Question about soul-hax potency

[Planck69]

"Everything in the world, even each blade of grass, has life, and that means they have souls. These souls are very elusive and are impossible to see, but they can be clearly felt.

For example, if a mortal looks up at a tall peak, he feels a sense of shock and pressure. The pressure comes from the mountain’s soul. The mortal’s eyes can only see the mountain, while the pressure of its soul can only be sensed.

If even mountains and rivers have souls, of course a cultivation planet filled with spiritual energy does too."

According to the above, every known object, down to a blade of grass, has a soul. Do all the individual souls here count when measuring the potency of a character's soul-hax or is there a limit based on size or something else? I'd really appreciate knowing this.

 

[Planck69]

Bump

 

[Planck69]

BUMP

 

[Rikimarox2]

Bumping two times? Blasphemous.

 

[Planck69]

Oh, shit. Actually forgot I bumped the first time lol.

 

[Planck69]

Bump

 

[Planck69]

Bump

 

[Axxtentacle]

I don’t believe size matters unless there’s something about the size of an object affecting the strength of the soul or a bigger soul being harder to tear out. It’s mostly just numbers.

 

[Planck69]

The only thing I can think of is that soul-haxxing a planet is more impressive than soul-haxxing a human. Other than that, size is never really an issue.

 

[Axxtentacle]

If that’s a thing in-verse, then you can use it. If size isn’t really a factor otherwise, then it should just be through numbers.

 

[Planck69]

Huh. There are characters who can soul-hax all life on a planet. So they'd scale to the grass too?

 

[Axxtentacle]

Yep. The number of things is usually how it’s handled (see Pain, for example) so if he soul-haxed “all life”, then he would scale to literally everything.

 

[Planck69]

Thanks for the info. I'll get some verse supporters to weigh in on this just to be sure.

 

[Planck69]

BUMP

 

[Antoniofer]

Although you'll see verse where inanimated objects have spirit, the soul is something that only sentient beings may have, their immortal spirit (ie, beings with soul goes to an afterlife once they die, whenever trees and mountains doesn't unless they gave their own living embodiment); so "soul" haxing a hill, statue, river, etc, is not within the same category as soul haxing a human or animal, so is not necessary a showing of potency.

 

[Planck69]

I'm a bit confused. So if someone pulled a soul out of a mountain, this wouldn't be the same as pulling it out of a human?

 

[Antoniofer]

Not by default, plus spirit =/= soul (although words may be interchangeable), a mountain can have spirit but can only have a soul if its sentient and can conventionally die a go to an afterlife (if any).

 

[Planck69]

Everything with a soul in the setting can reincarnate and things like planets and mountains showcase very basic sentience. Even trees have sentience to a degree so the souls should qualify as souls I'd imagine.

 

[Nepuko]

It should still work as a showing of potency. The soul of said objects literally suppress the humans' souls (you can see the soul of the mortal being suppressed by being on top of the mountain, it's because of the soul of the latter), and everything including objects can cultivate. Partly because of the latter, there are many cases where pulling the soul of objects with spirituality and souls prove harder than merely soulhaxing humans. You can also use the soul of said objects to hurt the souls of the "humans", so by all means they should count as they count in the verse.

Also what Planck says.

 

[Antoniofer]

Hmm, what happens when one split a rock or table here? Does the object dies, or its spirit split instead?

 

[Planck69]

Based on the context of the quote, it seems to only extend to natural objects, so a table wouldn't have a soul. But based on what happens to cultivation planets, they die when severely damaged or crushed. On rare occasion, fragments of their soul might remain.

 

[Nepuko]

Then again every attack with Qi hurts the soul so XD

 

[DeathNoodles]

The potency of Soul Manipulation are judged in the same manner as Mind Manipulation. That is to say, the potency of soul-hax is both based on what it can do (the extent of souls affected and the applications of soul manipulation) and the amount of souls affected, similarly to how potency of mind-hax is both based on what it can do (extent of minds affected and the applications of mind manipulation) and the amount of minds affected. People usually just use sheer amount for the numbers of stuff being affected such as number of minds for mind-hax to make it more convenient though, so similar can apply for soul-hax in this case.

