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LCSpartan051

Honestly my biggest shock came when i figured out that if Eithan is so powerful, as is shown when he easily stomps all the other elders, and the Sword Sage was more powerful than Eithan, then HOW THE F*** DID JADES KILL THE SWORD SAGE???

I mean poison, but still...

Will Wight

There is a reason.

A lot of times I have to go back and add explanations later for mistakes I made, but this one actually wasn't a mistake! WOOHOO!

You're right that under normal circumstances the Sword Sage could not have been killed by Jades using any means, including poison (you know, unless they got their hands on some really good stuff, but that's far beyond the scope of Sacred Valley).

There were extenuating circumstances, I promise!

Questioner

[Reddit comment tree]

 -Is the Sword Sage Really Dead? From what we have seen over the course of Ghost Water sages are really fucking strong and sturdy, so I don't think some poison and a couple of low golds could kill him.

--Yerin absorbed his remnant. He might need to still use that if he is alive.

---The difficulty of a bunch of jades managing to off the sage is probably due to a combination of godbeast crypt related issues and the lack of clear definitions of power levels at the time of writing

Will Wight

That’s a perfectly reasonable assumption. However! This is one of the few times in which I actually did intend him to be absurdly stronger than the Jades and still die. There is a reason, and it was planned from the very beginning. Many times I can’t say that, but I can this time!

CaptnBadReads

How big is the difference between an Archlord and a Sage in terms of power?

Will Wight

The difference in raw power between a Sage and an Archlord is negligible, but Sages have access to powers that let them break the rules of the world. So they don’t play fair.

Jamie D. Woods

Are the Travellers comparable to the Sages of Cradle? They both can bend reality to their Will, open gates, portals and pocket worlds, both can become stronger by exercising their Will power.

Will Wight

Jamie D. Woods, which I'm going to assume is James Woods the actor, (...), Sage is more equivalent to like, the Founder of a Territory. So, Simon of course being the honorary Founder of Valinhall, but not the real one, Valin being the real Founder of Valinhall, but not like someone who is fully in control of their powers. If Valin had been able to create Valinhall and control it completely, he would have been like a Sage. That would have been like where he's at; but because he can't, because he was sort of using material that was already there, and was kind of a, they had similar abilities but not as well controlled. 

Anon

1) Does Yerin ever get a Dragon fang? Would she even want one?2) Did the Sword sage pick Yerin because of her unwelcome guest?2.1) Is there a flaw in the path that the sage practiced? I.E. the build up of toxins in the type of Iron Body he prefers (he was constantly taking elixirs and medicines to purify himself right?) Would the full mastered guest solve the problem and allow Yerin to go beyond where the sage saw himself being able?3) Was Ethan involved in any way with the regime change in the Blackflame empire?4) Does Ethan use some form of the OODA Decision Loop? Or something like it? Where did he learn it? I'm asking this one because of the nature of his abilities and the inverse relationship between amounts data and actual actions.5) Why are the parts of the Multiverse (Willverse) controlled by Abadon under siege?5.1) Why can't the Way fix it?6) Do cultivators from cradle eventually reach the point where they no longer need to eat and drink / sleep? 7) Will any of the characters we have met besides Lindon split their cores? Will we meet other multi core cultivators in the future?Will, some of this is probably too spoilery. It's fun to ask anyway. I like the world you are building and the people you have living in it. 

Will Wight

1.) Normally I don't answer questions about the future, but no, Yerin will not get a Dragon's Fang. I'm not planning an elaborate Cradle / Traveler's Gate crossover.2.) Can't tell you, spoilers.3.) No, it happened fifty years ago.4.) In...a way, sure, because everybody does. The OODA Loop is a method of breaking down the decision-making process. In a way, we all use it.5.) Can't tell you, spoilers.6.) Sort of, yes.7.) Yes.

Questioner

Who has stronger willpower between a Herald and a Sage, since they both require heavy willpower? Or does it just depend on the sacred artist?

Will Wight

In general it depends on the sacred artist. In terms of what they can do with just eye contact, Heralds get the muscle and Sages get the technique, so that's just the whole general split. Sages can do cool stuff that Heralds cant do, but Heralds can beef it up.

