wiggle room though.

Alchemy and Cooking

You talked about talismans and formations, but what about the other professions? Item Refining, Alchemy, cooking, etc?

Hmm... I'll rant about these two.

Alchemy

A very iconic profession, and among the most respected. Of course, alchemists can make pills for medical purposes, but the biggest thing is that pills can speed up the process of cultivation. A good supply of pills is extremely important for sects and similar organizations as it lets it's members advance quicker and further along the path of cultivation.
Generally speaking, pills are made using herbs and other plant life, though sometimes other ingredients (beast organs, blood, people, spirits, mineral deposits, magic spring water, etc.) can be used. The norm is still just herbs though. Alchemy is performed by mixing the ingredients in a pill furnace and baking them into pills, usually with a magical fire.
Many alchemists deliberately raise special magical fires with gentler natures that excel at alchemy.
However, cultivators gain a resistance to pills the more they consume, even more so for pills of the exact same recipe. Low quality pills not only have weaker effects, they also increase this tolerance even faster- the reason being that this tolerance is based on the imperfections, or the 'Pill Toxins' in the pills. When a cultivator takes these pills, the toxins are also left behind in their body, accumulating.
(Outside of KtH, Xianxia in generally often makes a point that excessive use of pills leads to a weak foundation.)

Cooking
An uncommon profession in Xianxia. In KtH specifically, it's an offshoot of Alchemy.
Much like alchemy, it's about mix and matching ingredients to achieve certain effects- usually either medical effects or to speed up cultivation. Compared to alchemists, Immortal Chefs are less respected as these meals are less powerful than pills but not necessarily less expensive- in fact often it's even pricier as the meat of demons and monsters are dangerous to acquire.
However, it has it's own advantage- such meals have little to no toxins, meaning cultivators don't build up resistance.

Other Professions

Item refining

Pretty straight forward. Item Refining as a Profession is a study of how to craft magical items. It's effectively magical blacksmithing. Naturally, it's also related to Talismans and Formations- forging special patterns and runes into the treasure to provide magical effects.

Monster Taming

Somewhat similar to Life-Bound Treasures but without the cultivation speed buffs, cultivators can forge magical contracts with other living things too. The older Monster Taming techniques establish both parties as equals, but newer, crueler ones are effectively enslavement magic, letting the cultivator overwhelm the will of the Monster.
So Taming as a profession is a study of how to forge those contracts and care for beasts. It includes knowledge of all kinds of monsters and how to appease them. It includes how to implant the magical contract into the other party. It includes methods of raising beasts (feeding them, looking for materials that they need to cultivate, etc.)

Poison

Essentially a derivative of medicine as a profession (not terribly surprising). Basically, poison is a study of the bodies of living things with a focus of how to make the body fail. In the same way that mortal poisons cause our organs to fail, poisons interfere with and harm someone's cultivation. They can get inside someone's soul, or their meridians, or invade their bloodline.
So basically it's a study of poisonous materials, how to mix them together in a way makes a targeted approach of the magical biology of cultivators, as well as ways of how to deliver that poison in subtle and invasive ways (airborne poisons being quite popular).

Medicine

I'll toss this in and say it's effectively the same logic as Poison, but used for good. It's a study of how to perform surgeries, create medication, etc for cultivators. Medicine Profession is a cultivator doctor that studies how to make a targeted approach in helping mend the ails of cultivators.

Noble Bloodline and Soul Scenery

Hmm, what about noble bloodlines and soul scenery? What do they offer beyond bigger numbers?

Noble Bloodlines are largely up to personal fluff and are therefore ripe for abuse by powergaming. A Phoenix Bloodline might let you burst into flames and cheat death, for example. It can enable you to have some odd niche ability.

Soul Scenery is nice for giving your techniques intelligence. For example, you could create an illusion that actually thinks and feels emotions and reacts accordingly instead of purely playing back the reactions that you or the target expect the thing the illusion is mimicking might do. Or you fireballs just have really effective homing properties.

