Expanding out or containing within?

[NotaNuffian]

Yeah, I have random thoughts thanks to too much xuanhuan mumbo BS on whether connecting your body to the world and thus gaining unlimited* power thanks to the world being your mana pool or containing from within, bunkering up your body's defense and making it inpenetratably hard.

*Limited by one's own control

And because both methods are moving towards longevity, each has their quirk.

Out means that not only your mana pool is that of the world, but also yourself and thus if someone wants to kill you, they have to kill the world too. Problem, because there are others who use the same world... it becomes a game of monopoly and the loser gets to be assimilated by others or the world itself.

In and your body becomes its own universe, unaffected by the outside world. But since you suck at being a standalone world, everytime you exert force, you are casting from non-regenerable HP and you yourself is a small world. Good luck outliving the outside world.

So, what's your pick?

 

[Vladarius]

the rules are too vague to actually give a real answer, but mine is IN world, I don't wanna be eaten by a fatty who was born with a diamond spoon.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

 

[Daitengu]

The less outward support you need, the less you will be targeted for those resources.

The modern trope of cultivation stories are often about resource wars and artificial exterior boosts instead of internal growth and enlightenment.

Which is a real shame as old school immortals weren't about that trap.

 

[NotaNuffian]

the rules are too vague to actually give a real answer, but mine is IN world, I don't wanna be eaten by a fatty who was born with a diamond spoon.

Hi, the rules are just as vague when the bloody CN was describing it. So I must apologize for just pasting word for word and maybe leaving out chunks of chinese mythology that I don't really think is chinese mythology... because I had seen authors used their "artistic liberty" and made funky comments like "the heavenly dao is dead, therefore condensing a nascent soul and sending it out to the world in order to do a heaven-and-human combination is nasty as the dead dao will just corrupt the soul. Hence the other path was chosen and that was to follow the martial/ body cultivation path of changing one body into a self sustaining universe."

Also, this shit is actually the continuation of my previous thread, which seems to be a running theme (since forever) in xuanhuan with physical attackers vs dao studests. Now guess whose who.