POWER: Golden Core Cultivation - Cultivation: Discipline for controlling and enhancing the inner / spiritual / qi energy, allowing various effects, both internal and external to be possible:
= Improved health, higher resilience, quicker recovery: cultivators have been shown to keep going with a broken leg, sword slash on the arm, cut off arm (though that one definitely needed to be attended to to not become lethal). Using the limitation from Lan Wangji's listing with permission, Xichen can heal at about four times the normal human speed. (Unless for some reason his spiritual energy has been expended, in which case it slows down.) = Enhanced strength and speed: this is more to the range of Danny Rand than Superman. He can leap up to about the height of a two-story building, leap parallel to the ground for about 40-60 feet, and pick up 3-4 people (factoring in the Lan sect handstands adding to arm/upper body strength) at a time. Speed-wise, it's good enough to avoid surprise attacks and maybe dodge 1 (one) bullet if he's aware it's being shot at him, but not quite up to continuous dodging since his training has been with swords. = Ability to produce bursts of energy - with sword or with music, send shockwaves out in order to hit objects over a dozen feet away (not quite enough force to knock someone over with the sword, a little more with music, depending on how much of his energy he uses) = Ability to imbue objects or processes - such as swords or music - with spiritual energy. This includes allowing a sword (which is not inherently magic) to be thrown a distance - maybe around 60 feet - and recalled back with a hand motion (seal), to make it hover and fly so the cultivator can fly on it; an instrument, such as a guqin/zither or a flute to produce music which can have magical effects (the instrument is again not magical itself); or a guqin string/a series of tied up strings to vibrate and produce effects that turn it far more dangerous. = Ability to transfer spiritual energy to help another body recover from damage, poison, or illness. This is strictly strengthening the body, rather than direct healing, and a recipient without a golden core can't benefit as much from it as one who has a golden core.
- Sword fighting - cultivators use swords (or sabers/blades, for Qinghe Nie Sect) extensively as part of the training and use of their spiritual powers. Some swords are more powerful than others - one of them might be able to carry one person only and fail to bring up a second, while another might be able to sustain the weight of four people; that is, however, not a magical ability of the weapon but rather how much of the spiritual power of the wielder it can take in. Without a wielder who can do this, the swords are simply swords.
- Talismans creation and use: A lot of the magic effects are accomplished via talismans - they can be used for protection as well as attack, to start fire or simply produce light, and various other actions that are necessary for night hunts. In the Untamed, talismans can be both drawn on paper (once drawn, these can be used by anyone, whether or not they have spiritual energy) or drawn in air with spiritual energy and then pushed onto the target. The focus of talismans is towards controlling/containing/fighting preternatural threats, so the uses they have are:
= calming down a raging zombie (unless the power of the zombie is too great or there is an additional control exerted) = bursting into a small fire - from small enough to light a candle, to being able to maintain a campfire-sized fire for a few hours. This is not a 'start a conflagration/arson' sized thing = with enough skill and power, breaching through power magical power barriers = spirit flags are a sort of talismans, though their goal is to attract spirits/resentful energy towards a target so that the threat of them can be dealt with = As protection: when set around a house, or a body, they repel resentful spirits/energy/zombies.
Music Cultivation - Lan music techniques: Lan cultivation is heavily based upon using music as the medium of power transfer. Spiritual energy imbued music can attack (energy blasts, strong enough to knock people or zombies back), protect (create a temporary - while the note lasts - barrier), calm (uncontrolled corpses can be stopped by the calm soothing down the resentment; people's inner peace can improve), agitate (strengthen anger/resentment that already exist), query the (un)dead. Lan Xichen is shown as very powerful even around the age of twenty, usually using the power of the Xiao for pacifying and subduing (and one time disarming an entire group ready to fight by lifting their swords into the air), rather than attacking, and the music of the guqin for healing. Xichen is shown to play both the xiao and the guqin well; it is likely that he has mastery of other instruments as well.
- Assumed: string assassination technique: A technique developed by the third sect leader. Lan Wangji demonstrates such at several points, and while Xichen isn't shown using them directly, the probability is high that he also can use them. It consists of a string, or a line of attached strings, which vibrates fast - making the string both capable of cutting through things, and sending shockwaves. It's powerful enough to knock people over, though people without powers or with a wekness might be hurt or knocked out just from the force with which they hit the ground.