For the most part though, Rare Spirit Roots, Noble Bloodlines, and Soul Sceneries are the 'I'm stronger than other people of the same Cultivation Realm' side of talent.

Soul Scenery/Spirit

Seems like a great option to have even if you aren't a soul cultivator. What's the difference from the scenery and the spirit beyond bigger number?

Intelligence of the techniques, basically. A fireball with Soul Scenery could adjust it's tragectory to follow the target, but Soul Spirit means it could try to head a target off or dodge around their attacks, or even choose to tank a blow and 'die' even though that wasn't the point of the technique- just because that blow was headed for its user.

Speaking of spirituality and all that, is there anything important that higher spirituality allows items to do beyond being simply smarter? In particular what's the difference from Low and High?

There's some wiggle room, but Low is just some basic instincts. Like if someone other than its owner tries to grab it, it'll fly away. High means it's teachable and can be reasoned with, if in the same regard that could teach a dog. It could remember someone as a friend of the users or an enemy for example, so if its running away while carrying you while you're in a coma, it could actively seek out someone it thinks is your friend. It's lick the gap between a dog and a Venus fly trap in terms of intelligence.

World Seeds and where to find them

World seeds, where do they come from?

World Seeds come from the same place that most of the Fated Encounters come from. They're gifts left behind by the 4 founders of cultivation for anyone lucky enough to stumble across them. (The exceptions are the Mysterious Mentor and the Sovereign Successor encounters. The other 8 all have their hands involved in one way or another lorewise.)

What do they do?

If you were above Grade 11, they'd let you command the full power of a actual world. Take the world the setting takes place in- over the course of eons, it's managed to supply the resources to raise countless Sovereigns. And that's just by letting people passively absorb it's power. If you could actively mobilize it, it'd be a truly terrifying power.

Sadly, that's neither here nor there. For now, all it's good for is mass producing resources based on whatever magical law the world seed is skewed towards. So if it's a metal world seed, it could duplicate any rare ores you get your hands on. There's no limitation on what that law is, provided you don't try to pick something that amounts to 'everything, haha I can duplicate any kind of resource ever!'

What do they eat?

The fun thing about a world is that it's a wellspring of creation. It can create endlessly without needing something to sustain itself. All it needs is something to pour energy into.
As far as specifics, the 'input' should be the source of whatever that thing is. So for plants- seeds. For ores, you'd want to plant the entire ore vein (sometimes in Xianxia ores can regrow like fruits on a vine, oddly enough. This is one such case). Similarly, magical flames and magical waters have a 'source' that they spread from- you'd want those things- i.e. you could just shove a branch into the fire, let it catch fire, and shove the branch into the world seed. You need to locate the firesource and transplant it.

Or that's the idea. Honestly I think it's too much detail and trouble to impose on the player.

Extra explanation on Roots/Bloodline/Soul

So, I guess I'll start from the top. Rare/Exotic Spirit Roots, Noble/Royal Bloodlines, and Soul Sceneries/Spirits have 2 distinct functions.

The first is a boost to your power level. You can think of the 10 Point versions as a +.5 increase in Cultivation Realm and the 25 point versions as a +1 increase in Cultivation Realm in terms of power.

So if you have a Exotic Spirit Root, a Noble Bloodline, and a regular Mind Sea, and then at the end of the CYOA you manage to afford Grade 3 Qi Gathering, Grade 4 Body Tempering, and Grade 5 Soul Refining for your Cultivation Realm, then in terms of strength it'd be like Grades 4, 4.5 and 5 respectively.

So a special Spirit Root only affects you power level for Qi Gathering because Spirit Roots are the talent for Qi Gathering for example. Same deal with the other two.

Does that part make sense?

The second thing these rare/exotic talents affect is that they give you a unique benefit. Rare/Exotic Spirit Roots give you control over special attributes of energy. Noble/Royal Bloodlines can give you a special ability based on your ancestry. Soul Sceneries and Soul Spirits can make your techniques seemingly intelligent and capable of acting on their own if you so wish.

