(Feedback and Suggestion) The Cultivation System that will be used

[NotaNuffian]

So a system that lets people level up via doping and killing things, yup it is a cultivation system, totally not a LitRPG system because I am too lazy to put arbitrary numbers and call it a day.

Pointless snark aside, let me introduce the "people" that are the ones benefiting from such a system.

In the past, people (including humans, nekomimi, elves and other humanoids) are terrible at survival, so they got themselves a bunch of weapons to fight off magical beasts, demons and what not. For some strange reason, the people cannot magic, instead a few of them are born with a magical hole that can grow in size by gaping it with rigorous doping. Through said doping, the size of the hole increased and more magic juice could be stored inside to allow the people to discharge it for reasons.

Then another breakthrough occurred, when a person discovered that by shoving in magical objects into the hole, it helped to gape the hole wider, increased juice accumulation than snorting up dust and as a bonus, if the object can be used as a weapon, everytime something got killed by it, the person can get some magic juice from the corpse via the object.

So ultimately, people understand that if they want to shove something up the hole, it has to be something lethal and magical. Because of that, the people turned from scrawny monkeys who used their intelligence to survive into powered apes who used the magic juice to wham really hard on things they don't like.

There are six rankings for objects but only four can be considered actual objects to be stuck inside of someone. They are, in ascending order of magic rarity, Common (Trash), Prized, Magical, Spirit, Sacred, Legacy. Take note that the ranking of a weapon may change due to circumstances like getting shoved into a hole or someone deciding to pump magic into it until the weapon either breaks or grow.

Common is simple to explain; made from common iron, no magical properties and mediocre strengths. Prized weapons are a level barely higher than Common with sharper edge that cleaves iron like air and possibly made from more exotic material but still suffer the same issue as Common with no magical properties.

From Magical onwards, everything is imbued with magic juice and therefore can be shoved into the hole. The key differences amongst the four is as such, Magical objects have no soul, skill or anything worthwhile except the fact that it can help the owner to absorb magic from dead people. Spirit weapon is either elementally or animal based, possesses skills for the user to use and even limited intelligence to interact vaguely with its user. Sacred weapons have a soul with an amalgamation of element and animal, it is capable to hold memories and proper conversation with its user. Legacy is just Sacred but had evolved until to the point of ludicrosity. For the record, while people lack the ability to grow their magic normally, weapons don't have that issue because of a reason that I can't really think of as of now. But the benefits of them together is there, the person get a shiny toy for growth while the weapon can get accelerated growth when being used.

There are three phases for the user and weapon. First phase is called Bonding, because if the weapon is going to be the new resident in the hole, it has to be a nice tenant as evicting after the deal is sealed is impossible. At this phase, the relationship of them will be either symbiotic or parasitic and the roles of slave, master and partner needs to be properly defined. Fun fact is that in the equal relationship, if either one is dead (or damaged beyond repair) , the other will probably suffer the same fate. In the Slave-Master relationship, the stronger the leash holding hand of the master, the less backlash will the master suffer from the slave's death and vice versa. If the master is dead however, the slave will instantly perished as well. The roles in the relationship are not fixed, so getting betrayed by the weapon is still highly likely.

The second phase is called Sheathing. While the first phase allows the user and weapon to link up, they are still considered two separate entities. Sheathing becomes the ultimate test of trust as the user can now actually put the weapon into the hole. This also increase the growth rate of them both.

The final phase is called One. Cuz they are both now One and Together. When either one of them is to die, the other pair can help remake their body through plans that I have not map out properly.

So why doesn't everyone go for the Legacy? Scarcity and being broke hole not big enough. You can't fit a tennis ball down a sewing pin's hole and on average for that world, only less than 1% of people are born with a big hole while the rest would have to practise gaping. A damaged holes will cripple a person and a destroyed hole will straight up kill him, so playing a game of risk is terrible.

 

[TremendousHuman]

So why doesn't everyone go for the Legacy? Scarcity and being broke hole not big enough.

Also, not everybody is into shoving their Grandpa's swords up their holes, no matter how much juce it will produce

 

[NotaNuffian]

Also, not everybody is into shoving their Grandpa's swords up their holes, no matter how much juce it will produce

Nah, that is exactly what happen to all the aristocrats, royalties and those who have a great ancestor that make the family rich. Because what's good for the family stays in the family.

The weapon is inheritable, unless:
A. It got stolen/ destroyed and all the descendants can get are cheap imitations.
B. Grandpa is still alive *grumble grumble at no inheritance*

 

[Mellohwa]

So...does this "magical hole" can be accessed physically? If it could, where is this "magical hole" exactly?

After reading it twice, I still don't understand. Idk if it's me being dumb or not...

 

[NotaNuffian]

So...does this "magical hole" can be accessed physically? If it could, where is this "magical hole" exactly?

After reading it twice, I still don't understand. Idk if it's me being dumb or not...

