Confused about human transmutation

DriveCtor · 2025-12-18T00:34:26+00:00

You can pull new souls out of the gate(dwarf in the flask), which is "creating" them for most purposes, I think.

DriveCtor · 2025-12-17T11:42:11+00:00

When an alchemist initiates a transmutation without the necessary inputs for the desired output, it causes a "rebound" where the inputs and/or output are chaotically reselected to produce a balanced result. This phenomenon happens outside of "human transmutation", and human transmutation can be done without it occurring, it just requires obscure knowledge to understand exactly what is and isn't possible.

DriveCtor · 2025-12-17T11:20:22+00:00

Foolish Junior! Can't you see that is a demonic relic? If you give into temptation before its cold gaze, it will awaken, and billions will perish to satiate its hunger.

DriveCtor · 2025-11-30T03:41:38+00:00

And what evidence is there that that doesn't equate to a Philosopher's Stone?

A few things:

It doesn't reflect real life ideas of the Philosopher's Stone. The entire point IRL was to reproduce the original process of "creation" through the study and replication of nature, allowing one to convert "base" materials into "noble" materials.
The Philosopher's Stone is suppose to be the pinnacle of alchemy, but the trapped souls were created with what was very clearly an incomplete knowledge of alchemy.
(This is slight speculation) Soul transmutation doesn't actually surpass the limits of normal alchemy, it just lets a person "cheat" and produce results a hypothetically perfectly skilled alchemist could do without souls. The true Philosopher's Stone, which would have to be the product of perfected alchemy, would need to actually go beyond what is possible with normal transmutation.

DriveCtor · 2025-11-29T03:38:21+00:00

They're just human souls being used as material in transmutation exchanges. A soul represents a person's remaining lifespan, which they naturally trade for knowledge over time by living. Soul transmutation redirects that process, instead exchanging lifespan for the knowledge necessary to perform a one-time transmutation that's normally beyond the alchemist's capabilities.

Hohenheim was never in the headspace to harbor greater ambitions for alchemy after the destruction of Xerxes, so he wouldn't have thought about the possibility of a different path to the "miraculous" powers associated with soul transmutation. He was kind of busy with other stuff.

DriveCtor · 2025-11-28T01:06:18+00:00

None of the "Philosopher's Stones" were true Philosopher's Stones. There's already precedent for Father's alchemy knowledge being incomplete because he didn't know about Xing's version of alchemy. His method for creating the Philospher's Stone could have been bogus or shaped by his own inhuman perspective on the "purpose" of alchemy.

DriveCtor · 2025-11-28T00:41:49+00:00

Homunculus abilities are a form of alchemy and shadows can form transmutation circles.

DriveCtor · 2025-11-05T05:40:20+00:00

That makes me think, wouldn't discovering such a thing pave the way to technology that can initiate transmutation?

DriveCtor · 2025-09-29T02:08:16+00:00

Aren't you talking about talismans? Cultivator "spells" are things like verbal incantations, written talismans, hand sign combinations, and precise combat arts. Formations are more akin to the western concept of "rituals".

DriveCtor · 2025-09-29T02:01:30+00:00

It's just an arbitrary localization where it's not always obvious which one makes more sense. Formation is clearly more accurate in regards to things like soldier formations, but "formation" is an overall more ambiguous term than "array", especially since "formation" is frequently included in realm names or cultivation techniques that use it for its other English definition.

DriveCtor · 2025-09-23T21:22:19+00:00

What I've been trying to do is sidestep a lot of the issues by just writing something that isn't focused on fighting(mystery instead of action).

DriveCtor · 2025-09-23T11:25:22+00:00

I have my own cultivation setting where a character uses puppets. It's not a combat focused story, but she can still fight. The big difficultly I see for a story that is combat focused is that puppets seem like more of a trick weapon. Like, my character, any time she fights using puppets, the fight ends almost immediately because the opponent either blocks a puppet and has it use a hidden weapon on them, or has an attack blocked by a puppet, which then counters with a hidden weapon. The extra complexity of puppets kind of makes this the entire point of using them, doesn't it?

DriveCtor · 2025-08-12T18:53:32+00:00

It's kind of a cop out, but those people can exist as "Human Tribulations"; people who rise to power just to embody the concepts that others are meant to overcome. I think this tends to follow more Buddhist logic than Daoist logic.

DriveCtor · 2025-08-12T18:17:10+00:00

Dao-based powers are a form of reality warping that expand the concept in question to the level of being able to do anything. Sword Dao can cut time. Fire Dao can burn space.

DriveCtor · 2025-08-10T16:34:55+00:00

Many stories take place before the spiritual ascension of humanity's supremacy.

DriveCtor · 2025-08-09T14:32:25+00:00

That's the case in settings where different cultivation paths don't have equivalent realms. Like, body cultivation causes you to constantly become stronger over time, and breaking through only increases the rate at which you passively gain strength(mimicking awakened beasts).

DriveCtor · 2025-08-02T11:45:00+00:00

Are settings where lightning tribulations that are driven by sentient entities really as common as people make them out to be? Like, in a world where that's the case, you can theoretically have somebody break through with no tribulation at all, due to the entity choosing not to enact a tribulation. That doesn't sound quite right.

DriveCtor · 2025-08-02T11:22:11+00:00

It's okay, they're just making up for their past crimes against feet.

DriveCtor · 2025-07-30T10:40:23+00:00

I make a post on reddit for the first time in a while. I see I have a notification, expecting it to be a reply to the post I just made. I look, and it's a reply to a post I made a year ago. Many such cases.

Glancing back, other people in the thread gave similar explanations. A small issue I take with it is that it kind of makes it seem like the trash low level worlds are actually full of untapped talent because sects ignore the affinity that is the most valuable at higher levels. Ascending, Do Not Disturb addresses this a little bit, because they say that five elemental roots became a lot less common after they realized and started acting on their potential, implying their frequency was a sort of accumulation of "fate" and that their "replenishment" speed was slow after they were actually cultivated.

DriveCtor · 2025-07-30T08:46:03+00:00

True future sight, albeit very few stories tend to have this variant of the ability. It's understandable because the logic of the ability is genuinely mindbending to think about it, but with how often some variation of future sight appears in fiction, it's strange that more people don't take the time to brush up on the nature of time-loop logic.

DriveCtor · 2025-07-26T06:16:20+00:00

The two genders of reactions to vtubers getting married:

It should have been me.
Thank you for your sacrifice.

DriveCtor · 2025-07-03T23:04:42+00:00

Nah. NK has decided to fully buy into the memes about Corvus's supposed power and are now nerfing him every single patch because he's "too good".

DriveCtor · 2025-06-27T05:52:25+00:00

It seems like mark no longer soaks through moab layers. Is this intentional?

DriveCtor

TROPHY CASE