These unique benefits aren't bound to a specific kind of cultivation. So if, for example, you don't practice body tempering at all- meaning that in the Cultivation Realm section you don't even purchase a Realm for Body Tempering. But you still purchase an Royal Bloodline for background reasons. Whatever special ability you got from your background would still work for the Cultivation Realms that you did purchase.

So as an example, let's say your Royal Bloodline is some kind of bird that has the power to teleport small distances, and as part of your Bloodline you gain the power to teleport. You'd be able to use that power even if you only use Qi Gathering for Cultivation Realm, and that teleportation ability would scale with your Qi Gathering just fine.

What is a body tempering technique?

what exactly constitutes an body tempering technique?

Any technique that relies on your body and its life force to be used, I suppose.

so I doubt it's just simplistic attacks, right?

Yep. It's unga bunga-y, but it's still magic. You could light your life force ablaze and punch them with fire. You could put a sealing spell into your palm and apply it when you strike someone, using your life force to disrupt their Qi (or other resources). You could roar so loud that it causes a shockwave. You could even do weird stuff like turn your breath into poison, slowly filling the area with noxious gas with every exhale, or you could learn to detach your arms and legs to rocket punch people. Or you could learn to heal people by transferring your life force to other people. Even something like splitting off a clone of yourself like some human amoeba is possible. Or you could walk in a weird way that leaves misleading illusions of your going in different directions. Oh, also shapeshifting's an option.

The fact that whatever your doing needs to ultimately be a product of your body and its movements means that it isn't as flexible Qi in its problem solving abilities, but it can definitely do more than just basic attacks.

What's the difference

The most direct answer is 'what's the difference between Qi and Mana in most settings'? One is for wizards and the other is for warriors, but there isn't truly a fundamental difference- after all, they aren't real concepts that we can understand, so they're both just 'magic' at the end of the day.

It's largely the same deal here, except Qi is the magical one now instead of the unga bunga one. Qi is more like sorcery, and Body Tempering is more like martial arts magic. The former is good at range and the latter is good at condensing all of your strength into a single point. They have different specialties, but they aren't too different on a fundamental level- you could say the difference is more in methodology than anything.

More body tempering

I see, but what exactly does that mean? Does that mean you can do Technique stuff with your normal attacks, like for example, coating your fist in fire or screaming loud enough to shatter stone like you previously said? Or is it literally just basic bitch "and then i punch" type stuff?

It's mostly just basic bitch 'and then I punch'. Like I said, you're as strong as a technique, but you can't use techniques. All you really have is brute force- your only option to do something fancy is your special move. Or I guess a bloodline ability via Noble Bloodline... Or just using treasures with cool abilities instead of using techniques.... I digress- point being the drawback and perk are meant to make you a pure unga bunga type that just hits really hard.

And what about non-bodily tempering stuff? It only makes your comprehension 0, so you could still technically have a bunch of Qi energy - so what becomes of that?

For Qi, your spirit root gives you the ability to wield your element without techniques, so you'd still be able to do that, and the drawback would buff your ability to do so. Same as before however, you wouldn't be able to do anything especially fancy with it- it'd just be spawning your element, forming it into shapes, and then launching it at people.

Soul Spirits explicitly affect your techniques, so that wouldn't be useful, but Soul cultivators can do stuff like making tendrils out of their soul and trying to invade other people's souls with them- and though there are techniques to do that more effectively, it's not a technique in it's own right. So a soul cultivator with inherited wisdom could still attacks people's souls.

Extra info bout Bloodlines/Spirit Roots/Mind Sea

Spirit Roots

Talent in Qi Gathering means having a higher quality spirit root. Specifically, a higher quality spirit root has a higher sensitivity towards it's element, allowing it greater control of Qi of that element. That means drawing in that Qi from a wider area, as well as being able to process it faster.

