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Nevill

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Not to mention the fact, that Wang overextended and killed himself doing what we now also attempting to do in A.
He also attempted reality shifting and was poisoned at a time.

I am not trying to convince anyone here. I can't pretend I know the answer to that one.
 

Baltika9

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By the way, Absinthe, our shitty END of 5 enabled us to survive getting our meridians destroyed. It's definitely a question of willpower.
 

Absinthe

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By the way, Absinthe, our shitty END of 5 enabled us to survive getting our meridians destroyed. It's definitely a question of willpower.
Our meridians were systematically destroyed by Zhang Jue over the span of seven days and seven nights and that process still nearly killed Jing and made him develop white hairs with a description of "the agony may have shortened your lifespan." Now you're going for the super clusterfuck in one go trying to absorb a ginormous load of qi from not only Ahura but also the flame. And when there's a statement that "you are not sure whether your body will be able to handle the strain of channeling such power," that is a clear indicator that we should be considering our endurance stat here.
 
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RealDDc

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He also attempted reality shifting and was poisoned at a time.
True.

Do we know if the reality shifting was a result of his research about Jings qi? I don't remember. If it is a skill he had already in his repertory, then he must have been able to estimate his power reserves under poisoned status.

But he certainly underestimated the forces it would generate to pull the qi shifting part off, or accepted it as a necessity sacrificing himself.

I am not trying to convince anyone here. I can't pretend I know the answer to that one.
Fair enough, if it was up to me, Jing would piss into the threatening divine flames, simply because it worked for the protagonist in that movie I've watched a bit back.

Just that it was urine of a virgin and the flames where dark and of demonical origin. :roll:
 

Nevill

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
RealDDC said:
But he certainly underestimated the forces it would generate to pull the qi shifting part off, or accepted it as a necessity sacrificing himself.
If you ask me, I think he knew he would die when he headed for the Black Tiger Valley. Why did Zhang suddenly listen to him for the first time in the last 20 years, if not for that?

It's a shame we don't know what exactly they talked about.
 

Absinthe

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Do we know if the reality shifting was a result of his research about Jings qi? I don't remember. If it is a skill he had already in his repertory, then he must have been able to estimate his power reserves under poisoned status.
It was.
It's not actually teleportation, the movement was physical and not instantaneous. It's just the application of Taiji and what he derived from his meditation on your nature performed on a mass scale, separating two opposing forces on a battlefield by exerting his qi. The technique is responsible for the pattern carved into the ground.

Off the charts, yes, it's meant to be, but it's still not teleportation.
Chaos into divided order and all that.
 

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I guess the question is should we attempt to force a similar insight as the one Wang experienced in our moment of greatest need, or should we stick with what we know and hope our body can handle the strain (and it doesn't drive us permanently insane)?

Both options seem like completely bugfuck crazy longshots to me.
 

a cut of domestic sheep prime

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Bros, the purification of the our qi was clearly the setup for this. If we had the Impure demon elements, we'd never be able to simply switch our qi from chaos to order. The flame would still reject us because of the impure demon elements. From a narrative standpoint, all signs point to A being the right choice here.
 

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While we're on crazy speculation time and what the narrative is pointing to, let's look at the title of that last update:

Divine Flame Apotheosis

Which option sounds like apotheosis through the divine flame to you?
 

Nevill

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Bros, the purification of the our qi was clearly the setup for this. If we had the Impure demon elements, we'd never be able to simply switch our qi from chaos to order. The flame would still reject us because of the impure demon elements. From a narrative standpoint, all signs point to A being the right choice here.
Sorry, I don't get the logic. The purification is not complete, and the demon qi is fused with our own. It's not the 'bad' qi this thing is draining from us. It's our one and only qi.

If we bask in the flames any longer, we'll get drained to zero. Unless we burst in flames, first.
 

Absinthe

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Wait, apotheosis? Does that mean we become the new Fire Lord if we succeed?

Also, his logic is that the divine flame is meant to purify one's qi, so it could actually help us make the transition.
 

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It's possible. I've been working under the assumption that we're going to recapitulate the original formation of Yin and Yang out of chaos and start on the road to ultimate enlightenment, but that's just because that sounds cooler to me than getting fire kung fu and becoming the new fire god.

If it actually works, we can go find the child immortal and get their help in understanding and mastering our new enlightenment.

The title probably refers to the Fire God becoming a god of evil and chaos and darkness, but it would be extra clever writing if it subtly foreshadowed our own apotheosis as well.
 

Esquilax

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I just figured that the title of the update was referring to Ahura's own attempt at ascension beyond even what he was before.

Here is why I think B will succeed: we have the aptitude, the skills and the practice necessary to pull it off. In other words, we know what we are doing, we know how to do it, the only thing that is causing us to be wary about it is that, just as we're trying to defeat the Flame, the Flame is trying to defeat us. But our qi is indeed potentially bottomless, and this pain that we are experiencing is nothing new to us at all. We have survived this once, we can survive this again. It all boils down to willpower and holding it together, and Jing is great at that.

Jing goes into everything he does with the attitude of a winner, no matter how insane it is. :lol:

Our qi might be potentially bottomless, but our body's ability to handle it isn't. To me, this whole thing is about using the right tool for the right job; while our chaotic qi has served us well so far, for this particular job, we need a different approach. Yes, the Taoist has studied inner strength for decades and we are ignorant of the subject, but doing the tried-and-true thing isn't necessarily the correct thing given the circumstances (and I don't think that it is here). As for using the technique already in the current update, I don't think that's an indication that it will work on a larger scale:

In the mad god’s desperation you feel his qi pouring into you, attempting to destroy you from inside out. You try to absorb it, to mitigate the damage that he is doing, but the sheer torrent of qi is almost too much for your body to handle. It is half light and half dark, orderly and chaotic, and suddenly you realize what the Grand Taoist had done.

Even now it was something that we could barely handle. Yes, we used what was familiar to us when Ahura grabbed us by the throat, but I think that what we are familiar with is useful more insofar that it it let us reach the real answer here. It opened the door for us to gain a deeper understanding of our qi, but it isn't the path to victory here in and of itself.

I am not trying to find the philosophical answer, I am trying to find the option that lets us live. Jing is not a philosopher or a Taoist scholar, we do not have Wang's decades of experience in the field and our neiggong is vastly different from his. And we do not have the answer he came up with from our neiggong, it could have been anything.

And that is where I think you're making a mistake. The one clue that might allow us to survive is a line from a Taoist martial arts scroll; of course philosophy matters. We are picking which philosophy is most likely to allow us to come out of this thing alive. Survival and philosophy are one and the same here.
 

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As an aside, if this actually does work, this will be a pretty unassailable excuse for our missing our appointment with Shun.

"Sorry bro, I had to go off and attain primordial enlightenment and become one with the universe. Don't worry about it, it's a martial artist thing. I'm back now, though, what did you want me for?"
 
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Or I'll just go back to blaming everyone who didn't vote A1 when we had Happy Yunzi Vacation Time on the table.
 

Baltika9

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Nah, if it kills us, we blame Baltika9 and Esquilax for getting us into this mess.
Ah-ah-ah! Ibonly said that going in here wouldn't be automatic death.
And I was right. Everything else isn't my fault. It is Esquilax's though, since he's voting to get us killed. And everyone else's.
:troll:
 

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You're dodging the important question.

Did you vote A1?
 

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