Chapter 161-2: Official Site Goes Live, World Craze (2) |
Nightmares have no fixed physical form. They were composed of semi-transparent, ghostly blue energy, like a mass of constantly flowing liquid energy. Their body outlines vaguely presented a humanoid shape, but the edges were indistinct, sometimes twisting, sometimes stretching, as if they might dissipate into the air at any moment.
Their heads had no facial features, only a deep blue expanse like a vortex that could devour ability particles in the surrounding air.
Most striking were the energy arms on their bodies, slender and supple, moving like fluttering ribbons, very much like energy-formed tentacles.
Nightmares wielded a kind of spiritual impact-type ability.
Players struck would first feel an intense headache, as if countless needles were stabbing inside the skull, followed by vertigo, loss of balance, and difficulty standing.
If one’s mental strength was not high, being hit by this spiritual impact could even induce a drunken-like state: disordered memory, hazy consciousness, even forgetting what one was doing and experiencing brief disorientation.
During this period, a series of effects could also occur, such as accelerated heartbeat and rapid breathing.
The mental interference effect attached to this type of spiritual damage ability was not within the protection scope of the purification system. Since its intensity was below the warning line, it could not be isolated or defended against.
Even if the purification system could be activated, the spiritual damage was still borne by the player.
Such mental-type abilities truly gave players a headache, especially for melee players with weaker mental strength, for whom it was undoubtedly a painful torment.
At the current stage there was no Inherited soul that resisted spiritual damage which could be embedded, so melee players generally did not wish to engage such monsters.
Spellcaster players had high mental strength and could still endure after being spiritually impacted.
But without melee players up front to absorb damage, they were simply no match for the Nightmare monsters whose level exceeded their own.
Therefore players chose to temporarily give up on containing the territory node and wait until their strength was sufficient to easily contain it in a steamrolling fashion.
But the appearance of this purification mission made many players change their minds.
With a 20% increase in gains and extra ranked contribution rewards, it was enough for players to endure the pain of opening up the area.
Entering the green-shaded meadow where the node crystal was located, one could see a large number of Nightmares floating in the air, suspended like jellyfish.
Players invaded recklessly and quickly drew attention.
Extremely territorial Nightmares rapidly gathered via mental transmission and launched a mental storm impact on the invading players.
Ranks of players fell like mown grass.
But at that moment the players were not dead, only suffering severe spiritual damage, and the spellcaster players in the rear seized the opportunity to begin damage output.
Faced with Nightmares that possessed spiritual strike abilities, players were not without countermeasures.
Within the spellcaster archetypes, the Tower Defense build could perfectly counter non-substantial spiritual impacts. As long as the Spell Towers were not destroyed at their stabilizing structures, they could continuously damage output elemental damage.
Most countered in this battle were assassin-build players.
The stealth state that could exempt most physical damage was useless before Nightmares.
A single spiritual impact could instantly kill a squishy assassin-build player, and there was simply no way to defend through the Duskhaze form.
After a half day of fierce fighting, some players discovered that there was a niche Inherited soul that had a certain resistance to mental-type damage.
It was Brain Overclocking, considered one of the underperforming Inherited souls in the current version.
This Inherited soul had been thrown into the trash tier by players upon debut because it provided no combat bonuses, with its trait effect being to enhance logical thinking ability and memory.
But in combat tests, some players were surprised to find that after activating Brain Overclocking, while their logical thinking became clear, it also provided some resistance to the spiritual impact damage released by Nightmares, reducing the specific damage values.
However, this discovery did not spark heated discussion among players.
For no other reason than that this Inherited soul still seemed too weak in players’ eyes.
Spiritual-type monsters were very rare. To take down the Thunder Lion territory node, there was no need to spend sacrificial power to change Inherited souls.
Rather than embedding Brain Overclocking, it was better to revive a few more times.
The advance at the Thunder Lion territory node was very slow, but player enthusiasm was very high.
Through killing them, it was discovered that Nightmares dropped a kind of crystal upon death. The analysis information showed that weapons forged from this crystal could be used to amplify mental strength, and armor forged from it could resist spiritual impact-type damage.
Although Monster World had not yet opened the weapon forging function for the time being.
This type of crystal still held considerable value in players’ eyes. Perhaps when the weapon forging function was opened in the future, it could appreciate greatly.
Qi Sheng saw the players’ discussions in the chat channel.
He was indeed considering whether to launch a weapon forging function.
After all, those who played the spirit weapon build were generally melee, but spellcaster players had no weapons that could amplify ability effects.
But as for whether to launch such a function, Qi Sheng was still considering it.
Players were currently very short on sacrificial power for improving their strength. If yet another function that consumed sacrificial power were opened, the Lunar Eclipse race would probably get flamed again.
It was fine if the Lunar Eclipse race got flamed, but launching the weapon forging function would also affect the growth speed of players’ own strength.
Unless the forged weapons could be strengthened in step with players’ growth.
If it were a weapon model that required constant updates and replacements, it might look more fun but would not be conducive to the development of the player legion.
Such updates would instead slow players’ growth and waste large amounts of sacrificial power resources.
He planned to consult Transdimensional on related issues, asking in detail whether weapons made by the forging function could be set to continually amplify through strengthening, or be dissolved and remolded with returns, so as not to waste a single bit of sacrificial power.
If that could be achieved, then the weapon forging function would have a reason to exist.
Weapons that grew alongside players could also be regarded as part of the players’ strength.
But at the current stage Transdimensional and Nine Yin were busy, trying to create a cultivation system with the Qi Eater Inherited soul as the core cornerstone. He had no intention for the time being to invest resources in the function settings of weapon forging.
Without thinking further, Qi Sheng kept his focus on the war in the Thunder Lion territory.
This battle made Qi Sheng see yet another shortcoming of the players.
Namely that when facing spiritual strike abilities, there were simply no effective countermeasures.
Melee players primarily grew in vitality strength, but spiritual attacks could ignore defenses and directly damage players’ spiritual consciousness.
As for how to solve this problem, Qi Sheng could think of only two solutions.
Launch the forging function to make spiritual defense-type items through special resources.
Or wait for players to contain an Inherited soul that could resist spiritual damage.
Such spiritual defense-type Inherited souls would also be a necessary embedded choice for future tank builds.
He planned to wait a while longer.
If players still could not contain such Inherited souls, then the shortcoming would be made up by adding new functions.
Just like the vehicles function. Precisely because players had not yet reached the ability to fly through the sky and burrow through the earth to quickly traverse a region, vehicles were introduced to make up the shortcoming.
Two days later, after several grueling rounds of revival battles, the Thunder Lion territory node was successfully contained through the players’ efforts.
Once the space area was expanded, Qi Sheng decided to officially launch the Monster World official website on the official site.
And he issued ten thousand player qualifications on the official site.
—
That day, at 5 p.m.
A Monster World official site express link appeared on the Starnet platform homepage.
Many netizens who usually liked to browse the Lunar Eclipse race’s latest tech news, upon discovering it, immediately thought of the briefing held by the Lunar Eclipse race a few days earlier.
Surprised, they clicked to enter one after another.
The news officially released by Monster World spread quickly online. Netizens around the world entered to view via the official site links reposted through various channels.
Netizens of all races who were already full of curiosity about Monster World were eager to learn more about this game that the Lunar Eclipse race called perfect through the Monster World official site.