Rare/Exotic Spirit Roots.

Most Spirit Roots are from the 5 main elements. But some have unusually affinities. Something like a spear attribute spirit root would be 'Rare' by the way. (the cheaper of the two). Exotics are for even stronger elements, or for composites with multiple elements. Rare/Exotic elements tend to have more power or at least odd effects that are very useful in combat. (Also, if you were wondering- yes. Spear Qi is a thing. Xianxia is weird like that.)

Bloodlines

Same deal as before, higher grade bloodlines have a stronger sensitivity to Life Force. Specifically, higher grade bloodlines are more pure. It has nothing to do with how amazing the bloodline is, or who/what it descends from. Grade 1 bloodlines are very, very thin. Grade 10+ bloodlines are like perfect purebloods.

Noble/Royal Bloodlines

This is where the origin of your bloodline comes into play. Noble Bloodlines are about being the descendant of something amazing, and therefore receiving some special power based on that something. Lorewise, I was going to sneak in a snippet about the special ability being natural Talisman Inscriptions that appear on your bones, but didn't have room for it.

Mind Sea

Mind Seas are graded based on size, and you've probably guessed it- bigger means more sensitivity to Soul Energy.

Soul Scenery/Spirit

This is about the soul be unusually dense, such that it condenses into a form. Soul Spirits aren't actually a different entity, as much as your perception of what that entity is. Kind of like a figure in a dream. Anyway, they grant intelligence to your techniques.

Mortal Savant and Professions

Oh yeah, what mortal savant doesn't cover that a higher grade profession technique does?

That phrasing was a bit rough. Are you asking what's the point of having a profession technique if you have mortal savant?

Profession techniques are quite literally knowledge- for example, an alchemy technique doesn't just teach you how to turn grass into goop and then harden the goop into pills. It'll teach you the properties of thousands or even millions of different herbs, the theory of how to pair and mix them to generate certain effects, common recipes for pills and theory of why those recipes work, etc, etc. The grade of the profession technique is a measure of that knowledge- what level of ingredients it can tell you about, how profound and accurate the theory of the craft is, etc. (A grade 1 technique would be riddled with flaws from a theory standpoint, whereas a grade 11 technique would be flawless with a school of thought that never contradicts itself or provides a wrong answer).

A mortal savant without a good technique wouldn't have the knowedge to do anything with that talent. In effect, the true limits to a mortal savants abilities are their techniques and their wealth. If they lack one of those, then they can't do much."

The Mortal Savant Discussion

So when it comes to professions, let's talk about the default first (i.e. not having Mortal Savant to begin with). For the average cultivator, their current Cultivation Realm is a limitation on a profession. The reason being that of the knowledge in a profession, things like 'spells to cast during this profession' 'how to control one's life force during the crafting process' etc. are all counted among that knowledge.

For example, I used Alchemy as an example before. 'The theory of how to match herbs' includes using magic to do so. Point being: for the average cultivator, they can only make products / perform services if their realm AND their technique are up to snuff. At most, they can go a realm higher if they have extremely good materials to work with. (So for an alchemist, good herbs. For a dancer, an audience that very sensitive to dance moves and/or is a lecher. Etc.) This isn't just because they lack the knowledge of how to maker higher things (which they won't if they have an upgraded profession technique), it's because they physically cannot enact the knowledge that they possess.

So, what does Mortal Savant do? It voids the need for Qi/Life Force/ Soul Energy as part of the profession. That could mean that you no longer need it at all, or it could mean that when you use your profession, the world around you automatically foots the bill on your behalf. (i.e. you're stealing it from heaven's-chan unknowingly). Mortal Savant however does not include any knowledge on its own. So being physically capable of your profession and knowing how to do it are different things.