Zane

What is the biggest jump from a single advancement? Ex: Copper to Iron

Will Wight

Copper to Iron is big because there is not a whole lot of difference because you didn't have a lot of abilities at Copper and then you get a lot more at Iron. I would say the biggest jump is from Truegold to Underlord, if I'm being honest. Truegold to Underlord is a huge jump and Archlord to Sage is a huge jump, Archlord to Herald is a huge jump, Herald to Monarch is a big jump. Either Archlord to Sage or Truegold to Underlord I think would be the bigger jumps. I think, probably Archlord to Sage because that's a whole extra thing.

Tievel

Haha, Sage=special ranked up soulfire confirmed 

Will Wight

I did not say that. I said Sages live longer than Archlords, in general.

Questioner

How do you know to put foreshadowing on a specific book for a later book?

Will Wight

Couple of ways: one of things is a lot of times I know what's coming up so I know there are major events and I don't know how I'm going to get there but I know I'm going to get there. So one thing people pick up on all the time, and I very much understand this, but they say all the time that I have decided to retcon the sword sage's power level or that he definitely couldn't be killed by jades. And that was something that I when I realized later the what power scale was going to be that I retconned that to.. Retcon means going back and changing something that.. Retroactive continuity. Is going back and changing something that is already been established. And that was just must a mistake on my part it wasn't a retcon. I 100% always, even in my notes for Unsouled were like 'The jades definitely should not be able to kill this guy. He is way way above them'. So I didn't know all the details of what a sage could do or anything but I had the general shape of it and I knew kind of where he was in the power scale and I knew jades should not even be able to touch this guy. So what I intended to happen was that as people got further in the series and figured out how far away he was they would go 'Wait a second?! That's? There's no way jades should be able to do this' what I didn't realize, and I should have, was that people are gonna see that and then think it a mistake. So, that was one of those things that I was like that was something I really intended to, to setup and yet it looks like I made a mistake. There were definitely were mistakes. There were things I setup for. There are other things that I'm like eh.. I think I'm probably gonna do this. So I throw in some foreshadowing for it and then I miss it later. So like in Soulsmith Lindon picks up these scripted stones that people ask me about all the time and I absolutely intended for him to learn scripting starting with those stones as like this beginning of this ancient runic vocabulary that Lindon was gonna to learn. And.. it uh.. did not ever happen. So that was something where I just destroyed the stones in Ghostwater because I realized 'Op I'm never going to spend that time'. So yeah. How do I know to put foreshadowing on something? It's really just [explosion noise from stream game] Op.

Questioner

Is there another level we haven't seen yet or were you counting sage (or just miscounting) in saying there were 5 levels between Eithan and the Monarchs?

Will Wight

I've been going back and forth on the number of ranks and how to describe them. I knew generally what they were, but I've been messing with them behind the scenes for a while.

So it could either be that I was counting Sage back then or that, at the time I answered the question, there were five ranks. I don't really remember.

Questioner

There was a theory floating around here that the sword sages sword was actually the sword of another sage.....confirm/deny/too spoilery?

Will Wight

Partially true.

Questioner

Was the Sword Sage considered an unaffiliated Sacred Artist or did he have an alliance/alligence to a monarch like Frozen Blade with the Akuras?

Will Wight

Yes. The sword sage was considered an unaffiliated sacred artist and as such he would be loosely...but not really... considered protected by Northstrider, thats sort of Northstriders thing.

Mike

Why do Sages get titles, but Heralds don't?

Will Wight

Heralds do. They just are unofficial. Sages get titles because, they do. It's cultural. I don't know. It's to indicate what kind of Icon they manifested. So, it's more individual whereas Heralds are less defined by what exactly they can do. So that really is the answer. 

Questioner

Would the top damage weapons from our world stack against Cradle?

Will Wight

They don't. At the level at which you are still affected by purely physical attacks, so Lords and below. Even Archlords would be affected by the artillery or military weapons to a degree. But they can react so quickly, and then they can throw missiles from their hands, a feasibly unlimited number of times, so they can break our stuff we can't break them. It would still be very difficult to beat an army led by lords, but you could. You could fight them. That's something where superior technology could even the odds to a degree. But once you get beyond Lord, to Sages, Heralds, and Monarchs, any one of them just wins. No interaction, Sages teleport you into space, what are you gonna do?

LucasRuby

How's stuff going with the books?

How many iterations has the coronavirus spread to so far?

By the way, could a Sage travel to another world, like say from Cradle to Amalgam? If not, someone above?

Will Wight

The books have been slowed by almost a month because of my neck injury, which is really annoying because I was way ahead of schedule before that. Alas.