In the case of this setting, if the soul of a single inanimate object (which doesn't make sense since inanimate objects such as mountains and rocks aren't living as souls are supposed to be literally based on living beings, and tables/chairs are literally just objects constructed from the materials of the planets so it shouldn't be any more unnatural than any other inanimate objects in the spiritual aspect, but eh) are treated to be harder to affect than a single human soul, then I guess affecting a single inanimate object's soul would be treated as a more impressive scaling than affecting a single human's soul in-verse. However, in that case, affecting a single inanimate object's soul would only unquantifiably upscale from a single human's soul unless the setting estimates how much a soul of a specific object is equivalent to for the size/amount of human souls (e.g. 1 mountain's soul is equivalent to 1 million souls) as there would be no reliable way to estimate the potency of soul-hax otherwise.

So if there are no quantifiable/numeric values about how much the soul of a single inanimate object (rocks, mountains, etc.) is worth compared to a single human's soul, but it says that that inanimate object's soul is more difficult to affect or is greater than a single human's soul without stating any mathematical values, then it would at best be considered as unquantifiably above a single human's soul since the

 

[Planck69]

In the case of this setting, if the soul of a single inanimate object (which doesn't make sense since inanimate objects such as mountains and rocks aren't living as souls are supposed to be literally based on living beings, and tables/chairs are literally just objects constructed from the materials of the planets so it shouldn't be any more unnatural than any other inanimate objects in the spiritual aspect, but eh) are treated to be harder to affect than a single human soul, then I guess affecting a single inanimate object's soul would be treated as a more impressive scaling than affecting a single human's soul in-verse. However, in that case, affecting a single inanimate object's soul would only unquantifiably upscale from a single human's soul unless the setting estimates how much a soul of a specific object is equivalent to for the size/amount of human souls (e.g. 1 mountain's soul is equivalent to 1 million souls) as there would be no reliable way to estimate the potency of soul-hax otherwise.

For one thing, natural objects do actually have life, as the above quote states. For another thing, this thread is about having these souls as equals (only planets are superior by default) not proving soul-haxxing a blade of grass is superior to soul-haxxing a human.

 

[DeathNoodles]

Yes, natural objects (rocks, mountains, etc.), yet chairs/tables aren't considered as natural objects despite the fact that they are made of the very same materials from natural objects such as the materials from tree or the refined ores from the ground, thus chairs/tables should be considered as natural by default as well... That setting has pretty strange logic in regards to souls in my opinion. Don't take this as me being against the setting's logic in regards to souls, I'm just expressing my personal opinion about logic of souls, so you can overlook this part of my words as it's just a personal opinion that doesn't really matter much about this topic.

Alright, but does that setting describe how much superior certain inanimate objects (such as the planets you've described) are to human souls in mathematical values, especially if the souls of planets are treated as having a singular existence (e.g. There are only one soul for each planet each)?

Because if it doesn't specify, then it's going to be very difficult to mathematically quantify how much a planet's soul is worth compared to a human's in the human souls term, so it could end up being unquantifiable as I've mentioned.

 

[Planck69]

Yes, natural objects (rocks, mountains, etc.), yet chairs/tables aren't considered as natural objects despite the fact that they are made of the very same materials from natural objects such as the materials from tree or the refined ores from the ground, thus chairs/tables should be considered as natural by default as well... That setting has pretty strange logic in regards to souls in my opinion. Don't take this as me being against the setting's logic in regards to souls, I'm just expressing my personal opinion about logic of souls, so you can overlook this part of my words as it's just a personal opinion that doesn't really matter much about this topic.

Oh, that's fine. Yeah, the setting has some pretty weird features lol.