Nah, it ain't physical.

Do you know the topic of dantian/ ki centre in wuxia and xianxia? It is the same.

 

[Mellohwa]

Nah, it ain't physical.

Do you know the topic of dantian/ ki centre in wuxia and xianxia? It is the same.

I see. I'll suggest smthn if an idea struck me

 

[greyblob]

here's a bunch of random thoughts:
1. since the hole requires certain items to enlarge, each level could be named after one. so, for ex, lvl 1 is twig, lvl 2 is cucumber, etc. gotta make it make fancy though so first lvl is the cherry immortal branch

2. gaping the hole too wide in a short amount of time causes the uhh.. "muscles" to weaken, which wouldn't mean it's crippled, just that it'll start leaking uhh magic stuff

3. if the widening is solely reliant on the diameter of the object but there is a small number of spiritual items that can be inserted, maybe you can tie a few twigs together to make up for a bigger item

edit: on 3 I meant that the larger items are rarer and harder to find

 

[NotaNuffian]

here's a bunch of random thoughts:
1. since the hole requires certain items to enlarge, each level could be named after one. so, for ex, lvl 1 is twig, lvl 2 is cucumber, etc. gotta make it make fancy though so first lvl is the cherry immortal branch

2. gaping the hole too wide in a short amount of time causes the uhh.. "muscles" to weaken, which wouldn't mean it's crippled, just that it'll start leaking uhh magic stuff

3. if the widening is solely reliant on the diameter of the object but there is a small number of spiritual items that can be inserted, maybe you can tie a few twigs together to make up for a bigger item

These are nice ideas, allow me to fully flesh out what my actual plan is.

1. The hole per person is sized differently from birth but can be gaped through magic drugs and stones. While it is unwise for me to not try and standardize the hole sizes, the truth is that hole size is only one of the many factors of how one can be a mage knight. The hole size is only important when they are used for swallowing the object, as for what type of object it is, if the object is Spirit level (with an intellect of a toddler) and above, the user and object must be able to like, if not get used to one another for the stuffing to work. If it is just a Magical level object, then hole size is the only concern.

So the user is trying to widen the hole with practises such as using liquid and beads in order for the main course.

2. That is a good idea. Widening too much but not to the point of tearing will cause the hole to loosen. It might be big now but it is weak.

3. Also I forgot to state this analogy; if you are now forced to live in a one room flat for the rest of your life, would you really want another person to come in and share it with you? Such is the case for Spirit level and above objects, unless there are special circumstances, it is always one user one object. For Magical objects however, there have been people stuffing multiple units into their holes in the past, but one problem persisted and that is object level up. As spoken earlier, these magic filled weapons can level up faster thanks to the user's hole and once they are sentient, they might, at worse, choose to starve their roommate from leveling up with the good ol' "wrapping the umbilical cord around their neck" trick or at best, show their dominance and be the alpha, meaning all the other objects can just suck the hole walls for dew while the alpha eats up the bulk of the nutrients. Guess what happens when there are two sentient weapons, each trying to hog for nutrients?

Here is a fun fact why no one had choose living, breathing magic beasts to insert into their holes. They did, one had even stuffed a magic mammoth in to gain more power than those who try the "safer" option of using weapons.

Then the problem came when it turned out that magic beasts are smarter than they look, one guy even got NTRed by his wife's horse familiar. So now the standard is just to use inanimate objects as plugs instead of actual living things.

 

[greyblob]

These are nice ideas, allow me to fully flesh out what my actual plan is.

1. The hole per person is sized differently from birth but can be gaped through magic drugs and stones. While it is unwise for me to not try and standardize the hole sizes, the truth is that hole size is only one of the many factors of how one can be a mage knight. The hole size is only important when they are used for swallowing the object, as for what type of object it is, if the object is Spirit level (with an intellect of a toddler) and above, the user and object must be able to like, if not get used to one another for the stuffing to work. If it is just a Magical level object, then hole size is the only concern.

So the user is trying to widen the hole with practises such as using liquid and beads in order for the main course.

2. That is a good idea. Widening too much but not to the point of tearing will cause the hole to loosen. It might be big now but it is weak.

3. Also I forgot to state this analogy; if you are now forced to live in a one room flat for the rest of your life, would you really want another person to come in and share it with you? Such is the case for Spirit level and above objects, unless there are special circumstances, it is always one user one object. For Magical objects however, there have been people stuffing multiple units into their holes in the past, but one problem persisted and that is object level up. As spoken earlier, these magic filled weapons can level up faster thanks to the user's hole and once they are sentient, they might, at worse, choose to starve their roommate from leveling up with the good ol' "wrapping the umbilical cord around their neck" trick or at best, show their dominance and be the alpha, meaning all the other objects can just suck the hole walls for dew while the alpha eats up the bulk of the nutrients. Guess what happens when there are two sentient weapons, each trying to hog for nutrients?

