Chapter 35: Version 1.2 Update | Monsters Are Coming
Emperor's Mound Village, Primordial Altar.
Standing before the containment crystal wall, Qi Sheng's gaze swept over the Primordial Monsters being held within.
Just this morning, a new member had been added to the containment wall.
At present, containment slots 1 through 12 held: Gargoyle (Petrification), Owl-Headed Fiend (Dirge), Black-Scaled Serpent (Venomous), Bonefire (Deathly flames), Force Savage, Shatter, Sweep, Soul Sever, Nether Ghost, Taunt, Duskhaze (Shadowform), and Light Shield.
Most of these Primordial Monsters were named after the traits of their abilities.
The monster contained in slot twelve, Light Shield, was a creature shaped like a cloud. Its hunt level was only level 3 and was accidentally acquired by a solo player while exploring the Blood-Soaked Plains.
Light Shield's trait allowed it to construct freely expandable and contractible energy shields using mental power, enabling it to resist various types of attacks.
Once the Light Shield soul was contained, it attracted a large number of players for testing and evaluation, and forum players deemed it another suitable option for the long range Star Vein build.
The Owl-Headed Fiend + Bonefire form possessed powerful long range strikes and sustained damage capabilities, but its only shortcoming was a lack of defensive means. Neither the Owl-Headed Fiend nor Bonefire were defense or melee-type soulforms, leaving a significant gap compared to soulforms like Black-Scaled Serpent and Gargoyle at the same level.
The emergence of Light Shield greatly delighted many players who had chosen the Owl-Headed Fiend as their initial form, believing that the Light Shield soul could make up for their defensive shortcomings.
However, compared to all this, what Qi Sheng cared about most was the sacrificial power yield.
Among the 12 contained Primordial Monsters, 11 were First-Generation Primordials, each providing 10 points of sacrificial power per hour, generating 2640 points daily.
Among them, Taunt was a Second-Generation Primordial, producing 50 points of sacrificial power per hour, totaling 1200 points daily.
The daily stable sacrificial power yield totaled 3840 points.
On the player side, after deducting the 10-point Flesh Reconstruction cost from player deaths, each player produced an average of 3 sacrificial power points daily (including shop cut, sacrifice cut, and hunting cut), contributing over 30,000 sacrificial power points to him daily.
These combined earnings allowed him to issue 30 recruitment slots per day.
As players grew stronger and brought in more sacrificial power, his player recruitment speed would only accelerate, forming a positive growth cycle.
After calculating the gains, Qi Sheng decided to update the Challenger System.
Based on prior player feedback and in-game communications, he had identified four adjustments or additions to be made.
"Guide, get to work."
The floating Guide water sphere beside him responded, transforming into an arm and saluting him with a serious expression.
[∠(°ゝ°) Received, starting work now..]
As it spoke, a pitch-black vortex appeared in front of the Guide water sphere. It floated into the vortex and vanished.
Several minutes later, the Challenger Notification echoed in every player's mind.
[Challenger Notification: The game will now update to Version 1.2 with the following changes:
I. New Team Experience Sharing Mode.
In team mode, monster kill rewards for evolution points and sacrificial power will be evenly split among all team members, with hunting rewards allocated based on damage dealt to the monster. The final blow will no longer receive the full reward.
II. Chat Channel Refinement.
In addition to the team chat channel, regional chat channel, and world chat channel, a small region chat channel has been added, displayed by location name in the chat interface.
A keyword filter function has been added to chat channels.
III. Guild System Added.
Following this update, players may visit the newly constructed 'Guild Hall' in Emperor's Mound Village to create guilds for 100 sacrificial power points, forming player teams. Various guild-based gameplay features will be added progressively. (After creating a guild, the guild member chat channel will be unlocked.)
IV. Exploration Rewards Added
Players who uncover unexplored fog areas on the map will receive sacrificial power rewards.
V. Leaderboard Feature Added
After the update, players can view leaderboards via the function panel, with the following ranking categories:
Monster Level Rankings.
Player Star Vein Level Rankings.
Player Body Tempering Level Rankings.
Star Vein Composite Score Rankings (scores based on the overall strength of embedded monster souls).
Armed Vehicles (Not yet available).
Guild Level Rankings (Not yet available).
(This update is performed online and does not require players to log out.)]
The appearance of the update notification instantly made the player forum incredibly lively.
Players engaged in heated discussions about the update contents.
Game Gold-Farmer: Finally, team experience sharing mode is here! The previous system where the final blow received all the rewards was too punishing. Every time we finished off a monster, our team would harshly criticize whoever got the last hit. We had to rotate who took the final blow to keep it fair.
Shrimp Heart Pig Heart: Team experience sharing and damage-based rewards will completely eliminate those annoying kill-stealers running around. Our team was already planning to camp resurrection points (Emperor's Mound Village) to hunt down those sneaky thieves. This official update solves a major problem. Thumbs up.
Is This a Beaver?: Group players are overjoyed. The guild system and team experience sharing are exactly what we needed. Finally, we can form guilds.
The update completed within seconds of the notification appearing.
Among them, the launch of the leaderboard feature brought many player names into the spotlight.
Of the six ranking categories, aside from the last two which were not yet available, the rest became the focus of player attention.
Especially the top rankers of each list.
The top of the Monster Level Rankings was held by the first player to enter the game, 'Li Zheng,' whose Black-Scaled Serpent form surpassed all others, reaching level 19.
The Star Vein Level Rankings and Body Tempering Level Rankings were both dominated by one person.
That was Iron Forge, who was the first to pioneer the spirit weapon build. His body tempering level and star vein level both reached level 5, allowing him to embed five monster souls and inherit the full attribute bonuses of all five simultaneously.
Finally, the Star Vein Composite Score Rankings were led by: Dirt Poor.
His Bonefire form and Owl-Headed Fiend form both reached level 14, earning him the highest composite score among all players.
As for Iron Forge, although he possessed five monster souls, because the evolution points gained in human form had to be distributed among all souls, the average level of his five spirit weapon souls was only level 5. Thus, his composite score did not surpass Dirt Poor's.
An hour after the update, large numbers of players returned to Emperor's Mound Village from the field, pooling together 100 sacrificial power points to establish guilds.
The Dinner Gang Guild, Kindergarten Guild, Doomsday Technology Guild… the introduction of the guild system provided many groups with internal communication channels.
Team voice channels could only accommodate a maximum of 30 people and required all members to be in the same region to establish, preventing cross-regional communication.
Guild voice channels, however, had no limits on number or region, allowing players in Emperor's Mound Village to speak with guildmates thousands of miles away. It also eliminated the problem of advertisement spam in regional chat channels.
This update received overwhelmingly positive feedback from players.