Alright, but does that setting describe how much superior certain inanimate objects (such as the planets you've described) are to human souls in mathematical values, especially if the souls of planets are treated as having a singular existence (e.g. There are only one soul for each planet each)?

Because if it doesn't specify, then it's going to be very difficult to mathematically quantify how much a planet's soul is worth compared to a human's in the human souls term, so it could end up being unquantifiable as I've mentioned.

Never really explicitly stated in mathematical terms, we just know that it takes very potent soul-based abilities to remove a planet's soul. At best, it just scales above the soul potency of certain characters.

If it's unquantifiable, that's fine. I planned on mainly using the number of souls for outright potency comparisons anyway.

 

[Sigurd_Snake_in_The_Eye]

This is the same for Bleach except even tables and light poles have a soul and the very molecules that make up the sky. If I recall we made a CRT to upgrade using this information and the term “wank” was thrown around quite a bit due to the massive numbers.

So from what I remember these guys only accept souls of a living person or some shit I don’t know.

Edit - You could ask more members of the staff I guess for a definite answer.

 

[Planck69]

Wasn't Bleach's based on "everything is made up of Reishi, which is basically soul energy" or something? I don't quite recall the exact specifics of the thread.

 

[Sigurd_Snake_in_The_Eye]

part of it sure, but definitive statements of characters for example soul haxing their blood cells, molecules in the sky and etc.

But overall it is the same concept as your OP. A definitive answer would help here though.

 

[Duedate8898]

In Bleach everything has a soul, down to the atoms. When it was brought up to try and upgrade the potency, an argument was made that we shouldn't consider the soul of something like an atom equal to a normal human's soul.

 

[Planck69]

Huh. Was it due to the small size?

 

[Duedate8898]

Pretty much, that and also because things like having people's soul be treated as one solid thing.

 

[Planck69]

Oh. Here the souls are single units (as in, no soul is part of a greater thing with a soul). Would they qualify?

 

[Sigurd_Snake_in_The_Eye]

There is no standards on how a soul should be quantified nor what counts as a real soul. Not sure how someone could decide something isn’t a “soul” since there is no scientific basis.

 

[Planck69]

Guess I'll wait for more input then.

 

[Ricsi-viragosi]

Obviously, there are no standards to base it on.

However, inanimate objects are alive. Swords, mountains, lakes and planets all have been shown or stated to have a will and a sentience.

Killing an objects soul seems to just kind of destroy and make it dead regardless of it being inanimate. Like, when death manipulation was used on a mountain, it became black, and the rocks cracked. When life absorption was used on a mountain, it turned into dust and ash.

I am not too sure about scaling soul hay to the number of grass though. While it's a bit unclear hor not cultivators' soul works, I'm still pretty sure human and animal souls are much more worthwhile to harvest and such for demonic cultivators.

Regardless, almost every existing animal in a place with abundant Qi is stronger, smarter and above mortal humans, and the planets have hundred million mile seas, so the potency should be high as hell even with just the fauna.

 

[Planck69]

So insects and grass are out of the question?

 

[Ricsi-viragosi]

It's a grey area, but I think it would be fairer to assume that. Especially since harvesting souls is a thing in-verse, and you'd have to wonder why they don't just keep an ant hive instead if beasts (then again, most often the souls harvested are cultivators, whose soul grows in power and is refined).

 

[Planck69]

Demonic cultivators don't really harvest mortal souls (human or otherwise) though, or at least, I can't think of a time where this was the case. It's usually cultivators due to them being far above mortals and better to use.

 

[Ricsi-viragosi]

Even then, souls aren't just equal. Mountains are obviously lesser than a planet, lakes are lesser than seas, and the Berserker arts grant power relative to what the beast had in life, despite it consuming their souls.

Wraiths and ghosts also retain the level of power they had in life, too.

And I am deeply doubtful that an ants soul would be at all equated to a human's regardless.

I think there also was some stuff about cultivators' aura killing plants and insects but not affecting people or bigger animals early on.