Could a Sage travel to another world? Potentially they could, but they would be intercepted by Sector 11 Abidan first and subjected to a bunch of rules before they were allowed to do so.

The coronavirus is the corruption Suriel speaks of.

Questioner

What other names were you considering for advancement stages?

Will Wight

Boy, there was a lot. I went real back and forth on those. One of them was Highgold was initially going to be the highest level of Gold and I was going to put something like Lowgold, something/Midgold, and we even went back and forth on Truegold being the middle but that ended up sounding like it was better than Highgold so we switched it up to where it was.

We also had, I think I tried out colors as the Foundation stages instead of materials. But because I wanted to the badges as a physical thing that's why they're physical materials.

Questioner

Superhighgold.

Will Wight

That's what it was. It was Lowgold, Highgold, Superhighgold. Like your hair turns gold and your eyes turn green.

So then for the Lord realm and higher I went back and forth on so many things. So many. I ended up really liking the sound of the word Underlord, that's why I kept that as the thing. I liked Underlord, I liked Archlord, and I didn't want to use the term Overlord again because I'd used it in Traveler's Gate. So I did not want to do that but, of course, I gave in because it made sense. You know, Underlord Overlord, right? Makes sense. So, because of that [trails off into Stardew Valley game play].

Questioner

Did you do a poll for the Overlord thing?

Will Wight

Yeah, I think I did.

Questioner

Ultra Instinct Gold.

Will Wight

I actually really liked, I'm going to spoil Dragon Ball Super a little bit for those who aren't caught up on the manga. So Dragon Ball Super, everybody probably knows this by now who cares but Goku got a power up a few years ago called Ultra Instinct and the idea behind that is it's skill taken to the highest expression. It is your instincts are perfected to the point you no longer need to think and I thought that was a really cool power up. I thought that was neat. I was not a fan of Super Saiyan Blue. I think they ended up making it look cool but it's just another Super Saiyan, right? But Ultra Instinct I thought was really neat. And then Vegeta did something in the anime that was kind of the opposite path and I liked that idea. And they expanded on that in the manga and in even more detail in the last couple of months. So that Vegeta has his own like different path he's embarking on and it really was similar to Sage and Herald and I thought that was really fun. So I really liked that.

For Herald and Sage and Monarch, I had a lot of different ideas. And that's honestly one of the reasons I don't talk about the advancement stages until later in the series. One is I don't like overwhelming the reader with terminology as much as I do. Like I'm already doing it more than I want to. But another one is because I wanted to be able to change my mind on the cultivation rank names. And then I didn't. I especially didn't like Herald because it implies that they have to be attached to a Monarch in order to get that rank. And that's not true. So what I did instead was because of that, because I ended up using the name, I invented this kind of cultural concept that most Heralds only advance because they are sponsored by someone which makes sense. So, therefore, they became known as Heralds of a Monarch. And that was something that was already kind of true. So I sort of just brought it out to explain the name. So that was how that went.

Alexiosk

Are the Winter Sage and the Sage of the Frozen Blade the same person?

Will Wight

They are; she is.

joe2222

Is it possible to kill a sage with poison or did something else happen to Yerin's Master?

Will Wight

It is a very good question, its just that this a question that has become a meme among the subreddit. It is indeed possible for them to have killed the sage, but only under very specific circumstances that I have not yet explained. So, it's going to be a read and find out.

Badrack

In Ghostwater, Eithan stated that the Sage of Red Faith was not the type to take the loss of half-dozen Underlords lightly but we now know he is exactly that type. He doesn't care in the slightest for the cult as he offered to destroy them just to get Yerin's memories of her merge. He only cares about his research proving Eithan wrong once again.

Will Wight

Well, the way I see it, I’d say that the Sage of Red Faith isn’t the type to take the loss of a half-dozen Underlords lightly.

Not that he cares about them at all. He absolutely does not.

He cares only about his research. If losing six Underlords slows his research down, he’ll be driven mad with vengeance, which is how Eithan saw the situation. That guy would swear undying vengeance over a stolen sandwich if he thought it slowed his research down.

On the other hand, he’d spend Underlord lives like pennies if it advanced his research.

That’s how I see the character, anyway, but of course it’s subjective.

JM-SL

Who is stronger... a Sage or a Herald?

Will Wight

The reason it's an endless discussion is because there's not much of a clear answer to that question.

In pure power, Herald. But Sages can do some things Heralds can't.