So, TL;DR
No technique & Grade 7 with or w/out mortal savant (can't craft anything)
Normal technique & grade 7 with mortal savant (can craft grade 7-8)
any technique & grade 7 w/out mortal savant (can craft grade 7-8)
Upgraded technique & grade 7 with mortal savant (can craft grade 10, or in theory grade 11 with scripture if they can source the materials somehow).

Mortal Savant and number of professions

Yeah sure, but if you're going with a triple cripple, why would you grab 4 professions?

I will mention that you could just have 2 professions of the same type. In terms of knowledge, there would probably be a lot of wasted overlap, but you could still get some benefits by giving each a specialization. Like one is really good at quality and the other is really good at quantity. Or a more specific example could be an alchemy technique focused on making really good medicine and then another one focused on making really good explosives.

A Detailed Rant on the Four Founders of Cultivation and the History of the Setting Outside of KtH.

The first founder was a diligent and upright scholar. He believed in serving his emperor and nation, and hoped to become a court official for that purpose. However, reality was harsh- the court was a place full of corruption, and the officials clamored for benefits rather than serving faithfully. He was quickly exiled by a scheme from a competing official. So he was forced to wander the world, taking nature as his guide, and in doing so he discovered 'qi'. Gradually, he learned to control it, and created inner alchemy (the very first form of cultivation). With this power in hand, he returned home, hoping to spread this power through the kingdom so that it's people could live long lives free of hunger or disease (at this point, he was only around Grade 2, so he hadn't become immortal yet).

The scholar's return was met with success, as the Emperor recognized this method as a major contribution. However, unlike the scholar who had dreams of peace and prosperity, the Emperor was ambititious. He spread the power of cultivation to his soldiers and to the nobility that supported him, using the newfound strength to purge any opposition before beginning what would be a long campaign of wars to unite the world under one banner. The Scholar was heartbroken, but he consoled himself with thoughts that perhaps when this was over, the world might be free of war.

The second founder was a charismatic rouge of a soldier, born in one of the lands neighboring the Scholar's kingdom. When his country was invaded, he took a group of hot-blooded brothers to arms and defended his home as best he could. Against the threat of the magical warriors, he tread the line between life and death time and time again, and barely even noticed as his strength began to exceed the domain of mortals. It was under the instigation of his friends that he slowly investigated the source of his strength, and in teaching it to them he created a new system of cultivation- one based on Life Force. He called it Body Tempering.

The war raged on, and casualties piled up. The empire grew stronger over time, but so too did the Soldier's group. Eventually, the Scholar himself paid a visit- with his strength, defeating a small nation single-handedly wasn't impossible. Yet he didn't do so. He sued for peace, and asked the small nation to join his Emperor's banner instead. To his surprise, the famous Solider that was a hero in the eyes of the small nation supported this- in the Soldier's eyes, conflict was a farce to begin with. If the people of his home could live in peace without hunger, then what was the point of sending out his brothers to die? The Scholar was moved by the Soldier's broad heart, and the two celebrated the peaceful resolution.

Once things were resolved, the Soldier left to wander the world, occasionally coming back to test his martial arts against the Scholar. (The two were very good friends.) However, this was only one front of the war. Before peace was established, the small nation spread their knowledge of body refining to all the other nations, hoping that together they could resist. As a result, this fierce war ravaged many places, giving birth to many tragic scenes. In one such place, a young man watched as his village was caught between two armies- there were no survivors, not even himself.

That young man would later become the third Founder of Cultivation, the great Buddha. But at first he was merely a ghost who had forgotten his name, trapped by the regret that he could do nothing to save his family and neighbors and now haunted by the regret that those same neighbors now lingered on due to their own regrets. Spurred on by his regret, he went from place to place, doing his best to put his fellow villagers at ease- so that they might pass on in peace. He succeeded, and yet he remained. He was not at peace. He did not realize that in aiding the other ghosts, he had absorbed their pure feelings of gratitude, becoming stronger in the process. Ultimately, he concluded that he hadn't done enough to pass on- that to be at peace, he needed to save all those suffering from the war.

