Chapter 26: Star Vein Build Combinations | Monsters Are Coming
At the Primordial Altar.
Summoning the function panel, Qi Sheng began browsing the content players had posted.
Over the past two days, the number of players engaging in forum discussions had grown steadily.
The hottest topic by far was the newly built test tower in Emperor's Mound Village and its functions.
This test tower contained 729 known Primordial abilities that Yan Ming had integrated. In the simulation environment, players could freely embed various Monster Souls to experiment and build their preferred growth paths.
In just two days, many powerful builds had already been discovered and shared on the forum.
At this moment, Qi Sheng was reading the most popular strategy post.
[After two days in the simulator, I'd like to share some Star Vein build combinations I put together.]
Poster: Endless Night
Content: The competition for kills outside is insane, and as a newbie, I've been hiding in the starter village running build simulations for two days. Here are three powerful builds I've put together. Since my Body Tempering level is 0, I can only embed 8 Monster Souls per simulation. Each build below consists of 8 Monster Soul combinations. Once my level increases, these builds will have even more room for expansion.
First is a build centered around the Gargoyle, which I call the 'Immovable Immortal Build.'
(Video attached.)
Qi Sheng clicked on the video, and a light screen popped up in the forum interface.
In the footage, the player named Endless Night was performing Star Vein embedding.
For the eight embedding slots, he embedded: Gargoyle (contained), Taunt (contained), Resurgence, Thorns, Icebone, Bloodthirst, Fire Scythe, and Black-Scaled Serpent (contained).
After completing the Star Vein setup, Endless Night turned to face the camera.
"First, I'll show the effects of each Primordial ability for reference in the following simulation test."
The camera zoomed in on the Star Vein enhancement interface:
Petrification (Active): Upon activation, enter a petrified state, becoming immobile but drastically reducing all forms of damage. Effectiveness scales with physical aptitude.
Taunt (Active): Releases a mental shockwave centered on itself. Targets struck will experience rapid memory-rewritten scenarios based on their own memories, with the caster becoming a figure within the altered memory (effective only against intelligent lifeforms above level 1).
Resurgence (Passive): Activates life potential, greatly enhancing self-healing efficiency. Effect strength depends on monster level.
Thorns (Passive): Protected by thorn power, reflects a portion of received physical damage back to attackers. Effect strength is influenced by body strength.
Icebone (Passive): Inflicts freezing on attackers when damaged, slowing enemy movement efficiency.
Bloodthirst Brand (Passive): Continuously absorbs nearby lost vitality from bleeding enemies, converting it into healing energy to repair bodily damage. Absorption range is influenced by body strength.
Fire Scythe (Active): Continuously burns nearby units. Damage value is influenced by body strength.
Venomous (Passive): All physical damage inflicts poison, causing continuous damage. Effect strength is influenced by Black-Scaled Serpent form level.
—
"My thought process for this build: use Taunt to draw aggro and lure nearby enemies, then activate Petrification to drastically reduce incoming damage. Resurgence provides sustained healing, Thorns reflects physical damage, Bloodthirst Brand absorbs blood from nearby wounded enemies for further healing, Icebone controls the area, while Fire Scythe and Venomous apply continuous damage."
"A key point here: Black-Scaled Serpent's Venomous trait applies poison to all physical damage. Since Thorns reflects physical damage, the combination of Venomous and Thorns allows attackers to be poisoned while hurting themselves."
"Now for the simulated combat demonstration."
With that, Endless Night opened the simulation interface, summoned 100 Blood Wolves, and entered battle mode.
As the ferocious Blood Wolves charged in, Endless Night activated Taunt. The mental illusion quickly formed, and the Blood Wolves' eyes turned blood-red.
Next, he triggered Petrification, coating himself in a layer of black substance and becoming immobile.
Under the violent assault of the Blood Wolves, both red (damage taken) and green (healing) numbers floated above his head.
Every time the Blood Wolves bit him, new wounds appeared on their bodies as poison, freeze, burn, and thorns damage numbers stacked up over their heads.
The bleeding wolves' blood was pulled by Bloodthirst Brand into strands that flowed toward Endless Night, with healing numbers constantly appearing above him.
Throughout the demonstration, Endless Night's health bar fluctuated between 98%-100%, completely unthreatened by the wolves' ferocity.
In under five minutes, all surrounding Blood Wolves lay dead, while Endless Night's health had fully recovered to 100%.
At that moment, Endless Night turned to the camera (Guide water sphere) and grinned.
"This is why I call it the Immovable Immortal Build. Pretty strong, right?"
The video ended, with numerous players flooding the comments:
Bard: Insane! With this build, just run straight into monster swarms. Stand still and everything around you dies.
I Choose Black-Scaled Serpent: I'm shocked. What a god-tier lazy build. Just find a monster-rich spot, stand there, and level up while browsing the forum or watching videos.
Ultimate Newbie: Damn, I really want to try this build. Sadly, aside from Black-Scaled Serpent, Taunt, and Gargoyle, we haven't contained the other five Monster Souls yet. No idea where to find Primordials with these abilities.
—
Closing the video, Qi Sheng continued reading the rest.
Besides the popular Immovable Immortal Build, Endless Night provided two more builds.
Shadow Legion Build and One-Hit Kill Build.
The Shadow Legion Build was centered around the Monster Soul Shadow Summon.
Shadow Summon: Summons Shadow Warriors imprisoned in the Shadow Realm by the Emperor's Sign to fight for you. The number and strength of summoned warriors depend on mental strength.
Using this as the core, Endless Night selected seven group-buff Monster Souls to embed.
Combat was simple.
Start by summoning a horde of Shadow Warriors, then sequentially apply.
Demonic Blade (weapon buff)
Cloud Dragon (movement speed buff)
Demon Armor (defense buff)
Rage (physical strength buff)…
By layering buffs, the Shadow Warriors' combat power was multiplied several times over.
This build was also very beginner-friendly, after stacking the buffs, you simply watch your Shadow Warriors fight without needing to engage yourself.
Many players expressed their love for this build in the comments below the video.
The final build was the One-Hit Kill Build, centered around the Monster Soul Deterioration.
Deterioration: Greatly enhances the effect and duration of all damage-over-time abilities.
This build's key feature was that once you hit your target, you could immediately flee while the target was consumed by Deterioration, Poison, Death Corrosion, and other damage-over-time effects, eventually dying as time progressed.
In the demonstration, Endless Night slashed a level 28 Reaper Scythe Monster once and promptly ran off.
Negative damage numbers constantly floated over the Reaper Scythe Monster as its wounds rapidly festered and spread across its body until it collapsed and died.
—
The post quickly climbed to the top of the forum's hot topics list.
It sparked tremendous interest among players toward building Star Vein combinations.
Many players began experimenting in the simulation environment, constructing all kinds of Star Vein builds.
The only regret players had was that.
In the simulation, Star Vein embedding was still limited to 8 Monster Souls, making it impossible to build even stronger setups.
Moreover, most of the Monster Souls in the simulation database had not yet been contained. Players didn't know where to hunt Primordial Monsters with these abilities.
Still, the emergence of these builds gave players great expectations for their future growth.
The 729 Primordial abilities listed in the simulation database represented only a portion of the Emperor's Sign's scattered powers. There were still countless unknown Primordial Monsters waiting to be discovered and contained.
It was foreseeable that as the game continued to update, more refined and diverse Star Vein builds would emerge.