Revisions: Powers
Golden Core Cultivation
- Cultivation: Discipline for controlling and enhancing the inner / spiritual / qi energy, allowing various effects, both internal and external to be possible:
= Improved health, higher resilience, quicker recovery: cultivators have been shown to keep going with a broken leg, sword slash on the arm, cut off arm (though that one definitely needed to be attended to to not become lethal). Using the limitation from Lan Wangji's listing with permission, Xichen can heal at about four times the normal human speed. (Unless for some reason his spiritual energy has been expended, in which case it slows down.)
= Enhanced strength and speed: this is more to the range of Danny Rand than Superman. He can leap up to about the height of a two-story building, leap parallel to the ground for about 40-60 feet, and pick up 3-4 people (factoring in the Lan sect handstands adding to arm/upper body strength) at a time. Speed-wise, it's good enough to avoid surprise attacks and maybe dodge 1 (one) bullet if he's aware it's being shot at him, but not quite up to continuous dodging since his training has been with swords.
= Ability to produce bursts of energy - with sword or with music, send shockwaves out in order to hit objects over a dozen feet away (not quite enough force to knock someone over with the sword, a little more with music, depending on how much of his energy he uses)
= Ability to imbue objects or processes - such as swords or music - with spiritual energy. This includes allowing a sword (which is not inherently magic) to be thrown a distance - maybe around 60 feet - and recalled back with a hand motion (seal), to make it hover and fly so the cultivator can fly on it; an instrument, such as a guqin/zither or a flute to produce music which can have magical effects (the instrument is again not magical itself); or a guqin string/a series of tied up strings to vibrate and produce effects that turn it far more dangerous.
= Ability to transfer spiritual energy to help another body recover from damage, poison, or illness. This is strictly strengthening the body, rather than direct healing, and a recipient without a golden core can't benefit as much from it as one who has a golden core.
- Sword fighting - cultivators use swords (or sabers/blades, for Qinghe Nie Sect) extensively as part of the training and use of their spiritual powers. Some swords are more powerful than others - one of them might be able to carry one person only and fail to bring up a second, while another might be able to sustain the weight of four people; that is, however, not a magical ability of the weapon but rather how much of the spiritual power of the wielder it can take in. Without a wielder who can do this, the swords are simply swords.
- Talismans creation and use: A lot of the magic effects are accomplished via talismans - they can be used for protection as well as attack, to start fire or simply produce light, and various other actions that are necessary for night hunts. In the Untamed, talismans can be both drawn on paper (once drawn, these can be used by anyone, whether or not they have spiritual energy) or drawn in air with spiritual energy and then pushed onto the target. The focus of talismans is towards controlling/containing/fighting preternatural threats, so the uses they have are:
= calming down a raging zombie (unless the power of the zombie is too great or there is an additional control exerted)
= bursting into a small fire - from small enough to light a candle, to being able to maintain a campfire-sized fire for a few hours. This is not a 'start a conflagration/arson' sized thing
= with enough skill and power, breaching through power magical power barriers
= spirit flags are a sort of talismans, though their goal is to attract spirits/resentful energy towards a target so that the threat of them can be dealt with
= As protection: when set around a house, or a body, they repel resentful spirits/energy/zombies.
Music Cultivation
- Lan music techniques: Lan cultivation is heavily based upon using music as the medium of power transfer. Spiritual energy imbued music can attack (energy blasts, strong enough to knock people or zombies back), protect (create a temporary - while the note lasts - barrier), calm (uncontrolled corpses can be stopped by the calm soothing down the resentment; people's inner peace can improve), agitate (strengthen anger/resentment that already exist), query the (un)dead. Lan Xichen is shown as very powerful even around the age of twenty, usually using the power of the Xiao for pacifying and subduing (and one time disarming an entire group ready to fight by lifting their swords into the air), rather than attacking, and the music of the guqin for healing. Xichen is shown to play both the xiao and the guqin well; it is likely that he has mastery of other instruments as well.
- Assumed: string assassination technique: A technique developed by the third sect leader. Lan Wangji demonstrates such at several points, and while Xichen isn't shown using them directly, the probability is high that he also can use them. It consists of a string, or a line of attached strings, which vibrates fast - making the string both capable of cutting through things, and sending shockwaves. It's powerful enough to knock people over, though people without powers or with a wekness might be hurt or knocked out just from the force with which they hit the ground.