The Buddha traveled from place to place, putting the dead to rest and performing funerals for the greiving. He took in the bitterness of the world, faced both gratitude and hostility, and slowly came to understand his path- his Dharma. He wished to use the power of human kindness to bring salvation to all living things, and in this way he founded the religion of Buddhism, becoming the Buddha himself. To his followers, he managed to pass on a method of copying his ghostly constitution, so that they may act as exorcists like himself. This was the creation of the third system of cultivation, Soul Refining.

In contrast to the Buddha, there was also a young woman in a far off country who took a keen interest in the war. With nothing but her wits, she had climbed to the top of her country and could in some sense be considered its ruler. Through great effort, she managed to acquire the various means of cultivation... 'Qi Gathering'? It didn't work- she had no spirit root. 'Body Tempering?' Her bloodline was empty and hollow- it had no effect. 'Soul Refining'? The trend continued. Clearly she had no fate with cultivation. Yet she wasn't deturred. The woman was ambitious, ruthless, and arrogant- she only believed in herself.

It was then that the woman heard of alchemy- apparently someone developed a way to bake magical elixirs, fusing the mystery of cultivation with the bounty of nature. After acquiring this method, she took to it like a fish to water. Building on the theory she had been taught, she created her own unique medicines to restore her youth, and even had a discover of her own- that symbols had power. It was an accidental discovery, one born of a decision to draw labels directly on the pills for marketing purposes... and yet some of those pills were made stronger. With time and research, she transformed this discovery into new schools of thought- item refining, talismans, formations, and more. She had founded the Auxiliary system of cultivation. With her various methods, she transformed her nation into a powerhouse that stood equal to the Scholar's kingdom, becoming a peerless empress...

...What followed was a long and turbulent era. The Scholar did his best to bring peace and shorten the war his liege was waging. The Soldier traveled from place to place, leaving behind legends of heroism. The Buddha spread his teachings and gradually brought enlighenment to the masses. The Empress's forcess clashed again and again, proving her might and the might of her creations to the world as she happily sold her products and fanned the flames of war. It was only after millenia of conflict, and by the Scholar joining forces with the Soldier that the Empress was forced to abandon her empire. The world was united under one banner... And yet the Scholar's lord wasn't satisfied. He still wished to expand his rule.

The Scholar couldn't understand this ambition, and seeing his lord desire more even after uniting the world, the worries in his heart finally burst forth- a heart devil had been born. Thankfully, the Scholar was tenacious and came to his senses, but the Heart Devil was the same- it fled his body became it's own entity. It was the birth of the first true Devil, and the source of calamity. The Devil slithered through the shadows and seduced any he could, gradually forming a cult of evil- the first Devil Sect.

The Devil proved himself a true threat- his rate of growth was unnatural and his cult grew faster than it could be uprooted. Even the combined forces of the four founders and their students could only deter him- they could never corner the Devil, let along put an end to him. Instead, this became a kind of arms race- one side spread evil and gorged on suffering. If he couldn't be stopped, the world be bathed in blood. The other side spread wisdom, building up their Tao and spreading it to the masses, and in return learning from them as well- after all, even the smallest ant has its own unique wisdom.

As this dragged on, millenia passed by like grains of sand, and soon the war that sparked everything was no more than a fairy tale. Yet the conflict between the orthodox forces and the devil sects raged on. The Founders of cultivation had finally reached a bottleneck they couldn't overcome- they had become stronger than even the will of the world itself, and couldn't fine a path forward. To overcome this, the decided on a bold plan- to make more worlds. Combining their expertise, the four of them crafted 3,000 worlds, filling them with life of their own, and granting their inhabitants the wisdom of cultivation. They left behind peerless fortunes for the fated, and then sealed those worlds up tight so that the Devil couldn't invade- those within could exit, but none could return. Those that exited were peerless experts worthy of the founders respect, and collaborators that would aid in seeking a yet higher realm of cultivation.

