Recent entries

Questioner

When Ozriel said Cradle had 600 billion souls, was that all humans or does that include sacred beasts/trees?

Will Wight

Unclear.

Questioner

Will, when advancing in the Gold stages is madra quality or quantity the most important?```

Will Wight

Quantity vs. Quality: quality.

Questioner

If, for example, I messed up on my cultivation at iron level and this prevents me from advancing further, is there any way to undo my advancements? kind of like a level reset?

Will Wight

Level reset? Yes.

Questioner

Are there any betting organizations? To bet on the outcome of a duel for instancethere probably is but how advanced is it? Do they manage to show the fights live using dream madra?!

Will Wight

Are there any betting organizations? Yes, and if I have my way they'll show up in book six.

Questioner

What specifically is the difference between cycling vital aura to add it to your core and cycling madra to add it to your core like Jai Long does after he absorbs a remnant with the Ancestor's Spear? I thought cycling was the process of turning vital aura into madra but if you have to cycle madra you acquire directly then maybe I'm wrong.

Will Wight

"Cycling" is just moving madra through your body through certain patterns. You can cycle aura into madra, cycle your madra to prepare for certain techniques, etc.

Questioner

I've got one, we have Orthos as a Sacred Beast Turtle, but are there also Sacred Beast Tortoises?

Will Wight

Sacred beast tortoises: no. In the language they're speaking, there's no distinction between the word for turtle and the one for tortois. *or tortoise, even

Questioner

What would an amazing pure goldsign be What would a meh pure goldsign be

Will Wight

Amazing: blades extending out of your forearms that cut through only spirits, ignoring matter and flesh. Meh: endless pure madra tears running down from your eyes.

Questioner

Who was the most powerful Blackflame and what rank did he/she hit?

Will Wight

The most powerful member of the Blackflame family was an Archlord, unless I decide to go back in time and retcon them into a Sage.

Questioner

Given a person has two cores of the same madra type, such as Lindon did before blackflame, could one not internalise the “forge a scale, cycle to replenish core, take in scale to expand” by just cycling madra out of one core, closing it off and using the madra now cycling the body to expand the 2nd core, rinse and repeat?

Will Wight

No, that only works very early in your career as a sacred artist, when expanding your core is most of what matters. You'd lose more by splitting your core than you'd gain from that technique.

Questioner

So there’s multiple examples of Sacred Artists having “living techniques” like the mentioned Path of the Crawling Shades during Blackflame I believe or Jai Long’s own twistedd path. Do techniques like these require a certain kind of madra (dream madra, life madra, Blood madra?) or can any madra or path create “living techniques”?

If they need a certain kind of madra what kinds are needed?

Will Wight

It's not a particular aspect of madra, so to speak. It's another ingredient that we'll go into eventually.

Questioner

Will Lindon take students eventually, or does he just leave a path manual.

Will Wight

Not sure yet.

Questioner

Hi Will, do you actually quantify madra capacity for Eithan and Lindon and everyone in your notes? Or do you write without thinking of specific values? And will we ever see it explicitly in the story for some shock value?

Will Wight

Sometimes I do. I don't plan on giving hard numbers for it in canon, though.

Lil' Blue

Do they ever let you sleep?

Will Wight

Occasionally they pump some Red Bull into my IV

Questioner

Do higher level Sacred artists still have to deal with blemishes like pimples and wrinkles? Or tanning? Or have their bodies advanced beyond those things?

Will Wight

No, their bodies have advanced beyond such things. For the most part.

Questioner

So the reason that Blackflame is corrosive to madra channels is because the fire part slighty damages them, and the destruction part speeds that up?

Will Wight

That, and because their cycling techniques emphasize output over safety. The original version of this Path was developed by pure-blooded black dragons for use by other pure-blooded black dragons, so they weren’t concerned about the fragility of humans.

Questioner

Would Destruction madra strain your madra channels in the same way that blackflame does, or is that only blackflame?

Would it be possible for Lindon to use a technique that only used the destruction aspect of his madra? Kind of like how Jai Daishuo used a force ruler technique in Skysworn.

Will Wight

Sure he could, yeah. He could use fire aura to light fires or destruction aura to...accelerate the destruction of something that was already dissolving.

Destruction aura isn’t as useful as it sounds unless there’s a ton of it or you’re at a much higher level.

Destruction madra alone wouldn’t necessarily strain you the way Blackflame does, but it would also be more difficult to use in any useful way. If you didn’t learn to focus it effectively, a destruction Striker technique would be like spritzing weak acid on something.

Questioner

Would Wind and Destruction cause damage like Blackflame does? Or is that only the combination of Fire and Destruction?

Will Wight

Sure. Blackflame is a good combination because fire naturally releases destruction aura as it burns fuel, which wind doesn’t normally do. But yeah, you could have other combinations that could conceivably work just as well.Blackflame has also had generations of work refining their techniques, so that’s another reason why it’s effective. Other fire/destruction Paths might not be as efficient or complete.

Questioner

What madra would a path using speech to destroy use?

Will Wight

Wind and destruction? The elemental categories are pretty soft, so I could see wind and blood, wind and life, wind and force...

Questioner

Is sound madra a thing

Will Wight

Sound manipulation is based on air madra, but there are certainly Paths of musicians that carry their techniques through music. At least one of them is a famous Herald who I would like to feature or at least reference in the books eventually.

Questioner

How old is yerin, I am under the impression she is about Lindon's age.

Will Wight

She’s roughly Lindon’s age, but she doesn’t know exactly. She didn’t track time during her time with the Sword Sage, so she could be 17-19 as far as she knows. EDIT: I didn’t account for enough time passing. 18-20.