Here is a fun fact why no one had choose living, breathing magic beasts to insert into their holes. They did, one had even stuffed a magic mammoth in to gain more power than those who try the "safer" option of using weapons.

Then the problem came when it turned out that magic beasts are smarter than they look, one guy even got NTRed by his wife's horse familiar. So now the standard is just to use inanimate objects as plugs instead of actual living things.

interesting concept: only taking in sentient beings. I thought you could just use any (spiritual) material. you can introduce some form of parasite. they would tag along with the inserted object and just chill and eat inside. maybe also a demonic object with damaged psyche, who is only interested in consuming. maybe some toddler level farms that allow the user to use multiple ones without worrying about the competition as the items are still too mentally immature. though once they mature and start showing signs of aggression, the farmers remove and euthanize them (perhaps some survive and turn demonic)
this would make sense with animals actually. raise a bunch, take the ones born with magic, nurture them, use them till they mature, and rinse and repeat.

 

[NotaNuffian]

interesting concept: only taking in sentient beings. I thought you could just use any (spiritual) material.

You can... as long as the material has been irradiating with magic, you can form a bond (unequal contract) with it to gain more power of it. But here is the problem, a soulless Magical weapon is a lot weaker than those with souls and therefore, it will suck alot by having a bulletless gun to hunt when all the rest of the mage knights can use guns with ammo.

you can introduce some form of parasite. they would tag along with the inserted object and just chill and eat inside. maybe also a demonic object with damaged psyche, who is only interested in consuming. maybe some toddler level farms that allow the user to use multiple ones without worrying about the competition as the items are still too mentally immature. though once they mature and start showing signs of aggression, the farmers remove and euthanize them (perhaps some survive and turn demonic)
this would make sense with animals actually. raise a bunch, take the ones born with magic, nurture them, use them till they mature, and rinse and repeat.

I will totally steal from this idea bucket... All I got plans was the rich and powerful have a bunch of magic smiths to make fake Magical Weapons for the students to level up into Spirit Weapons, before giving these students freak accidents to collect back the Weapons for their own family members. Kinda like a CN novel where MC found out that the corpse he was using actually possesses a powerful soul and will possess him to take over his body once it is strong enough.

 

[greyblob]

I will totally steal from this idea bucket... All I got plans was the rich and powerful have a bunch of magic smiths to make fake Magical Weapons for the students to level up into Spirit Weapons, before giving these students freak accidents to collect back the Weapons for their own family members. Kinda like a CN novel where MC found out that the corpse he was using actually possesses a powerful soul and will possess him to take over his body once it is strong enough.

feel free to do so; they're all meant as suggestions anyway. i'll drop whatever else pops in my head.
also why fake weapons when you can use ones with basically zero intellect or survival instincts? it's like taking candy from a baby (literally, metaphorically, and figuratively)

 

[NotaNuffian]

feel free to do so; they're all meant as suggestions anyway. i'll drop whatever else pops in my head.
also why fake weapons when you can use ones with basically zero intellect or survival instincts? it's like taking candy from a baby (literally, metaphorically, and figuratively)

That is a good point. You are referring to Spirit (I need better naming sense and MTL from CN xianxia is not a good idea) weapons as they have a soul and intellect already... by farm you mean it is to plant them inside of a mana well or inside of people? Because once the weapon is bonded, remove it from the person without damage is close to impossible.

Also, the person needs to be of able bodied to fully utilize and grow the weapon

 

[greyblob]

That is a good point. You are referring to Spirit (I need better naming sense and MTL from CN xianxia is not a good idea) weapons as they have a soul and intellect already... by farm you mean it is to plant them inside of a mana well or inside of people? Because once the weapon is bonded, remove it from the person without damage is close to impossible.

Also, the person needs to be of able bodied to fully utilize and grow the weapon

oh damn I missed the part where they are inseparable. nvm then most of what I said is not applicable unless you can absorb the spirit inside and nullify it somehow. you'd have to focus more on quality not quantity.

 

[NotaNuffian]

oh damn I missed the part where they are inseparable. nvm then most of what I said is not applicable unless you can absorb the spirit inside and nullify it somehow. you'd have to focus more on quality not quantity.

They are not inseparable per se.

How do I put it, I have plans to make a Spirit Weapons farm by giving them to hapless folks to level the weapons up. Once the level is reached, the dodgy folks can then use some mumbo BS to make the weapon into the Master of the relationship so that when the user is murdered, the weapon can be harvested with little damage.

There, in the story, have tales about extracting the weapons without killing the users, but it is mostly lies as once the weapon is bonded with the user, they are like one lifeform. So it is controversial for powerful families murdering promising and nameless mage knights for their weapons.

Absorb the spirit to user... it could be a path fot the villains. Like Star Sucking Technique, the villain can gain more and more magic but also split his personalities due to that.