However, they never realized that the Devil was by their side the whole time, watching their plan with glee. Borrowing his connection with the Scholar, he slipped a seed of evil into the 3,000 worlds, such that the heavens of each world would come to hate humanity over time- in other words, he was inducing a heart devil into the will of those worlds. He need only wait for that seed to bloom, and when the heaven's turn evil and bring disaster to all life, he would reap the rewards and finally overcome his age old enemies...

The world of 'Kill the Heavens' is set in just one of those 3,000 worlds, and the current events are a result of the heart devil left behind in the world's creation taking control. Those that graduate from the world are the sovereigns- the Throne of Heavens, the Heaven's Abyss, and many other mysterious aspects are part of infrastructure left in place by the four founders to keep the world safe from the conflict raging on outside.

In terms of power levels, the four founders and the Devil are Grade 13, and they are the only grade 13's in the setting by default. There are an unspecified number of Grade 12s. They include the will of the main world (she's a nice heaven and is the next strongest entity after the Grade 13s, and she's good bit stronger than the other heavens), the wills of the artificial 3000 worlds, various disciples of the founders, high level magical beasts and monsters, Sovereigns from the 3000 worlds the went from Grade 11 to Grade 12 during their stay in the main world, and even random people who figured out their own method of cultivation, and of course Devil Sect overlords that reached that level with the Devil's aid. Most of the Sovereigns however stayed at Grade 11- each world has probably only produced around 2-4 Grade 12s, with the All-Devouring Devil Sovereign and his Wife being a very rare event due to how fast they both hit Grade 12. All together, there's probably around 10,000 Grade 12s in the setting. Incidentally, the Founders actually don't know the 3000 worlds have been poisoned or that the world of KtH has gone wrong (they knew if they left any kind of backdoor, the Devil would slip in through it). ADDS and his ghost waifu know, but ADDS decieded it's their own problem.

As a fun side note, Void Nigga could probably slip through the Heaven's Abyss due to his attribute advantage and just go tell the Founders that shit went wrong, and they'd unseal the 3000 worlds and work on fixing stuff... At which point the 'true' devil sects would invade and make a mess of things, which is its own issue.

As a side note #2, the founders had different roles in creating the 3000 worlds. The Empress designed the sealing functions and infrastructure that would turn the worlds into a black box (and she did a good job by the way, after the box was sealed, the Devil legitimately couldn't even take a peek inside). Buddha interfered and set things up so that the 3000 worlds had an independent cycle of reincarnation. The Scholar was the one creating world seeds to grow into the 3000 worlds. The Soldier... Well, he went around robbing the Grade 12s so he could give their shit to the people of the 3000 worlds (the default explanation for Fated Encounters). The Heavens-chan was just shoving them in people's faces so they'd kill each other more.

Oh, and side note #3, there is a higher heavens, ala the will of the universe. But she's chill and doesn't really mess with things. She's mostly just amused about the whole affair that is cultivation and is watching on with great interest.

Uhh... Another side note #4, I actually had a name in mind for the Scholar's homeland, I wanted to call it Grand Xia. For those not familiar, it's the name of a semi-mythological 'first dynasty' of China. It's used a lot in Xianxia, and it felt appropriate.

But I digress, as said before, this is just my original background story. I.E. the stuff I was thinking off waaaay back when I was first thinking up the setting. Whoever is reading this is free to disregard or contradict any of it. Always remember- if it's not in the CYOA, then it's not canon! All this information is just to provided a springboard for curious anons to build off of if thats what they need, not to be shackles restraining the creative process! Fated Encounters are a very good example of that- if you don't want your fated encounter to come from such a story, don't feel restricted to do so. Give it whatever background you want!

Handholding

You will hold hands with other anons and you will like it!

Me and not my character? Wufuse. With a capital W. I WUFUSE! I'm willing to accept a high five. Final offer.

I'm not asking anon, you WILL hold hands with other anons, no ifs or buts.